October 29, 2004
Guess Who's Stumping For Kerry?
Darn it all. We should have searched Kerry's mansion for Osama. Now he's stumping for Kerry.
I guess Kerry will be getting the terrorist vote this year.
Kerry's also stumping in Germany today, trying to stir up some old spirits that should have stayed dead.
These photos were taken from Worth 1ooo and excellent photshop site.
Bush Wins By 36!!!
Okay, here's the deal:
Pusillanimous Wanker has put down the gauntlet for an electoral vote prediction. The closest scenario will win the distinct honor of having the afforementioned Howard Dean supporter with no where to go but Kerry rename his site to yours for one week. Maybe if you sweet talk him real nice he'll even turn the title into a link to your site but don't count on it. For details go to his site here.
And just to be smarmy I'll do it too, link included. Honestly I don't believe I'll lose. All the demmies think Kerry will win....
WHAT FOOLS!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!
I have made my predictions for the 2004 presidential elections. I have tallied and computed and have come up with the following election results:
States that were close were taken with with an average of the last two or three polls from both Zogby and Gallup. I did not use Rassmussen, Harris or any of the other polls for making my determinations. Of the multiple polls out the only ones that have shown a consistant record are the two I have chosen. Gallup's only presidential election failure ever has been Dewy, ten elections ago. Zogby is the stongest competitor to Gallup and I feel it would be unfair to only use one since so many pollsters are out there trying.
Why am I using only polls to make a judgement? Winston churchill once said: "Anyone under 30 that is a conservative has no heart. Anyone older than 30 that is a liberal has no mind." I'm 30 and have been a conservative for a long time. I guess you could call me heartless. However, I have constructed this prediction with my mind and not my heart. If I had used my heart I would have come up with Kerry winning by well over 100. Here is my prediction:
Bush will win by 36 electoral votes.
There will be no contested states.
Kerry will concede defeat on Tuesday night, the 2nd of November, 2004.
Until the elections, (or after the elections for some people now) take a look at why I'm voting for John F. Kerry. I know your going to say "you're nuts! Why are you switching to Kerry?" It's simply that he agrees with me on every important position. I bet he agrees with you too. Here's the radio spot that convinced me:
Special thanks to Mark Simone for creating this spot and making my decision so simple.
My apologies to all the Bush supporters.
October 28, 2004
OCTOBER SURPRISE!!!
This just in from the Washington Times! Russians moved the explosives from the Al Qaqaa facility into Syria and Lebanon before the U.S. was on the ground! They also moved many other high interest items from other facilities into Syria as well! Here is the link to the Washington times page:
Here's the address to put on your site:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041028-122637-6257r.htm
Note: WT moved this article from the original location. If you have the old link and it doesn't work use the above link.
There's also a related article to in the FT.
My hat tip goes to Editors In Pajamas. (Damned bloggers running around posting controversial material in their pajamas! - Dan Rather)
Another Pajamahadeen update, Brit Hume interview with Paul Bremer. You may have to play with settings to get it to work:
02:00 UPDATE: People who have posted on this:
HundredPercenter Newswires
Powerline
Instapundit
Editors In Pajamas
Michelle Malkin
WizBang
Little Green Footballs
Note: google news only has Joyce Malachy from HundredPercenter as a news source on this since the Washington Times put the ball into motion an hour ago.
0300 UPDATE:
People who have posted:
Blogs for Bush
The Command Post
The Bleat
NRO (Just a link)
Note: Have gone all the way down to playful primates on TTLB and on libs talking.
News Links:
INTERFAX Russia - Diplomat denies Russia helded Saddam move weapons
Moscow News - Russian Special Forces Smuggled Saddam’s Weapons from Iraq to Syria — Newspaper
Note: LGF is up to 544 comments. Still no Left minded bloggers. Only two Russian media outlets posting. No other media outlets.
0400 Update:
People who have posted:
Just Jeff at:
Beautiful Atrocities
News:
No news is good news? (If I see another thing on oil I'm going to puke. Running a news search on google for "russia". Still nothing on the MSM. Feel like the Maytag guy waiting for something to break...like a story.)
0430 Update: Final (getting off work soon)
People who have posted:
Blogbat
Dean's World
INDCJournal
The Jawa Report
My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
News hits: (it has begun. goodnight everybody...anybody.)
Keralanext India - Iraq ; Russia smuggled Saddam's weapons: Report
ITAR-TASS, Russia - Russia not involved in explosive disappearance in Iraq
GOPUSA - Talon News, Texas - Bush Fires Back; Russia May Have Taken Iraqi Explosives
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's the full text of the document (Their site has been getting the crap pummelled out of it but I managed to get the full text):
Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.
John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.
"The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units," Mr. Shaw said. "Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units."
Mr. Shaw, who was in charge of cataloguing the tons of conventional arms provided to Iraq by foreign suppliers, said he recently obtained reliable information on the arms-dispersal program from two European intelligence services that have detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi weapons collaboration.
Most of Saddam's most powerful arms were systematically separated from other arms like mortars, bombs and rockets, and sent to Syria and Lebanon, and possibly to Iran, he said. The Russian involvement in helping disperse Saddam's weapons, including some 380 tons of RDX and HMX is still being investigated, Mr. Shaw said. The RDX and HMX, which are used to manufacture high-explosive and nuclear weapons, are probably of Russian origin, he said.
Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita could not be reached for comment.
The disappearance of the material was reported in a letter Oct. 10 from the Iraqi government to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Disclosure of the missing explosives Monday in a New York Times story was used by the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, who accused the Bush administration of failing to secure the material.
Al-Qaqaa, a known Iraqi weapons site, was monitored closely, Mr. Shaw said.
"That was such a pivotal location, Number 1, that the mere fact of [special explosives] disappearing was impossible," Mr. Shaw said. "And Number 2, if the stuff disappeared, it had to have gone before we got there."
The Pentagon disclosed yesterday that the Al-Qaqaa facility was defended by Fedayeen Saddam, Special Republican Guard and other Iraqi military units during the conflict. U.S. forces defeated the defenders around April 3 and found the gates to the facility open, the Pentagon said in a statement yesterday.
A military unit in charge of searching for weapons, the Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, then inspected Al-Qaqaa on May 8, May 11 and May 27, 2003, and found no high explosives that had been monitored in the past by the IAEA.
The Pentagon said there was no evidence of large-scale movement of explosives from the facility after April 6.
"The movement of 377 tons of heavy ordnance would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks prior to and subsequent to the 3rd Infantry Division's arrival at the facility," the statement said.
The statement also said that the material may have been removed from the site by Saddam's regime.
According to the Pentagon, U.N. arms inspectors sealed the explosives at Al-Qaqaa in January 2003 and revisited the site in March and noted that the seals were not broken.
It is not known if the inspectors saw the explosives in March. The U.N. team left the country before the U.S.-led invasion began March 20, 2003.
A second defense official said documents on the Russian support to Iraq reveal that Saddam's government paid the Kremlin for the special forces to provide security for Iraq's Russian arms and to conduct counterintelligence activities designed to prevent U.S. and Western intelligence services from learning about the arms pipeline through Syria.
The Russian arms-removal program was initiated after Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian intelligence chief, could not convince Saddam to give in to U.S. and Western demands, this official said.
A small portion of Iraq's 650,000 tons to 1 million tons of conventional arms that were found after the war were looted after the U.S.-led invasion, Mr. Shaw said. Russia was Iraq's largest foreign supplier of weaponry, he said.
However, the most important and useful arms and explosives appear to have been separated and moved out as part of carefully designed program. "The organized effort was done in advance of the conflict," Mr. Shaw said.
The Russian forces were tasked with moving special arms out of the country.
Mr. Shaw said foreign intelligence officials believe the Russians worked with Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service to separate out special weapons, including high explosives and other arms and related technology, from standard conventional arms spread out in some 200 arms depots.
The Russian weapons were then sent out of the country to Syria, and possibly Lebanon in Russian trucks, Mr. Shaw said.
Mr. Shaw said he believes that the withdrawal of Russian-made weapons and explosives from Iraq was part of plan by Saddam to set up a "redoubt" in Syria that could be used as a base for launching pro-Saddam insurgency operations in Iraq.
The Russian units were dispatched beginning in January 2003 and by March had destroyed hundreds of pages of documents on Russian arms supplies to Iraq while dispersing arms to Syria, the second official said.
Besides their own weapons, the Russians were supplying Saddam with arms made in Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and other Eastern European nations, he said.
"Whatever was not buried was put on lorries and sent to the Syrian border," the defense official said.
Documents reviewed by the official included itineraries of military units involved in the truck shipments to Syria. The materials outlined in the documents included missile components, MiG jet parts, tank parts and chemicals used to make chemical weapons, the official said.
The director of the Iraqi government front company known as the Al Bashair Trading Co. fled to Syria, where he is in charge of monitoring arms holdings and funding Iraqi insurgent activities, the official said.
Also, an Arabic-language report obtained by U.S. intelligence disclosed the extent of Russian armaments. The 26-page report was written by Abdul Tawab Mullah al Huwaysh, Saddam's minister of military industrialization, who was captured by U.S. forces May 2, 2003.
The Russian "spetsnaz" or special-operations forces were under the GRU military intelligence service and organized large commercial truck convoys for the weapons removal, the official said.
Regarding the explosives, the new Iraqi government reported that 194.7 metric tons of HMX, or high-melting-point explosive, and 141.2 metric tons of RDX, or rapid-detonation explosive, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, were missing.
The material is used in nuclear weapons and also in making military "plastic" high explosive.
Defense officials said the Russians can provide information on what happened to the Iraqi weapons and explosives that were transported out of the country. Officials believe the Russians also can explain what happened to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In other news the Curse of the Bambino has been broken! The Red Sox have won the World Series!!!
October 27, 2004
Random Entertainment
Outsourcing has finally hit the technical field hard. Here's a tech support video specific to the contract I'm working on. Special thanks to Ill Will Press for the simulated interview between our contract and The Smell Computer Company:
As we all know voting in Florida has been a debated concern since 2000. As voter assistance, Boom Chicago Amseterdam has come up with this video. I think Bush will sweep florida this year (be patient it takes a while to load, it's Quicktime):
To be a bit more serious about the election, I'm here to endorse John Kerry for everyone. John Kerry is the candidate for all Americans no matter what side you’re on. I was a devout Bush supporter until I heard this latest commercial from Mark Simone of 77WABC News Talk Radio. This is only an audio commercial but it was powerful enough to make me realize that John Kerry supports every one of my positions. I'm willing to bet he supports every one of your as well:
(Please don't panic! I'm not really voting for Kerry.)
October 26, 2004
Some Real Poetry
I've noticed something while skulking around in the dark shadows of Kerry supporting sites: many of tehm have a thing for the haiku form of poetry. Maybe it's because they're short little blurbs that usually don't mean much? It might even say something about the poor attention span of the readers of such sites? Since the liberals have taken posetion of the haiku I feel it is my obligation to at least make the forray into some real poetry. It's been a while since I've penned anything in a poetically meloncoly mood so please forgive me my sonnet isn't in perfect iambic pentameter.
At last the end of this coming nigh.
Election polls are tight and hopes are high.
Methinks the Zogby polls have got it straight,
but USA Today is second rate.
A million polls are false with different sins,
but Gallup hasn't lost since Dewy Wins!
The Democrats have chosen Mr. Heinz.
His nuanced plans are missing good designs.
Everything they do is launch attacks,
but what would you expect from those behinds?
Republican incumbent Bush is strong.
He realizes appeasement is wrong.
He'll put the terrorists upon their backs,
so don't forget to vote before too long.
And so it goes; the difference between liberal and conservative poetry. Please feel free to try for yourselves. It's fun!
Yet another poll/questionaire thingy
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm a centrist, but I'm still voting for Bush.
 | You preferred Kerry's statements 44% of the time
You preferred Bush's statements 56% of the time
Voting purely on the issues you should vote Bush Who would you vote for if you voted on the issues? Find out now! |
Go check it out. I found it via bitchalicious.
October 25, 2004
I've been busted
Pusillanimous Wanker caught me in a falsehood in the immediately preceeding article. No SCUD missiles have been found or launched at Kuwait. The missiles launced at Kuwait were either Silkworms, Seersuckers, Ababil-100's, Volga/SA-2's, or Al Samoud variants.
Of these types, Al Samoud variants are the only types capable of going over the 150KM, UN mandated, launch distance. They were known to be in country with some of them being destroyed, but I confess that I do not know if any of them escaped destruction and were subsequently launched. We had verification of half of them being destroyed but I have no proof of the second half. If Pusillanimous Wanker would like to go for broke and pull that rabbit out of a hat I'll change my blog name to PUSILLANIMOUS WARWANKER III for the rest of the week. (This whole link challenge thing is getting kind of fun. I got him last week on one here.)
(comments a page below, as per the deal)
Why Attack Iraq?
Many people have made mention that the real threat is either Iran or North Korea (from here on out called the DPRK) since they do have nuclear weapons. After a bit of thinking, a couple beers, some web surfing and a few shots of Woodford Reserve I've come to the conclusion that anyone who believes this are a bunch of asshats. Not just asshats but the magic Kool-aid drinking asshats; the tin-foil hat wearing asshats; the...well, you get the idea, its a conspiracy theory. Just like "we could have caught Osama in the foothills of Tora Bora if Bush hadn't gone after the oil" kind of conspiracy theory. If this is your kind of thing, here's the site for you. All other please read on.
What alot of people tend to forget about the "axis-of-evil" was the assumption that all three had nuclear proliferation capabilities. Those that argue that Bush was proven wrong by the fact that no nuclear weapons were found in completed form Iraq miss many key points. The first and foremost being that everyone, including Kerry and Edwards, believed that Saddam had nuclear capability. Both of them signed a document and forwarded it to Bill Clinton (yes, Bill not George) that said Saddam had nuclear weapons and needed to be stopped. This is the same kind of proof that we have from Iran and DPRK today. Take a look at Iran; they say they don't have nuclear weapons or are trying to make them but no one believes them; sort of like how no one believed Saddam. DPRK on the other hand screams it from the highest monestary bell tower "Hey, look over here! We've hot nukes so give us what we want or we'll use them!" Maybe they do and maybethey're just trying to put a deal on the table for a bit of cash. The reality is that we do not really know if they have nuclear proliferation capabilities or not. The only way we can know for sure is to go in and find out for ourselves. This puts all three nations on the same playing field; they all have/had the potential.
Now lets look at what made Iraq the target country. I feel that the best way to explain this is to give a bit of a demographic of each country as well as pros and cons to invading each one. This, in my opinion, will allow you to think for yourself, or at least through my eyes.
DPRK
DPRK has the biggest case of short man's syndrome in the world. They will stop at nothing to proliferate their position so they may have a better standing in their deals and treaties. They are, in fact, so bad about doing this that the first deal that was to be brokered during the Korean war caused it to be delayed because they offended the U.S. negotiators enough to have them walk out in the middle of negotiations. It's almost like Kabuki theater, with the exception that they are Korean and much worse actors. They have always tried to posture this way when they were going to ask for a big favor of aid and/or support.
If you've been watching the news, DPRK has agreed to continue peace talks in exchange for assurance that they would not be attacked and compensation for relinquishing their current nuclear ambitions. That sounds like they're just asking for a hand out to me. This is not a nation trying to kill us with bombs, they just want some payola. For those that haven't noticed, DPRK has always had a food shortage. I remember when I was stationed in Sout Korea reading about a new DPRK book explaining the best way to cook grass. They have nothing to eat up there. This is one of the few times where sanctions have actually worked.
♣ As a side note, the big boom everyone heard in North Korea a couple of weeks ago was more than likely their first nuclear test. This is just my theory so put whatever tin-foil hat on it you may want. I believe it scared the piss out of them. Until you actually blow one of these babies up you have no idea what they're all about. Sure, we've seen and heard all about them but I'm sure there's something overpowering about actually seeing something of that capacity. I think they're just trying to get rid of it now. They're scared straight.
IRAN
Iran is a horse of a different color. They really hate us. They kicked us out once (remember Jimmy's 444 days of terror) and they believe they could do it again. Our ways are not welcome to these people at this time. The reason they are a forced religious state today is because we tried to westernize them too quickly. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a puppet placed as the Shah of Iran by the Soviet-British forces occupying Iran in 1953, without a vote was exiled by the followers of Ruhollah Khomeini. Ruhollah had become the Ayatollah in command of the new religious state of Iran in 1979. Let's just say the west leaves a sour taste in their mouths. We pushed them to hard and they reverted.
Since this uprising there have been a few new uprisings in Iran that have been taken on by the younger Iranians. One might say that this would be an opportunity to do what we did in Afganistan and help them along the way to a swift overthrow. I say that you didn't read the chapter before this one. The uprisings that occur in Iran want no dealings with the western world. We are not on good terms with them. One belief is that in time the younger generation will take over the Mullahs and all will be better in Iran. We don't need to attack Iran because the problem wil eventually sort itself out. It just takes time.
IRAQ
Saddam Hussein is one of the many dictators that rule parts of this world. He's good buddies with peopel like Fidel Castro. His hero is Stalin for crissakes. He idolizes a man who destroyed thousands upon thousands of his own people and ruled with an iron fist. There was evidence of his leadership ideology before we went into Iraq in forms greater than "just the Kurds". (It's as if "just the Kurds" are "just a small ethnic cleansing".) Only after we went in did we know how bad it really was. He was a really bad man. Just take a look at Qusay's torture room for athletes to see how bad they really were. Of course, we didn't know about this until after we went in so just foget about the torture and child rape and abuse....if you can.
Here's a shocker for all of those that don't understand the difference between 9/11 and Al Queda: go to this link. Even Kerry get's this wrong. The fact is that Cheney used a poor choice of words to try and enhance feelings against Iraq by closely relating the terrorists of 9/11 with the whole of Al Queda. As we have all been told in bedtime stories, Al Queda has many different cells. The cell that hit the trade center shows no evidence of being linked to Iraq. Al Queda, on the other hand, has many links to Iraq. There have been multiple communique's with Osama Bin Laden. There is believed to be a monetary tie to Osama. When Osama's personal funds were running out and being tapped by the whole of Al Queda and during this time of uncertainty he had a few meetings with some Iraqi dignitaries. After those meetings he had no more money problems after those meetings. Iraq even had a representative at what has been called the global terrorist summit which contained, in a large part, Al Queda. There are other links like the Hamas funding and others but this should be sufficient to convince you. Yes, there were known links between Iraq and terror.
One difference between Iraq and most of the middle east was that their leadership structure was not based in religion. Sure, if you take a look at Saddam's history of worship you'll notice he really didn't do much with it until it became important politically...sort of like Kerry. (Sorry, I couldn't help the quick jab.) He wore a military uniform (similar to that of Castro) or a suit in his more diplomatic days. He never wore a turban or any of the other religious garb that would indicate a man of high faith. He wasn't an overly religious man and neither were his staff. There was a true separation of church and state there. Even Jews and strange Christian sects were allowed sanctuary in parts of Iraq. What does this have to do with attacking them? It allows us to go in and take over a partially appeasable society. If Iraq were a religious based socitey of Sunnis, like Iran, we would be overwhelmed with the society as a whole instead of the smaller uprisings we have now. Don't get me wrong, the uprisings of today are still significant. They're just smaller than they would be if an Ayatollah were driving the people.
The last thing that make the Iraqis a target is the disorganized manner in which everything was handled in their country. Saddam had overall power to do what he wanted when he wanted. If he said something was to be done then it got done, even if no one was really doing it. One example of this were some barrels of Uranium Yellowcake that were sent over from South Africa. Upon American questioning of the sellers we were told "What are you crazy? He's a madman. We sold him barels of sand." But Saddam did not know they were barrels of sand. He thought they were yellowcake and no one would tell him any different for fear of becoming someone's next torture victim. This was just one of many examples of the deception in Iraq that made it an unstable place. The instability made them the most likely target for government overthrow out of the three.
Conclusion
BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED! NYYEAAAARRGGGHH!!!: Bush did not lie, he was misinformed about things that no one knew the real truth to. If not knowing the absolute truth is a lie then we would need to accuse every president since George Washington of being a Liar. Leadership of a nation means that you gather the information you have available and make a judgement based upon what you have. You rarely ever know all of the facts. Maybe you don't know all of the facts.
But there were no WMD!: There were WMD in Iraq. Not nuclear WMD but chemical WMD and ranged WMD. If you can remember back to the first days of the ground war you'll remember the first missile fired was a SCUD aimed at Kuwait. A SCUD is a banned weapon, as was the Al Sammud II missiles that they said they did not have...until we found them and forced them to start destroying them. The first SCUD fired was rumored to have a chemical warhead. This was found out by radio transmission interception. It was later found out, when we picked these guys up, that they were too scared to handle the potentially leaky chemical warheads and opted for the explosive head instead. These were WMD and proof the inspections did not work. After the, ahem, peace was won we discovered something that absolutely wasn't chemical weapons. It was only barrels upon barrels of pesticide, concentrated enough to cause people to have chemical like effects in several cases (see: foaming at the mouth and shaking violently on the floor), in ammunition dumps, next to empty rocket shells. But this was only for agricultural purposes so I digress.
To take a phrase out of Bush's playbook, it was the right thing to do, at the right place, at the right time. The world is a much better place without Saddam building palaces with oil-for-food money. The world is a much better place without another terroist sponsoring nation, more should follow. The world is a much better place without a nuclear proliferator. (The reports said he was waiting until sanctions were lifted to spin back up.) The world is a much better place with Iraq holding free elections in a new and democratic Iraq.