Asked by reporters why on earth she wanted to have her own podium during the presidential debates, she responded:
"Only an idiot would see that If I don't get my podium, we could be in for 4 more years of hell!!"
UPDATE: I couldn't resist but put down another caption...
[09/30 - 18:01]: hello
[09/30 - 18:01]: Here we go
[09/30 - 18:02]: Now the debates start!
[09/30 - 18:02]: Foreign policy and homeland security.
[09/30 - 18:02]: This guy is a shmuck.
[09/30 - 18:02]: Blah blah blah blah blah rules rules rules
[09/30 - 18:03]: silent my ass.
[09/30 - 18:03]: we're gonna have some protestor come up.
[09/30 - 18:03]: let's go George!
[09/30 - 18:03]: That was cordial
[09/30 - 18:04]: I wanna thank my rear end for getting me this far.
[09/30 - 18:04]: We're not doing an intro here, are we? When is your minute up, Kerry?
[09/30 - 18:04]: Kerry looks nervous
[09/30 - 18:05]: Me pale face. Me get scalped by injuns and terrorists.
[09/30 - 18:05]: I will reach out to the radical islamic muslims so that they may cut off my hands!
[09/30 - 18:06]: George looks good.
[09/30 - 18:07]: The president is sharp so far.
[09/30 - 18:09]: I'm suprised he hasn't 'uhhd' or 'ummd' yet.
[09/30 - 18:09]: or at least, not significantly...
[09/30 - 18:09]: and he doesn't have a teleprompter.
[09/30 - 18:09]: nice and forceful.
[09/30 - 18:09]: He's dead jim.
[09/30 - 18:10]: He's dead and he's talking
[09/30 - 18:10]: well, there's a lie right there.
[09/30 - 18:10]: Well, there's millions of military personnel out there...
[09/30 - 18:11]: one or two are gonna support you, paleface.
[09/30 - 18:11]: uhh, huh huh
[09/30 - 18:11]: I think butthead is on the podium
[09/30 - 18:12]: this guy is a trial lawyer, for certain. He's telling stories.
[09/30 - 18:13]: ahahahah!
[09/30 - 18:13]: Nice, "he looked at the same intel I looked at"
[09/30 - 18:14]: hahaha, good, Prez.
[09/30 - 18:14]: nice.
[09/30 - 18:14]: nice, he mentions 'pre-sept 10 mentality'
[09/30 - 18:15]: ahahah, that's right! We DO have the capability to do both
[09/30 - 18:17]: i notice that when Bush goes on a roll, he goes through his points well.
[09/30 - 18:17]: I hate when he says you "don't have a plan to win the peace"
[09/30 - 18:18]: sempter gumbi
[09/30 - 18:18]: semper gumby, rather.
[09/30 - 18:18]: Yeah, 'cause the president didn't vote for the 87 billion before he voted against it.
[09/30 - 18:19]: I will succeed because I am Herman Munster.
[09/30 - 18:19]: and my freakish appearance alone will do more than any tomahawk missle
[09/30 - 18:19]: missile
[09/30 - 18:20]: He's dead, Jim.
[09/30 - 18:21]: John, you're fear mongering.
[09/30 - 18:21]: oooh! He pointed!
[09/30 - 18:21]: and he's gonna repeal the tax cut!
[09/30 - 18:22]: Nice! heheh
[09/30 - 18:22]: damn right! tell them it takes time to fix, prez!
[09/30 - 18:24]: Prez. bush is being forceful tonight.
[09/30 - 18:26]: hahaahh! No artificial deadlines!
[09/30 - 18:27]: don't thank me, and don't send me any help, you turd.
[09/30 - 18:27]: 'help is on the way', go screw yourself, Kerry.
[09/30 - 18:27]: AND THOUSANDS OF IRAQIS GOT SLAUGHTERED
[09/30 - 18:28]: So, Mr. Kerry, are you saying you thought there were WMD in Iraq? Would you have "misled" us too?
[09/30 - 18:28]: FRESH CREDIBILITY!?
[09/30 - 18:28]: WTF is THAT?!
[09/30 - 18:29]: HE ADMITS HE MADE A MISTAKE!
[09/30 - 18:29]: Wait, the prez. didn't say he made a mistake in Iraq..
[09/30 - 18:29]: and you screwed tons of troops in Vietnam.
[09/30 - 18:29]: He brought it up...oh, christ.
[09/30 - 18:30]: huh?
[09/30 - 18:30]: All things he did do, wtf you talking about, Kerry?
[09/30 - 18:31]: Well, that's a crappy analogy.
[09/30 - 18:31]: it would be like invading Germany instead of Japan...but we did anyway...and we won.
[09/30 - 18:31]: in fact, we did both.
[09/30 - 18:32]: This guy is a spokesman for Michael Moore.
[09/30 - 18:33]: heh, okay, GW almost messed up there, but he recovered.
[09/30 - 18:34]: ahaha, nice retort, GW!
[09/30 - 18:35]: hmmm...the left is gonna pick up on this one...but it shows GW's humanity and realism.
[09/30 - 18:37]: There was a connection with Iraq and AQ.
[09/30 - 18:37]: "I want to talk the truth" hehe, right, after you tell it 70 different times.
[09/30 - 18:38]: This guy has to look at Persian Gulf War I, where the ally numbers were the same.
[09/30 - 18:40]: 15 years of Iraq dodging UN resolutions.
[09/30 - 18:40]: Oh, crap, we're dead if Kerry is president.
[09/30 - 18:41]: The real reason is the defeat of islamofascism.
[09/30 - 18:41]: that's the big danger.
[09/30 - 18:42]: okay, kerry just confused the crap out of me with doublespeak.
[09/30 - 18:43]: nice response, GW.
[09/30 - 18:45]: he's gonna say he was there....oops, nope.
[09/30 - 18:46]: don't confuse the war with the warriors?!
[09/30 - 18:46]: WTF does that mean?
[09/30 - 18:46]: ah, jeez, "johnkerry.com"
[09/30 - 18:47]: your plan...what is your plan!?
[09/30 - 18:48]: Sometimes you have to break something to fix it.
[09/30 - 18:48]: or, rather, take it apart.
[09/30 - 18:48]: Kerry: "I have a plan. He doesn't"
[09/30 - 18:49]: Right. I'm betting even money he couldn't do that.
[09/30 - 18:49]: I don't think people think we went there for their oil anymore.
[09/30 - 18:49]: yet another Michael Moore claim.
[09/30 - 18:51]: True. I don't think Kerry has been to Iraq, has he?
[09/30 - 18:52]: Jesus...Kerry has micromanager written all over him.
[09/30 - 18:52]: I hate working for micromanagers.
[09/30 - 18:55]: Good, he mentions Libya.
[09/30 - 18:55]: just what I was thinking.
[09/30 - 18:55]: Don't be anticlimactic, Kerry.
[09/30 - 18:56]: Really, Kerry. Neither did the Germans until we went to war with Japan.
[09/30 - 18:56]: That's bull. We had special forces in there.
[09/30 - 18:56]: Terrorists aren't going to hate us less by Kerry being president.
[09/30 - 18:58]: So, how would you appease NK, Senator?
[09/30 - 18:58]: oh, reallY? You support the doctrine of preemptive strike?!
[09/30 - 18:59]: dude, that's war.
[09/30 - 18:59]: which ball are you referring to, Kerry?
[09/30 - 19:00]: heheh, exactly.
[09/30 - 19:01]: uh oh....the left is gonna zing GW on not joining the criminal courts.
[09/30 - 19:03]: nice, GW. You're talking about building coalitions
[09/30 - 19:06]: ahahah, 'we can't sanction iran anymore'
[09/30 - 19:07]: GW isn't doing as badly as I thought he was.
[09/30 - 19:08]: I think Kerry is gonna put troops into Africa again.
[09/30 - 19:08]: uh oh, he mentions backdoor draft.
[09/30 - 19:09]: Hmmm...I don't wanna go to Darfur.
[09/30 - 19:11]: hehe, some humor.
[09/30 - 19:11]: hehe
[09/30 - 19:14]: Kerry is much better at spewing out numbers than is Bush.
[09/30 - 19:14]: Hmm...I think GW said that.
[09/30 - 19:15]: "I have never wavered in my life" ahahahha, he's a comedian.
[09/30 - 19:15]: What is this 'plan to win the peace' BS.
[09/30 - 19:16]: he's plugging his book. great.
[09/30 - 19:17]: uh oh....Kerry just screwed himself.
[09/30 - 19:21]: ho hum.
[09/30 - 19:22]: Good response about Putin, GW.
[09/30 - 19:25]: Kerry isn't coming through as really personable.
[09/30 - 19:26]: Well, nothing really new in the closing argument for Kerry.
[09/30 - 19:27]: Oh, Christ, Vietnam again.
[09/30 - 19:27]: Boy, he's making a lot of promises, isn't he.
[09/30 - 19:28]: AHAHHA, he just shot down the Draft questions!
[09/30 - 19:28]: Nice, GW.
[09/30 - 19:29]: a christian reference there, I believe.
[09/30 - 19:30]: All right! Looked pretty even on both sides.
[09/30 - 19:30]: Kerry looked angry throughout.
[09/30 - 19:30]: But both were strong debaters tonight.
I have a problem with a comment made by Electoral-Vote.com's editor, and I wanted to share it with you:
I have to take issue with the analogy he makes at the end. In a court case, the defendant is innocent until proven guilty. The prosecution has the task of proving beyond a shadow of doubt the guilt of the defendant. Nobody can do that in Bush's case. Why? Well, one reason is the honorable discharge letter. And whether the Left likes it or not, it's essentially a get-out-of-jail-free card for President Bush. Besides, judges have thrown out cases for lesser reasons than evidence tampering."Gallup took a poll on whether people think CBS made an honest mistake about the memo relating to George Bush's service/nonservice in the Alabama National Guard. By a large margin (56% to 38%) the public thinks it was an honest mistake. Only 26% think CBS should fire Dan Rather. Perhaps not surprisingly, by a 2 to 1 margin (63% to 36%), Republicans think CBS broadcast the story to make Bush look bad. By a 6 to 1 margin (82% to 13%) Democrats think it was just an honest mistake. What strikes me as the worst part of this whole story is that everyone has forgotten the real story. It is not about whether one memo was a forgery or not. It is about whether George Bush got favorable treatment (as the former Lt. Governor of Texas, Ben Barnes, has said) and whether he fulfilled his obligations to the Guard. In a court case, if one piece of evidence is invalidated, it is discarded and the judge and jury look at the rest of the evidence."
Here's the latest Gallup Poll:
% GEORGE W. BUSH - 52
% JOHN KERRY - 44
Sept. 24-26, 2004
Based on Likely Voters
In the time span of 10 minutes, I have been bombarded through television (HBO's Bill Maher) and radio (106.7 WJFK "The Hideout with El Jefe & J-Dubs) about how I have the wool pulled over my eyes because I'm a Republican.
This is offensive to me, and I imagine, to many other people who are like me. With Democrats, you're talking about a political party who is supposed to "tolerate differences" yet must resort to having its mainstream representatives use name-calling and present stereotypes because they are unable to mount a defense to the countering viewpoint. People are insulted even though they may have well-thought out, justified beliefs.
Arnold Schwarzenegger highlighted during his convention speech how Republicans can be different from one another.
Another complaint of the left? Fox News. Let me tell you something about Fox News: It is the result of 10-15 years of talk radio successfully migrating to the cable TV networks. Plain and simple. They present the news in an entertaining way, and they have television variations of talk radio programs. And wouldn't you know it, they have the #1 viewership of any cable news network, oftentimes topping MSNBC and CNN combined.
NPR has been around forever. You have copycat left-leaning networks like Air America, but no substantial listenership for them. Is it because people who actually work for a living listen to conservative talk radio? Probably. Bernie Ward, a left-leaning local talk radio host in San Francisco (KGO-810 AM) doesn't have the 10PM-12AM weekday time slot because people listen to him coming home from work.
And liberals continue to be perplexed at the power of the Right.
As I was starting up my truck to go to work this morning before 6am, I took my permanent, felt-tip black marker and crossed out the names on the Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker on the new Corolla parked behind me on the street. That felt so fucking good.
A brief TioJaime-bio, for those of you unfamiliars: Went to K-8 with SixHertz in Santa Clara, CA. Then went to high school at the all-boys school in San Jose, CA; was made vice president of the Young Republican Club. Took up engineering at UC Berkeley, home of the free speech movement and a shitty Golden Bear football team under Tom Holmoe. Was still Republican, voted for Bob Dole. Dated sexually liberated Republican from Orange County, dated prudish Catholic from Contra Costa County, voted for George W. Bush, graduated. Found work, moved to Seattle (home of the AL West cellar-dweller Mariners and Gary Locke), was laid off twice, moved back to California, eventually moved to Oakland (across the bay from NL Wild Card hopefuls SF Giants, home of AL West leading A's, and home district of Barbara Lee, who, in a wonderful display of political grandstanding and undoubtedly the first instance of using 9/11 as a political means to an end, was the lone dissenting vote in the House of Representatives opposed to giving President Bush powers to fight terrorism in the wake of the dastardly attacks).
Voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger, albeit reluctantly.
I've lived in liberal areas all my life. I went to UC Berkeley when Prop 209 was approved by an overwhelming majority of California voters. I hate hippies. I hate all that they stand for and their arrogance. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that my second favorite stripper is a hippie-type from Oregon who practices witchcraft, is mere steps away from wearing patchoulli (sp? too lazy to look it up), but interestingly enough likes meat and is somewhat of an ambitious capitalist.
I realize that this description probably confuses the F out of you right now. And for that, I wholeheartedly apologize. Suffice it to say that living in areas so influenced by hippies and political and social activism has influenced my Conservative Republicanism.
I will always be a proponent of civil disobedience in the name of the GOP. There are tons of conservatives who will get mad at protests and activists and other instigators, but they never do anything in response.
I started stealing "NO IRAQ WAR" signs in Seattle when they were the fad. They were easily modified to say "WAR ON IRAQ".
I'll tear down flyers that advertise "Jobs for the Environment!" or "Anti-War Rally!"
And even then, this is not enough in light of what I could have been and could be doing right now. I fully intended to sneak into a crowded showing of Farenheit 9/11 and release a personal alarm in the movie theater. But I missed the crowds. I wanted to throw red paint on that theater in Oakland who was putting up anti-war slogans on his marqee, but now he has something stupid about how "computer voting will destroy our constitutional democracy". Yeah, nice try dumbass. Last time I checked, we were a representative republic. Stick to playing movies and washing off red paint from your doors.
The left can blow up SUVs, disrupt economic summits, close down city streets with bicycle traffic, ruin livelihoods for hard-working Americans with their flighty social agendas... pretty much anything they want to in the name of Civil Disobedience.
The right has peaceful vigils outside of Planned Parenthood? We need to do a lot more... I suppose it's just a matter of finding time off from our jobs and responsibilities.
Or is it? It won't take you too much time to deface a bumper sticker, or steal a sign out of somebody's front lawn. It's an important message to convey, and we need to let the left know that their dirty tactics will not only not be tolerated, but matched. It won't necessarily pay even money right now, but taking donuts to win dollars is no gamble at all.
(No, I didn't mangle that cliche. "Dollars to donuts" = *laying* dollars to win donuts. Read it again.)
These fly-by's seem to happen a little bit more often than I'd like...every couple of months or so.
Talk about fear-mongering. If the DNC keeps complaining about the Bush administration creating fear among the American people, I think the DNC should put its money where its mouth is with this story:
Kennedy says Bush makes U.S. more vulnerable to nuclear attack
By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press, 9/26/2004
WASHINGTON (AP) The Bush administration's failure to shut down al-Qaida and rebuild Iraq have fueled the insurgency and made the United States more vulnerable to a nuclear attack by terrorists, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said Sunday.
In a speech prepared for delivery at George Washington University on Monday, Kennedy said that by shifting attention from Osama bin Laden to Iraq, Bush has increased the danger of a ''nuclear 9/11.''
''The war in Iraq has made the mushroom cloud more likely, not less likely,'' he said in the remarks released late Sunday.
Expanding on earlier suggestions that Iraq is Bush's Vietnam, Kennedy said U.S. soldiers are bogged down in a quagmire with no end in sight.I wonder if Kennedy would say the same thing about the US fighting in Guadalcanal during WWII. He sounds like a spokesman for the terrorists in Iraq. This guy is in serious need of a beating.
He said it was a good thing Bush was not in charge during the Cuban missile crisis, one of the darker periods of his late brother's John Kennedy's time as president.There's a big difference here: We KNEW that Cuba had nuclear weapons. In Iraq, Saddam was dangerously close to acquiring them. North Korea or Iran would be a task more comparable to Cuba, and things would have been much more difficult invading that country, since they possess an estimated 6-8 nuclear weapons, perhaps more.
On the economic front, he said the administration's failures to distribute billions of dollars in reconstruction funds and create enough local Iraqi jobs may have been the biggest factors leading to the rise of the insurgency there.All right! Democrats starting up with socio-financial policy in Iraq! Yes, Ted, why didn't I think of this one! More social programs, yay!
Yeah, whatever. If Massachusetts is stupid enough to keep this guy as its senator, who's to say Kerry would be any different? California senators notwithstanding, but that's another issue altogether.Kennedy has been pummeling the Bush administration in daily speeches in the Senate, serving as one of the most aggressive flame-throwers for Democrat John Kerry's presidential campaign. Bush, meanwhile, has charged Kerry with flip-flopping on Iraq.
In defense of Bush's policies, Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., appearing Sunday on CBS' ''Face the Nation'' along with Kennedy, said the United States must stay the course in Iraq until the fight is done, and that criticism of the war like that coming from Kennedy will hurt the cause in the Middle East.
Kennedy's Monday speech details 13 reasons why Bush's policies have not made the United States safer from terrorism. Among other things, he said the war in Iraq created a new breeding ground for terrorists, distracted from efforts to eliminate al-Qaida, alienated America's allies and allowed North Korea and Iran to pursue nuclear weapons.
As usual, I've found an excellent article that's a must-read:
By Powl Smith
Pundits these days are quick to compare the fighting in Iraq with the American loss in Vietnam 30 years ago. Terms like "quagmire" evoke the Southeast Asian jungle, where America's technological advantages were negated and committed Vietnamese guerrillas wore down the U.S. will to fight.
People love to draw historical analogies because they seem to offer a sort of analytical proof—after all, doesn't history repeat itself? In fact, such comparisons do have value, but like statistics, it's possible to find a historical analogy to suit any argument. And Vietnam's the wrong one for Iraq.
In fact, World War II is a far more accurate comparison for the global war we are waging to defeat terrorism. Both wars began for the United States with a catastrophic sneak attack from an undeclared enemy. We had many faint and not-so-faint warnings of the impending Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor, not least the historical precedent of Port Arthur in 1904, when the Japanese launched a preemptive strike against Russia.
We had similar ill-defined warnings and precedents about Al Qaeda and Islamist terrorism (the
East Africa embassy bombings in 1998; the USS Cole bombing in 2000), but in 2001 as in 1941, we lacked the "hard" intelligence requisite to convince a country at peace that it was about to pitched into war.
Historical apologists say that the Japanese were "forced" to attack us because we were strangling their trade in Asia. Sound familiar? American foreign policy in the Middle East is responsible for the anger and rage that has stirred up Al Qaeda, right? In fact, there is a crucial similarity between the Japanese imperialism of 50 years ago and Islamic fundamentalism of today: both are totalitarian, anti-Western ideologies that cannot be appeased.
As Japan amassed victory after victory in the early days of the war, America and our allies could see that we had a long, hard slog ahead of us. Americans understood there was no recourse but to win, despite the fearful cost. This was the first and foremost lesson of World War II that applies today: Wars of national survival are not quick, not cheap, and not bloodless.
In one of our first counteroffensives against the Japanese, U.S. troops landed on the island of Guadalcanal in order to capture a key airfield. We surprised the Japanese with our speed and audacity, and with very little fighting seized the airfield. But the Japanese recovered from our initial success, and began a long, brutal campaign to force us off Guadalcanal and recapture it. The Japanese were very clever and absolutely committed to sacrificing everything for their beliefs. (Only three Japanese surrendered after six months of combat—a statistic that should put today's Islamic radicals to shame.) The United States suffered 6,000 casualties during the six-month Guadalcanal campaign; Japan, 24,000. It was a very expensive airfield.
Which brings us to the next lesson of World War II: Totalitarian enemies have to be bludgeoned into submission, and the populations that support them have to be convinced they can't win. This is a bloody and difficult business. In the Pacific theater, we eventually learned our enemies'
tactics—jungle and amphibious warfare, carrier task forces, air power—and far surpassed them. But that victory took four years and cost many hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Iraq isn't Vietnam, it's Guadalcanal—one campaign of many in a global war to defeat the terrorists and their sponsors. Like the United States in the Pacific in 1943, we are in a war of national survival that will be long, hard, and fraught with casualties. We lost the first battle of that war on Sept. 11, 2001, and we cannot now afford to walk away from the critical battle we are fighting in Iraq any more than we could afford to walk away from Guadalcanal.
For the security of America, we have no recourse but to win.
The only thing worse than a bleeding-heart, irrational Democrat who plans on voting for my Republican candidate's opponent is an ignorant, uninformed voter.
OK that's not true, as the one thing worse than the latter is somebody who tries to get large numbers of the latter out to the polls. If you cared enough about the political process to get people involved, you should know that casual voters are missing the point of this democracy-thang about which we've all heard so much.
And Holy Crap in a Pita, I realize that I'm a rabid Republican, probably one of the most rabid you'll ever have the pleasure of meeting, but *NEVER* tell me that you're voting in the next election "to cancel out my vote." Even if you're attempting to be funny, there's still a degree of truth in that. You too are destroying that democracy-thang. Along with what little respect I had for you in the first place.
What the F is wrong with literacy tests for voting? Does this not weed out all non-hackers who do not possess the mental fortitude that make the Republic an effective tool for governing the Great Unwashed?
Those Not Possessing the Mental Fortitude:
1) People who cannot grasp the simple concept that tax cuts *create* revenue,
2) People who find it unfair that the rich, who pay a mindboggling majority of the tax revenue, receive bigger tax cuts,
3) People who think that George W. Bush is to blame for economic woes and recession that started mere weeks into his presidency, well before he attempted to tinker with the budget,
4) People who think that the government knows better than they do how to spend their hard-earned money,
5) People who lack the perspective to realize that animals cannot vote, cannot hold jobs, cannot pay taxes, cannot understand right from wrong, are not endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and are, all things considered, merely animals,
6) People who, in addition with disagreeing with what I have to say, will conveniently forget to defend to the death my right to say it, and
7) Pretty much anybody who has ever thought, "Yeah, Hillary Clinton deserves my vote."
I'm gonna save this Hillary Clinton thing for another day, because it's been welling up for quite some time now, and I really have to finish my work here so I can at the very least go bowling with the boys tonight. Ideally, I'm going to try to fit in a Drink with Phoenix too, but that's looking somewhat bleak.
Suffice it to say, Hillary Clinton never ran for public office before her Senate bid, and as such has no prior accountability. Not that accountability has ever stopped Democrats before.
Go read that comic again. Laugh because it's funny, then cry because it's true (sorry to rip shit from Ray Romano). And then think about your lot in life that allows you the privilege of being able to laugh at your unfortunate brethren.
Ooh, another group of Those Not Possessing the Mental Fortitude!!!
8) People who cannot accept that life is, at times, unfair.
Enough for now,
Tio Jaime
ps- I'm gonna plug the more vulgar side of Tio Jaime: http://www.xanga.com/tiojaime WARNING: CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE, ADULT CONTENT, PSYCHOLOGICAL NUDITY. READER DISCRETION ADVISED.
pps- Yeah, i'm ripping that shit off of Michael Savage too. In my defense, I was listening to him before anybody you know did, when he was local out here in KSFO country.
ppps- I'm still here @ work. Fuck my poo.
You gotta see this. This woman is a FRUITCAKE!
From the Phoenix Business Journal:
In regard to the hunt for terror leader Osama Bin Laden, Heinz Kerry said she could see the al-Qaida chief being caught before the November election.
"I wouldn't be surprised if he appeared in the next month," said Heinz Kerry, alluding to a possible capture by United States and allied forces before election day.
The artist formerly known as Cat Stevens is now taking issue with his deportation from the US. And now, all the touchy-feelie liberal media both in this country and others who take no serious notice with the fact that Yusuf Islam is on the terrorist watch list and the simple truth that every nation on this planet has the right to refuse entry of non-citizens. There are no inalienable rights for non-citizens, especially those who donate money to Hamas.
The Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, said today on the Sean Hannity radio program that there were 12 people detained on that very same day, irrespective of their fame. Just thought it was important to give you some perspective. I hope Cat has a nice ride on his 'Peace Train' out of this 'Wild World'.
There is a second contributor to SixHertz House of Pain, under the pseudonym of Tio Jaime. He's a personal friend of mine whom I've known for over 20 years. I know he'll make excellent additions to the content of this site.
Also added is a new commenting and trackback system. Thanks again for visiting!!
This October 1971 Doonesbury reveals Garry Trudeau thought John Kerry was as much as a self-promoter back then as I think he is today.
Hat Tip: Power Line
If you get AMC (American Movie Classics) on cable, I suggest you be on the lookout for a documentary about the Hollywood Republican called "Rated 'R' for Republican". I'm watching it now on the west coast, and it's quite good.
I finally got around to fixing the SHoP template so that it's compatible on IE and Mozilla browsers. Best viewed 1152x864 or greater. Maybe I'll get around to adjusting the rotating images so that it can be viewed at 1024x768 or greater, but I figure eventually more people will get better video cards. If not, the posting text will be all the way to the left of the screen and a little annoying to read. Sorry.
Here's a comment I got about my Kofi Annan entry a few days ago:
Kofi is obviously correct. It is quite courageous for him to speak the truth on this matter given that the US is a superpower. Now the question is whether we, as Americans, will have the courage to try George W Bush and his murderous neocon cabal for war crimes against humanity. Certainly, the spineless neocon congress will not do it. Too bad the UN is not powerful enough to take him into custody as they did with Milosevic or the Nazi leaders.Despite the fact that not many would agree with the statement regardless of their political beliefs, I think I should respond to it. First off, it's not courageous of Annan to "speak the truth". The US has been the veritable punching bag of the world since the fall of the Soviet Union, and it's no secret that many politicians of other countries stand to gain politically by blasting the United States. And equating President Bush with Hitler or Milosevic is ridiculous.Note to neocons: Saddam had NOTHING to do with 9/11 and never supported terrorism against the US. Saddam was attacked most likely to place a military base in the middle east as detailed in the New American Century playbook. Our attack on Iraq was unprovoked aggression, which is what the UN was created to punish. I am glad the freedom fighters are fighting George over there so we do not have to fight them in Iran.
CNN.com - Men break into lotto winner's home with body inside - Sep 21, 2004
I guess the moral of this story is: It sucks to win the lottery.
This editorial by Jonah Goldberg makes two good points, summarizing well the enemy we face today with the Islamists. Click the link on the title above to read the whole story.
"...let me make two simple points. First, the Cold War was a conflict in which the actions of our enemies were essentially rational. The spoiled secular aristocrats who ran the Soviet Union didn't want to get incinerated in a nuclear war. Their tactics and ambitions reflected this, particularly in the second half of the conflict. The Politburo became, essentially, small-c conservative: evil and tyrannical, but pretty darn cautious about not doing anything to lose their dachas.
Our current enemy is the complete and total opposite. Where the Soviets were rational and bent on self-preservation, the Islamists are irrational and relatively comfortable with suicide. Where the Soviets were dependent on conventional armaments and interested in diplomatic routes, the Islamists must use non-traditional, barbaric terrorism. Where the Soviets had defined borders and interests, the Islamists merely have a vast sea of people and nations to roam, their interests and assets submerged in shadowy webs and networks that mostly exist below the radar of the legal economy.
But most important: The Soviets could be deterred; the Islamists cannot be. It is the difference between fighting a bastard of a neighbor who's got a home and family to defend and fighting a Charles Manson cult that wanders into town. I don't mean to downplay the institutionalized evil that was the Soviet Union; I still think we blew it when we didn't knock out Stalin in 1946. That was a blunder that makes not cleaning out Fallujah look like forgetting to put the garbage out. But, as a foreign-policy challenge, diplomacy with the Soviets was often practical and, needless to say, possible.
There simply is no diplomacy with the enemy today. So, that means going on offense. That means taking the fight to them. That means, in the short term, "creating" more extremists and terrorists by fighting on their home turf. But the point isn't merely to fight them, it's to pull the rug out from under them. The ultimate goal is democracy, of course. But the interim goal is to rationalize the Middle East so that, while it may still produce enemies, they will be ones we can deal with around a table, not a crater. And the short-term goal is to kill lots of them where they live, instead of them doing the same to us.
So sure, Bush hasn't done everything right — never mind perfectly — in Iraq. Churchill didn't conduct World War II perfectly every time either. Dunkirk wasn't the sort of thing that happens when the war goes swimmingly. But Bush gets all of this. John Kerry doesn't, in my opinion. Or, to be more accurate, John Kerry "gets" everything and therefore nothing. If the choice were between Bush and a better commander-in-chief, I might not vote for Bush. But that's not the choice, now is it?
Hat tip: Blogs of War
Cool. A new, free toy from Microsoft. Comes with conversion tools and everything.
Calculator PLUS!
John Leyba for Alum Rock - Changing the Alum Rock Way
I wanted to give a plug for my good friend's run for a seat on a local school board in San Jose, CA. It's a potentially uphill battle for him as the local, established Democratic party has its own patsy candidate it's trying to foist upon the voters. John, on the other hand, is pushing forward his grass-roots campaign as an independent; if I know my friend John, he's truly a person that doesn't have a personal political agenda. If you're part of the Alum Rock district in San Jose, CA, I urge you to take a look at his website.
“The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or ‘The Enemy.’ They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow—and they will win.” - Michael Moore, 4/14/2004
If you believe this garbage statement by Michael Moore, I encourage you to click the link on the title (caution--the movie is as graphic as its title suggests) and see exactly why I think Moore should be destroyed the same way Dan Rather and CBS have been with the forged Bush guard documents.
At least it looks fairly likely now that, barring something exceptional happening, Kerry is screwing up his campaign enough to not get elected.
Is anyone aware of the idiocy of the UN Chief, Kofi Annan, and the comment he made yesterday?
You idiot, Kofi! What possible good does saying such a thing now do for Iraq? You already got your sorry ass out of there last year, so the UN already lost all credibility in the Middle East.Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, Annan said the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was illegal as it violated the U.N. Charter.
Asked whether he thought it broke international law, Annan said: "Yes, if you wish. I have indicated it was not in conformity with the U.N. Charter from our point of view, from the chapter point of view, it was illegal."
Hey, these idiots copied the idea of the guy who offered $10,000+ for proof that the Bush memos were authentic...yet I didn't see him getting coverage on CNN. Yet more proof that CNN is biased.
I thought it was funny to see a normally liberal newspaper run this editorial that seems, more or less, objective. I'm also surprised how they blast MoveOn.org for sinking to the low for which they were originally created. Read the full article below:
Bush critics off their guard
By: Debra Saunders
THE HIGHLY DUBIOUS CBS story that featured what appear to be bogus documents about President Bush's National Guard duty is likely to prove the rule of mudslinging: When a charge doesn't resonate with the public, more mud sticks to the slinger than the slingee.
No sooner did "60 Minutes II" air a story last week about a late Air National Guard officer, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who complained in memos that he was being pressured to "sugarcoat" Bush's evaluation, than the story began to unravel.
Retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges -- whom CBS cited as the "trump card" in verifying its story -- told the Dallas Morning News that he never saw the memos. Now that he had seen them, Hodges said, ''I don't think Killian wrote them -- official or unofficial."
CBS announced it still stood by its story. A spokeswoman told reporters, "We believed Gen. Hodges the first time we spoke to him." That is, CBS believed Hodges when he knew less than he knows now.
Killian's family announced it thought the documents were fake. His widow told reporters her husband didn't keep notes. Worse, the Dallas Morning News also reported, while Killian complained in a 1973 memo cited by CBS that Col. Buck Staudt was applying pressure on him to go easy on Bush, Staudt had retired 18 months earlier.
The CBS spokesperson told the Washington Post that Staudt was a "mythic figure" who wielded influence after retirement.
Mythic indeed.
Key Democrats were more imaginative. "On Nightline" last week, Chris Lehane, spokesman for Al Gore in 2000, suggested that it was possible that someone near the Bushies planted the memos with CBS.
Even as the CBS charges wilted, DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe wallowed in the National Guard story, telling the Los Angeles Times, ''This is about character, this is about credibility, the character and credibility of the president.''
Then McAuliffe said Bush guru Karl Rove may have been behind the questionable documents.
See the signs of hysteria here?
McAuliffe was a stalwart Clintonista who had no problem with the former president's failure to serve in either Vietnam or the National Guard. Now, McAuliffe is indignant that Bush might have missed some service before receiving his honorable discharge.
The most desperate part of the anti-Bush mud-throwing is that it tells people what they already know. Americans already know that Bush was not the Guard's Man of the Year. As Retired Maj. Gen. Paul A. Weaver told the Washington Post, Bush was "a young lieutenant who was very aggressive, a good participant in the program for 3 1/2 years" who near the end of his term "was a minimally satisfactory participant."
Not that voters necessarily care. I'll posit that voters care more who George W. Bush is today than who he was 30 years ago.
Ditto John Kerry, who in Boston at his convention so overplayed his laudable service in Vietnam that his Senate record disappeared as Kerry relived glory days decades old.
What is more, today's Bush stands by his actions on Iraq. Kerry straddles his.
Back to CBS. The documents it aired may be legitimate, but if so, CBS has not made the case. Simply put, the network didn't have the story nailed, but ran with it anyway. Its credibility suffers, as it should.
CBS looks the worse for it, not Bush. With this story, the mud sticks most to the slingers.
How ironic that Moveon.org has bankrolled Texans for Truth, which aired ads attacking Bush's military record. Moveon.org began in 1998 with an online petition to ''Censure President Clinton and Move On to Pressing Issues Facing the Nation,'' to protest wasted time investigating Clinton for "lies about his sex life" so that Washington could pay attention to important issues of the day. Now Moveon.org is bankrolling 30-year-old personal attacks on Bush. It's sad when people become what they once hated.
My dad is a Vietnam Veteran. This story I discovered most accurately depicts my father's feelings towards John Kerry, and I'd like to share it with you. Please distribute this to as many people as you can so that they may know both sides of the story, and not just the one John Kerry tells you.
By Barbara Stock
September 13, 2004
The unprecedented injustice inflicted on the Vietnam vets has always lain just under the surface, waiting for a chance to be uncovered. The feelings of betrayal had faded, but they were never resolved.
Over thirty years ago they put away their medals and their uniforms. They buried their anger and bitterness and moved on with their lives - and they waited.
Revisionists are trying to change history, claiming the returning Vietnam veterans didn't suffer all that much when they returned home. All that talk of being labeled animals has been exaggerated over the years. But the veterans know better. They were there.
On the radio last week, one man related that he had unpacked the uniform that he wore home from Vietnam all those years ago. It had not seen the light of day for over thirty years. He showed it to his children and grandchildren and, for the first time, spoke of the day that he returned home from war and was spat on, cursed at, and literally had to run a gauntlet of protesters who threw human waste and rotten fruit on him and his fellow vets. With the words "baby killers" ringing in his ears he was warned by laughing policemen not to retaliate or he would be arrested. So he ran. The able-bodied helped the wounded as they do on any battlefield because those on crutches or in wheelchairs were not spared the profanity and bags full of feces that were thrown at them by the raging anti-war protesters.
This now middle-aged vet went on to tell his family that he had hid in the bathroom at the airport for over two hours, bewildered and afraid. He wondered if he had landed in some foreign land where Americans were hated. Finally, he cleaned up the uniform he was still proud to wear as best he could and made his way to his plane, where he suffered more insults from the passengers. When he got home, he packed up his medals and his dirty uniform, just as it was, and he knew that one day, he would take it out again and he would have his say. That day has come.
One POW stated that he had never put a face to the name until he heard the words "Genghis Khan" pronounced only as John Kerry does and suffered his first flashback to the time he was being tormented by Kerry's words in a North Vietnamese prison camp.
They buried their anger and the bitterness - and they waited. Most of them didn't know who or what would be the signal to make their move, but they knew they would recognize it when it happened.
On July 29, 2004, it happened. John Forbes Kerry came to the podium at the Democratic Convention and uttered three words that made many Vietnam vets skin crawl: "Reporting for Duty!" At last the time had come for these long-suffering veterans.
The past was staring back at these wrongly disgraced vets from their television sets. The face it bore was that of John Kerry, the man who had shredded their honor without a thought and climbed over the bodies of their fallen friends to launch a political career. Kerry had stripped them of their dignity the day he sat before Congress in his fatigues and portrayed them as "baby killers" and "murderers."
Kerry did the unspeakable. He had publicly turned on his fellow vets while they were still in harm's way and American prisoners were still in the hands of the enemy. Kerry accused them of being out-of-control animals, killing, raping, and pillaging Vietnam at will. The anti-war movement - the protesters - had their hero and he was a Vietnam War veteran, an officer, a medal winner, a wounded warrior: John Forbes Kerry.
Many Vietnam vets buried the memories of their less-than-welcome homecoming, and John Kerry moved off the national scene. The feelings of betrayal had faded, but they were never resolved. The unprecedented injustice inflicted on the Vietnam vets has always lain just under the surface, waiting for a chance to be uncovered. The war had stolen their youth and innocence and John Kerry stole their dignity and rightful place of honor in history.
Like an unlanced boil, the anger festered but there was nothing that could ease the pain. These vets didn't ask for "forgiveness" because they had done nothing wrong in serving their country. They never asked to be treated as heroes, just good soldiers. All they have ever wanted was the respect due all the men and women who have worn the uniform of this country. Being allowed to march in a few parades wasn't enough. A long over-due memorial was not enough. The Vietnam Veterans moveable wall only brought back the suffering as they searched for the names of their fallen friends whose memory had been defiled and disgraced by people who considered them rampaging killers instead of men who died with honor for their country.
Now before them stands this man who would be president - this man who holds his service in Vietnam up as a badge of honor now that it suits his purposes. This man Kerry brags about his medals and his tiny wounds and demands the respect they were denied, yet he offers no apologies for what he did to them. "I will be a great leader!" Kerry proclaims, because of his brief and self-proclaimed valiant service while wearing a uniform - the very same uniform that they wore and were spat upon because of it.
All across America, soiled uniforms and memories of being shamed and humiliated have surfaced and Vietnam vets demand their rightful place in history. John Kerry seems bewildered by the reaction of his "fellow vets." He has become defensive and angry because now his service and honor are being questioned. Kerry seems oblivious to the pain he caused three decades ago [when] he stole all honor and dignity from those same "fellow vets" for personal gain. Now he wants to use them again, for the same reason.
All across America, Vietnam vets are smiling. At last, perhaps they can bury their demons. These angry vets are demanding that this man who sentenced them to being shunned as criminals, tell the world that he was wrong and that he is sorry for what he did to them. Kerry must admit that he lied about them.
For many, it would still not be enough. Satisfaction and hopefully peace will come when Vietnam vets see and hear John F. Kerry give his concession speech the night of November 2, 2004 with the knowledge that it was their votes that helped defeat him. There are approximately 2.5 million Vietnam veterans in America and they have not forgotten.
Kerry denied them their rightful place as heroes and they will deny him his dream of the presidency. Angry Vietnam veterans, silent for so long, will finally have their say. Payment in full will be delivered to John Kerry on November 2, 2004.
Revenge is indeed a dish best served cold.
I wonder how on earth France and Germany intend to back up this deadline. Perhaps use strong words? Iran better be thanking its sweaty rear end that the US isn't setting this deadline. And I just love how these "confidential documents" continually get leaked.
BERLIN — Europe's major powers have agreed to set a November deadline on Iran to meet demands meant to resolve concerns that it is secretly trying to make nuclear weapons, in a confidential document made available Saturday to The Associated Press.
The draft resolution was prepared by France, Germany and Britain for Monday's start of a key meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Tehran is trying to build the nuclear bomb.
Up to now, the European countries have resisted U.S. attempts to have Iran hauled before the Security Council or even hint on a date for such possible action. Iran says its nuclear program is solely for energy production.
The draft says Iran must suspend all activities related to nuclear enrichment -- including manufacturing of centrifuges -- and must meet all requirements posed by the IAEA in its probe into Iran's nuclear activities before IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei reports to the board again in November. On the basis of ElBaradei's report, the board will "probably" make a "definite determination on whether or not further steps are required," the draft said. "This is a 'trigger' that can be pulled if the November board deems it necessary," said one diplomat.
While the last board meeting in June censured Iran for past cover-ups and warned it has little time left to disprove it has a nuclear weapons program, it didn't impose a deadline or even indirectly threaten sanctions.
But since then, Iran's earlier commitments to stop some uranium enrichment and related activities have eroded -- alienating the three European nations. Enriched uranium can be used to generate electricity or make nuclear weapons. Iran last year agreed to freeze enrichment programs but has since resumed testing, assembling and making centrifuges, a key component of such activities. Last week, it confirmed an IAEA report that it planned to convert more than 40 tons of raw uranium into uranium hexafluoride, the gas put into centrifuges for enrichment. Iran's original suspension pledge came in a deal with Britain, Germany and France but fell short of European demands that Tehran scrap enrichment.
Iran is not obliged to halt enrichment under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but Tehran has been under international pressure for more than a year to fully renounce enrichment to counterbalance suspicions generated by nearly two decades of clandestine nuclear activities that came to light only two years ago. On Tuesday, it offered to re-impose a partial freeze on some of those activities, in an apparent move to deflect growing international exasperation ahead of Monday's meeting.
But diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP they had not heard of a concrete agreement with the IAEA on that issue by Saturday. The text of the draft had no reference to any commitment by Tehran to re-impose its enrichment freeze. The draft has some positive language. It notes "the general positive ... Iranian cooperation" with the IAEA, while asserting that "the process of providing information needs, in certain instances, to be accelerated."
But it notes "with serious concern ... that Iran has not heeded repeated calls from the board to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities." It "deeply regrets" that Iran's partial freeze of enrichment and related programs falls "significantly short" of what the IAEA wants "and also that Iran has since reversed some of those decisions."
I just watched CNN try to explain away the reason why you couldn't definitively prove the Bush memo forgeries. Incredible how much BS we put up with on that news channel. It's impossible for me to press the "i believe" button when watching CNN, especially after seeing all the evidence from other sources. How can you ever trust them as a credible news source after their blanket statement? The evidence is so damning, it is WAY beyond just saying that "we'll never know for certain unless we have the originals". If that was the way the US court system worked, mass-murderers and other criminals would be almost impossible to convict.
Imagine me releasing bogus documents about John Kerry that I fax-copy several times and release to Fox News. Now, you think CNN would take those documents as seriously?
On September 11, 2001, four U.S. planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people in a matter of hours.
Has it really been that long ago that so many people have forgotten what it was like that day? Why must Americans continue to have the stigma of being the world's most forgetful people? How many people interviewed that day were clamoring for war? The first and foremost duty of any government is to protect the people it represents. It should be plainly obvious that no other country in this world will defend the United States except the United States. We should be so fortunate as to have an administration that will not half-heartedly pursue the terrorists and the countries with governments that support them. This, despite the fickle nature of public opinion. This bowing to public opinion was the problem with the Clinton administration. This is the problem with the Kerry camp.
Because there was no way we could feasibly go after terrorists without going into the countries that harbored them, the administration made a difficult choice. After Afghanistan, invade either Iraq, Iran, or North Korea. Seeing these three choices, it is plain to see why Iraq was chosen. It was the weakest of the three, it harbored terrorists hostile to the US, and it had a population that would most likely support a change of rule. Not only that, a successful operation in Iraq could conceivably change the entire scope of the middle east. A 100% successful outcome wasn't likely, but 80 or 90% could be considered pretty damn good.
War is not predictable. It is foolish to think that there is a cut-and-dry contingency plan for winning a war. There are nine fundamental principles of war that the US military follows. I know this because I teach these skills in my role as a Navy tactical warfare instructor. So you can see why I am justifiably infuriated when politicians who have no idea how to fight a war make incredibly inaccurate assessments about a conflict. The same goes for civilians.
What is important to remember in all this? It's this: Do we as the American people remember why we fight this war against terror? And my answer: Some do not. But at least the critical ones do. What's right isn't always popular...and what's popular isn't always right.
Besides being the poster child of MoveOn.org and having a really similar name, Texans for Truth, a new "independent" 527 organization, is a really sorry attempt to discredit the service of President Bush.
But here's the kicker:
While Swift Boat Vets legitimately attacked John Kerry's foisting of "honorable" (post-) Vietnam service to the American people, Texans for Truth tries to make something out of nothing; Bush never glorified his National Guard service while John Kerry shoved his Vietnam service down our throats.
And now, with the likelihood of the recent "uncovered" documents regarding President Bush's service being forged, we see the extent to which some people are desperate to cease power.
Here's an unusual good-news piece coming off of the BBC news website. Despite all the horrors going on in Iraq, the women there are recognizing the real benefits of their newfound freedom. Their only real complaint is the security situation, but all six interviewed recognize that the problem doesn't fall with the coalition troops, but instead with the terrorists and religious extremists. Cheers to the fairer sex!!
From PittsburghLIVE.com: "In Tehran, as August began, the Islamic Republic's supreme guide Ali Khamenei, was answering questions from a hundred or so Islamic guidance officials, home from foreign postings for retraining. Most of his answers were trite slogans, but when he was asked, 'Is our Islamic Republic at war against the United States,' he paused before replying. 'It is the United States that is at war against our Islamic Revolution.'
However, Khamenei's own newspaper was even more direct. Writing this July, it said, 'the White House's 80 years of exclusive rule are likely to become 80 seconds of hell that will burn to ashes. Those who resist Iran will be struck from directions they never expected.'
To these facts add that an Arab newspaper published in London and Beirut reported that an Iranian intelligence unit has established a center called 'The Brigades of the Shahids of the Global Islamic Awakening,' controlled by a Revolutionary Guards intelligence officer, Hassan Abbasi. The newspaper has a tape recording of Abbasi when he spoke of Iran's secret plans, which include 'a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization.'"
I'm guessing that political correctness hasn't quite reached the mullahs of Iran quite yet. And John Kerry thinks we can fight a more sensitive war on terror? You'd think that after spending years on the Senate Intelligence committee, Sen. Kerry would know better...oh wait...he was absent for a majority of the hearings. I guess that explains it.
MSNBC - Russians rally against terror after bloodbath
I am waiting for a story to pop up that starts blaming the US for what happened in Russia. So far, it's President Putin who blames the US administration for urging talks with the Chechens--as though the US really has influence in Russia's internal affairs, the mob-run country that it is. And if I remember correctly, didn't the Bush administration stand behind Russia's efforts at combating terrorism in its country??
I'll be on the lookout.
This guy, democratic Sen. Zell Miller gave the best speech I've heard so far at the RNC. Holy crap, what an excellent speech!
Why on earth is John Kerry breaking tradition by campaigning this week during the Republican convention? I have two theories: 1.) He was nervous about his lack of "bounce" following his own convention, and the current pre-convention bounce for GWB has killed his momentum. 2.) The Swift Boat Vets 
destroyed what he built his campaign on--his Vietnam Service. What is left? The broken shell of a façade that he's shamelessly trying to rebuild. He has no substance or personality underneath it all. This is a man in deep trouble.
I've flipped the TV over to CNN's Crossfire...can anyone understand James Carville? Has he been drinking all afternoon? He's slurring his speech all over the place. He looks pretty scary too.
I'm headed back to San Diego this weekend for the Labor Day holiday. I'll be able to check up on my place and make sure it's still there before I have to fly out again. I'm especially looking forward to seeing my little SUV acquiring another disease or ailment upon which I'll have to shell out another $1,000 to fix. In all my experiences dealing with mechanical devices from cars to multi-billion dollar Navy warships, if you don't use it, it breaks.
