Whirlycott / Philip Jacob

Ben launched this new Helios Voting System earlier today.  I heard him talk about it once and will be very interested to dig in to the code to see under the hood.

“Look back, and we see centuries marked by conflict, hardship, even hatred among the people of these islands,” he said in a speech beside Mr. Paisley, Mr. McGuinness and Mr. Ahern. “Look forward, and we see the chance to shake off those heavy chains of history.”

Power Sharing Begins in Northern Ireland - New York Times

Apparently, the Associated Press writers were up a little late last night… they must have been a bit slap-happy today when they wrote this article that appeared on CNN:

Before church, the president, clad in a tan cowboy hat, moseyed around the Rose Garden area, his dog, Barney, in tow.

Moseying. Clad. Tan cowboy hat. Towing a dog before church. It’s an impressive sentence, don’t you think?. I wonder how often George puts his cowboy hat on (”Lau-ra! Where’s my tan 10-gallon?”) before dawdling in the Rose Garden with Barney? It is an event that must be all the more awkward with three secret service agents in tow as well, as if they’re guarding some kind of important event that must imperatively take place.

What has amazed me since Jesus told Dubya to invade Iraq (to take away their WMD…, no I mean, to attack the al Qaeda there… no, I mean that Freedom is on the march!) has been the popular misconception that Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly involved with the 9/11 attacks.

According to a Knight-Ridder survey in 2003, 44% of Americans surveyed believed this. In September 2004, that number had plummeted to … 42%. In effect, almost half the population has a misconception about one of the most important events in recent American history.

For some reason, during the past two months, this number seems to have dropped off to around 20%, which I suppose represents some kind of an improvement that only 1/5th of America has bad information.

Should I be surprised about the information gap between the Kerry supporters and the Bush supporters? It’s a rhetorical question. Don’t answer.

Too funny. This movie is good, too.