Logic & Sanity

Osama Video

I haven't commented on the new Osama video, since it came out, because I am still trying to make sense of it. I've believed all this time that he was either dead or close to it (due to his kidney problems). He just looks way to healthy for the video to be current.

Baldilocks asks: Is this a video of a living man?:

“Osama bin Laden":

It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face these horrors alone," he said, referring to the number of people who worked at the World Trade Center.

As she points out:

50, 000? That number was the casualty estimate on the very day of 9/11/01. It was 6,000 some days later. Finally the number was narrowed down to a bit over 2,800 (in the towers; mercifully low, but still 2,800 or so too many)..

Chelsea will make a fine politician one day.

So, Chelsea Clinton gives her first political speech today. Normally, I wouldn't mention it except for this:

Chelsea declared things were safer in America while her dad was president.

"We proved we could be safe and secure at home, and still have more allies and friends in the world."

She promised Kerry and Edwards would finish the work her dad started during his eight-year run as president.

Wasn't her daddy in the office when the first World Trace Center bombing took place?

Apparently,

The main reason that the World Trade Center did not collapse was due to the towers' strength and the fact that Yousef did not have enough money to build a more powerful bomb.

Surprisingly, Chelsea did not mention Bubba declining several Sudanese offers to hand over Osama:

On two separate occasions, they were given an opportunity to extradite or interview key bin Laden operatives who had been arrested in Africa because they appeared to be planning terrorist atrocities.

None of the offers, made regularly from the start of 1995, was taken up. One senior CIA source admitted last night: 'This represents the worst single intelligence failure in this whole terrible business. It is the key to the whole thing right now. It is reasonable to say that had we had this data we may have had a better chance of preventing the attacks.'

Dr. Matos

Brooklyn man who played doctor gave gynecological exams to home health aides and swindled elderly Williamsburg neighbors out of money, police sources said yesterday.

David Matos, 39, conned at least eight neighbors, including an 89-year-old woman, out of medical "fees," but said there may be more because some of his known victims were too embarrassed to come forward.

During his visits to their homes, Matos also met four health aides and told them he worked for their company and needed to give them a gynecological exam to allow them to continue doing their job.

Heh.

P.C. Crap

Frustrated by students in his dorm taking the elevator up and down one or two floors, University of New Hampshire sophomore Timothy Garneau thought he had the perfect solution.

The Berlin native decided to post fliers throughout his dorm, Stoke Hall, joking that freshman women could lose the "Freshmen 15" by taking the stairs instead of using the elevator.

Now, Garneau, 20, is living in his Ford Contour in the student parking lot for the rest of the semester after university officials evicted him from the dorm when they found him guilty of violating policies on affirmative action, harassment and disorderly conduct, according to a civil liberties organization.

Holy crap!

"We got you Al Sharpton. What more do you want?"

On Saturday, Oct. 16, Kerry gave a speech at a high school in the small town of Xenia, outside Dayton. Nearby is Wilberforce University — the oldest private historically black institution of higher learning, whose president is former Rep. Floyd Flake (D-Queens).

A rally, mainly of students from Wilberforce and its sister school, Central State University, was staged at the Wilberforce campus. Organizers were led to believe that if there were at least 100 people, Kerry's motorcade would make a quick stop.

Eventually 150 students and supporters — including congressional candidate Kara Anastasio — gathered for four hours on a cold (rainy and snowy) Ohio day.

And the Kerry caravan drove right on by. All the long-suffering got from the candidate was a clenched "victory" fist out the window.

According to Shavon Ray, president of Wilberforce's NAACP, the students were devastated — with comments such as "This is why I don't vote."

Ray told the local NAACP chapter the affair was a "slap in the face."

After the incident — and Ray's criticism — made the local paper, the Democratic Party sent one Ken Miller to Wilberforce to meet with Ray. He offered 50 tickets — and 8 VIP tickets — to a Kerry event in Dayton.

Ray declined what she saw as "hush tickets." Taking seriously the idea that the NAACP is supposed to be non-partisan, Ray turned the tickets over to Wilberforce's student government.

Next, Miller offered to have Rev. Al Sharpton stop by as a speaker. That annoyed Ray even more: "We don't want a black face to speak to black students."

The final straw was when Miller said Sharpton would be sent to speak to Central State University — along with X-rated rapper Foxy Brown.

When Ray reminded Miller that they didn't want anything to do with Sharpton, Miller allegedly responded, "What do you want — Kerry to lose the f---ing race? We got you Al Sharpton. What more do you want?"

Yea. What more do they want? How dare they? And how dare he?

www.lenta.ru, a russian news site,

www.lenta.ru, a russian news site, has an online poll - "Bush or Kerry". So far its 62.5% for Kerry and 30.08% for Bush. Also, the site informs its readers that John Kerry is not related to Jim Carrey.

Meanwhile, Germany's largest newspaper, Bild, endorses Bush. Medienkritik translates:

1. Bush has clear priorities. He sees the inhuman Islamic fundamentalism and the

murderous mullahs as the largest danger for the Western world.
2. Bush has learned the lessons of history. Military strength, not pleasant talk, is the only thing that helps against violent fanatics. And with Bush -- unlike with Kerry -- there is no doubt about this.

3. Under Bush, the US, as a superpower, will continue to bear the financial, military and casualty burden in the fight against terrorism in a "holy war" which Islamic fanatics unilaterally declared. ... read the rest...

Left wing Stern comes out for Kerry.

Stern's Chief Editor Thomas Osterkorn writes:"With John Kerry a more reconciliatory President would occupy the White House. He is simply closer to the Europeans and the Germans."

Bookmark David Medienkritik's blog for an outstanding English language coverage of the German media.

"Reporting for duty!"

The first documentary evidence that Vietnamese communists were directly steering John Kerry's group Vietnam Veterans Against the War has been discovered in a U.S. archive, according to a researcher who spoke with WorldNetDaily.

John Kerry testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.

One freshly unearthed document, captured by the U.S. from Vietnamese communists in 1971 and later translated, indicates the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese delegations to the Paris peace talks that year were used as the communications link to direct the activities of Kerry and other antiwar activists who attended.

Big brother

In a letter of clarification requested by a traveling minister, the Internal Revenue Service has declared people gathered in tax-exempt churches can't pray for President Bush to win the election on Tuesday.

Nope, not from The Onion. Real news.

Related story:

At least two organizations are monitoring the content of Sunday sermons by U.S. pastors and threatening to report churches to the Internal Revenue Service if they hear political messages they deem inappropriate under federal guidelines on tax-exempt status.

and another:

The local Democratic Party is supporting an Internal Revenue Service investigation of an Arkansas pastor who is accused of delivering a pro-Bush sermon July 4.

"How dare he...?"

NY Post prints an open letter to John Kerry from a father whose soldier son is off to Iraq.

John Kerry makes me weak in the ankles — and now it's personal, not business.

In the next few days, there will be a person reporting for duty in Iraq. His name is Army Capt. Peter J. Dunleavy.

Capt. Peter J. Dunleavy is not one ounce more special than the guys and gals he will go to Iraq with — no more special than the thousands of the brave boys and girls who have gone before him, and those who will certainly go after him.

He is, of course, special to his wife, Debbie, his mother, Gloria, his brother, Sean, Sean's girlfriend, Laura — and his friends in the sports bars who cheer for the Giants.

He is special to me, as are all the thousands of boys and girls who serve this country, because he looks at fear as a headache and duty as the ultimate.

And yet, John Kerry makes it look like those guys and gals are just victims — wrong war, wrong time, wrong place.

How dare he say that to our brave boys and girls? How dare he whisper it — let alone shout it to the whole world?

Read the rest here.

Family values

A Long Beach man ambushed a couple in front of a Long Beach nightclub, then hopped in a getaway car - driven by his mom, cops said.

Heh...