One word: Ooo-rah! FrontPage magazine.com :: A Plea from a Marine in Iraq by Robert Nofsinger

Hmmm...what would one do with 500 tons of natural uranium in a single location? What would one do with missiles capable of traveling not the 93 miles allowed by UN proscription but 691 miles--a radius that includes cities in Egypt, Turkey and Israel? Why would one store large...LARGE...amounts of pesticides--each container is larger than the standard 55 gallon size--stored in an ammo dump the size of Washington DC? Would you say that this passes the WMD "smell test"? Don't inhale...the smell'l just kill ya Investigative Report
Saddam's WMD Have Been Found - Insight on the News - World

Ted forgot to mention the Internet, and blogs in particular, as alternative sources of information for younger audiences today. Otherwise, his speech makes a number of very telling points about the fate of the TV news business Poynter Online - Ted Koppel Bets on Quality

Those who claim to know better should know better, and do better. Sentencing the rest of the world to poverty and disease is an unintended consequence, but a real reason for the third world to despise and in some cases ignore the "first world"Earth Day / Has the environmental movement left the world behind?

For a guy who's supposed to be so worldly, so well traveled, so...nuanced in the way of the French, Kerry sure seems to only have one place on his mind Yahoo! News - Kerry Sees a Little Vietnam in Louisiana Coastline

After reading this excellent rebuttal to a Time magazine article by Andrew Sullivan in favor of higher gasoline taxes in the US, I predict lots of fun in the blogosphere over the next few days. The gauntlet--err, gas pedal--has been floored!

I have two words for you: "Well, now!" Iraqi Nuclear Gear Found in Europe (washingtonpost.com): "UNITED NATIONS, April 14 -- Large amounts of nuclear-related equipment, some of it contaminated, and a small number of missile engines have been smuggled out of Iraq for recycling in European scrap yards, according to the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog and other U.N. diplomats. "

"Mohammed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned the U.N. Security Council in a letter that U.N. satellite photos have detected "the extensive removal of equipment and, in some instances, removal of entire buildings" from sites that had been subject to U.N. monitoring before the U.S.-led war against Iraq."

I am no expert, but I have to say that this is a whole lot harder to explain than "My dog ate my homework", especially since the reporting comes from that notable oracle of pro-Administration advocacy, the Washington Post (/irony off). Like cockroaches under the kitchen light, can you imagine the diplomatic scrambling underway in the countries that are "housing" Iraq's former nuclear facilities?

I've written about the issue of Kerry's loan to his campaign that he secured with his jointly-owned Boston home previously DRUDGE REPORT 2004?.

Here's my post that is missing from my blog for some reason, but exists in my e-mail archives.

From:
Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2004 12:40 AM
To:
Subject: I'm not voting for a "Gigolo in chief".


I'm not voting for a "Gigolo in chief".
- President Bush, his Texas unit, the Air Force Reserve and the active duty Air Force stood on ready alert in the US, Europe, Japan and elsewhere against possible incursions by Russian bombers. Was their service any less vital to the safety of the country than those who fought in the Vietnam war? As far as thinking fast, how fast do you suppose one has to think fast at the controls of a >800 MPH fighter to avoid a solo accident or a mid air collision?

- The textbook definition of a recession is two successive quarters where the economy does not grow--it recesses. If your assertion that the recession started in March 2001, what policy initiative that the President proposed and the democratically controlled Senate voted for was in place to trigger it? Or is it more likely that it started in 2000 since the high water mark of the NASDAQ index was in March of 2000? The stock exchanges are widely regarded as reliable leading indicators of economic strength or weakness.

- VA spending has gone up every year under President Bush.
- If the troops lack equipment, blame the Congress that writes the bills and appropriates the money. The President can lobby for legislation and sign the bills. I don't agree with lots of things the President does, but Congress has long voted for entirely new systems, construction and other "jobs bills" disguised as military spending instead of supporting spare parts. Look at the flap over the Boeing tankers vs. repairing the perfectly serviceable 707-based and DC-10/L-1011-based tankers in service today. John McCain led the fight to expose that fraud.

- Kerry mortgaged his home for ~$6 million. The interest on a loan that size would be at least 2-3%--my second is 9%, and I have good credit. Three per cent is $180,000 per year. A Senator's salary is $158,000. If Kerry's wife is paying that loan, that may well be an illegal campaign contribution.

Perhaps this should be Kerry's campaign song.

Great wisdom, plainly spokenCold Fury quotes Patton

The New York Times reports in its April 13, 2004 editions that "Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear technology around the world, has told his interrogators that during a trip to North Korea five years ago he was taken to a secret underground nuclear plant and shown what he described as three nuclear devices, according to Asian and American officials who have been briefed by the Pakistanis."The New York Times > Washington > Pakistani Tells of North Korean Nuclear Devices

For the mathematically challenged, five years ago would be 1999, and the President's name was Clinton, not Bush.

Care to comment, Secretary Albright?

The good news is that one of the local papers here may have actually done some reporting on the millennium incident that took place at the US/Canadian border in 2000. The bad news is that they can't resist spackling over the errors to resurrect Clarke a bit The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Clarke book has errors about arrest of Ahmed Ressam

Paul Bremer of the CPA in Iraq said that the efforts underway to clear up the Sunni Triangle and to destroy Sadr's militia in Iraq were inevitable. Perhaps the situation could be likened to the efforts in the first half of the twentieth century to defeat organized crime familiesa and the KKK in America. The thugs in Iraq--Islamist radicals, former Baathists, and outside agitators from Syria, Iran and other countries--see an opportunity to create a failed state with vast oil reserves within striking distance of the most strategic area on earth. Roger Simon's post sounds an important warning: Roger L. Simon: It's Iran, Stupid! - A Message to the Blogosphere

The 9/11 commission is in danger of losing all semblance of credibility as a non-partisan effort. Richard Ben-Veniste, Jamie S. Gorelick, Bob Kerrey, and Timothy J. Roemer all seem to have decided--and unashamedly state on TV and in print--that 9/11 could have been prevented, and should have been prevented--by the Bush Administration. To their credit, the chair and co-chair of the commission, Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, seem to always appear together and have been generally fair in their assessments based on the information they've gathered and analyzed so far.

Ben-Veniste makes much of the title of the now infamous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing document that the White House declassified and released yesterday. He and the other four Democrats on the commission are trying to connect dots using hindsight based on what we know now, not on what the President and the NSC knew then. Apparently, the President was frustrated by the quality of the information he was getting on Al-Qaeda after the briefing.

Kerrey, who may or may not be campaigning to become Kerry's Vice President, is as bad as Ben-Veniste, although he doesn't have the crocodillian smile that Ben-Veniste has developed over the years. Kerry tries in his op-ed piece in the New York Times today to retract some of his more over the top comments for last Thursday's televised grilling of Dr. Rice.

Jamie Gorelick was a member of Janet Reno's Department of Justice. She apparently was a member of the team that imposed tight restrictions on sharing of information between the FBI and CIA. She was the first to see the PDB in full, and her notes on the document equipped the other commissioners to ask questions about it of Dr. Rice. She was as critical of Dr. Rice as any other member, especially when she tried to extrapolate warnings of possible hijackings in the U. S. to indicate that the plans could have been more sinister than just holding the passengers hostage, as most aircraft hijackings had played out in our past. There was no information in the PDB that could have been used to warn airlines--then in charge of airport security--that hijackers would behave in any way other than those who typically have demanded ransom, demanded freedom for prisoners, or simply used the plane to transport the hijackers to a foreign country.

Some of the structural failings that allowed Al-Qaeda to easily enter the US, to remain in the country after the expiration of their visas, to obtain funds, to contact foreign confederates in person or through electronic means, and to board aircraft carrying simple weapons and cannisters of pepper spray, have been addressed. Whether those measures are working well or not, no successful attack has been launched in the US since 9/11. It is arguable that further steps, including the creation of a separate agency apart from the FBI that is focused on domestic intelligence, should be taken, and soon.

No one can credibly make the case that either the Clinton or Bush Administrations could have sold Congress, the media, the punditry, and the public on the Patriot Act, the creation of the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security, the possible FBI reform, and other steps we've taken since 9/11 to protect the country before 9/11 ocurred. President Bush could not have invaded Afghanistan in the way we did after 9/11 before the attacks--the nation would not have allowed it. As it is, the Patriot Act is criticized today, protesters blame us for civilian deaths in Afghanistan, and all sorts of regular people hate the TSA for everything from long, slow lines to taking nail clippers from old ladies.

Perfect safety is impossible. Tornadoes are not subject to regulation. Radical Islamist terrorists dream of a world in flames, then expect the remnants of that world to be ruled by mullahs who debate the merits of throwing offenders from the roofs of tall buildings or pulling walls down on them as just punishment for their sins. They reject vaccines and treatments for HIV, claiming in their ignorance that the medicines are worse than the diseases they treat, and place their faith in God to save the sick. They allow men to divorce their wives, leaving them without income or property, simply by saying "I divorce you!" aloud three times. They harshly punish the victims of rape, rather than the rapists. They are descendants from a long line of slave traders who continue to sell women and children into bondage to this day. They teach little else other than hatred for others, using demagoguery to deflect complaints from their people for the failings of their societies. They claim to be willing to die for their promised afterlife with 72 virgins. They claim that this life is a way-station to paradise, that children should be willing to die, leaving their loved ones behind in the name of a jihad they cannot understand, while secretly enriching the mullocracy.

Fate has dealt the world a cruel blow, granting a precious commodity that fuels the commerce of the world to a people who use their wealth for weapons they use irresponsibly, for the destruction of peoples in their region and without, to foster hatred for civilization and revenge for offenses almost completely unknown to anyone other than to themselves, and to doom generations of a populace kept in economic squalor and in a criminal state of ignorance.

Radical Islam has not had its internal upheaval and reformation, like the long efforts that ended sad periods in history like the Spanish Inquisition. External critics are threatened with death if not killed outright; some have been lucky enough only to have been exiled. If these radicals are to survive their war with civilization, cooler heads in the Muslim world must speak out now and act fast, lest they be tarred with the same brush that will consign these perverted Islamists to history. As for the 9/11 commission, I hope that the report will be more bipartisan than the previews given by the four partisan Democrats, and that constructive reform--of the Executive Branch as well as of Congressional oversight--will be the result.

It's nice to see that this is getting some attentionCNN.com - Dangerous?space rocks under watch - Apr 8, 2004

It's 4/4/04, or 04/04/04. A date more unique than any "Average Joe's".

A must read on the 9/11 inquiry TCS: Tech Central Station - The Commission, the Democrats and Terrorism