DKK
Iraqi intelligence officials then "targeted a number of French individuals that Iraq thought had a close relationship to French President Chirac," it said, including two of his "counsellors" and spokesman for his re-election campaign.They even assessed the chances for "supporting one of the candidates in an upcoming French presidential election." Chirac is not mentioned by name.A memo sent to Saddam dated in May last year from his intelligence corps said they met with a "French parliamentarian" who "assured Iraq that France would use its veto in the UN Security Council against any American decision to attack Iraq."
"Global Test" my fat tuchas. John Kerry does not deserve the vote of any citizen of the United States until he confronts this reality. Any liberals out there should be ashamed of themselves for supporting a man who wants to ratify this viciously corrupt and immoral system. That's not liberalism - unless you consider the Mafia to be liberal.
According to Middle East news outlets and London's Financial Times, Clinton addressed a business forum sponsored by bin Laden's family-owned construction company - and collected $267,000 for his trouble.
Three months later, when the Saudi royals traveled to Texas to meet with President Bush, they set aside time for a special meeting with Clinton in a Houston hotel, which lasted into the wee hours of the morning.
The sitdown was confirmed by none other than Clintonista-turned-TV newsman George Stephanopoulos - and came on the heels of a report by columnist Robert Novak that Crown Prince Abdullah had pledged up to $20 million for Mr. Clinton's presidential library.
I didn't Trek yesterday but I wanted to point this out Rodney Dangerfield passed away at 82 on Tuesday.
"If you can't stand up to Howard Dean, how can you stand up to Al Qaeda."A Cheney win, but no disaster for Edwards, though perhaps for Kerry. Cheney wins because of the "global test" exchange and the repeated blows at Kerry's record --not Edwards-- and nailed Edwards on the refusal to count Iraqi casualties. Key thing is that Kerry's record is back on the table. Cheney is very hard hitting on the reality of the war --one weapon in one city-- and a strong defense of Bush as Commander-in-Chief.
Talking heads will have to discuss same sex marriage over the next four weeks, and that doesn't help Kerry Edwards. The jobs rhetoric just doesn't wash with the last year.
"Global test" is an anchor around Kerry's neck, and Edwards attempt to say Kerry has been consistent on Iraqis just absurd, which underscores why this election is essentially unwinnable by Kerry.
But Edwards set himself up for a comeback in four years.
Will the family of a Veep wannabe, dark suit, dark hair, Dark Side, license # I-S-U-E-U, please come and claim the carcass?Your junior lawyer has been trampled, pummeled, thumped, whupped, sliced, diced, julienned, fried, pureed, laughed out of the county, and has dismayed fellow slimebags across the nation.
You may claim the remains, collected in a large number of small baggies, at the BreckTM booth.
Then there is this from The Kerry Spot:
NO MAS! NO MAS! [10/05 10:47 PM]
My initial conclusion: This was the single most devastating one-sided drubbing since Lloyd Bentsen smacked Dan Quayle all around the stage in 1988.
DKK
The United Nations signed a cooperation agreement on Monday with the new International Criminal Court, despite objections to the tribunal from the United States.
The Bush administration is bitterly opposed to the new court and rescinded former President Bill Clinton's signature to the tribunal's statutes, arguing that it would expose U.S. soldiers and officials to frivolous law suits.
Let's sum up the rules of the U.N. game as set out by its most ardent fans from France to Cuba over September's festivities:Did you know that nearly 1.5 million people are missing from the years of Saddam?
(1) Democracy is the governing principle between countries (read outvoting the United States), regardless of the rights of actual inhabitants.
(2) International measures to insist on democracy within states constitute unacceptable interference in a state's internal affairs.
(3) Nuclear non-proliferation is O.K. in theory provided it won't be put into practice until Israel and the United States are weapons-free, and any pressure in the meantime is oppression of developing countries.
(4) The only acceptable contributions of developed countries to the affairs of developing countries are cash donations.
(5) Terrorism is defined as harming one's friends, so Israelis are fair game.
(6) Israel is the greatest threat to world peace.
(7) Sudan should be commended for its role in reducing the spontaneous humanitarian crisis within its borders and anything but minute numbers of friendly neighboring forces would be an illegitimate interference in Sudanese sovereignty.
(8) The U.N. is the centerpiece of all legitimate international action concerning peace, security, self-defense, and the war against terrorism.
Now we have learned while al-Sadr was hiding in his Mosque his Islamic goons were quite busy. Their assignment was to kidnap dozens of women and children and bring them into the Mosque. There they would be murdered. I think it's possibly safe to say that many of the women were possibly raped before, maybe after, they were murdered. When al-Sistani ordered them out, Al Sadr and his gang of murderers left the bodies of the women and children inside the Mosque.<>
So ... what was the purpose? The Islamic killers fully expected American toops to storm the Mosque to get to them. When that happened, and after the smoke cleared, the innocent and peace-loving followers of Al Sadr would be able to show the bodies of innocent women and children who were killed in the brutal U.S. assault on this place of holy worship. Clever plan ... didn't work.<>
Never forget, especially now, the brutal, murderous nature of the Islamic killers. They will murder their own sisters, mothers, sons and daughters if they think that they will then be able to use the western media to blame the deaths on American soldiers. And when the time comes, the Western media will be all-too-eager to relate the story just exactly the way al-Sadr wanted them to.
He said: “I think Shakespeare’s overrated. It’s bulls**t. I’d never go and see a Shakespeare play. Who’d want to see me in Hamlet?“Who cares? I don’t know why actors do it. Shakespeare is just a bunch of soap operas.In case you were considering believing Kerry's lies about Veterans funding issues - the Wall Street Journal has the truth!
No matter what position you hold about American foreign policy and the war in Iraq, John Kerry holds your positionHe goes through many of Kerry's stated positions then ends with this:I believe that this debate can lead to only one conclusion:
Either John Kerry is a man of few principles who will say almost anything on the most vital issues of life and death in order to get elected; or he is personally so confused on this issue that he will repeatedly make self-contradictory statements.There is no other explanation for this unassailable fact: John Kerry won the debate because he sounded better; and he sounded better in large measure because he got away with saying whatever any voter wanted to hear.
That is one reason President Bush looked so annoyed at times. It is very hard for the principled to listen to the unprincipled.
DKK
A middle school teacher walked out on her job after being asked to remove a picture of the president from her classroom, she said.We live in a society where it is no longer acceptable to have a picture of the President of our country on the wall in a classroom! This seriously concerns me! This is the type of attitude - this hatred for our country is a receipe for defeat. In large enough numbers or positions of influence these American Haters could have cost us the cold war or any other conflict in our past just as they cost us Vietnam.
A member of the group responsible for the Beslan school massacre last month is a British citizen who attended the infamous Finsbury Park mosque in north London, The Observer can reveal.
Two other members of the group, loyal to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, are also believed to have been active in the UK until less than three years ago. They are suspected of taking part in the raid on the school in which 300 people, half of them children, died.
Once elections take place in Iraq, the US military may remain for many years, but its likely al-Qaeda won’t.
Al-Qaeda’s goal in Iraq is to formant a civil war, empower Sunni extremists and create a Taliban style utopia. The false identity of “resistance” falls apart in the face of a legitimately elected government, even to those rooting for their success like al-Jazeera and France.Zarqawi has stated that once the Iraqi government “extends its control over the country, we will have to pack our bags and break camp for another land.”
Facing increasingly democratic regimes in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and mounting pressure in Pakistan, al-Qaeda may attempt to regroup in Yemen, one of the least developed countries in the world. >> Read more
That would be nice - we just need to have the strength and will to get there!
I have begun researching the bunker-buster question because I sense Kerry's outrage at the very idea of America developing and possessing such weapons was both authentic on his part and potentially disturbing to millions of voters who instinctively understand that the armory of America is different from the armory of every other country in the world, that our nation can be trusted with all sorts of weaponry that the world cannot be trusted with, and that our electorate will not reward a candidate who, as Kerry did on Thursday night, proclaims our weapons program to be part of the proliferation problem.
We knew this one (DANEgerous):Stronger at home, respected in the world:
It's sad that a senator with 20 years of experience doesn't notice our commitment. This is immoral (...) I don't think this was a question of ignorance.(...)The news story (in Polish) is here
France, Germany and Russia were bought and paid for:A LEAKED report has exposed the extent of alleged corruption in the United Nations’ oil-for-food scheme in Iraq, identifying up to 200 individuals and companies that made profits running into hundreds of millions of pounds from it.
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.
DANE also has this great quote from one of our greatest....enemies - John Kerry's best friends!
Add to this the recent bizarre phrase from French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. The head of the Figaro press group went to see him about the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq; Raffarin assured him they would soon be freed, reportedly saying, "The Iraqi insurgents are our best allies."DKK
<>As a professor, I have seen the "Slight-of-Hand" cheat sheet manuver too many times. I could not believe my eyes when I saw it during the "debate." Thank God for Digital Video Recorders!
The cheat sheets I recovered over the years all had either the questions, the answers or both. I wonder which group Kerry's crib notes belongs in.
Prior access to the moderators questions would fit with the other media escapades witnessed during the past few months. I guess that's impossible given the right-wing media culture at PBS.
A man arrested by U.S. authorities in Iraq had a computer disk in his possession containing a public report downloaded from a U.S. Department of Education Web site on crisis planning in school districts, including San Diego Unified.Good thing schools are practicing drills to defend against attacks by Home-schoolers... Public education hates...9/22/2004...home schooling
The man was described as an Iraqi national with connections to terrorism and the insurgency that is fighting U.S. forces in Iraq. Officials in San Diego said the man’s intentions were unknown.
San Diego law enforcement officials said there was no indication of any terrorist plot against schools in San Diego or elsewhere in the country. They did not publicly release the information because there appeared to be no threat. The information was relayed to the San Diego FBI office last week and then to the school district Friday.
The disk contained a document entitled “Practical Information on Crisis Planning, A Guide for Schools and Communities.” The 50-plus page document, published in May 2003 by the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, is available to the public on the U.S. Department of Education’s Web site, said San Diego District spokeswoman Peri Lynn Turnbull.
With a yellow badge proclaiming "The Netherlands can do better" pinned to his black fireman's jacket, he joined an antigovernment rally this week to protest plans to have firefighters retire at 65 rather than 55, the current practice.The United States has nothing to fear from rapidly growing technology markets in China and India, Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corp.
Port workers, garbagemen, airport employees, ambulance drivers and tram operators have also taken part in strikes and demonstrations during the past few weeks as ill humor has built over a wide-ranging package of changes that the government says are necessary to get the Dutch economy growing again and to prepare for an aging society.
The protests will climax Saturday, when unions expect at least 100,000 people to congregate in Amsterdam in what could be one of the largest antigovernment demonstrations in recent Dutch history.
The changes proposed by the government, and the reaction of unions and workers, are familiar in Europe.
Faced with an aging population, creaking health care systems and a swelling tide of red ink, leaders have vowed to cut taxes and government spending and make it harder for people to get unemployment and disability benefits.
What is different in the Netherlands is that the Dutch are not the striking type.
Over the past decade an average of 19 days per 1,000 employees has been lost to strikes in the Netherlands, fewer than half the level of the United States and one-sixth the level of Italy.
Economists say it is a measure of the deep resistance to the changes sought across the Continent that even the Dutch are now hitting the streets.
In the Netherlands, "There are major differences on how the modern welfare state should operate," said Paul de Beer, a professor of labor relations at the University of Amsterdam.
"China and India are the big change agents for the years ahead," Gates told students at the University of California Berkeley. "We have to go into the risky new areas. That's what's going to allow the United States to stay at the forefront."
Outsourcing of manufacturing and high technology jobs outside the United States has become a key issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.
"It's a little scary to me that people are thinking of this as a zero sum game," Gates said, referring to criticism of outsourcing and growing overseas tech markets.
"We're at the start of a process where the whole world is getting into this virtuous cycle," Gates said.
We are not bloggers, We are independent, peer reviewed journalists.
One who has a weblog? Look that up in a hip glossary and it does not cover what I do. This is no "on-line diary."
In fact, this reveals that Senator Kerry considers the war on terror to be the war on Al Qaeda. Either intentionally or subconsciously, he is defining down the war to mean simply destroying the Al Qaeda elements in Afghanistan. Kerry does not see the bigger picture.
If bin Laden were killed tomorrow, absolutely nothing would change, because the vast majority of the Islamic fanatic groups not only are not part of Al Qaeda, but actually pre-existed it. Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Chechen rebel groups all function independently of bin Laden’s group, and while they make common cause, they do not share resources, infrastructure or planning. Kerry’s myopic focus on bin Laden and Afghanistan reveals he views the problem as a criminal one, rather than a systemic cultural and intellectual failure across the Arab world.
He sees the events of 9-11 as an isolated attack by a madman, rather than the culmination of attacks on the west that begin at least with the 1972 attack by Palestinian militants on Israeli athletes
I'm not exactly sure what you mean, "passes the global test," you take preemptive action if you pass a global test.
My attitude is you take preemptive action in order to protect the American people, that you act in order to make this country secure.
At that moment it became clear that what was foremost in Kerry's mind was the concerns of foreign countries, and not the interest of his own. With that, the best Kerry could hope for was a small victory in the debate. Most likely, he achieved a tie.
And this one:I want to correct the president, because he's misled again this evening on what I've said. I didn't say I would bring troops out in six months. I said, if we do the things that I've set out and we are successful, we could begin to draw the troops down in six months.
After that remark, Kerry looked silly when he said, "I've never wilted in my life. And I've never wavered in my life."
Almost everything on both sides was old news except that Kerry pronouncement that he opposes the US working on bunker busting nuclear weapons. Somehow I had missed that in the campaign so far. Of course these weapons are one of the key means of destroying underground nuclear installations built by rogue states like Iran. This should be brought out into the open and emphasized by the Bush campaign. Thursday, September 30, 2004
Despite all the hate out there the President leads in the polls, could it be Hate Fatigue?this congressional authorization for war specifically and unambiguously says that further diplomacy will not adequately protect the United States against the threat posed by Iraq.Oh, and Karen Hughes pointed out on Fox that in 1991 when Kerry voted AGAINST the first gulf war he stated at that time that he couldn't support it because he knew it was a vote for WAR and not just to pressure Iraq!Not only are Kerry’s newfound qualifiers not included in this resolution, his so-called diplomatic qualifier is actually precluded by the resolution. This is precisely why Kerry’s latest anti-war political offensive leading up to this evening’s foreign-policy debate has no resonance with either registered or likely voters according to virtually every poll.
item: Kerry - (On domestic security) "That's why they had to close down the subway in New York when the Republican Convention was there."Problem: I was there. The NYC subway never closed during the convention
Item: Kerry recounted how he had (with former Senator Smith (R-NH)) gone down into the bowels of the former KGB under TREBLINKA SQUARE.Problem: Treblinka was the name of a NAZI EXTERMINATION CAMP.
Muslim groups responded immediately, calling Eckhardt's characterization of Islam inaccurate and dangerous, the paper reported.
In the 20 minute speech Israel was mentioned 31 times - 1.55 times per minute (my correction from "seconds")! This is the Arab Obsession!When you blame everyone else for your faults you are reaching the point where you are a lost civilization!
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 24 (AFP) - An official from the corruption probe into the UN's "oil-for-food" programme in Iraq resigned on Friday following reports she had compared US President George W. Bush to Osama bin Laden.Wizbang has this great update: Daily Democrat Desperation & Delusion Dispatch...
The resignation came after the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, issued a press release noting an article that Di Lellio had written in London's Guardian newspaper two years ago.
In the piece, written on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States, Di Lellio railed against "Bush and his puppeteers" as well as a US ally in the Iraq war, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
"With defenders like (Bush) and Berlusconi, largely unchecked by a sycophantic media, who needs bin Laden to destroy culture, personal freedom, respect for other human beings, integrity, and the rule of law -- all the things that make our lives worthwhile?" she wrote.
