|
Good Sites Contact: ductape88 at belly-flop.net |
|
02.28.03 09:32pm The Kurds in Northern Iraq are upset at the prospect of Turkey possibly taking part in the invasion of Iraq. Right Wing News ran an interesting piece today about how Iraqi’s will most likely take up arms against Saddam in the event of an invasion. But the Kurds are saying they would take up arms against the Turks if they take part in the invasion. The Kurds have every right to do that because of the way the Turkey and the Kurds have fought for decades about the boarder area. Turkey had signed an agreement in the eighties giving them the ability to operate in Iraq against the Kurds. Bush has used the example of how bad Saddam treats the Kurds in northern Iraq and uses the example of Saddam gassing them over and over. It would be quite hypocritical of Bush to free the Kurds and then pit them against Turkey, who we are allied too and who we promised to protect. Ah well, it wouldn’t be the first time the United States took a hypocritical position. 09:03pm The Surgeon general warns police and fire agencies that donuts are as big a threat as weapons of mass destruction... mmmmm donuts. 04:58pm I am a die hard Sox fan and from now until the Sox are out of the picture you can expect to see comments on them here. While they are not a political happening and you won’t read about them on other blogs, they are still important and it’s a good distraction. Sure last night we lost our spring training opener, but so did those darn Yankees. Their big addition, Jose Contreras got lit up for five runs! The Sox bullpen, which cost us last season, did well. Mendoza, Howry, Banks, Tolar, and Lopez all pitched one shut out inning a piece while Embry and Davey both gave up 2 runs in there innings. Tonight is the first game on TV, Boston Red Sox versus the Boston College Eagles in an exhibition game. If you live in New England tune into UPN38 at seven to catch it. 07:15am I am all for being safe when flying, but I don’t want to be rated by no stinking airline. Airlines are now going to check your background and give you a rating as far as how much a threat you are. Your either green, yellow, or red. When green you get no extra checks. When yellow you get more than the normal searches done, and when red you don’t fly. Well, this might curb profiling by airport security but its not smart. If a guy comes up with an alias then he is going to show up as green and walk right through security. In the town were I live there is a family of bin Laden’s, does this mean that they will be flagged as yellow and red? This shouldn’t be based solely on the information you provide at the check in (name, ID, etc.) it should be a picture system. Much like people were talking about right after September 11, 2001. I’m not even going to start on how many civil liberties this violates. 02.27.03 07:42pm Hans Blix is saying that Iraq’s disbarment is minimal so far, even though Saddam has agreed now to destroy his Al Samoud 2 missiles in principle. The Iraqis are disputing whether the missiles go farther than the 93 mile maximum range set by the United Nations. I think that it is impossible Saddam doesn’t realize that if he doesn’t comply with this, the United States will use this against him in every argument in front of the world and the United Nations. What I think Saddam is doing is he is saying that he agrees in principle so that he is not in a position when he needs to start destroying the missiles right now. I think that he is going to delay the destruction of the missiles until the last moment so that he can use them in a possible war. He can load up the Al Samoud with a chemical or biological weapon and lunch it into Kuwait, Israel, Turkey, maybe even Afghanistan if he thinks that any of that will deter us from ousting him. That is why when we attack it will have to be quick and decisive. Possibly copy our
strategy from Panama and go in quick, secure Saddam’s palaces and go after the known/suspected missile
launch areas. None of this bombing for weeks upon weeks. The bombing gives Saddam time to disappear and
also gives the Iraqi military time to mobilize, launch missiles, and develop much more in depth defensive
strategy. We need to take out Saddam, the rest of the military will fall apart much like the Nazi’s did
after Hitler’s death.
05:12pm Come out of your bomb shelter, we are now at threat level yellow. We are moving down from Orange to Yellow today, although the FBI warns that we are still at risk. Has the so called chatter stopped or decreased, is that why we are no longer Orange? Homeland security director Tom Ridge decides when we change our color, I mean threat level, and what made him make the change. According to the FBI, they are still searching for terrorist cells here in the United States and one agent said “I'm somewhat shocked we haven't seen some of that in this country," referring to suicide bombers. If the threat of a suicide bomber blowing himself and others to pieces is still there I think that it is more important that we stay at High Risk rather than send a false feeling of security to the public. If average Joe goes home and sees that we are now at Elevated rather than High he is going to feel safer. Tom Ridge is just having fun with his coloring book, and needs to stay focused on stopping terrorism, not changing colors. 02.26.03 10:22pm This is a good journal written by a Lt in Afghanistan. 05:39pm North Korea has officially restarted their nuclear plant according to Washington. They have 8,000 spent fuel rods, enough to make 5 or 6 plutonium bombs in a matter of months. Now I realize that you are all going to go yelling that North Korea is the bigger threat and that Pyongyang is the bigger lunatic dictator than Saddam Hussein. Look at the facts first… North Korea is in the middle of a massive famine, they have energy problems, and they are cut off from the rest of the world if China were to severe its ties with them. China, Pyongyang’s only real ally, sees how much of a problem North Korea is causing and is trying to calm everyone down. All that will cause immense pressure on North Korea to at least back down for a bit.
Saddam Hussein on the other hand, is the opposite. Saddam isn’t going through a mass famine and isn’t
having energy problems, in fact most of the problems involve the United States at this point. That makes
it much harder to try to diplomatically solve the problem of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Also, we
know that Saddam is crazy enough to use chemical and biological weapons on his own people. Lastly, Saddam
has proved to be quite the war planner. During Operation Desert Storm he knew that the collation would
break up if Israel entered the fight or if the United States moved into Iraq. He took advantage of Israel
by launching his SCUD missiles into Tel Aviv. It took the United States a long, nerve racking night to get
Israel to step down and not retaliate. He also new that he could commit more of his troops in Kuwait,
rather than falling back to Iraq to protect the homeland. He knew Saudi Arabia, along with most of the
Middle Eastern allies would not participate in toppling a fellow Arab leader. Its too bad Bush senior
didn’t continue into Baghdad.
07:14am Is he going to destroy the Al Samoud 2 missiles or is he going to not comply with the United Nations. He says he won’t destroy them, his deputy minister, Tariq Aziz, they are studying it. So its not difficult to see that they are not thinking about it and have decided to not destroy them. And why not, Saddam knows Bush is bent on getting Saddam out of Iraq so why not keep the missiles to use when the war finally arrives. Of course, then there is the flip side to coin and Europe and the United Nations talks Bush out of it and there is a smoking gun with the missiles. Then Saddam, your just putting icing on the cake. I, for one, and disappointed in Saddam, you think that he would realize that he can destroy ¼ of them and then claim they are all gone. After all, he is an evil dictator, I believe that any evil dictator should be able to pull that one off.
Even if your not going to comply, why let the world know? Isn’t this one of those things you keep a secret.
Oh well, we all know that Saddam will be out of power by the time the baseball all-star break rolls around.
It is futile to think that he would comply anyway because in the long run it is not important. In three
years who will care what has-been dictator did in his final few months in power.
02.25.03 11:24pm Good episode of 24 tonight. Very entertaining, they found the bomb and Marie Warner is stopped. The whole episode I was glued to the TV set, that is such a good show. It is so unrealistic. Last episode the terrorist just happened to have something that looked identical to the real bomb and that ticked and everything just lying around? I was about to comment on how Kate Warner wouldn’t be allowed access to all these things just because she is a material witness, but then I remembered that if you can sneak into Los Alamos you can do pretty much anything in "highly secured areas". 08:30pm The United States is already planning the relief effort in Iraq according to CNN. Even a three year old relizes that Saddam isn’t going to let the United States into his country to provide relief effort. Are you crazy. The only reason he is letting American, Canadian, and Europeans into Iraq is to be human shields. So it is obvious that the United States is spending this money because we, a, having nothing better to do (cough cough) or, b, we are all that much more close to going to war. Apparently the Bush administration has spent close to 27 million dollars of tax payer money and another 52 million is on the way. So a total of 79 million dollars is going to Iraqi refugees (potential and existing ones). With the economy still down, gas prices near $1.70 (on average around the nation) a gallon, and gaping holes in homeland security (see early post about Los Alomos) the United States is spending money on possible Iraqi refugees that might not even exist in the near future.
Elliot Abrams, special assistant to the President, says that the military plan is tailored made to avoid
displacement of Iraqi civilians. If I am understanding this correctly, the only Iraqi we want to displace
is Saddam. So is it really necessary to spend $79 million on something that is a big question mark?
06:56pm He snuck on to the Los Alamos Nuclear Facility and is now telling us his story It would of been a better story if he got into it but then got arrested and published his peice from a stockade in the middle of no where. That way the Goverment would prove him wrong. Alas, that did not happen and it is still a good story. 06:17pm Guess whose back? Napster is back, back again! My choice when it comes to downloading music is coming back it appears. At least that’s what Roxio Inc is saying. Roxio Inc owns Napster and is planning on re-releasing before the end of the year. Of course when the big bad record companies get a whiff of this they will send out their legions of lawyers to squash the project. Until then I can be happy that I might finally be able to download music again at lightning fast speed! 02.24.03 11:03pm Saddam is challenging Bush to a televised debate? Dare I say that I’ve seen Dumb and Dumber enough, I mean really Saddam, enough with this. "I will say what I want, and he will say what he wants." Saddam says of the content of the debate. So we’re looking forward to something along the lines of: Bush: Saddam is a ruthless dictator who needs to dealt with before he starts a war in the Middle East. Saddam: America is trying to bully Muslims! Bush: Saddam is producing Al Samoud 2 missiles and plans on loading them with biological, chemical or nuclear arms. Saddam: Muslims must rise up against America. Bush: We need to get rid of Saddam. Saddam: I hate America! 08:47pm South Korea says North Korea fired a missle into the sea but the United States and Tokyo are not commenting "The South Korean media is pretty reliable in my opinion, the only way I could see the story being false would be if the Southern military leaders took something smaller and blew it up to make it seem bigger to weaken any NK friendly policies the incoming President might push, which would explain why Washington and Tokyo would distance themselves from it. I'm sure something happened, it might not be quite as big as it's made out to be." --Oz from eReel 07:007am The Canadians, the CANADIANS, are planning on induction Pete Rose into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. Rose played one season for the Expo’s and it is where he hit his 4,000 hit. But still, Canada is going to put him in the Hall of Fame. He played one season there, and he is banned from Major League Baseball. To top it all off, who new Canada had a Hall of Fame? I am all for his reinstatement in Major League Baseball, one of the best hitters of all time needs to go into the Hall of Fame. Oh well, Bud Selig will screw it up again. update at 01:10am Oh Canada. Pete Rose isn’t even good enough for your tiny hall of fame? You put in Joe Carter and Kirk McCaskill but not the guy who hit 4,000 hits in his career. Who is Kirk McCaskill anyways? Go here to see more. 02.23.03 06:30pm I usually don't post on weekends, but this was too good to let sit until tommorow... It seems Rhode Islands new favorite person, Jack Russell of Great White has a bit of a record: Jack Russell was first arrested at age fourteen for having sex on the roof of his high school. He went to jail for 18 months at age eighteen for mistakenly shooting his drug dealer's maid. A fast-lane life of sex, drugs and rock & roll led to arrests on airplanes, hotel rooms, and tour buses. To make matters worse, he returned from tour three years ago to find his wife of ten years having an affair with a close family friend. She got pregnant by the guy, who died from a heart attack three months before the baby was due. Russell was held legally responsible for the care of the baby, as he was not legally separated from his wife. Another rampage with drugs and porn stars soon followed. 02.21.03 06:20pm In the new Harry Potter movie, Michael Gambon is playing the school master. This is the second actor to play the school master. If I am not mistaken, they also changed another character. Doesn't this confuse the kids. I mean serously, when you have 2 guys playing 1 guy, won't that cause a four year old to get confused. Not that I am a fan of Harry Potter... 05:15pm For fun with the Goverments ready.gov site. Jump over here 04:08pm Looks like we are getting closer to D-Day Iraq. Rumsfeld said yesterday "We are at a point where, if the president makes that decision, the Department of Defense is prepared and has the capabilities and strategy to do that." In January many people thought that we would be in Baghdad by now, instead we might not even start until March. We do know that we are moving closer, though, because Rumsfeld also said "Either you use them, or you bring them back." In reference to the 100,000+ soldiers in the middle east. I still think that the longer we wait the more people will be opposed to it. 11:48am Staten Island oil facility went up in flames after a refueling accident. Only one person was ingored during the four alarm blaze. CNN, where I get all my facts titled the article "Police: Staten Island oil storage fire caused by 'accident'". Whats the diference between accident and 'accident'? Its almost like CNN was hoping it was at least arson, and maybe a terrorist attack. Looks like someone let CNN down. update at 01:10am Of course, when I point that out CNN has to go and change it. Oh well. 02.20.03 4:54pm HOLLYWOOD, California (CNN) -- High school teacher Miriam Fisch wants those four minutes of her life back -- and she thinks Loews Cineplex ought to pay for their alleged theft. In a class-action lawsuit filed in Illinois state court on behalf of all Loews patrons, the Chicago-area English teacher claims the theater circuit's policy of playing pre-film product commercials amounts to a deceptive business practice because the ads begin at the time advertised as the start of a feature movie. The legal action reflects the reaction of many moviegoers jarred by the increasing prominence of onscreen advertising in theaters industrywide. In fact, the succession of such pre-movie ads now often lasts up to 10 minutes or longer in many venues. Even many proponents of the trend say cinema advertising is best limited to a few minutes prior to the advertised showtime, but that often isn't the case. Part of the problem involves the time required to clean theaters between showtimes, which can leave too little time to present commercials before the advertised movie time. "It is completely ludicrous to have moviegoers pay good money to watch commercials, " said attorney Douglas Litowitz, who is representing Fisch in her suit. "They can do that at home for free." The suit seeks "lost time" damages of up to $75 per plaintiff covered under a class action, as well as an injunction to force Loews to stipulate separately when its onscreen ads will run and when movies will play.
Litowitz said he may target other big chains with similar suits in the future. "We feel the most people
would be best served by going after the biggest chains," he said.
In December, Transportation Minister Ahmad Khorram acknowledged that Iran's air industry was suffering from
U.S. sanctions on purchase of American-made planes and warned of air disasters if the trade ban was not
lifted.
I told the Arabs would blame the US and now I am waiting for the US or England to blame Saddam.
Over the next week it will be the Iraqis are responsible according to Bush and the Americans are
responsible according to all of the Arab nations.
What’s better is that we need Turkey to wage the quick and decisive war that the American people want.
Without Turkey it would be a one front war that would allow Saddam’s army to concentrate in one area, thus
causing slower advances and more casualties. But if we were to attack from Kuwait and Turkey the war would
be much faster and the casualties would not be as high. Also, attacking through Turkey would allow the
Kurdish people in the north to join our side, much like the Afghan’s in Northern Afghanistan. But all this
relies on Turkey allowing the thousands of troops to set up shop in there country. And all we need to do
to get that to happen is pay billions upon billions of dollars to them.
If you watch Sports Center the only highlights they show of racing are the crashes, and in all four hours
of the event, that’s the only part were people actually show emotion. Really, what is so exciting about
a car passing another car. 'And Car 23 turns the corner, uh oh, he seems to be getting an edge on car 49,
and car 23 moves into 12th place." If I want to watch cars pass each other I will sit in the middle of a
highway and watch from their. It saves me the money for going to race.
The real reason NASCAR exists is to sell beer. You look at a NASCAR crowd and everyone is drinking. You
look at the car and it says Budweiser all over it. That’s why curling is such a great sport, there are
no sponsors anywhere.
FYI - I hate curling
|
