A South Florida businessman says he's going to try to reduce the strength of Hurricane Ivan by flying a Boeing 747 into the edge of the hurricane and dumping thousands of pounds of an absorbent material into the storm.

Peter Cordani of Jupiter plans to try to knock the storm down by one or two categories by dropping tons of powder that absorbs 3-thousand to 4-thousand times its weight.

Cordani is chief operating officer of Dyn-O-Mat, a company that sells environmental absorbent products such as mats for mechanics. He believes his product, SK1000, would cause a shearing action and a 15 degree cooling of the storm.

Cordani has been working on his plan for five years. He has assembled a team of experts, including two former astronauts, moonwalker Edgar Mitchell and Scott Mac Leod, who tested the lunar module.

Cordani is in contact talks to lease a 747 tanker from Evergreen Aviation in McMinnville, Oregon.

Officially, the Secret Service does not concern itself with unarmed, peaceful demonstrators who pose no danger to the commander in chief. But that policy was inoperative here Thursday when seven AIDS activists who heckled President Bush during a campaign appearance were shoved and pulled from the room -- some by their hair, one by her bra straps -- and then arrested for disorderly conduct and detained for an hour.

After Bush campaign bouncers handled the evictions, Secret Service agents, accompanied by Bush's personal aide, supervised the arrests and detention of the activists and blocked the news media from access to the hecklers.

The Bush campaign has made unprecedented efforts to control access to its events. Sometimes, people are required to sign oaths of support before attending events with Bush or Vice President Cheney. At times, buses of demonstrators are diverted by police to idle in parking lots while supporters are waved in. And the Secret Service has played an unusual role; one agent cooperated with a plan by the Bush campaign last month to prevent former senator Max Cleland (Ga.), a Kerry ally, from handing a letter to the agent outside Bush's Texas ranch.

Kevin, I worked in the IBM Office Products Division field service area fixing typewriters in NYC for over 13 years in the 70s. I can tell you that the Model D can produce those documents, not only did it do proportional spacing, you could order any font that IBM produced AND order keys that had the aftmentioned superscripted "th." Also you could order the platen, thats the roller that grabs the paper, in a 54 tooth configuration that produced space, space and a half and double spacing on the line indexing, this BTW was popular in legal offices. The Model D had to be ordered from a IBM salesmen and was not something that was a off the shelf item, typical delivery time were 4-6 weeks.

Also, typewriter keys were changed in the field all the time, its not that hard to do. I wish I had saved my service and parts replacement manuals to backup this claim but I'm guessing a call to IBM with a request for a copy of their font and parts replacement manuals would put this to rest ASAP.

Cheney on economic numbers: Don’t forget about eBay
By Associated Press

Indicators measure the nation’s unemployment rate, consumer spending and other economic milestones, but Vice President Dick Cheney says it misses the hundreds of thousands who make money selling on eBay.

“That’s a source that didn’t even exist 10 years ago,” Cheney told an audience in Cincinnati on Thursday. “Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay.”

San Jose, Calif.-based eBay Inc. is an Internet auction site where anyone can sell just about anything, including clothing, cell phones, jewelry, memorabilia, trinkets and automobiles.

Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards responded that Cheney’s comments show how “out of touch” he and President Bush are with the economy. “If we only included bake sales and how much money kids make at lemonade stands, this economy would really be cooking,” Edwards said in a statement.

Repent now!

Pastor, Christians deliver 'messages' from God

AS Hurricane Ivan kept Jamaica in its sight yesterday, a Kingston pastor and several christians urged Jamaicans to repent, saying they had each received messages from God warning of terrible judgement on the land, including increased violence, wars and natural disasters.

"Jamaicans have failed to respond in humility to the evidences of God's mercy on us as a nation or to respond to the calls for repentance for the blatant acts of idolatry, violence, murder and corruption. Hence, the judgement of God is upon the nation for the continued shedding of innocent blood and other acts of sin," Reverend Al Miller, pastor of the non-denominational Fellowship Tabernacle church on Half-Way-Tree Road, Kingston, said Tuesday.

Millicent Battick, manager of the Cross Roads branch of the RBTT bank on Tuesday delivered a typewritten message to the Observer which she said she had received from God.

"God loves us and loves Jamaica, but if we don't repent then God says that he will bring disaster upon us," said Battick, who told the Observer that she has been a christian for more than twenty-one years.

All I can remember is what happened when Hillary Clinton came across those billing records and turned them over. Didn't they haul her ass over to the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse and make her answer questions before a grand jury for an entire friggin' day? With cameras outside on Monica Beach? And didn't every talking head in the world go on and on and on about all the crimes she'd committed and cook up all kinds of conspiracy theories?

In January 1996, a long sought-after copy of billing records from the Rose Law Finn were identified and turned over to prosecutors by Carolyn Huber, a White House assistant to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Ms. Huber, herself a former Rose Law Firm employee, recognized the records and realized that they had been among papers that she had removed six months earlier from the First Lady's book room on the third floor of the White House.

The mysterious appearance of the billing records, which had been the specific subject of various investigative subpoenas for two years, sparked intense interest about how they surfaced and where they had been. Shortly after the discovery of the records, Hillary Clinton made history -- she became the only First Lady ever called to testify before a Grand Jury inquiry. (source: Frontline: Once Upon a Time in Arkansas)

...you better not have a comment until you talk to your lawyers because it looks like you just got caught in a conspiracy to withhold documents that you were legally bound to have already released under the Associated Press' earlier FOIA request.

The White House claimed they had released ALL the documents, now tonight, conveniently after 60 Minutes shows the NEW documents on TV, the White House somehow releases the very documents it said it never had? Where did the documents come from, and why didn't the White House release them BEFORE 60 Minutes exposed their existence? And finally, what else is the White House hiding?

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have always used the president's father as a reverse lodestar. In 1992, the senior Mr. Bush wooed the voters with "Message: I care.'' So this week, Mr. Cheney wooed the voters with, Message: You die.

The terrible beauty of its simplicity grows on you. It is a sign of the dark, macho, paranoid vice president's restraint that he didn't really take it to its emotionally satisfying conclusion: Message: Vote for us or we'll kill you.

[Note from me: Is MoDo implying that the Bush Administration might architect a terrorist attack on their way out of office in order to create an emergency that would prevent them from leaving office? It sure sounds that way, in which case Ms. Dowd is sporting the kind of tinfoil chapeau that even I envy.]

Without Zell Miller around to out-crazy him, and unplugged after a convention that tried to "humanize'' him with grandchildren, horses and wifely anecdotes about his inability to dance the twist, Mr. Cheney is back as Terrifier in Chief.

He finally simply spit out what the Bush team has been more subtly trying to convey for months: A vote for John Kerry is a vote for the terrorists.

[snip]

It's like that fairy tale where vipers and toads jump out of the mouth of the accursed mean little girl when she tries to speak. Every time Mr. Cheney opens his mouth, vermin leap out.

Kerry Widens Lead in Battleground States!
Now that's a headline you're not likely to see in the mainstream media, consumed as they are with the storyline du jour about Bush's Big Mo' from the convention.

But that's what the internals of the latest Gallup poll tell us. Prior to the Republican convention, Kerry had a one point lead among RVs (47-46) in the battleground states. After the Republican convention, now that battleground voters have had a chance to take a closer look at what Bush and his party really stand for, Kerry leads by 5 in these same states (50-45)! Note that Kerry gained three points among battleground voters, while Bush actually got a negative one point bounce.

And wait--there's more! The Gallup poll's internals also show that Kerry continues to lead among independents (49-46) and that both parties' partisans are equally polarized for their respective candidates (90-7). Note that these findings directly contradict the results of the recent Newsweek poll, which showed Bush doing much better among Republican partisans than Kerry was doing among Democratic partisans. Note also that, given the equal polarization of partisans and Kerry's lead among independents, the only possible reason Bush has any lead at all among Gallup's RVs must be because their sample has a GOP advantage on party ID (my guess is 5 points) that is inconsistent with almost all other polling data from this campaign season (see my recent post on the Newsweek poll for more discussion of this issue).

Indeed, if equal polarization of partisans continues and Kerry carries a 3 point lead on independents into the election, he'll win fairly easily, since the Democratic proportion of voters in presidential elections is always higher, not lower, than the Republican proportion. In 2000, after all, Bush carried independents by 2 points and received stronger support from his partisans than Gore did from his--but still lost the popular vote by half a point.

Now that's another storyline you're unlikely to see in the mainstream media.

Terrorists still hope to disrupt the U.S. democratic process even though the presidential nominating conventions and other high-profile gatherings this summer went off without incident, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Tuesday.

Threat reporting over the last several months has been "consistent, general and credible" and indicated the al-Qaida network is trying to push ahead with its plans, Ridge said.

1) President Bush may skip one of the three debates that have been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates... MORE... Bush's negotiating team plans to resist the middle debate, which was to be Oct. 8 in a town meeting format in Missouri // audience of 'undecided voters' for second debate was to be picked by Gallup. Bush officials were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans, WASH POST planning to report in new editions, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE... Developing...

2) The Boston Globe is planning to report that "President Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War"

President Bush ranked in the middle of his Air National Guard flight class and flew 336 hours in a fighter jet before letting his pilot status lapse and missing a key readiness drill in 1972, according to his flight records belatedly uncovered Tuesday under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Pentagon and Bush's campaign have claimed for months that all records detailing his fighter pilot career have been made public, but defense officials said they found two dozen new records detailing his training and flight logs after The Associated Press filed a lawsuit and submitted new requests under the public records law.

"Previous requests from other requesters for President Bush's Individual Flight Records did not lead to the discovery of these records because at the time President Bush left the service, flight records were subject to retention for only 24 months and we understood that neither the Air Force nor the Texas Air National Guard retained such records thereafter," the Pentagon told the AP.

"Out of an abundance of caution," the government "searched a file that had been preserved in spite of this policy" and found the Bush records, the letter said. "The Department of Defense regrets this oversight during the previous search efforts."

[snip]

The newly released records do not include any from five categories of documents Bush's commanders had been required to keep in response to the gaps in Bush's training in 1972 and 1973. For example, National Guard commanders were required to perform an investigation whenever any pilot skipped a medical exam and forward the results up the Air Force chain of command. No such documents have surfaced.

You seem to have forgotten that loyal Democrats elected you as mayor and as state senator. Loyal Democrats, including members of my family and me, elected you as lieutenant governor and as governor. It was a loyal Democrat, Lester Maddox, who assigned you to high positions in the state government when you were out of office. It was a loyal Democrat, Roy Barnes, who appointed you as U.S. Senator when you were out of office. By your historically unprecedented disloyalty, you have betrayed our trust.

Great Georgia Democrats who served in the past, including Walter George, Richard Russell, Herman Talmadge, and Sam Nunn disagreed strongly with the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and me, but they remained loyal to the party in which they gained their public office. Other Democrats, because of philosophical differences or the race issue, like Bo Callaway and Strom Thurmond, at least had the decency to become Republicans.

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said yesterday that President Bush views America as a ''10-year-old child" in need of the sort of protection provided by a parent.

U.S. President George W. Bush offered an unexpected reason on Monday for cracking down on frivolous medical lawsuits: "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."

The Republican president, long known for verbal and grammatical lapses, included the anecdote about obstetrician gynecologists in his stump speech attacking Democratic presidential rival Sen. John Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards, a former trial lawyer.

At a rally of cheering supporters in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, Bush made his usual pitch for limiting "frivolous lawsuits" that he said drive up the cost of health care and run doctors out of business.

But then he added, "We've got an issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."

In a fresh blow to John Kerry's flagging presidential campaign, the Pentagon has ordered an official investigation into the awards of the Democratic senator's five Vietnam War decorations.

News of the inquiry came as President George W Bush opened an 11-point lead over his rival - the widest margin since serious campaigning began - according to the first poll released since last week's Republican convention.

The highly unusual inquiry is to be carried out by the inspector-general's office of the United States navy, for which Sen Kerry served as a Swift Boat captain for four months in 1968, making two tours of duty.