Wednesday, September 29, 2004
"unsubstantiated"
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Power Line: Kerry Fools the Times:
Power Line: Kerry Fools the Times:
Pre-emptive panty torture?
From Fox news: "Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops arrested a suspected terrorist on Haifa Street in Baghdad, cornering the panicked man in a closet as he tried to conceal his face with his wife's underwear, an Iraqi National Guard commander said.
Kadhim al-Dafan is believed responsible for car bombs and other attacks in the area, said Col. Mohammed Abdullah. Five other suspected insurgents were also taken into custody as U.S. and Iraqi forces clashed with rebels on the street."
Kadhim al-Dafan is believed responsible for car bombs and other attacks in the area, said Col. Mohammed Abdullah. Five other suspected insurgents were also taken into custody as U.S. and Iraqi forces clashed with rebels on the street."
Cocco's Campaign
Per Charles Johnson, CBS has now inserted text into it's transcript of the CBS interview that failed to identify a "concerned, Republican, mother" as chapter president of "People against the draft"["Parents against the Draft" by other sources - sw]. It has redacted the transcript, even though the broadcast did not include this attribution, per Charles, is "
absolutely not in Richard Schlesinger’s report as it aired last night"
Here's a June 17, 2004 letter by Beverly Cocco [bold added - sw]
Northeast Times
I smell a deliberate disinformation campaign. I could conceive of a credulous, silly-headed concerned mom type getting taken in by a hoax email and passing it on to as many people as possible. My own email in-box testifies to the obvious possibility.
However, the statement that Specter's office said either of these two much-trumpeted, democrat sponsored bills were "secret" directly to this woman has got to be false.
She either misunderstood what she was told, twisting it to match her fears, or she made it up. For example, a staffer unfamiliar with the legislation might have told her, "that's news to me, I guess they are keeping it a secret".
She would have to be a very credulous and foolish person to do so, without the power to discern when someone is speaking facetiously.
She wrote in later to the same paper, as late as Sep 9, after having had the matter cleared up with Spector himself.
So how long has this CBS story been in the can? Is Cocco still worried about a "secret" draft plan? Is she nuts?
absolutely not in Richard Schlesinger’s report as it aired last night"
Here's a June 17, 2004 letter by Beverly Cocco [bold added - sw]
Northeast Times
Just this week I received an e-mail so upsetting that I forwarded it to all my friends, who then forwarded it to all their friends. We are now a good size group.
The e-mail concerned Bill S89 and HR 163. The bill is about reinstating the draft, beginning in the spring of 2005. The draftees will be all males and females between the ages of 18 and 26. There will be no deferments; seniors will be allowed to finish the year, and underclassmen will only be allowed to finish the semester. There is already a document signed between the U.S. and Canada, the “Smart Border Declaration,” which will prevent crossing the border.
Since this is a federal bill, I was advised to contact Sen. Specter, Sen. Santorum and Congressman Joe Hoeffel. Sen. Specter’s office said that these bills are a “secret.”
When I told him that the cat was out of the bag, he offered to connect me with the Washington office. That office assured me that the senator was against this bill. I am still waiting for Sen. Santorum to respond, but Congressman Hoeffel is undecided. His office is sending me a letter detailing his thoughts.
We are now in the process of collecting as much information as possible about this bill and the candidates.
We keep getting told that there are no sponsors for this bill and not to worry about it. But why did South Carolina Sen. Ernest Hollings draft this bill, and why is it sitting in the Senate? We think that it is important to find out before the election.
Meanwhile, we are starting an organization called Parents Against the Draft (PAD).
For more information, call me at 215-632-4997.
Beverly Cocco
Walton Park
I smell a deliberate disinformation campaign. I could conceive of a credulous, silly-headed concerned mom type getting taken in by a hoax email and passing it on to as many people as possible. My own email in-box testifies to the obvious possibility.
However, the statement that Specter's office said either of these two much-trumpeted, democrat sponsored bills were "secret" directly to this woman has got to be false.
She either misunderstood what she was told, twisting it to match her fears, or she made it up. For example, a staffer unfamiliar with the legislation might have told her, "that's news to me, I guess they are keeping it a secret".
She would have to be a very credulous and foolish person to do so, without the power to discern when someone is speaking facetiously.
She wrote in later to the same paper, as late as Sep 9, after having had the matter cleared up with Spector himself.
Thank you,
Sen. Specter
I had the opportunity to speak to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter at his recent town meeting in Northeast Philadelphia. During the question-and-answer section, I identified myself along with my friend, Cookie Catinella, as officers of Parents Against the Draft.
I asked the senator about the prospect of a draft in the future. He was adamant that there will be no draft and eloquently explained to everyone why it was important that we finish up in Iraq, what our future plans are, and why there will be no draft or any need for one.
We found Sen. Specter very knowledgeable and want to thank him for addressing and explaining this very complicated and troubling issue.
Beverly Cocco
Walton Park
So how long has this CBS story been in the can? Is Cocco still worried about a "secret" draft plan? Is she nuts?
Star Search
Bring me the suspenders of
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
God made you love choccy for a reason II: Electric Boolgaloo
Jonti Pickering's latest ear-worm - funny because it's true.
click the pic
click the picMonday, September 27, 2004
"They seem to be rooting against us."
Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus on National Review Online
J Nordlinger notices Kerry has hit rock bottom. And he isn't talking about the polls.
J Nordlinger notices Kerry has hit rock bottom. And he isn't talking about the polls.
Really freaky man
From Fortean Time's
famed simulacra corner, little brownie skulls. Or rather, snapdragon seed capsules
famed simulacra corner, little brownie skulls. Or rather, snapdragon seed capsules
By any means necessary
via Power Line:
"Here is the Kerry campaign, swearing they could build a larger coalition, all the while trying as hard as they can to destroy the already-in-place coalition."
Sister Kerry advises Australians to depart from the coalition.
"Here is the Kerry campaign, swearing they could build a larger coalition, all the while trying as hard as they can to destroy the already-in-place coalition."
Sister Kerry advises Australians to depart from the coalition.
Friday, September 24, 2004
Dan Rather knows
God made you love chocolate for a reason
Though Captain Ed takes a bite out of the chocolate doorknobs of Jeff Goldstein,
( Burkett is, after all, unreliable) I think Burkett got it right this time. (update: Burkett might have gotten it right, but the reporters didn't*. Burkett says he was referring to CBS asking him to hand over the documents, not Lockhart, and the Fort worth Star Telegram has retracted their reporting of that comment.)
Burkett was speaking before he became aware of Lockhart's version, if I understand the timeline correctly, and it simply makes sense that Lockhardt was interested in CBS getting those memos...the memos that were the only reason CBS had anything to do with Burkett.
I still suspect Burkett is the forger, or a collaborator to forgery, mainly because of language in the memos and his over-elaborate pre-emptive ass-covering explanation of how he got and handled the documents.
The idea of Barnes cooking something up to make himself rich, however, is intriguing.
*UPDATE: via NRO's Kerryspot, the Fort Worth Star Telegram issued a retraction of their reporting that Burkett said Lockhart asked him to provide documents:
This article has been corrected from the version published in the newspaper and online Friday morning to reflect that Bill Burkett was referring to conversations with CBS when he said, "They tried to convince me as to why I should give them the documents." The earlier version incorrectly reported that he had discussed the documents with Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign.
UPDATE: Woo!!! A link from Mr. Goldstein!
Yay, and thanks.
Hello to anyone curious enough to make it over here!
Guess what, I'm having a contest!
Tim Blair seems to have welshed on his promise to send me some vegemite, despite evidence of having stopped in my own home town on his way to New York. At any rate is has been taking its time getting here. I became impatient enought that I went and bought some of my own. Since then I'm a little obsessed with it, and eat in on everything day and night. (I even tried it on chocolate, which was a mistake.)
If the heavy-lifty bloggers ever do manage to get Dan Rather stuffed and mounted on a plaque in the Bates Motel -- that is, Dan is forced to report the *forgery* and or is fired for his misdeeds, and you are first to send me proof in the news, I will share the vegemite joy and send to you a lovely Kerfuffle (tm) bag with three jars of non-perishable vegemite for the end-times.
And I really will.
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
oral-lingual dyskinesia?
via Ace :
The Daily Recycler: Roll Over Gene Simmons
The pics are hilarious. I'd elect him fly-catcher!
The Daily Recycler: Roll Over Gene Simmons
The pics are hilarious. I'd elect him fly-catcher!
"Q: Why did Danny Schechter cross the road?"
I don't know, but he sure as hell shouldn't have crossed Protein Wisdom.
(click the chik)
(click the chik)
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
No Patsy, just Nutsy?
USATODAY.com - CBS backs off Guard story:
I'll start with a disclaimer. It's possible that "Lucy Ramirez" is real. There are actual Lucy Ramirez's in the world, and even in Houston (and even Phar, Texas.) And there is nothing to prevent a (nother) nutter in the world from sending Burkett a packet of forged memos about Bush's guard service. Burkett was certainly a "name" in that story and would seem to me a natural attractant for that sort of thing.
HOWEVER,
If Burkett is capable of pulling Conn's name out of thin air, Burkett is capable of grabbing another out of his mental directory.
And, I was struck by the over-elaborate CYA nature of Burkett's story.
The story seems half confabulation and half trying to explain away the cookie crumbs on his face, that someone might have spotted on hidden camera.
Side note -
This was of interest to me:
I had suspected he might have a post-encephalitic epilepsy, but this is the first time I've seen in print any actual evidence of it.
I'll start with a disclaimer. It's possible that "Lucy Ramirez" is real. There are actual Lucy Ramirez's in the world, and even in Houston (and even Phar, Texas.) And there is nothing to prevent a (nother) nutter in the world from sending Burkett a packet of forged memos about Bush's guard service. Burkett was certainly a "name" in that story and would seem to me a natural attractant for that sort of thing.
HOWEVER,
If Burkett is capable of pulling Conn's name out of thin air, Burkett is capable of grabbing another out of his mental directory.
And, I was struck by the over-elaborate CYA nature of Burkett's story.
Burkett said Ramirez told him she had seen him the previous month in an appearance on the MSNBC program Hardball, discussing the controversy over whether Bush fulfilled all his obligations for service in the Texas Air Guard during the early 1970s. "There is something I have that I want to make sure gets out," he quoted her as saying.
He said Ramirez claimed to possess Killian's "correspondence file," which would prove Burkett's allegations that Bush had problems as a Guard fighter pilot.
Burkett said he arranged to get the documents during a trip to Houston for a livestock show in March. But instead of being met at the show by Ramirez, he was approached by a man who asked for Burkett, handed him an envelope and quickly left, Burkett recounted......
Burkett promised to provide telephone records that would verify his calls to Ramirez, but he had not done so by Monday night
After he received the documents in Houston, Burkett said, he drove home, stopping on the way at a Kinko's shop in Waco to copy the six memos. In the parking lot outside, he said, he burned the ones he had been given and the envelope
they were in. [emphasis added. SW]
The story seems half confabulation and half trying to explain away the cookie crumbs on his face, that someone might have spotted on hidden camera.
Side note -
This was of interest to me:
"One session ended when Burkett suffered a violent seizure and collapsed in his chair."
I had suspected he might have a post-encephalitic epilepsy, but this is the first time I've seen in print any actual evidence of it.
Monday, September 20, 2004
Unimpeachable?
Maybe Charles Johnson can animate it for me.
It appears to me that if the sizes of the two pictures were scaled, they would perfectly overlap.
It appears to me that if the sizes of the two pictures were scaled, they would perfectly overlap.
"weasel job" speaks
CBS News | CBS Statement On Bush Memos |:
And if I said the word "forgery",
All these moments
would be lost in time like tears in rain
...
"'Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report.'
Andrew Heyward
CBS News President "
And if I said the word "forgery",
All these moments
would be lost in time like tears in rain
...
Burkett's Brain II : into the frying pan
Of COURSE it's bullshit that the forgeries came to Burkett anonymously through the mail.
He might be a fall guy, but he's no Patsy. And I'm sure he had help distributing his forgeries by Kerry folk who should have known better, and maybe even did. There was total collusion, making its first public appearance with that stupid Estrich column.
Yet, the simplest explanation that conforms to the facts is that Burkett himself is the forger.
Michele Catalano thinks Burkett's lie about his source may mean Burkett was put up to pretend to be the source by the "real" source. I don't think so. I think Burkett is the root. He had the bad judgement required for such a clumsy scam, and the motivation, the everlasting grudgematch and story he had been peddling since 1997 .
He lied to Mapes about the origin of the documents because he wanted them to be USED. Obviously, if he is the forger, his source was fiction and he would not be able to hold onto that story. His new lie is his last guard against admitting guilt as a forger.
The forgeries have marks all over them ( and not just his local Kinkos number), consistent with Burkett as forger or collaborator.
The wording used contains some similarities to some of his other writings. The army terminology mistakes fit with his army background.
He has the personality requirements to be a forger.
He's unstable, and has been ever since
brain fever of long duration, discussed here.
He's made outrageous claims of special knowledge at the center of conspiracies by forces he feels are aligned against him. He's been caught, and admitted that some of his claims were "exaggerated", e.g., he was persecuted for refusing to personally destroy the records of George W. Bush. In the present case he was forced to admit lying about the origin of the documents.
He speaks of himself in grandiose fashion all over the web. You've seen his BBurkett16@aol.com yahoo posts. You've read his Buzzflash contributions and his "By the Way" posts, among his other LLL screeds.
This is a person who wants desperately to be a leader of the righteous charge, he is the the stereotype of the couple-of-screws-loose, grandiose whistleblower.
He's confessed his fury and anger at the impotence of "playing fair", and was ready to get down in the dirt.
And he all but trumpeted his "extra special insight and knowlege" by saying, he "had no proof, but he had a real feeling" new damning Bush docs might surface. (IMHO he all but trumpeted himself as the figurative, if not actual, author of their appearance)
His reward? The validation of his peers, and the reinforcement of himself in his own eyes, as "the insider", a righteous spy, possessing special strategic and mental powers. Burkett the courageous, risking everything.
By Any Means Necessary? was Allah's first post about the forgery scam, and it was an apt title.
Burkett, one can even feel sorry for. He's not altogether capable of veiwing things rationally, and not altogether capable of governing well his feelings of dismay and dissapointment.
What's truly shocking and disgusting is that Kerry's folks, and CBS were willing to work together - to get down and roll around in the dirt with a crank forger - with high hopes of undermining the president in a time of war.
He might be a fall guy, but he's no Patsy. And I'm sure he had help distributing his forgeries by Kerry folk who should have known better, and maybe even did. There was total collusion, making its first public appearance with that stupid Estrich column.
Yet, the simplest explanation that conforms to the facts is that Burkett himself is the forger.
Michele Catalano thinks Burkett's lie about his source may mean Burkett was put up to pretend to be the source by the "real" source. I don't think so. I think Burkett is the root. He had the bad judgement required for such a clumsy scam, and the motivation, the everlasting grudgematch and story he had been peddling since 1997 .
He lied to Mapes about the origin of the documents because he wanted them to be USED. Obviously, if he is the forger, his source was fiction and he would not be able to hold onto that story. His new lie is his last guard against admitting guilt as a forger.
The forgeries have marks all over them ( and not just his local Kinkos number), consistent with Burkett as forger or collaborator.
The wording used contains some similarities to some of his other writings. The army terminology mistakes fit with his army background.
He has the personality requirements to be a forger.
He's unstable, and has been ever since
brain fever of long duration, discussed here.
He's made outrageous claims of special knowledge at the center of conspiracies by forces he feels are aligned against him. He's been caught, and admitted that some of his claims were "exaggerated", e.g., he was persecuted for refusing to personally destroy the records of George W. Bush. In the present case he was forced to admit lying about the origin of the documents.
He speaks of himself in grandiose fashion all over the web. You've seen his BBurkett16@aol.com yahoo posts. You've read his Buzzflash contributions and his "By the Way" posts, among his other LLL screeds.
This is a person who wants desperately to be a leader of the righteous charge, he is the the stereotype of the couple-of-screws-loose, grandiose whistleblower.
He's confessed his fury and anger at the impotence of "playing fair", and was ready to get down in the dirt.
And he all but trumpeted his "extra special insight and knowlege" by saying, he "had no proof, but he had a real feeling" new damning Bush docs might surface. (IMHO he all but trumpeted himself as the figurative, if not actual, author of their appearance)
His reward? The validation of his peers, and the reinforcement of himself in his own eyes, as "the insider", a righteous spy, possessing special strategic and mental powers. Burkett the courageous, risking everything.
By Any Means Necessary? was Allah's first post about the forgery scam, and it was an apt title.
Burkett, one can even feel sorry for. He's not altogether capable of veiwing things rationally, and not altogether capable of governing well his feelings of dismay and dissapointment.
What's truly shocking and disgusting is that Kerry's folks, and CBS were willing to work together - to get down and roll around in the dirt with a crank forger - with high hopes of undermining the president in a time of war.
Irony
: "David Van Os of San Antonio, Burkett's lawyer and a Democratic candidate for the Texas Supreme Court, said his client no longer trusts the media and does not intend to talk to any reporters."
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Avast ye, The fancy chart
we've all been waiting for, mates.
washingtonpost.com: The Paper Trail Every detail was scooped by blogs a week ago.
Argh. All that be missing now are the arrows pointing to The DNC.
So scalawags Mapes and Rather down in Dallas be to shiver the timbers of Burkett.
Be their aim to get Burkett to spill the grog? I doubts it. They do already know the memos are forged. They want to gets what distance they can between the forgeries and the DNC.
Oh alright, my heart's not in the Talk like a Pirate business. It seemed really funny last year. Next year it should be talk like Protein Wisdom day.
washingtonpost.com: The Paper Trail Every detail was scooped by blogs a week ago.
Argh. All that be missing now are the arrows pointing to The DNC.
So scalawags Mapes and Rather down in Dallas be to shiver the timbers of Burkett.
Be their aim to get Burkett to spill the grog? I doubts it. They do already know the memos are forged. They want to gets what distance they can between the forgeries and the DNC.
Oh alright, my heart's not in the Talk like a Pirate business. It seemed really funny last year. Next year it should be talk like Protein Wisdom day.
Saturday, September 18, 2004
Crap Crap Crap Crap on a Crap Cracker
Let's just say things aren't going well today. I have a cold. I have a nasty spider bite, smack in the middle of my FACE. Which is painful. And hideous.
To top things off, my aged, recalcitrant computer has been locking up ever since my dear husband tried to send me an attachment, I can't delete the offending mail, and actually now I can't receive or send any mail and it freezes if I even try to open Outlook Express.
And then something I worked on got scooped, and I lost an angle for begging DH for a G5. Maybe I can look all mopey and pitful and get a new memory card or something.
Somebody tell a joke.
I can get webmail, I guess, til I figure out how to fix this. (Sarah.bluemerle@gmail.com )
To top things off, my aged, recalcitrant computer has been locking up ever since my dear husband tried to send me an attachment, I can't delete the offending mail, and actually now I can't receive or send any mail and it freezes if I even try to open Outlook Express.
And then something I worked on got scooped, and I lost an angle for begging DH for a G5. Maybe I can look all mopey and pitful and get a new memory card or something.
Somebody tell a joke.
I can get webmail, I guess, til I figure out how to fix this. (Sarah.bluemerle@gmail.com )
Why Dan is in Dallas?
Yahoo! Groups : Texas-Democrats Messages : Message 7053 of 7283
"I think this can become a spot where we all can get in touch with those doing
a good job. FOr[sic] example, I end up in doctor's offices weekly in the Dallas
Ft. Worth area, but can't seem to find out what's going on...
Bill"
Friday, September 17, 2004
LA Times outs Freeper madness
INDC Journal is there.
He chastens:
Indeed.
He chastens:
..What kind of shadowy, conspiratorial world do we live in when Republicans could stoop to actually defending their candidate from obvious forgeries?
Indeed.
Word 2004 to your mother
lgf: Word 5 vs. Word 2004
Charles Johnson's simple Word 2004 overlay experiment may be proof that the memo forgery is circa 2004.
Earlier versions of Word using the same settings and Times New Roman font look different. It's the Word 2004 version that's a perfect match... that would strongly suggest the memos are very recently concocted.
It seems fairly clear now that Burkett was at minimum a conduit for these memos.
Quirks in the language suggest that the forger *was* Burkett or someone who used his way of expressing things, perhaps because they spent time talking to him about the subject.
I think there is a chance that Burkett, trying to keep things from being traced to him, would have used a "hired" computer for the job. A Kinkos account would be handy for that.
Kinkos keeps their machines running with the latest software, and a Kinkos machine would definitely have Word 2004.
Wouldn't there still be some trace of those memos on the Kinkos machine, if that were the case?
Just asking.
Charles Johnson's simple Word 2004 overlay experiment may be proof that the memo forgery is circa 2004.
Earlier versions of Word using the same settings and Times New Roman font look different. It's the Word 2004 version that's a perfect match... that would strongly suggest the memos are very recently concocted.
It seems fairly clear now that Burkett was at minimum a conduit for these memos.
Quirks in the language suggest that the forger *was* Burkett or someone who used his way of expressing things, perhaps because they spent time talking to him about the subject.
I think there is a chance that Burkett, trying to keep things from being traced to him, would have used a "hired" computer for the job. A Kinkos account would be handy for that.
Kinkos keeps their machines running with the latest software, and a Kinkos machine would definitely have Word 2004.
Wouldn't there still be some trace of those memos on the Kinkos machine, if that were the case?
Just asking.
Citizens A-rray-est! Citizens A-rray-est!
CBS Memogate Malefactors, Meet the Texas Penal Code
Some freepers are putting up the Kitty-noose picture, some are pooh-poohing the statute's applicability.
Federal pre-emption confuses me.
As least with regards to ERISA, I've seen it confuse a lot of high-falutin legal minds, too. Is there some federal law that pre-empts this state statute? I don't think the fact that they are army papers means that there can't be a state law against perpetrating a fraud with them.
And isn't the Texas Air National guard under the authority of the Governor of Texas?
I'll be watching discussion of this issue.
Some freepers are putting up the Kitty-noose picture, some are pooh-poohing the statute's applicability.
Federal pre-emption confuses me.
As least with regards to ERISA, I've seen it confuse a lot of high-falutin legal minds, too. Is there some federal law that pre-empts this state statute? I don't think the fact that they are army papers means that there can't be a state law against perpetrating a fraud with them.
And isn't the Texas Air National guard under the authority of the Governor of Texas?
I'll be watching discussion of this issue.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
If being fluffy is wrong
I don't want to be right.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Burkett's Brain
I ran across an August 2004 blog discussion at the link above about Burkett's famous vaguely-reported-on illness.
What really interested me was Burkett posted to the thread himself, and discussed his encephalitis in more detail that I have seen anywhere previously.
He also gives a version of the documents he claims to have spied in the trash can.
I don't see any reason to doubt the encephalitis as some of the posters there did, there is no medical basis to dispute his his self-described illness. The nature of the dispute with the military was about when and where it was contracted, and whether he was qualified to receive medical benefits.
Deinonychus antirrhopus: Update on Bill Burkett:
I have to be careful because I am not privy to his medical records, and this is a person known to bend truth to suit his moods and purposes.
However, his brain infection could affect portions of the brain that would change his affect and personality. When active it could be associated with changes in mental status including paranoia and/or delusions. It could impair his judgement, or make it harder for him to control impulses.
His "nervous breakdowns" could have been caused by difficulty dealing with the sequelae of his illness, or a DIRECT result of his illness.
I am speculating, but I do think that his body is not the only thing ravaged by this insult to his brain and nervous system. I think his mental health has suffered as well. He may improve and deteriorate and improve and deteriorate over time.
I'm linking here for medical info on encephalitis. I will update with a layman's link and a much more exhaustive medical link, but that one is good for a start.
And here, you can read posts at a support site for caregivers and folks suffering the effects and after-effects of encephalitis.
What really interested me was Burkett posted to the thread himself, and discussed his encephalitis in more detail that I have seen anywhere previously.
He also gives a version of the documents he claims to have spied in the trash can.
I don't see any reason to doubt the encephalitis as some of the posters there did, there is no medical basis to dispute his his self-described illness. The nature of the dispute with the military was about when and where it was contracted, and whether he was qualified to receive medical benefits.
Deinonychus antirrhopus: Update on Bill Burkett:
"Neither am I mistaken, nor lying about any of this. The paperwork is complete and was presented with the court case against three individuals (Goodwin, Meador and Taliaferro) along with documentation including a recorded telephone call with Dan Bartlett of the governor's staff and eight letters and three phone calls to the governor's office by my wife.
My doctors - who are three of the finest neurologists in the US simply say that the reason I am incredibly lucky is that once I began severe fevors, I self prescribed procaine penicillin g - from a veterinary source at one and one-half times the recommended doseage. Even with the massive doseage, it did not kill the disease organisms within my spine, but did provide nominal control
We were undere collection lawsuit from the local hospital for a previous back injury to a child and did not have insurance of any kind other than the medical care that I was supposed to receive due to my active duty status.
Whenever I was finally admitted to medical care at Brooke Army Medical hospital, the Army doctors were unable to get a clear picture other than central nervous system damage and symptomatic problems such as severe migraine headaches, an excessively large sinus mass, tremors, vertigo, tinitus and what was alter diagnosed as neuralgia. The mistake in short term treatment was that the army doctors did not do a spinal tap. After a year and a half of mistakes and no improvement, I was referred to Dr. Leroy of Dallas, one of the country's noted neurologists who presented testimony both in the court documents and to Department of Defense doctors and inspector generals investigators. From the spinal fluids he found a mid level infection of meningo encephalitis still present even after nearly two years.
Did I lie about Geroge W. Bush's records. No.
Of the files that I saw within the 15 gallon waste can were numerous documents which detailed why 1LT George Bush was grounded from flying including a two-page counseling statement signed by LTC Jerry Killian.
Mr. George Conn in no way refuted any portion of my illness or the base facts of my testimony. In fact, if you will read only one statement reported by the Boston Globe of a 45 minute interview, he said that he would have been surprised if this had happened. He tried to walk a very fine line because he was under considerable pressure on his defense department job in Germany. His wife was also under pressure on her job with a Dallas based law firm.
Mr. Conn and I communicate even today, by the way. I do not blame him for protecting his life, family and ability to support his daughter.
Posted by: Bill Burkett on August 14, 2004 04:27 PM"
I have to be careful because I am not privy to his medical records, and this is a person known to bend truth to suit his moods and purposes.
However, his brain infection could affect portions of the brain that would change his affect and personality. When active it could be associated with changes in mental status including paranoia and/or delusions. It could impair his judgement, or make it harder for him to control impulses.
His "nervous breakdowns" could have been caused by difficulty dealing with the sequelae of his illness, or a DIRECT result of his illness.
I am speculating, but I do think that his body is not the only thing ravaged by this insult to his brain and nervous system. I think his mental health has suffered as well. He may improve and deteriorate and improve and deteriorate over time.
I'm linking here for medical info on encephalitis. I will update with a layman's link and a much more exhaustive medical link, but that one is good for a start.
And here, you can read posts at a support site for caregivers and folks suffering the effects and after-effects of encephalitis.
Rathergood
If you have recently become convinced you are be living in a rather biased bizarro universe,
you have not met bizarre until you have met the mind of Joel Veitch. Visit the lair.
I promise hideous monkeys. They dahnce. Also included: unsettling references to elephant parts.
you have not met bizarre until you have met the mind of Joel Veitch. Visit the lair.
I promise hideous monkeys. They dahnce. Also included: unsettling references to elephant parts.
Burkettsville
Via Drudge
Say hello to our lil brain-damaged friend
Move to Screen Bush File in 90's Is Reported:
"In telephone interviews this week from his home near Abilene, Mr. Burkett, 55, a systems analyst with 27 years in the National Guard including service as deputy commandant of the New Mexico Military Academy, said he happened to be in General James' office at Camp Mabry in Austin in mid-1997 and overheard Mr. Allbaugh on a speakerphone telling General James that Mr. Bartlett and Karen P. Hughes, another aide to Governor Bush, would be coming to the Guard offices to review Mr. Bush's military files."
11:45 pm Did my own googling here, but NRO picked up the same article...
WASH POST: Documents allegedly written by deceased officer that raised questions about Bush's service with Texas National Guard bore markings showing they had been faxed to CBS News from a Kinko's copy shop in Abilene, Texas... Developing...
Say hello to our lil brain-damaged friend
Move to Screen Bush File in 90's Is Reported:
"In telephone interviews this week from his home near Abilene, Mr. Burkett, 55, a systems analyst with 27 years in the National Guard including service as deputy commandant of the New Mexico Military Academy, said he happened to be in General James' office at Camp Mabry in Austin in mid-1997 and overheard Mr. Allbaugh on a speakerphone telling General James that Mr. Bartlett and Karen P. Hughes, another aide to Governor Bush, would be coming to the Guard offices to review Mr. Bush's military files."
11:45 pm Did my own googling here, but NRO picked up the same article...
I would just like to announce
...that my son seems to have come down with a flu-like syndrome, and I appear to be following. DH is not looking so hot himself.
And John Kerry looks and sounds like hell. I saw some tape of his speech today to the Economic Club of Detroit. He looked weak in the eyes in a way that makes me think he is really ill. (I say that because when I've noticed that "look" in family members,and some patients I had contact with, grave illness was diagnosed shortly thereafter). His voice is weaker, and still hoarse and "chesty". He's sick. It's chronic. Watch him.
I won't watch Dan Rather. Or CBS. There can be no reward given for faking the news and protecting the lie.
I was a week ahead of the big-dog blogs when I said CBS would pull the Michael Moore hairless-Wookie defense. Perhaps I am a week ahead of a fired Dan Rather. That's really the one part of the story where my hopes prevailed over my better sense...
the one part where I've really been wrong is in being too kind to Rather.
I thought it would matter to him if the documents were forgeries. Sure, he's clueless, not very plugged in to the real world anymore, and slow on the uptake. But Dan Rather would retract, and regret, using fake documents that mucked up what he thought was an important story. Only THEN would he go on to assert that the story was "true in a larger sense." He's just be sorry he screwed it up with improperly vetted forged evidence.
Now I know I should have expected the worst.
It's the most disgraceful abdication of journalistic ethics I've ever witnessed, and that includes the Blair scandal...
Read over at Ace that Marty Heldt has (I am drawing the conclusion here, Ace is more circumspect) shopped these forgeries around for years... at least as early as 1999.
You could buy them off of his web page. He may have been in cahoots with the unstable Burkett.
Burkett had meningoencephalitis, and I believe the insult to the brain has ravaged his mental health as well as his body. I think his statements tend toward paranoia and confabulation. He once asserted he was being retaliated against by the military for refusing to personally destroy the records of George W Bush. ( he later admitted this was not true, that he exaggerated and "overreached". That is, made it up as a paranoid explanation for why things didn't go right for him. Ace has much more about Burkett, lots of links.
Ace also discovers that a "th" ligature key was on the Olympia typewriter used by Killian's secretary. This is the TH on undisputed official Bush guard documents emanating from that office, which Dan pointed to and said "SEE? See? there were so superscripted th's on typewriters.
It's there on the typewriter alright, but it's a dedicated key, and midscripted. NOT SUPERSCRIPTED.
And John Kerry looks and sounds like hell. I saw some tape of his speech today to the Economic Club of Detroit. He looked weak in the eyes in a way that makes me think he is really ill. (I say that because when I've noticed that "look" in family members,and some patients I had contact with, grave illness was diagnosed shortly thereafter). His voice is weaker, and still hoarse and "chesty". He's sick. It's chronic. Watch him.
I won't watch Dan Rather. Or CBS. There can be no reward given for faking the news and protecting the lie.
I was a week ahead of the big-dog blogs when I said CBS would pull the Michael Moore hairless-Wookie defense. Perhaps I am a week ahead of a fired Dan Rather. That's really the one part of the story where my hopes prevailed over my better sense...
the one part where I've really been wrong is in being too kind to Rather.
I thought it would matter to him if the documents were forgeries. Sure, he's clueless, not very plugged in to the real world anymore, and slow on the uptake. But Dan Rather would retract, and regret, using fake documents that mucked up what he thought was an important story. Only THEN would he go on to assert that the story was "true in a larger sense." He's just be sorry he screwed it up with improperly vetted forged evidence.
Now I know I should have expected the worst.
It's the most disgraceful abdication of journalistic ethics I've ever witnessed, and that includes the Blair scandal...
Read over at Ace that Marty Heldt has (I am drawing the conclusion here, Ace is more circumspect) shopped these forgeries around for years... at least as early as 1999.
You could buy them off of his web page. He may have been in cahoots with the unstable Burkett.
Burkett had meningoencephalitis, and I believe the insult to the brain has ravaged his mental health as well as his body. I think his statements tend toward paranoia and confabulation. He once asserted he was being retaliated against by the military for refusing to personally destroy the records of George W Bush. ( he later admitted this was not true, that he exaggerated and "overreached". That is, made it up as a paranoid explanation for why things didn't go right for him. Ace has much more about Burkett, lots of links.
Ace also discovers that a "th" ligature key was on the Olympia typewriter used by Killian's secretary. This is the TH on undisputed official Bush guard documents emanating from that office, which Dan pointed to and said "SEE? See? there were so superscripted th's on typewriters.
It's there on the typewriter alright, but it's a dedicated key, and midscripted. NOT SUPERSCRIPTED.
Captain Dan speaks from Mount Olympus - guest post
The following is a guest post by Mr. Bluemerle;
He was giving me a running commentary on the Observer interview linked above , and I thought He was giving Captain Queeg the what-for. Therefore I left him with the keys to the kingdom while I went to slam my fingers in doors ( don't ask.)
Oh. My. God. Where to start?
Mr. Rather said that he and his longtime CBS producer, Mary Mapes, had investigated the story for nearly five years, finally convincing a source to give them the National Guard documents. He did not reveal the name of the source, but Mr. Rather said he was a man who had been reluctant to come forth with them because he’d been harassed by political operatives. "Whether one believes it or not, this person believed that he and his family had been harassed and even threatened," he said. "We were not able to confirm that, but his fear was that what had already been threats, intimidation, if he gave up the documents, could get worse—maybe a lot worse."
[Yeah, their source is a paranoid/schizophrenic with delusions of “threats” and “harassment” that CBS can’t validate, but they remain convinced that his documents are still good.]
Mr. Rather said that it would require an exceptional amount of knowledge to craft a forgery—and not just the typographical kind. "You’d have to have an in-depth knowledge of Air Force manuals from 1971,"
[Ha! As has been exhaustively documented, the referenced to AF manuals are completely wrong!]
. . . he said. "You’d have to have Bush’s service record,
[Hell, you’ve got it posted on your own website, and on the website of practically every MSM outlet!]
. . . you’d have to have the Air Force regulations from 1971,
[Oh, we all know that all copies of those were shredded by Oliver North in the ‘80’s, right?]
. . . you’d have to know nearly all of the people involved directly at that time, including the squadron commander, who was Bush’s immediate superior, and his attitude at the time—you’d have to know all those things and weave all those things in."
[Sigh. Why bother even discussing this? All this information has been available for years on various loony left websites. Doesn’t Dan know that an entire cottage industry has grown up around this ancient story?]
Mr. Rather said he was well aware of reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post that had finely detailed examinations of inconsistencies in the memos. And he said he took those reports seriously and appreciated the "competitive response" of other news organizations. But despite a number of experts calling the memos forgeries, he said that "the truth of these documents lies in the signatures and in the content, not just the typeface and the font-style. Let me emphasize once again, these are not exact sciences. Not like DNA or fingerprints."
[Either they are fake or they are not. End of frickin’ story. And they’re fake.]
That was why, he said, half of the experts agreed and the other half didn’t. That supposed stalemate left nothing but the truth at the center of the documents.
[I'm gasping for breath at this one. Ummm, Dan, name ONE motherlovin’ expert, just freaking ONE that is willing to endure the contempt of their peers and authenticate these forgeries. Un-frickin’-believable.]
"In terms of the experts, you’re going to find an equal number of experts on the authenticity arguments," he said. "I don’t think that’s going to resolve the argument. The core truth of the reporting, I think it’s already clear that it’s true. And I think as time goes along, it will become even more apparent."
[Core truths trump hard, cold facts. Feelings beat out logic, every time.]
What about the Washington Post story of Sept. 14? The story pointed to discrepancies in military language, between the way Killian usually signed his letters and his signature on the memos CBS put on the air. And what about Mr. Bush’s address on one memo, "5000 Longmont #8, Houston," where he apparently no longer lived in 1972?
"Both of the allegations are wrong," he said. "I feel confident in saying that."
But when asked to offer a specific rebuttal to the observation about the address, Mr. Rather didn’t have one, saying only: "It’s our position, and I believe we demonstrated it …. The address doesn’t match the Bush service time frame—that’s their basic allegation? We think that’s wrong. We took a look at this, and we just think they’re wrong about it."
[Subject exhibits “magical thinking”, insists on the reality of his fabulist vision of the world in defiance of explicit evidence to the contrary. Yep, he’s a maroon.]
Read the whole damn thing.
He was giving me a running commentary on the Observer interview linked above , and I thought He was giving Captain Queeg the what-for. Therefore I left him with the keys to the kingdom while I went to slam my fingers in doors ( don't ask.)
Oh. My. God. Where to start?
Mr. Rather said that he and his longtime CBS producer, Mary Mapes, had investigated the story for nearly five years, finally convincing a source to give them the National Guard documents. He did not reveal the name of the source, but Mr. Rather said he was a man who had been reluctant to come forth with them because he’d been harassed by political operatives. "Whether one believes it or not, this person believed that he and his family had been harassed and even threatened," he said. "We were not able to confirm that, but his fear was that what had already been threats, intimidation, if he gave up the documents, could get worse—maybe a lot worse."
[Yeah, their source is a paranoid/schizophrenic with delusions of “threats” and “harassment” that CBS can’t validate, but they remain convinced that his documents are still good.]
Mr. Rather said that it would require an exceptional amount of knowledge to craft a forgery—and not just the typographical kind. "You’d have to have an in-depth knowledge of Air Force manuals from 1971,"
[Ha! As has been exhaustively documented, the referenced to AF manuals are completely wrong!]
. . . he said. "You’d have to have Bush’s service record,
[Hell, you’ve got it posted on your own website, and on the website of practically every MSM outlet!]
. . . you’d have to have the Air Force regulations from 1971,
[Oh, we all know that all copies of those were shredded by Oliver North in the ‘80’s, right?]
. . . you’d have to know nearly all of the people involved directly at that time, including the squadron commander, who was Bush’s immediate superior, and his attitude at the time—you’d have to know all those things and weave all those things in."
[Sigh. Why bother even discussing this? All this information has been available for years on various loony left websites. Doesn’t Dan know that an entire cottage industry has grown up around this ancient story?]
Mr. Rather said he was well aware of reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post that had finely detailed examinations of inconsistencies in the memos. And he said he took those reports seriously and appreciated the "competitive response" of other news organizations. But despite a number of experts calling the memos forgeries, he said that "the truth of these documents lies in the signatures and in the content, not just the typeface and the font-style. Let me emphasize once again, these are not exact sciences. Not like DNA or fingerprints."
[Either they are fake or they are not. End of frickin’ story. And they’re fake.]
That was why, he said, half of the experts agreed and the other half didn’t. That supposed stalemate left nothing but the truth at the center of the documents.
[I'm gasping for breath at this one. Ummm, Dan, name ONE motherlovin’ expert, just freaking ONE that is willing to endure the contempt of their peers and authenticate these forgeries. Un-frickin’-believable.]
"In terms of the experts, you’re going to find an equal number of experts on the authenticity arguments," he said. "I don’t think that’s going to resolve the argument. The core truth of the reporting, I think it’s already clear that it’s true. And I think as time goes along, it will become even more apparent."
[Core truths trump hard, cold facts. Feelings beat out logic, every time.]
What about the Washington Post story of Sept. 14? The story pointed to discrepancies in military language, between the way Killian usually signed his letters and his signature on the memos CBS put on the air. And what about Mr. Bush’s address on one memo, "5000 Longmont #8, Houston," where he apparently no longer lived in 1972?
"Both of the allegations are wrong," he said. "I feel confident in saying that."
But when asked to offer a specific rebuttal to the observation about the address, Mr. Rather didn’t have one, saying only: "It’s our position, and I believe we demonstrated it …. The address doesn’t match the Bush service time frame—that’s their basic allegation? We think that’s wrong. We took a look at this, and we just think they’re wrong about it."
[Subject exhibits “magical thinking”, insists on the reality of his fabulist vision of the world in defiance of explicit evidence to the contrary. Yep, he’s a maroon.]
Read the whole damn thing.
Aaarrrgh wasps
Today is national, um, personal type rapidly and badly day.
I have inverted more consonants, slipped more vowels and substituted more homonyms than
I would have attributed to any fancy-suited neandertal. (that's someone else's mistake) Somebody stayed up too late trying to (unsuccessfully) defragment her screwed computer.
I actually wrote "nerrative" in a post, which made me shrivel inside and wish to put my fingers in a door. Somebody needs a nap. And then a double-shot expresso. And bee sting treatment.
Ok, then; maybe I should read what I'm writing before I press that little post button.
ZZZZZZzzzzzzz huh WUH ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I have inverted more consonants, slipped more vowels and substituted more homonyms than
I would have attributed to any fancy-suited neandertal. (that's someone else's mistake) Somebody stayed up too late trying to (unsuccessfully) defragment her screwed computer.
I actually wrote "nerrative" in a post, which made me shrivel inside and wish to put my fingers in a door. Somebody needs a nap. And then a double-shot expresso. And bee sting treatment.
Ok, then; maybe I should read what I'm writing before I press that little post button.
ZZZZZZzzzzzzz huh WUH ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Bad Faith
Allah has some new info about careful steps taken by CBS to deal with evidence of forgery. BEFORE their story was first broadcast.
Just how low did CBS go?
Just how low did CBS go?
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Prince omelet
American Digest: The Tragedy of Omlet, Prince of Massachusetts
Rosencrantz and Protein Wisdom wear nice boots:
I don't know why the picture won't click, everything is right so it must be a blogspot quirk. A plain link doesn't work either. Hmmmm.
Rosencrantz and Protein Wisdom wear nice boots:
Click on the pic for Jeff's added scene
I don't know why the picture won't click, everything is right so it must be a blogspot quirk. A plain link doesn't work either. Hmmmm.
Monday, September 13, 2004
Still forged.
Captain's Quarters comment that caught my attention...
Captain's Quarters
by Commenter "poppy"
by Commenter "poppy"
Col. Lively, who ran operations in the TExas ANG was just on Fox News...put more light on the subject.
Key point he says once Staudt retired THEY DIDN'T hear from him and he had NO influence.
Second, Bush didn't pass hundreds of people on a waiting list. the lists were for enlisted trying to get into the guard...but the
pilot list was a completely different thing.
You had to go in as an officer, you needed a degree, you had to pass the Air Force pilot test and YOU HAD TO BE WILLING TO RISK YOUR LIFE!!
Wizbang considers persons of interest
The weird sequential address? bogus.
And it's been seen before.
Wizbang: On The Trail Of The Forger: "The memos are forgeries. The story is bogus. The memo were done on a modern word processor or computer, and not on 1970's era typewriter.
"I have the same evidence I used to discredit Marty Heldt in 2000. It is almost comical some of the obvious alterations and these documents came from the exact same place.
Just one little item. The address PO Box 34567, is a bit dubious, and that's what tipped me off back then. I talked to Marty Heldt about that. His answer was that this was Killians home address. So, I decided to check. This address was, at the time shown on the document, unassigned. Further, the address was a po box at the main post office in Houston, Texas. The zip code was for a small town in Texas, Genoa, Texas that did NOT have po boxes."
It turns out this address was later used for Bush Killian corresspondence. But It wasn't IN USE at the time of one of the forgeries Marty Peddled earlier.
I thnk that's an important distinction to note. 34567 was used because it was on other correspondence. But just because it became valid doesn't mean it was valid at the time a document was MADE.
And it's been seen before.
Wizbang: On The Trail Of The Forger: "The memos are forgeries. The story is bogus. The memo were done on a modern word processor or computer, and not on 1970's era typewriter.
"I have the same evidence I used to discredit Marty Heldt in 2000. It is almost comical some of the obvious alterations and these documents came from the exact same place.
Just one little item. The address PO Box 34567, is a bit dubious, and that's what tipped me off back then. I talked to Marty Heldt about that. His answer was that this was Killians home address. So, I decided to check. This address was, at the time shown on the document, unassigned. Further, the address was a po box at the main post office in Houston, Texas. The zip code was for a small town in Texas, Genoa, Texas that did NOT have po boxes."
It turns out this address was later used for Bush Killian corresspondence. But It wasn't IN USE at the time of one of the forgeries Marty Peddled earlier.
I thnk that's an important distinction to note. 34567 was used because it was on other correspondence. But just because it became valid doesn't mean it was valid at the time a document was MADE.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Kerfuffle is a special case of Kerning
I learn about kerning kluges from an expert, via Allah, who invokes the quintessential Bill Paxton moment.
Relevant to the CBS memos, there is a kind of "smart spacing" that True-type fonts use, called the ABC dimensions.
for paired characters, or ligatures, that looked better closer together.
Common ligatures "included fi, fl, ffi, ffl, among others."
And I still offer a handy kerfuffle bag with a three-jar end-times supply of non-perishable vegemite to the first person to send me a screen capture of Dan Rather forced to confess his fraud upon the public.
I fired him Trumpishly, and all evidence of CBS has been removed from our televisions and assorted television paraphernalia.
Alternate meltdown scenarios qualify; should you spy something like Right Wing Conspirator says he did,
I'll throw in extra.
Relevant to the CBS memos, there is a kind of "smart spacing" that True-type fonts use, called the ABC dimensions.
Examine carefully the “fr” in the word “from” in the 18-August-1973 memo.. The “r” is tucked under the “f” in the same way a Microsoft font does it. In 1972, technology available in the office, including proportional typewriters, could not do this So it is clear that the only way this document could have been done is using a modern computer font, and the placement is pixelwise identical to Microsoft’s Times New Roman.The title of this post is a reference to special cold type or hot-lead linotype slugs
for paired characters, or ligatures, that looked better closer together.
Common ligatures "included fi, fl, ffi, ffl, among others."
And I still offer a handy kerfuffle bag with a three-jar end-times supply of non-perishable vegemite to the first person to send me a screen capture of Dan Rather forced to confess his fraud upon the public.
I fired him Trumpishly, and all evidence of CBS has been removed from our televisions and assorted television paraphernalia.
Alternate meltdown scenarios qualify; should you spy something like Right Wing Conspirator says he did,
I'll throw in extra.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
Backspace from the Future
How is it that a forgery can be so plain, and there be so much dispute about it?
How is it that a top forensic expert says he has serious doubts about the authenticiy of the originals, but is working from a copy and must limit his opinion until he has more information; and the Boston Globe reports this as "authentication"?
UPDATE UPDATE INDC JOURNAL UPDATES!
Brouffard, the misquoted expert above, SPEAKS. And he is PISSED at having his opinion twisted into the opposite. "He did not change his mind, and he and his colleagues are becoming more certain that these documents are forgeries."
GO READ BILL.
The common resolution of all but one expert (CBS's, a handwriting expert), bloggers-on-the-case, and just about anyone else who has seen a default settings Word document superimposed over the CBS memos) is that it is more likely the documents were created using a word-processor, specifically Microsoft Word.
The Globe hung their hat on a few straw men, notably the superscripted "th" issue and the existence of an IBM machine capable of producting a *similar* document in the early seventies.
If it is possible that similar documents could be produced on this one machine ( IBM Composer) THE WHOLE FORGERY ARGUMENT FALLS APART! If superscripting appeared in 70's documents, THE WHOLE FORGERY ARGUMENT FALLS APART!
Except it doesn't.
Just because such a machine existed doesn not mean it is at all likely it was used.
And it is NOT likely that is was used, or available for use, in that setting by that person for those routine memos.
Killian's office mate reports that there was only an old manual typewriter in the office, which was mainly used by the secretary. Killian didn't like to type and avoided it when possible. No similar beyond-reproach memos about Bush or any other soldier have been located. The ones that are out there are different...different font, language, format, etc.
A similar document is not an identical document, the kind of identical matching produced with WORD for each of the four CBS documents. Twip level, I believe it's called. Thus far, the Composer has not been able to exactly reproduce any of the memos though it has made similar-looking documents.
If the machine requires a complicated set-up and tweening to produce anything similar, and required the document be typed twice.
Dispatching the superscript business:
The issue is,no manual or (ordinary) electric typewriter of the period could produce THAT PARTICULAR superscripted "th" in the CBS documents. It had to be an available feature on a typewriter that could type the rest of the document
Whether any typewriter had a "th" key or an interchangeable symbol ball with a "th". It has to be a raised-above-the-line superscript is not the point and is a straw man designed to distract. Only the Composer can come close, and it takes more effort than would realistically been expended, and even with a great deal of effort the machine still is prone to flubbing the spacing.
Experts have hung back from declaring the memos absolutely impossible to produce in the early Seventies, but even so would not be able to affimatively authenticate the documents, because it is so unlikely that the only machine that could have produced them would have been available to, or used by the author or anyone helping him with routing typing task.
They may yet declare it to be impossible after having a chance to examine both differences and similarities between the Word font, the Composer font, and the font in the CBS memos.
Without being able to view the original documents, affirmatively authenticating the documents is never going to be possible, and there are no originals. CBS never had anything but copies (and probably second generation copies) to work with.
Declaring them forgeries may not be possible on the sole basis of them being impossible to produce by any available period office equipment. However they can be declared suspect, and they have been.
So of course, that's all the DNC operative wrote. Except it's not.
Content - Anachronistic format, language, and pressure-bearing officers have all been noted. The format is like that used in the early 90's, as if the writer had some familiarity but not dating back 30 years. Abbreviations are wrong.
Provenance of the documents is key, yet is unknown, CBS has not revealed any source.
Killian's family denies he kept such records, and disputed the sentiments expressed in the memos as inconsistent with Killian's high opinion of George Bush.
CBS employed a backhanded trick to 'test" the validity of the memos with Hodges, and so their claim of sources who "saw the memos" or "knew the thinking process of Killian" is very suspect.
They asserted the memos were handwritten and authenticated, and read him the contents over the phone. He did not contradict them,
but he had no personal knowlege of their contents or the dead man's "personal" feelings 30 years ago. CBS twisted that lack of dispute into some kind of proof the letters were in fact real.
No authentication, no sources, no provenance, and evidence of fudging the truth at CBS.
Yet this doesn't matter because the memos "raise questions that should be answered".
Well they do. The first one is, Why isn't Dan Rather out of a job?
At this point I won't be surprised to find out Micah Wright himself typed the memos.
How is it that a top forensic expert says he has serious doubts about the authenticiy of the originals, but is working from a copy and must limit his opinion until he has more information; and the Boston Globe reports this as "authentication"?
UPDATE UPDATE INDC JOURNAL UPDATES!
Brouffard, the misquoted expert above, SPEAKS. And he is PISSED at having his opinion twisted into the opposite. "He did not change his mind, and he and his colleagues are becoming more certain that these documents are forgeries."
GO READ BILL.
The common resolution of all but one expert (CBS's, a handwriting expert), bloggers-on-the-case, and just about anyone else who has seen a default settings Word document superimposed over the CBS memos) is that it is more likely the documents were created using a word-processor, specifically Microsoft Word.
The Globe hung their hat on a few straw men, notably the superscripted "th" issue and the existence of an IBM machine capable of producting a *similar* document in the early seventies.
If it is possible that similar documents could be produced on this one machine ( IBM Composer) THE WHOLE FORGERY ARGUMENT FALLS APART! If superscripting appeared in 70's documents, THE WHOLE FORGERY ARGUMENT FALLS APART!
Except it doesn't.
Just because such a machine existed doesn not mean it is at all likely it was used.
And it is NOT likely that is was used, or available for use, in that setting by that person for those routine memos.
Killian's office mate reports that there was only an old manual typewriter in the office, which was mainly used by the secretary. Killian didn't like to type and avoided it when possible. No similar beyond-reproach memos about Bush or any other soldier have been located. The ones that are out there are different...different font, language, format, etc.
A similar document is not an identical document, the kind of identical matching produced with WORD for each of the four CBS documents. Twip level, I believe it's called. Thus far, the Composer has not been able to exactly reproduce any of the memos though it has made similar-looking documents.
If the machine requires a complicated set-up and tweening to produce anything similar, and required the document be typed twice.
Dispatching the superscript business:
The issue is,no manual or (ordinary) electric typewriter of the period could produce THAT PARTICULAR superscripted "th" in the CBS documents. It had to be an available feature on a typewriter that could type the rest of the document
Whether any typewriter had a "th" key or an interchangeable symbol ball with a "th". It has to be a raised-above-the-line superscript is not the point and is a straw man designed to distract. Only the Composer can come close, and it takes more effort than would realistically been expended, and even with a great deal of effort the machine still is prone to flubbing the spacing.
Experts have hung back from declaring the memos absolutely impossible to produce in the early Seventies, but even so would not be able to affimatively authenticate the documents, because it is so unlikely that the only machine that could have produced them would have been available to, or used by the author or anyone helping him with routing typing task.
They may yet declare it to be impossible after having a chance to examine both differences and similarities between the Word font, the Composer font, and the font in the CBS memos.
Without being able to view the original documents, affirmatively authenticating the documents is never going to be possible, and there are no originals. CBS never had anything but copies (and probably second generation copies) to work with.
Declaring them forgeries may not be possible on the sole basis of them being impossible to produce by any available period office equipment. However they can be declared suspect, and they have been.
So of course, that's all the DNC operative wrote. Except it's not.
Content - Anachronistic format, language, and pressure-bearing officers have all been noted. The format is like that used in the early 90's, as if the writer had some familiarity but not dating back 30 years. Abbreviations are wrong.
Provenance of the documents is key, yet is unknown, CBS has not revealed any source.
Killian's family denies he kept such records, and disputed the sentiments expressed in the memos as inconsistent with Killian's high opinion of George Bush.
CBS employed a backhanded trick to 'test" the validity of the memos with Hodges, and so their claim of sources who "saw the memos" or "knew the thinking process of Killian" is very suspect.
They asserted the memos were handwritten and authenticated, and read him the contents over the phone. He did not contradict them,
but he had no personal knowlege of their contents or the dead man's "personal" feelings 30 years ago. CBS twisted that lack of dispute into some kind of proof the letters were in fact real.
No authentication, no sources, no provenance, and evidence of fudging the truth at CBS.
Yet this doesn't matter because the memos "raise questions that should be answered".
Well they do. The first one is, Why isn't Dan Rather out of a job?
At this point I won't be surprised to find out Micah Wright himself typed the memos.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Dan, you're fired
I say he's gone by tomorrow night.
UPDATE:
Dan Rath er costs me the official dead pool prize.
However, he is still fired. In fact, CBS is fired. We cheerfully deleted the local CBS affiliate from our televisions, and will not even deign to scan past it on our way to
other programming. I let my affiliate station know. My DH also will not run any ads on the CBS affiliate.
I will personally send a handy Kerfuffletm bag with three jars of Vegemite for the end times to the first person who sends me a screen shot of Dan apologizing for presenting forged documents to sources and the public, and for screwing with the sources heads (e.g. giving Hodges the impression that the documents were written in Killian's own hand.)
UPDATE:
Dan Ra
However, he is still fired. In fact, CBS is fired. We cheerfully deleted the local CBS affiliate from our televisions, and will not even deign to scan past it on our way to
other programming. I let my affiliate station know. My DH also will not run any ads on the CBS affiliate.
I will personally send a handy Kerfuffletm bag with three jars of Vegemite for the end times to the first person who sends me a screen shot of Dan apologizing for presenting forged documents to sources and the public, and for screwing with the sources heads (e.g. giving Hodges the impression that the documents were written in Killian's own hand.)
Society of Creative Anachronism
There is no reasonable explanation for the laundry list of defects in the "60 minutes" memos.
Someone just couldn't STAND it. Couldn't stand that Bush was "getting away with it" because of the lack of contemporaneous documentation of what someone "knew" was true about Bush trying to get out of the service. So they kluged together the oral history of some folks that could never be proven without "papers" - rumor, speculation, hearsay.
And they made what they were lacking. They forged the papers. Because sometimes you have to lie to tell the truth, right? It's ok to do that, right?
The story will quickly shift now to who cooked up the docs and why.
I suspect a kerry campaign youngster made them - and was simply too clueless to realize that typed documents don't share certain characteristics with the word-processed documents we make today, and that a document made on a word processor can be detected. Kind of how I don't understand the inkwells and fountain pens of my mother's day.
Either that or it's a Clinton torch job.... I can't bring myself to believe CBS concocted them. If it was la grande trappolla, Rove Style, then I hail his lizard mastery. Dan ate the poison pill. A Barnes creation?
The laundry list.
Kerning - no such thing on a typewriter in '72 '73. No such thing on a non-computerized typewriter NOW. Case closed, btw. That's it. Game over, man.
No secretary initials - Killian, per his wife, didn't type. AND WHAT PERFECT CENTERING AND MARGINS for a non-typist.
Per son and wife, the content is incompatible with Killian's opinions about Bush.
General Staudt, who is named in the memos as putting pressure on Killian, was retired over a year at the time the memo was written.
Bush's address, typed into the document, is incorrect. Bush had not lived at that address for two years.
The PO box is odd, a natural sequence (34567) and may be a false placeholder number.
Proportional font was possible but unlikely at that time. It was not possible on ordinary office equipment.
According to multiple sources from the military, the format is wrong for the period, the proper filing notations are missing, the abbreviations are not the official ones in use, the paper size is not official military size.
Overlay a document with the same wording and format typed in Microsoft Word and they line up perfectly. To the KERNING.
The Centering and line spacing is not consistent with manual typing, nor are the right margins.
The 13 pt vertical line spacing was not available on ANY typewriter of the period - and it's only available on computers now.
Superscript TH was not available without special symbol selectric balls ( with an unwieldy process of removing and loading in the special ball - wouldn't be used on a casual, personal file memo) or highly specialized and expensive equipment made for special printing jobs.
More telling, numbers without a superscripted TH or ST are typed in the format "123 st" and "345 th". THe normal way to write those is "123st" and 345th". If the space had been omitted in Word, it would have been auto-superscripted.
And then, the annual medical exam Bush was supposedly being recalcitrant about, doesn't fit SOP. Usually the physical exam is done in the guardsman's birth month.
Bush has a July birthday, months after the date on the memo.
I stopped at #1. Add to this that the only defense CBS will make about the vetting of the documents is that "some folks who knew killian think he might have said something like that back then". I did note his wife and son disagree.
UPDATE - Ben Barnes daughter says she believes he's lying. And that he told her a different tale in 2000.
Someone just couldn't STAND it. Couldn't stand that Bush was "getting away with it" because of the lack of contemporaneous documentation of what someone "knew" was true about Bush trying to get out of the service. So they kluged together the oral history of some folks that could never be proven without "papers" - rumor, speculation, hearsay.
And they made what they were lacking. They forged the papers. Because sometimes you have to lie to tell the truth, right? It's ok to do that, right?
The story will quickly shift now to who cooked up the docs and why.
I suspect a kerry campaign youngster made them - and was simply too clueless to realize that typed documents don't share certain characteristics with the word-processed documents we make today, and that a document made on a word processor can be detected. Kind of how I don't understand the inkwells and fountain pens of my mother's day.
Either that or it's a Clinton torch job.... I can't bring myself to believe CBS concocted them. If it was la grande trappolla, Rove Style, then I hail his lizard mastery. Dan ate the poison pill. A Barnes creation?
The laundry list.
Kerning - no such thing on a typewriter in '72 '73. No such thing on a non-computerized typewriter NOW. Case closed, btw. That's it. Game over, man.
No secretary initials - Killian, per his wife, didn't type. AND WHAT PERFECT CENTERING AND MARGINS for a non-typist.
Per son and wife, the content is incompatible with Killian's opinions about Bush.
General Staudt, who is named in the memos as putting pressure on Killian, was retired over a year at the time the memo was written.
Bush's address, typed into the document, is incorrect. Bush had not lived at that address for two years.
The PO box is odd, a natural sequence (34567) and may be a false placeholder number.
Proportional font was possible but unlikely at that time. It was not possible on ordinary office equipment.
According to multiple sources from the military, the format is wrong for the period, the proper filing notations are missing, the abbreviations are not the official ones in use, the paper size is not official military size.
Overlay a document with the same wording and format typed in Microsoft Word and they line up perfectly. To the KERNING.
The Centering and line spacing is not consistent with manual typing, nor are the right margins.
The 13 pt vertical line spacing was not available on ANY typewriter of the period - and it's only available on computers now.
Superscript
More telling, numbers without a superscripted TH or ST are typed in the format "123 st" and "345 th". THe normal way to write those is "123st" and 345th". If the space had been omitted in Word, it would have been auto-superscripted.
And then, the annual medical exam Bush was supposedly being recalcitrant about, doesn't fit SOP. Usually the physical exam is done in the guardsman's birth month.
Bush has a July birthday, months after the date on the memo.
I stopped at #1. Add to this that the only defense CBS will make about the vetting of the documents is that "some folks who knew killian think he might have said something like that back then". I did note his wife and son disagree.
UPDATE - Ben Barnes daughter says she believes he's lying. And that he told her a different tale in 2000.
Selectric Evidence
Holy crap!
Dan Rather's "exclusive" a hoax? Bush docs possible forgeries.
Powerline is updating and updating.... (I like their title for the AP story!)
More More More at Allah, who is rounding up amazing results of an experiment with a common word processor.
MONSTER UPDATE:
INDC Bill, had the initiative to obtain the opinion of an actual forensic document examiner, among the the top in the country,
Dr. Phillip Bouffard. Go there for the opinion.
Dan Rather's "exclusive" a hoax? Bush docs possible forgeries.
Powerline is updating and updating.... (I like their title for the AP story!)
More More More at Allah, who is rounding up amazing results of an experiment with a common word processor.
MONSTER UPDATE:
INDC Bill, had the initiative to obtain the opinion of an actual forensic document examiner, among the the top in the country,
Dr. Phillip Bouffard. Go there for the opinion.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Death Knell of The Star Trek Franchise
This is linked to the crazy stuff at Wizbang's Tenspot
Overexposure, audience fatigue and creative exhaustion?
"Should Star Trek Die?" queries Instapundit
Yes. It's dead already.
Star Trek: Space Changes: The Next Crap Home-improvement Reality Series was really the nail in the franchise coffin.
Overexposure, audience fatigue and creative exhaustion?
"Should Star Trek Die?" queries Instapundit
Yes. It's dead already.
Star Trek: Space Changes: The Next Crap Home-improvement Reality Series was really the nail in the franchise coffin.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
la grande trappola
Update - h/t to my husband for the Axis of Weasels alert he sent me on the fourth.
Saw a similar story over the weekend. Italy is blaming France for deliberately forging Niger-Uranium documents to undermine the Allies arguments for war, in order to protect their special business relationship with Saddam.
Ace of Spades has a good round-up of details. Protein Wisdom links to other blogs discussing the story.
Liar Joe Wilson pops to mind.
WSJ Opinion Journal Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Clifford D. May at NRO . July 12 2004
Perhaps he told the truth by accident. Perhaps he did know the documents were forgeries...because he was in on the plan to attempt to undermine the casus belli. If he was, isn't that treason?
Saw a similar story over the weekend. Italy is blaming France for deliberately forging Niger-Uranium documents to undermine the Allies arguments for war, in order to protect their special business relationship with Saddam.
Ace of Spades has a good round-up of details. Protein Wisdom links to other blogs discussing the story.
Liar Joe Wilson pops to mind.
WSJ Opinion Journal Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Joe Wilson didn't tell the truth about how he supposedly came to realize that it was "highly doubtful" there was anything to the story he'd been sent to Niger to investigate. He told everyone that he'd recognized as obvious forgeries the documents purporting to show an Iraq-Niger uranium deal. But the forged documents to which he referred didn't reach U.S. intelligence until eight months after his trip. Mr. Wilson has said that he "misspoke"--multiple times, apparently--on this issue.
Clifford D. May at NRO . July 12 2004
He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on a document that had clearly been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.'"
The problem is Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel discovered. Schmidt notes: "The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger."
Perhaps he told the truth by accident. Perhaps he did know the documents were forgeries...because he was in on the plan to attempt to undermine the casus belli. If he was, isn't that treason?
Sunday, September 05, 2004
For advancment of the cause of world fluffiness
The Crowd that Didn't Boo III: The AP retracts!!
via NewsMax, linked above, The AP has issued a formal retraction of the false story circulated over the Globe Friday afternoon about a "crowd of thousands" booing former President Clinton, with the malicious addtion "Bush did nothing to stop them".
When they fire the bastard that made it up, I'll then be satisfied.
In a report that moved on the AP wire at 9:27 a.m. Saturday, the AP said:
"This is a correction to an incorrect story posted by AP on Friday stating the crowd booed the President when he sent his good wishes. The crowd, in fact, did NOT boo."
A transcript of Bush's remarks released by the White House noted applause after Bush offered Clinton "best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery."
ABC Radio Network news also confirmed that the Clinton reference was applauded, not jeered.
In its original version of the story, the AP had reported: "Bush's audience of thousands in West Allis, Wis., booed. Bush did nothing to stop them."
The erroneous report prompted a firestorm of outrage on interactive news Web sites like FreeRepublic.com, where posters complained of media bias and circulated contact numbers to protest the AP's false claim.
In a revised version of the story that moved on the wire late Friday, the AP said: "The crowd reacted with applause and with some 'ooohs,' apparently surprised by the news that Clinton was ill."
When they fire the bastard that made it up, I'll then be satisfied.
Black Day for Russia / Черный день России
Logic and Sanity has outstanding comprehensive coverage of the Beslan atrocity.
According to hostages, on the last day of the siege the terrorists did not allow anyone to use the bathroom.
If you expected the worst, its worse than you expected.
I recommend going there for some of the details gathered from Russion sources.
This detail of the terrorist operation fairly leapt off the page:
- Terrorists had a cellphone and would regularly report to someone on the outside.
Find them. Kill the nest.
______________________________________________
Add to the catalogue of depravity:
- According to one of the hostages terrorists raped some older students.
- When the hostages tried to escape as the storming took place they were shot in the back, one of the hostages claims that one of the terrorists who was shooting was smiling as the children were falling.
Er, peace be upon you.
According to hostages, on the last day of the siege the terrorists did not allow anyone to use the bathroom.
If you expected the worst, its worse than you expected.
I recommend going there for some of the details gathered from Russion sources.
This detail of the terrorist operation fairly leapt off the page:
- Terrorists had a cellphone and would regularly report to someone on the outside.
Find them. Kill the nest.
______________________________________________
Add to the catalogue of depravity:
- According to one of the hostages terrorists raped some older students.
- When the hostages tried to escape as the storming took place they were shot in the back, one of the hostages claims that one of the terrorists who was shooting was smiling as the children were falling.
Er, peace be upon you.
Saturday, September 04, 2004
The crowd that didn't Boo II
Josh Marshall had this tidbit up...no word who the culprit AP writers she confronted was, there is still more than one possibility...
However, he does have a source he trusts there at the scene, and says he is now convinced that there was no booing.
UPDATE: Ace of Spades links to a similar confession by Kevin Drum, of all people.
Nothing but dishonesty can explain the reporter's remark that the "crowd of thousands" booed our ill former president. It's simply incompatible with any other report or documentary evidence, it's impossible for it to have been a mistaken impression.
There was no booing according to eyewitnesses, none on the audio tapes or video. If there was any bad behaviour it was de minimis, and one would hardly expect President Bush to notice it over the crowd cheering for Clinton's recovery, since nobody else can. If someone booed at the mention of Clinton's name, they sure shut up when they were told he was in the hospital. And Bush then LED the crowd in requesting well wishes and sympathy and prayers for President Clinton and his family.
Karen gets results! A little more on the boo-a-rama, from a reporter on the scene ...Josh appears to lament that Hughes would confront the reporter in such a manner.
Karen Hughes went totally apesh-t at the AP when that dispatch hit the wire.
She stormed up the bleachers and starting screaming at the AP writer (who took it in stride). "They didn't boo! Were you and I in the same rally! What is this crap?" or something along those lines (it was loud in there). The AP writer then canvassed his colleagues, who all said they hadn't heard any boos. [emphasis mine ]
However, he does have a source he trusts there at the scene, and says he is now convinced that there was no booing.
UPDATE: Ace of Spades links to a similar confession by Kevin Drum, of all people.
Nothing but dishonesty can explain the reporter's remark that the "crowd of thousands" booed our ill former president. It's simply incompatible with any other report or documentary evidence, it's impossible for it to have been a mistaken impression.
There was no booing according to eyewitnesses, none on the audio tapes or video. If there was any bad behaviour it was de minimis, and one would hardly expect President Bush to notice it over the crowd cheering for Clinton's recovery, since nobody else can. If someone booed at the mention of Clinton's name, they sure shut up when they were told he was in the hospital. And Bush then LED the crowd in requesting well wishes and sympathy and prayers for President Clinton and his family.
BBC: John Kerry
Friday, September 03, 2004
Dear God
Consider, if you will
What IS this, The Twilight Zone? (via Allah)
How can these crimes against such innocence be blamed on anything but the depravity of the blood-and-mayhem-infatuated ghouls who enacted them? This is in the name of justice? This is the peace of God?
The criminals seek death, let them have the annihilation they have earned.
Glenn Reynolds links to Sofia Sideshow which has frequently updated reports out of Baslan.
UPDATE:
Sofia Sideshow comments on the T-zone worthy comments of the NYT.
Michele Catalano at Command post has put together a narrative timeline of the Baslan Massacre. Go and read it.
***
How can these crimes against such innocence be blamed on anything but the depravity of the blood-and-mayhem-infatuated ghouls who enacted them? This is in the name of justice? This is the peace of God?
The criminals seek death, let them have the annihilation they have earned.
Glenn Reynolds links to Sofia Sideshow which has frequently updated reports out of Baslan.
UPDATE:
Sofia Sideshow comments on the T-zone worthy comments of the NYT.
Yup. Whadda surprise. Cycle of Violence template. No imagination, these people!
Michele Catalano at Command post has put together a narrative timeline of the Baslan Massacre. Go and read it.
***
No moral message.
No prophetic tract.
Just a simple statement of fact;
For civilization to survive
Civilization has to remain civilized.
A very small excercise in logic
from the Twilight Zone.
No prophetic tract.
Just a simple statement of fact;
For civilization to survive
Civilization has to remain civilized.
A very small excercise in logic
from the Twilight Zone.
The Crowd that Didn't Boo
Another recording of folks not booing in Wisconsin...applauding Bushes well-wishes to
our former president Clinton when he told the crowd the breaking news of CLintons hospitalization.
The AP is still refusing to name the reporter, who filed a report claiming that the crowd of thousands booed and that Bush did nothing to stop them. They initially retracted the line about the boos, then listed another one saying "many booed", then issued yet another saying the crowed "ooed" and then cheered.
This person was present and reports there was no booing.
UPDATE:
According to Instapundit, the culprit AP reporter is Scott Lindlow.
AP should fire the bastard.
UPDATE: NOT Scott Lindlaw. Galley slaves reports When the AP story about a Republican crowd booing President Bush's well-wishes for Bill Clinton first broke at 2:12 p.m., the story carried the byline of Tom Hays.
The Lexis Nexis "paper" trail is on view...
Jonathan Last asks the same question I have - Was Tom Hays in Wisconsin at the event, or in New York? (He usually does pieces in/about NY) He mentions Ron Fournier, Frank Eltman, David Hammer, and Marc Humbert as "on the hook for their reporting about this story, as they are listed as contributing to the piece. SO which one contributed the fictional segment of the piece?
Again via Instapundit, Powerline has more on the crowd that didn't boo, and this additional first-hand account of the event. Powerline is also calling for an employment separation for the culprit.
our former president Clinton when he told the crowd the breaking news of CLintons hospitalization.
The AP is still refusing to name the reporter, who filed a report claiming that the crowd of thousands booed and that Bush did nothing to stop them. They initially retracted the line about the boos, then listed another one saying "many booed", then issued yet another saying the crowed "ooed" and then cheered.
This person was present and reports there was no booing.
UPDATE:
According to Instapundit, the culprit AP reporter is Scott Lindlow.
AP should fire the bastard.
UPDATE: NOT Scott Lindlaw. Galley slaves reports When the AP story about a Republican crowd booing President Bush's well-wishes for Bill Clinton first broke at 2:12 p.m., the story carried the byline of Tom Hays.
The Lexis Nexis "paper" trail is on view...
Jonathan Last asks the same question I have - Was Tom Hays in Wisconsin at the event, or in New York? (He usually does pieces in/about NY) He mentions Ron Fournier, Frank Eltman, David Hammer, and Marc Humbert as "on the hook for their reporting about this story, as they are listed as contributing to the piece. SO which one contributed the fictional segment of the piece?
Again via Instapundit, Powerline has more on the crowd that didn't boo, and this additional first-hand account of the event. Powerline is also calling for an employment separation for the culprit.
Polecat bloggin' is all the rage
Post-convention observ(ed)ation:
My review in five 12 words or less:
The Democratic campaign clearly exists for its dance sequences and little else.
Click pic for animation
Best viewed (open link in new window)with Sound!
Amazon has little clips for windows media and real audio here.
Original photo here (scroll down)
The Democratic campaign clearly exists for its dance sequences and little else.
Click pic for animation
Best viewed (open link in new window)with Sound!
Amazon has little clips for windows media and real audio here.
Original photo here (scroll down)
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Post-Gaston
Thought I'd never laugh again.
11 inches of rain in less than eight hours put some water in my socks.
Protein Wisdom to the rescue.
Blogging hiatus continuing for a bit longer...
11 inches of rain in less than eight hours put some water in my socks.
Protein Wisdom to the rescue.
Blogging hiatus continuing for a bit longer...
