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What the heck are you talking about?

NSF Budget

It is possible that it is becoming more difficult to get grants, because the number of applicants is increasing faster than the funding. This does not imply funding is decreasing, however!

Finding more advanced ways of killing people was about 16 billion dollars more important according to this graph showing how the US Government divided its finances for 2004. Military spending (not including Iraq) was 399 billion. Non-military spending (NASA, education, EPA, energy, health, etc.) was 383 billion. The numbers on the graph are from the Office of Management and Budget

A statement from the bipartisan "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States" (also known as the September 11 Commission):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/should ers/CommissionStatement15.pdf>PDF link - page 5, fourth paragraph: "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

Another statement from the bipartisan "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States" (also known as the September 11 Commission):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/should ers/CommissionStatement16.pdf>PDF link - page 8, second paragraph: "We have examined the allegation that Atta met with an Iraqi
intelligence officer in Prague on April 9. Based on the evidence available--including
investigation by Czech and U.S. authorities plus detainee reporting--we do not believe
that such a meeting occurred"

George Bush, President of the United States, 31 Jan 2003, at a press conference with Tony Blair:
"[Adam Boulton, Sky News (London):] One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?

THE PRESIDENT: I can't make that claim." (White House transcript

I could go on, there are many more sources for this. But I believe this should be enough as public available evidence goes.

I'll say...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html

Why do people always assume the public to be... slobbering, inbred idiots... ?

May I please direct your attention to:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html

Corporate responsibility is a big thing. If she argues, say, that only the residents of a small town who got sick from a toxic dump can be part of the class in a class action suit against ToxicCo? What about the people who had to live next to it but didn't suffer from anything visual yet?

And how can Microsoft get away with passing the bill for software fixes to consumers?

I, for one, question her intelligence. I found a White house Q&A from late October, 2004...

Read it here!

The highlights?

Hi, I would like to say that Bush is has the right idea about the "No Child Left Behind" program. Now clebrating its second year, for the first time children in the grades 3-8 will be tested with reading and math tests to figure out their abilities to work with such subjects. Great job and keep up the good work. Billy

You may notice the flagrant grammar errors, and wonder to yourself about just how effective NCLB has been. I'd like to point out, that the above is not a question! What does Miers think?

Harriet Miers
Hi, Billy, and good next question!

Question? You'd think a laywer would be able to tell the difference between a question an a suck up, but yet... here we are!

Last March, the Council of Great City Schools released a study and reported that the achievement gap in both math and reading between African Americans and whites, and Hispanics and whites, is narrowing.

Either Whity is getting dumber, or you actually believe this program is working.

Thanks for your question, Billy.

There she goes again! WTF indeed!

The ret of the page is largley made of questions that look like they were writen by staff. No real hard, serious questions.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics, all rolled up in one.

First off, the poverty rate: Look at page 18 of this pdf. The highlights of increasing poverty for 2003-2004 are telling, but the "damned lies" comes in when you look at the government's own graph at the bottom of the page. After a peak in 1993 or so, the official poverty rate declined until you reach 2000, where it began climbing again. While it's tempting to claim the .com boom caused all of this, I would suspect that 1) the people clawing their way out of poverty were not the dotcommers and 2) and even if some rags-to-riches, or even rags-to-not-poor stories did occur in the tech world, that they didn't account for the nearly 10 million person decline in poor people in the Clinton era.

I have no idea where O'Reilly pulled those poverty numbers, but he can go ahead and stick them right back.

The funny thing is, I've never seen the words "poverty entitlements" used to describe aid to the poor before, and with it being 12-14 percent of the budget, it has to have appeared even on those simplistic pie charts showing where my dollar goes.

So what makes up this "poverty entitlement" that is sucking up an "record shattering" portion of our budget? The only thing I can get from googling for it is blogs from even more pundits claiming that this demonstrates that the conservatives do have some compassion after all. No line items match on the 2006 budget propsal, so if you've got something else that adds up to 368 billion dollars, let us know.

But at no point did the President jump up and down and scream "He's got millions of ICBMs! Let's go get 'em!" This is what everybody seems to think he said, however.

But at no point did the President jump up and down and scream "He's got millions of ICBMs! Let's go get 'em!" This is what everybody seems to think he said, however.

The blame for the events that created the situation in which Katrina could wreak so much havoc goes everywhere, and most probably a helluva lot to the state and local level.

But the blame for the response to the disaster once it occurred most definitely goes to FEMA and the dept of Homeland Security specifically, and to the federal gov'ment in general.

There's an episode of This American Life (transcript pdf) where Ira points out that the president had already signed an order declaring those areas that would be affected by the hurricane as a disaster area even before the storm hit.

The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding. -- from the Office of the Press Secretary

At that time, there should have been no more question about who was in charge, but apparently there still was. Apparently many members of FEMA were, for some reason or another, sitting on their hands and waiting for specific local persons and agencies to ask for help. This is a little naive when one considers that the level of devastation obliterated virtually all means of communication in the areas hardest hit.

In fact, it's so clear that the federal government really was responsible for the vast overwhelming lionshare of failures in the aftermath of Katrina that Mr. Bush did, eventually, I believe make some statement along the lines of an apology--something more than his initial mild statement of, "the response was inadequate".

Yeah, what he said! Who's running things these days, anyway? (Clicky)

Sure.

How about the erosion of the 4th Amendment with the USA Patriot Act?
Or perhaps the human rights violations in Guantanamo bay?
Or the government intervention in something as personal as marriage?
Or the War on Privacy, err War on drugs?
Maybe the widening gap between the rich and poor? Perhaps the government endorsing religion?

Is that a good enough start?

Bush's Vision for Space Exploration never gave a date for going to Mars. He said the Moon by 2020, and then Mars, well, sometime after that.

You are correct sir.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/nuclear- football.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football

It is something I wasn't aware of, I thank you.

Very interesting, I still do not like the idea of the President (least of all this President) being able to launch a "football" without checks and balances. That still gives the executive branch more power then I think the position deserves. Especially considering it is being written to allow for "pre-emptive" strikes.

I would HATE to see a scenario like...
"He tried to kill my Daddy." -GWB (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/27/bu sh.war.talk/)
"They have Weapons of Mass Destruction..." -GWB (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/2 0021007-8.html)
"I think I'll NUKEM!" - possible GWB (I fear this) ... that occur.

Are you kidding? Of course there was an advance response. Bush signed declarations! That's practically the same thing as hiring a competant person to head FEMA, or not cutting funding to the Army Corp of Engineers.

Nit-pick: There's no such thing as an advance response. That phrase is nonsensical, or at best oxy-moronic. Politicians and reporters sure like to use it, though. A response is defined as something that happens after an event or stimulus. Advance means before something happens. One can have a "planned response" or "advance planning."

Thank you for that fascinating string of ad hominems, misinterpretations of both my statements and motives, and uncited factually incorrect assertions. That is certainly a wonderful way to bring up the level of discourse and help others whom you believe misunderstand the situation to come to a better understanding.

As I am in a generous mood, I will go ahead and let you know the thing you desperately need to know:

No matter how earnest or angry you are, citing links to specific non-partisan sources to back up your assertions is much more persuasive than writing things you wished were true punctuated with bits of all caps ranting and using lots of exclamation points.

Here is an example. I have a position. FEMA and the White House screwed up royally in this crisis. Besides the obvious top level things like Bush staying on vacation through the disaster and for days afterwards, besides Condi Rice going on vacation after the crisis started, besides Dick Cheney staying on vacation for a week after the hurricane hit, Mike Brown screwing up so badly he was fired, etc., how else have they screwed up since the disaster started? Take a look at the evidence:

Some have denied that FEMA was responsible, or wasn't called in until after the disaster hit. This is false:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20 050827-1.html

The White House held up deployment of other state's Nat'l Guard in LA:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/ka trina_national_guard

Bush dragged his feet on rubber stamping deploying the navy - it was his job to authorize their use and he sat on his hands. The USS Bataan, a naval vessel with helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food, and water had been cruising off the Gulf since the Friday before the hurricane unable to act for more than a week:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi -0509040369sep04,1,4144825.story?page=1&coll=chi-n ewsnationworld-hed

FEMA sent back volunteers with flotilla of 500 boats:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/01/acd .01.html

FEMA prevented a convoy of Wal-Mart trucks from delivering food and water:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9179790/

FEMA won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84aa35cc-1da8-11da-b40b-0 0000e2511c8.html

FEMA turned away power generators:
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea .html

FEMA prevented the Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationa lspecial/05blame.html?ex=1283572800&en=1d14ebfbd94 2a7d0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

FEMA won't allow Red Cross deliver food:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm

FEMA blocks morticians from entering New Orleans:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15147862 &BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=68561&rfi=6

FEMA snubbed Chicago's offer o

We'd have o have constant impeachment hearings and the best we would be left with is http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/norton-bio.ht ml
She is pretty cute though.

Unfortunately the only feasible thing is to wait for 2008 hoping W doesn't get us all killed or bankrupt by then.

She is kinda cute for a Republican

Fool - there were national guard left in the state, and the state government let them sit around. The state government was advised to preposition everything they had before the storm hit to help keep order and control post-hurricane. They did not. They heeded no warnings. You obviously spend too much time listening to Sean Hannity. The governor declared a state of emergency on August 26th, several days prior to the hurricane. His statement that *most* of the LA national guard being in Iraq is indeed incorrect. About 30% was, along with about 50% of the National Guard resources. Requesting national gaurd from other states requires the approval of the Federal Government. A request was made. The request was not granted until 9/2, after the hurricane had made landfall a full 24 hours prior. The president himself declared Lousiana a National Disaster on Friday, two days prior to the hurricane landing. At that point, it became the duty of the federal government's (Department of Homeland Security, specificially) responsibility. According to the President's own directive (HSPD-5): The Secretary shall coordinate the Federal Government's resources utilized in response to or recovery from terrorist attacks, major disasters, or other emergencies if and when any one of the following four conditions applies: (1) a Federal department or agency acting under its own authority has requested the assistance of the Secretary; (2) the resources of State and local authorities are overwhelmed and Federal assistance has been requested by the appropriate State and local authorities; (3) more than one Federal department or agency has become substantially involved in responding to the incident; or (4) the Secretary has been directed to assume responsibility for managing the domestic incident by the President. Now consider that only 1 of these 4 conditions need be met. Considering that the president declared the area a national disaster prior, the feds had already taken on (1). The call for "everything you've got" seems to pretty much state as clear as anything I can see that the local and state governments were pretty clearly overwhelmed, meeting criteria (2). The coast guard, national guard, fema, as well as non-governmental agencies like the Red Cross, feed the children, etc, etc, were all involved, meeting criteria (3). Now, I'm not sure if the president specifically directed the Secretary to become involved, but it's pretty clear at least that he knew the secretary was down there and attempting to manage the situation. If he did, that would match criteria (4), if not, the other (3) still hold up. You can see the Presidential directive for yourself: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20 030228-9.html So yeah, the government screwed up bigtime... but it was the state's and city's faults entirely. It isn't the federal government's job to protect states in this situation... mereley to augment or aid them. So yeah, the government screwed up big time... But it was the federal government's fault entirely, based upon the President's own presidential directive. It was the duty of the Department of Homeland (In)Security to coordinate and (mis)manage and request the appropriate resources immediately upon the declaration of disaster and request by the local and state governments for aid. I think it's ironic that republicans place blame for the (mis-)handling of this disaster purely on local and state government officials, particularly when (Republican) Hailey Barbour of Mississippi would be equally accountable. So, go ahead, and keep ranting the right wing talking points, but the federal government spelled out pretty clearly who to blame here: itself. I keep wondering why it's the federal government's job to build levies in NO, a city. Nevertheless, it would have taken a whole hell of a lot more money than what was asked for by *anybody* to get the levies category-4-hurricane-ready. Consider that the

Anyway, I basically reject his fuzzy hypothesis in favor of a clarifed version of what you may have been trying to say. To whit:

There are reasons for dumbing things down in "free" advertiser-sponsored media, and that is the root of the problem for science reporting, too. While there were some tendencies earlier, I think it really started developing in the radio days, reached new heights in the days of television, and (very sadly) is the direction that most of the Internet is going.

These publishers are NOT interested in created better informed and more selective thinkers. Remember who is paying the bill: the ADVERTISERS. What do advertisers want? The best educated customers? Nope. Only one advertiser (for a given product category) wants that, the one who makes the product offering the best value. If all of the potential customers were equally well educated, there would be slight variation for individual needs, but by and large all of them would select the same product, and all of the other makers would go down the tubes.

Except for the actual maker of the product with the best value, all of the other advertisers want to lie to you, and they've become VERY good at it. Lousy science reporting is just one of the minor symptoms of this social affliction. The current crops of miserable failures in political offices is much more serious.

I think that the evolution of the human brain is clearly a Miserable Failure.

actually when asked DIRECTLY by the press, Bush's Press Secretary wouldn't saw what, if anything, Bush suggested/asked related to the coming Hurricane. Link

Also buried in there is the fact that Bush never even gave the order to *use* the military. He ordered them to be ready to go, but never bothered to send them in until days later.

Is Bush responsible for the 'unacceptable' response to this disaster? No, he's not. But is he ultimately 'accountable'? You damn well bet he is. These are his federal appointees that are macking a mockery of relief, and so he's accountable for putting unqualified people in place.

And since he's obviously put unqualified people in before...you can bet any new Bush appointees will be seriously questioned in the future.

Sorry to have to break it to you, but just because the people you voted for spin it a certain way, doesn't mean you have to believe it... I'm not sure if you are a liar, you're too trusting, or just simply brainwashed. In either case, nothing I'll say will change your mind. Maybe this link will, though.. Note the date, and this section: Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency (emphasis mine).

yeah, that's what the miserable failure is saying right now.

Yeah, Bush sure does hate women and minorities!

Consider that it is mainly the poor neighborhoods inhabited by blacks and Mexicans where law and order are maintained only by the presence of police. Generally speaking, the middle and upper class live outside US cities in comfortable suburbs.

This is America's dirty little secret, and Mother Nature has washed the whole thing out in the open for the rest of the world to see. Almost 30% of New Orleans residents live below the poverty line. Almost all of them are black. The truth is, we have a *huge* number of people in this country who live beneath the poverty line. Many of them canot afford even basic health care or food for their families, so they turn to drug dealing and prostitution to make more money. There are practially NO jobs and nothing for these people to do so they suck off the nipple of the government and sit around idle, getting into all sorts of mischief. Look what's happened to Detroit to get a small taste for what this urban decay looks like.

I'm embarrassed to say also that the most powerful country in the world has no national health care system! Most of the "working poor" in this country such as the Wal-Mart employees have no access to even basic health care for their families. Even Costa Rica has a basic health care plan for all its citizens!

We have already received thousands of refugees here in San Antonio, Texas. I've been listening to the police scanner the last couple of days and it's a complete mess. The last part I heard today, someone was asking where to deliver some insulin, and the reply was that nobody was available to answer the question, because most of the gov't office supervisors were OUT OF TOWN for the 3 day weekend!

These days I am embarassed to be an American, which has become something completely different than what the founding fathers envisioned.

How about a comparison between Bush watching the National Guard and military take a WEEK to trickle into New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf, and his swift action authorizing the National Guard and military to mount yet another assault in Iraq? Where he announced the "end of major combat operations" two years ago.

How about a comparison of the despair of New Orleanians with the smirking fratboy showing up for his 1 minute photo-op in an airport miles from the city:

"I believe that the great city of New Orleans will rise again and be a greater city of New Orleans. (Applause.) I believe the town where I used to come from, Houston, Texas, to enjoy myself -- occasionally too much -- (laughter) -- will be that very same town, that it will be a better place to come to."

Ask New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin to compare Bush's priorities.

How about a comparison between Bush's America in 2006, 2007, 2008, when disaster #3, "Giant California Earthquake" hits, and OUR America, after he's impeached, resigned, any way to get this miserable failure out of the critical path of administering our country?

We need to demand that the government mobilize the Homeland Security we've spent $BILLIONS on, sacrificed our rights for, to protect us, mobilize it INSTANTLY. We need to send help, money and time, to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, to save these people from the government that let them down, that abandoned our people when we needed it. We need to fire every one of our representatives in the House of Representatives next year, in November 2006, when they're all up for reelection, and the Senate - where 1/3 is up for reelection, if they did not do what they could to fight the neglect and demented failure to plan and assist the mitigation of this total disaster. After the criminals who built this house of cards now collapsed in New Orleans are fired, we need them to prosecute the impeachment of Bush, Cheney (where the hell is he, anyway?), Homeland Security's Chertoff, FEMA's Michael Brown, Army Corps of Engineers' boss Rumsfeld, Grand Inquisitor Gonzales, and the rest of the gang of preoccupied thugs. The worst of them deserve jail, even the traitor's noose. As for Bush himself, only suicide by slow torture could begin to approximate "justice" for his crimes. But getting him and his dynasty out of control is absolutely the least that could possibly be adequate.

By the way, that's actually an important point: As far as I know from my studies of history, the police themselves are never the instigators of police states, just as terrorists are never the instigators of reigns of terror. The dark "oxymoronic" side of English?

Of couse it's impossible to know exactly how the present will look from the historical perspective. Some elements are clear, such as Dubya being a miserable failure, but I have trouble imagining how they will label the dominant philosophy of these times. Royal fascism?

This article sounds like something Ann Coulter would write.

1) subscription-only army might be a good thing. those who support war can pay for it. how is this bad?

2) i find it amusing that you consider public education to be 'free'. this statement tells me you pay no property tax. when you decide to move out of your parent's basement, you might be surprised how much this 'free' education actually costs.

3) individuals with a public high school education are already a massive underclass. most 2/4 year college graduates fall within this same category. try living a comfortable lifestyle with the income provided by a job right out of high school.

4) governments (at least in the US) do not spend money wisely. please note that this does not mean that all money is spent unwisely. have you checked out the federal budget for 2006 (summary? we will have a 49.0% increase in discretionary military spending, 9.6% DECREASE in agriculture, 11.5% DECREASE in housing and urban develpoment, 5.5% DECREASE in justice spending, and 2% DECREASE in energy spending. do you think it is wise to cut spending of programs which directly affect the quality of life of americans so that the money can be spent decreasing the quality of life of individuals overseas?

Get an atlas. Hows 'bout you get on with your life and try not to use every conversation a little forum to spew your agenda.

The reason I bring that up is that it would be incredibly helpful for the continent of Africa to have its countries that are able to feed people prosperous and whole.

Bush also said Thursday he would support easing the debt burden on many of Africa's countries and push for the completion of free trade negotiations.

Mad Cow

How about instead we say "Awww, them dang /. writers. What do they know?"

Seriously, the title of this story posted on /. is "Ice-Free Summers Coming To Artic". The first sentence is "CNET reports that researchers from the University of Arizona and other universities have concluded that the Arctic will likely see ice-free summers within a century due to the increasing rate of global warming". Already, one may note the fairly radical change of tone from the attention grabbing headline stating with some certainty that something is going to happen to the summary which states its only "likely". But then for the very few of us who actually go on to RTFA, we see that it contains neither of those sentiments. It does not say this is certain to happen, or even that it is "likely". What it says is a more cautious "Ice-free summers--a phenomenon that hasn't occurred in the Arctic in a million years--could become a reality in a century because of warming trends, researchers said".

For some reason I cannot understand, people like you want to reduce the argument to a "We know it will happen" vs. "We know it won't happen" argument. Unfortunately, neither is true. We don't know what will happen in the next hundred years or so, we know what might happen. The Earth's climate depends on a number of factors, CO2 is only one of many.

"So, the evidence is mounting to the point where even the Bush administration is having to acknowledge that global warming is a reality."

Lets put aside for the moment that he did, I know it pains you to not be able to bash Bush on something.

Why? What do you expect him to do, make sure he remembers to turn off the lights to the Oval Office? Launch a giant mirror into orbit to reflect sunlight? If you were to actually RTFA, if their calculations are right at this point these changes are inevitable. Buying hybrid cars that get maybe ten more miles to the gallon won't do squat. Hell we were probably doomed by the 70's.

In North America we have crumbling infrastructure, budgets on everything from education to health being slashed, and crumbling cities.

I'm not sure what budgets you're talking about. When I look at the OMB's historical federal budget data

I see that health, medicare, education and income security are all being funded with increasing amounts of money.

I believe it's because if you accept federal funding, any federal funding, you cannot use the funding in any small way for your embryonic stem cell research.. Ie lighting, counterspace, et al used for the federal research cannot also be shared for your embryonic stem cell research. It is not cost effective to have a separate unit just for embryonic stem cell research, hence private organisations in the USA now study embryonic stem cells in very limited numbers. Straight from Bush's mouth:


  No federal funds will be used for: (1) the derivation or use of stem cell lines derived from newly destroyed embryos; (2) the creation of any human embryos for research purposes; or (3) the cloning of human embryos for any purpose.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20 010809-1.html

They have a bunch of wild animals in Washington, too.

you still have monkeys roaming free right ?

I believe this came about from Michael Moore (and others) creating links that say miserable failure and link to GWB's biography.

If you'll notice, Michael Moore's site shows up next on this list despite the fact that it no longer contains the "miserable failure" link.

I short, if you create a link to a site, the words in your link will also be associated with that site.

When asked for personal information, I usually enter:

Name: George W. Bush
Address: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washingon, DC 20500, (202) 456-1414
E-Mail: president@whitehouse.gov

I find this useful when applying for the discount cards at the local supermarkets.

Hahaha!! Here is his website. Let's bring his servers down!

the problem is that the DST change in the bill that the President just signed goes into effect next March. Given the increasing number of devices that include clocks and/or calendar functionality, that's a lot of things that need to be modified to reflect the change. I'm not sure if 7 months, give or take, is enough time to do that.

This could have serious consequences if medical or financial devices don't get updated -- devices that dispense medication too early or too late, traders that can't submit stock transactions because a computer thinks the market is still closed or just closed ...

The terrorists have had a web presence for quite some time.

Well it kinda was 'E' - i don't see anyone else on that list who overthrew the German government, executed several million people, took over half of Europe, started a world war, and influenced a conflict with America and Japan which ended in the first ever use of nuclear weapons.

But then you could probably make a case for all of those people.

How about this one:

"THE PRESIDENT: We found the weapons of mass destruction."

This statement was made on May 29, 2003 however, slightly past the timeframe you mentioned.

You might want to read letter of Bush to Congress that was linked by a grandson of your post. I'm just repeating it because it may escape your attention, as the poster didn't reply to you directly.

Although GWB doesn't directly say that the links exist, it is absolutely evident that he wanted to imply it (see point 2). Please note also that the document linked comes from the White House site, not an external "source".

We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.

  While not explicitly declaring Iraqi culpability in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, administration officials did, at various times, imply a link. In late 2001, Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed" that attack mastermind Mohamed Atta had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official. Later, Cheney called Iraq the "geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

Bush, in 2003, said "the battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001."

Beyond the Sept. 11 attacks, administration officials have also suggested that there had been cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda that went beyond contacts. Bush last year called Hussein "an ally of al Qaeda." Just this Monday, Cheney said Hussein "had long-established ties with al Qaeda."

Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate

March 18, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

Think if we had waited for a full analysis of Iraq's WMD's

There's a certain visceral satisfaction in seeing advocates of hate and violence silenced...

Bush told Bob Woodward:
"We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defence of our great nation."

Who's silencing Bush? His website is still up.

Q But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban.

You said: "due to the direct intervention of Bush that public funding for stem cell research was banned in the USA."

Now here is exactly what Bush said:

"As a result of private research, more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines already exist. They were created from embryos that have already been destroyed, and they have the ability to regenerate themselves indefinitely, creating ongoing opportunities for research. I have concluded that we should allow federal funds to be used for research on these existing stem cell lines, where the life and death decision has already been made." http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20 010809-2.html

It wasn't hollow, I am a republican, and I hate liberal hippie assholes. George Bush supports bullshit stem cell research ,though half heartedly. In his own words http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20 010809-2.html Animal stem cells. pfft http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?ne wsid=24906 The US president said he will veto any bill that backs embryonic stem cell research. The president is being a fucking pussy and is scared to piss of the religious right. I do not understand how he can have balls when it comes to Iraq, but not this issue. Also, as much as I treasure my intellect, I think I like my hatred a bit more. Thanks for caring though.