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Anyway, did anyone see Kerry's speech today? My god.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … ...y_dc_71

Kerry Uses Bush's Own Words to Call Him Unfit

Kerry said the weapons were not "where they were supposed to be, you were warned to guard them, you didn't guard them. They're not secure, and, guess what, according to George Bush's own words, he shouldn't be our commander in chief and I couldn't agree more."

With Tuesday's election deadlocked, Kerry took aim at the president's perceived strength -- national security -- and hammered him for a fourth consecutive day on the missing explosives.

Bush on Wednesday accused Kerry of opportunism, saying: "A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as commander in chief ... that is part of a pattern of a candidate who will say anything to get elected."

Kerry threw the words back at the president 24 hours later, announcing he was going "to apply the Bush standard" and declaring: "Mr. President, I agree with you."

"George Bush jumped to conclusions about 9/11 and Saddam Hussein," he said. "George Bush jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction and he rushed to war without a plan for the peace. George Bush jumped to conclusions about how the Iraqi people would receive our troops. He not only jumped to conclusions, he ignored the facts he was given."

Holy cow. To coin a word or two from internet jargon; 0WN3D.

I'm really trying hard to avoid this depressing slugfest between diehard Democrats and red-neck Republicans(! ) but then again it's almost over now anyway, so ...

    This 350 tonnes of high explosive material was almost certainly there after the Coalition troops arrived, so at least some of the blame for its disappearance must be laid at the doorstep of the military. I believe it's unconscionable that such material could be left unguarded and end up commandeered by the enemy; somebody needs to be censured for that.
    But, having said that, I know enough of what went on during WWII to say that this sort of thing does happen in time of war. The most incredible foul-ups have been perpetrated by German, French, Italian and British forces - not just by Americans - and it doesn't just apply to comparative incidentals like ammunition dumps either. Even the main strategic initiatives of whole army groups are prey to the vagaries of fate as battles unfold. In fact, Field Marshal Helmuth Von Moltke, German Chief of Staff 1906-1914, wrote: "No operation plan extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main body of the enemy."
    The difference then was that people like CNN and other news agencies weren't trailing around with cameras to anything like the same extent. And undermining the credibility of the command structure with revelations similar to this, while the lives of our troops were still on the line in an ongoing conflict, was regarded as treachery. Plenty of time for recriminations after the job was done.
    But things have changed, I guess.

    However, in addition to the above, I'd like to make the point that Iran and Syria have access to rather more than 350 tonnes of high explosives and have been supplying Islamic murderers with all they need to kill innocent people for many years. While losing that much explosive material was an appalling lapse, it's nothing new in the annals of war, and it's of limited importance in Iraq when you view the big picture. If the terrorists have access to unlimited money, arms, and explosives, 350 tonnes extra isn't going to make two cents worth of difference.

    I'm afraid this is just another tawdry example of politicking as the U.S. election approaches. But judging by a similar campaign against John Howard, Australia's incumbent at our election a few weeks ago, the desperation of this line of attack probably bodes well for President Bush. It looks like Kerry and all the anti-Bush contingents worldwide might really be scraping the barrel with this one.

    Thank God it's nearly all over!       

Cindy posted a comment that maybe "they" shouldn't buy our good. God forbid that happens because then our economy will be 100% screwed.

*Erm...Bill, sorry, I feel this (unintentionally of course) misrepresents what I said.

Robert Dyck commented on assimilation, other nations and the U.S.  I responded that if another nation doesn't like U.S. culture and if they feel we're trying to assimilate them, it's *their* duty to keep out of their society what about ours they don't like (whether blue jeans or soda pop or whatever).

Not that I -want- them to do this, of course.  I'm simply trying to point out that if they don't like our pop culture and etc., keep it out of their nations or quit complaining.

Tell Rove to hire some better CGI people.

Yeah, just cloning part of the crowd and using it five or six times, right next to one another is damn lazy.

Take some pride in your fakery people!  :laugh:

More Rove-ian spin. The real voter fraud is being done by the GOP. And the Freepers are launching pre-emptive empty  attacks to distract and lay smoke.

Just my 2 cents. . .

The real voter fraud? Like the Democrats are just playing around, but those big mean Republicans are really serious about bogus votes?

I know it's easy to get drawn into the partisan torrent but don't let prejudices get in the way of objective reasoning. There are indeed some questionable practices on the Rpublican side, but it seems that the bulk of the outright fraud is from the Left. The violent outbursts as well.

Don't flip out Bill. 

This is about the 5th incident of elections-related violence I've read about in the past 1-1/2 months.

And that's just what makes the news. Odd that the vast majority of this stuff is coming from one end of the political spectrum. Seems that the donkey is flippin' out.

Jackasses. 

LOL! 

--Cindy

I really, really, really don't like the idea of modifying the Shuttle Orbiter at all. That thing is simply so complex that any serious change at all is an invitation to fiscal disaster even if it would work. Better to just build a tug vehicle with storable fuels then to fool with that kind of a project.

Anything that gets rid of Shuttle earlier can't be a bad thing...

If Boeing went ahead and performed the upgrades to the Delta-IV, or even just strapped some standard GEMs to the HLV stack, the HLV model could likly lift station componets and a tug module for the rendevous maneuver.

With the uprated Delta-IV "EELV+" you could also launch the CEV with no solid rocket motors or send a pretty decent payload to the Moon with only two shots of the "HLV+" model.