"We need a president who's prepared to stand up and lead the world to a more responsible place to create an entity to make peace within the Middle East".Meanwhile, as the nation watched our "go it alone" President on TV last night, his administration enlisted France to help get this done:
The UN Security Council narrowly adopted a resolution on Thursday night telling Syria to withdraw from Lebanon, calling for the disbanding of Hezbollah and warning against outside interference in Beirut's upcoming presidential election.I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to write a 10 word essay on the topic: "Did the Bush administration's resolve to do something about the region's other lunatic Ba'athocracy make it (a) more likely, or (b) less likely, that the Security Council would finally make a move on the Syrian problem?" Please, no cheating.
John Kerry's response to Zell Miller's withering attack on John Kerry's Senate record -- hold an emergency midnite news conference to announce for the 32,768th time that John Kerry spent four months in Vietnam:
The Vice President called me unfit for office last night. Well, I'll leave it up to the voters to decide whether five deferments makes someone more qualified to defend this nation than two tours of duty.Actually, I think the voters would be more interested in hearing John Kerry explain what he accomplished during his four terms in the Senate instead of during his four months in Vietnam. For some reason, he doesn't want to go there. Instead he seems to be spending all of his free time watching Fahrenheit 9/11:
Letting the Saudi Royal Family control our energy costs makes you unfit. Handing out billions of government contracts to Halliburton while you're still on their payroll makes you unfit.I'll bet a lot of Democrats are privately saying that Joseph Lieberman is looking pretty good right now.
Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer contains the most brilliant op-ed it has ever published: mine.
More explanation, here.
Now I know why John Kerry has been campaigning on his four months in Vietnam and not his 20 years in the United States Senate. Sen. Zell Miller:
no pair has been more wrong, more loudly, more often than the two Senators from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.But for some, the only story is Zell Miller's anger.Together, Kennedy/Kerry have opposed the very weapons system that won the Cold War and that is now winning the War on Terror.
Listing all the weapon systems that Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security but Americans need to know the facts.
The B-1 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, dropped 40 percent of the bombs in the first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom.
The B-2 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hussein's command post in Iraq.
The F-14A Tomcats, that Senator Kerry opposed, shot down Khadifi's Libyan MIGs over the Gulf of Sidra. The modernized F-14D, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered missile strikes against Tora Bora.
The Apache helicopter, that Senator Kerry opposed, took out those Republican Guard tanks in Kuwait in the Gulf War. The F-15 Eagles, that Senator Kerry opposed, flew cover over our Nation's Capital and this very city after 9/11.
I could go on and on and on: against the Patriot Missile that shot down Saddam Hussein's scud missiles over Israel; against the Aegis air-defense cruiser; against the Strategic Defense Initiative; against the Trident missile; against, against, against.
This is the man who wants to be the Commander in Chief of our U.S. Armed Forces?
U.S. forces armed with what? Spitballs?
My fellow immigrants, my fellow Americans how do you know if you are a Republican? I'll tell you how.David, who was watching the speech with me, joined the convention delegates in shouting and clapping "Four More Years!, Four More Years!" That's my boy. Not quite three years old and he's already made his choice not to be a girlie man. These guys on the other hand...If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not
the people to the government...then you are a Republican!If you believe a person should be treated as an individual, not as a member of an interest group... then you are a Republican!
If you believe your family knows how to spend your money better than the government does... then you are a Republican!
If you believe our educational system should be held accountable for the progress of our children ... then you are a Republican!
If you believe this country, not the United Nations, is the best hope of democracy in the world ... then you are a Republican!
And, ladies and gentlemen ...if you believe we must be fierce and relentless and terminate terrorism ... then you are a Republican!
There is another way you can tell you're a Republican. You have faith in
free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people ...and
faith in the U.S. economy.To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don't be economic girlie men!
16 Israelis were murdered today. Hamas took responsibility.
Meanwhile, the group Funding for Peace Coalition released a report today documenting how billions of dollars of international aid to the Palestinians has been diverted to corruption and terrorism:
The FPC report is entitled “Managing European Taxpayers’ Money: Supporting The Palestinian Arabs – A Study In Transparency”. It publishes evidence, which substantiates a compelling connection between European funding and ongoing Palestinian corruption and terrorism. It also highlights the utter failure of European organisations to monitor where these funds have been directed. The report details theft, nepotism, and embezzlement on the part of the PA, supported by incompetence and apathy on the part of European agencies.As one right-wing Israeli settler in the Gaza Strip put it:
All of the funds which foreign countries had donated to the Palestinian Authority, a total of $5bn "have gone down the drain, and we don't know to where,"Just kidding. That wasn't the quote of a right-wing Israeli settler. That quote was from former Palestinian interior minister Mohammad Dahlan.
The complete Funding for Peace Coalition report is here (large PDF).
hat tip: David Frankfurter, who has more thoughts, here
[The Democrats] stress that America needs the help of her friends to combat an evil that threatens us all, that our alliances are as important to victory as are our armies. We agree.Mayor Rudy GiulianiAnd, as we've been a good friend to other countries in moments of shared perils, so we have good reason to expect their solidarity with us in this struggle. That is what the President believes.
And, thanks to his efforts we have received valuable assistance from many good friends around the globe, even if we have, at times, been disappointed with the reactions of some. I don't doubt the sincerity of my Democratic friends. And they should not doubt ours.
And since September 11th President Bush has remained rock solid.Democrat Vice-Presidential Candidate John Edwards:It doesn't matter how he is demonized.
It doesn't matter what the media does to ridicule him or misinterpret him or defeat him.
They ridiculed Winston Churchill. They belittled Ronald Reagan.
But like President Bush, they were optimists; leaders must be optimists. Their vision was beyond the present and set on a future of real peace and true freedom.
...
Look how quickly the Berlin Wall was torn down, the Iron Curtain ripped open and the Soviet Union disintegrated because of the power of the pent-up demand for freedom.When it catches hold there is nothing more powerful than freedom. Give it some hope, and it will overwhelm dictators, and even defeat terrorists. That is what we have done and must continue to do in Iraq.
That is what the Republican Party does best when we are at our best, we extend freedom.
If elected U.S. president, Sen. John Kerry would offer Iran a deal allowing it to keep its nuclear power plants if it gave up the right to retain bomb-making nuclear fuel, said Kerry's vice presidential running mate in an interview published on Monday.
David Sharkansky threw up all over his father's trousers during dinner at a Mexican restaurant this evening. Unfortunately, David's father happened to be wearing the trousers at the time of the incident.
Everybody's fine now.
I had a most excellent lunch yesterday with Kirkland blogger Jim Miller. Our conversation ranged over political science; the geology of Eastern Washington; Patty Murray's [double-digit] IQ; the difference between conservationists [people who believe in using natural resources wisely] and preservationists [people who refuse to accept that the laws of economics also apply to natural resources]; and the observed phenomenon that the more ramshackle the hovel, the bolder will be the hovel dweller's statement that the guy who lives in the White House is a moron. [photographic evidence coming soon].
We also agreed that Joanne Jacobs is the world's greatest practitioner of economical prose.
This morning at the coffee house there was a young woman with a "Bush satan 2004" sticker on her laptop.
"I like that sticker"I said to her kindly. She returned a wink-wink smile. I continued:
"I was going to vote for him, but now that I know he's satan, I've changed my mind."She kept smiling. It was obvious she had no idea I was being ironic.
David, who is 34 months old today, is not only a world-class linguist, but is already on his way to an MD/PhD program. Today he announced a breakthrough in the field of anatomy:
Daddy, you have holes in your nose!The discovery of nostrils was not an isolated incident. Four months ago he had his first Eureka moment:
Mommy, you have a head!And earlier this week he reported some astonishing news about the difference between boys and girls!
A Seattle protest group called the Infernal Noise Brigade travels the world spreading its message of auditory pain:
It has performed at the World Bank meeting in Prague; for masked Zapatista guerrillas in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas; for revelers in Paris and São Paulo, Brazil; and at last year's WTO meeting in Cancún, Mexico. The INB creates a carnivallike atmosphere at otherwise dull events, and protesters make their appreciation evident, often by begging for more.The INB will be in New York City next week presumably trying to persuade Republican convention delegates to give it all up and become anarchists, or maybe just to make them go deaf.
