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Unbelievable performance. Some memories I have:
"It's kind of one of those, 'exaggerations'..." ~Bush
Ooh, that's gotta hurt.
"It's an empty promise. It's called 'Bait & Switch'..." ~Bush
Ouch again.
He nailed the gay marriage question (possibly treacherous) square and blasted Kerry on... well, having no plan. That and Kerry had to bring up Cheney's daughter. That's just not cool. Let her go, she's got nothing to do with this.

My favorite is that Kerry won't let this container cargo thing go. Does anyone know how many containers go in and out of US ports every year? I don't know exactly, but it's a heck of a lot. How much would it cost to open them all up? A heck of a lot. That and they're all inspected before they're ever closed an put on a ship. Why do it twice? We have the cargo manifests anyhow, we know what's in there. And oh, I've got a great one, let's x-ray the cargo holds of all airplanes. WHY?! Aren't they EMPTY before we put in already x-rayed luggage? Let's force airline companies (which are already suffering financially because of security) to buy HUGE x-ray machines to shoot at their planes. Great idea. Really novel. Sorry but no. I'm really glad Bush called his bluff on that one.

hey,

Good comments, brother. On the Container Inspection issue, I can shed a bit of light on that. I was a Coast Guard Marine Inspector from 1991-1997. Vessel Inspections - under our side of the "Marine Safety" branch of the USCG responsibilities - included container inspections.

Sometime around latter '95 to early '96, the Guard was tasked with improving the container inspection program. We answered as the Coast Guard always has - Semper Paratus (Always Ready) - and tackled the problem head on as we do everything else on our plate. The prime reason for this tasking was that at the time, only about 2% of containers were being inspected in the States.

Though I've been out of the game for a while now, I can tell you that the Coast Guard - without much more added in materiel resources (funds, ships, men...) quickly got that rate up to about 5-7% of all containers arriving into the Continental US. As I mentioned above, we are Always Ready; but Congress has gotten so used to our "Can Do (... and actually Getting It Done!) attitude/record of accomplishments that there is always room for improvement.

The above, despite a memorable increase in coverage of 300%, is still a low percentage. It does not tell the whole story, though. Containers were and are inspected in non-US ports. We are not the only ones concerned and working with safety issues. Many nations participate in a series of treaties (such as SOLAS - the SAFETY OF LIFE AT SEA) that are structured to provide a very effective net between the participatory nations whose goals are to ensure that standards of navigation and commerce ensure safety for human life, navigation and the environment (while at the same time recognizing that freedom of commerce is vital to the United States - and the world - economy) are met.

This is achieved by each nation acting as a node in what could be described as one part in a net of multiple "sensor" levels ( ports outside of the United States - where if a shipping company gets negative points on inspections in other ports of participating nations, COGARD inspections resources attach more attention to a vessel from that company that visits our ports) which have the effect of synergistically improving the world-wide canvassing of the "bad guys" as well as the safety of human life.

Of course, there are penalties for a participatory nation &/or shipping company that violates the treaty through non-compliance (be it through slacking of standards-met, or inspection standards and reports discovered in later visits to other ports, etc...) - these can range from higher insurance premiums (which can cause increased rates shipping companies for registered to those nations pay - "bad for commerce", etc...). The important goal that everyone in this business knows is that safety and security standards must be met so that commerce can flow more smoothly and without unnecessary delay, but not compromised (in the interest of that same need for commerce) against what is the de-facto prime directive of the treaties in the first place: Safety First.

This approach is not unlike the current paradigm in the world of technology where you can secure a network or computer to the point where it locks down all threats - but at the cost of user productivity being lowered in the resulting lockdown.

Acquired wisdom and common sense dictate that safety is best served by getting the protection scheme active in two key areas: at the "hard target" level (the actual inspections) and the more important "soft target" level: the users who are simultaneously [A] the target of the threat; [B] endeavoring to protect themselves; and [C] are best prepared to protect themselves when they have the technology and the ability to use it effectively). This requires that changes - whether in my network simile or in how security against terrorist threats improves at an efficient pace - be "good enough" to evolve at pace that the threat does not become a reality and yet not so fast or seemingly irrational as to decrease the users ability to implement the changes. In this regard, safety is in the interest of ALL nations.

But we have to come back to the percentage of actual coverage - solid numbers are comforting, even if also capable of inducing a false security when we get to a number that, say (like 80 or 90%) lets us believe that we are doing a "good enough" job (and perhaps thence lulling us into a sense of false security?). As mentioned above, I've been out for awhile now, and couldn't answer that question with hard data. I can tell you from my experience with and faith in the Coast Guard that this number is much higher than what Senator John - "Plan being a Litany-of-Complaints" - Kerry says it is.

Hope this helps... Semper Paratus.

CGVet58