Thursday, October 14, 2004

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Bill Compton, of the secretary of state's office, said that so far, several hundred questionable voter-application records have been turned over to the attorney general's office. That number may reach into the low thousands, he said, but it's hard to tell just how many are a problem because some county clerks are turning cases over to local district attorneys.

Maria Santiago of Mujeres Unidas y Activas, an advocacy group, said hospitals aren't providing adequate [translation] services.

"As Latina immigrant women, we demand better translation services and we will be watching to make sure the county complies," Santiago said through an interpreter (emphasis added).

The 750,000-student Los Angeles school system runs what many say is the most comprehensive school translation and interpretation service in the country. The district employs 79 full-time translators and interpreters and spends about $6.2 million a year for translation services.

On page 166, the English text says: "Entire mankind works for our progress in such a way that the environment is degraded." What was the original? "The rapid progress mankind is making is also affecting environment."

The translations have been done by Gujarati and English teachers and principals of various schools. The Board maintains that the manuscripts and translations were carefully reviewed by experts. However, the Board does not have academic peers as members who could give a critical opinion because they were never appointed. Neither did it have experienced editors to edit the texts and make sure translations did not stray from the original manuscripts.

Instead, the Board relied heavily on school teachers for reviewing. "Teachers and experts teaching at primary school level have reviewed and made some suggestions," says Board director Madhubhai Patel.

Television screens in the Old Bailey court clearly showed the first witness taking the oath on the Koran through an interpreter in Kabul, but when he started his evidence the interpretation became impossible to understand.

The case was adjourned while a second interpreter was called to the Old Bailey.

Friday, October 08, 2004

I was told time and time again in 1999 that a Texas Governor named George W. Bush was terrific in small groups. Now I see what they meant. Bush feeds off people's reaction like a good businessman/salesman. Kerry's twenty years in the Senate has made him most comfortable addressing an empty room, as any viewer of C-SPAN II has seen day after day.

HANOI, Oct 7 (AFP) - French President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday of a "catastrophe" for global diversity if the United States' cultural hegemony goes unchallenged.

Speaking at a French cultural centre in Hanoi ahead of Friday's opening of a summit of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity.

The outspoken French president warned that the world's different cultures could be "choked" by US values.

This, he said, would lead to a "general world sub-culture" based around the English language, which would be "a real ecological catastrophe".

Citing Hollywood's stranglehold over the film industry as an example, Chirac stressed that only with government assistance could countries maintain their cultural heritage.

Vietnam is a former French colony, but only around 375,000 of its 81 million people speak French. English is considered by most people a far more valuable and practical second language, particularly among businessmen.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

A coalition of unions, including the AFL-CIO, want the court to order election supervisors to count so-called provisional ballots regardless of where the voter turned them in.

Provisional ballots were created in the 2001 election reform law as a way to guarantee that voters whose names don't show up on the voting rolls, perhaps through error, could still vote on Election Day. If a check shows the voter is indeed eligible to vote, the ballot is counted.

Provisional ballots are on paper, just like absentee ballots.

But the caveat added by state legislators is that provisional ballots must be discarded if the voter didn't go to the right precinct. Lawyers for the unions say this violates Florida's Constitution, which requires only that voters cast their ballots in their home county. ...

Ron Labasky, who represents the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, said nothing would stop special interest groups from telling voters to go out and demand a provisional ballot at any precinct instead of using the touch-screen voting machines used in 15 counties, including Broward and Miami-Dade.

"You could have tens of thousands of people going just down the street to vote," Labasky said. "The announcement could be, 'Don't worry about where you vote, just go vote.'"

With John Kerry as president of the United States, we are committed to immediately implementing all of the reforms suggested by the 9/11 Commission, so that we have the information we need to find terrorists and crush them before they hurt us.

First, we need to stop differences in language and culture from interfering with good health care. I'd start with a National Medical Translation System. That means an effective, in-person translation system at every hospital in the biggest cities. For smaller cities and rural hospitals, we need a National Medical Translation Center—24 hours a day, 7 days a week, translators on call. To make this work, it'll take new incentives for doctors and nurses to become translators. At the end of the day, we will have solid medical translation services for the most vulnerable people in our society.

The reason they keep trying to attack Halliburton is because they want to obscure their own record.

And Senator, frankly, you have a record in the Senate that's not very distinguished. You've missed 33 out of 36 meetings in the Judiciary Committee, almost 70 percent of the meetings of the Intelligence Committee.

You've missed a lot of key votes: on tax policy, on energy, on Medicare reform.

Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you "Senator Gone."

You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate.

Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session.

The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.

Dick Cheney sounded like a human being who actually answered the questions he was asked. Edwards sounded like he was simply reciting official campaign talking points. (The reverse of Bush - Kerry I last week.)

More later.

Monday, October 04, 2004

About a week after Jean Schuh got a phone call from ACORN, Charles Schuh received a letter from the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office saying it had received his application form "as part of a voter registration drive" and that the form was sent in too late to allow him to vote in the Aug. 31 primary.

As Charles Schuh later put it, "They picked the wrong person to mess with."

A St. Petersburg attorney, Schuh served six years on the City Council and was the city's mayor from 1975-77. Schuh tried unsuccessfully to contact ACORN, and then took the letter and his voter registration card to the supervisor of elections.

He was shown the ACORN application form. Much of the information was wrong.

"And that was certainly not my signature," Schuh said. "I told them it was a blatant case of voter fraud and forgery, and someone ought to be taken to task for that."

More than 2,500 Pinellas County residents and another 1,500 Hillsborough residents who thought they had registered for the Aug. 31 primary were notified they couldn't vote because the groups that helped them register failed to turn in their applications on time.

The majority of the late registration forms, including more than 2,100 in Pinellas, came from ACORN.

Similar voter registration problems involving ACORN were reported this year in Fort Lauderdale, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio and Illinois.

Friday, October 01, 2004

KERRY: The president just said the FBI had changed its culture. We just read on the front pages of America's papers that there are over 100,000 hours of tapes, unlistened to. On one of those tapes may be the enemy being right the next time.

And the test is not whether you're spending more money. The test is, are you doing everything possible to make America safe?

We didn't need that tax cut. America needed to be safe.

Bush said, "We're makin' progress" a hundred times — that seemed a little desperate. He also said "mixed messages" a hundred times — I was wishing that he would mix his message. He said, "It's hard work," or, "It's tough," a hundred times. In fact, Bush reminded me of Dan Quayle in the 1988 debate, when the Hoosier repeated a couple of talking points over and over, to some chuckles from the audience (if I recall correctly).

Staying on message is one thing; robotic repetition — when there are oceans of material available — is another. ...

Why did Bush keep requesting a special 30 seconds to say the same thing over and over?