Political Rants

THERE'S SOMETHING VERY WRONG WITH THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS-as told by Paul Johnson

Chapter 1

There's something very wrong with the Magic School Bus

In this wondrous day and age that we call America, there are some things that cause us all to wonder if we would all be just a little bit better off had they never come to exist. While most of the mature adult population over the age of three would say barney is public enemy number one, I am convinced that the powers that be are protecting a far more sinister plan to undo all the progress that great works of drug induced animation to the tune of Blue's Clues and Transformers have done to bolster the American image abroad. We've got it pretty good in the USA, I mean any nation that has an industry entirely devoted to the creation of TV shows for a market that barring homicidal tendencies is more likely than not under the age of three, already struggling to keep up with the onslaught of early childhood learning devices being hurled at them by logic deprived adults, and probably in it for all the pretty pictures, has probably got a pretty good hold on things. But alas, flying underneath the radar of reason is one Ms. Frizzle and her magic school bus of mental instability. In times like this when everyone is trying to figure out why the hell there are so many kids on that wondrous pill known as Prozac and divorce rates are going up at a rate comparable to the steroid intake of WWF wrestlers, it's comforting to know that all is well in a magical time and place where a terminally depressed teacher with suicidal tendencies and her handpicked class that will one day become the basis for new master race of intellectually superior Frizzleites who will use the Democratic National Headquarters as their springboard to world domination, can take field trips into someone's body via a potato chip or visit the vast marijuana fields of Southern California with the press of a little red button and with no parental waiver in sight. Although it must be noted that the Public Blasphemy System otherwise known as PBS, has publicly declared that it's mission is to enrich the lives of young children nationwide by keeping them indoors, its good to know that viewers like you are taking to the streets in opposition of the corporate sponsors responsible for the continuance of the only method known to kill off brain cells faster than Johnny Cochran. VIVA LA REVOLUTION!!!

Arnold for Governor

Arnold Schwarzenegger announced last night on Jay Leno?s tonight show that he shall be running for governor of California. Firstly, I ask, ?What party is he running on? (I automatically assume republican since his father was a Nazi) and yes, he is running as a republican. He seems to me as though he would be a good candidate for governor, and if I lived in California I would vote for him. Lastly I want to state once again that Jesse Ventura did wonders for our dear state and with all the Democrats bitching about his conservative ways people become blinded to the facts and hop on the diss the bald guy band wagon.

One last time...

A long time ago, this forum underwent a troubled period known as the Iraq debate. But if you insist on prodding me for info, here goes. I urge you to take this evidence of yours with a very large grain of salt. The truth is, at this point, no one knows the full extent of Sadam's arsenal. It is inevitable that some WMD's do exist. The problem lies in finding weapons hidden by a madman who considered his people little more that human shields. Furthermore, for the time being we have no way of knowing how many WMD's were destroyed during the UN's 13 year lapse of enforcing it's own Security Council Resolutions (this being more than the US). Watch where you point the finger, being the world's foremost superpower the US has been given the job of global cleanup, and the burden of bearing the consequences of the world's ignorance. Be careful when you so easily over look the damage a corrupt government can do to a nation. The fault for this war, does not and never has been on the US's hands. Alex, how can you so easily overlook the hell that Sadam is responsible for, and furthermore the UN's gross failure to deal with him. For the UN, it's far easier to wash their hands of the situation and pass their burden of responsibility from meaningless resolution to meaningless resolution. Don't forget about France who hid behind the veil of peace to protect their multi-billion oil contracts with Sadam's regime. Unlike you, who through meaningless spiting are so eager to strike a blow for those who only see one side of an issue, even if no WMD's are found, this will not become the "greatest scandal in US history." I am still yet to hear an answer why the UN still refuses to make their word mean something, and Alex, you want proof of the UN's ineptitude... here it is.

Instead of taking the action necessary to ensure Iraqi compliance in the future, it "condemned" or "deplored 10 times the failure of Iraq to abide by conditions set by the Council (this being more than just the United States.) Listed below is a sampling of those...

UNSCR 1060: "Deplores" Iraq's refusal to allow access to UN inspectors and Iraq's "clear violations" of previous UN resolutions.

UNSCR 1134: Repeated refusal of Iraqi authorities to allow access" to UN inspectors, which constitutes a "flagrant violation" of UNSCR 687, 707, 715, and 1060

UNSCR 1137: "Condemns the continued violations by Iraq" of previous UN resolutions, including its "implicit threat to the safety of" aircraft operated by UN inspectors and it's tampering with UN inspector monitoring equipment.

UNSCR 1205: Condemns the decision by Iraq of 31 October 1998 "to cease cooperation" with UN inspectors as "a flagrant violation" of UNSCR 687 and other resolutions.

The UN has adapted the "speak loudly but leave your big stick at home" stance. US forces have found a wealth of documentation detailing Sadam's WMD capabilities in the face of UN orders that he was not to possess them or implement programs to make them. This alone provides adequate justification for the US's involvement. When you add the sickening multitude of death and destruction Sadam reigned down on his people, you have wealth of evidence that far exceeds any reasonable burden of proof.

Alex's first post

You ask and you will receive; here are the facts specific to this war. READ IT CAREFULLY. I will go through this war from beginning to end using nothing but quotes from politicians, political experts, and news organizations and end with a conclusion to sum it up.
Here we go?

Firstly What Bush said before the war:
-"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
Radio Address
October 5, 2002

-?We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas?

-"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors.?
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
October 7, 2002

?Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:
-"where they are; they're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."
When asked about the location of the WMD.
?Then after the war
- ?Secretary Rumsfeld himself has now called for a Defense Department investigation into what went wrong with the pre-war intelligence? ?John W. Dean


Now what the experts say?

An article from findlaw by John W. Dean that was reprinted in salon (salon is a independent premium news corp. with over 65,000 subscribing readers):
?Even before formally declaring war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the President had dispatched American military special forces into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, which he knew would provide the primary justification for Operation Freedom. None were found.

Throughout Operation Freedom's penetration of Iraq and drive toward Baghdad, the search for WMDs continued. None were found.

As the coalition forces gained control of Iraqi cities and countryside, special search teams were dispatched to look for WMDs. None were found.

During the past two and a half months, according to reliable news reports, military patrols have visited over 300 suspected WMD sites throughout Iraq. None of the prohibited weapons were found there.?

?Congressional committees are also looking into the pre-war intelligence collection and evaluation. Senator John Warner (R-VA), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee would jointly investigate the situation. And the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence plans an investigation. ?

New York Times article by Paul Krugman:
"Long past time for this administration to be held accountable. The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat. If that claim was fraudulent, the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history -- worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra."

The Marine general in charge of the search for WMD as quoted in Time Magazine:
"[w]e've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad," and remarked flatly, "They're simply not there."

From BBC World News:
?Last week former Cabinet ministers Robin Cook and Clare Short told the inquiry UK ministers had exaggerated the evidence coming from the intelligence agencies in the run- up to the war.?

From Newsweek Magazine:
"If America has entered a new age of pre-emption -- when it must strike first because it cannot afford to find out later if terrorists possess nuclear or biological weapons -- exact intelligence is critical. How will the United States take out a mad despot or a nuclear bomb hidden in a cave if the CIA can't say for sure where they are? And how will Bush be able to maintain support at home and abroad?"

Former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Bob Graham on CNN:
"One is that [the WMDs] were spirited out of Iraq, which maybe is the worst of all possibilities, because now the very thing that we were trying to avoid, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, could be in the hands of dozens of groups. Second, that we had bad intelligence. Or third, that the intelligence was satisfactory but that it was manipulated, so as just to present to the American people and to the world those things that made the case for the necessity of war against Iraq."
He then added?
"There?s been a pattern of manipulation by this administration."

Finally back to the article from findlaw by John W. Dean that was reprinted in salon:
?Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, it was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush's doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.
To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."
It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly is a serious abuse of presidential power.
Nixon claimed that his misuses of the federal agencies for his political purposes were in the interest of national security. The same kind of thinking might lead a President to manipulate and misuse national security agencies or their intelligence to create a phony reason to lead the nation into a politically desirable war.?

So what does all of this mean? Firstly, we have the president saying several times on record before the war began that Iraq had a large surplus of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Then we have Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld going even further saying that some of these weapons were in the capital of Iraq. At the same time covert military commandos were sent on recon missions to help the president back up his claims in front of the international community, but they find nothing. Then as quickly as the war started it ended (well the combat phase that is). At the end of the war this large surplus of weapons turns out to be not so large after all. Political analysts and journalists start wondering what happened. Then people on the inside, senators and even Donald Rumsfeld himself, start saying that the intelligence wasn?t so accurate after all. In the U.K this missing WMD thing turns into a national scandal with Tony Blair?s popularity falling to an all time low, and even people in his chamber start to resign admitting that information was twisted to help sell this war. Back on the homefront a congressional investigation commences. It seems that Bush may have twisted the truth to help sell the war on Iraq as well. This offense is so horrendous that not only is it an impeachable offense, it is what many political experts say has the potential to turn into the biggest political scandal in U.S history. Things are starting to look grim. It seems that just like so many times in the past, a war was started based a false information. Now we begin to reach the climax of our story, but whether it will be resolved remains to be seen.

-Alex Shnayder

Hahahaha

And why don't they ever teach you that in school, lousy education system that is what it is! HAHAHAHA!

So you've pulled the Hitler card

During the course of human events, gross comparisons arise that somehow incorporate the combined evils of Paul Hogan, Australia, Hitler, and my car. This brings me to a story. One day, Hitler decided to buy an Australian car and go to the most arcane place in the world to drive it. Unfortunately he realized to late that the outback was really Japanese and that he had been had. To remedy this, he blamed the Jews, attacked Poland, and started WWII. Upon taking over France, Hitler encountered a little operation called Renault and began selling many products from it, namely Pepsi. The worst of these products was creation XX-0032, code named "caffeine-free diet Pepsi" After the creators discovered the hideousness of what they had created, they locked it away realizing it had no practical usage whatsoever. But a fiendish lab assistant stole the formula and repackaged it as "Pepsi blue." Whoever drinks this evil is walking on the graves of the great creators of such pop legends as Barq's, Fanta (orange), vanilla coke, and coke, and is demonstrating the horrible nature of capitalism. For shame. Evil is still around us, even as you throw back that 12 oz can of astatine sweetened, yellow #5 colored, refreshment.

I kid you not!

Subaru is a Japanese car company. It is called the outback because they thought it would be cool to associate their cars with Australia. The truth of the matter though is other than Mel Gibson, kangaroos and Sting nothing good has ever come from Australia.

You Gotta be Kidding Me!

Haven't you seen the commercials? If subaru was really made in Japan, why is Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee) driving it? Why would it be called the "outback" instead of the "Mt. Fuji?" Come on Jesse! And even if it was made in Japan, Japanese have killed plenty of chinese in their day, so the ridiculous comparison stands. Booya!

Explanation

I was taking to Ben last night and I was bitching about Jerry Falwell so he made a comment something to the extent, damn falwell and damn Subaru WRXs. He obviosly said it sarcastically and mockingly to an extent, but nonetheless I was laughing hysterically because of it. So thus these post was written. Don't worry I am not comparing Hilter to the WRX we just needed to make fun of ourselves a whee bit!