The 9/11 Election
From the November 1 / November 8, 2004 issue: "This is the first presidential election since September 11, 2001, and it will define America's response: On the one hand, we can attempt to return to the 1990s; on the other hand, we can face our challenges, and carry out our duties."
by William Kristol
11/01/2004, Volume 010, Issue 08
"We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance."
--John Kerry, New York Times Magazine, October 10, 2004
"What American would not trade the economy we had in the 1990s, the fact that we were not at war and young Americans were not deployed?"
--John Kerry, on Larry King Live, July 8, 2004
"During the decade of the 1990s, our times often seemed peaceful on the surface.Yet beneath the surface were currents of danger. Terrorists were training and planning in distant camps. . . . America's response to terrorism was generally piecemeal and symbolic. The terrorists concluded this was a sign of weakness, and their plans became more ambitious, and their attacks more deadly. Most Americans still felt that terrorism was something distant, and something that would not strike on a large scale in America. That is the time my opponent wants to go back to. A time when danger was real and growing, but we didn't know it. . . . September 11, 2001 changed all that. We realized that the apparent security of the 1990s was an illusion. . . . Will we make decisions in the light of September 11, or continue to live in the mirage of safety that was actually a time of gathering threats?"
--George W. Bush, October 18, 2004
THIS IS THE FIRST presidential election since September 11, 2001. Its central issue is the meaning of September 11. The events of that day did not really "change everything," as Bush sometimes says in a defensible shorthand. But they did reveal, as columnist Paul Greenberg put it, that "everything we had thought/assumed/expected in the Golden '90s hadn't been so." The surface peace of the 1990s had been bought at a great price. On 9/11 a failure of American leadership was revealed, a failure to look ahead and act forcefully to forestall threats--to do what Bush has called "the hard work of fighting terror and spreading freedom."
This is what President Bush thinks. John Kerry really doesn't agree. That's why it is so fitting that Bill Clinton will reemerge to campaign for Kerry this week. The choice will then be clearly posed: On the one hand, we can attempt to return to the 1990s. This is not, of course, an unattractive prospect, but it is surely an unachievable one. To pretend we can go back to the 1990s raises false hopes that will prove dangerous to the country. On the other hand, we can face our challenges, and carry out our duties--as President Bush has tried, with considerable success, to lead us to do.
In his October 18 speech on the war on terror, President Bush noted correctly that his opponent "has not made democracy a priority of his foreign policy." Indeed, Kerry's critique of Bush goes beyond competence in the execution of policy to first principles. Kerry does not see a need to fundamentally change the political culture of the Middle East. Bush posed the challenge well: "Is he content to watch and wait, as anger and resentment grow for more decades in the Middle East, feeding more terrorism until radicals without conscience gain the weapons to kill without limit?" Bush isn't. Thus he embraces the task of helping to spread "democracy and hope" so that "governments that oppose terror multiply across the Middle East."
He does so for reasons his counterpart Tony Blair recently explained. This is the only way to deal with a "worldwide global terrorism" based on a perversion of Islam: "Its roots are not superficial but deep, in the madrassas of Pakistan, in the extreme forms of Wahhabi doctrine in Saudi Arabia, in the training camps of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. . . . If you take this view, if you believe September 11 changed the world . . . the only path to take is to confront this terrorism and remove it root and branch."
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman recently criticized the Bush administration for being "addicted to 9/11." He praised John Kerry for "wanting to put terrorism back into perspective." Friedman continued, "I want a president who can one day restore Sept. 11th to its rightful place on the calendar: as the day after Sept. 10th and before Sept. 12th. I do not want it to become a day that defines us. Because ultimately Sept. 11th is about them--the bad guys--not about us. We're about the Fourth of July."
We at THE WEEKLY STANDARD yield to no one in our loyalty to the Fourth of July. But September 11, 2001, also cannot help but define us 21st-century Americans. And it defines us not simply in terms of those we have to fight, and defeat. For September 11 is not simply about "the bad guys," about the attacks on America. September 11 is also about our response. It is about the police and firefighters in New York, the servicemen and women in the Pentagon, and the passengers and crew of United Flight 93. September 11 was a day of infamy. But it was also a day of bravery, and of nobility. And it could go down in history as a day that began an era in which the American people, and their leaders, rose to the challenges before them--an era in which they acted wisely, and steadfastly, and honorably. September 11 saw horrible hours. But it could also be the beginning of one of America's finest hours. The chances of that will be greatest under President Bush.
--William Kristol
© Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Friday, October 22, 2004
Incivility in Polotics
Right As Usual: "INCIVILITY OF POLITICS
Maybe it's just me, but I'm finding that this may be one of the most heated and contentious elections in recent history, and that is wild, considering the 2000 election.
There are few political discussions anywhere, at least in the tradition of give-and-take. I'm hearing a lot of heated spews about the OTHER side (not, in general, about the merits of one's candidate) and the cataclysmic consequences of letting THAT PERSON steal the election.
What on Earth is going on?
I remember when the 100-year anniversary of the Civil War was celebrated. At that time (I was 10 at the start), I couldn't get a handle on WHY people became so filled with righteous bile that they couldn't calmly discuss the issues, and work together. I just couldn't imagine problems that people of decency couldn't handle in a reasonable way.
I'm beginning to understand. It didn't happen all at once. It built over time, like today's situation. Both sides believed themselves to be right, and the other to be, not just wrong, but potentially dangerous. It ceased to be a political discussion, but a battle against the forces of evil.
Each episode of conflict just led to even greater grievances, with the losing side more determined to prevail. And the losing side only associated with others like themselves. They couldn't contaminate themselves with contact with THOSE EVIL, VILE PEOPLE, IF YOU COULD EVEN CALL THEM HUMAN.
The Civil War didn't happen overnight. It was a long road from the Transcendentalists to war. But the same people grew more agitated each time they suffered a political or legislative loss, and this led to an 'end justifies the means' attitude, and eventually to chaos."
Maybe it's just me, but I'm finding that this may be one of the most heated and contentious elections in recent history, and that is wild, considering the 2000 election.
There are few political discussions anywhere, at least in the tradition of give-and-take. I'm hearing a lot of heated spews about the OTHER side (not, in general, about the merits of one's candidate) and the cataclysmic consequences of letting THAT PERSON steal the election.
What on Earth is going on?
I remember when the 100-year anniversary of the Civil War was celebrated. At that time (I was 10 at the start), I couldn't get a handle on WHY people became so filled with righteous bile that they couldn't calmly discuss the issues, and work together. I just couldn't imagine problems that people of decency couldn't handle in a reasonable way.
I'm beginning to understand. It didn't happen all at once. It built over time, like today's situation. Both sides believed themselves to be right, and the other to be, not just wrong, but potentially dangerous. It ceased to be a political discussion, but a battle against the forces of evil.
Each episode of conflict just led to even greater grievances, with the losing side more determined to prevail. And the losing side only associated with others like themselves. They couldn't contaminate themselves with contact with THOSE EVIL, VILE PEOPLE, IF YOU COULD EVEN CALL THEM HUMAN.
The Civil War didn't happen overnight. It was a long road from the Transcendentalists to war. But the same people grew more agitated each time they suffered a political or legislative loss, and this led to an 'end justifies the means' attitude, and eventually to chaos."
JS Online: Cosby urges city to get serious
JS Online: Cosby urges city to get serious: "Cosby urges city to get serious
Responsibility can cure social ills, he says"
Responsibility can cure social ills, he says"
Bad Example
Bad Example: "KERRY & TERRY EXPLAINED
Most excellently by Gerard of American Digest:
The French have an idiomatic phrase nostalgie pour la boue which means, roughly, 'yearning for the mud.' Nostalgie pour la boue is a compulsion that comes over people when they have, for complex reasons, a need to immerse themselves in self-degradation. This is a specialty of the French culture.
Nostalgie pour la boue is usually a mix of drink, drugs, and weird sex until the soul is obliterated by the abused flesh. You can see it at its most graphic in the party scenes in the French film, Killing Zoe. Most people try this sort of thing a time or two in their youth, but grow out of it when time, experience, or, in many cases, God gets the upper hand. Others grow out of it via deep psychoanalysis and a few trips to the rehab clinic. Many never kick it and were, in the past, thought of as 'perverts' but are now more kindly seen as 'differently minded' and left to go their own way in our 'consenting ' culture.
[...]
I'd like to suggest that there's another kind nostalgie going around in this hybrid culture; one that arises from nostalgie pour la boue, but is more damaging to the body politic: nostalgie pour la d�faite.
Nostalgie pour la d�faite is that dark state of the soul when an American, who either came of age in the Vietnam era, or who was taught and mentored by a leftist or liberal of that vintage, yearns for the defeat of America. American defeat is then seen as confirmation that his or her world view and social milieu is the right view and right milieu. It is simply 'the way things must be.'
I outgrew it when I was 17. I fell in love with a respectable girl and put my life in order so that I could be worthy of her. Never looked back.
I think one of the commenters said it best: 'I have so often wondered: How can an entire lifetime be spent pining away for the lunacy of youth?'
by Harvey "
Most excellently by Gerard of American Digest:
The French have an idiomatic phrase nostalgie pour la boue which means, roughly, 'yearning for the mud.' Nostalgie pour la boue is a compulsion that comes over people when they have, for complex reasons, a need to immerse themselves in self-degradation. This is a specialty of the French culture.
Nostalgie pour la boue is usually a mix of drink, drugs, and weird sex until the soul is obliterated by the abused flesh. You can see it at its most graphic in the party scenes in the French film, Killing Zoe. Most people try this sort of thing a time or two in their youth, but grow out of it when time, experience, or, in many cases, God gets the upper hand. Others grow out of it via deep psychoanalysis and a few trips to the rehab clinic. Many never kick it and were, in the past, thought of as 'perverts' but are now more kindly seen as 'differently minded' and left to go their own way in our 'consenting ' culture.
[...]
I'd like to suggest that there's another kind nostalgie going around in this hybrid culture; one that arises from nostalgie pour la boue, but is more damaging to the body politic: nostalgie pour la d�faite.
Nostalgie pour la d�faite is that dark state of the soul when an American, who either came of age in the Vietnam era, or who was taught and mentored by a leftist or liberal of that vintage, yearns for the defeat of America. American defeat is then seen as confirmation that his or her world view and social milieu is the right view and right milieu. It is simply 'the way things must be.'
I outgrew it when I was 17. I fell in love with a respectable girl and put my life in order so that I could be worthy of her. Never looked back.
I think one of the commenters said it best: 'I have so often wondered: How can an entire lifetime be spent pining away for the lunacy of youth?'
by Harvey "
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Reverend Mike's House of Homiletic Hash
This blog looks nteresting
Reverend Mike's House of Homiletic Hash
Reverend Mike's House of Homiletic Hash
TCS: Tech Central Station - The Blogosphere Grows Up
Run down on where blogging is and is headed
TCS: Tech Central Station - The Blogosphere Grows Up
TCS: Tech Central Station - The Blogosphere Grows Up
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Interesting Comments
Copied and pasted from Andrew Sullivan comments:
EMAIL OF THE DAY: "I was stationed at a base (Al Taqqadum) South-West of Fallujah that we took over from the 82nd Airborne. Your writing about the Abu Graib prompted me write this. It is an explanation of why so many in the military favor Bush, even though we are the ones suffering the most because of his mistakes:
It is an old military maxim that blunders can be forgiven, but a lack of boldness cannot. There will always be blunders. The simple becomes difficult in war. Take for example the following question: what is 2+2 equal too? An easy question right? Now imagine I gave you 15 such questions and you had 2 seconds to answer them. Most likely you would answer some and leave the rest. Looking at those questions you missed in isolation I might say, "What kind of blathering idiot are you? You can't even answer simple questions like 2+2=4". That is why Armchair Generals are so annoying. They look at one thing in isolation with all the time in the world to think about it and say confidently "the answers obvious". But when you are out in the fight everything looks different. Nothing is ever seen in isolation. You never have enough time. You never know more than 1/10 what you need to know. There will always be blunders.
But the job has to get done anyway. And to get this kind of job done boldness is essential. A leader who never blunders, but who doesn't take the fight to the enemy is worthless. A leader who sets about to win - win ugly if needs be - is priceless.
One thing the Marine Corps taught me is that a 70% solution acted on immediately and violently is better than a perfect solution acted on later. My experience has proven this true time and again. The sad fact is however, that a 70% solution is a 30% mistake. And those mistakes can be hard to take. In WWII for example, 700 soldiers drowned in a training accident in preparation for D-Day (that is about how many combat deaths we've experienced so far in Iraq).
There is a scene in the movie "We were Soldiers" that says it better than I can. In the scene a young soldier on the ground is giving directions on enemy positions to aircraft flying overhead. The aircraft then dropped Napalm on the enemy. At one point the soldier gets the directions wrong and stares horrified as the Napalm is dropped on his own unit. The soldier is shaken beyond belief. He sat there doing nothing - paralyzed by his mistake. Then his Commanding Officer gave him the confidence to carry on. The CO told him to "forget about that last one" and "you're keeping us alive here". And so the soldier swallowed his guilt and kept doing his job and thereby saved the unit. That is what a 70% solution looks like in real life. And those are the 70% solutions that win wars.
Most people and events are beyond your control. Most questions you don't have time to answer. Most facts you will never know. But you have to press the attack anyway. No matter how ugly it gets, you keep going until you win.
Kerry doesn't understand that. Everything he did during the Cold War and everything he says about this one states as much. He represents those who would never blunder, but who would not take the fight to the enemy. He would just sit there - like the soldier in the movie - paralyzed by America's mistakes."
EMAIL OF THE DAY: "I was stationed at a base (Al Taqqadum) South-West of Fallujah that we took over from the 82nd Airborne. Your writing about the Abu Graib prompted me write this. It is an explanation of why so many in the military favor Bush, even though we are the ones suffering the most because of his mistakes:
It is an old military maxim that blunders can be forgiven, but a lack of boldness cannot. There will always be blunders. The simple becomes difficult in war. Take for example the following question: what is 2+2 equal too? An easy question right? Now imagine I gave you 15 such questions and you had 2 seconds to answer them. Most likely you would answer some and leave the rest. Looking at those questions you missed in isolation I might say, "What kind of blathering idiot are you? You can't even answer simple questions like 2+2=4". That is why Armchair Generals are so annoying. They look at one thing in isolation with all the time in the world to think about it and say confidently "the answers obvious". But when you are out in the fight everything looks different. Nothing is ever seen in isolation. You never have enough time. You never know more than 1/10 what you need to know. There will always be blunders.
But the job has to get done anyway. And to get this kind of job done boldness is essential. A leader who never blunders, but who doesn't take the fight to the enemy is worthless. A leader who sets about to win - win ugly if needs be - is priceless.
One thing the Marine Corps taught me is that a 70% solution acted on immediately and violently is better than a perfect solution acted on later. My experience has proven this true time and again. The sad fact is however, that a 70% solution is a 30% mistake. And those mistakes can be hard to take. In WWII for example, 700 soldiers drowned in a training accident in preparation for D-Day (that is about how many combat deaths we've experienced so far in Iraq).
There is a scene in the movie "We were Soldiers" that says it better than I can. In the scene a young soldier on the ground is giving directions on enemy positions to aircraft flying overhead. The aircraft then dropped Napalm on the enemy. At one point the soldier gets the directions wrong and stares horrified as the Napalm is dropped on his own unit. The soldier is shaken beyond belief. He sat there doing nothing - paralyzed by his mistake. Then his Commanding Officer gave him the confidence to carry on. The CO told him to "forget about that last one" and "you're keeping us alive here". And so the soldier swallowed his guilt and kept doing his job and thereby saved the unit. That is what a 70% solution looks like in real life. And those are the 70% solutions that win wars.
Most people and events are beyond your control. Most questions you don't have time to answer. Most facts you will never know. But you have to press the attack anyway. No matter how ugly it gets, you keep going until you win.
Kerry doesn't understand that. Everything he did during the Cold War and everything he says about this one states as much. He represents those who would never blunder, but who would not take the fight to the enemy. He would just sit there - like the soldier in the movie - paralyzed by America's mistakes."
Land Surveying weblog
This site has some amazing info and incidents from the life of a land surveyor.
Land Surveying weblog
Land Surveying weblog
Les Jones Blog: Kerry's Senate Record
Les Jones Blog: Kerry's Senate Record:
Here are the facts on Kerry's illustrious 20 year Senate career:
"At the last debate Bush claimed Kerry had only passed five bills. Kerry claimed 56. FactCheck.org found only 11.
S.791: Authorizes $53 million over four years to provide grants to woman-owned small businesses. (1999)
S.1206: Names a federal building in Waltham, Massachusetts after Frederick C. Murphy, who was killed in action during World War II and awarded (posthumously) the Medal of Honor. (1994)
S.1636: A save-the-dolphins measure aiming 'to improve the program to reduce the incidental taking of marine mammals during the course of commercial fishing operations.' (1994)
S.1563: Funding the National Sea Grant College Program, which supports university-based research, public education, and other projects 'to promote better understanding, conservation and use of America's coastal resources.' (1991)
S.423: Granting a visa and admission to the U.S. as a permanent resident to Kil Joon Yu Callahan. (1987)
H.R.1900 (S.300): Awarded a congressional gold medal to Jackie Robinson (posthumously), and called for a national day of recognition. (2003)
H.R.1860 (S.856): Increased the maximum research grants for small businesses from $500,000 to $750,000 under the Small Business Technology Transfer Program. (2001)
S.J.Res.158: To make the week of Oct. 22 - Oct. 28, 1989 'World Population Awareness Week.' (1989)
S.J.Res.160: To renew 'World Population Awareness Week' for 1991. (1991)
S.J.Res.318: To make Nov. 13, 1992 'Vietnam Veterans Memorial 10th Anniversary Day.' (1992)
S.J.Res.337: To make Sept. 18, 1992 'National POW/MIA Recognition Day.' (1992)
To summarize: in 20 years Kerry passes 11 bills. Of those 11 bills, one is for a visa for an individual, two are to honor individuals, and four are of the 'June is National Sandwich Month' variety. That leaves just four bills in 20 years, and none are especially noteworthy. What an empty suit.
UPDATE: This pitiful record brings to mind this quote from Kerry's official campaign biographer, Douglas Brinkley:
Kerry decided to make Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign for one clear reason: Imagine him without his military record--he would just be another liberal from Taxachusetts.'"
Here are the facts on Kerry's illustrious 20 year Senate career:
"At the last debate Bush claimed Kerry had only passed five bills. Kerry claimed 56. FactCheck.org found only 11.
S.791: Authorizes $53 million over four years to provide grants to woman-owned small businesses. (1999)
S.1206: Names a federal building in Waltham, Massachusetts after Frederick C. Murphy, who was killed in action during World War II and awarded (posthumously) the Medal of Honor. (1994)
S.1636: A save-the-dolphins measure aiming 'to improve the program to reduce the incidental taking of marine mammals during the course of commercial fishing operations.' (1994)
S.1563: Funding the National Sea Grant College Program, which supports university-based research, public education, and other projects 'to promote better understanding, conservation and use of America's coastal resources.' (1991)
S.423: Granting a visa and admission to the U.S. as a permanent resident to Kil Joon Yu Callahan. (1987)
H.R.1900 (S.300): Awarded a congressional gold medal to Jackie Robinson (posthumously), and called for a national day of recognition. (2003)
H.R.1860 (S.856): Increased the maximum research grants for small businesses from $500,000 to $750,000 under the Small Business Technology Transfer Program. (2001)
S.J.Res.158: To make the week of Oct. 22 - Oct. 28, 1989 'World Population Awareness Week.' (1989)
S.J.Res.160: To renew 'World Population Awareness Week' for 1991. (1991)
S.J.Res.318: To make Nov. 13, 1992 'Vietnam Veterans Memorial 10th Anniversary Day.' (1992)
S.J.Res.337: To make Sept. 18, 1992 'National POW/MIA Recognition Day.' (1992)
To summarize: in 20 years Kerry passes 11 bills. Of those 11 bills, one is for a visa for an individual, two are to honor individuals, and four are of the 'June is National Sandwich Month' variety. That leaves just four bills in 20 years, and none are especially noteworthy. What an empty suit.
UPDATE: This pitiful record brings to mind this quote from Kerry's official campaign biographer, Douglas Brinkley:
Kerry decided to make Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign for one clear reason: Imagine him without his military record--he would just be another liberal from Taxachusetts.'"
Gertrude, RIP
This just came from my nephew, Tim Dudley. It is his thoughts on an elderly friend who had been his landlady for years in Austin, Texas. I thought it quite a tribute!
Hello.
After the news that Gertrude had died, I tried to describe to some friends and colleagues (up this way) who she was (they had heard some stories), but did not do a very good job. So, I wrote something which may or may not be totally accurate, but is "as I remember it......"
Please indulge me for a few minutes. The passing of an era seems worth some mentioning.
Gertrude died on Saturday. She was well in to her 90s. Passed away in her sleep in the home she had lived in for over 60 years.
I first met Gertrude when Paula Chaney took me over to her house to make introductions. Gertrude and Paula's grandmother (another fine lady whose strength, grace, and continued faith while watching 3 of her children die in such rapid succession still amazes me) had been neighbors since the 1930s. Gertrude had a wonderful garage apartment and I wanted to be the first person called the next time it became vacant. We hit it off. I had been to a good school (Baylor), displayed proper manners, and had the recommendation of the Chaney family. Several months later, I got the call, and was able to move in after the place had been carefully scrubbed cleaned and used for family visiting at Thanksgiving.
There were only a couple of rules: The apartment was furnished and the furniture up there remained there. No overnight visitors of the opposite sex. Do not use excessive amounts of electricity (electric was included and she had kept records back to the 1960s of how many watts had been used each month). She considered me her guest. A paying guest, but a guest nevertheless.
Gertrude was an old school southern lady. Her phone listing and most of her correspondence came to Mrs Robert Lindsey, even though he had passed sometime in the early 1970s. She enjoyed "highballs," but only after 5 pm. Smoked some, but never while walking. She was active member of the Episcopal Church, but thought there was too much emphasis over the Old Testament, especially all the "begets." She liked to look at the Neiman Marcus catalogues to see what the stores were "showing" each season. She saved stuff and liked to get every last use out of anything. The garage had an old refrigerator where she stored paint. It had to be ancient because the one in the house seemed really old. Liked to work in the yard, camp and fish. I will never forget picking her up at the train station late one evening after a long day of travel. Of course she still had on her hat and gloves.
Gertrude and her sister (quite a character herself) lost their mother at a very early age and were shuttled from one family member to another. Gertrude was on her own by the time she was 17. She was lucky to meet a lady who owned a very successful dress making business in Fort Worth. The lady gave Gertrude a job because of her sassiness, took her in, and they remained family until the lady's death. The job allowed Gertrude to support herself and attend college. She was elected class representative to greet Charles Lindberg when he traveled across the US. When commenting on that experience, I heard her say more than once, "I wasn't really pretty, but I was awfully cute."
I knew Gertrude after her husband died, her eyes were not so great, and her hearing shot. Did not weigh more than 90 pounds dripping wet, most of the time with a pony tail on top of her head. She was still driving a green Ford (circa early 1970s), kept immaculately clean and mechanically tuned. She was an artist, a painter, having won ribbons and recognition at art shows, but now only painted periodically or for a specially requested wedding present. She did however, remain as active and curious as her body allowed. She was always working in and around the house. I would be amazed to she her crawling all over the place meticulously watching anyone who was doing work at her house: painters, plumbers, carpenters, gardeners and/or electricians. Mainly, out of curiosity to see what they were doing. Once, I went outside to see what all the commotion was on top of my roof. It was her - up two stories in the air - with a rope tied around her waist cleaning out gutters. After that I ran downstairs to assist anytime I heard ladders.
She listened to McNeil - Lehrer and books on tape each evening when she did not have company or some other engagement.
She was great fun to be around. We would have "highballs" - play cards, discuss what was going on in the world and our neighborhood. She was quick with an opinion and always stayed curious. I enjoyed hearing updates of her family and sitting with her and her sister or her only child, a daughter named Bobbie Joyce, when they came to visit. She considered me family.
The last time I saw Gertrude was in a hospital room. I had written a postcard - telephoning was too much trouble with her "ears" (hearing aids) - to let her know when I would be in town and could come by and see her. When she realized who it was she commented, "Oh, it must be April 17th or 18th, because that is when you said you would be here." We got caught up, laughed, and joked. She told me that I was handsome for the last time.
Several years ago Paula and I were discussing with her yet another death in the Chaney family, which she had seen grow up and loved so much. She talked about plans for her own death - to be cremated and buried in Llano next to her husband Bob, but without fan fare. She wanted Anne Hoey, her favorite rector, to do the small, simple service. And she told us just to call Weed-Corley (the funeral home) and tell them to "come and get it......."
Gertrude was my friend.
I will always miss her.
Time to "come and get it......."
Hello.
After the news that Gertrude had died, I tried to describe to some friends and colleagues (up this way) who she was (they had heard some stories), but did not do a very good job. So, I wrote something which may or may not be totally accurate, but is "as I remember it......"
Please indulge me for a few minutes. The passing of an era seems worth some mentioning.
Gertrude died on Saturday. She was well in to her 90s. Passed away in her sleep in the home she had lived in for over 60 years.
I first met Gertrude when Paula Chaney took me over to her house to make introductions. Gertrude and Paula's grandmother (another fine lady whose strength, grace, and continued faith while watching 3 of her children die in such rapid succession still amazes me) had been neighbors since the 1930s. Gertrude had a wonderful garage apartment and I wanted to be the first person called the next time it became vacant. We hit it off. I had been to a good school (Baylor), displayed proper manners, and had the recommendation of the Chaney family. Several months later, I got the call, and was able to move in after the place had been carefully scrubbed cleaned and used for family visiting at Thanksgiving.
There were only a couple of rules: The apartment was furnished and the furniture up there remained there. No overnight visitors of the opposite sex. Do not use excessive amounts of electricity (electric was included and she had kept records back to the 1960s of how many watts had been used each month). She considered me her guest. A paying guest, but a guest nevertheless.
Gertrude was an old school southern lady. Her phone listing and most of her correspondence came to Mrs Robert Lindsey, even though he had passed sometime in the early 1970s. She enjoyed "highballs," but only after 5 pm. Smoked some, but never while walking. She was active member of the Episcopal Church, but thought there was too much emphasis over the Old Testament, especially all the "begets." She liked to look at the Neiman Marcus catalogues to see what the stores were "showing" each season. She saved stuff and liked to get every last use out of anything. The garage had an old refrigerator where she stored paint. It had to be ancient because the one in the house seemed really old. Liked to work in the yard, camp and fish. I will never forget picking her up at the train station late one evening after a long day of travel. Of course she still had on her hat and gloves.
Gertrude and her sister (quite a character herself) lost their mother at a very early age and were shuttled from one family member to another. Gertrude was on her own by the time she was 17. She was lucky to meet a lady who owned a very successful dress making business in Fort Worth. The lady gave Gertrude a job because of her sassiness, took her in, and they remained family until the lady's death. The job allowed Gertrude to support herself and attend college. She was elected class representative to greet Charles Lindberg when he traveled across the US. When commenting on that experience, I heard her say more than once, "I wasn't really pretty, but I was awfully cute."
I knew Gertrude after her husband died, her eyes were not so great, and her hearing shot. Did not weigh more than 90 pounds dripping wet, most of the time with a pony tail on top of her head. She was still driving a green Ford (circa early 1970s), kept immaculately clean and mechanically tuned. She was an artist, a painter, having won ribbons and recognition at art shows, but now only painted periodically or for a specially requested wedding present. She did however, remain as active and curious as her body allowed. She was always working in and around the house. I would be amazed to she her crawling all over the place meticulously watching anyone who was doing work at her house: painters, plumbers, carpenters, gardeners and/or electricians. Mainly, out of curiosity to see what they were doing. Once, I went outside to see what all the commotion was on top of my roof. It was her - up two stories in the air - with a rope tied around her waist cleaning out gutters. After that I ran downstairs to assist anytime I heard ladders.
She listened to McNeil - Lehrer and books on tape each evening when she did not have company or some other engagement.
She was great fun to be around. We would have "highballs" - play cards, discuss what was going on in the world and our neighborhood. She was quick with an opinion and always stayed curious. I enjoyed hearing updates of her family and sitting with her and her sister or her only child, a daughter named Bobbie Joyce, when they came to visit. She considered me family.
The last time I saw Gertrude was in a hospital room. I had written a postcard - telephoning was too much trouble with her "ears" (hearing aids) - to let her know when I would be in town and could come by and see her. When she realized who it was she commented, "Oh, it must be April 17th or 18th, because that is when you said you would be here." We got caught up, laughed, and joked. She told me that I was handsome for the last time.
Several years ago Paula and I were discussing with her yet another death in the Chaney family, which she had seen grow up and loved so much. She talked about plans for her own death - to be cremated and buried in Llano next to her husband Bob, but without fan fare. She wanted Anne Hoey, her favorite rector, to do the small, simple service. And she told us just to call Weed-Corley (the funeral home) and tell them to "come and get it......."
Gertrude was my friend.
I will always miss her.
Time to "come and get it......."
Monday, October 18, 2004
A Brief History of the Baptists
This info from Landmark Baptist Church in Fla. I need to spend some time really digging into this. Looks like interesting info though.
A Brief History of the BaptistsA Brief History of the Baptists
by the late Norman H. Wells
The history of the ancient churches is very obscure. Much of the early recorded history was either lost or destroyed. A great part of the history that remains was changed to suit the interests of the Roman Catholic Church. All of church history has been involved in much controversy and was subject to the whims and fancies of each particular age.
In a very broad outline we want to look at the history of the church.
The First 300 Years of Church History
Jesus Christ, during His earthly ministry, founded the first church in Jerusalem in approximately the year 30 A.D.
This first church was commissioned to go forth preaching the gospel, winning the lost to Christ, baptizing and teaching the converts and establishing new churches.
On the pages of the New Testament we find the record of the growth of Christianity and the founding of many New Testament churches.
Nero, the Roman Emperor, blamed the Christians for the burning of Rome in 64 A.D. and began the first of ten persecutions the Christians were to receive at the hands of the Romans.
Despite all the persecution, Christianity grew. At the end of the first 300 years the religion of Jesus Christ was established all over the then known world. There were churches in every town and community.
The Progress of Error During The First 300 Years
In the first two centuries the individual churches rapidly multiplied and some of them became very large. The church at Jerusalem had possibly as many as 50,000 or more members!
These large churches each had several preachers or elders. Some of these bishops or pastors began to assume authority over smaller churches. This corrupted the original democratic policy and government of the churches and led to the kind of hierarchy we see in the Roman Catholic Church today.
In the first two centuries the false teaching of "baptismal regeneration" began to spread. This error led to infant baptism and many other errors.
It has to be remembered that these changes did not come about all in a day, nor within a year. They came about slowly and never within all the churches. Some of the churches vigorously repudiated these errors.
About the middle of the third century the lines were clearly drawn. Those churches that remained loyal to the Scriptures were now clearly separate from those that had gone into error and apostasy.
Constantine ruled as Emperor of the Roman Empire from 306 to 337A.D. and his reign was to mark one of the great turning points in church history.
During a battle in 312 A.D. Emperor Constantine believed he had a vision of a flaming cross and above it the words, "By this sign thou shalt conquer."
He decided to fight under the banner of Christ and Christianity came into favor in the Roman Government.
In 313 A.D. Constantine gave a call for all the churches to come together and pronounced himself as the head of the churches.
Many, but not all, of the churches came. The true churches would have no part in this error.
This hierarchy or body of church rulers, that Constantine formed was the definite beginning of the Roman Catholic Church. Many of the errors of Catholicism had already had their beginning but now they were organized into a definite system.
Constantine made "Christianity" the "State Religion." Up until this point the persecution of the Christians had been done either by Judaism or Paganism. Now came a change. Christians (in name) began using the law to compel all Christians to join the organization. The true churches that refused were persecuted.
The division was now complete. The true churches refused to line up with the errors of the "state church." The church of Constantine became what we know as Roman Catholicism. Baptists were never part of Roman Catholicism. They remained true to the Scriptures and rejected the error.
After the organization of the churches into a hierarchy and their acceptance as a "State Religion" the true, loyal churches that rejected this error were identified by various names.
It is not to be understood that each of these groups was entirely free from error or entirely embraced the truth. Through these groups can be traced the people called Baptists. In these groups is to be found the true church -- not in Catholicism.
Montanist ... Paulician ... Novationist ... Paterines ... Donatist ... Albigenses ... Anabaptists ... these were some of the names used to identify those who refused to identify with Rome.
The Dark Ages
The period from 426 A.D. to 1628 A.D. is called the "Dark Ages."
With the establishment of the new Catholic temporal power a bloody persecution began. Loyal, New Testament churches, by whatever name they were called, were hunted and hounded to the utmost limit by this new Catholic power.
The now established Catholic Church began a war of extermination upon all who opposed her.
It is reliably reported that 50,000,000 died of persecution during the Dark Ages.
During the bloody times of persecution, as Catholicism tried to exterminate the true churches, many of the false doctrines of the Catholic church of today began to take place.
The Inquisition 1198-1700
The Inquisition was instituted by Pope Innocent lII and perfected under Pope Gregory IX. It was a "Church Court" established by the popes for the trying and punishing of "heretics" ... a heretic being anyone who did not agree with Roman Catholicism. The lnquisition lasted for 500 years and was a time of indescribable horror.
During all this persecution Baptist churches continued to exist.
The Reformation
The conditions within the Catholic Church had become so corrupt that many voices were raised within the church in protest. Among these voices was that of John Wycliffe (1320- 1384), John Huss (1373-1415), Savonarola (1452-1498), Zwingli (1484-1531), John Knox (1505-1572), John Calvin (1509-1564), and Martin Luther.
The combined effort of these men, along with many others, brought about the Reformation.
All these Reformers started new churches. This was the beginning of Protestantism. All Protestant churches had their beginning in the period of the Reformation or since that time.
Baptists continued to exist through the Reformation as they had since the time of Christ. Since the Reformation the Baptists have had a glorious history. There are over 23,000,000 Baptists in the United States and they are also found in over 100 different countries.
Available as a printed tract from:
Landmark Independent Baptist Church
P.O. Box 847
Archer, FL 32618-0847
A Brief History of the BaptistsA Brief History of the Baptists
by the late Norman H. Wells
The history of the ancient churches is very obscure. Much of the early recorded history was either lost or destroyed. A great part of the history that remains was changed to suit the interests of the Roman Catholic Church. All of church history has been involved in much controversy and was subject to the whims and fancies of each particular age.
In a very broad outline we want to look at the history of the church.
The First 300 Years of Church History
Jesus Christ, during His earthly ministry, founded the first church in Jerusalem in approximately the year 30 A.D.
This first church was commissioned to go forth preaching the gospel, winning the lost to Christ, baptizing and teaching the converts and establishing new churches.
On the pages of the New Testament we find the record of the growth of Christianity and the founding of many New Testament churches.
Nero, the Roman Emperor, blamed the Christians for the burning of Rome in 64 A.D. and began the first of ten persecutions the Christians were to receive at the hands of the Romans.
Despite all the persecution, Christianity grew. At the end of the first 300 years the religion of Jesus Christ was established all over the then known world. There were churches in every town and community.
The Progress of Error During The First 300 Years
In the first two centuries the individual churches rapidly multiplied and some of them became very large. The church at Jerusalem had possibly as many as 50,000 or more members!
These large churches each had several preachers or elders. Some of these bishops or pastors began to assume authority over smaller churches. This corrupted the original democratic policy and government of the churches and led to the kind of hierarchy we see in the Roman Catholic Church today.
In the first two centuries the false teaching of "baptismal regeneration" began to spread. This error led to infant baptism and many other errors.
It has to be remembered that these changes did not come about all in a day, nor within a year. They came about slowly and never within all the churches. Some of the churches vigorously repudiated these errors.
About the middle of the third century the lines were clearly drawn. Those churches that remained loyal to the Scriptures were now clearly separate from those that had gone into error and apostasy.
Constantine ruled as Emperor of the Roman Empire from 306 to 337A.D. and his reign was to mark one of the great turning points in church history.
During a battle in 312 A.D. Emperor Constantine believed he had a vision of a flaming cross and above it the words, "By this sign thou shalt conquer."
He decided to fight under the banner of Christ and Christianity came into favor in the Roman Government.
In 313 A.D. Constantine gave a call for all the churches to come together and pronounced himself as the head of the churches.
Many, but not all, of the churches came. The true churches would have no part in this error.
This hierarchy or body of church rulers, that Constantine formed was the definite beginning of the Roman Catholic Church. Many of the errors of Catholicism had already had their beginning but now they were organized into a definite system.
Constantine made "Christianity" the "State Religion." Up until this point the persecution of the Christians had been done either by Judaism or Paganism. Now came a change. Christians (in name) began using the law to compel all Christians to join the organization. The true churches that refused were persecuted.
The division was now complete. The true churches refused to line up with the errors of the "state church." The church of Constantine became what we know as Roman Catholicism. Baptists were never part of Roman Catholicism. They remained true to the Scriptures and rejected the error.
After the organization of the churches into a hierarchy and their acceptance as a "State Religion" the true, loyal churches that rejected this error were identified by various names.
It is not to be understood that each of these groups was entirely free from error or entirely embraced the truth. Through these groups can be traced the people called Baptists. In these groups is to be found the true church -- not in Catholicism.
Montanist ... Paulician ... Novationist ... Paterines ... Donatist ... Albigenses ... Anabaptists ... these were some of the names used to identify those who refused to identify with Rome.
The Dark Ages
The period from 426 A.D. to 1628 A.D. is called the "Dark Ages."
With the establishment of the new Catholic temporal power a bloody persecution began. Loyal, New Testament churches, by whatever name they were called, were hunted and hounded to the utmost limit by this new Catholic power.
The now established Catholic Church began a war of extermination upon all who opposed her.
It is reliably reported that 50,000,000 died of persecution during the Dark Ages.
During the bloody times of persecution, as Catholicism tried to exterminate the true churches, many of the false doctrines of the Catholic church of today began to take place.
The Inquisition 1198-1700
The Inquisition was instituted by Pope Innocent lII and perfected under Pope Gregory IX. It was a "Church Court" established by the popes for the trying and punishing of "heretics" ... a heretic being anyone who did not agree with Roman Catholicism. The lnquisition lasted for 500 years and was a time of indescribable horror.
During all this persecution Baptist churches continued to exist.
The Reformation
The conditions within the Catholic Church had become so corrupt that many voices were raised within the church in protest. Among these voices was that of John Wycliffe (1320- 1384), John Huss (1373-1415), Savonarola (1452-1498), Zwingli (1484-1531), John Knox (1505-1572), John Calvin (1509-1564), and Martin Luther.
The combined effort of these men, along with many others, brought about the Reformation.
All these Reformers started new churches. This was the beginning of Protestantism. All Protestant churches had their beginning in the period of the Reformation or since that time.
Baptists continued to exist through the Reformation as they had since the time of Christ. Since the Reformation the Baptists have had a glorious history. There are over 23,000,000 Baptists in the United States and they are also found in over 100 different countries.
Available as a printed tract from:
Landmark Independent Baptist Church
P.O. Box 847
Archer, FL 32618-0847
Catholic World News : Kerry said to be excommunicated
Catholic World News : Kerry said to be excommunicated: "Kerry said to be excommunicated
Los Angeles, Oct. 18 (CWNews.com) - A consultant to the Vatican has said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has incurred the penalty of excommunication from the Catholic Church.
The consultant made his statement in a highly unusual letter to Marc Balestrieri, a Los Angeles canon lawyer who formally sued John Kerry in ecclesiastical court for heresy.
Balestrieri, who launched his case earlier this year by filing a heresy complaint in Kerry's home archdiocese of Boston, told EWTN's 'World Over' program on Friday that he had received an unusual, indirect communication from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the pro-abortion stance.
That communication provides a basis, he said, to declare that any Catholic politician who says he is 'personally opposed to abortion, but supports a woman's right to choose,' incurs automatic excommunication. It also provided a basis for Balestrieri to broaden his canonical actions and file additional complaints against four more pro-abortion Catholic politicians: Democrat Senators Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Tom Harkin of Iowa; Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine; and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a Democrat.
The current action could be significant as it could undercut the entire debate over denying Communion to pro-abortion politicians. An excommunicated Catholic may not receive any of the sacraments of the Church, including the Eucharist, marriage, and even Christian burial. The type of excommunication outlined in the new information is called latae sententiae, which means that it occurs automatically and does not require a formal pronouncement by any Church official.
Balestrieri said he went to Rome in late August to discuss his canonical case with experts, including an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Less than 10 days later, he received a letter from Father Basil Cole, a Dominican theologian and consultant to the congregation based in Washington, DC, who said he had been 'delegated' by Father Augustine DiNoia, undersecretary of the congregation, to give an unofficial response to the question that Balestrieri had submitted.
'I went to Rome in person to submit two critical questions to the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith,' said Balestrieri. 'The first: Whether or not the Church's teaching condemning any direct abortion is a dogma of Divine and Catholic Faith, and if the denial and doubt of the same constitutes heresy. The second: Whether or not a denial of the Church's teaching condemning every right to abortion also constitutes heresy. Father Cole, an expert theologian who studied the matter carefully, responded in the affirmative on both counts.'
Father Cole wrote, 'If a Catholic publicly and obstinately supports the civil right to abortion, knowing that the Church teaches officially against that legislation, he or she commits that heresy envisioned by Can. 751 of the Code [of Canon Law]. Provided that the presumptions of knowledge of the law and penalty and imputability are not rebutted in the external forum, one is automatically excommunicated ....'
Balestrieri said the response was unusual in several respects: that a response was provided to a layman at the request of the undersecretary in only 11 days, that the response was in writing, decisively clarifying the matter, and that it was in far greater detail than a typical official reply. 'Normally, only a bishop may request such clarification of doctrine from the CDF, such responses usually take a much longer time to be received, and they are rarely made public,' he said.
He also said that the original canonical complaint of heresy against Kerry had received so much response from the public that the tribunal of the Archdiocese of Boston has been deluged with thousands of letters from ordinary Catholics who wish to add their names to the complaint. The head of the archdiocesan tribunal reportedly told him that the case had not been rejected and was 'now in the hands of the archbishop,' that is, Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston.
Balestrieri, a self-identified political independent, says that his actions come as a defender of the faith and Holy Eucharist from sacrilege and scandal, not as one focused on an electoral outcome. 'Our victory can come as early as today: It would be for Sen. Kerry, who publicly calls himself a Catholic and yet in violation of Canon Law continues to receive Holy Communion, to repent of his grave sin and publicly recant his abortion advocacy.'
The complete text of Father Cole's response as well as other details of the pending cases are available on the DeFide.com web site."
Los Angeles, Oct. 18 (CWNews.com) - A consultant to the Vatican has said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has incurred the penalty of excommunication from the Catholic Church.
The consultant made his statement in a highly unusual letter to Marc Balestrieri, a Los Angeles canon lawyer who formally sued John Kerry in ecclesiastical court for heresy.
Balestrieri, who launched his case earlier this year by filing a heresy complaint in Kerry's home archdiocese of Boston, told EWTN's 'World Over' program on Friday that he had received an unusual, indirect communication from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the pro-abortion stance.
That communication provides a basis, he said, to declare that any Catholic politician who says he is 'personally opposed to abortion, but supports a woman's right to choose,' incurs automatic excommunication. It also provided a basis for Balestrieri to broaden his canonical actions and file additional complaints against four more pro-abortion Catholic politicians: Democrat Senators Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Tom Harkin of Iowa; Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine; and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a Democrat.
The current action could be significant as it could undercut the entire debate over denying Communion to pro-abortion politicians. An excommunicated Catholic may not receive any of the sacraments of the Church, including the Eucharist, marriage, and even Christian burial. The type of excommunication outlined in the new information is called latae sententiae, which means that it occurs automatically and does not require a formal pronouncement by any Church official.
Balestrieri said he went to Rome in late August to discuss his canonical case with experts, including an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Less than 10 days later, he received a letter from Father Basil Cole, a Dominican theologian and consultant to the congregation based in Washington, DC, who said he had been 'delegated' by Father Augustine DiNoia, undersecretary of the congregation, to give an unofficial response to the question that Balestrieri had submitted.
'I went to Rome in person to submit two critical questions to the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith,' said Balestrieri. 'The first: Whether or not the Church's teaching condemning any direct abortion is a dogma of Divine and Catholic Faith, and if the denial and doubt of the same constitutes heresy. The second: Whether or not a denial of the Church's teaching condemning every right to abortion also constitutes heresy. Father Cole, an expert theologian who studied the matter carefully, responded in the affirmative on both counts.'
Father Cole wrote, 'If a Catholic publicly and obstinately supports the civil right to abortion, knowing that the Church teaches officially against that legislation, he or she commits that heresy envisioned by Can. 751 of the Code [of Canon Law]. Provided that the presumptions of knowledge of the law and penalty and imputability are not rebutted in the external forum, one is automatically excommunicated ....'
Balestrieri said the response was unusual in several respects: that a response was provided to a layman at the request of the undersecretary in only 11 days, that the response was in writing, decisively clarifying the matter, and that it was in far greater detail than a typical official reply. 'Normally, only a bishop may request such clarification of doctrine from the CDF, such responses usually take a much longer time to be received, and they are rarely made public,' he said.
He also said that the original canonical complaint of heresy against Kerry had received so much response from the public that the tribunal of the Archdiocese of Boston has been deluged with thousands of letters from ordinary Catholics who wish to add their names to the complaint. The head of the archdiocesan tribunal reportedly told him that the case had not been rejected and was 'now in the hands of the archbishop,' that is, Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston.
Balestrieri, a self-identified political independent, says that his actions come as a defender of the faith and Holy Eucharist from sacrilege and scandal, not as one focused on an electoral outcome. 'Our victory can come as early as today: It would be for Sen. Kerry, who publicly calls himself a Catholic and yet in violation of Canon Law continues to receive Holy Communion, to repent of his grave sin and publicly recant his abortion advocacy.'
The complete text of Father Cole's response as well as other details of the pending cases are available on the DeFide.com web site."
Real Live Preacher
Real Live Preacher: "How Do You Spell That?
Ever had something like this happen to you? Yesterday I lost the ability to spell the word 'bowl.' I was writing away, lost in my focus, feeling the words, when I suddenly needed to write the word for those containers we use to eat cereal and soup.
First I spelled it 'bole,' which cracked me up. So I backspaced and then wrote 'boal.' Of course I could tell they were both wrong. I laughed, backspaced again, and was shocked to find that I was fresh out of ideas. I couldn't imagine any other way that a person could spell this word. I tried sounding it out, but I got nothin.
So I sat there staring at 'boal' and waiting for the answer to come to me. It didn't. That means there was actually a period of time yesterday where I couldn't spell bowl at all. It was utterly beyond me. I guess I had a brain fart or something. I had to right-click and pull up my spell checker to get it right.
That's weird if you ask me. My confidence is totally blown. I keep staring at 'bowl' and it looks like 'bowel' to me.
Okay, now that I've actually spelled 'bowel,' 'bowl' is looking better.
I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I'm on day four of the South Beach diet, phase one? I AM a little light headed. Who knows?
I'll tell you more about the South Beach transition to a new way of eating tomorrow. It isn't a diet! Diets are of the devil. I'm learning new ways to think about food.
And losing the ablitilty to spell."
Ever had something like this happen to you? Yesterday I lost the ability to spell the word 'bowl.' I was writing away, lost in my focus, feeling the words, when I suddenly needed to write the word for those containers we use to eat cereal and soup.
First I spelled it 'bole,' which cracked me up. So I backspaced and then wrote 'boal.' Of course I could tell they were both wrong. I laughed, backspaced again, and was shocked to find that I was fresh out of ideas. I couldn't imagine any other way that a person could spell this word. I tried sounding it out, but I got nothin.
So I sat there staring at 'boal' and waiting for the answer to come to me. It didn't. That means there was actually a period of time yesterday where I couldn't spell bowl at all. It was utterly beyond me. I guess I had a brain fart or something. I had to right-click and pull up my spell checker to get it right.
That's weird if you ask me. My confidence is totally blown. I keep staring at 'bowl' and it looks like 'bowel' to me.
Okay, now that I've actually spelled 'bowel,' 'bowl' is looking better.
I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I'm on day four of the South Beach diet, phase one? I AM a little light headed. Who knows?
I'll tell you more about the South Beach transition to a new way of eating tomorrow. It isn't a diet! Diets are of the devil. I'm learning new ways to think about food.
And losing the ablitilty to spell."
BrothersJudd Blog: CANADIANS VS. HOCKEY:
BrothersJudd Blog: CANADIANS VS. HOCKEY:: "CANADIANS VS. HOCKEY:
Global Warming Bombshell : A prime piece of evidence linking human activity to climate change turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics. (Richard Muller, October 15, 2004, Technology for Presidents)
Progress in science is sometimes made by great discoveries. But science
also advances when we learn that something we believed to be true isn't.
When solving a jigsaw puzzle, the solution can sometimes be stymied by
the fact that a wrong piece has been wedged in a key place.
In the scientific and political debate over global warming, the latest
wrong piece may be the 'hockey stick,' the famous plot,
published by University of Massachusetts geoscientist Michael Mann and
colleagues. This plot purports to show that we are now experiencing the
warmest climate in a millennium, and that the earth, after remaining
cool for centuries during the medieval era, suddenly began to heat up
about 100 years ago--just at the time that the burning of coal and oil
led to an increase in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.
I talked about this at length in my December 2003 column. Unfortunately,
discussion of this plot has been so polluted by political and activist
frenzy that it is hard to dig into it to reach the science. My earlier
column was largely a plea to let science proceed unmolested.
Unfortunately, the very importance of the issue has made careful science
difficult to pursue.
But now a shock: Canadian scientists Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick
have uncovered a fundamental mathematical flaw in the computer program
that was used to produce the hockey stick. In his original publications
of the stick, Mann purported to use a standard method known as principal
component analysis, or PCA, to find the dominant features in a set of
more than 70 different climate records.
But it wasn't so. McIntyre and McKitrick obtained part of the program
that Mann used, and they found serious problems. Not only does the
program not do conventional PCA, but it handles data normalization in a
way that can only be described as mistaken.
Now comes the real shocker. This improper normalization procedure tends
to emphasize any data that do have the hockey stick shape, and to
suppress all data that do not. To demonstrate this effect, McIntyre and
McKitrick created some meaningless test data that had, on average, no
trends. This method of generating random data is called 'Monte Carlo'
analysis, after the famous casino, and it is widely used in statistical
analysis to test procedures. When McIntyre and McKitrick fed these
random data into the Mann procedure, out popped a hockey stick shape!
That discovery hit me like a bombshell, and I suspect it is having the
same effect on many others. Suddenly the hockey stick, the poster-child
of the global warming community, turns out to be an artifact of poor
mathematics. How could it happen? What is going on? Let me digress..."
Global Warming Bombshell : A prime piece of evidence linking human activity to climate change turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics. (Richard Muller, October 15, 2004, Technology for Presidents)
Progress in science is sometimes made by great discoveries. But science
also advances when we learn that something we believed to be true isn't.
When solving a jigsaw puzzle, the solution can sometimes be stymied by
the fact that a wrong piece has been wedged in a key place.
In the scientific and political debate over global warming, the latest
wrong piece may be the 'hockey stick,' the famous plot,
published by University of Massachusetts geoscientist Michael Mann and
colleagues. This plot purports to show that we are now experiencing the
warmest climate in a millennium, and that the earth, after remaining
cool for centuries during the medieval era, suddenly began to heat up
about 100 years ago--just at the time that the burning of coal and oil
led to an increase in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.
I talked about this at length in my December 2003 column. Unfortunately,
discussion of this plot has been so polluted by political and activist
frenzy that it is hard to dig into it to reach the science. My earlier
column was largely a plea to let science proceed unmolested.
Unfortunately, the very importance of the issue has made careful science
difficult to pursue.
But now a shock: Canadian scientists Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick
have uncovered a fundamental mathematical flaw in the computer program
that was used to produce the hockey stick. In his original publications
of the stick, Mann purported to use a standard method known as principal
component analysis, or PCA, to find the dominant features in a set of
more than 70 different climate records.
But it wasn't so. McIntyre and McKitrick obtained part of the program
that Mann used, and they found serious problems. Not only does the
program not do conventional PCA, but it handles data normalization in a
way that can only be described as mistaken.
Now comes the real shocker. This improper normalization procedure tends
to emphasize any data that do have the hockey stick shape, and to
suppress all data that do not. To demonstrate this effect, McIntyre and
McKitrick created some meaningless test data that had, on average, no
trends. This method of generating random data is called 'Monte Carlo'
analysis, after the famous casino, and it is widely used in statistical
analysis to test procedures. When McIntyre and McKitrick fed these
random data into the Mann procedure, out popped a hockey stick shape!
That discovery hit me like a bombshell, and I suspect it is having the
same effect on many others. Suddenly the hockey stick, the poster-child
of the global warming community, turns out to be an artifact of poor
mathematics. How could it happen? What is going on? Let me digress..."
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Interesting Misc
"Quote Of The Day
From the 9/11 Report:
"The first FDNY fatality of the day occurred at approximately 9:30, when a civilian landed on and killed a fireman near the intersection of West and Liberty streets."
(Via JW)
_______________________________
I Didn't Know This
That Texas Air National Guard unit that Bush joined was actually combat-bound when he signed up, and he knew it:
[I've rearraigned these paragraphs for clarity. The original is here.]
It is a common misconception that the Air National Guard was a safe place for military duty during the Vietnam War. In actuality, pilots from the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group, as it was called at the time, were actually conducting combat missions in Vietnam at the very time Bush enlisted. [...]
As he was completing training and being certified as a qualified F-102 pilot, Bush's squadron was a likely candidate to be rotated to Vietnam. However, the F-102 was built for a type of air combat that wasn't seen during that conflict, and the plane was withdrawn from southeast Asia in December 1969.
[... P]ilots from the 147th FIG of the Texas ANG were routinely rotated to Vietnam for combat duty under a program called "Palace Alert" from 1968 to 1970. [...] Fred Bradley, a friend of Bush's who was also serving in the Texas ANG, reported that he and Bush inquired about participating in the Palace Alert program. However, the two were told by a superior, MAJ Maurice Udell, that they were not yet qualified since they were still in training [...]
The previously mentioned Maurice Udell was a flight instructor for Lt. Bush who was interviewed by the Associated Press in February 2004. MAJ Udell recalled that Bush was one of his best students saying that, "I'd rank him in the top five percent.""
http://www.fecesflingingmonkey.com/0704/0704.htm#R9
From the 9/11 Report:
"The first FDNY fatality of the day occurred at approximately 9:30, when a civilian landed on and killed a fireman near the intersection of West and Liberty streets."
(Via JW)
_______________________________
I Didn't Know This
That Texas Air National Guard unit that Bush joined was actually combat-bound when he signed up, and he knew it:
[I've rearraigned these paragraphs for clarity. The original is here.]
It is a common misconception that the Air National Guard was a safe place for military duty during the Vietnam War. In actuality, pilots from the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group, as it was called at the time, were actually conducting combat missions in Vietnam at the very time Bush enlisted. [...]
As he was completing training and being certified as a qualified F-102 pilot, Bush's squadron was a likely candidate to be rotated to Vietnam. However, the F-102 was built for a type of air combat that wasn't seen during that conflict, and the plane was withdrawn from southeast Asia in December 1969.
[... P]ilots from the 147th FIG of the Texas ANG were routinely rotated to Vietnam for combat duty under a program called "Palace Alert" from 1968 to 1970. [...] Fred Bradley, a friend of Bush's who was also serving in the Texas ANG, reported that he and Bush inquired about participating in the Palace Alert program. However, the two were told by a superior, MAJ Maurice Udell, that they were not yet qualified since they were still in training [...]
The previously mentioned Maurice Udell was a flight instructor for Lt. Bush who was interviewed by the Associated Press in February 2004. MAJ Udell recalled that Bush was one of his best students saying that, "I'd rank him in the top five percent.""
http://www.fecesflingingmonkey.com/0704/0704.htm#R9
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Consider these questions before you vote
Pastors.com Article: Consider these questions before you vote
Consider these questions before you vote
by Robert Jeffress
1. Demonstrate faith in God's power--Daniel 2:21. God is not sweating over the results of November 2 and neither should we.
2. Appreciate differences among believers. There is room for debate on Iraq, tax cuts, etc. God is neither Republican nor Democrat.
3. Propagate truth, not rumor. The Internet makes it possible to spread information that is not true (e.g. story about Kerry quoting John 16:3 as favorite Scripture passage). Ephesians 4:25 commands us to lay aside falsehood and speak truth.
4. Participate in the electoral process. Because our form of government is "we the people," we are the leaders of our nation and, by our vote, determine the spiritual direction of our nation.
Questions to consider:
Any candidate who says that his religious beliefs would have no effect on his policies either has a shallow faith or a shallow understanding of the issues.
Does he believe that government should only recognize marriages between men and women? The original and biblical definition of marriage is one man with one woman in a monogamous relationship. Any attempt to expand that definition to allow for homosexual or polygamous "marriages" would undermine the family and ultimately destroy society.
Should God be acknowledged in the "public square" or does the candidate believe that "the separation of church and state" prohibits such expressions? If a candidate uses "the separation of church and state" as a rationale for prohibiting nativity scenes on government property, forbidding prayers at school events, removing the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, or suggesting that government should in no way acknowledge God, he has little understanding of the Constitution or American history. As the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in 1892, "No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national; because this is a religious people. ... This is a Christian nation."
Does the candidate have a history of voting "pro-life" or does he support abortion under the guise of "women's reproductive rights"? In recent months candidates have had the opportunity to reveal their true beliefs about the sanctity of human life in two key votes: the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 and the Fetal Protection Act of 2004 recently signed into law by President Bush. Any candidate who would oppose limiting the barbaric practice of partial birth abortions or would oppose the punishment of those who harm the fetus of a pregnant woman while committing a federal crime does not recognize the sanctity of life within a mother's womb.
Does the candidate believe public schools should present optional views for the origin of life along with the theory of evolution? A recent Zogby poll revealed that 64% of Americans favor teaching creationism along with evolution, allowing students to weigh the evidence and decide for themselves. If the case for evolution is as strong as its advocates claim, why are they so insistent that no other viewpoint be presented?
What criteria would the candidate use to nominate federal judges? Those who are "constructionists" believe that judges have the responsibility to abide by the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. However, many liberal politicians view the Constitution as an "organic" document, meaning that judges are free to impose their own opinions or even the views of foreign courts on our nation -- even if such opinions contradict previous judicial decisions. This actually happened in June of 2003 when the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law outlawing sodomy, contradicting their previous rulings and citing other nations' acceptance of homosexuality as a basis for their opinion.
-Purpose-Driven®-
Dr. Robert Jeffress
Consider these questions before you vote
by Robert Jeffress
1. Demonstrate faith in God's power--Daniel 2:21. God is not sweating over the results of November 2 and neither should we.
2. Appreciate differences among believers. There is room for debate on Iraq, tax cuts, etc. God is neither Republican nor Democrat.
3. Propagate truth, not rumor. The Internet makes it possible to spread information that is not true (e.g. story about Kerry quoting John 16:3 as favorite Scripture passage). Ephesians 4:25 commands us to lay aside falsehood and speak truth.
4. Participate in the electoral process. Because our form of government is "we the people," we are the leaders of our nation and, by our vote, determine the spiritual direction of our nation.
Questions to consider:
Any candidate who says that his religious beliefs would have no effect on his policies either has a shallow faith or a shallow understanding of the issues.
Does he believe that government should only recognize marriages between men and women? The original and biblical definition of marriage is one man with one woman in a monogamous relationship. Any attempt to expand that definition to allow for homosexual or polygamous "marriages" would undermine the family and ultimately destroy society.
Should God be acknowledged in the "public square" or does the candidate believe that "the separation of church and state" prohibits such expressions? If a candidate uses "the separation of church and state" as a rationale for prohibiting nativity scenes on government property, forbidding prayers at school events, removing the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, or suggesting that government should in no way acknowledge God, he has little understanding of the Constitution or American history. As the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in 1892, "No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national; because this is a religious people. ... This is a Christian nation."
Does the candidate have a history of voting "pro-life" or does he support abortion under the guise of "women's reproductive rights"? In recent months candidates have had the opportunity to reveal their true beliefs about the sanctity of human life in two key votes: the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 and the Fetal Protection Act of 2004 recently signed into law by President Bush. Any candidate who would oppose limiting the barbaric practice of partial birth abortions or would oppose the punishment of those who harm the fetus of a pregnant woman while committing a federal crime does not recognize the sanctity of life within a mother's womb.
Does the candidate believe public schools should present optional views for the origin of life along with the theory of evolution? A recent Zogby poll revealed that 64% of Americans favor teaching creationism along with evolution, allowing students to weigh the evidence and decide for themselves. If the case for evolution is as strong as its advocates claim, why are they so insistent that no other viewpoint be presented?
What criteria would the candidate use to nominate federal judges? Those who are "constructionists" believe that judges have the responsibility to abide by the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. However, many liberal politicians view the Constitution as an "organic" document, meaning that judges are free to impose their own opinions or even the views of foreign courts on our nation -- even if such opinions contradict previous judicial decisions. This actually happened in June of 2003 when the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law outlawing sodomy, contradicting their previous rulings and citing other nations' acceptance of homosexuality as a basis for their opinion.
-Purpose-Driven®-
Dr. Robert Jeffress
DRUDGE Info on Teresa Heinz
Teresa Heinz Kerry Releases 2003 Tax Info; Paid Over $798,000 in Federal, State Income Taxes
Fri Oct 15 2004 17:44:41 ET
KERRY PRESS RELEASE
Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry announced today that she has filed her final 2003 federal tax forms and as she said promised last spring, has released the top two pages of her 1040 tax filings.
Mrs. Heinz Kerry paid $798,820 in state and federal income taxes in 2003, approximately 35 percent of her gross taxable income, according to figures and federal tax forms she released today.
Mrs. Heinz Kerry paid $627,150 in federal income taxes on gross taxable income of $2,291,137, primarily from dividends and interest she receives from Heinz family trusts. In addition, she paid an additional $171,670 in state income taxes and had $2,781,791 of tax exempt interest income from state, municipal and public entity bonds. These taxes are separate from and in addition to the income taxes paid directly by the Heinz family trusts and by other beneficiaries who receive income from those trusts.
In 2003, Mrs. Heinz Kerry was responsible for more than $4.6 million distributed as charitable contributions, primarily through charitable grants by the Heinz Family Foundation, a 501(c)(3) corporation Mrs. Heinz Kerry established with her late husband, Senator John Heinz and later significantly expanded after his death in 1991 through her creation of the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Fund within that Foundation. The Heinz Family Foundation is principally funded by a charitable lead trust, the Teresa & H. John Heinz III Charitable Trust, established as a result of estate planning decisions made by Senator Heinz and Mrs. Heinz Kerry before his death.
The Heinz Family Foundation is separate from the Howard Heinz Endowment, of which Mrs. Heinz Kerry is Chairman, and the Vira I. Heinz Endowment, of which she is a board member, both of which were established by earlier generations of the Heinz family and make significant annual charitable grants. Both the Heinz Family Foundation and the Endowments file publicly available Forms 990 PF on an annual basis, forms which set forth the charitable grants as well as investments made by each entity.
In 2000, then-candidate George Bush filed an extension for his 1999 taxes, released some information in the Spring and then released his 1040 Form after he filed his taxes in October 2000. Mrs. Heinz Kerry files a separate tax return from her husband, Senator John Kerry, and received an extension for filing her 2003 returns until October 15, 2004.
While she is not a candidate for any public office and the release of this tax information is not required by law, it fulfills the commitment Mrs. Heinz Kerry made last May. The release of this information is in addition to the financial information Sen. Kerry and Mrs. Heinz Kerry already had disclosed through the forms required by the Senate Financial Disclosure Report and the Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report, both of which are publicly available on Senator Kerry's campaign website, johnkerry.com.
"This tax information goes beyond any legal requirement, but John and I believe it strikes a proper balance between my family's privacy and the media's requests for additional information," Mrs. Heinz Kerry said.
______________________
AND FROM POWERLINE:
"http://powerlineblog.com/archives/008199.php"
Vincent Morris and Deborah Orin report on Teresa Heinz Kerry's 2003 income tax information released yesterday: "Scouring Teresa's taxes." They report:
John Kerry's near-billionaire wife, Teresa, reported more than $5 million in total income last year but paid only 12.5 percent in federal taxes — less than the average middle-class family — according to documents released yesterday by his campaign.
Teresa Heinz Kerry reported a total income of $5,072,533, including nearly $2.8 million that escaped all federal taxes because it was on interest-free investments from state, city and other public bonds.
She paid $628,401 in federal taxes, or a rate of 12.47 percent. The average middle-class family pays more than 20 percent.
Posted by The Big Trunk at 08:07 AM
Fri Oct 15 2004 17:44:41 ET
KERRY PRESS RELEASE
Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry announced today that she has filed her final 2003 federal tax forms and as she said promised last spring, has released the top two pages of her 1040 tax filings.
Mrs. Heinz Kerry paid $798,820 in state and federal income taxes in 2003, approximately 35 percent of her gross taxable income, according to figures and federal tax forms she released today.
Mrs. Heinz Kerry paid $627,150 in federal income taxes on gross taxable income of $2,291,137, primarily from dividends and interest she receives from Heinz family trusts. In addition, she paid an additional $171,670 in state income taxes and had $2,781,791 of tax exempt interest income from state, municipal and public entity bonds. These taxes are separate from and in addition to the income taxes paid directly by the Heinz family trusts and by other beneficiaries who receive income from those trusts.
In 2003, Mrs. Heinz Kerry was responsible for more than $4.6 million distributed as charitable contributions, primarily through charitable grants by the Heinz Family Foundation, a 501(c)(3) corporation Mrs. Heinz Kerry established with her late husband, Senator John Heinz and later significantly expanded after his death in 1991 through her creation of the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Fund within that Foundation. The Heinz Family Foundation is principally funded by a charitable lead trust, the Teresa & H. John Heinz III Charitable Trust, established as a result of estate planning decisions made by Senator Heinz and Mrs. Heinz Kerry before his death.
The Heinz Family Foundation is separate from the Howard Heinz Endowment, of which Mrs. Heinz Kerry is Chairman, and the Vira I. Heinz Endowment, of which she is a board member, both of which were established by earlier generations of the Heinz family and make significant annual charitable grants. Both the Heinz Family Foundation and the Endowments file publicly available Forms 990 PF on an annual basis, forms which set forth the charitable grants as well as investments made by each entity.
In 2000, then-candidate George Bush filed an extension for his 1999 taxes, released some information in the Spring and then released his 1040 Form after he filed his taxes in October 2000. Mrs. Heinz Kerry files a separate tax return from her husband, Senator John Kerry, and received an extension for filing her 2003 returns until October 15, 2004.
While she is not a candidate for any public office and the release of this tax information is not required by law, it fulfills the commitment Mrs. Heinz Kerry made last May. The release of this information is in addition to the financial information Sen. Kerry and Mrs. Heinz Kerry already had disclosed through the forms required by the Senate Financial Disclosure Report and the Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report, both of which are publicly available on Senator Kerry's campaign website, johnkerry.com.
"This tax information goes beyond any legal requirement, but John and I believe it strikes a proper balance between my family's privacy and the media's requests for additional information," Mrs. Heinz Kerry said.
______________________
AND FROM POWERLINE:
Vincent Morris and Deborah Orin report on Teresa Heinz Kerry's 2003 income tax information released yesterday: "Scouring Teresa's taxes." They report:
John Kerry's near-billionaire wife, Teresa, reported more than $5 million in total income last year but paid only 12.5 percent in federal taxes — less than the average middle-class family — according to documents released yesterday by his campaign.
Teresa Heinz Kerry reported a total income of $5,072,533, including nearly $2.8 million that escaped all federal taxes because it was on interest-free investments from state, city and other public bonds.
She paid $628,401 in federal taxes, or a rate of 12.47 percent. The average middle-class family pays more than 20 percent.
Posted by The Big Trunk at 08:07 AM
Friday, October 15, 2004
Adopt a Sniper
Friday, October 15, 2004
Charity for the new millennium
For all those of you who have moved beyond sponsoring a six year old girl in Botswana so that her village can drill a water well, or a Peruvian urchin to give him and his siblings a chance to escape the cycle of poverty - here's a new cause: Adopt a Sniper. http://adoptasniper.org/about.html
Charity for the new millennium
For all those of you who have moved beyond sponsoring a six year old girl in Botswana so that her village can drill a water well, or a Peruvian urchin to give him and his siblings a chance to escape the cycle of poverty - here's a new cause: Adopt a Sniper. http://adoptasniper.org/about.html
Thursday, October 14, 2004
AlphaPatriot: Just How Rich?
Just How Rich?
Say Uncle finds this "quote of the day" from Clayton Cramer:
Remember: an income tax isn’t a tax on rich people. It’s a tax on those trying to get rich.
Nice.
But Cramer goes on to make this statement:
I do hope that the Bush campaign makes an issue of how little the Kerrys pay in income taxes--and what hypocrites they are for talking about "Two Americas." There are two Americas, but the gap between George Bush's net worth and mine is a heck of a lot smaller than the gap between George Bush and John Kerry.
"Perhaps in percentage terms, but certainly not in dollar terms," I thought -- so I decided to do a little digging.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, the exact amount that each candidate's assets is worth is not known precisely, but there is a minimum and a maximum so we can get an idea.
Candidate Minimum Assets Maximum Assets
Ralph Nader $4,081,185 $4,916,176
George Bush $7,663,048 $18,904,000
John Edwards $14,283,165 $44,602,000
Dick Cheney $23,913,028 $111,258,000
John Kerry $189,811,467 $747,659,000
Bush's maximum asset valuation is an order of magnitude lower than Kerry's minimum value. His maximum value is almost 40 times less than Kerry's.
Realize, of course, that asset value does not equal net worth because debt is not taken into account. Still, the difference is pretty startling.
Graphically (click for larger image):
CandidateAssetWorthSm.gif
Say Uncle finds this "quote of the day" from Clayton Cramer:
Remember: an income tax isn’t a tax on rich people. It’s a tax on those trying to get rich.
Nice.
But Cramer goes on to make this statement:
I do hope that the Bush campaign makes an issue of how little the Kerrys pay in income taxes--and what hypocrites they are for talking about "Two Americas." There are two Americas, but the gap between George Bush's net worth and mine is a heck of a lot smaller than the gap between George Bush and John Kerry.
"Perhaps in percentage terms, but certainly not in dollar terms," I thought -- so I decided to do a little digging.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, the exact amount that each candidate's assets is worth is not known precisely, but there is a minimum and a maximum so we can get an idea.
Candidate Minimum Assets Maximum Assets
Ralph Nader $4,081,185 $4,916,176
George Bush $7,663,048 $18,904,000
John Edwards $14,283,165 $44,602,000
Dick Cheney $23,913,028 $111,258,000
John Kerry $189,811,467 $747,659,000
Bush's maximum asset valuation is an order of magnitude lower than Kerry's minimum value. His maximum value is almost 40 times less than Kerry's.
Realize, of course, that asset value does not equal net worth because debt is not taken into account. Still, the difference is pretty startling.
Graphically (click for larger image):
CandidateAssetWorthSm.gif
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Monday, October 11, 2004
Saturday, October 09, 2004
Friday, October 08, 2004
OpinionJournal - Featured Article
Judging from the current Iraq debate, you might think Saddam Hussein didn't use poison gas on the Kurds and the Iranians in the 1980s. Or that 500,000 American troops hadn't been sent to the Gulf in 1990-91 to reverse his invasion of Kuwait. Or that Saddam hadn't tried to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush in 1993, or long harbored one of the bombers who attacked the World Trade Center that year.
It might also be easy to forget that Saddam never came clean about his weapons of mass destruction, resulting in Bill Clinton's Desert Fox bombing of 1998 and the ejection of U.N. inspectors. Or that he necessitated a huge U.S. troop presence in the region, which Osama bin Laden cited in his 1998 fatwa as one of his primary grievances against America.
It's clear why John Kerry doesn't want to talk about these things, having decided for now that Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." Count us a bit mystified, however, that the incumbent hasn't done a better job putting his Iraq policy in this context. Fortunately for President Bush, Congressional Oil for Food hearings and Charles Duelfer's final weapons inspections report for the CIA have come along this week to remind us all that the "containment" of Saddam was neither as blissful as certain partisans remember it, nor even sustainable.
"By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support," Mr. Duelfer writes. "Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime."
We realize that some of our media friends think the salient news here is the old news: that Saddam did not possess large stockpiles of WMDs when Coalition forces invaded in March 2003. But Mr. Duelfer explicitly rejects the facile conclusion that therefore sanctions were working. Among his other findings, based in part on interviews with Saddam himself and other senior regime figures:
• Saddam believed weapons of mass destruction were essential to the preservation of his power, especially during the Iran-Iraq and 1991 Gulf wars.
• He engaged in strategic deception intended to suggest that he retained WMD.
• He fully intended to resume real WMD production after the expected lifting of U.N. sanctions, and he maintained weapons programs that put him in "material breach" of U.N. resolutions including 1441.
• And he instituted an epic bribery scheme aimed primarily at three of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, with the intent of having them help lift those sanctions.
"Saddam personally approved and removed all names of voucher recipients," under the Oil for Food program, Mr. Duelfer writes. Alleged beneficiaries of such bribes include individuals in China, as well as some with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Jacques Chirac.
As Congressmen Chris Shays's House International Relations Committee heard in testimony on Tuesday, France, Russia and China did in fact work hard to help Saddam skirt and escape sanctions. One Iraqi intelligence report uncovered by Mr. Duelfer says that a French politician assured Saddam in a letter that France would use its U.N. veto against any U.S. effort to attack Iraq--as indeed France later threatened to do.
Evidence also continues to mount that U.N. Oil for Food Program director Benon Sevan was among those on Saddam's payroll. (He denies it.) And contrary to earlier claims that Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son Kojo severed connections with the Swiss-based firm Cotecna prior to it winning its Oil for Food inspections contract, we now know that Kojo was kept on the company payroll for another year. We eagerly await the promised interim report from the U.N.'s Paul Volcker-led Oil for Food review panel, and hope in the interests of an informed electorate that it can be delivered soon.
But there are already plenty of facts on the table to support one conclusion. To wit: Even if one accepts the desirability of some kind of "global test" before America acts militarily, U.N. Security Council approval can't be it. There was never any chance that this "coalition of the bribed" was going to explicitly endorse regime change, or the presumed alternative of another 12 years of economic sanctions. "Politically," writes Mr. Duelfer, "the Iraqis were losing their stigma" by 2001.
The sanctions-were-working crowd also ignores that Saddam never would have readmitted weapons inspectors without the kind of U.S. troop mobilization that isn't feasible with any frequency. For President Bush to have backed off in 2003 without unambiguous disarmament would have meant the end once and for all of any real threat of force behind "containment."
Senator John McCain summed it up well at the Republican Convention: "Those who criticize that decision [to go to war in Iraq] would have us believe that the choice was between a status quo that was well enough left alone and war. But there was no status quo to be left alone." Supporters of his Iraq policy are hoping that Mr. Bush finds a similar voice tonight.
It might also be easy to forget that Saddam never came clean about his weapons of mass destruction, resulting in Bill Clinton's Desert Fox bombing of 1998 and the ejection of U.N. inspectors. Or that he necessitated a huge U.S. troop presence in the region, which Osama bin Laden cited in his 1998 fatwa as one of his primary grievances against America.
It's clear why John Kerry doesn't want to talk about these things, having decided for now that Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." Count us a bit mystified, however, that the incumbent hasn't done a better job putting his Iraq policy in this context. Fortunately for President Bush, Congressional Oil for Food hearings and Charles Duelfer's final weapons inspections report for the CIA have come along this week to remind us all that the "containment" of Saddam was neither as blissful as certain partisans remember it, nor even sustainable.
"By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support," Mr. Duelfer writes. "Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime."
We realize that some of our media friends think the salient news here is the old news: that Saddam did not possess large stockpiles of WMDs when Coalition forces invaded in March 2003. But Mr. Duelfer explicitly rejects the facile conclusion that therefore sanctions were working. Among his other findings, based in part on interviews with Saddam himself and other senior regime figures:
• Saddam believed weapons of mass destruction were essential to the preservation of his power, especially during the Iran-Iraq and 1991 Gulf wars.
• He engaged in strategic deception intended to suggest that he retained WMD.
• He fully intended to resume real WMD production after the expected lifting of U.N. sanctions, and he maintained weapons programs that put him in "material breach" of U.N. resolutions including 1441.
• And he instituted an epic bribery scheme aimed primarily at three of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, with the intent of having them help lift those sanctions.
"Saddam personally approved and removed all names of voucher recipients," under the Oil for Food program, Mr. Duelfer writes. Alleged beneficiaries of such bribes include individuals in China, as well as some with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Jacques Chirac.
As Congressmen Chris Shays's House International Relations Committee heard in testimony on Tuesday, France, Russia and China did in fact work hard to help Saddam skirt and escape sanctions. One Iraqi intelligence report uncovered by Mr. Duelfer says that a French politician assured Saddam in a letter that France would use its U.N. veto against any U.S. effort to attack Iraq--as indeed France later threatened to do.
Evidence also continues to mount that U.N. Oil for Food Program director Benon Sevan was among those on Saddam's payroll. (He denies it.) And contrary to earlier claims that Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son Kojo severed connections with the Swiss-based firm Cotecna prior to it winning its Oil for Food inspections contract, we now know that Kojo was kept on the company payroll for another year. We eagerly await the promised interim report from the U.N.'s Paul Volcker-led Oil for Food review panel, and hope in the interests of an informed electorate that it can be delivered soon.
But there are already plenty of facts on the table to support one conclusion. To wit: Even if one accepts the desirability of some kind of "global test" before America acts militarily, U.N. Security Council approval can't be it. There was never any chance that this "coalition of the bribed" was going to explicitly endorse regime change, or the presumed alternative of another 12 years of economic sanctions. "Politically," writes Mr. Duelfer, "the Iraqis were losing their stigma" by 2001.
The sanctions-were-working crowd also ignores that Saddam never would have readmitted weapons inspectors without the kind of U.S. troop mobilization that isn't feasible with any frequency. For President Bush to have backed off in 2003 without unambiguous disarmament would have meant the end once and for all of any real threat of force behind "containment."
Senator John McCain summed it up well at the Republican Convention: "Those who criticize that decision [to go to war in Iraq] would have us believe that the choice was between a status quo that was well enough left alone and war. But there was no status quo to be left alone." Supporters of his Iraq policy are hoping that Mr. Bush finds a similar voice tonight.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
Liberals
Reality – meaning the wolves – have never been so far from the door as they are today. So believing in the power of goodwill and friendship, of handshakes and agreement and compromise, of trusting to the good and noble in mankind was easy for me, for the consequences of being wrong in that belief cost me nothing at all. I’d never been robbed, raped, beaten or victimized in any way. That belief in goodwill, compromise, concession and trust grew as a result of being surrounded by decent people in a well-ordered, lawful society, with a long history of compromise and cooperation.
I can remember saying, in college, that if someone broke in to my house and stole my television, well that was fundamentally just, because after all, I was white, male, educated and could make enough money to afford an endless line of televisions.
This view of the world was tempered somewhat, when, a few months later, I awoke to the sound of my window being opened and the sight of the upper torso of a man climbing in over the sill. By the way, it was only later that I realized that it wasn’t my TV he was there to steal. He was there to steal my dad’s TV – he paid for it, not me. Once I had to go to work and earn money to pay for things my mood changed somewhat. I put in forty hours of misery, boredom and early mornings for that TV, and some yayhoo just walks right in and takes it? Screw that! You want a TV? The McDonald’s on 13th and University is hiring.
Folks, some people who steal and rob are not fundamentally bad people. Some of them are desperate, some of them are stupid, and some of them are just plain lazy. Some of them, though, are psychopaths who’d kill you for a nickel and think nothing more about it – they’d trade your life, and the welfare of your spouse and children, for two hours of getting high and it would not bother them in the least.
Nations are governed by people. People are noble and base, honest and corrupt, brutal and gentle and all the adjectives in between. Yes, even Americans! The success of democracy, it seems to me, is that there is always a counterweight to the most mendacious and the most harebrained of human activities. It’s harder to fool all the people all the time.
Dictatorships, on the other hand – well, you’re down to the limits of one man’s sanity, ego, vanity and judgment. And when you consider the kind of person it takes to rule absolutely and totally the lives of millions of others – many of them more intelligent, educated and capable – then what you are left with is a giant, enormous, destructive Iron Giant – a state – with a tiny, desperate, paranoid, perpetually fearful psychopath pulling the levers. Dictatorships put the power of millions, the muscle and capability of entire nations, behind the guy with the gun in that dark alley.
It is a prospect to make sane people shake with fear. Surely we can agree on this much. Surely we can agree, no matter our political persuasion, that there are mean, bad, violent people who care nothing for inflicting violence on the innocent in order to get what they want. And since those people exist, we should also be able to agree that such people can – even in the heart of people as civilized as the Germans – ride to power and employ that hatred and reckless disregard for human happiness multiplied by a hundred million.
That’s reality. It’s undeniable. I wish it were not true…but wishing does not make it so. Paging the Inner Adult…white courtesy telephone, please.
It would be nice to live in a world full of liberals. I say that as a staunch conservative. It would be nice to live in a world that behaved like a Hollywood party or a university campus, filled with kind, educated people with lots to lose, who cherish reason and responsibility and are incapable of brutal, violent acts. If all the world were filled with decent, compassionate, rational people, life would be a bouquet.
But it’s not. There are bad people who do bad things, and there are bad countries run by bad people who do bad things who eat the kind and gentle people for breakfast. There is no denying this. Therefore, liberals are insane. I speak from experience here.
It’s a damn shame, it really is.
I can remember saying, in college, that if someone broke in to my house and stole my television, well that was fundamentally just, because after all, I was white, male, educated and could make enough money to afford an endless line of televisions.
This view of the world was tempered somewhat, when, a few months later, I awoke to the sound of my window being opened and the sight of the upper torso of a man climbing in over the sill. By the way, it was only later that I realized that it wasn’t my TV he was there to steal. He was there to steal my dad’s TV – he paid for it, not me. Once I had to go to work and earn money to pay for things my mood changed somewhat. I put in forty hours of misery, boredom and early mornings for that TV, and some yayhoo just walks right in and takes it? Screw that! You want a TV? The McDonald’s on 13th and University is hiring.
Folks, some people who steal and rob are not fundamentally bad people. Some of them are desperate, some of them are stupid, and some of them are just plain lazy. Some of them, though, are psychopaths who’d kill you for a nickel and think nothing more about it – they’d trade your life, and the welfare of your spouse and children, for two hours of getting high and it would not bother them in the least.
Nations are governed by people. People are noble and base, honest and corrupt, brutal and gentle and all the adjectives in between. Yes, even Americans! The success of democracy, it seems to me, is that there is always a counterweight to the most mendacious and the most harebrained of human activities. It’s harder to fool all the people all the time.
Dictatorships, on the other hand – well, you’re down to the limits of one man’s sanity, ego, vanity and judgment. And when you consider the kind of person it takes to rule absolutely and totally the lives of millions of others – many of them more intelligent, educated and capable – then what you are left with is a giant, enormous, destructive Iron Giant – a state – with a tiny, desperate, paranoid, perpetually fearful psychopath pulling the levers. Dictatorships put the power of millions, the muscle and capability of entire nations, behind the guy with the gun in that dark alley.
It is a prospect to make sane people shake with fear. Surely we can agree on this much. Surely we can agree, no matter our political persuasion, that there are mean, bad, violent people who care nothing for inflicting violence on the innocent in order to get what they want. And since those people exist, we should also be able to agree that such people can – even in the heart of people as civilized as the Germans – ride to power and employ that hatred and reckless disregard for human happiness multiplied by a hundred million.
That’s reality. It’s undeniable. I wish it were not true…but wishing does not make it so. Paging the Inner Adult…white courtesy telephone, please.
It would be nice to live in a world full of liberals. I say that as a staunch conservative. It would be nice to live in a world that behaved like a Hollywood party or a university campus, filled with kind, educated people with lots to lose, who cherish reason and responsibility and are incapable of brutal, violent acts. If all the world were filled with decent, compassionate, rational people, life would be a bouquet.
But it’s not. There are bad people who do bad things, and there are bad countries run by bad people who do bad things who eat the kind and gentle people for breakfast. There is no denying this. Therefore, liberals are insane. I speak from experience here.
It’s a damn shame, it really is.
Rodney Dangerfield's One-Liners
R Dangerfield, born Jacob Cohen on Nov. 22, 1921, on New York's Long Island. Died Oct 6, 2004 Los Angeles. He did get respect!
I was so poor growing up... If I wasn't born a boy... I'd have nothing to play with.
A girl phoned me the other day and said "Come on over, there's nobody home." I went over. Nobody was home.
During sex, my girlfriend always wants to talk to me. Just the other night she called me from a hotel.
One day as I came home early from work... I saw a guy jogging naked. I said to the guy... "Hey buddy, why are you doing that?" He said, "Because you came home early."
Its been a rough day. I got up this morning ... put on a shirt and a button fell off. I picked up my briefcase, and the handle came off. I'm afraid to go to the bathroom.
I was such an ugly kid... When I played in the sandbox the cat kept covering me up.
I could tell that my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio.
I was such an ugly baby... My mother never breast fed me. She told me that she only liked me as a friend.
I'm so ugly... My father carries around the picture of the kid who came with his wallet.
When I was born... the doctor came out to the waiting room and said to my father... I'm very sorry... We did everything we could... But he pulled through.
I'm so ugly... My mother had morning sickness... AFTER I was born.
I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.
Once when I was lost... I saw a policeman, and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him.... "Do you think we'll ever find them? "He said. "I don't know kid... there are so many places they can hide."
My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday.
I'm so ugly... I worked in a pet shop, and people kept asking how big I'd get.
I went to see my doctor. "Doctor, every morning when I get up and look in the mirror... I feel like throwing up; What's wrong with me?" He said "I don't know but your eyesight is perfect."
I went to the doctor because I'd swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. My doctor told me to have a few drinks and get some rest.
I was so poor growing up... If I wasn't born a boy... I'd have nothing to play with.
A girl phoned me the other day and said "Come on over, there's nobody home." I went over. Nobody was home.
During sex, my girlfriend always wants to talk to me. Just the other night she called me from a hotel.
One day as I came home early from work... I saw a guy jogging naked. I said to the guy... "Hey buddy, why are you doing that?" He said, "Because you came home early."
Its been a rough day. I got up this morning ... put on a shirt and a button fell off. I picked up my briefcase, and the handle came off. I'm afraid to go to the bathroom.
I was such an ugly kid... When I played in the sandbox the cat kept covering me up.
I could tell that my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio.
I was such an ugly baby... My mother never breast fed me. She told me that she only liked me as a friend.
I'm so ugly... My father carries around the picture of the kid who came with his wallet.
When I was born... the doctor came out to the waiting room and said to my father... I'm very sorry... We did everything we could... But he pulled through.
I'm so ugly... My mother had morning sickness... AFTER I was born.
I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.
Once when I was lost... I saw a policeman, and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him.... "Do you think we'll ever find them? "He said. "I don't know kid... there are so many places they can hide."
My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday.
I'm so ugly... I worked in a pet shop, and people kept asking how big I'd get.
I went to see my doctor. "Doctor, every morning when I get up and look in the mirror... I feel like throwing up; What's wrong with me?" He said "I don't know but your eyesight is perfect."
I went to the doctor because I'd swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. My doctor told me to have a few drinks and get some rest.
Poll smacks, war facts - The Washington Times: Commentary - October 07, 2004
Poll smacks, war facts - The Washington Times: Commentary - October 07, 2004Poll smacks, war facts
By Lawrence Kudlow
Published October 7, 2004
Without question, President Bush's bad-hair night in Miami last week cost him in the polls. His lead is shrinking -- but he still has a lead.
On the reliable pay-to-play Internet polls, Bush stock took a hit. Tradesport.com has Mr. Bush over John Kerry by $60 to $40, down from the predebate $70 to $30. On the Iowa Electronic Market, the lead is 60 cents for Mr. Bush to 44 cents for Mr. Kerry. The predebate Bush price was above 65 cents.
Monday's Gallup poll shows the two candidates tied at 49 percent among likely voters. However, on who would do a better job in Iraq, Mr. Bush still leads 51 to 44 percent. On who would do a better job against terrorism, Mr. Bush is ahead 56 to 39 percent. And as to who is a stronger leader, Mr. Bush is favored by 56 to 37 percent.
According to Scott Rasmussen, Mr. Bush leads Mr. Kerry 49 to 46 percent based on a post-debate survey of 3,000 likely voters. Columnist Michael Barone points out an interesting Rasmussen question: Should we be using more, the same, or less military force in Iraq? Overall, 65 percent (after the debate) want the same or more military force. Among Bush voters the number rises to 88 percent. Among Kerry voters the number drops to 53 percent.
Over the weekend, there was an interesting article by national security columnist Jack Kelly, who writes for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and appears regularly in The Washington Times. Mr. Kelly interviewed a French Arabist named Gilles Kepel who thinks the followers of Osama bin Laden are losing badly. There is no "grand diversion." The radical Islamists failed to achieve their goal of seizing power in Muslim lands. Since September 11, 2001, they have suffered a string of major defeats.
"The Taliban has been ousted in Afghanistan," writes Mr. Kelly. "Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have turned towards the West. Islamists in Sudan and Libya are in retreat.... The Americans are in Baghdad." In other words, the wartime situation is not a "colossal error" as Mr. Kerry would have us believe. In fact, while Osama is holed up in a bunker someplace, estimates are 75 percent of his followers have been killed or captured.
Nor is the Iraq war an "incredible mess." Iraqi and U.S. coalition forces have taken back the Sunni triangle city of Samarra. Attacks on Fallujah are being stepped up. Iraqi troops are doing more of the heavy lifting. In reality, there are no more than 10,000 insurgent troops in Iraq, and maybe as few as 5,000. They will be no match for the U.S. military coalition.
Fifteen of the 18 provinces in Iraq are stabilized and preparing for elections. Local elections are already occurring in the country. Influential Shi'ite cleric Ali Al-Sistani is now 100 percent in favor of holding elections. Ditto for the Kurds.
The gruesome tactics of the terrorists in Iraq -- kidnappings, beheadings, suicide bombings -- are desperate actions aimed at harming Iraqis. These deeds foster deep Iraqi resentment, anger and opposition toward the insurgents. That is one reason there are more volunteers for the Iraqi police, National Guard and army than available training slots.
Rowan Scarborough of The Washington Times reports Iraqi telephone subscribers are up to 91 percent of prewar levels, that oil production is ahead of 2.5 million barrels daily, that a draft voter list is compiled and registration will begin soon.
Tomorrow night, in the townhall debate in St. Louis, it is essential that Mr. Bush hammer away at U.S. successes in the global war. He must also emphasize the accomplishments of homeland security. Most important, he must link the two. The U.S. hasn't been attacked in three years. Hundreds of plots around the country have been foiled. New York subways were never closed during the Republican Convention, as Mr. Kerry alleged in Miami. But a plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge was in fact pre-empted. Actually, a big victory for homeland security was that both the Republican and Democratic conventions were terrorist-free. That's what happens when terrorists are engaged on their turf rather than our turf.
At the next debate, Mr. Bush will have ample opportunity to regroup and hammer all this home. He must emphasize there will be no "global test" on defending America. He should also insist nuclear bunker-busting weapons, which Mr. Kerry opposes, are essential to this war. So is a missile defense system, also opposed by Mr. Kerry.
Presidential leadership is about optimism and there are many hardheaded real-time facts to support a reasonably optimistic view in 2004. If Mr. Bush seizes the moment in St. Louis tomorrow, maybe he can reclaim needlessly lost ground.
Lawrence Kudlow is a nationally syndicated columnist and is chief executive officer of Kudlow & Co. LLC and CNBC's economics commentator.
By Lawrence Kudlow
Published October 7, 2004
Without question, President Bush's bad-hair night in Miami last week cost him in the polls. His lead is shrinking -- but he still has a lead.
On the reliable pay-to-play Internet polls, Bush stock took a hit. Tradesport.com has Mr. Bush over John Kerry by $60 to $40, down from the predebate $70 to $30. On the Iowa Electronic Market, the lead is 60 cents for Mr. Bush to 44 cents for Mr. Kerry. The predebate Bush price was above 65 cents.
Monday's Gallup poll shows the two candidates tied at 49 percent among likely voters. However, on who would do a better job in Iraq, Mr. Bush still leads 51 to 44 percent. On who would do a better job against terrorism, Mr. Bush is ahead 56 to 39 percent. And as to who is a stronger leader, Mr. Bush is favored by 56 to 37 percent.
According to Scott Rasmussen, Mr. Bush leads Mr. Kerry 49 to 46 percent based on a post-debate survey of 3,000 likely voters. Columnist Michael Barone points out an interesting Rasmussen question: Should we be using more, the same, or less military force in Iraq? Overall, 65 percent (after the debate) want the same or more military force. Among Bush voters the number rises to 88 percent. Among Kerry voters the number drops to 53 percent.
Over the weekend, there was an interesting article by national security columnist Jack Kelly, who writes for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and appears regularly in The Washington Times. Mr. Kelly interviewed a French Arabist named Gilles Kepel who thinks the followers of Osama bin Laden are losing badly. There is no "grand diversion." The radical Islamists failed to achieve their goal of seizing power in Muslim lands. Since September 11, 2001, they have suffered a string of major defeats.
"The Taliban has been ousted in Afghanistan," writes Mr. Kelly. "Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have turned towards the West. Islamists in Sudan and Libya are in retreat.... The Americans are in Baghdad." In other words, the wartime situation is not a "colossal error" as Mr. Kerry would have us believe. In fact, while Osama is holed up in a bunker someplace, estimates are 75 percent of his followers have been killed or captured.
Nor is the Iraq war an "incredible mess." Iraqi and U.S. coalition forces have taken back the Sunni triangle city of Samarra. Attacks on Fallujah are being stepped up. Iraqi troops are doing more of the heavy lifting. In reality, there are no more than 10,000 insurgent troops in Iraq, and maybe as few as 5,000. They will be no match for the U.S. military coalition.
Fifteen of the 18 provinces in Iraq are stabilized and preparing for elections. Local elections are already occurring in the country. Influential Shi'ite cleric Ali Al-Sistani is now 100 percent in favor of holding elections. Ditto for the Kurds.
The gruesome tactics of the terrorists in Iraq -- kidnappings, beheadings, suicide bombings -- are desperate actions aimed at harming Iraqis. These deeds foster deep Iraqi resentment, anger and opposition toward the insurgents. That is one reason there are more volunteers for the Iraqi police, National Guard and army than available training slots.
Rowan Scarborough of The Washington Times reports Iraqi telephone subscribers are up to 91 percent of prewar levels, that oil production is ahead of 2.5 million barrels daily, that a draft voter list is compiled and registration will begin soon.
Tomorrow night, in the townhall debate in St. Louis, it is essential that Mr. Bush hammer away at U.S. successes in the global war. He must also emphasize the accomplishments of homeland security. Most important, he must link the two. The U.S. hasn't been attacked in three years. Hundreds of plots around the country have been foiled. New York subways were never closed during the Republican Convention, as Mr. Kerry alleged in Miami. But a plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge was in fact pre-empted. Actually, a big victory for homeland security was that both the Republican and Democratic conventions were terrorist-free. That's what happens when terrorists are engaged on their turf rather than our turf.
At the next debate, Mr. Bush will have ample opportunity to regroup and hammer all this home. He must emphasize there will be no "global test" on defending America. He should also insist nuclear bunker-busting weapons, which Mr. Kerry opposes, are essential to this war. So is a missile defense system, also opposed by Mr. Kerry.
Presidential leadership is about optimism and there are many hardheaded real-time facts to support a reasonably optimistic view in 2004. If Mr. Bush seizes the moment in St. Louis tomorrow, maybe he can reclaim needlessly lost ground.
Lawrence Kudlow is a nationally syndicated columnist and is chief executive officer of Kudlow & Co. LLC and CNBC's economics commentator.
Horsefeathers - LETTER TO OUR ENEMIES
Horsefeathers - LETTER TO OUR ENEMIES: "LETTER TO OUR ENEMIES
Horsefeathers received the following letter and has permission of its author to share it with our readers:
I'm an ordinary American. Wife (whom I love and respect), 2 kids (to whom I would give both of my kidneys), 2 cars (ten years old), big mortgage, and a job not always pleasurable.
I've worked hard all my adult life to provide for my family, to be useful, and not go out of my way to injure anyone. Like most Americans, I knew little about arab-muslim culture and believed that the developed nations were partly responsible for the poverty and authoritarian regimes that infest the middle east.
Things changed on 9/11/01 when you ruined the lives of at least 10,000 Americans.
These people instantly became my countrymen and you became my mortal enemy.
Ordinary Americans are arming themselves for war with you. I and many of my friends have closets full of handguns, rifles, shotguns and thousands of cartridges.
If we had enough ammunition and time, we would kill every last one of you.
We completely support our President and our armed forces. We only wish they would destroy you faster, but we are certain that they will.
We no longer listen to the insane words of Kerry, Harkin, Kennedy, Clark, and others whom we now see as ideologues who would sacrifice our country and our
lives on the alter of their vanity and desire for power.
We no longer listen to our secular mullahs, our media fools, preaching hatred of America and sapping our will with their lies and deceptions.
We watch your cowardly methods of killing by beheading. We are disgusted. But we are not afraid.
You turn your women and children into walking bombs. We are disgusted. But we are not afraid.
You shoot and rape children. You kill their mothers before their eyes. You burn, hang, and tear apart the bodies of your victims, and then play with body parts. We are disgusted. But we are not afraid.
Why should we fear you? What ARE you to be feared? You are cowards. Your bravado is a clown mask that hides the soul of a ghoul. You are not able even to
manufacture the knives you use to butcher your bound victims.
One day soon, our planes and missiles will begin turning your mosques, your madrasses, your hotels, your government offices, your hideouts, and your
neighborhoods into rubble.
And then our soldiers will enter your cities and begin the work of killing you, roaches, as you crawl from the debris.
As cowards, you will have your hands in the air and you will get on your knees begging for mercy. And we will instead give you justice. Your actions and your
words long ago placed you far from any considerations of mercy. You are not men.
And if you come to this country and harm a child, shoot a mother, hijack a bus, or bomb a mall, we will do what we did in 1775. Millions of us will form militias.
We will burn your mosques.
We will invade the offices of pro-arab-muslim organizations, destroy them, and drag their officers outside.
We will tell the chancellors of universities either to muzzle or remove anti American professors, whose hatred for their own country we have tolerated only
because we place a higher value on freedom of speech. But we will no longer tolerate treason. We will muzzle and remove them.
We will transport arab-muslims to our deserts, where they can pray to scorpions under the blazing sun.
You have fucked with the wrong people.
We will rid the world of your foul breath.
Your caliphate will be your grave.
Posted at 04:22 PM by Stephen"
Horsefeathers received the following letter and has permission of its author to share it with our readers:
I'm an ordinary American. Wife (whom I love and respect), 2 kids (to whom I would give both of my kidneys), 2 cars (ten years old), big mortgage, and a job not always pleasurable.
I've worked hard all my adult life to provide for my family, to be useful, and not go out of my way to injure anyone. Like most Americans, I knew little about arab-muslim culture and believed that the developed nations were partly responsible for the poverty and authoritarian regimes that infest the middle east.
Things changed on 9/11/01 when you ruined the lives of at least 10,000 Americans.
These people instantly became my countrymen and you became my mortal enemy.
Ordinary Americans are arming themselves for war with you. I and many of my friends have closets full of handguns, rifles, shotguns and thousands of cartridges.
If we had enough ammunition and time, we would kill every last one of you.
We completely support our President and our armed forces. We only wish they would destroy you faster, but we are certain that they will.
We no longer listen to the insane words of Kerry, Harkin, Kennedy, Clark, and others whom we now see as ideologues who would sacrifice our country and our
lives on the alter of their vanity and desire for power.
We no longer listen to our secular mullahs, our media fools, preaching hatred of America and sapping our will with their lies and deceptions.
We watch your cowardly methods of killing by beheading. We are disgusted. But we are not afraid.
You turn your women and children into walking bombs. We are disgusted. But we are not afraid.
You shoot and rape children. You kill their mothers before their eyes. You burn, hang, and tear apart the bodies of your victims, and then play with body parts. We are disgusted. But we are not afraid.
Why should we fear you? What ARE you to be feared? You are cowards. Your bravado is a clown mask that hides the soul of a ghoul. You are not able even to
manufacture the knives you use to butcher your bound victims.
One day soon, our planes and missiles will begin turning your mosques, your madrasses, your hotels, your government offices, your hideouts, and your
neighborhoods into rubble.
And then our soldiers will enter your cities and begin the work of killing you, roaches, as you crawl from the debris.
As cowards, you will have your hands in the air and you will get on your knees begging for mercy. And we will instead give you justice. Your actions and your
words long ago placed you far from any considerations of mercy. You are not men.
And if you come to this country and harm a child, shoot a mother, hijack a bus, or bomb a mall, we will do what we did in 1775. Millions of us will form militias.
We will burn your mosques.
We will invade the offices of pro-arab-muslim organizations, destroy them, and drag their officers outside.
We will tell the chancellors of universities either to muzzle or remove anti American professors, whose hatred for their own country we have tolerated only
because we place a higher value on freedom of speech. But we will no longer tolerate treason. We will muzzle and remove them.
We will transport arab-muslims to our deserts, where they can pray to scorpions under the blazing sun.
You have fucked with the wrong people.
We will rid the world of your foul breath.
Your caliphate will be your grave.
Posted at 04:22 PM by Stephen"
lgf: Duelfer Report Shows Kerry Doctrine to be a Sham
10/7/2004: Duelfer Report Shows Kerry Doctrine to be a Sham
Here is the Duelfer Report, all 1000+ pages of it.
The report contains a stunning (but not surprising) accusation that the former head of the $60 billion UN oil-for-food program accepted bribes in the form of vouchers for Iraqi oil sales from Saddam Hussein’s government. (Hat tip: Nancy Block.)
The report by Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, alleges the Iraqi government manipulated the U.N. program from 1996 to 2003 in order to acquire billions of dollars in illicit gains and to import illegal goods, including acquiring parts for missile systems.
The alleged schemes included an Iraqi system for allocating lucrative oil vouchers, which permitted recipients to purchase certain amounts of oil at a profit.
Benon Sevan, the former chief of the U.N. program, is among dozens of people who allegedly received the vouchers, according to the report, which said Saddam personally approved the list.
The secret voucher program was dominated by Russian, French and Chinese recipients, in that order, with Saddam spreading the wealth widely to prominent business men, politicians, foreign government ministries and political parties, the report said.
The report names former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the Russian radical political figure Vladimir Zhirinovsky as voucher recipients, for example, and other foreign governments range from Yemen to Namibia.
The governments of Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Egypt did a brisk illicit oil trade with Iraq as well — more than $8 billion from 1991 until 2003, the report said.
“These governments were full parties to all aspects of Iraq’s unauthorized oil exports and imports,” it said.
As I wrote yesterday, the really important news in this report is that UN sanctions were disintegrating—and as soon as they did, Saddam Hussein was planning to restart his weapons programs.
How quickly could he have done this? We have an answer to this question too, because last month Saddam’s former nuclear chief, Mahdi Obeidi, wrote a piece for the New York Times saying that the Iraqi nuclear weapons programs could have been reconstituted within months.
Threat is always a matter of perception, but our nuclear program could have been reinstituted at the snap of Saddam Hussein’s fingers. The sanctions and the lucrative oil-for-food program had served as powerful deterrents, but world events - like Iran’s current efforts to step up its nuclear ambitions - might well have changed the situation.
Iraqi scientists had the knowledge and the designs needed to jumpstart the program if necessary. And there is no question that we could have done so very quickly. In the late 1980’s, we put together the most efficient covert nuclear program the world has ever seen. In about three years, we gained the ability to enrich uranium and nearly become a nuclear threat; we built an effective centrifuge from scratch, even though we started with no knowledge of centrifuge technology. Had Saddam Hussein ordered it and the world looked the other way, we might have shaved months if not years off our previous efforts.
The Duelfer Report is a huge vindication for the Bush administration’s decision to remove Saddam Hussein. There can be no more doubt that Saddam was a serious threat to the security of the United States and the world, and that our so-called “allies,” specifically the United Nations, France and Russia, were rotten to the core with corruption and bribery. There’s no mystery why these entities were opposed to our plans. They were getting fat and rich off the misery of the Iraqi people.
The report is also a damning indictment of John Kerry’s appeasement-oriented, willfully blind foreign policy. Kerry knows the UN and our “allies” who refused to help in Iraq were involved in massive corruption and bribery, yet he still insists they deserve to have a more important role in the decisions of the United States.
Mainstream media is universally spinning the Duelfer Report against George Bush, but the report is far more damaging to John Kerry.
posted by Charles at 7:44 AM PST | rss
email this article
Here is the Duelfer Report, all 1000+ pages of it.
The report contains a stunning (but not surprising) accusation that the former head of the $60 billion UN oil-for-food program accepted bribes in the form of vouchers for Iraqi oil sales from Saddam Hussein’s government. (Hat tip: Nancy Block.)
The report by Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, alleges the Iraqi government manipulated the U.N. program from 1996 to 2003 in order to acquire billions of dollars in illicit gains and to import illegal goods, including acquiring parts for missile systems.
The alleged schemes included an Iraqi system for allocating lucrative oil vouchers, which permitted recipients to purchase certain amounts of oil at a profit.
Benon Sevan, the former chief of the U.N. program, is among dozens of people who allegedly received the vouchers, according to the report, which said Saddam personally approved the list.
The secret voucher program was dominated by Russian, French and Chinese recipients, in that order, with Saddam spreading the wealth widely to prominent business men, politicians, foreign government ministries and political parties, the report said.
The report names former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the Russian radical political figure Vladimir Zhirinovsky as voucher recipients, for example, and other foreign governments range from Yemen to Namibia.
The governments of Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Egypt did a brisk illicit oil trade with Iraq as well — more than $8 billion from 1991 until 2003, the report said.
“These governments were full parties to all aspects of Iraq’s unauthorized oil exports and imports,” it said.
As I wrote yesterday, the really important news in this report is that UN sanctions were disintegrating—and as soon as they did, Saddam Hussein was planning to restart his weapons programs.
How quickly could he have done this? We have an answer to this question too, because last month Saddam’s former nuclear chief, Mahdi Obeidi, wrote a piece for the New York Times saying that the Iraqi nuclear weapons programs could have been reconstituted within months.
Threat is always a matter of perception, but our nuclear program could have been reinstituted at the snap of Saddam Hussein’s fingers. The sanctions and the lucrative oil-for-food program had served as powerful deterrents, but world events - like Iran’s current efforts to step up its nuclear ambitions - might well have changed the situation.
Iraqi scientists had the knowledge and the designs needed to jumpstart the program if necessary. And there is no question that we could have done so very quickly. In the late 1980’s, we put together the most efficient covert nuclear program the world has ever seen. In about three years, we gained the ability to enrich uranium and nearly become a nuclear threat; we built an effective centrifuge from scratch, even though we started with no knowledge of centrifuge technology. Had Saddam Hussein ordered it and the world looked the other way, we might have shaved months if not years off our previous efforts.
The Duelfer Report is a huge vindication for the Bush administration’s decision to remove Saddam Hussein. There can be no more doubt that Saddam was a serious threat to the security of the United States and the world, and that our so-called “allies,” specifically the United Nations, France and Russia, were rotten to the core with corruption and bribery. There’s no mystery why these entities were opposed to our plans. They were getting fat and rich off the misery of the Iraqi people.
The report is also a damning indictment of John Kerry’s appeasement-oriented, willfully blind foreign policy. Kerry knows the UN and our “allies” who refused to help in Iraq were involved in massive corruption and bribery, yet he still insists they deserve to have a more important role in the decisions of the United States.
Mainstream media is universally spinning the Duelfer Report against George Bush, but the report is far more damaging to John Kerry.
posted by Charles at 7:44 AM PST | rss
email this article
Redstate || Collaborative Republicanism for the Masses
Cheney , John J. Miller, and a D.C. taxi driver By: jannelsen · Section: Election 2004
Took a cab to the Trover Shop on Capitol Hill after work to buy John J. Miller's book about France's treachery.
Oh, the journalist celebrities and politicos abounded at this book fair sponsored by The Hill newspaper. (If you count Bill Press as a celebrity.)
But the taxi driver was by far more interesting. He loves Dick Cheney. Perhaps having been a political prisoner colored his views.
Print This Story
Posted On: Oct 6th, 2004: 18:37:38, Rated: 5.00/1
After chatting about the weather -- a beautiful fall evening -- the driver asked me if I had watched the debate last night. I allowed as I had, told him I was a Republican political appointee, and thought Cheney did great. Cheney had especially reignited optimism among loyalists, disappointed by Bush's debate performance.
He became enthusiastic, saying Cheney was clear, strong and experienced. He placed great emphasis on experience, recalling that back when he still lived in his homeland, Cheney was ....was....
I offered, Secretary of Defense under the first President Bush?
Yes, that's it!
I told him a little more about Cheney's history and then asked him what country he was from.
Ethiopia, of course, like so many other Washington, D.C. taxi drivers.
A biology teacher, he had spent three years in prison for opposing Mengistu Haile Mariam, the monster who oversaw the Red Dirge, the Communist tyranny that killed hundreds of thousands.
The cabbie proceeded to give me the history of Mengistu's rise to power -- Haile Selasse had sent him to Moscow for education -- described the purges and mass murders committed under Mengistu, and railed against his continued sanctuary in Zimbabwe.
The talk then turned to politics. The driver said he wasn't a Democrat or Republican, but he supported Bush, because America needs a strong leader in dangerous times (paraphrasing). But the real candidate should be Cheney, he said with conviction.
Well, lots of Republicans say that, I admitted.
Anyway, the conversation reminded me so much of the commentary from Eastern European leaders who lived through Cold War oppression and paid tribute to Reagan for helping end it.
To many victims of Communism -- the leaders and the common man -- freedom and Republicanism are inherently linked.
As they should be.
As for the book fair, what an odd scene. Trover is a small, two-story book store on Pennsylvania Avenue, and as noted, it was crowded with celebrity authors, politicians and journalists, mostly. Only thing it wasn't crowded with -- crowds.
Miller was sitting next to Cokie Roberts at a table, with no one waiting in line. I told Miller I was an obsessive Corner reader, and we chatted briefly about the Coors-Salazar race (he has a piece about Colorado in the latest National Review). I said Coors was going to fail, which I believe to be the unfortunate truth, Roberts agreed, contending Coors had a terrible campaign, and Miller expressed surprise.
No, there was not a personal bonding going on, but it was fun to have access to folks in a brief, informal setting. You can't push it, because you then look like a goof or a groupie. Which I am, but you don't want to look like one.
I did ask what the French version of "perfidious Albion" was. Miller said he'd think on it.
Then downstairs to Dennis Hastert, whose only crowd was his security detail. He was sitting next to Robert Byrd, who stood awaiting the adoring multitude of constitutional scholars, isolationists and people wanting to dedicate a building to him.
The multitudes did not manifest themselves.
Anyway, Hastert was quite pleasant, signed my book, and off we went, assiduously avoiding Bill Press and Eleanor Clift.
In the end, I'm glad I went. Not to see Miller or Hastert or Roberts. But to have had an opportunity to speak to a former political prisoner of Communist tyranny. Who reminded me why I'm a Republican.
< Back When He Made Sense (0 comments) | Edwards Not Ready For Prime Time (1 comments) >
Cheney , John J. Miller, and a D.C. taxi driver | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
perfect example By: still thinking
I am always amazed by the stereotypes that are foisted on Republicans. The one that most irritates me is that we are a bunch of zenophobes.
I was teaching an Ancient History class today, and one of my students, of Egyptian decent, but born in Riverside, California, spoke up about an experience he had last night. He was in the lobby of our local hospital (Grandpa was upstairs in ICU). He was watching the debates on the TV, and a typical group of people were watching it as well.
He is not exactly a shy young man, and very quickly he made his preference for GWB apparent. What followed was an exchange between he and several of the other viewers who first wanted to know his nationality, and when finding him to be from Egypt, then wanted to know how he could support the Republicans.
He said that it was pretty eye opening for him. He had never seen anything strange about the combination. Of course he doesn't realize that everyday at home he has witnessed the American Dream. His Dad started a business years ago, has worked hard, and prospered. When they left Egypt they did so at least partially to get away from religious persecution (they were Christians).
Most of us will never really understand the Dream the way his family does.
Thank you for relating your story. Especially the details of DC. I really need to check out that bookstore on my next vist. I take the 8th grade class there every year, and I have fallen in love with the city.
Comment Rated: (none / 0) (User Info) (#1)
Cheney , John J. Miller, and a D.C. taxi driver
Took a cab to the Trover Shop on Capitol Hill after work to buy John J. Miller's book about France's treachery.
Oh, the journalist celebrities and politicos abounded at this book fair sponsored by The Hill newspaper. (If you count Bill Press as a celebrity.)
But the taxi driver was by far more interesting. He loves Dick Cheney. Perhaps having been a political prisoner colored his views.
Print This Story
Posted On: Oct 6th, 2004: 18:37:38, Rated: 5.00/1
After chatting about the weather -- a beautiful fall evening -- the driver asked me if I had watched the debate last night. I allowed as I had, told him I was a Republican political appointee, and thought Cheney did great. Cheney had especially reignited optimism among loyalists, disappointed by Bush's debate performance.
He became enthusiastic, saying Cheney was clear, strong and experienced. He placed great emphasis on experience, recalling that back when he still lived in his homeland, Cheney was ....was....
I offered, Secretary of Defense under the first President Bush?
Yes, that's it!
I told him a little more about Cheney's history and then asked him what country he was from.
Ethiopia, of course, like so many other Washington, D.C. taxi drivers.
A biology teacher, he had spent three years in prison for opposing Mengistu Haile Mariam, the monster who oversaw the Red Dirge, the Communist tyranny that killed hundreds of thousands.
The cabbie proceeded to give me the history of Mengistu's rise to power -- Haile Selasse had sent him to Moscow for education -- described the purges and mass murders committed under Mengistu, and railed against his continued sanctuary in Zimbabwe.
The talk then turned to politics. The driver said he wasn't a Democrat or Republican, but he supported Bush, because America needs a strong leader in dangerous times (paraphrasing). But the real candidate should be Cheney, he said with conviction.
Well, lots of Republicans say that, I admitted.
Anyway, the conversation reminded me so much of the commentary from Eastern European leaders who lived through Cold War oppression and paid tribute to Reagan for helping end it.
To many victims of Communism -- the leaders and the common man -- freedom and Republicanism are inherently linked.
As they should be.
As for the book fair, what an odd scene. Trover is a small, two-story book store on Pennsylvania Avenue, and as noted, it was crowded with celebrity authors, politicians and journalists, mostly. Only thing it wasn't crowded with -- crowds.
Miller was sitting next to Cokie Roberts at a table, with no one waiting in line. I told Miller I was an obsessive Corner reader, and we chatted briefly about the Coors-Salazar race (he has a piece about Colorado in the latest National Review). I said Coors was going to fail, which I believe to be the unfortunate truth, Roberts agreed, contending Coors had a terrible campaign, and Miller expressed surprise.
No, there was not a personal bonding going on, but it was fun to have access to folks in a brief, informal setting. You can't push it, because you then look like a goof or a groupie. Which I am, but you don't want to look like one.
I did ask what the French version of "perfidious Albion" was. Miller said he'd think on it.
Then downstairs to Dennis Hastert, whose only crowd was his security detail. He was sitting next to Robert Byrd, who stood awaiting the adoring multitude of constitutional scholars, isolationists and people wanting to dedicate a building to him.
The multitudes did not manifest themselves.
Anyway, Hastert was quite pleasant, signed my book, and off we went, assiduously avoiding Bill Press and Eleanor Clift.
In the end, I'm glad I went. Not to see Miller or Hastert or Roberts. But to have had an opportunity to speak to a former political prisoner of Communist tyranny. Who reminded me why I'm a Republican.
< Back When He Made Sense (0 comments) | Edwards Not Ready For Prime Time (1 comments) >
Cheney , John J. Miller, and a D.C. taxi driver | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
perfect example By: still thinking
I am always amazed by the stereotypes that are foisted on Republicans. The one that most irritates me is that we are a bunch of zenophobes.
I was teaching an Ancient History class today, and one of my students, of Egyptian decent, but born in Riverside, California, spoke up about an experience he had last night. He was in the lobby of our local hospital (Grandpa was upstairs in ICU). He was watching the debates on the TV, and a typical group of people were watching it as well.
He is not exactly a shy young man, and very quickly he made his preference for GWB apparent. What followed was an exchange between he and several of the other viewers who first wanted to know his nationality, and when finding him to be from Egypt, then wanted to know how he could support the Republicans.
He said that it was pretty eye opening for him. He had never seen anything strange about the combination. Of course he doesn't realize that everyday at home he has witnessed the American Dream. His Dad started a business years ago, has worked hard, and prospered. When they left Egypt they did so at least partially to get away from religious persecution (they were Christians).
Most of us will never really understand the Dream the way his family does.
Thank you for relating your story. Especially the details of DC. I really need to check out that bookstore on my next vist. I take the 8th grade class there every year, and I have fallen in love with the city.
Comment Rated: (none / 0) (User Info) (#1)
Cheney , John J. Miller, and a D.C. taxi driver
Power Line: Our Readers Correct the Times
Mr. Edwards's statement that millionaires who receive stock dividends pay "a lower tax rate
My Way - News
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Central Intelligence Agency has published hundreds of names of people, firms, political parties and government officials Saddam Hussein purportedly tried to buy off to get U.N. sanctions lifted.
Saddam paid off French leaders -- The Washington Times
Saddam Hussein used a U.N. humanitarian program to pay $1.78 billion to French government officials, businessmen and journalists in a bid to have sanctions removed and U.S. policies opposed, according to a CIA report made public yesterday.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
News from Iraq
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Iraqis in Al Amil district where the massacre against Iraqi children took place light candles for the 2nd day after the sun set prayers in a silent protest against terrorism in Iraq. This was a spontaneous move that was not organized by any party in which Iraqis mourned their children and showed there rejection for terrorism and violence following the worst crime in Iraq since the end of the war; the suicide attack that killed dozens of children civilians and American soldiers. Tens of candles were lit in the streets and near the walls of the water treatment plant which the people were celebrating it's opening when the crime happened.
From New Sabah
Iraqis in Al Amil district where the massacre against Iraqi children took place light candles for the 2nd day after the sun set prayers in a silent protest against terrorism in Iraq. This was a spontaneous move that was not organized by any party in which Iraqis mourned their children and showed there rejection for terrorism and violence following the worst crime in Iraq since the end of the war; the suicide attack that killed dozens of children civilians and American soldiers. Tens of candles were lit in the streets and near the walls of the water treatment plant which the people were celebrating it's opening when the crime happened.
From New Sabah
Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties -- 10/04/2004
Iraqi intelligence documents show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda
A fellow who speaks his mind!!! (Vietnam/Kerry)
'Johnny Bad', href="http://badexample.mu.nu" posted the following: I have reduced the rough language just to make it a little more acceptable to some, but the point is: THIS IS WHAT THE VETS AND THE SWIFTIES ARE MAD ABOUT!
"I've seen and heard some of the mainstream press reaction to the Swift Boat Vets ads. The big DNC talking point being parroted is that the Vets are part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Attack Machine.
Way off.
This is personal."
Paul of Wizbang has a post with a link to the third Swift Boat Vets ad, this one debunking Kerry's "Christmas in Cambodia" claim. In the comments, a Viet Nam vet named Peter explains to a troll named Randy what REALLY motivates the vets. I'm leaving in the salty language out of courtesy to a man who has earned the right to use it:
Yes, go ahead and vote for a man that took an oath, then took the extra pay and privileges of a commissioned officer. Then after whatever exploits were actually real, came back and ran for office as a war hero and lost. Got his enlistment cut short, too.
Having failed to attain office that route he changed directions, surrounded himself with 'veterans' many of whom never spent one single day in uniform, others of whom had not ever set foot in a combat zone, all of whom refused to testify under oath, even when offered full immunity (that pesky perjury exception to immunity, you know) and slimed the names of every swinging dick that ever wore Uncle's suit. Slimed the good name of every man who came home in a shiny aluminum box with lies. Lies about alleged crimes that were never committed. For as long as that long black wall in Washington, DC has stood, John Kerry has been rubbing human feces on to those names.
I don't know what that c--------- did in Viet Nam, I was thirty f------ months in another AO, Randy, one without movie cameras, hell, instamatics were too heavy to carry on a hump through the bush after one's first patrol. I don't know what the sonofabitch did over there, I only know what he did here. And what he did here was lie about men whose sweaty jockstraps he is not fit to carry. What he did here was to deliberately slander 58,000 men who aren't around to answer because the medals they got were posthumus.
A------- like you, Randy, think this is about George Bush because you don't know any of those names on the Wall. It's not about George Bush, it's about an overpriveliged Yankee blueblood who may as well have walked into 58,000 American homes and pissed on every one of those neatly folded flags.
Now, thirty-three years later he has the gall to return to those same homes and steal those flags to parade himself around, wrapped in the flags that covered the bodies of my friends. That's what this is about, not George Bush. John Kerry slimed the names and the honor of every young man that stood with his buddies while this Hee-row pulled strings to come home early.
There are a whole bunch of really pissed off veterans, some of us gave limbs, all of us gave our youth and we want to restore the honor to those names on the wall. For thirty-three years we've had to listen to you little fucks, Randy because we had no way to make our voices heard. It's over. This is where it stops. John Kerry has dug up the bodies of our brothers to stand on in a desperate attempt to give himself a little stature.
Pretty funny, this big brave War Hee-row with a chest full of medals has to go crying to daddy George Bush to make those mean old veterans stop picking on meeee!
Most of us stop running to mommy and daddy when we are about seven or eight. Most of us fight our own fights. Like this one. The fight is on, stay out of the way. It's not for you, Randy, this fight is for the men.
Peter is currently blogless, as far as I can tell, but I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing him start.
"I've seen and heard some of the mainstream press reaction to the Swift Boat Vets ads. The big DNC talking point being parroted is that the Vets are part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Attack Machine.
Way off.
This is personal."
Paul of Wizbang has a post with a link to the third Swift Boat Vets ad, this one debunking Kerry's "Christmas in Cambodia" claim. In the comments, a Viet Nam vet named Peter explains to a troll named Randy what REALLY motivates the vets. I'm leaving in the salty language out of courtesy to a man who has earned the right to use it:
Yes, go ahead and vote for a man that took an oath, then took the extra pay and privileges of a commissioned officer. Then after whatever exploits were actually real, came back and ran for office as a war hero and lost. Got his enlistment cut short, too.
Having failed to attain office that route he changed directions, surrounded himself with 'veterans' many of whom never spent one single day in uniform, others of whom had not ever set foot in a combat zone, all of whom refused to testify under oath, even when offered full immunity (that pesky perjury exception to immunity, you know) and slimed the names of every swinging dick that ever wore Uncle's suit. Slimed the good name of every man who came home in a shiny aluminum box with lies. Lies about alleged crimes that were never committed. For as long as that long black wall in Washington, DC has stood, John Kerry has been rubbing human feces on to those names.
I don't know what that c--------- did in Viet Nam, I was thirty f------ months in another AO, Randy, one without movie cameras, hell, instamatics were too heavy to carry on a hump through the bush after one's first patrol. I don't know what the sonofabitch did over there, I only know what he did here. And what he did here was lie about men whose sweaty jockstraps he is not fit to carry. What he did here was to deliberately slander 58,000 men who aren't around to answer because the medals they got were posthumus.
A------- like you, Randy, think this is about George Bush because you don't know any of those names on the Wall. It's not about George Bush, it's about an overpriveliged Yankee blueblood who may as well have walked into 58,000 American homes and pissed on every one of those neatly folded flags.
Now, thirty-three years later he has the gall to return to those same homes and steal those flags to parade himself around, wrapped in the flags that covered the bodies of my friends. That's what this is about, not George Bush. John Kerry slimed the names and the honor of every young man that stood with his buddies while this Hee-row pulled strings to come home early.
There are a whole bunch of really pissed off veterans, some of us gave limbs, all of us gave our youth and we want to restore the honor to those names on the wall. For thirty-three years we've had to listen to you little fucks, Randy because we had no way to make our voices heard. It's over. This is where it stops. John Kerry has dug up the bodies of our brothers to stand on in a desperate attempt to give himself a little stature.
Pretty funny, this big brave War Hee-row with a chest full of medals has to go crying to daddy George Bush to make those mean old veterans stop picking on meeee!
Most of us stop running to mommy and daddy when we are about seven or eight. Most of us fight our own fights. Like this one. The fight is on, stay out of the way. It's not for you, Randy, this fight is for the men.
Peter is currently blogless, as far as I can tell, but I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing him start.
Betsy's Page
Teresa Heinz Kerry is a gift??? that overflows. Should Hubby John answer for some of her antics?
lgf: French Bribery Watch
French Bribery Watch
These are the highly-principled allies whose “respect” John Kerry wants to “earn.” Maybe he should bribing them instead? Total Officials in Bribes Probe.
These are the highly-principled allies whose “respect” John Kerry wants to “earn.” Maybe he should bribing them instead? Total Officials in Bribes Probe.
Lowell Sun Online - Today's Headlines
John Kerry's hometown paper endorses George W. Bush for President
Remember how the lamestream media played it up when the Crawford TX paper, which may reach almost a thousand daily readers, endorsed John Kerry for president? Don't hold your breath waiting for C-BS to tell you about this.
Here's just a taste.
Remember how the lamestream media played it up when the Crawford TX paper, which may reach almost a thousand daily readers, endorsed John Kerry for president? Don't hold your breath waiting for C-BS to tell you about this.
Here's just a taste.
Monday, October 04, 2004
Sunday, October 03, 2004
Payoff to France
October 03, 2004
Official Report Says Saddam Bribed France, Russia
Some months ago, preliminary information was disclosed about government agencies and individuals, including journalists, who received bribes from Saddam Hussein through the U.N.'s "oil for food" program. In the meantime, the Iraqi government has been conducting an official investigation. The report resulting from that investigation has been leaked, and the resulting bombshell is reported on by the London Times:
The report largely implicates France and Russia, whom Saddam Hussein targeted as he sought support on the UN Security Council before the Iraq war. Both countries were influential voices against UN-backed action.
A senior UN official responsible for the scheme is identified as a major beneficiary. The report, marked “highly confidential”, also finds that the private office of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, profited from the cheap oil. Saddam’s regime awarded this oil during the run-up to the war when military action was being discussed at the UN.
[The report] details a catalogue of alleged bribery and corruption perpetrated by Saddam under the UN programme, revealing how the regime lined its pockets and those of influential politicians, journalists and UN officials.
The report says oil was given to key countries: “The regime gave priority to Russia, China and France. This was because they were permanent members of, and hence had the ability to influence decisions made by, the UN Security Council. The regime . . . allocated ‘private oil’ to individuals or political parties that sympathised in some way with the regime.”
Benon Sevan, director of the UN oil-for-food programme, received 9.3m barrels of oil from the regime which he is estimated to have sold for a profit of £670,000. Sevan has always denied any improper conduct.
A former senior aide to Putin allegedly organised the sale of almost 4m barrels of oil at a profit of more than £330,000. At the time the oil was sold, Russia was blocking the UN from supporting America’s demands to attack Iraq. According to the report, the aide, who worked in the presidential office, received 3.9m barrels of oil between May and December 2002.
A French oil company teamed up with the regime to bribe a UN-appointed inspector monitoring exports of Iraqi oil. The inspector, a Portuguese national working for Saybolt, a Dutch firm, was paid a total of £58,000 in cash to forge export documents.
The French firm is linked to a close associate of Jacques Chirac, the country’s president. A spokesman for Saybolt said it would be investigating the allegations.
The report claims that Russians had a prominent role. They received “unprecedented priority” and were allocated a third of all Iraqi oil — most of which was resold to other nations. Besides Putin’s private office, those named as having received oil include political parties, Russian oil firms and the foreign ministry.
A section of the report on Russian involvement says Saddam and his henchmen furthered “their political and propagandist cause through companies, individuals and political parties that have no relation to the oil industry. Through their activities, they have gained the indebtedness of the Russian Federation and with that, its weight and leadership on the world stage as well as its permanent membership of the UN Security Council”.
Last week Claude Hankes-Drielsma, an Iraqi government adviser who worked on the investigation, confirmed the report as genuine. “The records demonstrate that the UN oil-for-food programme provided Saddam with a vehicle to buy support internationally by bribing political parties, companies, journalists and other individuals,” he said. “This shows the need for a complete review of the UN.”
This is an interim report based on only a partial review of "oil for food" transactions. Thus, more revelations are likely to come out in the future.
Thanks to reader Barry Johnson, who pointed out this story and also noted it on his own blog, The Hopeful Cynic.
Posted by Hindrocket at 09:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Official Report Says Saddam Bribed France, Russia
Some months ago, preliminary information was disclosed about government agencies and individuals, including journalists, who received bribes from Saddam Hussein through the U.N.'s "oil for food" program. In the meantime, the Iraqi government has been conducting an official investigation. The report resulting from that investigation has been leaked, and the resulting bombshell is reported on by the London Times:
The report largely implicates France and Russia, whom Saddam Hussein targeted as he sought support on the UN Security Council before the Iraq war. Both countries were influential voices against UN-backed action.
A senior UN official responsible for the scheme is identified as a major beneficiary. The report, marked “highly confidential”, also finds that the private office of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, profited from the cheap oil. Saddam’s regime awarded this oil during the run-up to the war when military action was being discussed at the UN.
[The report] details a catalogue of alleged bribery and corruption perpetrated by Saddam under the UN programme, revealing how the regime lined its pockets and those of influential politicians, journalists and UN officials.
The report says oil was given to key countries: “The regime gave priority to Russia, China and France. This was because they were permanent members of, and hence had the ability to influence decisions made by, the UN Security Council. The regime . . . allocated ‘private oil’ to individuals or political parties that sympathised in some way with the regime.”
Benon Sevan, director of the UN oil-for-food programme, received 9.3m barrels of oil from the regime which he is estimated to have sold for a profit of £670,000. Sevan has always denied any improper conduct.
A former senior aide to Putin allegedly organised the sale of almost 4m barrels of oil at a profit of more than £330,000. At the time the oil was sold, Russia was blocking the UN from supporting America’s demands to attack Iraq. According to the report, the aide, who worked in the presidential office, received 3.9m barrels of oil between May and December 2002.
A French oil company teamed up with the regime to bribe a UN-appointed inspector monitoring exports of Iraqi oil. The inspector, a Portuguese national working for Saybolt, a Dutch firm, was paid a total of £58,000 in cash to forge export documents.
The French firm is linked to a close associate of Jacques Chirac, the country’s president. A spokesman for Saybolt said it would be investigating the allegations.
The report claims that Russians had a prominent role. They received “unprecedented priority” and were allocated a third of all Iraqi oil — most of which was resold to other nations. Besides Putin’s private office, those named as having received oil include political parties, Russian oil firms and the foreign ministry.
A section of the report on Russian involvement says Saddam and his henchmen furthered “their political and propagandist cause through companies, individuals and political parties that have no relation to the oil industry. Through their activities, they have gained the indebtedness of the Russian Federation and with that, its weight and leadership on the world stage as well as its permanent membership of the UN Security Council”.
Last week Claude Hankes-Drielsma, an Iraqi government adviser who worked on the investigation, confirmed the report as genuine. “The records demonstrate that the UN oil-for-food programme provided Saddam with a vehicle to buy support internationally by bribing political parties, companies, journalists and other individuals,” he said. “This shows the need for a complete review of the UN.”
This is an interim report based on only a partial review of "oil for food" transactions. Thus, more revelations are likely to come out in the future.
Thanks to reader Barry Johnson, who pointed out this story and also noted it on his own blog, The Hopeful Cynic.
Posted by Hindrocket at 09:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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