Heavy Z

The Onion is not a news site but a site that writes comedy based on daily news. This article was pure sarcasm, like the one about how N. Korea was jealous of Iraq getting all the attention. Funny stuff.

No dice for me either.

You could try Joe Viturbo, I hear he's looking for a new ride.

NP Jon. Just as if I walked by your house while it was on fire, and you're inside filing your nails, I wouldn't say to you "nice nails", I'd tell you to get out because your house is ON FIRE.

I'm not sure which debate you guys watched, but the word on the street is that Kerry won by a landslide. Bush's came off as a bumbling simpleton who sighed too much and who only had 30 minutes of material for a 90 minute debate. Fox news even gave him a bashing for his lack of professionalism. Oh well, Bushies will just blow it off. After all, if you're willing to overlook his abyssmal record then I guess pretending like he was anywhere near Kerry in the debate won't be much of a stretch. Who knows, maybe bumbling, stumbling, and generally sounding unstable will help bring honor to the presidency.

I've done the same as Tim with good success on the doors and engine compartment. MUCH cheaper this way. Tim, which one did you use arond your rear hatch? Thanks

Along the lines of the two blogs John posted and Phil's talk of rebuilding utilities, this journalist visits several Iraqi utilities and gives insight into why delays are rampant. What he uncovers is embarassing but easily correctable: http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040830&s=parenti

I'm glad you appreciated it, John. I agree with that some intel from Britain did wholeheartedly agree with the WMD threat, there was also dissent. As for the other countries you mention, they all took more of the Scott Ritter/UN weapons team position that most of Iraq's weapons were disposed of by '98 and the remaining germ agents would be long since expired. So in a broad sense, yes they thought he may have had some remnants, which is why they wanted to allow more time for inspections to continue. But they didn't think he posed nearly the threat we made him out to be, and without including that info we distort their position on Iraqi WMDs. As for the point about them being moved, in the same Blix article I included in my last post quoted him as saying there was no intelligence to support that WMDs had been moved to Syria or elsewhere. Not to say it had't happened, as one never knows, but not according to what we knew to that point. Even so, radiation would've left a signature we could detect had any atomic testing been underway. The mobil weapons labs supported the idea that WMDs were on the move, but turned out to be weather balloon trucks sold to Iraq by the UK not more than a week after the story broke. As for Pop's ideas on troop numbers. He's got a point about whether 217,000 would do any better than 17,000 in Afghanistan, as it's hard to sneak up and do precision work on anyone when they can hear your tanks coming from a distance. Which brings me to this: I agree. The way you get people planning a terrorist attack is by using good intelligence work, not rumbling an army up the the town where they live and going door to door. You end up pissing too many people off and get the mess we've got now. Your quote is another way of saying 'terrorism is mostly a police action', a point minimized by the admin as we ramped up to invade Iraq. As for what we should do now, maybe it's a good time to follow through with rebuilding Afghanistan, make it an example of our kindness, and hopefully divert attention off Iraq. From the looks of this article last week, military brass is getting fed up: General Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration and the senior military officers over Iraqi was worse than any he has ever seen with any previous government, including Vietnam. "I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defence and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster." http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305360,00.html

I share your frustration John. Let's have a look at one of your links together, so I can point out why we disagree. At the time Bush made this speech many of his accusations were contrary to existing intelligence. Here's the first part of his speech, from the link above: THE PRESIDENT: My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq. Our good faith has not been returned. (Two weeks before the attack, finding no WMD's, UN inspectors call U.S. WMD location tips 'Garbage': http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/18/iraq/main537096.shtml ) The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged, and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again -- because we are not dealing with peaceful men. (Hans Blix said a month before the attack that the US had been misquoting his reports to make Iraq appear less compliant than he had witnessed. Also, after this speech he asked for more time citing that progress was being made: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/31/1043804520548.html?oneclick=true ) Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people. (Not according to the CIA, revealed six weeks prior to Bush's speech: http://foi.missouri.edu/polinfoprop/warcrime.html ) The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda. (Not so says the CIA, 5 months prior: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A14056-2002Oct24&notFound=true , and the 911 commission recently dismissed any link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html ) The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other... (I could go on. Again, based on what we know, this link had yet to be substantiated. Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clark said he was pressed to find this link by the administration and could not. If you have something that hasn't lost credibility yet I'd like to have a look.)

You guys aren't going to believe this one : http://www.zaman.org/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20040921&hn=12424 Saddam to Declare Candidacy for Iraqi Elections Overthrown Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was arrested by US forces last December, reportedly plans to run as a candidate in the Iraqi elections scheduled for January 2005. Saddam's lawyer Giovanni di Stefano told Denmark's B.T. newspaper that Saddam decided during one of their discussions that he would declare his candidacy for the elections. Stefano said that there was no law that prevented Saddam from appearing on the ballot. He added that Saddam hopes to regain his presidency and palaces via the democratic process. Contrary to the statements of Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, Stefano claims, "Saddam has no chance to be tried before the elections. Moreover, no international law prevents him from coming forward." Saddam's lawyer defends that the ambiguity in Iraq will favor Saddam at the polls. Stefano remarked that a recent Gallup poll indicates that 42 percent of the Iraqi people want their former leader back. Meanwhile, evaluating the conditions of Saddam in jail, Allawi said that Saddam had asked him for mercy. 09.21.2004 Hasan Cucuk Copenhagen

JMORT, I agree your twist of wording is correct, but you're trying to frame my argument without recognizing a key issue: our govt is in charge of iraq, not S.A. Since we were the ones who decided to babysit 23 million non-US citizens, our responsibilities are much greater there.

Please cite an example of Iraqi terrorism against the U.S. warranting the above proclamation. Or a foiled attempt. Or anything from our intelligence services up till that time. The CIA (and most others) thought Saddam was well coralled from the sanctions(ever read about these?), UNMOVIC disarmament and the no-fly zones. No other country on earth had more pressure on them to stay in line. Now that we've liberated them terrorism, abduction, and crime are rampant in Iraq, all without Saddam and his rape rooms. What about winning the hearts of the Iraqis? Clean water would be a start. If you were to flash back before desert storm, Iraq had a pretty good system for handling its drinking water. Then the war destroyed their water treatment system, and because you need chlorine, a 'dual use' agent to clean water, Iraq's water system once rebuilt never worked well due to sanctions. Now their water system was destroyed again in fighting and repairs are on hold because parts haven't been delivered yet by Bechtel, and it's not like we showed up last month. And the Iraqis know this. It's pretty hard to sell people on democracy when they have to drink water contaminated by raw sewage. YES we do. Sudan's got oil, so I'm not surprised to hear them on the list. But that is not all of Africa. What about the genocide in the Congo - 2 million killed in the last few years? Since we like to dispose of brutal dictators, why not there? What about the ethnic cleansing of white farmers in Zimbabwe? What about South Africa - another powder keg ready to go off? What about the christian army that was on a killing spree led by a David Korresh(sp?)-type leader chased around by the Ugandan military? When was the last time you heard ANY of these on your tv set? If it all is about removing terrorism, why didn't we start in Sri Lanka, where there is a terrorist army so sophisticated they have tanks and their own air force?

I agree, Dave. We're spending with reckless abandon by any measure, compounded by our looming obligation to boomers. If you haven't seen this article, a recent eye-opener: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/12/MNG2S8NOI21.DTL How we ignore this one escapes me, it's like ignoring a guy ready to puke 8) on you...only the debt is more messy.

What we say is of little consequence, what matters to Iraqi insurgents is that WE put him in charge. From there, a quick look at Allawi reveals he was historically distrusted equally by all the various factions. This makes it a hard sell since he wasn't exactly Mr. popularity. Make-believe better than good 'ol fashion reality? Isn't the truth worth a damn anymore? Can any strategy possibly work while ignoring it? You say that because the 'ol WMD/911 connection are both disproven, and blaming it on terrorism is ambiguous enough to avoid being cornered. That was also not the main reason given by Bush to invade, my machiavellian friend. Another point to consider is that when Saddam was found in his spider hole, he was in possession of a memorandum sent to all his generals to resist working with any extremists (i.e. Al Quaida) coming into Iraq. Saddam said the extremists' goal was to turn Iraq from secular Baathist into a religious, Iranian-style govt, meaning if they win they have no room for Saddam. Doesn't sound like a match made in heaven to me. At the end of the day, I guess there isn't much left than to pick up the war drum and blame it all on terrorism. The way we made Guatemala 'safe' from communism (using an earlier version of today's war drum in the 1950's) by removing their democratically-elected president and puting our own guy in shows a few similarities. The names of those involved have changed of course, as have the names of the companies who profitted in both undertakings. The former making United Fruit 'safe' from communism, the latter attempting to make Halliburton, Allawi, and the 14 US bases being built in Iraq 'safe' from terrorism. Something tells me this part of the world doesn't take to bribery as easily as some places in Latin America did... P.S. As for "Chewbacca Defense," put professor Cole's hypothetical you speak of in the balance with Allawi's kaleidoscopic view. If Cole seems nonsensical to you(thought you'd like his use of stats ), then what are your thoughts on Allawi, who prefers to blow smoke up places in avoidance of the hard truth? Believe me, I know why he said what he said, he had no choice. But just as an ill-timed wookie howl, it doesn't help his credibility much.

Comparing Israel to Iraq? ROFLMAO. Apples and oranges. If you want to compare situations, at least find one that is similar in motivation...Algeria or Lebanon for example. Isn't it simplistic to think terrorists are doing what they do because they are like the "evil" comic book villans from our youth - like the Penguin or Lex Luthor, doing bad just because they enjoy it? Do you really think they are puting their lives on the line and have nothing better to do than hate OUR freedom? GIVE ME A BREAK!!! Identifying their motivation is crucial to any realistic assessment of Iraq and the war on terrorism, provided we have the stomach and patience to explore all angles thoroughly. The alternative is to keep portraying them as carricatures of our favorite cartoon evil-doer. Remember though, a failure to understand the enemy has been a big mistake in many a war, despite the short-term euphoria it often invokes. Here's a good one on the situation in Iraq from the other day, based on some of the latest stats. Sorry it's lacks the heart-warming, unrealistic BS that Allawi's been slinging lately, but it does make for worthwhile reading: If America were Iraq, What would it be Like? by Juan Cole President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country. What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number. Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll. And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco? What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria? What if all the reporters for all the major television and print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, DC and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National Guard units? There are estimated to be some 25,000 guerrillas in Iraq engaged in Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan concerted acts of violence. What if there were private armies totalling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!), rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country? What if they completely controlled Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha, such that local police and Federal troops could not go into those cities? What if, during the past year, the Secretary of State (Aqilah Hashemi), the President (Izzedine Salim), and the Attorney General (Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim) had all been assassinated? What if all the cities in the US were wracked by a crime wave, with thousands of murders, kidnappings, burglaries, and carjackings in every major city every year? What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of "criminal gangs", but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies? What if, from time to time, the US Army besieged Virginia Beach, killing hundreds of armed members of the Christian Soldiers? What if entire platoons of the Christian Soldiers militia holed up in Arlington National Cemetery, and were bombarded by US Air Force warplanes daily, destroying thousands of graves and pulverizing the Vietnam Memorial? What if the National Council of Churches had to call for a popular march of thousands of believers to converge on the National Cathedral to stop the US Army from demolishing it to get at a rogue band of the Timothy McVeigh Memorial Brigades? What if there were virtually no commercial air traffic in the country? What if many roads were highly dangerous, especially Interstate 95 from Richmond to Washington, DC, and I-95 and I-91 up to Boston? If you got on I-95 anywhere along that over 500-mile stretch, you would risk being carjacked, kidnapped, or having your car sprayed with machine gun fire. What if no one had electricity for much more than 10 hours a day, and often less? What if it went off at unpredictable times, causing factories to grind to a halt and air conditioning to fail in the middle of the summer in Houston and Miami? What if the Alaska pipeline were bombed and disabled at least monthly? What if unemployment hovered around 40%? What if veterans of militia actions at Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing were brought in to run the government on the theory that you need a tough guy in these times of crisis? What if municipal elections were cancelled and cliques close to the new "president" quietly installed in the statehouses as "governors?" What if several of these governors (especially of Montana and Wyoming) were assassinated soon after taking office or resigned when their children were taken hostage by guerrillas? What if the leader of the European Union maintained that the citizens of the United States are, under these conditions, refuting pessimism and that freedom and democracy are just around the corner? Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

Here are some pics that Eric Neyerlin from Zparts.com took of my car a while back, I just saw he posted them: http://www.zparts.com/showcase/bl_V8-240Z/index.html Thanks again, Eric!

LOL, thanks...If you are referring to the last 20 years, remember that tax cuts have been augmented by increased borrowing (federal and personal - offsetting the gains you mention), and you assume that people these days are actually spending more money to help stimulate the economy. According to the Labor and Commerce Department, in the 10 quarters since the official end of the recession of 2001, 47% of the real national income growth went to corporate profits and only 15% to wages and salaries. Even if you add in the cost of health insurance and other benefits, as you should, workers only got 43% - well below the 61% average in eight previous recoveries. This is the first time since WW2 where corporate profits grabbed off a bigger share of the growth than workers' pay and benefits. Why is this important? Because average people have less to work with than in the past, thus aren't "spendng up" the economy, while corporations, who have a TON of finance capital, are reluctant to use the money for starting new businesses because people don't have the dough to sustain them. You aren't kidding about it being more complicated, keep in mind the people of this country are responsible for 70% of the economy. If money goes to average people, they'll more than likely spend it. That's not how these recent cuts have been allotted though, most of the gains are being hoarded by wealthy interests in a "wait and see" posture.

The active word here being "can." It hasn't happened after 3 years and two tax cuts, as you probably know already.

Put very simply, if you have a tax cut it means the government is receiving LESS revenue(money). The reasons you give make no sense. Freedomfighter, I'd recommend taking a basic course on macroeconomics to better understand how it works.

Most of the numbers I use are not pulled from thin air but are mostly from the GAO (Gov't Accountability Office). Dismiss them as B.S. if it makes you feel better, safer, righter. The numbers will still be there once you're ready to look them over.

What I find intersting about the Patriot Act are in the most basic of details. This act was compiled in such a remarkably short time despite being of mammoth proportions. A rush job perhapse but more likely much was already on a shelf somewhere. Only two congressmen had actually read it before the vote took place, one of which voted against it based on what he read. The rest of congress got stuck waiting for their copies, thus voted on things unfamiliar to them. That such a far reaching decision would be made without a worthy debate is what concerns me, clearly a case of where the pressures of emotion outweighed our need for thinking on things a bit. Too bad, maybe some of the controversy we mention in this thread could've been avoided had congress just taken it a bit slower and done its job. The fact that so much emphasis has gone into increasing domestic surveillance while little has been done to secure ports and borders leads to other questions.

It's not about anything I want to "believe." With all due respect, that vote had nothing to do with declaring war but with allowing Bush the latitude to resolve the WMD issue. NOWHERE in 114 will you find a declaration of war, so lets not pretend like it says something it doesn't. Do you know why the founders only wanted congress to declare war? Here's a quote from Lincoln on the subject: "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever HE shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, WHENEVER HE MAY CHOOSE TO SAY he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix ANY LIMIT to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you "be silent; I see it, if you don't." "The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that NO ONE MAN should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood." Judging from what I'm hearing, maybe you'd feel more comfortable with a king than a president.

You think these numbers are acceptable?!? LOL. Historcally, taxes are raised during wartime to help cover expenses for a good reason. We're daydreaming if we think we can have it both ways. I wish I could have a carefree attitude about such threats but jut blowing it off seems highly irresponsible. Do you think spending $400 bllion a year (and growing) just covering the INTEREST on the debt is sound planning? "Nothing but blue skies" was a popular song before the crash of 1929, so I'm not surprised... Speaking of war, that is a term I wish people would STOP using out of context. You, I, and any other individual cannot declare war, no matter how many times your TV says it. Only congress can declare war, which they have not done yet. If this is such a crisis, then by all means let's have a declaration of war. Sad but true. Based on our efforts it seems we care little about actually capturing Bin Laden, at least not while we're busy fantasizing over Iraq. This flash cartoon sums it up: http://www.markfiore.com/animation/rememberthree.html

True. So you like our strategy better now that times are tight? Spending has gone through the roof and with less tax revenue from a juicy tax cut, we borrow at breakneck speed. You may feel comfortable now, but our currency will continue to weaken if this isn't curtailed. $1.2 trillion when Carter left office, nearly quadrupled 12 years later by Reagan and Bush1. Clinton borrowed during his first term too, and now we have Bush2 steering us into uncharted financial territory. That tax cut you got - the $1,900? That money was borrowed, sad to say. Also be advised that the average family's share of the war works out to $2,000 (and counting) so I guess you could say it's even money. Keep worrying about terrorists, just don't forget to worry about the financial mess we're leaving to our children. It may prove to be more dangerous than would appear. P.S. Here's an article from today's paper underscoring the severity of our debt: Speeches ignore impending U.S. debt disaster No mention of fiscal gap estimated as high as $72 trillion Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau Sunday, September 12, 2004 Washington -- The first of the 77 million-strong Baby Boom generation will begin to retire in just four years. The economic consequences of this fact -- as scary as they are foreseeable -- are all but ignored by President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry, who discuss just about everything but the biggest fiscal challenge of modern times. Yet whoever wins the 2004 race will become the first U.S. president to confront what sober-minded experts across the political spectrum describe as an impending "fiscal catastrophe" lying right around the corner. Astronomical federal debt, coming due as the Baby Boom generation collects Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, is enormous enough to swamp the promises both candidates are making to voters, whether for tax cuts, health care, 40,000 more troops or anything else. "Chilling" is the word U.S. Comptroller General David Walker uses to describe the budget outlook. "The long-term budget projections are just horrifying," added Leonard Burman, co-director of tax policy for the Urban Institute. "I've got four children and it really disturbs me. I just think it's irresponsible what we're doing to them." What these numbers portend are crippling tax increases on workers, slashed benefits for retirees, gutted budgets for homeland security, highways, research and everything else, and an economic decline or a financial collapse that devastates the middle class, as happened recently in debt-strapped Argentina. Eventually, analysts insist, someone -- today's children or tomorrow's elderly or both -- will pay this debt. Traditional budget measures used by politicians and the press give what Walker and many others call a highly misleading view of the U.S. debt. These focus on publicly held debt already incurred, now at $4.5 trillion, or 10-year budget forecasts like the one released last week by the Congressional Budget Office showing a record $422 billion deficit this year and a $2.3 trillion 10- year deficit. 'Fiscal gap' in the trillions But these figures, worrisome enough, are deceptive because they ignore future liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare payments to the Baby Boomers. An array of government and private analysts put the actual U.S. "fiscal gap," which means all future receipts minus all future obligations, at $40 trillion (Government Accountability Office) to $72 trillion (Social Security Board of Trustees). These are not sums, but present-value figures, heavily discounted to show in today's dollars what it would cost to pay off the debt immediately. The International Monetary Fund estimates the gap at $47 trillion, the Brookings Institution at $60 trillion. "To give you idea how big the problem is," said Laurence Kotlikoff, economics chairman at Boston University, who has written extensively on the subject, to close a $51 trillion fiscal gap, "you'd have to have an immediate and permanent 78 percent hike in the federal income tax." These obligations are not imaginary. And unlike the 1980s and 1990s, economic growth cannot bail out the government because the Baby Boom retirement is at hand. Those born in 1946 will reach age 62 in 2008, allowing them to take early retirement and receive Social Security benefits... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/12/MNG2S8NOI21.DTL

Nice race car, could use some shorter velocity stacks for the air filter to work properly.