Bush Campaign Offices Burglarized 194
DesScorp writes "The Washington State offices of the Bush campaign were burglarized, and computers with sensitive campaign data were stolen. The computers belonged the executive director and officer in charge of the 'get out the vote' campaign; one was set to be delivered to another office within the state. The staff says that secret strategy information and voting data are on the computers, and ironically, they're comparing it to Watergate. The staff blames Democratic Party activists intent on stealing the information. Of course, they deny this."
Re:Karl Rove tapped his own office in Texas... (Score:5, Interesting)
To me, the Bush documents are plausible. (Score:1, Interesting)
60 Minutes II Editors,
To me, the Bush documents publicized by CBS are plausible.
I was prepared to believe the Bush documents were forgeries because of reading someone's comment before I saw the documents. However, when I saw the documents, I laughed. The Bush documents contain an artifacts, such as a shift in baseline, that is characteristic of the typesetting machines of the time.
I think I have provided valuable information below about the plausibility of the documents. The information gives perhaps useful ideas about how to continue the CBS investigation.
It is ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT to the Bush documents that some machine that a critic has chosen cannot do typesetting. Critics should just choose another machine that can.
Decades ago, it sometimes happened that I would go to some company that did both typesetting and typing to pick up my typing, and be handed, not pages of typing, but pages of typesetting film. The first time that happened I was scared, because if the company thought that had I ordered typesetting, the cost would be very high. I said something like, "I wanted this typed, not typeset." As proof I said something like, "It's just an informal business letter." The woman behind the counter laughed and said something like, "I was at the typesetter when someone handed me your job, and I was too lazy to get up and go over to the typewriter." "But what about the cost?" "I'm only charging you $4."
The woman thought she was doing me a favor (while wasting her company's typesetting film), but she wasn't. Sure the letter looked wonderful, but typesetting was so psychologically powerful back then that the fact that a letter was typeset would distract the reader from the message. (It should be obvious that I copied the letter from the typesetting film to a piece of paper.)
Why did she typeset the letters? Maybe she was training someone in how to use the typesetting machine. Maybe she discovered that she didn't have any more of the one-use carbon ribbons. Or maybe she was just lazy, as in one of the incidents that happened to me.
NOTHING about what you see when you print a document typed in Times New Roman in Microsoft Word has ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to do with either Microsoft Word or Microsoft Corporation.
On the computer I am using to type this, Times New Roman is supplied to me as the file times.ttf, dated 08/29/2002, 05:00 AM. If you look at the file with a tool that can view binary, you will see this message, and a lot of other heavy-duty legal language:
"This typeface is the property of Monotype Typography and its use by you is covered under the terms of a license agreement. You have obtained this typeface software either directly from Monotype or together with software distributed by one of Monotype's licensees."
Microsoft Word ONLY follows the information in this file. You can prove this to yourself by downloading and installing a copy of Open Office from www.OpenOffice.org. Open Office is better in important ways than Microsoft Office, and it is free, as in "You don't pay anything." Type anything you want in both Microsoft Office and Open Office, using the same font, and notice that it looks identical.
Open Office did not automatically superscript the "th". I didn't like that superscripting thirty years ago, and I don't like it now. Only a company like Microsoft, that has limited interest in idealistic products, would make the superscripting of "th" automatic. In 1972 it had already been decades since that was in fashion, although it persisted on some machines, and was used by novices. Even when it was "in fashion" that was only because there was a period when typesetters liked to show off what they could do.
To superscript the "th" in Open Office, I selected the "th" and chose Format/ Character/ Position/ Superscript. The output was identical to the output of the version of Microsoft Word in Office 2000.
This is not surprising, since all of the information is s
Re:Two equally plausible scenarios (Score:5, Interesting)
And as a Liberal of the First Stripe I will tell you this; we are scared of the "Patriot Act" the Eternal "War on Terror" and the loss of life in Iraq - on who ever's side. We are Dismayed at the sigle mindedness of the President, and see his "Stedfastness" as ignorance. We see Big Oil and $money$ everywhere - and it scares us. The Bush White House has done nothing to ally those fears while chuckleing about them under thier collective breath. He walked into office wanting this war and drummed up a reason - or at least that is what two of his closest advisors have said. His White House exposed an Agent for political backlash, his record as a military man is suspect. All of this bothers us, and we want it talked about, the Administration will not, "All is Good" is what they say and all we hear. From Revolution to Iraq, mine is the only generation of my family that has never gone to battle for the USA - I was born at the wrong time it seems, I have a nephew and a good friend on the ground in Iraq - I heard it said on the radio that this war is this generation's Vietnam - the other guy corrected him - he said 'No, this is Isreals West Bank.'
I am an Armchair General (same thing as an armchair quarterback, but you have to worry about MRE's) I fought the war in Iraq 5 years before we went in - there was no way to win. Truth be told Bush Sr. has several quotes about Iraq - all of them right - look them up, some great statements about why you would *never* want to go into Iraq, - Jr. should have read them.
Sorry it was you, but I had to get that off my chest. Take Care.
Sera
Re:Easy choice (Score:4, Interesting)
Really? I'd vote for the guy who didn't freaking give tax breaks to the richest 1% of Americans under the cover of helping the middle class, double freaking pull back environmental protections it took decades to establish, quadruple freaking send us to war in Iraq under false pretenses, and super-duper-dippity-dang-dog-freaking exhibit a childlike love for junk science that furthers his beliefs.
Yes, this means I'm voting for the same person as you. I just take the view that while it's nice that the guy you're voting for is honorable on the field of battle and all, under the present circumstances, that are dozens [mcsweeneys.net] of other, more important, reasons to vote against Bush.
Re:You aren't much of an expert either (Score:2, Interesting)
As for the issue of Bush's service. According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] Bush served all but the last 6 months of a 6 year commitment. Oh, and he had already met his quota for the final year when he got out. You had stated that he got out 2 years early from a 5 year commitment.
What is your evidence that Bush "lied" leading up to the war?
I know that sounds like blasphemy but think through it... saying Bush lied about WMD implied that he knew there weren't any. What was his plan going to be when WMD's weren't found? Heck, in my mind, the fact that WMD's weren't found is some of the strongest proof that Bush didn't lie! If we had found WMD, I and I am not alone here, would have been at least a little suspicious that the US had planted them.
In other words, insisting that Bush "lied" demands that you accept that Bush knew and accepted that they wouldn't be found and then continued anyway despite all the political damage he had to know he would receive.
On the contrary, I think Bush though he would ride into Iraq, find a pile of half-built nukes, and think he had the next election locked-up.