Swift Boat Vets for Making Statements Based On Secondhand Information

I guess that's their new name?

I just posted on show_w_the_door re one of the "swift boat vets" in the ad, who's currently a DA in Oregon. It seems he's signed a sworn statement based on secondhand information. Oops!

Edited to add: From today's LA Times, an editorial which pretty well explains the issues within the media about things like false charges. It says:

There is an important difference, though, between the side campaign being run for Kerry and the one for Bush. The pro-Kerry campaign is nasty and personal. The pro-Bush campaign is nasty, personal and false.

No informed person can seriously believe that Kerry fabricated evidence to win his military medals in Vietnam. His main accuser has been exposed as having said the opposite at the time, 35 years ago. Kerry is backed by almost all those who witnessed the events in question, as well as by documentation. His accusers have no evidence except their own dubious word.

Not limited by the conventions of our colleagues in the newsroom, we can say it outright: These charges against John Kerry are false. Or at least, there is no good evidence that they are true. George Bush, if he were a man of principle, would say the same thing.

Ben Wasserman also has an interesting, very detailed and very point by point analysis of the conservative media coverage of the allegations against Kerry:

Last Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the military records of Larry Thurlow, one of John Kerry's major accusers among the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, contradicted Thurlow's version of events and confirmed Kerry's. At the very least, this cast severe doubt on the charge that Kerry fabricated the events that earned him one of his Vietnam War medals.

The conservative media had been pushing the fabrication story energetically. How did it deal with this new evidence undermining it? As it turns out, at almost every turn it soft-pedaled the new evidence or outright ignored it, showing its bias throughout.

More politics stuff - today, I have my first training session for Primary Day Legal Training so I can be a poll-based attorney on Primary Election Day. In order to be available that day, I am doing early voting (I'll be using an absentee ballot for the general election, but I want to try the electronic system myself before I go and try and help defend the rights of people who risk disenfranchisement (if any, and I truly hope there aren't).

Banned Books Week Challenge on FA

The challenge: The American Library Association commemorates Banned Books Week, which begins on September 25. FictionAlley always supports the ALA's Banned Books Week education programs, and this year, we're having another fanfic challenge inspired by it. This year, the challenge is to write a fic from any HP character's perspective regarding, or create art inspired by, a challenge to a book, or a book ban, at Hogwarts. Possible plot bunnies might be Hermione fighting a book ban, Umbridge plotting a book ban, or Lucius Malfoy supporting a book ban. Fics should be posted here, as a new thread, using the template shown in that forum.

1. Fics cannot be longer than 2500 words.

2. Fics should meet FictionAlley's submission guidelines in terms of grammar, spelling and canon accuracy, although the length requirement is not applicable here. G, PG, PG-13 and R ratings are allowed, but fics that are rated R must indicate that rating in the post subject.

3. Include this template at the top of your posting:
Author Name:
Fic title:
Rating:
Author Notes:

4. Fics submitted before September 25, 2004 will be considered in the judging for one of the three poster prizes (see more below). Fics can be posted at any time, but no fics posted after September 25 will be included in the judging.

5. Prize info: The top three stories, as selected by the judges (including cedarlibrarian - and if any other media specialists or librarians are interested in being on the judging panel, let me know) in terms of addressing book banning issues and consequences, will each receive one of the ALA's Celebrity READ poster.

25 years ago today...

Was the debut of The Facts of Life. I just had to mention that.

Newsy day!

Top Pentagon civilian and military leaders and the military command in Iraq contributed to an environment in which prisoners suffered sadistic abuse at Abu Ghraib jail, a high-level panel reported on Tuesday.

The independent four-member panel headed by former defense secretary James Schlesinger found that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to exercise proper oversight over confusing detention policies at U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read more here or here.

Sad. Just, sad.