May Ferid live a long and fruitful life.

Ferid is the owner and proprieter of Loser's Blog. A month or two ago he visited my site and left me a note or two. As a responsible blogger, I visited his in turn. We've had one or two exchanges on this and that but nothing much. I would like to extend to him a welcome anytime he wants to visit my site or any others linked from mine. (If anyone gives him a hard time I'll personally see to it that you become the next donkey bomb...testicles first.) Personally, I feel that everyone, right, left, conservative, liberal, libertarian, progressive, foriegn and domestic, should read his blog.

He does not always post daily and that may be a turn-off, but he is the voice of innocent truth and needs to be listened to. He is what is happening in Iraq. He is the youth of Iraq. He is where Iraq is headed. It doesn't matter where some weapons went. It doesn't matter where the oil goes. It doesn't even matter what countries are for or against this war. What matters is that everyone needs to recognize a voice of what is really happening in Iraq and listen form a human point of view, non-partisan.

As a sample, I'm including his latest post. If you would like to see it on his site please go here.

\_/""\_/""\_/""\_/""\_/
Ferrid the Great

Thursday, October 28, 2004

a letter

This is a letter that I found in a forum from an Iraqi citizen in Fallugah, being translated by one of the members there…

"…In the Name of Allah the Compassionate and Merciful,

I am a citizen of Fallujah and have sent this call to most Iraqi newspapers, but everybody is scared of conveying the truth about my town and you are my last hope. I left the town with my family last night not to escape from the occupiers' bombs but to escape a fatwa by Sheikh Abdullah Al-Janabi and the "Consultation Council in Fallujah". The gist of it is that each head of a family with daughters of more than 10 years of age should marry them off to one of the Mujahideen to protect them from rape by occupation soldiers should they overrun the town. I am a father of three daughters older than 10 years of age and I do not want to marry them off to those Mujahideen. This fatwa was announced immediately after the end of the the Mujahideen Conference in Fallujah and Ramadi on 21/10/2004 and was widely approved of by religious and tribal leaders. Please convey our call to the world and may Allah give us refuge."

Really can't say anything about its credibility, but there is rumors also that's some women organizations are offering and tempting to marry young women with the infiltrated Arab terrorists the so called "Mujahdeen"
And these organizations are under control of ex-ba'athes and some radical clerics…well this is all maybe some rubbish of newspapers or might be the most disgusting thing I've ever heard in my life :P

More bad news an armed group showed photos of new eleven hostages of the Iraqi National Guard, also a new Japanese hostage….



posted by Ferid the great @ 8:40 AM

\_/""\_/""\_/""\_/""\_/

Go visit Farid's Loser's Blog for more of the truth.

UPDATE! Ferid wants to add this:
"with out your aid we wouldn't had the chance to speak out"

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:

RADIO

Special thanks to Mark Simone for creating this spot and making my decision so simple.
My apologies to all the Bush supporters.

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:

LINK

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:

VIDEO OPTIONS


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!!!

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:

VIDEO

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):

VIDEO

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:

AUDIO

(Please don't panic! I'm not really voting for Kerry.)

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.

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.

American WarSpammer

As a joke brought up in a conversation with Mamamontezz and myself I changed my name to American Warspammer for a day. The spam people a quick with this stuff, or rather, the anti-spam people are quick with this stuff. I've never talked about this before and never recieved spam complaints from anyone either, particularly the porn variety. I'm not supporting the following e-mail but I just thought it was rather funny that within a day (more like 12 hours) of changing my name I get hit with something like this:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>From: "Pat McGrath"
>To:
>Subject: Request from Morality in Media/ObscenityCrimes.org
>Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 11:26:54 -0400
>
>Dear Jeremy:
>
>I discovered American Warspammer while exploring the TTLB Ecosystem. And I'd like to put a proposition to you:
>
>Are your visitors concerned about the tidal wave of Internet pornography? Have their computers ever been mouse-trapped by a pornography site? Are their in-boxes stuffed with porn spam? Are they concerned about their children surfing to a pornography site with a URL misspelled to deceive them?
>
>And: Do they want to TAKE ACTION against this -- instead of merely playing defense by filtering? We've got the tool for them -- an EASY way for Mr. & Mrs. American Websurfer to FIGHT BACK against Internet pornography!
>
>If it is, you might be interested in adding a public service link to the OBSCENITYCRIMES.ORG Web site on your blog. Here's how "The Dawn Patrol" is doing it:
>http://www.jtanzer.com/dawneden/blogger.html
>http://www.dawneden.com/2004_10_01_archive.html#109816931064380535
>
>To help you out, I've set up this page on ObscenityCrimes.org:
>http://www.obscenitycrimes.org/graphics/BannerSamples.cfm
>with four GIF format buttons -- three 125x125; one 88x32 -- that you can grab for your own site. These buttons were designed by fellow blogger Marty McKeever ( http://www.vigilancematters.com).
>
>Please point your links to our root URL, http://www.obscenitycrimes.org
>
>ObscenityCrimes.org allows Mr. & Mrs. Websurfer to report the URLs of hard-core pornography sites. We then take the data collected and forward it to the U.S. Justice Department and to Federal prosecutors for investigation into possible violations of the Federal obscenity laws.
>
>ObscenityCrimes.org is a project of Morality in Media, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which has been combating hard-core pornography since 1962.
>
>I invite you to tour ObscenityCrimes.org to see for yourself how it works. If you have any questions, you can call me or e-mail me at the contact info below.
>
>Very truly yours,
>
>PATRICK McGRATH
>Director of Media Relations
>Morality in Media, Inc.
>475 Riverside Drive #239
>New York NY 10115
>1-212-870-3217 Phone
>1-212-870-2765 Fax
>mim@moralityinmedia.org E-mail
>Web sites:
>http://www.moralityinmedia.org
>http://www.obscenitycrimes.org
>
>Would you like to sign up for the MIM E-mail newsletter list? Click here:
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In memorial to this e-mail I will provide my one and only porn link brought to you by The Big Dick: Private Shots. Yes, it's real porn. If your under 18 DO NOT CLICK THE LINK. (like that's going to stop you) Oh well, have a good weekend.

Stolen Honor video is now FREE!!!

Hat tip to Angela at Yoshi's Blog Spot. I don't think I've ever been to her site. I guess I'll have to start visiting her. Anyway, the Stolen Honor video, the one you had to pay 5 bucks for is now free of charge on the net. A portion of The Buttoned Press, the Boston Manifesto, has released free of charge the Stolen Honor Video. Here's the page they have it up on. If you trust me, here's the direct link to their movie.

If you want your info in HTML here you go:

Buttoned Press
http://www.buttondepress.com/

Boston Manifesto
http://www.buttondepress.com/BostonManifesto/Index.htm

Page for Stolen Honor Video
http://www.buttondepress.com/BostonManifesto/StolenHonor.htm

Link directly to the 42.09 minute long movie
http://www.buttondepress.com/BostonManifesto/stolenhonor.wmv

If you feel like you should pay for it and support their cause
http://www.stolenhonor.com/

Even liberals should watch it. Hell, especially liberals should watch it. Maybe we can swing a couple votes out of it.

GO DUB 04!!!

You Might Be A Geek Part 2

Okay, I ran a few of these a while back here. With 11 or so days before Bush is re-elected president in a hitherto unknown landslide I feel it's about time we take a minute to sit back and laugh at ourselves. So without further adeu:

If you wish car stereos took USB Flash drives...You might be a geek. (rince and repeat)

If you quote Office Space more than Pricess Bride or The Holy Grail...

If you quote Princess Bride or The holy Grail...

If you own a red swingline stapler...(I've got one at work.)

If you signed any of the reinstate Farscape petitions...

If you walk past the phone book to look up a phone number on the computer...

If you can't remember how to spell a word you walk past the dictionary to google it...

If your Heroes for Bush character ever used a laser gun or slayed a vampire...

If something really cool just happened and you have to tell someone so you run to your computer...

If your computer crashes and you roll over to your backup computer to finish what you were doing while you rebuild it...(Doing that right now.)

If people use you to clarify technical details of Star Trek, Star Wars, Farscape, SG-1, etc...

If you speak to your friends in Star Wars terms. I.E. Help me Obi Wan your my only hope...

If you knew about JibJab before the elections...

If your vanity plate has a geek term on it...(try a couple)

If you can't wait for that new game to come out so you can steal it off the net...

If you've ever done more Chrismas shopping online than offline...

If you bought a data interface cable for your cell phone before you bought the car charger...

If you measure a man's worth by the size of his USB stick...

If you know who the author of Wizardry for the Apple II+ was...(special thanks to Steve)

If you know what an Apple II+ or a Commodore-64 is...


That's all for today. I need to work on my system rebuild. I'm sure more will follow...

Aeryn Sun for Bush

Aeryn Sun: Former peacekeeper and Bush supporter

As a former Peacekeeper I have learned how brutal the universe can be. I have seen and done things in the Pleisar Regiment that the people of earth can't even imagine yet. Things that I wish I could forget. The Scarrans have done these things to my people, as they have done to others for many onns. They know nothing but death and murder. I see the same thing happening with the terrorists of your world. Moose-lambs you call them? They wish to destroy everything that does not follow their belief system. I cannot vote for I am an alien but John has already submitted his absentee ballot for Bush and what's his name? Darth Vader? Your Moose-Lambs must be stopped at all costs. They have the right plan of action.

Sorry I didn't catch this earlier. John has corrected me. They are called Muslim Wackos.

In your nation of America you have two vastly different ideas of how to deal with these beings. On one side you have a Mr. Bush that believes that the only way to stop them is to answer power with power. This will work as he has much more ordinance at his disposal and what I believe to be a stronger resolve.

Mr. Kerry, his opposite, believes that you can negotiate with these creatures. He is mislead into believing that he can win the minds of those that have nothing to gain by joining him and everything to lose. They will not join with him because of their pre-ordained rights to some crude black fuel that comes out of the ground. They are also too weak a race to challenge either power to take for their own. They are to be considered lesser beings. They are of no consequence to you. They are like so many DRDs buzzing in the background. Kerry's belief in their support or relevance is frelling insane. He is floating aimlessly through space and time.

You may ask yourself why I have chosen to speak with you when I have so many more pressing matters. This world is not my own so what interest would I have in your insignificant affairs? As many of you know, Rygel is pregnant with mine and John's baby. It will be half peacekeeper and half human. It will be forever linked to this world. I would not want this world to be destroyed because a band of savages destroyed the growing technology of an isolated world on the edge of the galaxy because someone thought it was good to appease them. They cannot be appeased, just as the Scarrans cannot be appeased. They must be destroyed at all costs.

I must end this transmission as Moya will be entering Starburst shortly. Good luck in your free elections.

--end transmission--

TTLB Blogburst: Heroes for Bush

N.Z. Bear the overlord of the TTLB Ecosystem has planned a blogburst. Have your submissions for the Heroes for Bush blogburst ready for him by Thursday night or early Friday morning.

Here's the link for more information. I've already written mine. Lets just say I'm going to beat everybody...MUAHAAHAHAHA!!!

(If you'd like to consider that a challenge then it is a challenge. If you don't think this is a challenge...it's a friggin' challenge you schmuck! Go write something entertaining!)

Names already registered:

Spoons
Robin Sizemore
Tony at Oriental Redneck
What is Flig?
sisu
Lapsus Calami
Secure Liberty
Right Thoughts
CrankyBeach
American Warmonger
and a host of others...

Don't miss this once every four years opportunity!

I'm Confused About Health Insurance?

Maybe it's because I work for a large company or maybe Kerry's just full of it again, I don't know. Maybe a little bit of both. I got my yearly benefits package in the mail a couple of days ago and if I retain the benefits plan I'm currently on I'll be paying 7.43$ less bi-weekly than I did last year. That comes out to 193.18$ less this year total. Okay, so where's the big health cost hike Kerry promised me? I feel let down. Shame on him, he mislead (see lied to) me.

Let me break this down a bit better. I have big healthcare. There are a lot of options within my grasp for healthcare and I've chosen a lot of them. I normally don't brag about this but my company does right by it's people when it comes to benefits. The best way I can explain this is in chart form:

(My apologies for poor formatting.)

Benefit Credits - This is the amount of money my company is willing to shell out per-family for all benefits

2004-------------2005----------Difference
9,188.00_____8,952.00____-236.00

Okay, my free money went down by 236 dollars. That stinks but it's not too bad. They adjusted proportionately for the cost reductions. Cost reductions? Just wait, you'll see.

Medical - Just what it says and then some. If you have medical through our company you automatically get free vision. Vision covers one eye exam per family member per year plus half off their prescriptions every two years. It's not perfect vision but it's free. Now the medical:

2004------------2005------------Difference
10,195.20____9,863.28_____-331.92

That's better, my medical dropped 331.92$. So where's the doom and gloom Kerry is touting with a Bush healthcare plan? Sure, it's only a 3% price drop but wasn't it supposed to go up? I was sort of looking forward to feeling the pinch.

To be fair, I should include some of my other benefits since it's a total package:

Dental:

2004------------2005-----------Difference
520.20______540.72______+20.52

Basic Life Insurance: 1x my base pay (52,000) or 50,000 as a minimum.

Employee Optional Life Insurance: 4x annual base pay (207,000) This year is more than last year. Last year was 199,000 for 4x.

2004------------2005-----------Difference
143.28______196.24______+52.96

Spouse Life Insurance: 50,000

2004----------2005-----------Difference
23.40______42.60______+19.20

Child Life Insurance: 20,000

2004------------2005-----------Difference
21.60_______21.60_______No Change

AD&D: Not Dungeons and Dragons. Accidental Death & Dismemberment - 2x base pay. Again, since my salary went up, so shall the coverage and the costs.

2004------------2005------------Difference
28.80_______37.44_______+8.64

STD: No, I didn't need a shot. Short Term Disability (STD) increased from 75% to 85% base pay coverage.

2004------------2005-----------Difference
322.18______123.70_____-198.48 (not a typo, decreased 62%)

LTD: Long Term Disability. I'm a computer geek. Anything short of losing both my eyes or both my hands I'll be back at work before this would ever kick in. I did not take any.

Since I've put all the data in we may as well do the simple math to calculate how much everything went down total:

2004 Costs
10195.20
+520.20
+143.28
+23.40
+21.60
+28.80
+322.18

11,254.66 total benefit costs for 2004
937.89$ per month total for 2004
432.87$ bi-weekly total for 2004

2,066.66 total benefit costs for 2004 after 9,188.00 company share.
172.22$ per month personal for 2004
79.49$ per month personal for 2004
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2005 Costs
9,863.28
540.72
196.24
42.60
21.60
37.44
123.70

10,825.58 total benefit costs for 2005
902.13$ per month total for 2004
416.37$ bi-weekly total for 2004

1,873.58 total benefit costs for 2004 after 8,952.00 company share.
156.08$ per month personal for 2004
72.06$ per month personal for 2004

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now for the difference comparisons any way you'd like to look at it:

11,254.66 - 10825.58 = 429.08 total benefit savings
937.89 - 902.13 = 35.76 per month total savings
432.87 - 416.37 = 16.50 bi-weekly total savings

2,066.66 - 1,873.58 = 193.08 total benefit savings after company share.
172.22 - 156.08 = 16.14 per month personal savings,
79.49 - 72.06 = 7.43 per month personal savings

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saving money on your life and health insurance = priceless
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you ran the numbers on any one of the above figures you would notice that there is a 4% total benefit savings and a 9% personal benefit savings. I'm sure to many of you these numbers are pretty boring but they tell a story, my story. Numbers like these are what inclines me to go with the incumbent president, Bush. It was under his administration that this strange event, saving on health insurance, took place. Is this a representative of all companies and all insurances everywhere? No. This is what has happened with my health and welfare benefits. It may not be representative of even the people sitting next to me. Then again, it could be happening all over the country. We don't have the demographics in yet.

I'm going to ask again because I'm still confused: where's the big health cost hike Kerry promised me?

ATTENTION! Kerry Plans to Re-institute The Draft!

We all know that Kerry is trying to scare the American people into thinking that Bush wants to re-institute the draft. He has become adamant about it.

Here are the ABC Headlines:

Kerry: Draft Likely to Return Under Bush (1)

Here's the comment Kerry made in the above article:

"If George Bush were to be re-elected, given the way he has gone about this war and given his avoidance of responsibility in North Korea and Iran and other places, is it possible? I can't tell you."

He believes that if things continue the way they are going he's not sure if Bush would re-institute a draft. Is that it? Is this what all the fuss is about? That's a pretty inflammatory title for such a weak quote. It's too bad there weren't any more quotes in the article. That's okay, ABC put out another one with better quotes and a slightly less panicky title:

Kerry Warns Draft Possible if Bush Wins

"With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of a draft. Because if we go it alone, I don't know how you do it with the current overextension"

That's better. Now we have all we need. If Kerry is elected he will re-institute the draft. Bush will not re-institute the draft. He has said so on several occasions. Let me say this again for all of the tin-foil hat wearing fools that missed this the first time: THERE WILL BE NO DRAFT UNDER BUSH!

Here comes the science of how Kerry will institute the draft:

Kerry's perceived key to enhancing our forces abroad is tied into the UN forces and the powers of France, China, Russia and Germany. These nations have nothing to gain by joining with a Kerry America. Many of them have stated that they will not join after the elections no matter who is president. Recent documents have even stated contractual obligations between some of them and the former Iraqi administration above and beyond the oil for food program/scandal. They will not commit forces to Iraq.

Kerry has stated that he will deploy more American forces in Iraq. He believes that we need to put more American forces on the ground to win the peace. He has harped on Bush several times for his "under manning" of the Iraqi forces. Of course, Bush went with the number of forces the military requested; silly him for believing what his Generals tell him. That must be another one of his character flaws.

Kerry has also made reference to beliefs that the real threat is with North Korea...or was that Iran? In reality he has stated we should be putting troops on the ground in both places. If Kerry had his way the "tough on nukes" policy mixed with his Bilateral stance on DPRK would land us squarely in a war with North Korea with no support from anyone except South Korea, who would have no choice. Iran, on the other hand, would hold a large number of our forces for an extended period of time as a deterrent. We may have the help of Great Britain and others in Iran but peace talks and posturing through the UN take time, over twelve years to be precise and they would still have waited. So how long do you think it would have taken them to depose the Iranian leadership?

The facts are clear. Kerry has made all of the aforementioned plans quite clear in his jockeying for the presidency. If we were doing all of the things that he has stated he would do we would have no choice but to re-institute the draft. Kerry has already stated in his second statement "I don't know how you would do it with the current overextension". With this, I'm sure he doesn't even consider the 183,746 reservists (as of Dec 2003) that are standing by. He didn't consider Bush's reserve time, why would he consider anyone else's?

(1) This comment is no longer available on the ABCNews site. A google cached page was used.

Kerry stinks internationally Part Trois (3)

Junk Yard Blog has found something that I don't think I can pass up on. I'm giving him serious props for his finds.

Japan has taken note of the comments Senator Kerry made about bilateral talks and is none too happy:

(edited by JYB)
(Source is here)


Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe said Friday there will be trouble if Democratic challenger John Kerry beats incumbent George W. Bush in the U.S. presidential election.

Takebe, who is seen as a right-hand man of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, told a Nippon Broadcasting System radio program, referring to the Nov. 2 presidential election, "It would mean trouble if it is not President Bush. Mr. Kerry is trying to address the North Korean problem bilaterally. That is totally out of the question."

---

The DPJ [an ankle-biting opposition party] said [Prime Minister] Koizumi's expressing support for Bush is an interference in the domestic affairs of the United States.

Koizumi told reporters Thursday, "I don't want to interfere with another country's election but since I'm well-acquainted with President Bush, I want him to carry on."



It appears that both political parties prefer Bush to Kerry but Takabe made specific mention to Kerry's bilateral talks are totally out of the question. If I remember right I made mention of this before. Maybe it was here? I really hate to say I told you so....no I don't. I love to say I told you so, who am I kidding. For all you lefties out there: I TOLD YOU SO! When will people start listening to the load of sewage that eminates from Kerry's mouth? If you've been paying attention he's really good at sticking his foot in it. Not with little misquotables like Bush but full on "what the hell was he thinkings".

JYB finished his article up with a beautiful piece on the Phillippines. Lets just say that what I gave here was a teaser/trailer to the real article. Go read it or I'll hack your machine and make it your home page.

Pick a president

Jane has asked her 8 year old daughter for the second time about this year's elections. Kerry has still not been able to sway her vote. She might even be a better journalist than her mommy. Go read what she has to say.

Jon Stewart Destroys Crossfire.

Jon Stewart of The Daily Show eats Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala of CNN's Crossfire alive. (not for the faint of heart or the weak of bladder. He's not joking but it is hilarious.) The Volokh Conspiracy has a link to the video Here. Jon may be a staunch Democrat but he gets my vote on this one.

Jon: How old are you Tucker?
Tucker: I'm 34 years old.
Jon: Any you still wear a bow tie? I'm not calling you stupid Tucker, it takes a really talented guy to tie a bow tie.

That's the nicest thing he said. This is must see T.V.

MSNBC reports that Democrat bloggers are more organized?

Flipping through the channels this Saturday I made the mistake of dropping by MSNBC's weekend Horserace Hardblogger show. What a friggin' crock. They made note that Slate.com and Salon.com were both nationally recognized and democratic. They went on to say that they were both being dwarfed in traffic to the likes of Daily KOS which they stated was one of the top rated bloggers. They also made note that democrat bloggers had been aranging bus trips to battleground states to blog. Hopefully, this piece is strong enough to directly tie MSNBC to the ranks of officially democratically biased.

Let's start this thing off at the top: Slate.com is a sister website to MSNBC in the MSN parenting structure. That would indicate to me a democratic bias. The opinion paper being put out by the parent company is democratically biased would direct me straight away to believe that their news agency was as well.

Now for the Daily KOS, Markos Moulitsas. He is one of the hottest bloggers in the sphere according to N.Z. Bear's TTLB ecosystem. He is the number two "pundit", second only to instapundit, Glenn Reynolds. Although Glenn tries to err on the side of independent he frequently and unapologetically errs on the side of republican. But these aren't the only two guys in the sphere. Let's roll down the top 10 on the TTLB:

Instapundit - Republican
Daily KOS - Democrat
Talking points memo - Democrat
The Drudge Report - Republican (barely)
Atrios - Democrat
Little Green Footballs - Republican
Andrew Sullivan - Democrat
The Volokh Conspiracy - Republican
Blogs for Bush - Republican
The Washington Monthly - Democrat

Tally: D:5 R:5

This gives the demographic representation that there is no real superpower in the blog realm. There is no super organized democrat group. If anything, it shows a super organized republican group: Blogs for Bush. All others are individuals with followers, dictators if you will.

But that's not the end of the KOS story. I no longer know where the article is but KOS actually gave credit to the Bush bloggers for being a more organized group of bloggers. It looks to be that the Democratic Republic of MSNBC is not giving us the whole story. Talk about trying to create the news.

I almost forgot: we ride busses too.

Update: I almost forgot the most important blogger in the entire ranking structure. N.Z. Bear himself (gatekeeper of the ranking structure) is on the Bush bandwagon.

Update again: Washington Monthly has just been bumped from the top ten buy everyone's favorite Dan Rather killer POWERLINE! That changes the score from 5/5 to 6/4 (7/4 if you include N.Z. Bear).

Fair Game or Foul Play?

Okay, Cheney's daughter,


Fair Game or Foul Play?

Let's start where this crap began, with the name drop by John Edwards during the VP debate:

"I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It's a wonderful thing,"

If you go back to the tape you'll note that Cheney was ready and willing to rip Edwards' perky little face off if he spoke ill of his daughter or their relationship...and I would have loved to see it. As it stood, he came off as paying Cheney a compliment on his daughter at a rather inopportune moment. For the next 20 minutes or so Cheney had that "what the hell was that about?" look on his face.

Time passes, nothing is mentioned by anyone until the last debate.

Asked about Gay marriage, Kerry evokes Mary Cheney in a move as distasteful as his invocation of his 15 year friend Superman Christopher Reeves (May he be walking somewhere in heaven). Here's the comment:

"We're all God's children, Bob, and I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was. She's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not a choice."

At this point I believe it is appropriate to let you know that Mary Cheney has been considered off limits to reporters throughout the same-sex marriage debate. This is not an accident. This is intentional attacking a family and not debating a point. What was he attacking though? John Edwards called their family support and relationship a wonderful thing. Again, this is out of place in a debate and certainly uncalled for. Lynne Cheney, Mary's mother can no longer hold back and fires off this comment:

"Now, you know, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more and now the only thing I could conclude: This is not a good man. Of course, I am speaking as a mom, and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick."

Even Arizona Sen. John McCain, the person Kerry tried to claim as "on his side" called Kerry's remarks "certainly inappropriate." Now it's time to enter the spin doctors to try and mop things up. One more time, what are they driving at with this? What does the Kerry/Edwards hope to say with this line of off limits commenting? Let's go to Mary Beth Cahill, the queen of spin for the answer:

"She seems to be very proud and open about her sexuality, her parents seem to be very proud of her. It comes up, there are a lot of questions here about gay marriage, and she is someone who is a major figure in the campaign. I think it's fair game and I think she has been treated very respectfully."

It's fair game? It has NEVER been fair game. She is NOT a major figure in the campaign. She is a daughter working with her father's campaign. There is nothing more to it. Her relationship with her family has ALWAYS been strictly OFF LIMITS.

So is this what everything about? They want to call Cheney a hypocrite for supporting Bush while loving his lesbian daughter? I guess if you can't make one legitimate attack on him for Halliburton (Every attack on Cheney for Halliburton has been proven to be groundless including the uncontested Iraq contract.) attack his family. Can you get any more classy? Is this the way we want our president to talk about people? Can they go any lower?

Nicolle Devenish, Bush's Communications Director knows the score. They're trying to clean up a mess.:

"Mary Beth Cahill revealed a campaign strategy last night to Chris Wallace, that Mary Cheney is fair game. Kerry's new statement is complete double-speak. He's just trying to clean up a mess."

Unfortunately, this was not the end, nothing got cleaned up; it gets dirtier. Elizabeth Edwards talks about the elephant in the middle of the DNC's room in her comments about Lynn Cheney's remarks:

"She's overreacted to this and treated it as if it's shameful to have this discussion. I think that's a very sad state of affairs. ... I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences. ... It makes me really sad that that's Lynne's response"

There you have it, the Democratic party has called Cheney ashamed of her daughter. This is dirty pool. There is no justification for this. They can't even show respect for a diverse family. Really nice campaign strategy. It really calls America to your softer side John. Of course, what do you expect from a couple of lawyers, kindness? The presidency is not a trial and I am not a part of your jury.

All quotes derived from this FOXNews article.

"Exaggerations"

I'm not going to give you a blow by blow of the debate. I'll just cut it down to the two broadsides at their source. Everybody I work with gimaced in unison to both of these, including our poor misled democrat. (He's excused, he's a card carrying actor.) I'll flirt with more from the debate but I'm not going to "punditize" it. These are best served in pure form:

BUSH: Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those "exaggerations".

"BUSH: I want to remind people listening tonight that a plan is not a litany of complaints, and a plan is not to lay out programs that you can't pay for.
He just said he wants everybody to be able to buy in to the same plan that senators and congressmen get. That costs the government $7,700 per family. If every family in America signed up, like the senator suggested, [it] would cost us $5 trillion over 10 years.
It's an empty promise. It's called bait and switch."

Fellowship 9/11

If you are going to watch one F 9/11 spoof film this year watch this one. Ifilm is the absolute bomb for indie film makers. This is yet another shining example of what can be done on a less-than-shoestring budget.

So Sauron and Sauramon are in league with each other? The white wizard and the dark lord scheming together? That's prepostorus!

Now there are two..no wait...three anti-Moore movies

For your viewing edjutainment;

Thanks to the Pajamahadeen I have discovered a second movie poised to set Michael Moore on fire. This movie hosts such personalities as Dick Morris, Ron Silver, Zell Miller and others. Enter Fahrenhype 9/11. This movie can be found at Blockbuster, Hollywood Video and NetFlix as well as other places.

UPDATE: The Pajama Editor has informed me that there is a third movie out there: Michael Moore Hates America. Apparently this one's not republican based and has Penn and Teller (heavy libertarians) commenting in the movie. They've had a showing on the 12th..hey! that's today! And another showing on the 15th. More information will follow when it becomes available.

Just as a reminder there is still the wonderfull flick Celcius 41.11 you can pick up. Unfortunately, it's not out anywhere but the Citizen's United interactive page.

And if you want to watch a free documentary about how college is misdirecting our youth you can go here. Evan Coyne Maloney has done some very nice work as an anti-protestor with a video camera in the past. This is quite possibly his best work.

My suggestion: buy Celcius 41.11, go down to blockbuster, rent both Fahrenhype 9/11 and Fahrenheit 9/11 (yeah, I guess I plugged it. Oh well.), then watch in this order: Fahrenheit 9/11, Fahrenhype 9/11, then Celcius 41.11. And if you haven't been sent into a catatonic state of gloom, doom, death and dispair you can go online and watch Evan's documentary to polish off your day.

NEW POLL SHOWS BUSH KICKING THE SNOT OUT OF KERRY!!

In a new technique nearly as accurate and contradicting as Zogby's and Gallup Bush has trounced Kerry 67%-33% with Nader and Badnarik represented in the appropriate states. The results can be found here.

Meetup.com and Strike Ten have joined together and have just recently completed their unbiased poll of over 2,000 bowlers. Here's how it went:

The Bowl-Off used a unique scoring system to prevent ballot stuffing. Bowlers were divided into teams based on their candidate (Kerry, Bush and, in some places, Nader and Badnarik). After the teams bowled, the top 3 scores for each team at each Strike Ten-affiliated bowling center were recorded. All told, President Bush carried 67% of the centers and had a higher average score of 175-161. Nearly 2,000 peoplle participated in over 40 states.

Not only are there more Bush bowlers but Bush bowlers are better bowlers! Have a good day and go bowling.

Kerry wants to win one for Superman

Daisy led me on to something Wizbang posted. Kerry had this to say about Christopher Reeves' death:

Kerry said the last time he heard from Reeve was on Saturday, when the actor left a message on his cellphone, enthused by the Massachusetts senator's decision to raise stem-cell research in Friday's second presidential debate.

Unfortunately, there's one little problem: He had a heart attack and fell into a coma on Saturday...or was it actually Thursday. Would this be considered the media trying to stretch the truth to save their savior Kerry? Even still, I doubt that Kerry would be one of Superman's last calls.

Here's the even bigger dig. I'll say it loud so nobody misses it:

YOU DON'T NEED AN EMBRYO TO HARVEST STEM CELLS! YOU CAN GET THEM FROM YOUR FAT!!

Here's the most recent article if you don't believe me. You don't even have to harvest them ahead of time. Even skinny people have enough fat to harvest. The person who is sick with Parkinson's or some other disease can supply their own stem cells. Here's another article showing fat stem cells mending a fracture that never would have been able to heal by normal means. There was even an international conference held by IFATS about this stuff on October 3-5 in Pittsburgh.

People really need to get a grip and check into things. Kerry's cheap jab from the shoulder of a dead man shows me he does not understand the sanctity of a human life.

Afghanistan From The Left Side Of The Street.

On Saturday Afghanistan had its first ever elections. Over 40% of the women in that country voted. It was a great day for the Afghan people. They had become more advanced than Saudi Arabia in key areas of third world development at that moment. They became a new beacon for Democracy in the Middle East. President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, his staff and right minded bloggers lauded the event as a significant date in Afghan and world history. Democrats were nearly silent. The only thing I've been able to pull up on comments after Saturday was something Doug linked for me here.

It's a quote from Bob's Big Boy (Edwards):

"If you look at what's actually happened in Afghanistan since the Taliban was toppled, their opium production is back up. They're producing 75 percent of the world's opium," Edwards said. "On top of that, there are big chunks of the country still in the control of warlords and drug lords, and there are still some serious security issues in the country."

Yep, same old doom and gloom they've been pushing since day one. I wonder if they've ever heard the expression "If you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all."? I guess that's considered a violation of free speech now isn't it? Other than their standard "I would have done everything he did only better" line lets see if we can extract some fact from this:

...since the Taliban was toppled, their opium production is back up. They're producing 75 percent of the world's opium...

Yes, that is true. But that's not the whole story. In 1999 Afghanistan was the world's leader in opium production with 75%. That number equated to about 4,000 tons of raw opium. The year 2000 heralded about 70% of the world market. The Taliban put strict orders against all opium growers, banning the production and burning fields and labs. It cut their countries overall revenue in half but by 2001 UN officials believed there was going to be no opium coming out of Afghanistan that year. They were mistaken, as Pakistan was flooded with opium during the war. In 2002 they regained their throne as the leading producer of opium on the world. Now they are back at it and 2003 was believed to hold 3,750 tons of opium for Afghanistan. What else do they know how to do? They've been growing and harvesting mass quantities of opium since 1978 when Mexico was prevented from making it. This is and has been their best selling product for around 26 years.

So how do we get the Afghans to try something new? Should we try and move them to South America's biggest producer of Cocaine? We could do what is currently being done and just sit around like the rest of the UN and do nothing. We could go in another direction; we could assist Hamid Karzai with his plea for international assistance in the cracking down of drugs in his country. One of the biggest problems with cutting out the opium trade is that you have to replace it with something else. One would have to make it economically feasible, nationally respectable, and physically safe (drug lords run drug farmers, they kill people) for them to produce corn, soybeans, wheat, and other food crops. Are there any international takers? Yeah, I didn't think so.

If someone wanted to be really enterprising this could be the cure for hunger in Africa. Go ahead Mr. Edwards; spend more of my tax dollars to support the rest of the world. We will be broke but Afghanistan will be saved. Oops, I almost forgot, we are currently the world's biggest producer of grain products. Would Mr. Edwards like to kill their livelihoods as well?

Here's the second piece:

...On top of that, there are big chunks of the country still in the control of warlords and drug lords, and there are still some serious security issues in the country...

Could these be the same warlords and drug lords that have been there since 1978? Again, no other nations are standing up and asking to help. Once again we have asked the international community. And once again the international community would rather debate the intricacies of wine and cheese. There is a funk in Europe that I've mentioned before that has become so complacent with things that they refuse to take any action on anything outside of their little sphere of influence. They are a bunch of internationally lazy fools. I'm sure any one of the three "conservative euros" out there will agree with me.

Or are these the warlords and drug lords that have been hiding in the hills of Pakistan that no one has been able to infiltrate without complete disaster including the Pakistani's? That's right, Pakistan's government will not even go up there because it's so backwater. Is there an Arab equivalent to Deliverance? Would they start the movie with dueling 'uds? This is seriously one international redneck part of the world. They have a different way of dealing with things but can be slowly persuaded to see the light of civilization, just like we're doing in West Virginia. Maybe Edwards can take his southern accent and talk to them like a redneck emissary?
(No insult meant to those with southern accents or living in West Virginia. I'm just trying to prove a stereotypical point.)

Don't wanna' be an American Idiot

Don't want a nation controlled by the media. (sing along if you know the words)

- Green Day; American Idiot -

Yep, I know it was supposed to be an anti-Bush song but it's looking more like a jab at the democratic leaning media every day. First there was Rathergate that we shot to hell. Now I drop by Jeff's place, Beautiful Atrocities and notice he's not got the ABC eye. He's also got a nice post including Drudge's recovered ABC memo.

Here's the line that everyone is, or at least should be, talking about:

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we hold both sides equally accountable.

- Don't want a nation controlled by the media. -

Now that this memo has come out in addition to CBS's Rathergate what news can we trust? Who can we turn to for honest reporting? Will NBC get slam dunked as well? Are they just as bad or not? If I were an NBC executive I'd be pulling my hair out about now. I'd be doing my best to distance myself from the other big boys. I'd probably even be willing to put out a memo stating to report Bush more favorably than Kerry just to show greater distance from the other "big News" agencies. That would make the democrats happy. Take one look at MSNBC and you know that this will not happen. Have you noticed how biased their debate polling has been? They'd lose 75% of their target audience. It's not going to happen.

So why do they do it? Why do they try to pass themselves off as the unbiased media when they are anything but? I'm sure I'll get some flack for this one but Matt Drudge is coming off more independent than just about all of the majors. CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC and FOXNews are all biased to varying degrees. Newspapers are usually not much better. From The Washington Post to The Washington Times you will have different leanings for every issue. Why not just label yourself what you really are? We all know what we're looking at? Are they just in denial?

I'm not disappointed with the fact that all news agencies are biased. They've been that way since the dawn of time. They can't help it, human beings have political leanings and it comes out in their writing. The thing that torques me is the fact that they will go screaming to their news deaths before they will admit that no, they are not "fair and balanced" after all. Most of us are smart enough to figure it out on our own but they really suck in the "American Idiots".

My first and last flip-flop plug

I had to run up to Wal-Mart today to pick up some art supplies for one of my son's many projects. As I was pulling in I noticed a John Kerry bumper sticker on the right side of the minivan next to me. Something seemed odd so I took another look at the back, there was a George Bush sticker on the left side. I looked at the Kerry sitcker again. Then I noticed it, I wish I had my digital camera at the time. It looked like this:



I nearly hit the light post I was laughing so hard. I love America's sence of style.

Fortunately, the wife of the person who had created such a masterpiece was in the car waiting. She was a bit worried that the sticker would be frowned upon. Her husband had just put it up yesterday when they picked up the sticker at the peanut festival and she scoled him for doing it. I had to remind her that Chesapeake, VA is an extremely republican city. I told her to remember to tell her husband about the great sticker art and went on my way. God I love the city I live in!

The New Republic of Afghanistan

Unless you've been hiding at the center of the earth, or Kerry's team, you should know by now that Afghanistan had its first elections...ever. (The center of the earth analogy was used because even those in Afghanistan's caves know about this.) October 9th, 2004 will be the date that Afghanistan has been legitimized as a sovereign nation with direct leadership of someone of their own choosing. There were no bombings, no beheadings, nothing. The biggest uproar today was about some ink being used wrong. Have you seen the polling lines? Take a look at Commissar's pic. I haven't seen lines like that since...well...never! I suspect that the voter turnout will dwarf anything this nation has ever had in its 200+ year history.

Bush has made comment about the event:

"Freedom is powerful. Think about a society in which young girls couldn't go to school, and their mothers were whipped in the public square, and today they're holding a presidential election."

Kerry has made...well...no mention of it. (If anyone has a Kerry comment about the elections please let me know. I really hate being partisan....yeah, that was a lie, I love slamming Kerry.)


In case anyone forgot, this is what freedom looks like:

Courtesy of the BBC:

Afghan refugee Moqadasa Sidiqi, 19, creates history, being the first person to vote in Afghanistan's first presidential election. She voted in Pakistan. View Slideshow.


These ballots look better than our ballots. Can I go vote in Afghanistan?
Here's another Slideshow. Yes, those are Afghan women and children at these rallies.

The BBC went nuts with these elections. Here's the link.
I'm glad to see someone on the other side of the pond realizes the importance of this.

UPDATE: Yahoo News has a 341 picture slideshow here. Just click on the picture on the right to start it. (My local paper is likening the indellible ink fiasco to Florida's hanging chad fiasco.)

Please, don't take my word for what's going on in Afghanistan. Listen to what The Afhan Daily newspaper says, in English. The Afghan Daily is a subsidiary of the World News.

I almost forgot one thing: John Howard has won re-election in Australia. I guess that means Kerry was wrong about support in Australia as well. Their people have spoken. It is time we did the same.

Note: there is a new voting system this year. Those registered with the incumbent party need to vote on November 2nd. Those registered with other parties or no affiliation need to vote on November 3rd. (Yes, this is an old joke but I still think it's funny.)


Allah bless Afghanistan!

Tororu (Japanese for Troll)

Today I recieved my very first real live troll. The person loved me so much they read at least three separate articles. The only reason I know they read three separate articles is because I recieved three different comments, one per article. If feel so happy I'm posting all three of them today! I'll take it directly from haloscan so I don't miss any information:

Name:
BUSHSUCKS
IP:
133.7.7.20
Email:
BUSHSUCKS@eatmeyouwarwhore.com
Comment:
So why does the US sponsor terrorism worldwide, including in Iraq? Come on blame everything on Zarqawi--as if the US paid him enough already to do that much stuff!
Time:
10.06.04 - 6:57 am

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Name:
BUSHSUCKS
IP:
133.7.7.20
Email:
BUSHSUCKS@eatmeyouwarwhore.com
Comments:
Can't Pole kielbasa halal no matter how you blow up those sausage heads. Die Polish scum, die.
Time:
10.06.04 - 6:55 am

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Name:
BUSHSUCKS
IP:
133.7.7.20
Email:
BUSHSUCKS@eatmeyouwarwhore.com
Comments:
Why They FightWho will win the 15 year long US-Iraq Conflict? What sort of post-war society will result in Iraq? What sort of post-war society will result in the USA?For the US nationalists (including quite a few 'leftists'), a brink draws into view, as they are forced to contemplate the unthinkable: A few thousand rag-tag Iraqi Arab insurgents stood up to the Americans when all the world scurried to do the US's bidding.

Will the future accounts write: The Iraqi insurgency saved the world from American hegemony, and started a chain of events that caused the US permanent war, homeland security, national security state and military empire to implode.
Time:
10.06.04 - 6:53 am

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not going to comment on the grammar, wording or lack of substance in these comments. I'm going to concentrate on where he screwed up.

Source Tracing 101
What can we discover from the Haloscan data that we normally could not from a standard comments system?

The name: BUSHSUCKS, although not very original is fairly standard in most comments systems. Many typepad accounts will force you to log in before you comment giving you a registered name. Unfortunately, they are not free. So, nothing to be gained from the name.

Email: BUSHSUCKS@eatmeyouwarwhore.com, he got fairly creative with the wording. (Note to self: forward "eat me you war whore" to Daisy for her collection of Ad Hominem's.) Unfortunately, the email is obviously bogus, creative but bogus. I noticed that Citizen Smash checks your first comments for validity and constructiveness and I am fairly sure that this would not pass his litmus test. So the e-mail is out what's next?

IP: 133.7.7.20, in the words of many a hacker: pwn3d! Many people do not realize that their IP is tagged on nearly everything they do on the internet. Haloscan, as you can see, records your IP every time you make a comment. As usual, Haloscan Rocks! The standard blogger comments system, powered by pyra, does not provide you with a source IP. So, now that we have the source IP what do you do with it?

Hunting the IP
Frigentenly enough, the most powerful tool in your arsenal is PING. Ping has the dual ability of normally determining if a system in the world is online and, DNS willing, the name of the system as well. As a network security professional this is my most frequestly used tool.

Another very important tool is the NBTSTAT command. This command, when used properly, will tell you the machine name, online status, open shares, and the hardware address (or MAC address). Sometimes a system will have shut down your ability to ping it. Sometimes they forget to turn block out NBTSTAT as well. It's always a good backup strategy.

Okay, now what if the box is offline? There is an agency that has control of all IP's in the world. They are called the American Registry for Internet Numbers or ARIN for short. If anyone wants to buy a block of IP's they have to do it through ARIN or one of its subsidiaries. The tool on ARIN's site that will tell you who owns what IP is called WHOIS. All you have to do is punch in a couple of numbers and some dots and POOF! you get the owner's address, email, address, and sometimes a phone number and administrator's name. Remember, this gives you the owner of a BLOCK of IP's, not every individual IP. It will narrow your field down remarkably.

Now that the very basics have been provided to you, and I do mean very basics, we can endeavor into a practical application.

So why is Tororu (Japanese for Troll) so important?

Here is our Source IP:
133.7.7.20

Our first task is to attempt a ping:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
c:\>ping -a 133.7.7.20

pinging 133.7.7.20 with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 133.7.7.20:
Packets: Sent = 4, Recieved = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, it appears he is not online or ping is blocked. Let's go to our next step: NBTSTAT.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
c:\>nbtstat -a 133.7.7.20

Local Area Connection:

Node IpAddress: [133.7.7.20] Scope Id []

Host Not Found.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Apparently, the box is really down. As our last step today we go to ARIN for a general idea of where this guy is coming from.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Search results for: 133.7.7.20
OrgName: Japan Network Information Center
OrgID: JNIC
Address: Kokusai-kougyou-Kanda Bldg 6F
Address: 2-3-4 Uchikanda
City: Chiyoda-ku
StateProv: Tokyo
PostalCode: 101-0047
Country: JP
NetRange: 133.0.0.0 - 133.255.255.255
CIDR: 133.0.0.0/8
NetName: JAPAN-INET
NetHandle: NET-133-0-0-0-1
Parent:
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: A.DNS.JP
NameServer: B.DNS.JP
NameServer: C.DNS.JP
NameServer: D.DNS.JP
NameServer: E.DNS.JP
NameServer: F.DNS.JP
Comment: Japan Network Information Center(JPNIC) is an
Comment: National internet registry of Japan. Please search
Comment: whois.nic.ad.jp for more information about this range.
Comment: % whois -h whois.nic.ad.jp ***.***.***.***/e
RegDate:
Updated: 2003-08-05
TechHandle: JN-ORG-ARIN
TechName: Japan Network Information Center
TechPhone: +81-3-5297-2311
TechEmail: hostmaster@nic.ad.jp
OrgTechHandle: JN-ORG-ARIN
OrgTechName: Japan Network Information Center
OrgTechPhone: +81-3-5297-2311
OrgTechEmail: hostmaster@nic.ad.jp

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2004-10-06 19:10

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We've now narrowed it down to Japan. Many people would stop here but not me. I went to www.jpnic.net and did WHOIS again. Here's the results:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[ JPNIC & JPRS database provides information on network administration. Its ]
[ use is restricted to network administration purposes. For further infor- ]
[ mation, use 'whois -h whois.nic.ad.jp help'. To suppress Japanese output, ]
[ add'/e' at the end of command, e.g. 'whois -h whois.nic.ad.jp xxx/e'. ]

Network Information: [ネットワーク情報]

a. [IPネットワークアドレス] 133.7.0.0
b. [ネットワーク名] FINES
f. [組織名] 福井大学
g. [Organization] Fukui University
m. [運用責任者] KA045JP
n. [技術連絡担当者] MT1650JP
n. [技術連絡担当者] SS129JP
p. [ネームサーバ] ns.nca5.ad.jp
p. [ネームサーバ] icpc.icpc.fukui-u.ac.jp
y. [通知アドレス] office@icpc.fukui-u.ac.jp
[割当年月日]
[返却年月日]
[最終更新] 1999/01/13 12:09:50 (JST)
tanaka@icpc.fukui-u.ac.jp

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It looks like Fukui University owns the IP block of 133.7.0.0. Unless it's a HUGE university I suspect they are sub-leasing their IPs, possibly through a modem bank. I'll be awaiting another call from BUSHSUCKS for further analysis. Yes, my very first troll came all the way from Fukui University in Japan to spread his love on me. I shall dub him Tororu, the Japanese word for troll. I'm an international star!

I hope you have enjoyed your course on Source Tracing 101. If you have any questions or comments feel free to annotate. But remember, I'll have your IP ;) .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If anyone would care to make an analysis of the text of BUSHSUCKS' comments I will post them here tommorow.