Freeway Blogger reports on the success of the October 13 sign campaign. Check out the pictures.

700 activists, 48 states, 200 cities, +/- 2000 signs seen by millions and millions and millions of motorists.

A few of our favorites:

by TChris

The executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans -- the largest organization dedicated to the interests of gay and lesbian Republicans -- has asked President Bush to "stop attacking gay families on the campaign trail." He also asked Republicans to stop "feigning outrage" over Senator Kerry's reference to Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter during the last presidential debate.

"The reality is the type of outrage that is being expressed by some Republicans should be expressed at themselves. They've decided to use gay families as wedge issues across America in swing states -- that is truly outrageous," he told CNN's "American Morning."

[Patrick] Guerriero said members of his group are "insulted by a campaign that has attempted to amend the Constitution, and in too many states we've seen discriminatory amendments that would deny hospital visitation and domestic partnership legislation." He also pointed to fliers that the Republican National Committee sent to voters in Arkansas and Virginia, which say "banned" over a picture of the Bible and "allowed" over a picture of a man apparently proposing marriage to another man.

Karl Rove's decision to bash gay and lesbian Americans in order to drum up votes for Bush in swing states is, according to Guerriero, a significant but unreported story in this election. Perhaps this election will convince the Log Cabin Republicans that they'd be better served by supporting a party that embraces diversity.

This is appalling. Maybe if Iraq weren't draining all our money, we could be helping out more here.

At least 70,000 people have died since March as a result of poor conditions in refugee camps in Sudan's Darfur, the United Nations health agency said Friday. The World Health Organization warned that the death toll will climb unless other countries provide more aid.

The revised death toll cited by the UN does not include those killed in ongoing violence being carried out by Arab militias against Darfur's black residents and from rebellion by tribal groups.

This is genocide. Ethnic cleansing. Read the latest Human Rights Watch report and take action.

John Kerry said today that Bush's policies in Iraq could lead to a return of the draft if Bush is re-elected.

Kerry told The Des Moines Register, "With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of a draft." The interview was published Friday as Kerry was leaving for Wisconsin and a speech on the economy.

GW's denials don't mean much because his credibility is so low. Remember his father's electioneering statment made during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, "No New Taxes, Read my Lips"?

The Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again. And I'll say to them: 'Read my lips -- No. New. Taxes.'"

After Bush won the election, of course he raised taxes. He always knew he was going to have to do it -- it was inevitable. In fact, Bush signed the largest tax increase in history. Nevertheless, millions of Republican voters felt they had been doublecrossed. But he had only told them what he knew they wanted to hear. He assumed they knew that. And it was that duplicity which ultimately cost him the re-election.

Don't trust GW's promises on the draft. There will be no holding him accountable. More here.

Stan Matsunaka has closed on Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado and is now within reach. His polls show him within 5, and her internals show him down by only four points. Her unfavorables are at 52, and her re-elect is now at 45. Stan can win this, but he needs cash. The RCCC is pumping money in, and he needs to get the word out. Check out Adam Mordecai’s post on Change for America.

Give to Stan today.

Update: Who is Marilyn Musgrave and why is she so dangerous? Check out today's news, headlined, "Musgrave Asks For Help Against 'Radical Homosexual Agenda'"

Ten new polls taken around the world show that those in other countries think less of America today and that their opinion of us has been sliding the past three years.

By big margins, those questioned said the war in Iraq did not aid the global fight against terrorism.

And in eight out of 10 nations, those polled said - often in landslide proportions - that they hoped to see Democrat John Kerry beat President Bush in next month's election. Bush won backing from a majority of respondents only in Russia and Israel.

The polls were conducted in Canada, France, Britain, Spain, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Mexico, Israel and Russia, with results to be published in the participating newspapers on Friday.

We take this as an Indictment of President Bush and his policies and his war. You have a chance for change on November 2. Use it.

After a year of everyone who cared to already knowing her identity, the accuser in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case has made her identity public--because the federal judge presiding over her civil lawsuit for damages against Kobe ruled she had to in order to bring her lawsuit.

A federal judge had ruled that the woman must be publicly identified in the case as a matter of fairness. A Denver newspaper gave a similar reason when it published the woman's name in Friday editions.

"Until now, the News has exercised its editorial judgment and has not named Bryant's accuser despite the fact that her name was widely known," Rocky Mountain News editor John Temple said in the story. "But today we are naming her, after she made the decision Thursday to refile her lawsuit in her own name seeking money damages against Bryant."

Other news organizations are continuing to withhold her name. TalkLeft believes the Rocky Mountain News made the correct decision in publishing her name and that other news organizations should follow suit. She has never been found to be a victim. It may be that Kobe is the victim. Let it all come out in the civil suit. Deference to the woman over Kobe is no longer appropriate given her decision to refuse to testify at his trial.

Via Noah at Defense Tech: This summer, an influential group of Pentagon advisers, the Defense Science Board, submitted a report to Rumsfeld recommending massive spying on the level of "The Manhattan Project" to win the war on terror:

The Pentagon urgently needs a massive effort to develop tools to track individuals, items and activities in ways that exist today only in science fiction...Technologies that can identify people by unique physical characteristics — fingerprint, voice, odor, gait or even pattern of iris — must be merged with new means of “tagging” so that U.S. forces can find enemies who escape into a crowd or slip into a labyrinthine slum.

A Defense Science Board study this summer, “Transition to and From Hostilities,” calls for a new array of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.

“The global war on terrorism cannot be won without a ‘Manhattan Project’-like TTL [tagging, tracking, and locating] program,” said briefing charts summarizing some of the study’s findings. The Manhattan Project was a top-secret U.S. military-led effort involving many civilian scientists during World War II to develop the atomic bomb.

Noah responds,

A whole new batch of toys for prison guards to play with is now available, courtesy of a new publication by the National Insitute of Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice. It's called Department of Defense Nonlethal Weapons and Equipment Review: A Research Guide for Civil Law Enforcement and Corrections and is available here.

The report is little more than our Justice Department acting as an ad agency for the corporations that developed such weapons for DOD, enabling them to sell the weapons to police and prison guards.

These weapons are developed to control or disperse large crowds in open settings, and are utterly unsuited for use inside the confines of a closed environment like a prison or jail. What may be appropriate for war become instruments of torture in a prison setting, yet there has never been any discussion or acknowledgment of this by the DOJ, corrections professionals, and certainly not by the manufacturers themselves. Defense lawyers frequently see prison guards and jail deputies misusing tasers, mace, etc., especially in understaffed facilities.

From the report's introduction:

Howard Dean is demanding George Bush tell us how he will continue the war in Iraq without a military draft. Join him. Read Governor Dean's letter and column about the draft...Watch the new video available here.

George Bush is already drafting Americans to fight in Iraq: forcing soldiers to stay active beyond their commitments and ripping apart families by sending unprecedented numbers of National Guard and Reserves to occupy a foreign land. If we "stay the course" with this president, we will face a choice: drastically reduce our commitments or reinstate the draft.

One of the Joint Chiefs and Bush's own administrator in Iraq have both said that we will need tens of thousands more troops to stabilize the country. We have been misled about this war from the beginning. About nuclear weapons, about the cost, and about the progress being made. Now they say we won't need a draft. We cannot afford to take their word for it.

I demand to know how George Bush plans to guard the homeland, protect against threats abroad, and stabilize and occupy Iraq -- without resorting to a draft.

by TChris

TalkLeft commented yesterday that the TSA has plenty of money to party even as it fails to fund the inspection of cargo entering our nation's ports and airports. The TSA's misplaced priorities are made evident by a brief report that its Inspector General released yesterday.

Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin began the review of customs and border protection procedures at the request of House Democrats after ABC News twice successfully shipped about 15 pounds of depleted uranium into the country in cargo containers.

"Improvements are needed in the inspection process to ensure that weapons of mass destruction or other implements of terror do not gain access to the U.S. through oceangoing cargo containers," according to the four-page report made public yesterday.

Rep. Jim Turner complains that Ervin's short report lacked a "key recommendation" for correcting the problems. Here's one: spend less money on parties and self-promotion and more on homeland security.

by TChris

Florida's National Guard patrolled Florida's airport terminals for a few months after 9/11. Now the National Guard troops have received "warning orders" advising them that they may return to that duty later this month.

"Several law-enforcement officials said there is no specific threat to Florida." So why return the troops to the airports after nearly a three year absence? A cynic might suspect that the administration is trying to scare voters, or that it wants to create the illusion that the government is working to protect voters from a specific threat.