I had previously speculated about Kerry's discharge over the family dinner table. I had wondered aloud about an Other Than Honorable dischage, knowing that many administrative disharges are labeled as such. Obesity in today's military, for example, could lead to a medical discharge labeled OTH. Knowing that the Senator had pursued an administrative disharge based on some obscure three purple heart rule (My father earned five purple hearts and served two tours, no one invited him to leave the dance) so I thought that an OTH was not an unreasonable idea.

There is a rumor breaking now that the Senator might have actually received a Dishonorable Discharge because of his meeting in Paris with the North Vietnamese and his subsequent championing of their talking points before the senate...

Here is an unsubstantiated letter from a Captain Donald Nelson.

I suppose that only time and the diligence of the blogosphere will see this one to the light of truth, whichever side it falls on.

Subject: Fw: THE JIMMY CARTER LEGACY CONTINUES

Sean,

I was on active duty as a U.S. Navy lawyer when all of this was going on some 25 to 30 years ago, and so was Mark F. Sullivan, who at all relevant times was the personal lawyer to J. William Middendorf, then the Secretary of the Navy. We remember.

We are trying to break this absolutely true story nationwide, i.e., Fox News, C Span, and hopefully all the major networks. We are positive that John Kerry was one of those dishonorably dismissed from the Navy for collaborating with the Viet Cong, after he was released from active duty but still in the Navy, and for a totally unauthorized trip to Hanoi. He later got an "honorable" separation in 1978, some 12 years after joining the Navy, under President Carter's "Amnesty Program" for draft dodgers, deserters, and other malcontents who fled to Canada and Holland, among other places, to avoid military service to our country.

This is why he has refused, and continues to refuse, to release all of his Navy records: they reflect that he was Dishonorably Dismissed from the United States Naval Service. If they do not (which they do), he would have released them to the public. Again, he has not done so, because he well knows that the truth would kill his challenge to President Bush.

Sincerely,
DONALD L. NELSON
CAPT, JAGC, USNR
(Ret.)

Hat Tip to Tov Brog at New Conservative Voice.

A great article on Powerline this morning. Courtesy of the New York Post, a soldier in Iraq discusses the war with his friend at the Post:

Now he's working to help Iraq become a democratic model for the Middle East. And he's worried. Not about terrorists or insurgents. He's afraid John Kerry will be elected president.
"Kerry's rhetoric is giving the bad guys a thread to hang on," he wrote. "They're hoping we lose our nerve. They're more concerned with the U.S. elections than with the Iraqi ones."

My pal has been involved in every phase of our Iraq operations - dating back to Desert Storm. And he's convinced that the terrorists have risked everything to create as much carnage as they can before Nov. 2. Our troops are killing them left and right. The terrorists are desperate. They can't sustain this tempo of attacks much longer.

But Sen. Kerry insists that we're losing - giving our enemies hope that we'll pull out. No matter what else John Kerry may say, the terrorists only hear his criticisms of our president and our war.

Hindrocket, one of the Powerline bloggers, made an astute observation:

It's deja vu all over again. American troops are winning on the ground, but we are losing on the critical home front. And the man leading the effort to demoralize Americans and blind them to the success the military is enjoying is, once again, John Kerry.

The Cassini probe made its first flyby of Titan this morning at 11:30am EST. The data feed should arrive here on Earth at about 9:30pm EST. NASA TV will carry the pictures live. They will post the raw pictures live to the website and then later assemble the press photos.

Hat Tip to Slashdot

I could blog at length about how my disgust factor seems to be asymptotically approaching infinity the closer we get to election day, and the incident with the 380 tons of explosives gone missing in Iraq is the poster child for how pathetic things have become.

It starts with this New York Times exclusive report which includes the following tidbits...

The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing.

The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.

After the invasion, when widespread looting began in Iraq, the international weapons experts grew concerned that the Qaqaa stockpile could fall into unfriendly hands. In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."

The main contention is that the Bush administration was utterly incompetent in safeguarding the explosives. The Kerry Campaign, smelling blood in the water, jumped on the opportunity without questioning its veracity.

"He has stood in front of the American people day after day, telling us how much progress we are making in Iraq and how much safer we are under his leadership," Kerry said. "And what did the president have to say about the missing explosives? Not a word."

Later in Las Vegas, he went a step further, telling a rally: "Those ammo dumps have been looted and raided and kids and our young American forces are being shot at from weapons stolen from the ammo dumps that this president didn't think were important enough to guard."

Not questioning seems to be the prevailing attitude amongst liberal democrats.

Consulting a co-worker of mine as to why he was so eager to believe the worst, he replied simply, "that's cause I think bush is incompetent and I will believe anything that is negative for him"

This is what we are up against.

Senator Kerry's team even produced a commercial on the topic before NBC revealed that it had reporters embedded in the 101st airborne, the unit responsible for securing the bunker during the war. They had found the bunker to be empty upon arrival.

This accounts for it being left unguarded.

Archived at the National Review Online

NBC News: Miklaszewski: "April 10, 2003, only three weeks into the war, NBC News was embedded with troops from the Army's 101st Airborne as they temporarily take over the Al Qakaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. But these troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing."

(NBC's "Nightly News," 10/25/04)

After NBC exposed the story to be an attempt to purposefully discredit the President, Matt Drudge reported that CBS had already been sitting on the story and had planned to break it on the evening of October 31st, just before the election.

Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of 60 MINUTES, said in a statement that "our plan was to run the story on October 31, but it became clear that it wouldn't hold..."

CBSNEWS' plan to unleash the story just 24 hours before election day had one senior Bush official outraged.

"Darn, I wanted to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up," the Bush source, who asked not to be named, mocked, recalling last months CBS airing of fraudulent Bush national guard letters.

Wretchard at the Belomont Club described the cost of diplomacy very well in this post:

Although one may retrospectively find some fault with OIF order of battle, most of the damage had already been inflicted by the dilatory tactics of America's allies which allowed Saddam the time and space -- nearly half a year and undisturbed access to Syria -- necessary to prepare his resistance, transfer money abroad and disperse explosives (as confirmed first hand by reporters). Although it is both desirable and necessary to criticize the mistakes attendant to OIF, much of the really "criminal" neglect may be laid on the diplomatic failure which gave the wily enemy this invaluable opportunity. The price of passing the "Global Test" was very high; and having been gypped once, there are some who are still eager to be taken to the cleaners again.

I'll conclude this post with an excerpt from an interview with Donald Rumsfeld, our Secretary of Defense. He was asked about the missing explosives by radio personality Bill Cunningham in Ohio this morning

Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with Bill Cunningham
700 WLW-AM Cincinnati, Ohio

CUNNINGHAM: Right. Yesterday, Donald, your good friends at The New York Times reported that 380 tons of high-degree munitions have been stolen or otherwise ripped off from Al Qaqaa weapons facility and it was big news. John Kerry screaming and hollering about you and Georgie Bush and Dick Cheney being a bunch of bumbling incompetents. And then NBC News came out last night with Miklaszewski and said they embedded with the 82nd Airborne and the explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived on or about April 10, 2003. Which is it: Are you a bumbling incompetent or...

RUMSFELD: [Laughs]

CUNNINGHAM: ...is Jim Miklaszewski telling the truth?

RUMSFELD: Well, here's the situation. By our count, we have destroyed over 240,000 tons of weapons. And we have captured another 160,000 for a total of over 400,000... (the 160,000) are in line to be destroyed. There are hundreds of weapons sites that exist in that country that we've either emptied or guarded. And what's going on now is a detailed investigation of precisely this situation. Although clearly, the Iraqi Survey Group investigated hundreds of sites in Iraq looking for weapons and clearly there were people there who believe that in many instances Saddam Hussein took weapons out of weapons sites and put them in - we found them in hospitals, we found them in schools, we found them all across that country, buried in some instances. Their goal - if you think about it, go back to the museum. Do you remember when the museum - everyone said the museum was looted?

CUNNINGHAM: Fifty thousand pieces are missing.

RUMSFELD: Yeah.

CUNNINGHAM: From the valley of Umm (sp).

RUMSFELD: It turns out that I talked to a person who'd been to the museum two weeks before the war started and he said it was almost empty at that moment. Clearly, the curators had gone in and taken much of that and put it into a safe place. There was talk about $1 billion being stolen from the...

CUNNINGHAM: From the bank.

RUMSFELD: ... Central Bank. In fact, we found I think it was $600 million of it in various locations. And the idea that it was looted was just wrong. It was moved by Saddam Hussein's people.

CUNNINGHAM: Well, do you think The New York Times and the U.N. 's going to keep dropping a dime on you guys until next Tuesday, whether it's Sanchez's memo last week and now it's the 380 tons which, by the way, mathematically is less than 1/10th of 1 percent of what you're talking about 400,000 is as to 380 is less than 1/10th of 1 percent. Is The New York Times and the U.N. going to keep dropping the dime on you guys until Election Day?

RUMSFELD: Well, the president has asked Colin Powell and Don Rumsfeld to not get into politics, but every once in awhile, I drive by the National Archives and on the front of it it says, 'The past is prologue.'

Tip of the Hat to Michelle Malkin, Matt Drudge, Instapundit, the Belmont Club

Outstanding!

Brazil just entered the space race with a successful lanuch of their test rocket. Brazil hopes to sell a number of the final products to the European Space Agency. They also hope to capitalize on their equatorial launch pad, which because of its proximity to the equator makes it an ideal location to launch spacecraft most efficiently.

Read about it here, here, here and even here.

Welcome to the club, Brazil!

Hat tip to InstaPundit

During the presidential debates Senator John Kerry argued that he was more attuned to international concerns, that he would be able to build a true coalition of partners to help share the burden instead of assembling a coalition of the bribed, the coerced.

To help underscore how effective he would be he described how he had already been hard at work before we made the decision to invade Iraq, while President Bush did not listen to our allies, brashly making the decision to go alone.

This president hasn't listened.

I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable.

I came away convinced that, if we worked at it, if we were ready to work and letting Hans Blix do his job and thoroughly go through the inspections, that if push came to shove, they'd be there with us.

It was revealed in the Washington Times this morning that Senator Kerry did no such thing.

He lied.

But of the five ambassadors on the Security Council in 2002 who were reached directly for comment, four said they had never met Mr. Kerry. The four also said that no one who worked for their countries' U.N. missions had met with Mr. Kerry either.

The former ambassadors who said on the record they had never met Mr. Kerry included the representatives of Mexico, Colombia and Bulgaria. The ambassador of a fourth country gave a similar account on the condition that his country not be identified.

After conversations with ambassadors from five members of the Security Council in 2002 and calls to all the missions of the countries then on the panel, The Times was only able to confirm directly that Mr. Kerry had met with representatives of France, Singapore and Cameroon.

In addition to making his experiences in Vietnam a central plank to his campaign, hasn’t Senator Kerry made honesty a plank as well? He certainly goes out of his way to paint President Bush as a liar and himself as a champion of the Truth. He goes out of his way to underscore his own military service while his staff calls the President's service in the Texas Air National Guard an elitist escape from responsibility.

I have frequently said that I do not agree with all of President Bush's policies, that if the Democrats had put up a serious contender for my vote that I might be tempted.

Senator Kerry, standing next to you George W. Bush looks like a true hero.

Mr. Kerry closed the final debate by recounting what his mother told him from her hospital bed, "Remember: integrity, integrity, integrity."

Watching that debate from the comfort of our bed, I remember Wendy almost choking when he said that. "You would think", my wife said. "That she would wish him luck from her death-bed instead of telling him to maintain his integrity. Does she know something we don't?"

I don't think so.

Hat tip to powerline

Demonstrating yet another cogent argument to help persuade our undecided friends. :)

Hat Tip to the ever wonderful Tammy Bruce

Saturday Connor Coyne, the founder of a blog named "Blue Skies Falling", a "decidedly liberal blog", contacted us by e-mail. He had a number of complimentary things to say about our family website, such as "While I disagree with most of your politics, your blog is candid, warm, funny, and well thought out."

Thank you, Connor.

From what I could determine from his blog archives, Connor is a young man living in McKinley Park, Chicago. Many of his posts are as articulate and thoughtful as the letter he wrote to us, and his description of our own website. Though our views on government's responsibility to its citizenry (and vice versa) as well as economics seem to be disparate at times... I think that more of our energy and passion vibrates sympathetically than it would seem at first glance.

For example.

We both, it appears to me, have little respect for the non-thinking, numb bovine herds of slogan-chanters that seem to be trotted out on the newswire every few minutes. We both encourage the people that we meet to think for themselves. We both seem to have a measure of compassion and a willingness to see beyond the veil that relegates most people to sound-bytes or quickly drawn conclusion.

"It takes all kinds", you often hear in quoted cliche.

I believe that to be true.

In the Navy I had the opportunity to visit many countries, meet many different types of people. I learned many lessons. One of the more important lessons was the first-hand in-your-face demonstration that much of what I had learned... things that I simply regarded as fact and had not even considered otherwise... was merely a single method of accomplishing something that had been passed down to me by my family, my culture.

It was not inherently right or inherently intended to be universally applied; it was just "my way".

As I traveled from Bali, Indonesia to Jebel Ali, UAE... from Singapore to Iskenderun, Turkiye... from Jeruselam, Israel to Melkinsfjord, Norway... I learned that there was a lot of different ways to do the same thing, different ways to interpret the same things, and different solutions to different problems that were no more right or wrong than my own.

Even still.

There may be many paths to the top of the mountain, but there is still only one "up" and one "down". Trending in either direction is a necessary element of getting to where you want to go. My morals, my ethics and the importance I place on truth... These are all subsets of what I perceive to be a more general set of ethics that I believe we *all* need to share to trend upwards as a society.

I think that this is a part of what makes me conservative.

I take objection to the Malignant Narcissist, not necessarily the Classical Liberal. I take offense to the hypocritical, not necessarily the critical thinker who disagrees with me. You can find examples of the things I dislike in every camp, and people that I regard as heroes right beside them.

So.

Decidedly Liberal? Articulate? Critical thinker?

I may disagree with you, sometimes strongly, but together we just may reach the top of the mountain together anyway.

DISCLAIMER: Though I enjoyed a number of Conner's carefully argued posts, he is not the only writer on the blog and some of the articles are laced with profanity and regurgitate a measure of partisan bile. If you are a young person, discuss this with your parent or guardian before inspecting this blog

...and I thought that our partisan pundits were deeply immersed in the bitter bile of their snow-blind hatred. Charlie Brooker of the Guardian comes across more like a professional carnival taunter, perched from his seat above the dunk tank, daring you to lob a few softballs at his carefully orchestrated targets.

I shake my head and walk by, reminding myself that he does not represent all Britons. Americans can be just as ugly.

On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?

At times in our collective history, leaders like Churchill and Reagan were written off as hateful people bent on fostering ill-will. People questioned their motives, their very sanity. Josef Stalin called Churchill a "Warmonger". Senator John Kerry described Reagan's presidency a period of "moral darkness". Generations of Americans regretted the morally superior stance that kept us out of World War II until it could be ignored no longer. A generation of people today look sadly at the death toll caused by the peaceful coercion of our U.N. Sanctions.

How many millions have died for our sanctimony?

I feel fairly certain that history will remember these days with a different perspective as well. I have more respect for men like Churchill, Reagan and yes, George W. Bush... who have the courage to call a spade a spade and make the right decision no matter the cost of public opinion.

It's the right thing to do, whether Charlie Booker is familiar with the history of his own country or not.

In a world increasingly apt to persuade us to a singular course of action, Thomas Sowell urges us to Stop and Think.

While many people are urging us to vote -- regardless of for whom, for what, or for what reason -- there are very few urging us to do what is far more important: Stop and think!

Voting is not a matter of personal expression but a serious responsibility for choosing what course this country will take in the years -- and decades -- ahead.

It is apparent that Mr Sowell, like so many of us, has his own opinions. Still, that does not dissuade him from encouraging everyone to dig for their own information. The fact that people are not digging seems to invoke his ire more than the content of the material itself...

If there are issues you care about, there are records of how John Kerry voted on those issues in the Senate and what George W. Bush did on those issues as President and as Governor of Texas before that. Never mind how they talk now. Look at what they did when it was time to put up or shut up.

If you can't spare the time from watching sit-coms to go check out a few facts one evening at your local library, with the help of your local librarian, then don't pretend that you are a responsible voter, or even a responsible parent.

If there was ever a time to stop and think, this is it. Slogans and images are no substitute for knowing what you are talking about -- and knowing what you are doing when you enter the voting booth on election day.

I couldn't agree more. Please take the time to read his entire article.

My mother asked me what my opinion was on Florida State Constitutional Amendment 3. I was sad, and a little embarrassed to admit that I was not familiar with the amendments that were on the upcoming ballot; I have been focusing entirely on the Presidential election.

I cannot sit and read about *all* the proposed amendments in one evening over a bottle of wine. After all, Daniel has volleyball games tomorrow and I don't want to sleep through them. :) Besides, I drank most of this bottle at dinner and then later watching TV in bed with Wendy. There's only enough left for one amendment. :)

...but I did look into Amendment 3 so I could talk to my mother about it with at least *half* a clue in place. Right?

Both sides of the issue have compelling emotional arguments, but it is all too easy to get lost in the tangential; that's the purpose of the propaganda, after all.

Let's start our education off by going to the source and reading about what will be printed directly on the ballot:

Ballot Summary: Proposes to amend the State Constitution to provide that an injured claimant who enters into a contingency fee agreement with an attorney in a claim for medical liability is entitled to no less than 70% of the first $250,000.00 in all damages received by the claimant, and 90% of damages in excess of $250,000.00, exclusive of reasonable and customary costs and regardless of the number of defendants. This amendment is intended to be self-executing.

That sounds reasonable to me, but there is both support and opposition for this bill; I'm sure that it is not as cut and dry as it seems.

The amendment is sponsored by a Political Committee called "Citizens for a Fair Share".

It is opposed by Florida's trial lawyers, who have a website of their own.

It seems that the bulk of the argument FOR is that it will 1) reduce the amount of frivolous lawsuits by ensuring that the trial lawyers will get little money for cases that yield awards of less than a half million dollars. 2) ensure that the lion's share of the award in any case goes to the plaintiff and not their lawyer.

The bulk of the argument AGAINST the amendment seems to be that if the lawyers don't make any money, then people will go unrepresented and medical costs will skyrocket. They say that it will not prevent frivolous law suits, nor will it prevent bad doctors from practicing bad medicine. They make statements like "Amendment 3 will make it nearly impossible to punish irresponsible and incompetent doctors." and "Over half of the malpractice in Florida is committed by only 6% of the doctors". There is a large number of case studies that will make your heart wrench if you read them. I almost cried when I read about the Bliss Family and how a baby with a simple cold could wind up dead in the ER.

But after rubbing my eyes and getting my heart under control... would Amendment 3 have any effect on the Bliss family?

I think that this opinion letter (Alan Jay Yesner, M.D.) I read in the Sun Sentinel put it best:

This Amendment 3 speaks to one issue and one issue only. The issue is contingency fees, that is, how much money a trial lawyer will receive in a medical liability case. This amendment has nothing to do with medical errors and nothing to do with how much money an injured party can be awarded by a judge or jury. The literature circulating our mail system and the rhetoric on radio and television ads avoid the issue at hand. These advertisements would make a person believe that a vote for this amendment would "make Florida's health care system even less accountable."

This amendment has nothing to do with accountability. However, it is not in the best interest of the trial lawyers' pocket to make that argument. The trial lawyers would never admit that a vote for this amendment gives them less money and you more money. At the present time, a trial lawyer gets 30 percent to 40 percent of an award in a medical malpractice case.

I think mom and I have a lot to talk about.

This is despicable.

Margaret, the Irish born president of CARE International in Iraq, has spent the last 30 years of her life there in Iraq... distributing food and medicine to those in need. She is married to an Iraqi man. She speaks fluent Arabic. She was there for the Iraqi people during the 12 years of sanctions, throughout the present war.

...and now she is being trotted out in front of the camera like Mr. Kenneth Bigley, begging for her life, making a heartfelt appeal to Prime Minister Tony Blair.

If these bastards think that it will break our will, they are mistaken. They will do nothing but strengthen our resolve, feed our determination and ensure their own martyrdom.

It must wrench the hearts of the British.

It certainly wrenches mine.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Margaret Hassan, the kidnapped director of CARE International in Iraq, appeared on a videotape aired Friday, weeping and pleading with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw troops from Iraq "and not bring them to Baghdad" because "this might be my last hours."

"Please help me. Please help me," said a terrified Hassan, breaking down in tears and burying her face in a tissue. She said she might be killed like British hostage Kenneth Bigley, who was beheaded by his captors earlier this month.

"This might be my last hours," she said in the video aired by the Arabic television station Al-Jazeera. She begged the British people to "ask Mr. Blair to take the troops out of Iraq, and not to bring them here to Baghdad. That's why people like Mr. Bigely and myself are being caught. And maybe we will die like Mr. Bigley. Please, please, I beg of you."

Hassan - an Irish-British-Iraqi national who has been doing humanitarian work in Iraq for 30 years, including distributing medicine and food - appeared haggard, her eyes baggy as she stood alone in front of a bare wall.

For those of you who are amused by 404 humor, you might enjoy this. Just go to a non-existent page on this website, such as this one.

Major hilarious Bwah ha ha hat tip to VodkaPundit for this great picture.

Now, at last, my fellow Floridians and I are prepared to vote this November.

I was going to blog about this sometime today, when I could spare a minute from my feverish programming chores... But I don't think that I could say it better than Michelle Malkin already has.

Well, Teresa Heinz Kerry's subdued act didn't last long did it? By now, you've all read Her Highness's condescending remarks about our First Lady Laura Bush. Teresa's boneheaded ""apology" was even worse than the initial comments. Teresa managed to snub not only millions of teachers and librarians and Mrs. Bush's 22 years of work as a mother, but also the hard work and dedication of all stay-at-home parents (moms AND dads).

Unbelievable! Will the Dems claim that this is a Karl Rove Dirty Trick, too?

Classy as ever, the First Lady said there was no need to apologize, that she had not taken offense, and that it isn't easy on the campaign trail. Throughout this election season, Mrs. Bush has shown nothing but dignity and good humor. She has been mocked as a Stepford Wife by the Left. Her intellect has been derided by the likes of Maureen Dowd and Bill Maher. She has stood by her husband and her country and demonstrated an unparalleled graciousness that the totally unhinged Teresa Heinz Kerry cannot buy and will never have.

I could not agree more.

At first, I was tempted to feel disappointed in the reactions of Father Augustine DiNoia and Father Basil Cole. This story from CatholicNews.Com sure had the smell of backpedaling, and I felt embarrassed that I had so quickly given them kudos for taking an action that reinforced my perception of their moral ground. (Selfish me)

You see, I see so few people doing that these days, that I was simply pleased to see it.

In truth, the fact of the matter is that I do not know anything about the Roman Catholic Church, latae sententiae or even being called an "obstinate sinner". My distaste for the apparent backpedaling could be just as off base as I was when I jumped up and shouted "You tell 'em!" after reading Father Cole's letter the first time.

In the end, I am only left with the sure fact that I am annoyed when I hear Kerry double-speak about his religious beliefs (Life begins at conception / but it is still a woman's choice).

:: sigh

In Washington, Father Cole told CNS the Holy See "gets these requests ... tons of them," and that Father DiNoia asked him to respond to Balestrieri in a private capacity.

"I have no relationship to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ... and the letter that I wrote to Balestrieri was purely private," he told CNS Oct. 19. "I wrote it as a private theologian, not with any authority. It has no authority whatsoever.
"Its worth is disputable," he added.

One Vatican official contacted by CNS said no church official had seriously approached the point of declaring Kerry a heretic.

"No, Kerry is not a heretic," he said.

"There are three distinct questions involved" in the current U.S. discussion about support for legalized abortion and the worthiness of Catholic politicians and voters to receive Communion, he said.

The three questions, he said, are: "Is Kerry a heretic? Is Kerry an 'obstinate sinner' because of his support for legalized abortion? Can a Catholic vote for Kerry?"

Even if one answered "yes" to the second question, he said, it would not mean the senator is a heretic, nor would it oblige Catholic voters in all situations to vote against him.

Professor Bainbridge, who should be one of the staples of your BlogFeeder's diet, quotes a UCLA Colleague who was kind enough to summarize the 11 bills that Kerry had written or co-written which became law.

Here they are, a grand summary of Senator Kerry's 20 years in office:

99th Congress:
A concurrent resolution expressing solidarity with the Sakharov family

100th Congress:
None

101st Congress:
A joint resolution designating a week in Oct 1989 as "World Population Awareness week"

102nd Congress:
A joint resolution designating week in Oct 1999 as "World Population Awareness week"

A joint resolution designating Nov 13, 1992 as "Vietnam Veterans Memorial 10th Anniversary Day"

A joint resolution designating September 18, 1192 as "National POW/MIA recognition day"

A bill to authorize appropriations to carry out the National Sea Grant College Program Act

103rd Congress:
A bill to re-designate a federal Building as the "Frederick C. Murphy Federal Center"

A bill to authorize appropriations for the Marine Mammal Protection act

104th Congress:
None

105th Congress:
None

106th Congress:
A bill to amend the Small Business Act with respect to the Women's business center program

107th Congress:
A bill to reauthorize the Small Business Technology Transfer program

108th Congress:
A bill to award a congressional gold medal to Jackie Robinson.

Retired General Tommy Franks responds to the Kerry/Edwards accusation that Bush/Cheney "Outsourced" the capture of Osama Bin Laden to Afghan warlords.

I was talking with my business partner this morning about President Bush. I argued that one of the qualities that I wished the President had is better salesmanship. Don't get me wrong... Integrity comes first and I believe the President has that in spades, but a salesman he is not. A good salesman can sell you something you don't want and make you glad you bought it. A lot of people didn't want this war on Terrorism, and they don't understand the vital necessity of the war in Iraq. President Clinton, as much as I hate him for the way he handled the military and our military obligations, as much as I think that he is enormously responsible for much of the state of terrorism today because he did NOT meet his military obligations... President Clinton would have been able to sell this war, this need, to the citizenry and the world beyond.

Not that he would have had the integrity to deem it important. He would have shuffled it under the rug as best he could.

Just imagine, if you will, if President Bush could have framed the argument that Retired General Tommy Franks made today during the first Presidential Debate:

On more than one occasion, Senator Kerry has referred to the fight at Tora Bora in Afghanistan during late 2001 as a missed opportunity for America. He claims that our forces had Osama bin Laden cornered and allowed him to escape. How did it happen? According to Mr. Kerry, we "outsourced" the job to Afghan warlords. As commander of the allied forces in the Middle East, I was responsible for the operation at Tora Bora, and I can tell you that the senator's understanding of events doesn't square with reality.

First, take Mr. Kerry's contention that we "had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden" and that "we had him surrounded." We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Some intelligence sources said he was; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time; still others suggested he was in Kashmir. Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives, many of whom were killed or captured, but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp.

Second, we did not "outsource" military action. We did rely heavily on Afghans because they knew Tora Bora, a mountainous, geographically difficult region on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is where Afghan mujahedeen holed up for years, keeping alive their resistance to the Soviet Union. Killing and capturing Taliban and Qaeda fighters was best done by the Afghan fighters who already knew the caves and tunnels.

Third, the Afghans weren't left to do the job alone. Special forces from the United States and several other countries were there, providing tactical leadership and calling in air strikes. Pakistani troops also provided significant help - as many as 100,000 sealed the border and rounded up hundreds of Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Contrary to Senator Kerry, President Bush never "took his eye off the ball" when it came to Osama bin Laden. The war on terrorism has a global focus. It cannot be divided into separate and unrelated wars, one in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. Both are part of the same effort to capture and kill terrorists before they are able to strike America again, potentially with weapons of mass destruction. Terrorist cells are operating in some 60 countries, and the United States, in coordination with dozens of allies, is waging this war on many fronts.

Hat Tip to Little Green Footballs

Beldar writes one of the more poignant appeals to rational Democrats that I have read thus far.

If you don't regularly read his blog, you should consider it.

I think of myself as a generally upbeat and optimistic person. I have a genuine love for people in general. I am delighted by people I meet throughout the course of the day, and though I smile at my wife less often than I used to delivering a line once heard several times a day, "People are cool!!!", I don't believe I have lost that delightful spark.

And then life goes out of its way at times to remind me how deep the cynicism can run.

...like when Senator Kerry comes out and perches himself ever so carefully on the fence that divides people of opinion.

I have to admit it. I do not subscribe to a specific organized belief structure. I do believe in God, I just have not succumbed to subscribing to one flavor of organized religion over another. Some of the worst human beings I have ever met were callous religious zealots that seemed to me to treat the ritual and social aspects of religion more like the Golden Calf that they profess to reject. Simultaneously, some of the most wonderful people I have ever met, examples of humanity at its finest, have been deeply devout.

When I see people like Kerry straddle that razor's edge and tell people with a straight face that he believes that life begins at conception but he also believes in a woman's right to choose, my head almost falls off. I feel like some anime caricature with a boggled expression. I just don't get how those violently opposing views can come out of the same mouth. It seems to me that one cannot believe in the same things at the same time! Wouldn't that be... a woman's right to choose to commit murder?

I just don't get it.

For the record, I abhor abortion. I don't know when life begins. I realize that there are a lot of opinions out there. Because of this great divide in opinion, I think that the government has no business legislating the rights to abortion. Conversely, I think that we need to do everything that we can as a society, as a community, to prevent abortion. I find it abhorrent. Until the people of this country say in a fairly singular loud voice, however, that life begins at conception, keep it out of the legislature and let us struggle with it in the community.

...but that is not Senator Kerry's stance. He wants it both ways, and as soon as I hear that kind of moral garbage spewing forth, I want to scream. He's a Roman Catholic? Isn't that one of the most clearly defined branches of Christianity?

I grumble and disgorge discontented static. "People are Cool!!!" is the last thing on my mind.

...then I read stories like this, and my faith in humanity is restored. No, not because the man I am not going to vote for is being punished. Because a group of people said "we believe in this" and then back up their words with deeds. Deeds that will surely bring vitriol forth from many sources.

The attorney says the communication from Cole provides a basis to declare that any Catholic politician who says he is "personally opposed to abortion, but supports a woman's right to choose," incurs automatic excommunication.

Catholic World News reported the letter potentially undercuts the entire debate over denying Communion to politicians who support abortion. An excommunicated Catholic may not receive any of the sacraments of the church, including the Eucharist, marriage and even Christian burial. According to the news service, the type of excommunication outlined in the new information is called latae sententiae, which means that it occurs automatically and does not require a formal pronouncement by any church official.

Hat tip to World Net Daily, Powerline.

I'm sure that the Kerry camp will dredge up some spineless bishop or two to defy the latae sententiae, call it optional and not compulsory or deny that it has merit at all.

Perhaps they will simply ignore it and hope that it will go away.

Even if nothing happens, and despite my suspicions of organized religion, I salute the Reverend Basil Cole, Dominican theologian and consultor to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I salute the Roman Catholic church that he represents here.

You stood by your faith, took a moral stand, and I respect you.

This story is breaking over on the Drudge Report. It appears that a Thaddeus J. Jackson II, whose business card identifies him as Assistant NVF Ohio Director of the NAACP National Voter Fund, recruited a Ms. Georgianne Pitts to help collect voter registrations. Ms Pitts admitted trading crack cocaine for falsified voter registrations.

Sick.

UPDATE: Link to an article at the Toledo Blade

We're having our measure of tragedy in the family these last few weeks. I can't really discuss it, it is terribly private, but involves my entire family. A number of our extended family members like my sister, her children, my aunt and my cousins are all visiting as we band together to give each other strength. Like a silver lining emerging from the dark shadow of a rain cloud, it reminds you that life is a measure of all things at all times and that allowing pain or tragedy to overwhelm you is still a choice. You can simply choose not to be.

Honest.

...but I should not digress from the point I want to make too much. My point is in a small tangential revelation that I experienced as Wendy (the brightest light of *my* life) and I took some time out from the "struggle of now". We paused, and treated ourselves to a few hours at one of the local day spas.

It seems like another lifetime ago, but when I was younger I lived in California for a few short years. I was stationed in Alameda while I was in the US Navy and once I had received my honorable discharge I returned to Northern California to live. I was enraptured with the geography there, especially around the Napa Valley and along the northern coastline.

While living there, my sweetheart at the time was an aspiring massage therapist. I don't know if this is a universal constant, but when you mix "massage therapist" with "Northern California" you get an eclectic mix of people that dabble in new age idealism, veganism, reiki, tribal shamans, visits to psychics... I think I can stop right there, you probably get the picture. Let's just say that I don't imagine that crowd espousing the virtues of the Bush campaign today.

...which may have prejudiced me when I was, the better part of a decade later, sitting in the reception room of the little day-spa here in South Florida. I was idly chatting with the receptionist while the massage therapist was performing her healing magic on my wife. Invariably, the proximity of the upcoming election demanded its share of attention. As the conversation took a tack in that direction, I prepared myself to defend my opinion of both Bush and Kerry in the least offensive manner possible and look for a way to change the topic. Of course, the receptionist immediately announced her disdain for President Bush. It looked like I was going to be right. When the conversation turned towards Kerry, however, I was surprised to see that she had even less of a palatable impression of *him*. I dared to edge the conversation towards some of the challenges we face in the world: Terrorism, the war in Iraq, our economy.

This is where the story ends, folks. She confessed to me that almost all of her friends were voting for Bush.

I was floored.

Wendy revealed to me later that her massage therapist seemed to be preoccupied with voter fraud here in Florida, which surprisingly enough was the Democratic Whine-du-Jour that day.

It will be a cold day in hell the day that a staunch liberal Democrat will drop the party line (or their ultra-conservative counterparts for that matter) but I was still stunned to see the reaction of this receptionist. When she admitted that to me, I could almost see the loose shingles on the roof of the Democratic house.

Here in Florida, that's a sign of certain trouble when a storm is on the way...

(blogging from Broward County, democratic stronghold of South Florida)

I just finished watching the third debate, and I have formed some opinions...

I have always been afraid of this election, or at least predicting it.

Perhaps it comes down to my mistrust in my fellow man. I don't trust my neighbor to go out of his way to seek the truth. I trust him to work hard, come home, and turn his brain off. We live in the land of the spoiled, and we worked hard to make it so.

I guess I am cynical.

Perhaps it is because I engage people wherever I go, ask them their opinions, seek to discover what they are aware of and what they pay attention to.

I am frequently disappointed.

But... tonight I feel as if I can actually take that risk. Perhaps my hopes will be dashed, perhaps they will be proved. I think Bush will win the election. I think that he will win it because when you listen to these two men, one of them peddles hope... and one of them peddles despair. One of them defines themselves by principal, and the other we all suspect of trying to attain popularity.

It seems transparent, I believe, to both sides of the aisle. More Democrats, it seems to me, are anti-Bush rather than pro-Kerry.

They are right, you know. This election is the most significant we have ever faced. We get to define ourselves. Does America act on principal, or plurality?

Is there a national conscience? Which way does it lean?

The answer will be learned this November, and it will define a generation, I am sure.

I am sure.

Was Senator kerry's service in Vietnam "Less than Honorable", and then later upgraded by President Carter's 1977 executive order declaring amnesty for Vietnam War resistors?

Beldar helps expose the strong possibility with the help of New York Sun reporter Thomas Lipscomb.

I wish that Senator Kerry would sign the appropriate public release forms so we could read the contents of his service jacket. It would answer a lot of questions either way.

I won't hold my breath.

Though Saudi Arabia currently counts itself in our good graces, you would think that they can read the writing on the wall.

Stories like this, seem to indicate otherwise.

Let me state it more clearly for those of us who are ideologically impaired..

America, let alone humanity, is best served by a free and democratic Middle East.

Hat tip to Cox and Forkum.

Regarding why one should consider voting for the re-election of President Bush, this is hands down the best set of arguments I have read thus far.

I warn you, it is not short. I pasted it into word for my wife to read at her liesure, and it was 17 pages long...

Here is Part I and Part II to sate your intellipolitical hunger.

You won't regret it.

John Kerry talks consistently about how he would better be able to lead this nation and our military forces in times of conflict, often citing his experience as a combat veteran to buttress his claims.

Why is it then that a recent USA Today poll has 3 out of 4 members of the military voting for Bush?

In 2000 the ratio for Bush/Gore was only 2/1.

I think I can hear the voice of the common soldier loud and clear, Senator Kerry.

Wendy wondered out loud earlier today about whether or not the Democrats would once again seek to specifically discount as many absentee ballots as they could.

I remember the Democratic Mantra to let "Every Vote Count" and I shake my head with sadness.

Well, we are back from our vacation in the Napa Valley. Wendy, Danny and I had a great time Ballooning, riding the Wine Train, visiting San Francisco and exploring the Northern California Coast. I'll share some pictures with you at a later date, I took several hundred with my trusty Nikon CoolPix 990.

Sorry we didn't give you any notice; we thought it wise not to announce our departure. This is, after all, a personal family blog. :)