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Wow...keep the liberal stance against anything glorifying warfare AND take a shot at the Federal Government and try and raise 1st ammendment issues in one shot...impressive...

Unfortunately the lighting raid and swift counterattack is what has Israel in such hot water in much of the world community and losing international support. Any sort of lighting raid that disregarded civilian casualties would paint the US with the same brush, giving even more propaganda to the enemy, tying is straight in with Israel in not only alliance, but tactics.

In this war you have to think outside the box of "kill enough of 'em to make 'em quit". We're on a multi-front war, and one is fighting the propaganda of the enemy. Give the enemy this kind of propaganda and you'll just replace anyone you kill with a new terrorist. To win, you have to not only kill the enemy, but deny them the propaganda to recruit. Certainly they will propagandize as much as possible, but propaganda holds much more weight when backed by truth than by supposition.

Given the probably run of Hillary, I really don't see conservatives swinging the vote over to that side of the aisle. Many conservatives disagree with a lot of Bush's policies, but still voted for him because he was the conservative candidate even if some of his policies, such as No Child Left Behind, left a sour taste in their mouth.

I find it hard to believe that conservatives would stay away in droves on a Giulliani/Rice ticket and tip the balance over to Hillary in '08. The distasteful idea of her in the office, and the conservative ideals in other areas, should make the ticket winnable. If pro-choice/pro-life is the only voting issue and both tickets sit on one side or the other of the issue, you default to other voting criteria. In this case, a lot of pro-lifers would default to other conservative ideals, and the vote should fall Republican in that case.

If both sides have the same stance, the issue becomes a moot point. Any Evangelicals that decided to sit out the election could easily be made up with the undercut of the Dem base.

Actually, compared to a Clinton/Anyone ticket, I believe that a Giulliani/Rice ticket would be a winner. The South is an interesting area in this case, as most will not vote for a woman for President, or a liberal yankee, and Hillary is both even if she is an adopted New Yorker. Jillian is still a Yankee, but he's one who is more respected down here in the South since 9/11. Racism isn't so rampant in the South anymore that Condie's color will tilt the vote. Certainly in some areas, but not wide spread enough to overcome the dislike Hillary has built up. The only two issues I see with Giulliani are his health problems he's had and some personal failings that might be used as ammo.

In the end, I don't see much about Giulliani/Rice that I don't like against Hillary, or most Dumbocrats for that matter. The ticket undercuts a lot of the Dumbocrat base, especially with careful appointment of people during W2.

Both Bosnia and Kosovo had United Nations Peace Keeping Forces stationed on the ground. Which, when you describe what UN PKF's do, is they were authorized to stand there and get shot at. But yes, both were official UN actions.

I wrote this to directly attack one point of the Kerry/Edwards platform that they have on their website. Though I'd say more like it's a framework of ideas than a solid platform.

Jobs and the "$9,000" are the way Kerry tries to get around the fact that his economy arguments were falling apart. I can almost guarantee you that we'll hear it.

John Kerry would have us believe that wages are dropping and health care benefit costs are skyrocketing. Looking at the numbers above for 2003, it's clear that he is lying through his teeth.

To begin with, John Kerry's claim that new jobs that are created pay $9,000 dollars less than the job they're replacing. Figuring a 40 hour work week (a pipe dream most weeks), that means that the average job in America pays 36,192 in 2003. A whopping 25% decrease on each job lost.

Considering that the average time of unemployment is 19.22 weeks in the same period, we see that the unemployment rolls are completely renewed 2.7 times per year. Which means that in an average year 16.2 percent of jobs in the US are lost and "recreated". If 16.2% of the jobs paid lower by 25%, the drop in wage payment rates would be very noticable. An example of 1000 jobs, all getting paid the average, illustrates this well. Of 1000 jobs paying 36000 dollars, 162 of them are lost and rehired at 27,000. What we see in this case is that the average after the entire cycle rolls through is that the average annual wage is now $34,542. This is an average hourly of 16.60, a decrease in the average wage of 4%.

The only thing countering this is the raises gained by the 82.2% of the other jobs. To break even, they'd have to climb by 6%. This means a raise of just over $2000 a year, or .96/hr on the remaining "average" jobs just to break even. I don't know about you, but I don't think the average job gets a whole extra dollar an hour.

In short, Mr. Kerry's claims of every new job paying 9000 dollars less don't stand up to the numbers and cold, hard logic.

I think that the winner on this debate is the one who capitalizes on the mistakes the other made. Kerry gave enough ammo to fuel a bonfire.

The biggest thing I'd attack Kerry on is the draft. He wouldn't have gone there if he didn't think it would be effective with the voters. The President doesn't need to even come out and say "Draft". All he has to do is make an effective ad showing Kerry talking about adding over 50,000 to our military, and also with the clip of him promising 11 million new jobs. Where does he get all these people in the military if we can't get them with an all volunteer force today? Don't even say it, just imply it. Let America do the math and come to the obvious conclusion.

Do an ad which shows a calendar with 9/11/2001 on it, then superimpose the flag of the UN, France, German, and Russia next to a big red F. "The world has already shown us what their idea of a failing grade on the "Global Test" is. How many more do we have to take before we pass?"

We won't know the winner of last night's debate until the sound bites all come out. And there, Bush has more ammo.

I belive what you are speaking of is the group of 6 "Undecided" voters that they polled after the show.

Included in the list of "undecideds" were traditional Dim voting block people. All of them said domestic issues were more important that what was discussed tonight. If this is what will decide the "undecided" vote, I fear for our nation. A few more bucks in their pocket, a bit lower gas price, saving the money from fighting the war on terror and moving it over to social programs...if these decide the election, I fear we are in for our own version of the Russian school shooting...

I find it interesting that the liberal media has such a sad grasp of our political system that they make claims such as sending people to the bench during recesses.

No matter when the appointment is made, the person cannot begin acting in any capacity what so ever until the appointment is CONFIRMED. This is why the tactic the Dems used earlier in the administration works. By stalling the confirmation vote, they keep the person out of power without sacrificing any edge they might get with swing voters for voting down the appointments and earning a reputation as uncooperative.

In addition it's amazing that the vocal Black minority is again trying to discredit one of their own who is a Republican. By using the African-American spokes-model label, they get away with defaming him and making him look like a token tool of the administration. They also discount the fact that one of Bush's closest advisors is a black woman. Or that the first in line of the cabinet to qualify for President in the case of multiple assassination attempts is a black man.

Knowing how touchy and hot button the words "Uncle Tom" are within the entirety of the country today, it comes 1/2 a step short of calling this man, and by implication any other African American in the Bush administration, just that.

Additionally he presents a false statement that Bush rejected meeting with leaders of the NAACP. Instead, knowing that people like the author of this article would simply twist words and misrepresent what he said, he declined to speak at their convention. If you know the enemy is just trying to get ammo against you, would you not avoid the situation as well?

The final thing that dismays me about this article, and it should also dismay any African American who decides to look more at the facts than at any propaganda, is the simple assumption that the community is foolish enough to just believe what is written because an African American wrote it. And the assumption on the part of the writer that he has to tell "his people" these things.

For an interesting point to go along with these, go check out http://www.snopes.com under Racial Rumors. Many of the examples of spam urban legend e-mails there end with the words, "We have to get this out and educate our people." This goes to point out that the vocal minority in the African American community are the ones writing this crud. I know if someone wanted to be a LEADER to me, not just someone shouting noise, s/he'd have to not come to me with the assumption that I needed to be educated. To assume that you are so much better than the rest of your community and that you're there to "show them the light" is insulting.

It's also insulting to these people to think that without your enlightened help, they couldn't get themselves registered to vote. If they wished to, they would. I've often filled out a registration at a booth I was walking by just to be nice, or not deal with someone being pushy and, even if I held my ground, putting me in a bad mood.

MLK, Jr., a man of great intelligence taken from us much too early, didn't educate his people. He didn't stand up at the march and say, "You don't know what's going on. You don't know what they're doing to you." He stood up and said, "You all know what's going on. It is my dream that it end. And with us all working together, we can end it."

My apologies to the late Dr. King for paraphrasing so poorly. :)

Bush will, as usual, misuse or mispronounce a 10 dollar word at at least one point in the speech. He will rouse patriotic feelings in America and make us feel like we ARE the best country in the world.

Kerry will contradict himself on at least every other question, TRY TO make us feel like America is a bunch of scum bags who are out to screw the little guy the world over, and make little sense. He will overrun his time on every question trying to get the flop out after carefully phrasing his flip.

Kerry won't come out as a blonde because he knows that the jokes would come pouring in about that being why he couldn't make up his mind on anything.

And my money on Bush's new word is flip-flopishness. :D

Nothing to worry about. First, a large percentage of the people creating web pages, especially in this heated election, are Dims who are throwing out spurious statements under the "Throw enough mud and at least some will stick" theory. Unfortunately the net is a bad place to shoot this stuff out. 1) It's worldwide, a lot of your audience is not able to vote anyhow, 2) Large portions of the very internet savy population are libs already. That, of course doesn't include us here. But they're trying to rally a population who is already in their corner, and 3) Most people won't use "I'm feeling lucky", unless they're looking for a very specific phrase. Why most people on the internet looking for a recipe for dinner, checking their fantasy sports team, paying bills and other things would even go to Google and just search "failure" is beyond me. Any search that broad is either in response to spam, in which case wouldn't the resources be better served directly linking to something of your own instead of sending them off for a quick chuckle, or in the course of research, in which case "I'm feeling lucky" is a bad choice.

Yeah, kinda frustrating, but when you analyze the actual effectiveness of the tactic, it's a waste of energy and effort. If they had any smarts they'd be sending intelligent, well spoken libs (I know, hard to find, but they ARE out there) to places like this to engage debates in a forum where a neutral party seeking "guidance" can be swayed.

Since these guys are having to use this tactic, I think they're running out of intelligent libs, or all the intelligent ones are busy trying to figure out which flip-flop can be used next to justify the flip-flop ol' Kerry just made.

Oh...yeah. Did I say better record? I meant much better record!

(3-1...GO GAMECOCKS!)

We're hanging onto a better record than Clemson over here in Columbia, so I wouldn't say this story is the only thing we have.... :P

This is a great story, and what's even better about it is Frisby himself. This is a guy who's not only served his country honorably through 2 conflicts (as a veteran of the USMC who flipped on CNN shortly after getting out and seeing my old CO on the ground in Kosovo with my buddies, I can appreciate that greatly), exposing his family to the hardships of a military lifestyle (and it is hard, constantly moving, especially with children), and then he says that the other guys are heroes. And when he gets out, he doesn't take his military training and try and roll over to a civilian job immediately, but sucks it up and goes back to college to finish whatever he started. This is an all around good guy we're talking about here.

The sad thing is all the people who do just the same thing, but don't have their stories put up on ESPN and get totally overlooked. I'm not trying to take anything away from him, but there's a lot of men and women out there who do the same thing.

JOHN KERRY HOSPITALIZED WITH GROIN INJURIES

Boston, MA

Sen John Kerry (D-MA) was hospitalized yesterday with severe groin injuries following an attempt at one final, acrobatic flip-flop, claiming respect for President Bush and a hope that they could work together in the future while delivering his concession speech. While the flip-flop was performed with the standard clumsiness that has come to be expected from Sen. Kerry, he finally achieved his desired result of coming down from on both sides of the fence. Unfortunately for Sen. Kerry, he forgot to factor in that coming down on both sides of the fence meant that his middle came down directly on it.

Sen. Kerry was rushed to a local hospital where doctors diagnosed him with severe blunt trauma injuries to the genitalia and surrounding bone structures.

"While Sen. Kerry was fortunate to not break any bones, he has suffered great injury to both testicles, deep muscle and bone contusions, and will most likely be affected with a severe case of elephantitis of the genitalia before they are truly healed," said a doctor at the hospital, who wished to remain unnamed.

Jack Shore, a Bush Campaign worker, was heard to comment at the Bush victory rally, "We always though Theresa was the only one of those two who had balls. Guess we were wrong."

President Bush expressed his condolences to Sen. Kerry and wished him a speedy recovery. Later he was overheard saying to Vice President Dick Cheney, "You know, Dick, I really do feel sorry for the sonofabitch. But I can't help but laugh when I think about him finishing that consession speech sounding like Mickey Mouse."

The only comment to the press from the Kerry camp, a sussinct, "Go f*** yourselves," was delivered by Mrs. Heinz-Kerry in the hospital waiting room.