Steve Schacher

Here's a great amateur essay that I found on what just happened with the "outrage" over the Bush ads: quote:September 11 families say Bush campaign treading on the dead.... so reads the headline. It makes one think that Bush has enraged every member of every family who lost someone on September 11. It gives the idea that Bush has crossed the line and disrespected the victims of our nation's tragedy.... ....then you read "the rest of the story". The article has quotes from some women like Rita Lasar, who lost her brother. Rita says, "Ground Zero is a sacred site ... find some other way to run a campaign without stepping on the bodies of our dead." In passing it mentions that Rita is a steering committee member of the group, September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Then another article quotes Colleen Kelly as saying, "It's absolutely inappropriate ... There are certain memories and certain images that I consider sacred." Colleen Kelly leads the group, September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Now just reading these articles leaves the average person with the feeling that these women would have no political agenda, they're simply mourning victims of a national tragedy who are voicing their heartfelt, personal feelings in reaction to a few ads supporting President Bush in the Presidential campaign. But let's take a closer look.... Peaceful Tomorrows Organized primarily by families of victims, Peaceful Tomorrows seeks to open up a public dialogue about appropriate alternative responses to the September 11 tragedies. Efforts will be made to raise awareness of the complex issues involved in responding to terrorism and influence the US policy towards more effective, democratically-based responses to terrorism in both domestic and foreign policy. That is the description of the group as presented on a list of projects sponsored by the Tides Center of Pennsylvannia. http://www.tidescenter.org/project_detail.cfm?id=60053.0 But who is the Tides Center? Known as the Tides Center for Pennsylvania, formerly the Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania, it is none other than a creation of the Tides Foundation and Center, headquartered in San Francisco, and two Pennsylvania-based foundations -- the Vira Heinz Endowment and the Howard Heinz Endowment-- chaired by Teresa Heinz Kerry, heir to the Heinz food company fortune and wife of Democrat presidential contender Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. That's right.... these poor outraged victims are simply pawns in the political workings of the Democrat Party. Tides works like this: When a high-profile donor wants to give money to a group with an extreme agenda but doesn't want its fingerprints on the donation, it simply gives the money to The Tides Foundation in the form of a "donor- advised donation." Tides then passes that money on to the desired recipient, masking the real source of the cash. As anti-war activist Drummond Pike (who set up the Tides Foundation in 1976 for the express purpose of keeping donors' identities unknown) told the Chronicle of Philanthropy, a publication for the nonprofit world, "Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with." And, the amount of "hidden money" handled by the Tides Foundation is considerable. Since its founding, the relatively little-known foundation has made over $300 million in grants. In 2002 it amassed assets of $139 million and had an income of $59.3 million. Between 1995 and 2001, $4.3 million of that money came from the Howard Heinz Endowment. In 2002, it and the Vira Heinz Endowment blessed The Tides Center, a San Francisco spin-off of the Tides Foundation, with another $190,000 while the two endowments gave $1.6 million to the new Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania. If all this movement of money between the Tides Foundation, Tides Center, two Heinz Endowments and Pittsburgh's new Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania has you shaking your head, let's talk about your money. You, the taxpayer. Nearly $8 million in taxpayer money flowed into the Tides Center in the form of federal grants made by eight different agencies between 1997 and 2001. They include the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy. Does this mean your tax dollars also are going to fund the Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania, a creation of the Howard Heinz Endowment, which in 2001 was worth a breathtaking $788.6 million in 2001? With the Tides Center for a partner, we will likely never know. What we do know is that, with Tides as a partner, the Heinz Endowments now keep interesting company. The Tides Center also manages the Youth Gender Project whose goal is to "empower and support transgender, gender-variant, intersexed and gender-questioning youth and young adults." I freely admit, not all of these terms are in my spell-checker. Grant recipients also include the Iraq Peace Fund that has so far granted $489,000 to 27 groups to promote anti-war marches and their coverage by the news media, as well as the mission of one of those groups, MoveOn.org, whose purpose is to defeat George W. Bush. While groups such as these and dozens of others organized and/or financed by the Tides Foundation and Center are relatively recent in their origin and transient in their nature, many are more established and pervasive in their influence. The Ruckus Society, which received over $200,000 in Tides money between 1999 and 2002, was begun in 1995 to train activists in violent protest against biotechnology, globalization and the World Bank. It incited property destruction in the Seattle riots of 1999 and Washington, D.C., the following year. However, Ruckus director John Sellers didn't see the wanton destruction of property as being violent at all. He told Mother Jones magazine, " I make a distinction between violence and destruction of property. Violence to me is against living things. But inanimate objects? I think you can be destructive, you can use vandalism strategically. It may be violence under the law but I just don't think it's violence." The Natural Resources Defense Council, another Tides project, destroyed many apple farmers in Washington state with its phony Alar pesticide scare. It "leaked" a false report that Alar, used by the state's apple growers there, caused cancer, particularly in children. Even movie stars signed onto the hoax, testifying before Congress about Alar's dangers. Sales of apples plummeted before the hoax could be debunked. Finally, the American Medical Association concluded, "The Alar scare of three years ago shows what can happen when science is taken out of context or the risks of a product are blown out of proportion." Unfortunately, that conclusion came too late to save the livelihoods of many growers. Unfortunately, too, it came too late to prevent NRDC from cashing in to the tune of $700,000 from a book on the bogus scare. But that seems to be what Tides and its dozens of its related organizations are about: money, a flagrant disregard for the truth, and even disdain for the law. So, in the end, we don't really have heartfelt outrage by a few victims' family members, we have a concerted, coordinated political campaign, cloaked in a shroud of mourning, waging war against George W. Bush in his bid for reelection. I think we all should be completely outraged as the Democrat's use of this tactic as one of the lowest, most vile examples of disgraceful political gamesmanship in modern history. Now all the pieces are coming together. You see, as these "outraged" family members were touring the airwaves, there was a peculiar familiary to their comments. Despite being on numerous different media outlets in different cities at different time, most of them repeated the same four or fives lines - VERBATIM. The Democrat talking points certainly found their way to the fax machines last night, didn't they? Additionally, in Bal Harbour, Fla., the International Association of Fire Fighters Union, which endorsed Kerry early in the presidential race, approved a resolution asking the Bush campaign to pull the ads and urging him to apologize to the families. The union formally endorsed John Kerry in the Fall of 2002. Many rank and file firefighters, when asked, said they did not share their union leader's sentiments. It's a shame Katie Couric failed to ask for their opinions on national television. Isn't it telling the tactics the Democrats have to use to challenge Bush? Doesn't it say much about their message, their party and their candidate? They can't deliver an honest statement or valid solution to the American public. They are wrapped in their little world millions of miles out of touch with the average, mainstream American that they must stoop to illegal, unethical and immoral actions to get a point across. But you see, not all victims' relatives were angered by the television campaign. "It speaks to the truth of the times," said Jennie Farrell, who lost her brother in the attacks. "September 11 was something beyond the realm of imagination, and George Bush . . . led us through one of the darkest moments in history." "These images honor those whose lives were lost," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot of the plane that hijackers crashed into the Pentagon. So here we have it. Some victims' families have come out to say the message Bush is advancing honors their fallen relatives. Reactions that are truly from the heart. And then you have the Left, positioning union bosses to claim outrage in the name of their disagreeing union members, and using questionable activist organizations, hidden behind layers of endowments and charities to exploit victims' families for the sake of gaining political power for their candidate. It is truly sickening what they've come to and it makes me wonder what we're in for over the next eight months. God help this nation.Here's a partial transcript from shows that ran on NBC, CNBC, CNN and MSNBC of the repetitive phrases that gave them away: quote:VOICE ONE: I think for someone like President Bush who has not cooperated with this commission, who has stonewalled this commission. VOICE TWO: This president and his administration blocked the creation of the commission, have stonewalled the commission. VOICE ONE: If this was realistic from the morning of September 11th, it would show President Bush before a group of children listening to them read while, uh, the Twin Towers were burning. VOICE TWO: If he wants to show a picture of 9/11 depicting what he was doing, it should be a picture of him sitting and reading in a classroom to school children. That's where he was on 9/11. VOICE ONE: And we need to find out why 3,000 people were murdered on his watch. VOICE TWO: You know, this happened on his watch.

FDR Campaign Button http://www.museumofworldwarii.com/images/TourPictures/08a_Roosevelt-plaque_lge.jpg> So much for Democrats opposed to recalling imagary of attacks for political purposes. Where's the crying over the family's sensitivities? We lost a thousand troops on the USS Arizona alone. Oh, the hypocricy! The hypocricy! [ 03-05-2004, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: Steve Schacher ]

It's starting to look like the group that is complaining about the ads, "The September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows," is a 501©3 non-profit organization funded by grants from the Heinz family. Teresa Heinz is married to Senator John Kerry. Is it any wonder that the media had already found outspoken representatives, who are coached to repeat the same lines, within one day of the ad airing? Stay tuned...

Today's Wall Street Journal editorial, Is 9/11 an Issue? President Bush talks about his record, and Democrats demand that he shut up. quote:September 11, 2001, marked the worst foreign attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor--the bloodiest ever on the American mainland. It's certainly been the defining event of George W. Bush's Presidency. But according to Democrats and their media echo chamber, it now shouldn't be a campaign issue. Yes, that was the message being peddled in yesterday's papers by reporters provided with outrage-laden quotes from a single firefighters' union and activist relatives of victims of the World Trade Center attacks. With a series of new campaign ads featuring fleeting images of Ground Zero, they charge, Mr. Bush is "exploiting" the tragedy. "I'm disappointed but not surprised that the President would try to trade on the heroism of those fire fighters in the September 11 attacks," said International Association of Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger, who happens to have endorsed John Kerry way back in September. "It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people," said outspoken victims' family activist and litigant Monica Gabrielle. The theme was quickly picked up by television talkers. Please. We write this from offices that are 200 yards from Ground Zero and were rendered uninhabitable for almost a year by the attack. (The photo below was the view from our windows.) The threat of another such assault, and how to prevent it, has dominated our politics for three years. From tax cuts designed to save the economy from the double-whammy of terrorism and recession, to the Patriot Act, to regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of Mr. Bush's "forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East," just about every recent major policy is inextricably linked to the event so mildly depicted in these Bush ads. Isn't an election supposed to be about such things? Even Democrats know that it is, so they are manufacturing this outrage for a political purpose: President Bush still polls extremely well on his handling of the war on terror, and Democrats are trying to define the debate in a way that keeps him from playing to his strengths. The polls also show that Mr. Bush scores well as a "leader," so Democrats are also trying to stop him from reinforcing that image. But what is Mr. Bush supposed to do, stop being President? Incumbency clearly has its large (and sometimes unfair) advantages. Yet try as we might, we can't seem to recall similar outrage about Bill Clinton's use of incumbency when he was running for re-election--at least not outrage that got any media traction. Where, for example, was the tut-tutting about the former President "exploiting" the Oklahoma City bombing by giving an election-year speech there in April 1996? We'd also take the current handwringing a bit more seriously if we heard any similar worries about John Kerry "exploiting" his service in Vietnam. One of the oddest things about the hullabaloo over the Bush ads is that these are precisely the kind of campaign spots the self-appointed media referees always say they like: positive, and focused on the candidate's message and record, not on tearing down the other guy. Despite Mr. Kerry's crocodile tears about the Republican "attack machine" and "smear" campaign, neither the President nor any other high-ranking Republican has so far taken a serious jab at either Mr. Kerry's character or his record. Yet in case they eventually do, Democrats are also busy trying to take that off the table. When Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss recently talked about Mr. Kerry's Senate votes against most U.S. weapons systems, he was assailed for attacking Mr. Kerry's "patriotism." This is an extension of the Max Cleland-as-martyr myth, asserting that it was somehow unfair for Republicans to attack the former Georgia Senator and Vietnam vet in the 2002 elections for his vote against the Homeland Security department. So the Bush campaign is being presented with something of a Catch-22: Any attempt to talk about the President's own record will be branded "exploitative," while any talk about Mr. Kerry's will be called an attack on his "patriotism." Our advice to Mr. Bush is to choose his message and ignore the whining. As for Democrats, they'd be wise to get over the idea that Mr. Kerry's Vietnam biography will cover them on the defense issue. For most Americans, 9/11 was the defining event of a generation, and they'll want to hear a serious debate about which candidate has the best policies to keep them safer in the years ahead. The more Democrats complain about Mr. Bush running on national security, the more voters may suspect that Democrats don't have any serious anti-terror ideas of their own.

It's the same question as asking how familes who lost sons in Viet Nam feel about Kerry using Viet Nam in his ads and stump speeches, but you don't hear people making that comparison.

Follow the presidential debate going on now. The second biggest difference is that Republicans are offering solutions (say what you will about them), while Democrats are just complaining about what Bush does. There was a time when Democrats offered solutions, but those times are long gone, and any solutions they do offer are retreads from the Golden Age. Democrats are mostly trying to keep their cobbled-together coalition of special interest groups intact by keeping issues alive for campaign fodder -- they don't want to solve anything because then they have nothing to complain about that keeps their special interests in line. The first biggest difference is that I'm a Republican, not a Democrat.

quote:Carbon Dating is the only Scientifically proven method of dating that there is.How about geological sedimentary analysis of rock layers and what's found within them?

If one reads the book A Brief History Of Time, by Stephen Hawking, one notices how Hawking tries desperately to keep the question of God alive while discussing what science has uncovered. Hawking ultimately relies on the Heisenburg Principle of Uncertainty, which says that at the quantum level of particles, one can know the position of a particle but not its velocity, or the velocity of a particle but not its position, because the act of observing the particle alters is characteristics. Therefore, one must resort to probabilities to predict the outcomes of quantum events. Hawking suggests that this uncertainty was present at the beginning of the universe, and so one cannot explain with certainty why the conditions suitable for life, amongst all the other possible conditions of the universe, has emerged.

quote:everyone rebeled... against the teacher and walked out of the classroom.. end result? NOTHING, the school did NOTHING.. why? You've got meI think you answer your own question. quote:A student comes to school to learn, but saddly most parents beleave that the school will teach there child and take care of them... Thats one reason why we have such a high crime level and why respect, loyalty, and honesty are no longer around (or rather, are rarly around)

Of course, this is all tied to The Breast Seen 'Round The World. That Superbowl show was the equivalent of The Bridge Too Far in the Culture War.

quote:I mean, what's next, restrictions on political speech?Sorry, but McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform already took care of that one last year.

They always wanted it both ways. When people complained about the content, they said they were just a mirror of society. When society complained about the content, they said they were artists who were pushing the envelope.

From the Media Research Center, the latest piece from Brent Bozell called The RNC Agenda vs. The Media Agenda: quote:For several weeks now, the national media have looked like the servile monkey to Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffeÔÇÖs organ grinder. Not only have they pounded the Democratic attack line against the President, chanting "questions linger, questions linger, questions linger" about BushÔÇÖs honorable National Guard service, they have touted the efficiency and electability of John Kerry, and implored his remaining opponents to quit immediately. Then, after all the Bush-bashing and the Kerry-boosting, they unveil a new media poll and squeal with excitement that KerryÔÇÖs opened a lead. Who would have guessed media manipulation had anything to do with those numbers? On February 12, Republican Party leader Ed Gillespie, one of the few spokesmen allowed to deviate from the Sesame Street sweetness of the Bush team, gave a speech in Reno that revealed what could be called the Republican news agenda, the stories they would like to see the media develop and underline for the voters. Needless to say, the silence is so deafening you can hear the crickets chirping. So letÔÇÖs review some of GillespieÔÇÖs list of particulars: 1. John Kerry has a long record of voting to slash spending on the military and intelligence agencies, even as al-Qaeda & Co. bombed the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the USS Cole. Network coverage? None. TheyÔÇÖre too busy replaying footage of Kerry in Vietnam, as if thatÔÇÖs a coherent answer to KerryÔÇÖs ultraliberal voting record. 2. Our forces found a 17-page memo in Iraq, allegedly written by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian with ties to al-Qaeda. The memo indicates that the resistance is recognizing our resolve to win the War on Terror. Of the United States, it says, "Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases. By God, this is suffocation!" You mean, weÔÇÖre winning? This doesnÔÇÖt sound the nightly network news tone, does it? On the evening of February 9, the Big Three networks warily acknowledged the memo as potentially authentic, but only CBS quoted this "suffocation" line. Reporter Elizabeth Palmer immediately added: "But the letter, even if it's genuine, doesn't prove that al-Qaeda is responsible for violence in Iraq. On the contrary, it may be an appeal by desperate local operators to al-Qaeda to get involved." Unsurprisingly, ABC preferred a different line, one that demeaned the United States. Martha Raddatz pointed out that the letter says of Americans: "As you know, these are the biggest cowards that God has created, and the easiest target." 3. Gillespie reported that Sen. Bob Kerrey, the Vietnam veteran and Democratic presidential candidate in 1992, told the New York Sun that he supported the Iraq war in no uncertain terms: "It breaks my heart whenever anybody dies, but we liberated 25 million people who were living under a dictator. It puts us on the side of democracy in the Arab world. Twenty years from now, we'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who says it wasn't worth the effort." Network coverage? Zero. 4. The bald-headed leftist pop musician Moby was quoted in the New York Daily News as promoting the idea that his fellow Kerry supporters should work to "punk" Bush supporters by planting lies in Internet chat rooms. He suggested telling pro-lifers that President Bush drove a former girlfriend to an abortion clinic, and paid for her abortion. Network coverage? Zero. 5. Gillespie noted that Teresa Heinz Kerry gave over $50,000 to the League of Conservation Voters, which endorsed her husband's candidacy in January and has run ads on his behalf. Network coverage of this conflict? Zero. Instead, ABC touted the endorsement in two evening stories on January 24, and George Stephanopoulos touted it again on his show the next morning. On January 15, NBCÔÇÖs Kelly OÔÇÖDonnell aired an entire story giving environmentalists free rein to attack Bush, beginning with the sentence: "The League of Conservation Voters grades the President with the first 'FÔÇÖ in the groupÔÇÖs 34-year history." 6. Finally, the Kerry campaign engaged in nasty push-polling tactics in Iowa. Gillespie underlined: "ItÔÇÖs on videotape!" A documentary filmmaker covering the Dean campaign was present in a home when the Kerry campaign called on the night of the caucuses and accused Howard Dean of being an environmental racist. Gillespie cited an ABC News report as the source. HeÔÇÖs right, but thereÔÇÖs a little problem. Protective ABC only put this January 17 report by Jake Tapper on its Web site, and spiked it from appearing on television, despite obtaining the damning videotape. CBS and NBC never bothered to cover this, either. Does this litany of Democratic favoritism give voters any confidence that the TV networks will be reliable referees of the campaign this year? The proper confidence level in network news coverage? Zero.

quote:On the contrary, if more people placed faith in themselves the world would also be a better place.That shouldn't be a contrary position, but rather, a complementary one.

quote:throughout history many people from the Romans to the Nazi's have tried to paint the Jews as Evil because of what "they" did. You have to remember that the Jews were enslaved all the way back to the Egyptian days, centuries before Jesus. The reason that the Jews were persecuted throughout history is that the Bible declares the Jews as the chosen people by God, and the rest of the people resented that.

Isn't it possible that ALL were fated by destiny to play the roles that they were assigned? Is it possible that Jesus wouldn't be Jesus if Judas wasn't Judas?

Here is more evidence of media bias. Keep posting ongoing media shenanigans to this topic. Primary Numbers, By Paul M. Weyrich quote:I apologized to an important political figure in Washington last week on behalf of my profession. I started my professional life as a journalist. Later, when I came to Washington, it was to work with the media from the inside. Then throughout my career, which has included the initiation of eleven conservative institutions, I always considered myself a journalist. When, in 1980, we began to publish what is now Stu Rothenburg's Political Report, I insisted on journalistic standards. Former Speaker of the House, Tom Foley (D-WA.), called me once and said Stu had written the most objective report about his race that anyone in the media had written. He was shocked. How could a conservative think tank produce a balanced report on politics? It is because we set out to tell the truth. Even though I now am in my eleventh year of writing commentaries, I try to be balanced even when I strongly advocate a point of view. The reason for my apology was that throughout this primary season we have been hearing about the record turnout of voters participating in Democrat caucuses and primaries. I bought the lie. The truth is that, except for Iowa and New Hampshire, there has not been any sort of record turnout for the Democrats. Even in New Hampshire the vote was far less than what the Republicans had when they last had a contested primary in 2000. The Democrats this year had 219,787 votes in their primary. The GOP in 2000 had 239,523 votes. That 20,000 difference is major in a state the size of New Hampshire. Let's examine the turnout in some of the other states which has gone absolutely unreported anywhere: In Missouri, 416,104 voters turned out for the Democrats. But in 1988, when there was also a hotly contested race, the Democrat turnout was 527,805. I guess local boy Dick Gephardt dropping out didn't help any this year. And the Republicans in 2000 had 475,705, by the way. Or how about North Dakota? Do you know the total vote up there this year for the Democrats? It was a mere 12,512. By contrast, in 1992 when the Democrats had a lively race (when Bill Clinton was nominated), the Democrat turnout was 32,786. In Oklahoma where you had a very hot race between Wesley Clark, John Edwards and John Kerry the Democrat turnout was 302,169. By contrast, in 1992 it was 416,129, a difference of more than 100,000 votes. In South Carolina it is true that the Democrats with 291,175 bested their 1992 showing of 116,414. They had local favorite son John Edwards (He was born there) on the ballot. But contrast this with the 2000 GOP contest where George W. Bush and John McCain shot it out. The Republican total four years ago in South Carolina was 565,991.... a difference of 270,000-some votes. Or how about Michigan? I heard several media reports about the supposed record turnout there with people standing in line and the possibility of polling hours being extended. This for a total vote of 162,929. That's nice, except that in 1988 there were about 212,000 Democrats who voted. Get this; in 2000 1,392,023 Republicans went to the polls to vote for delegates for President. That's a difference of a little more than one million one hundred thousand votes. The Democrat turnout in Washington State was really anemic compared with even four years ago when Al Gore had things wrapped up, but even then the GOP turnout was about 350,000 higher than the Democrats that year. Now let's look at New Mexico. You know, the state of intrepid vice presidential possibility Gov. Bill Richardson. The Democrat turnout this year was 94,108. Even in 2000, with Al Gore having things totally in hand, there were 132,280 votes. Ah, but in 1992 when Clinton was slugging it out 181,443 voters came to the polls. And here's the point: New Mexico has 495,000 registered Democrats and only 310,000 registered Republicans. Still, only 19,000 more Democrats voted in an early 2004 primary than Republicans who voted in a very late 2000 primary. In Arizona the Democrat turnout was 224,020, which was slightly up from the Gore year of 2000 when 193,433 turned out. But look at the GOP turnout in 2000. It was 290,637. In Delaware there are 224,000 registered Democrats. Only 175,000 Republicans are registered. Yet only 1,100 more Democrats voted in the hotly contested primary this year than voted in the similarly hotly contested Republican primary in 2000. I could drone on and on but my apology was precisely for this point. Not only did the media outright misrepresent what was actually happening on the ground in these elections, but there was no context presented. It is true that in Iowa there was the largest turnout ever, about 122,000 Democrats compared with 85,000 Republicans in the celebrated Republican caucuses of 2000. And that point was pushed over and over again. Yet, Iowa is the ONLY state where the Democrat figures compare favorably not only with contests in 1988 and 1992 but with the Republican figure from 2000. In every other place the Democrat figures are down from previous years or, as in New Hampshire, still under-perform compared with GOP turnout in 2000. And as I mentioned, in states where there is actual registration, the Democrat performance was not impressive. I say all of this not to be partisan. (Indeed, my commentary, which recently suggested that Democrats might win the Presidency, upset many in Republican circles.) I say this rather to call attention to the really shoddy reporting on the part of the national media. The Internet now gives all of us the opportunity to look up data easily and in one-tenth of one second. There is absolutely no excuse for not reporting things in context. And there certainly is no excuse for reporting that there is backbreaking record turnout when it is less than the last contested primary. I suppose I will have to keep on apologizing for what I still consider to be my profession, but why folks? I know the national media tends to be lazy but this is absurd. Paul Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.

William Safire's latest column in the New York Times: Found: A Smoking Gun In the town of Kalar, about a hundred miles northeast of Baghdad, Kurdish villagers recently reported suspicious activity to the pesh merga. That Kurdish militia has for years been waging a bloody battle with Ansar al-Islam, the terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and supported by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It captured a courier carrying a message that demolishes the repeated claim of Bush critics that there was never a "clear link" between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. The terrorist courier with a CD-ROM containing a 17-page document and other messages was Hassan Ghul, who confessed he was taking to Al Qaeda the Ansar document setting forth a strategy to start an Iraqi civil war, along with a plea for reinforcements. The Kurds turned him over to Americans for further interrogation, which is proving fruitful. The Times reporter Dexter Filkins in Baghdad, backed up by Douglas Jehl in D.C., broke the story exclusively. Editors marked its significance by placing it on the front page above the fold. Although The Washington Post the next day buried it on Page 17 (and Newsweek may construe as bogus any Saddam-Osama connection) the messages' authenticity was best attested by the amazed U.S. official who told Reuters, "We couldn't make this up if we tried." The author of the lengthy Ansar-to-Qaeda electronic message is suspected of being the most wanted terror operative in the world today: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, long familiar to readers of this space as "the man with the limp," who personifies the link of Ansar and Al Qaeda. On Sept. 24, 2001 ÔÇö not two weeks after 9/11 ÔÇö Kurdish sources led me to report: "The clear link between the terrorist in hiding [Osama] and the terrorist in power [saddam] can be found in Kurdistan. . . . The Iraqi dictator has armed and financed a fifth column of Al Qaeda mullahs and terrorists. . . . Some 400 `Arab Afghan' mercenaries . . . have already murdered a high Kurdish official as well as a Muslim scholar who dared to interpret the Koran humanely." The C.I.A. blew off that report. Our National Security Council did not learn of subsequent warfare against the Kurds by the Qaeda affiliate doing Saddam's bidding until its members read it in The Times. After Jeffrey Goldberg of the New Yorker and C. J. Chivers of The Times developed the story from inside northern Iraq, it dawned on some intelligence analysts that a "clear link" was probable. On Oct. 7, 2002, President Bush said "We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some Al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior Al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year." The leader whose leg was treated, perhaps amputated, in Baghdad was identified here in January 2003, as Zarqawi (twice, after one misspelling). The presence of this international terrorist for two months in a Baghdad hospital required the approval of Saddam's ubiquitous secret police. In his U.N. speech the following month, Colin Powell publicly identified the Palestinian, born in Jordan, as one who oversaw a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan three years before: "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden." Now we have documentary evidence of Ansar's current operation: employing suicide bombers to foment a civil war in Iraq that would reinstate safe haven for terrorists. The notion that these serial killers are not central players in the global network that attacked us ÔÇö that the Ansar boss in Iraq must be found carrying an official Qaeda membership card signed by bin Laden ÔÇö is simply silly. Of the liberation's three casus belli, one was to stop mass murder, bloodier than in Kosovo; we are finding horrific mass graves in Iraq. Another was informed suspicion that a clear link existed between world terror and Saddam; this terrorist plea for Qaeda reinforcements to kill Iraqi democracy is the smoking gun proving that. The third was a reasoned judgment that Saddam had a bioweapon that could wipe out a city; in time, we are likely to find a buried suitcase containing that, too.

quote:Much of what those people are saying is that it'll limit the students rights (what rights?) quote:Teaching kids to dress alike is just one more way of teaching them to think alike. Period. End of sentence. I'm heartily against the pieces of crude, and I thinik that it's an absolutely stupid idea. It's not a freakin' military, it's a school. There are NO beneefits whatsoever to uniforms. They cost money, they limit personal freedom, and they encourage kids to think alike. I'll wade in here briefly. Uniforms are called uniforms because they encourage uniform behavior, not individual behavior. The person you quoted says that they make children think alike, but they are intended to make children behave alike. Behavior is the single biggest problem in schools today, and behavior problems lead to learning problems in the classroom. As much as they hate to hear it, children are minors until they are emancipated at 18, and therefore they have limited rights. Children do not enjoy the full suite of rights that adults do, although lawyers are trying to change that (but that's a topic for another time).

You'll notice that the media is no longer referring to "not finding WMDs." They are now talking about not finding stockpiles of WMDs. They've moved the goalposts yet again. As you can see from my prior posts, soldiers found a huge block of cyanide salts (used in death penalty gas chambers, among other things) in a safehouse of a known Iraqi poison specialist. That cyanide (sodium cyanide) is the same stuff that was used in the second Tokyo subway gasing a few years ago (where, fortunately, nobody was killed, unlike in the first sarin gasing). So, they are finding chemical agents that can kill masses of people. Therefore, the president must now find "stockpiles" of WMDs. If (or when) he does find stockpiles, they will then claim that he has to find them in missiles on the launchpad with smoke coming out of the bottom.

Cyanide Salt Block Found in Iraq quote:WASHINGTON ÔÇö A 7-pound block of cyanide salt (search) was discovered by U.S. troops in Baghdad at the end of January, officials confirmed to Fox News. The potentially lethal compound was located in what was believed to be the safe house of Abu Musab Zarqawi (search), a poisons specialist described by some U.S. intelligence officials as having been a key link between deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda (search) terror network. Cyanides salts are extremely toxic. According to the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, exposure to even a small amount through contact or inhalation can cause immediate death. Zarqawi, believed to have been operating in Iraq before March's invasion, was still being sought by coalition forces. It was not clear if anyone had been apprehended in connection with last month's find. Early last year, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (search) detailed Zarqawi's significance in an appearance before the U.N. Security Council. "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants," Powell said. Zarqawi was described as a poisons expert with strong ties to the former Iraqi regime and the terrorist groups Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam. A Palestinian born in Jordan who fought in Afghanistan more than a decade ago, Zarqawi returned to Afghanistan in 2000 to oversee terrorist training camps, Powell told the Security Council. "One of his specialties at the camp was poisons," Powell said. "When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosives training center." Zarqawi is believed to have begun establishing terror cells in and around Baghdad prior to the start of the war last March, and is thought by U.S. officials to still be in the country. U.S. officials, who said they were getting new intelligence in the hunt for Zarqawi, also believe he had been attempting to produce large quantities of the toxin ricin in northern Iraq. Question: Even though cyanide salts have many industrial uses, why would a 7lb block be found in someone's safehouse instead of an industrial warehouse?

Arrggh... I forgot about that. I also voted for Perot in 1992. George Bush just seemed too out of touch, but that was also before I became a student of the news. I now understand how the news is manipulated and won't make that mistake again.

Here's a follow-on question to Jaguar's topic: Are there any votes that you now regret casting? I regret having voted for Ellen Tauscher as my representative in Congress over Bill Baker in 1996. That was the first and last time that I voted for a Democrat in a federal or state election.

quote:If minorities truly are as good as whites (and I'm not racist, I think they are), then why do we need affirmative action?The establisment answer is that fixing the laws to create a level playing field wasn't enough. The establishment answer is that special actions were needed to redress the errors of the past, because even with the level playing field, whites still ruled because of centuries of dominance, and bigotry wasn't routed out just because the laws changed. The establishment will tell you that affirmative action is necessary to force white America to hire non-whites into either: a) positions of power, or positions where access to positions of power becomes available as skills develop. Lately, it is my belief that in today's world of instant gratification, people aren't willing to do what alternative B takes; people want non-whites placed into positions of power now, whether or not they have gained the required experience through training and trial and error that low-level jobs offer. It will only get worse as our schools become even more dumbed down. Look at what is happening in the high schools of New York City. First they dumbed down the curriculum because students (all ethnicities) weren't passing, then they dumbed down the standardized tests because the students weren't passing, then they lowered the passing grades on the standardized tests because the students weren't passing, and now they are getting caught inflating the grades because students still aren't passing. Freshman college classes are loaded with remedial math and reading classes at the highest rate ever, and second-year dropouts are the highest ever. How will these students ever survive in the business world?

I don't know about that. We're not talking about Hiroshima-sized weapons over major population centers; we're talking about tactical (small-scale?) nuclear weapons, deployed in a desert or mountain region. Perhaps the only environmental concern is for contaminating the oil reserves?