WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As Hurricane Isabel roared ashore in North Carolina yesterday, Democrats in Washington DC firmly fixed the blame on President George W. Bush for the ease with which the storm entered the United States, and the destruction it caused.

"Bush's lax support of Homeland security is to blame for this disaster," said Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Ma) as he was bundled into an extra-large limo by his aides for a fast trip to the airport. "If only he had tightened our borders properly, this would never have been allowed to happen."  Added Senator Kennedy to his driver, "Don't you dare take me to Reagan Airport; I get heartburn every time I go near it."

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) gave a statement to reporters, saying "This Administration's lack of diplomacy is entirely to blame for the strength of this hurricane. If only President Bush had embraced Fidel Castro and dropped all restrictions and sanctions against Cuba, this never would have happened; we would have seen a storm of good-will from the happy people of Cuba instead of this destruction. This President has failed us by allowing this storm to take place."  As she spoke, the Representative's aides were preparing a reception for Isabel, including a huge sheet cake with a stylised hurricane and the words "Congratulations on Your Immigration, Isabel!" and party favors consisting of offers of free tuition and drivers' licenses in a variety of names.

Presidential hopeful Congressman Dick Gephardt (D-Mo) was, of course, absent, but sent a prepared statement that "This President is a miserable failure ©".  Another Presidential hopeful, Governor Howard Dean, stated that "this President failed in diplomacy... as President, I would have met the storm in advance and made peace with it, making certain to give in to its demands in order to reduce the damage it would cause."  When asked how many members of the National Guard he would deploy to help during the emergency, Dean replied "I don't know how many we have, and I don't have to know, but I'm sure that when I'm President, I can always find someone around who knows these things."

Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va) took the opportunity to add $100 million in pork barrel spending earmarked for West Virginia federally-funded programs to FEMA's operating budget for next year, to fund such projects as the "White Pillowcase Project", which will insure that all white males in the state are provided with white pillowcases at federal expense.  "This President took the opportunity to don the garb of a Gorton's Fisherman," stated Senator Byrd, "in order to declare a state of emergency in a state he was not even in at the time!" 

Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Presidential hopeful Senator John Kerry (D-Ma) both voted to fight Hurricane Isabel, then viciously attacked President Bush for doing so.  "I only voted for this fight in order to convince the storm the United States meant business," stated Kerry. "Had I known that anyone would actually take my vote seriously, much less act upon it, I might have voted the same way. Or not. I'm a Vietnam Veteran ©, you know."

Where are the weapons of mass destruction Saddam admitted he had only a few short years ago? Only the most naive or rabidly anti-American Bush-basher would claim they never existed, since UNSCOM as well as every intelligence service in the West had hard evidence on top of Iraq's admissions. Certainly the thousands of Kurdish dead at Anfal found out Saddam had chemical weapons. (http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/) The only questions were: how MUCH? what KINDS? Now, we have a new one: where are they NOW?

Now, our intelligence sources can disclose exclusively that the relocation of Iraq’s WMD systems took place between January 10 and March 10 and was completed just 10 days before the US-led offensive was launched against Iraq. The banned arsenal, hauled in giant tankers from Iraq to Syria and from there to the Bekaa Valley under Syrian special forces and military intelligence escort, was discharged into pits 6-8 meters across and 25-35 meters deep dug by Syrian army engineers. They were sealed and planted over with new seedlings. Nonetheless, their location is known and detectable with the right instruments. Our sources have learned that Syria was paid about $35 million to make Saddam Hussein’s forbidden weapons disappear. [4 May 2003]
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=482

Mossad (Israeli intelligence service) has been telling us since before the invasion of Iraq began that large amounts of Iraq's illegal weapons were moved out of the country in huge tanker trucks. Liberals commonly have one main response to this news (discounting the usual vitriolic ad hominem responses): "That's stupid! You can see anything moving in that country! Satellites would have seen 'giant tanker trucks' moving around Iraq!"

Well, I'm glad you all brought that up. World Tribune.com (http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/), an internet newspaper devoted to international news (and often quoted on The Drudge Report at http://www.drudgereport.com/), recently ran two very relevant stories:

U.S. intelligence suspects Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have finally been located.
Unfortunately, getting to them will be nearly impossible for the United States and its allies, because the containers with the strategic materials are not in Iraq.
Instead they are located in Lebanon's heavily-fortified Bekaa Valley, swarming with Iranian and Syrian forces, and Hizbullah and ex-Iraqi agents, Geostrategy-Direct.com will report in Wednesday's new weekly edition.
U.S. intelligence first identified a stream of tractor-trailer trucks moving from Iraq to Syria to Lebanon in January 2003. The significance of this sighting did not register on the CIA at the time. [25 August 2003]
http://216.26.163.62/2003/ss_iraq_08_25.html

U.S. intelligence agencies are weighing numerous reports that Iraq diverted weapons of mass destruction to Syria and Lebanon to hide them from United Nations weapons inspectors and American forces in Iraq.
In testimony Sept. 16, John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, referred to reports that Iraqi WMD had been transferred to Syria. "We have seen these reports, reviewed them carefully, and see them as cause for concern," he said. [17 September 2003]
http://216.26.163.62/2003/ss_iraq_09_17.html

Is it still "stupid" to suspect that Saddam secretly moved most, if not all, of his banned weapons out of the country when it became certain the United States would invade, right under the noses of UNMOVIC inspectors headed by Hans Blix? There was no way to tell at the time exactly how much he had, how much was moved, and how much was still left in the country. Iraq was not fully cooperating with the inspections, despite their terrific misdirection of destroying a couple of illegal missiles a day. (Well, it fooled those who desperately wanted to be fooled.) Saddam wasn't exactly declaring his WMD at the border, and those tanker trucks were curiously devoid of signs reading "WMD: 10,000 liters -- CAUTION!"

Soon weapons expert David Kay, heading the Iraq Survey Group (the 1,400-member team searching for WMD production facilities and stockpiles, if any) will deliver his report. Most likely, the only physical evidence Saddam left that was easy to find were those pieces either too big to move, or too expensive to destroy. Then, all eyes will turn to Hezbollah, and Lebanon.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's claims of ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda terrorists are being tested in federal court, where the family of the FBI's late counterterrorism chief has sued Iraq over the Sept. 11 hijackings.
The wife and children of John O'Neill, who died in the attack on the World Trade Center, allege that Iraq began communicating with Al Qaeda as early as 1992, provided training to Usama bin Laden's warriors and sent intelligence agents to work with the terror network in Afghanistan.
The evidence, the sources said, includes statements by Iraqi defectors and Al Qaeda prisoners that Iraqi intelligence provided Al Qaeda with training in document forgery and chemical and biological weapons in a series of contacts that spiked in 1996, and again after 1998.
O'Neill was one the FBI's top terrorism experts, leading investigations into such attacks as the 2000 USS Cole bombing. He left the FBI shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks over an investigation into his loss of a briefcase with sensitive FBI documents. He accepted a job as chief of security at the World Trade Center in New York City and was in the towers when they collapsed.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97457,00.html

AT LAST! The O'Neill case may finally prove Saddam's material support and training of the 9/11 hijackers beyond the shadow of a doubt. John O'Neill knew more about al-Qaeda than anyone (well, any non-member), and tried in vain for YEARS to make the Clinton administration listen to the evidence of their involvement with Iraq. He finally left the FBI in 2001 -- and was almost immediately murdered by them, along with so many others in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. At least the media is paying SOME attention to this case, unlike the case decided against Iraq by Judge Harold Baer on 7 May of this year which they almost completely ignored.  Testimony in that case was given by former CIA director James Woolsey, terrorism expert Dr. Laurie Mylroie, and three of the instructors from Salman Pak, Saddam's terrorism training school about 20 miles southeast of Baghdad. 

...according to courtroom testimony by three of the camp's instructors, the facility was a virtual hijacking classroom where al-Qaeda recruits practiced overcoming U.S. flight crews using only small knives - a terrorist technique never employed before 9/11.
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2003/5/9/72820

Salman Pak's use as a hijacking school was discussed in the media almost immediately after 9/11, and yet they never seemed able to make the connection between the existence of a hijacking school in Iraq, hijackers flying planes into buildings using the same methods taught at the school, and the Bush administration's insistence that Iraq was part of the war against terror.

Through a translator, [Iraqi defector Sabah Khalifa] Alami described, according to the Wall Street Journal ("The Iraq Connection" by Micah Morrison, 5 Sept. 2002), a daily regimen of exercises on kidnapping, assassination, and -- using a Boeing 707 parked inside the complex -- how to hijack a plane or bus without weapons. He said that a separate group of non-Iraqis were being similarly trained by Saddam's intelligence service, the mukhabarat. Asked about the plane by an interviewer for Front Line [in September 2001], he said "Yes, there's a real whole 707 plane, a whole real plane, standing in the middle of the training area in this camp."
http://edwardjayepstein.com/2002question/salmanpak.htm

And then, when our troops approached Salman Pak... there was the plane, just as described.

SALMAN PAK, Iraq -- The rusted shell of an old passenger jet sat out in a field, its tail broken off. Good for hijacking practice, U.S. Marines speculated Sunday [April 6, 2003] as they examined an Iraqi training base about 20 miles south of Baghdad.
...U.S. officials and others have long suspected the camp trained terrorists. Two former Iraqi military officers told the New York Times and PBS's "Frontline" in the fall of 2001 that Iraqis and non-Iraqi Arabs were brought here to practice hijacking planes and trains, planting bombs and staging assassinations.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/2003/04/07/news/nation/5574507.htm

When does two plus two NOT equal four? When you're using Liberal math, of course.

It looks like the the pro-abortion argument -- I don't say "pro-choice" like they want me to, nor do I say "pro-life" -- is about to take a BIG hit.  It seems that the latest technology can clearly show the faces of babies smiling and crying in the womb. (http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-12773312,00.html)

Now, no one can tell -- yet -- exactly WHY they smile and cry in there.  When asked, the recalcitrant infants refuse to answer.  There aren't even any statistics yet on how early this behavior starts.  But none of that matters, and I'll tell you why: PICTURES.

Mohammad Khatami, Iran's President, can't be very happy this weekend.  The IAEA issued a deadline of 31 October '03 for Iran to fully disclose all its nuclear programs.  Normally, a deadline from the UN is treated by rogue nations like Iran the way we would treat the rumor of an invasion from the Moon. In other words, a pretty lame joke. "Hey Mohammad, the UN is giving us a deadline!" "Ooh, I'm quaking in my sandals. Better warn our grandchildren; they may have to do something about it someday. I slap them with my shoe!"

They're not doing that this time.

If the Iranians are laughing about the IAEA deadline, the laughter no doubt seems forced as they glance to their west, towards the country where Saddam Hussein once laughed at UN deadlines, too.

They know he's not laughing now. 

When President Bush cited the 17 violated UN resolutions as one of the reasons to remove Saddam from power (http://www.broadbandc-span.org/downloads/hjres114.pdf), some people thought that was a pretty lame joke, too.  As usual, they missed the point entirely.  The reason UN deadlines were treated with such contempt by dictators was that they knew such deadlines would never be enforced.  That's what President Bush knew before going to the UN for resolution #1441... that there was really no chance it would ever be honored by Saddam Hussein's government or enforced by the UN. 

But we were ready to enforce it, and we did.

Those on the Left scream that Bush undermined the United Nations. Those on the Right grumble that the UN was always useless, and Bush just showed the world how irrelevant they were.  They all missed the point of President Bush citing those UN resolutions as a reason for toppling Saddam's government.

For the first time in decades, a UN deadline is being treated seriously by a dictator. Mohammad Khatami may not be too worried about the UN enforcing its resolutions and deadlines... they never do.

But I'll bet he's worried that the US will enforce them.

Lately, I've been thinking about moving to the Left Coast and getting a bunch of free stuff.  You can't get free stuff from California for being a California resident, an American, or even a legal immigrant.  However, if you're an ILLEGAL immigrant, California is willing to practically give you the keys to the state, hoping you'll vote Democratic out of gratitude when you get there.
Illegal immigrants can now get California drivers' licenses.  How about that?  All you have to do is commit a crime, and California gives you a document that not only lets you legally drive and get car insurance so you don't have to fear traffic stops, but that you can use to buy guns and register to vote!  After all, cops in California can't check your immigration status because you look Mexican or have an accent... that's profiling. But wait, there's more!  California is also happy to give criminals a break on their college tuition.  According to Lillian Kim of Immigration Law Weekly (http://www.ilw.com/immigrants/life/articles/2003,0811-studentsall.pdf), the Student Adjustment Act (passed in California and Texas) grants "illegal aliens legal status on the condition that they meet certain qualifications".  Also, unless the current bill to deny Social Security to illegal aliens passes (HR1631, http://www.theorator.com/bills108/hr1631.html), they can even collect Social Security... which means issuing them a Social Security number. How (you may ask) can an illegal alien get a Social Security number? Well, according to the Social Security Administration, you can get one by showing -- are you ready? -- a valid driver's license!  Can SOMEONE please tell me the difference between an illegal alien with a legal driver's license and social security card and a born American?  And all you need to gain all these free benefits (free being LibSpeak for "legal residents pay via higher taxes") is a Mexican consular ID card!  So all you have to do to qualify for freebies from the Golden State is prove you're from Mexico, right?  I'll bet the proof of Mexican origin is so hard to come by, though.
Well, that's not exactly true. As Marti Dinerstein testified before the US House of Representatives on 19 June 2003, "the matricula [consular ID card] is not a secure identity document.... A Mexican birth certificate is the principal document being used to obtain a matricula. Press reports indicate that it or other documents are being crosschecked against computerized records in Mexico. They are not." (http://www.cis.org/articles/2003/martitestimony61903.html)

Two years ago today, terrorists brought their hate to our doorsteps and made us stare it in the face.
There are some who protest that taking the "War on Terror" overseas is a foolish waste of resources that should be used to improve Homeland Security... tightening our borders and beefing up security measures at points of entry.
Listen... it's not as if there aren't literally THOUSANDS of these murderers that are literally DYING to do the same thing. It's entirely due to President Bush's attacks on their leadership and support bases that they haven't done so in two years, combined with his diplomatic pressure on nations that support terror to change their ways. However, they're still out there... they have tried and will continue to try to murder as many American as as they can. It's all they want out of life.
And we CAN'T stop it by building higher walls and tighter security. We'll just be building ourselves a prison that way. And no matter HOW high we build, or HOW tight we make our security, all it will take is ONE suicidal maniac to start us on a new building frenzy.  No, the President is doing EXACTLY the right thing by taking the war to the terrorists.  They will not stop, and neither can we.  Would you rather fight that war in OUR streets, or theirs?

Why is it that Liberals and their pet political party, the Democrats, demand to know where to place the blame for 9/11, even accusing President Bush of not preventing it... until the blame trail leads back to Bill Clinton?  Then it's "oh, you can't talk about him, he's not President now".  Guess what?  He was President when al-Qaeda planned the 9/11 attacks. He was President when they attacked the USS Cole in 2000. He was President when they bombed US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998, bombed the Khobar Towers in 1996 and an Army base in Riyadh in 1995. He was President when they bombed the WTC the FIRST time in 1993.  And I STILL don't hear a single Democrat or Liberal asking why he didn't take bin Laden the dozen times he was offered him.  Mansoor Ijaz personally described three times the Sudanese offered bin Laden to Clinton to get on America's good side. Clinton refused.

"Mansoor Ijaz, now a New York City-based investment banker who traveled to Sudan more than a half dozen times in the mid-1990s, says he repeatedly relayed offers from the Sudanese government to the Clinton White House to share intelligence on bin Laden. In one case, the president of Sudan offered to arrest and extradite bin Laden and turn over information about global terrorist networks, Ijaz says.
The Clinton administration declined to take him up on the offer, Ijaz has argued in a Los Angeles Times commentary, in the pages of the January issue of the magazine Vanity Fair, and on national television shows."
http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/news/story123493.html

Shouldn't the first entry into this weblog be some overblown self-indulgent rant about myself, full of fascinating ideas about how one man's little online ranting will someday change the world?

Nah.

This is about what ticks me off, what gets my goat, or whatever metaphor you want to use to describe the feeling of frustration I get when I see some of the things happening in the news -- and NOT in the news.  You couldn't care less about the mundane details of my life... hell, I barely care myself.  I have been writing articles for Useless-Knowledge, but would rather retain the ability to let other people reprint or quote anything they like -- or hate -- with my permission.  Therefore, to business: what's annoying me today.

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