Is God an American Voter? The international press is distrurbed by Bush's religiousity -- even many conservatives.  EG: "In this view, Bush's refusal to admit any mistakes in Iraq reflects not arrogance nor evasiveness but divinely inspired confidence that all is going according to His plan. For the formerly pro-Bush press, it's a scary thought. "  11:48:20 PM    

BBC: Iraq dates 'planned in advance': "Top secret plans for attacking Iraq were drawn up five months before the war started, a court martial has heard. US defence planners passed plans, with codenames such as P-Day, A-Day and G-Day, to UK army bosses in October 2002.  ..

The secret documents were compiled by Lt Colonel Christopher Warren, staff officer at Land Command, Wiltshire .. P-Day stood for the date on which US President George Bush would make a decision for going for war, he revealed. That date was pencilled in for 15 February, 2003. A-Day stood for the beginning of the air strikes, scheduled for the first week of March 2003, while G-Day stood for the start of the ground offensive, due to start two days later. .. The war against Saddam Hussein was launched on 20 March, 2003, in a series of US air strikes.  ..

The plans were revealed during the court martial of reservist Lance Corporal Ian Blaymire, charged with the manslaughter of a colleague in Iraq. .. The dates and codenames were only revealed after the court martial was adjourned for several hours for legal argument. Assistant Judge Advocate Paul Camp eventually ruled the press and public had a right to hear the evidence. "

  11:44:31 PM    

S5: A Simple Standards-Based Slide Show System: Sweet.  Runs well.  "S5 is a slide show format based entirely on XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript. With one file, you can run a complete slide show and have a printer-friendly version as well. The markup used for the slides is very simple, highly semantic, and completely accessible. Anyone with even a smidgen of familiarity with HTML or XHTML can look at the markup and figure out how to adapt it to their particular needs. Anyone familiar with CSS can create their own slide show theme. It's totally simple, and it's totally standards-driven."  10:25:30 PM    

Serenity Virtual Station: A new PC virtual computing platform aimed at workstations, priced at $99/user.  Press release online.  A second company site has more details, including materials from IBM on some larger installations.  5:35:31 PM    

Tracking poll: Bush holds on to advantage - October 27, 2000: Wow, did the polls get it wrong last time!  Gallup had Bush up by 13% (!), 3 media companies had results between 3 and 6% up for Bush, while only Zogby showed a Gore advantage (2%).   5:15:52 PM    

ME2TV for television over Internet:  How some systems are working to encode ordinary TV and stream it in realtime over the Internet, anywhere in the world.  Uses 384 kbps with a 10-second buffer.  3:47:40 PM    

Productive Nanosystems: from molecules to superproducts: Fastastic voyage in a nanofactory.   Animation, 39 MB quicktime.  3:24:48 PM    

Ohio Election Board Throws Out Challenges: The courts are already active.  The details are telling.  "The Summit County Board of Elections dismissed the challenges against [62-year-old Catherine] Herold and 975 other voters whose registrations had been questioned. Several of the GOP challengers were identified at the hearing, each of whom had questioned hundreds of registrations. ..

That board had scheduled hearings to consider the challenges for several days leading up to the election, and Herold was the first voter whose case was heard.

A Republican activist named Barbara Miller told the board that she had never been to the address where Herold said she lived and did not know Herold, according to a transcript of the hearing. She said she based her challenge on information she received from a lawyer for the Republican Party, who had told her that mail sent to that address was returned to the party.

Herold said she recalled having declined to accept a mailing from the Republican Party.

In a heated moment, one Democrat on the election board suggested that an indictment may be in order against Miller, because she had sworn that she had personal knowledge leading her to believe that the registration was fraudulent, according to the transcript.

At that point, a lawyer representing Miller said the activist would exercise her right against self-incrimination and would say no more.  Ohio Republican Party spokesmen and the lawyer who represented GOP activists at the hearing did not answer a reporter's telephone calls or e-mail.

Even though the challenge against Herold was dismissed, she was outraged that her right to vote had been questioned. "My integrity was questioned here, my veracity. I've basically been accused of lying," Herold told the board.  Most of her ire was directed at the Republican Party. "They're trying to basically disenfranchise people or intimidate people so they don't go to the polls," said Herold, who had taken a day off from her job at a university to attend the hearing. "Other people who got this letter would say, 'I won't just vote.' ''  Herold said she had not missed an election since she first voted 42 years ago." 

Seel also the longer KR story about irate targeted voters:  "The challengers, all older longtime Republicans - Barbara Miller, Howard Calhoun, Madge Doerler and Louis Ray - were subpoenaed by the elections board and were present at the hearings. .. The angry voters had the Republicans on the defensive.  "Why'd you do it?" one challenged voter shouted out at Calhoun. "Who the hell are you?" the man asked. "What the hell do you care," replied Calhoun, who is an attorney. ..

the board voted unanimously to dismiss all 976 challenges.  The move, ironically, came from Republican board member Joseph Hutchinson and was seconded by Republican Alex Arshinkoff after they determined that the four local Republicans who made the challenges had no evidence to back up their claims. ..

Arshinkoff, who is chairman of the Summit County GOP, pointed to the state party and said its Chairman Robert Bennett should be held accountable. .. Arshinkoff and Hutchinson were obviously angry with the state party.  Arshinkoff compared the proceedings to a "train wreck" and said representatives from the Ohio Republican Party should have been at the hearing .. "There was no evidence," Hutchinson said of the challenges. ..

[Democratic board member] Pry and elections board member Wayne Jones said after the hearing that they intend to contact the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the challenges...

  3:17:24 PM    

Even  Iraqis Favor Kerry over Bush: "A new public opinion poll shows more Iraqis favor Democratic challenger John Kerry than President Bush, who launched the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. But more than half of the 2,000 peopled polled throughout Iraq don't care who wins the U.S. presidency in next week's election."  That's Kerry 22%, Bush 16%, the rest indifferent.  8:37:27 AM