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New Bush Guard Records Released
rwiedower writes "Over the past 24 hours, several new stories have emerged surrounding President Bush's service in the National Guard. Memos from his commanding officer seem to indicate he was unhappy with Bush's desire to leave Texas, and that he felt Bush was going 'over his head' to get out of service. In true slashdot/military/government fashion, Killian even titled one memo 'CYA'. (The memos, in pdf format, are available here.)"
Why is "over his head" in quotes? That phrase doesn't appear in the PDFs. It may be the submitter's interpretation of the sentiment expressed by the author of the memos, but the author didn't use those words.
Putting it in quotes is disingenuous and misleading.
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Just because you're on one side of Vietnam in the morning doesn't mean you can't be on the other side later in the day -- it's a skinny country, and they called these things "swift boats" for a reason.
Anyhow, Navy records, first-hand accounts from credible sources, Snopes and FactCheck.org combine to put the lie to this bullshit pretty effectively. Just because you don't *like* the facts doesn't mean you get to ignore them. Even President Bush Jr. is going to find that out.
The Libertarian Party is the only political party that seems to not be afraid to give straight answers... Michael Badnarik isn't afraid to answer the tough questions and give answers that aren't always "politically correct".
Neither is David Cobb, the Green Party candidate. Don't forget that Badnarik and Cobb have already faced off in the first Presidential debate -- probably the only debate this year that will honestly deal with the issues affecting America's future.
(Go ahead, mod me offtopic... I'm just doin' a little educatin'.)
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Heh, typical Slashdot. A bona-fide Microsoft-bashing story comes out and they miss it in favor of superficial Bush-bashing.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
IBM started selling proportional typewriters in 1941. Link here to IBM's history site.
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
Link to IBM's history site
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
That particular typewriter was electric powered, and was based on a design developed by Remington, and purchased by IBM. Marketers targeted government offices primarily, because of their common practice of using thick pads of carbon copies. The electric power could strike the paper harder than a manual typewriter.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
IBM Selectric typewriters had a single back-quote character, and a single forward quote that was also used as apostrophe. I seem to remember that they also had double back and double forward quote characters, but those may have been missing on the proportional-spaced model that I also remember somewhat. The certainly did not have the neutral double quote from ASCII. Early ASCII teletypes also had a neutral single quote, it was changed on newer systems that added the backquote as well as the lower-case characters.
Selectric typewriters also had 1/2 and some other fractions, a copyright symbol, and some others. They did not have curly braces, less/greater, and many other ASCII symbols. You could also change the ball to a "symbol" ball that had greek (this may not have been possible on the proportional models?)
Since Bush made his military records available, and Kerry has not, you can search his documents yourself and determine whether he deserved to be discharged honorably or not.
A reporter called Byron York has written a tremendously accurate article on Bush's service. I suggest you read it.
http://www.thehill.com/york/090904.aspx
Notice this particular quote:
"In 1972, there was an enormous glut of pilots," [retired Col. William] Campenni says. "The Vietnam War was winding down, and the Air Force was putting pilots in desk jobs. In '72 or '73, if you were a pilot, active or Guard, and you had an obligation and wanted to get out, no problem. In fact, you were helping them solve their problem."
Now go read the other side of the story, the side that actually reads the whole story, and make a decision.
Remember, President Bush has asked all the 527s to stop the mudslinging, including the SBVFT. He has also said that he thinks Kerry has served honorable, to which Republican audiences have cheered audibly. The Republicans officially do *NOT* question John Kerry's service.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
CYA -- Everyone in the military knows "CYA" this means "Cover Your Ass". The term is used because of the culture of the military. Most people in the military have very little social sophistication, as you might expect of people whose business is solving problems by killing other people. When something is wrong, it is dealt with by attacking, rather than inquiring and fixing.
The person who wrote the memo wanted something in the files that would show he was not part of the corruption. Without the letter, it would be assumed he agreed to the corruption. The lowest ranking person would be punished, and that might be him. The letter "covered" his "ass" from attack.
The handling of these kinds of matters back then is no different than the way the military is handling the torturing of Iraqis now. The people who did the torturing were there to KILL Iraqis. Anything less than killing them may have been thought of as gentle. There is little analysis of anything among those whose business it is to resolve problems by killing others. The leaders only think about escaping responsibility and laying blame on someone of lower rank. So, problems are almost never fixed. Anyone with a sense of idealism finds the military culture very bleak.
Credibility of the man interviewed on the CBS show, "60 Minutes II" -- Someone being interviewed told 60 Minutes last night that he found the letters completely credible: Bush really would have received preferential treatment. I found the man completely credible. That's just the way things were done back then, just as he said. If you had power, you could arrange preferential treatment. If you objected, you would either be ignored or attacked.
Typeface and font used in the letters. -- Much is being made of the proportional font used in the letters. However, I've often had the experience of walking into a military office and being shocked by the office equipment there. There are numerous ways that people in the military get things that they don't really need. For example, a general may requisition something and then discover that his secretary doesn't want to learn how to use it. So, then it is available to an office of lower rank.
The fonts are consistent with those sold with a kind of upscale IBM Selectric typewriter that was actually a low-cost typesetting machine. (Typesetting was what it was called before everyone could do it on a personal computer.) These machines had a use-once carbon ribbon. The impression of each character was clearer than the clearest laser printer.
I'm a bit confused about the model numbers of the typewriter. It could have been called a Selectric costing then about $2,500, I believe. I seem to remember that they had another name for the more upscale, true typesetting machines. (I wrote computer manuals which I typed on a Selectric and were prepared on those machines.)
There were usually some odd symbols and characters like "th" on the type balls used by the Selectric family of typesetting machines. That's because of the design of the balls. Whereever there was room, there were characters, partly to assure that the balls would be balanced, I suppose, and partly just because there was room.
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Bush's education improvements were fraud
A forgery would almost certainly have been done in a courier typeface. The forging of documents, and the forensics of relating typewritten materials to the machine of their origin is a well-known topic. Freepers need a red-herring for this issue. The next claim they will make is that the Memos originate with Hillaty Clinton.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Since you are unable to clearly specify WHAT LIE HE TOLD, all you are doing is repeating your mantra.
You are like so many others. You are unable to think for yourself. You recite the proper phrases to others to confirm that you believe what they believe, but you cannot provide any FACTS for what you believe.
Even when you have a complete article by a fellow true believer, you cannot sort through it to find a single example to support what you believe.
Iraqbodycount is only a) only counting cilivilian deaths and b) only counting deaths which have been /reported/ twice in the media. Actual civilian deaths are likely to be significantly higher. One Iraqi group estimated 35k.
Even if we assume that only 12-14k civilians were killed, the number of military casualties were much higher; the Guardian estimates up to 45k.
60k is probably a reasonable estimate for total deaths.
See also the Wikipedia article.
Also, you just made my foes list for calling someone a troll without justification.