Folks, we have a winner!
"...it's five-o-clock in the afternoon, time for the answer to today's Trivia Stumper! Meryl Basingstoke got BOTH answers to today's Stumper...

'Name a American military commander who became disillusioned after early success and actively spoke out against the United States later on... '

and yes, Meryl, you got them both right,

'Benedict Arnold AND John Kerry'!

If you'll hang on during our commercial break, we'll arrange delivery of your handsome prize, a fine New England-style Turn Coat Rack!"

Kerry's Kampf, or Will a Kerry inauguration be
Topic: War Criminal Candidates

The Court Martial of John Forbes Kerry
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Kerry's Lies and Spin
There are all the charges John Kerry should have had to face from his Vietnam years, when grunts without Kerry's family money and political connections were being jacked up for charges ranging from smuggling in empty rocket launcher tubes as war souvenirs (you can't reload an empty M-72 LAWS rocket launcher unless you have heavy connections with the people who make them - in which case, you can get brand-new ones) to some of the same atrocities Kerry admitted to before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.

I like to call this "The Court Martial of John Forbes Kerry" (in homage to "The Court Martial of George Armstrong Custer")

While as a serving member of Congress, Senator Kerry's person is immune from arrest while Congress is in session; his recall to active duty to stand before an Article 32 hearing to determine whether a court-martial on the following specifications should be convened is therefore probably unlikely.

Unlike the cast of JAG, I don't even play a military lawyer on TV (though I did listen to someone from Air Force JAG talk to my AFROTC class for an hour in 1976), so I can't speak authoritatively, but I understand that Senator Kerry would have to be impeached or lose his Senate seat in some other way (such as a drastic increase in Massachusetts voters' IQ come his next election) before anything judicial or court-martial-like happened to him.

However, it's interesting to ponder just how many ways Kerry and those who served with him say that he screwed the pooch, and what sort of trouble he'd be in if he did what he and others said he did, and was found guilty of it all.

The provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice pertinent to the conduct in which Lt.(jg) John Forbes Kerry, USN has been accused of committing (my notes explaining why I think Kerry ought to be investigated for violating each provision of the UCMJ are given in italics):

SUBCHAPTER X. PUNITIVE ARTICLES

Section 910. ART 110. IMPROPER HAZARDING OF VESSEL

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who willfully and wrongfully hazards or suffers to be hazarded any vessel of the armed forces shall suffer death or such punishment as a court-martial may direct.

(b) Any person subject to this chapter who negligently hazards or suffers to be hazarded any vessel of the armed forces shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

(John Kerry has admitted on several occasions, and this has been confirmed by no less an authority than former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, to beaching his Swift Boat against enemy-held positions, needlessly exposing his men and innocent civilians - some of whom died as a result - to enemy fire.

Kerry's demeanor on these occasions, according to witnesses, appears to have reflected intent on repeated occasions to "willfully hazard or suffer to be hazarded" his vessel - and innocent people died because of his depraved indifference to their welfare.

Admiral Zumwalt might have saved us all a lot of trouble at this point - instead of pinning a Silver Star on Kerry, he could have jumped on the chance to convene a summary court, find him guilty of Improper Hazarding and execute him right then and there.

But in fairness to the Admiral, who knew that Lt.(jg) Kerry was going to grow up to imperil the freedom of millions, first as a lobbyist for Southeast Asian Communism, then as a political hack, a supporter of two-bit dictators like Daniel Ortega, and a dedicated, tireless foe of American military preparedness?)

Section 926. ART. 126. ARSON

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who willfully and maliciously burns or sets on fire an inhabited dwelling, or any other structure, movable or immovable, wherein to the knowledge of the offender there is at the time a human being, is guilty of aggravated arson and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

(b) Any person subject to this chapter who willfully and maliciously burns or sets fire to the property of another, except as provided in subsection (a), is guilty of simple arson and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

(John Kerry testified to having committed acts of arson while serving as an officer in the United States Navy before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.)

Section 907. ART. 107. FALSE STATEMENTS

Any person subject to this chapter who, with intent to deceive, signs any false record, return, regulation, order, or other official document, knowing it to be false, or makes any other false official statement knowing it to be false, shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

(Several witnesses have alleged that John Kerry made false statements regarding combat or other action, including statements representing non-combat and self-inflicted injuries as injuries received in combat, or misrepresenting noncombat actions as combat actions in order to receive decorations for valor)

Section 928. ART. 128. ASSAULT

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who attempts or offers with unlawful force or violence to do bodily harm to another person, whether or not the attempt or offer is consummated, is guilty of assault and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

(b) Any person subject to this chapter who--

(1)commits an assault with a dangerous weapon or other means or force likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm; or

(2) commits an assault and intentionally inflicts grievous bodily harm with or without a weapon; is guilty of aggravated assault and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

(John Kerry testified to having committed acts of assault while serving as an officer in the United States Navy before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.)

Section 918. ART. 118. MURDER

Any person subject to this chapter whom without justification or excuse, unlawfully kills a human being, when he--

(1) has a premeditated design to kill;

(2) intends to kill or inflict great bodily harm;

(3) is engaged in an act which is inherently dangerous to others and evinces a wanton disregard of human life; or

(4) is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of burglary, sodomy, rape, robbery, or aggravated arson; is guilty of murder, and shall suffer such punishment as a court-martial may direct, except that if found guilty under clause (1) or (4), he shall suffer death or imprisonment for life as a court-martial may direct.

Section 919. ART. 119. MANSLAUGHTER

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who, with an intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm, unlawfully kills a human being in the heat of sudden passion caused by adequate provocation is guilty of voluntary manslaughter and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

(b) Any person subject to this chapter who, without an intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm, unlawfully kills a human being--

(1) by culpable negligence; or

(2) while perpetrating or attempting to perpetrate an offense, other than those named in clause (4) of section 918 of this title (article 118), directly affecting the person; is guilty of involuntary manslaughter and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

(John Kerry testified to having killed noncombatant persons protected by the Geneva Convention while serving as an officer in the United States Navy before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Whether, if he were found guilty of the acts he claims to have committed, the act or acts he admitted to would constitute murder or manslaughter, and which degreee of manslaughter (if applicable) is properly a matter for the court-martial panel to determine.

The deaths resulting from Kerry's Improper Hazarding of the vessel under his command might also be actionable as manslaughter.)

Section 878. ART. 78. ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT

Any person subject to this chapter who, knowing that an offense punishable by this chapter has been committed, receives, comforts, or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial, or punishment shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

(John Kerry testified to possessing knowledge regarding other servicemen's violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including acts of assault, murder, rape and arson directed at noncombatant persons protected under the Geneva Conventions, while serving as an officer in the United States Navy before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Kerry's failure to report such acts to competent military authority in a timely manner could be construed as assisting or attempting to assist them to avoid being arrested, tried or punished for such violations.)

Section 915. ART 115. MALINGERING

Any person subject to this chapter who for the purpose of avoiding work, duty, or service--

(1) feigns illness, physical disablement, mental lapse or derangement; or
(2) intentionally inflects self-injury; shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

(the manner in which John Kerry sustained two injuries could reasonably be considered self-inflicted if the testimony of other officers, including Kerry's commander during his training period, is correct.

Kerry is alleged to have attempted to misrepresent the first such injury to his training base commander as a combat wound, despite other crewmen's denial that combat occurred when Kerry was injured, and despite the evidence that the only weapon fired which could have caused the wound to which Kerry referred was the one fired at a river bank by Kerry himself.

After Kerry's commander refused to endorse his application for a Purple Heart for the wound in question, Kerry appears to have obtained the medal by means unknown to his commanding officer at the time the wound was sustained.

The second wound considered under this specification consisted of a bruise to Kerry's buttocks and lodging of rice grains in Kerry's skin after he (according to others who were present) threw a hand grenade in a cache of rice.

Again, according to others who were present, this was not done in combat. It is open to conjecture whether Kerry knowingly inflicted this injury on himself, but he claimed that it occurred in combat and was successfully awarded the Purple Heart on that basis.

The two injuries in question are alleged by other officers not to have occurred in combat, resulted from Kerry's use of antipersonnel grenades outside of combat and not according to doctrine for employment of these devices, and were alleged to have been fraudulently reported as combat injories - with the ultimate result that Kerry's tour of duty in Vietnam was shortened from the usual twelve months to four months.

Again, if the evidence supports these statements, at least one charge of malingering could be brought against Kerry)

Section 880. ART. 80. ATTEMPTS

(a) An act, done with specific intent to commit an offense under this chapter, amounting to more than mere preparation and tending, even though failing, to effect its commission, is an attempt to commit that offense.

(b) Any person subject to this chapter who attempts to commit any offense punishable by this chapter shall be punished as a court-martial may direct, unless otherwise specifically prescribed.

(c) Any person subject to this chapter may be convicted of an attempt to commit an offense although it appears on the trial that the offense was consummated.

(for trying to violate the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice which were mentioned in the allegations made against Kerry and to which he testified having committed while serving as an officer in the United States Navy before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; this article applies even though the attempt was successful and resulted in guilt of another offense under the UCMJ.)

Section 933. ART. 133. CONDUCT UNBECOMING AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN

Any commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

(self-explanatory)

Section 934. ART. 134. GENERAL ARTICLE

Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.

(self-explanatory)

NOTE: recycled from an earlier post on this blog. Since I write everything here, that's OK.

Democrats' WMD Specialist Matthew Meselson gets Lasker Prize... for 20 Years of Not Finding Soviet WMD
Topic: ...Those Who Will Not See
Dr. Matthew Meselson, co-architect of the Biological Weapons Protocol under which the United States and United Kingdom disarmed themselves of biological weapons and the Soviet Union said they would too, but instead embarked on a multi-billion-dollar biological weapons development and manufacturing effort, was awarded this year's Lasker Prize for Special Achievement in Medical Science for his work both in molecular biology and public policy.

But as a talking head for John Kerry and other anti-Reagan Democrats, Matthew Meselson vehemently denied that the Soviets were violating the Biological Weapons protocol:
- after the release of inhalational anthrax from the Biopreparat anthrax plant at Sverdlovsk in 1978, an event of which British Intelligence had good evidence, and which Meselson dismissed as an outbreak of anthrax in black-market beef in the vicinity until Biopreparat's existence was revealed in the 1990s, and;
- after the apparent trials of several chemical, biological, and/or biotoxic agents in Laos, Vietnam, and Afghanistan - and his rhetoric on these occasions was sometimes scathing towards anyone who dared speak of a possible Soviet offensive biological warfare program.

Meselson, whether wittingly or unwittingly, helped keep the Soviets' massive biological warfare development and manufacturing agency Biopreparat a secret until deputy directors of the agency Vladimir Pachesnik and Kanatjan Alibekov (who now lives and works in the US as "Ken Alibek") defected and exposed the massive degree to which the Soviets broke their treaty committments - creating a brand-new, massive government agency to break the biological weapons protocol just after they'd signed it!

Now, in exactly what way did Matthew Meselson do anything worth a Lasker Prize in connection with public policy?

The man was the driving force behind an unjust and unequal treaty that unilaterally disarmed the West of biological warfare capability while the Soviets had free rein - and used it - to amass a ghastly arsenal of weaponized smallpox and plague, which Gorbachev himself ordered placed in ICBM warheads - missiles pointed at major urban centers in the US and UK.

We know this from two of the deputy directors of the germ and virus conglomerate Meselson's treaty did so much to make feasible for the Soviets. They defected, spilled the beans, and one of them was murdered later for it.

Meselson's treaty ought to be a case study in the pitfalls of arms control - "how not to do it."

One major, specific lesson relevant to Iraq - and Democratic criticisms regarding the presence or nonpresence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq -
is the ease with which even massive stocks of weapons of mass destruction can be hidden even from intrusive foreign inspection.

The Soviets succeeded for TWENTY YEARS in operating a huge biological weapons effort despite intensive efforts of Western inspectors to pin down their location. Dr. Matthew Meselson was in the forefront of those who poured scorn on the idea that the Soviets were breaking a treaty in which, after all, he had such a large personal investment.

Given this historical background, perhaps the Democrats' flat announcement that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq deserves to be discarded as a completely unverifiable statement made only for its political value.

The Democrats' prime authority on biological warfare throughout the contentious 1980s, after all, has now earned an award based partly on twenty years' experience in NOT finding unimaginably large quantities of biological weapons in the Soviet Union.

Of course, this meshed rather nicely with John Kerry's position at the time as a hard-line Congressional liberal that we were being lied to by the intelligence community about those fanciful Soviet biological and biotoxic weapons.

Sound familiar, anyone?

This is not a good indication of the Democrats' ability - or inclination - to find WMD in Iraq.

SpaceShipOne Wins the X Prize!
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Good News for Once
THEY DID IT!!!!

The private consortium SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize by launching a tourist-capable spacecraft successfully, then launching it again successfully two weeks later!

Account of the successful flight and Branson's agreement to start the first commercial spaceline here

We science-fiction readers and writers can now pause for an official moment of smug vindication. Space tourism was made possible in a fiberglass spacecraft using laughing gas and rubber as fuel.

How cool is that?

About 4 hours ago, the good people who make 7-Up (that's a carbonated lemon-lime flavored beverage, for those reading this who don't know) announced they are celebrating SpaceShipOne's win of the X Prize by giving away a free ticket into space to some lucky person. Read Official Press Release by Clicking Here

Fans of the author Robert A. Heinlein have reason for smugness in particular, because his novel The Man Who Sold The Moon has a space-obsessed entrepreneur making precisely the sort of marketing agreements to finance a private flight to the Moon as the Ansari X Prize people are making to further the cause of private space travel.

In fact, Heinlein mentions a brand of soda pop nearly identical to 7-Up as one of the co-sponsors of the Moon flight in his book.

We knew it all along.

The Fine Points of the Debate Rules....
Mood:  celebratory
Christopher Buckley in the New Yorker on the fine points of the debate rules.

For instance:

"Paragraph Forty-two: Language.
Candidates shall address each other in terms of mutual respect
(`Mr. President,' `Senator,' etc.).

Use of endearing modifiers (`my distinguished opponent,' `the honourable gentleman,' `Pookie,' `Diddums,' etc.) is permitted.

The following terms are specifically forbidden and may not be used until after each debate is formally concluded: `girlie-man,' `draft dodger,' `drunk,' `ignoramus,' `Jesus freak,' `frog,' `bozo,' `wimp,' `toad,' `lickspittle,' `rat bastard,' `polluting bastard,' `lying bastard,' `demon spawn,' `archfiend,' or compound nouns ending in `-hole' or `ucker'."

This Election is the Republicans' to Lose - and Sure Enough....
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Stupid Party Tricks
Anyone who opposed John Kerry had reason to be elated as late as last week.

- CBS News, Dan Rather, and at least state-level Kerry supporters were implicated in a scheme to pass off fake memos about the President's National Guard service as a fig leaf for CBS' and Rather's partisan attacks on George W. Bush.

Can you imagine the furor and alarums which would have resulted if, say, it had been Brit Hume and Fox News trying to float faked paperwork about John Kerry's service record? (Not that anyone seems to be doing much with the wealth of genuine dirt on Kerry... )

- Kerry's campaign, even after a superficial "win" in the first debate, still seems stuck in neutral, with Kerry campaigners celebrating a whopping 47 percent approval rating for their man.

That reminds me of a Tank McNamara cartoon in which the protagonist, a retired football player, coaches a Little League team that just... can't... win. The team is re-energized with a new slogan - "Let's go out there and lose by less than the point spread!"

- It appears that Team Kerry may have broken the rules on the first debate, if only smuggling unauthorized material such as a pen and cards or papers into the podium.

Of course, this exposes the major problem with debate "rules" - exactly how does one enforce these rules, or even obtain a moderator who is so inclined?

In retrospect, getting Jim Lehrer to moderate the first debate was almost exactly like getting Fidel Castro to moderate the Khrushchev-Nixon "kitchen debates."

Lehrer's fellow PBS traveler Gwen Ifill promises to do no better in the vice-presidential debate, because she makes her political leanings pretty clear in her own work, often trying to present partisan viewpoints as "mainstream" ones - with the untrue implication that "mainstream" viewpoints are unbiased or even necessarily not evil.

Jim Crow was once a "mainstream" political philosophy in this country, and there were times when the national press either backed it or was too cowardly to oppose it.

Bob Schieffer from CBS News ought to recuse himself from moderating the next Bush-Kerry debate, if only because of his involvement with the ongoing smear campaign against Bush where he works.

Just where are the people from the Republican National Committee who are screaming for Dan Rather's blood? Where are the attack ads exposing "mainstream journalists" as political whores? Just where the hell is Brit Hume when we need a debate moderator?

Lee Atwater, where are you in our hour of need?

Instead of all the ineffectual mewling around, we need attack ads that harp day in and day out on John Kerry -

John Kerry, who as Massachusetts' Lieutenant Governor FORBADE his fellow citizens to participate in civil defense drills against enemy nuclear attack - at a time when the Soviet Union had a relative advantage over us in nuclear weapons and an ABSOLUTE advantage over us in biological weapons, also deliverable by ICBM.

John Kerry, whose intense lobbying of Congress pulled the US out of Southeast Asia and condemned Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodians to mass slaughter, starvation and slavery under Communist regimes;

John Kerry, who, if his votes in Congress would have been the deciding ones, would have denied our troops the Bradley fighting vehicle, the Abrams main battle tank, several product-improvements for fighter planes, bombers, missiles... leaving Soviet, Chinese and Warsaw Pact forces in clear dominance over global battlefields - and in fact, leaving the Soviet Union still a going concern instead of a bankrupt negative advertisement for Communism?

John Kerry... who never met a Marxist dictator he didn't lobby for in Congress - sort of a mirror-image Manchurian Candidate?

John Kerry... who has never publicly retracted his statements before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Communism and (his words) "benevolent dictatorship" are morally equivalent with democracy?

Where are all the ads showing us THIS loser?

All the legitimate, documented evidence anyone could ask for that John Forbes Kerry is NOT who we want as President is just lying around waiting to be published!

Why is the Republican National Committee sleep-walking?

Notice the title change? This is why....
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Dumb campaign ads STINK
I changed the heading on my blog from:

"Dr. Ugly S. Truth dissects leftist deception"

to

"Dr. Ugly S. Truth dissects PARTISAN deception" today.

Why?

Congressman Bob Beauprez, who comes up for re-election this November, has run some of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen against his opponent Greg Salazar.

An example is one currently running in which the Smarmy Voiced Man who gets so much work these days doing voice-overs in attack ads tells us in a scandalized voice that Mr. Salazar, a former district attorney, pled out or dismissed a large portion of his DUI cases.

DUH! ALMOST ALL DISTRICT ATTORNEYS DO THAT!

This attack ad is extremely misleading, at best.

It's certainly unworthy of Congressman Beauprez, who certainly was the better man in his last election.

But ads like this would make someone who didn't know Bob Beauprez's record think very badly of him.

PLEASE, Congressman Beauprez, tell your attack ads people to stop trying to out-sleaze the Democrats. You're better than that.

You just can't out-fart a skunk, and you shouldn't even try.
____

Ads like this make me wonder about this thing of Hugh Hewitt's about "always backing the Republicans."

I, personally, am a registered Libertarian, except for a brief lapse when I allowed my in-laws to arm-twist me into registering Republican.

Well, it was the late 1970s, and voting for Reagan soon became the ONLY alternative. I can't even remember who the Libertarian candidate was in the 1980 Presidential election.

Eight years later, my reason for voting Republican went away, thanks to the two-term limit.

After his inauguration, George H.W. Bush wasted no time selling about half the people who voted for him out - the gun owners, the people who read his lips and really thought he meant all that crap about "no new taxes" - all of us gullible people.

I ceremoniously burned my old Republican voter registration card and re-registered Libertarian after it became clear Bush pere didn't want my vote any longer - and haven't regretted it since.

Meanwhile, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell were busy burning the "One Big Tent" under which so many of us who aren't monolithic social conservatives assembled to support Reagan. The results spoke for themselves in 1992 and 1996, and may be about to do so again this year.

Hugh Hewitt forgot one thing about the evangelical vote - it didn't help Bush the Elder or Bob Dole (nothing short of a military coup could have helped Bob Dole).

The obnoxious way in which their ideas are often being presented is going to deflect those crucial voters who may settle this election, if they think that the President accepts them uncritically and is apt to sell out the Constitution because of them (as happened with Leon Kass's little bio-Inquisition and the "faith-based quota" system for funding some programs).

Way to lose another one to the Dems, Dude. One Narrow Teepee doesn't work.

Party affiliation has replaced patriotism as the last refuge of the scoundrel.

If you don't have character, distinct and worthwhile ideas, or a soul - but have a remorseless, psychotic need to be in power over others, join a major political party, ANY major political party, and you'll make out just fine. John Kerry did...

Clueless 2004: Kerry and his Supporters on Nuclear Bunker Busters
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Kerry=Chimp with an M-16?

Radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt is hosting a "virtual symposium" on the question:

"Did Kerry blunder in denouncing nuclear bunker busters? (BLOGGER NOTE: during the debate) If so, why? If so, how great the damage to his candidacy?"

I tried to take part in the symposium, but was either too late with my entries or not quite in line enough with Hewitt's standards to make the cut.

My answers (as appended to the symposium in comments):

"A) Of course he erred in the denunciation. You don't get a ZERO fallout plume downwind of a bunker buster nuke detonation, but it's a lot kinder to the people in the country where you do it than using, say, a B-83 (nuke dropped from an aircraft) or W-80 (cruise missile or artillery nuke) to try to dig someone or something out from under a lot of rock.

IMHO, Kerry's far too dense to get that point.

But even were he capable of comprehending it, he STILL wouldn't care, even were the detonation held upwind of Boston.

He just doesn't care. He's a cold-blooded reptile, and judging from his recorded past, has always been a reptile.

All that political posturing in favor of Ho Chi Minh and Daniel Ortega while Vietnamese and Nicaraguans were cold-bloodedly slaughtered proves all we need to know about Senator John Forbes Kerry.

B) It won't hurt him much - may even help him.

The word "nuke" resonates ominously with most Americans - "bad magic," if you will.

I'd say that with swing voters, the impact of Kerry's little dramatic turn favors him slightly, because some swing voters probably think bunker-busting nukes should have been used, say, in Tora Bora and similar places.

(Blogger Note: Oops. I meant to say "favors him ONLY slightly, because some swing voters probably think bunker-busting nukes should have been used, say, in Tora Bora and similar places.")

The people who wouldn't mind us having a few more nukes are already set-in-stone Bush voters, while Kerry may have pulled some granola types back from the Nader column back to his own "useful idiots" corral.

And THAT is why Kerry even brought the issue up at the debate - to use all that wonderful free air time to firm up the far left margin of his own voter base."

And THEN, after reading the posts of people who DID make the cut as "participants," I said:

"The developing theme in the symposium that Kerry is "going back to his hippie/radical roots" seems to miss the central point about Kerry - he's an amoral, cold-blooded political reptile.

Kerry may have issues of taste or personal preference which justify the hippie/radical label, but if he could (for example) get an immediate, guaranteed twenty-point edge over Bush by signing his name in blood (or Heinz ketchup) to a notarized document ENDORSING bunker-buster nukes, he'd do it. What he'd do after the (shudder) inauguration is anyone's guess, of course."

Finally, one particular participant, "Legenda," said:

"Legenda looks at high tech versus low tech

Do we have the technological capability to penetrate deep enough into the earth to make a nuclear explosion fallout-free, and is it cost effective? That is the real question. My guess is no.
If we had, that would be an extremely valuable weapon, if it were only cost effective. It would have to be more cost effective than occupying a small amount of territory, drilling a deep hole, inserting an atom bomb, and detonating it."

My response:

"Legenda:

Your comments regarding nuclear bunker busters are in some spots misleading and other spots totally wrong.

First, no, a nuclear bunker buster is NOT a zero fallout weapon. However, if a conventional bunker buster even reached a very deeply buried nuclear arsenal, guess what - we also get a fallout plume.

Depending on whether or not the weapons targeted were one point-safe (and the US failed rather badly in its first two attempts to achieve that capability) - my guess is that North Korea, Iran, or terrorist groups wouldn't bother to one point-safe their weapons - a conventional bunker buster would trigger precisely the sort of high-intensity, lethal fallout plume Legenda expresses concern about.

A nuclear bunker-buster, on the other hand, might stand a good chance of asymmetrically disrupting targeted enemy nuclear weapons, preventing a significant nuclear yield and allowing the fission products from both the bunker buster and target weapons to be contained largely within the hole.

That's the rationale the Nuclear Emergency Search Teams (NEST) follow when they use a (dismounted) aircraft cannon to destroy suspected nuclear weapons - intense, instantaneous asymmetrical force to disrupt the symmetry and simultaneous timing needed for an implosion nuclear device to work.

The explosive force of a directional nuclear weapon such as a nuclear bunker buster is many times more intense and directional than conventional explosives - thus much, much less likely to trigger a full-scale nuclear detonation in the targeted devices.

You'd get a "fizzle" yield that wouldn't escape the bunker, ditto a large amount of fission products, but those would be contained largely within the bunker.

Legenda's post is typical of the flawed and often absent logic used by critics of nuclear weapons programs.

These people - including Kerry - often do not have the first idea of what they are talking about."

Kerry's Saudi Family Libel - One Month Out And John Kerry Hauls Out the Pro-Grade BS
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Kerry's Lies and Spin
After the debate, John Kerry went into full Kingfish mode, with TV ads here in the Denver area shouting that George W. Bush had given special favors to the Saudi royal family.

Okaaaayyy... we - and by "we," I mean every US Government in living memory - give "special favors" to the royal families of many countries.

It's called "diplomacy," one in which I suspect is a long list of words the Kerry campaign has trouble understanding - or thinks we we're too dumb to understand.

Let's compare the candidates so far:

- a national news network has produced news programs around forged evidence against the President of the United States, thinking we wouldn't spot the forgeries as such; the forgeries were only given to CBS after the network arranged a conversation between the man with the memos and a highly placed Democratic Party official;

- the President, in the meantime, has had nothing but praise for the other guy's Vietnam record.

- Kerry starts talking about "special favors" done by the President for the heads of state of a country with which we have several alliances and with which we have fought as allies as recently as 1991 - which sounds a lot like "The President was doing what we pay him for - providing official hospitality."

John Kerry and his "war room" obviously think we're as dumb as they are - and that's pretty DUMB.

President Bush has spoken straight from the shoulder - no lying innuendo, no frantic accusations.

Which of these people would you rather know?