Thanks to those who let me know the main page was down. Had a bad FTP connection when uploading pages last night. Usually I check to see the new pages work but was tired. Sorry about that.
On the heels of Iran's endorsement of Bush (seeing as he avoids them and wouldn't object to an anti-American, Shi'ite-led Iraqi theocracy, why wouldn't they?) comes a couple other global perspective sources. One, GlobalVote2004, offers non-US voters a chance to choose who amongst our candidates they would vote for. They will announce their results two days before our polls open. Should be an interesting result. The BBC is running a similar poll but are offering the results in realtime. Pretty striking results. Bush's support seem to come from dictatorial Arab states, Iran, and Russia, where democracy has been systematically dialed back in the face of terrorist attacks. Sounds familiar, don't know why though.... Oh yeah, "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier — so long as I'm the dictator." — George W. Bush, Dec. 19, 2000.
The reason I bring all this up is that a lot of people are voting for Bush because they apparently think he is stronger in foreign affairs than Kerry. While, granted, he's gotten better at it than when he thought Africa was a country or when he asked the Brazilian president, "Do you have blacks, too?" Even so, moronic gaffes might actually be preferable to the blatant disregard for what other countries think. Look, antagonizing a few billion people by going to war, then being proved wrong on all counts for why you did it does not endear people to buy American, trade American, or treat other Americans with respect. Rule by fear never works, not in the long run, and last I checked most Americans were rather fond of this nation's current and future existence.
So, you have a guy who dismantles our agreement to various global treaties and conferences, including those related to combatting racism, land mines, nuclear weapons, as well as the Kyoto treaty amongst others. Even his former erstwhile allies, like ex-Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar say things like "The combination of being a Republican, of being an emperor, a Texan and outspoken is really a bad mix." Remember, this is a guy who forced his country into the "Coalition of the Willing" (upwards of 70% opposed the war, much less joining the effort) and lost his job because of it. Ignoring the abuses of Pakistan, North Korea, and Sudan amongst others while threatening Germany, Belgium and yeah, France while we're at it; only to focus on kicking Saddam Hussein's butt. You call this a solid foreign policy? Come on.
Want more on this and other issues? Instead of just 100 reasons to not vote for Bush, I have since been pointed to One Thousand Reasons. Or heck, just take another look at the administration's culture of fear, deception, and outright discrimination detailed here.
Kudos to Jon Stewart of The Daily Show for getting an invite to CNN's Crossfire and putting the screws to all parties for fostering hate and invective over intelligent discussion (transcript here). In particular, he got that smug jerk Tucker Carlson so hyped up that he tried to drown out Stewart and kept cutting to commercials on him. If you have the bandwidth and the time, video is here (or here via BitTorrent - if you have to ask, I'll just email you instructions) as well as Stewart's Monday evening review of events on his show. As for his new book, don't expect the prudes at Wal-Mart to carry it.
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