Expel Iran From the Games. NOW.

Reuters says:

“ATHENS (Reuters) – Iran’s world judo champion Arash Miresmaeili refused to compete against an Israeli Sunday, triggering a fresh crisis at the Olympic Games where race, creed or color are barred from interfering in sport.

The International Judo Federation (IJF) failed to agree how to deal with the politically explosive issue at an emergency meeting and said it would hold further talks Monday.
The burning issue was whether any penalty would hit Miresmaeili alone or the entire Iranian team, as the intrusion of the Middle East’s bitter politics threatened to fly in the face of the Olympic ideal.

‘There has been no decision and we are considering this situation very carefully,’ said IJF spokesman Michel Brousse.”

But in Tehran, the Iranian National Olympic Committee said in a statement: “This is a general policy of our country to refrain from competing against athletes of the Zionist regime and Arash Miresmaeili has observed this policy.”

Here’s how you deal with this; You expel anyone pulling this kind of stunt from the games. No questions, no “discussion”. You’re out, see ya. Any other means of dealing with it, is effective only in reinforcing this nonsense, and thereby causes other problems on the world stage.

Expel Iran from the games. NOW.

Ap news has Edwards going to bat for his boss… without effect:

The Democarts still haven’t figured it out. Edwards whined:

“‘He took that word (Sensitive) and distorted and tried to use it to argue John Kerry will not keep the American people safe,’ Edwards said. ‘He’s talking about a man who still carries shrapnel in his body. He’s talking about a man who spilled his blood for the United States of America.’ ”

Look, let’s face it… “sensitive” is what got us into this mess in the first place… 8 years of being “sensitive” to terrorists under Clinton. How the hell does one fight a ‘sensitive’ war? Here’s how most Americans envision this:

If you like this, you’ll find more at Sacred Cow Burgers.

In any event, Kerry must think like Rotundo Moore does, in that he thinks Americans are stupid. He’s got a bit of a shock coming in early November. Americans know there is no sensitive war.

As for the war hero act…There’s a lot of vets… who were there… saying Kerry lied about “Spilling his blood’… and this lie isn’t selling anymore in the public opinion polls.

Neither one of these lame lies is going to sell at the voting booth, either.

Bump and addition 0814042219-

LILEKS day before yesterday…(I got behind there for a bit) asks what seems to me a central question surrounding the Cambodian Christmas claim:

” What sort of man bedecked with genuine decorations feels compelled to manufacture a story like this one? “

Just so, Jim. I’ve been considering that question quite a bit this week.  Is Kerry revealing something in his personality, in this lie that’s been exposed, as well as his reaction to the exposure? 

It’s starting to look like there’s something under the surface here that we don’t want in the White House, regardelss of his political views… something that speaks directly to his fitness for office.  I have some thoughts about what those are. I’ll be posting some of those thoughts in this weekend’s BITS BIT. 

It’s called Stretching the truth… But.. WHY???

For several days, now, we’ve been hearing about the content of Unfit For Command… Which is on Bits Boks section this week…

(Update… OOOOPS… I just noticed that BitsBooks section didn’t make the transition to the new look, yet… sorry… I’ll work on that today.)

Q and O has “Unfit for Command”: A Review up just now. Looks worth checking out… very extensive.

When you’re already multiply decorated officer as John Kerry is, one generally figures that there is no need for stretching the truth to make your points; what’s on your chest already provides the credibility needed. However, Mr. Kerry is that kind of a person who figures the story isn’t polished enough, isn’t grand enough and needs some embellishment, so as to secure his place in the minds and hearts of those around him.

So, as a result of those added- on bits of story, even without those added on bits not being disproved… Mr. Kerry started looking all too perfect. The truth apparently was strecthed to fit… a little too tightly… and started looking a mite thin in some areas.

Such apparent perfection was particularly troublesome, given Mr. Kerry’s very anti-military and anti-American activities upon returning to the US. These very public postwar actions of Mr Kerry went in exactly the opposite direction you’d expect anyone so inclined to perform as perfectly as Mr. Kerry would have us think he did…gave rise to some questions about his performance during the war.

Then came forward people who were with Mr. Kerry, and are seriously questioning his fitness for office, based on what they saw him doing during the war in Vietnam…  a war on which Mr. Kerry himself had asked us to judge him.

Now Kerry has used the above picture in his campaign.  Only one of the people in this picture, other than Kerry, think Kerry is fit for the office… and sued Kerry to prevent him from using their likeness. They didn’t want their picture used to help him attain the Presidency. And it wasn’t just these people… over 220 people joined in that suit. Of the 23 vets who served directly with Kerry, 19 have signed an open letter, stating

Let’s go further, here, and have a look at the real vets, and what they have to say about Kerry:
(Windows Media Player) (Real Player) (AOL Viewer MPEG) (QuickTime)

The responses of Mr. Kerry toward these good men who were present at the time gave further rise to the idea that the veracity of Mr. Kerry was in some doubt, and thereby his fitness for the office, as well. He threatened lawsuit to stop them from expressing their opinion. When that didn’t work, he threatened the TV stations that ran the vet’s ad, with the following fax: (Drill each page to get a full-screen view)

Kerry using legal threats to silence the very people he asked us to judge him on does not seem to be a way to engender trust… at least, trust from anyone employing logic. Indeed, it does nothing but confirm what the vast majority of vets who served with Kerry are saying: He’s not fit the office he NOW holds, much less President of the US.

Through these vets Mr. Kerry is now slandering, (as well as other sources, once we started looking) many of Mr. Kerry’s assertions have been found to be flat-out lies.

So it is that Mr. Kerry, and his supporters, find themselves on a downward spiral, with the chances of Mr. Kerry gaining the office he seeks going down with them.

The left, particularly Kerry’s supporters, are in panic mode just now, tossing lawsuits at anyone who questions his ability to lead… Oddly… Based on the very thing that Kerry had asked us all to judge the matter…. That is, the war, and Kerry’s efforts in it.  They all seem determined to cover up all those areas that Mr. Kerry lied about so as to maintain this all- too- perfect picture.

Which brings us back the original point; Why stretch the truth if you’re already decorated, and thereby considered a war hero? It’s the kind of thought that makes one wonder if those honors he threw back and then decided to claim only when it was a political convenience to do so, were themselves a stretch of the truth.  And as it turns out, they have been exposed as exactly that.

And of course there’s the issue with the CIA officer on the ski slope. You may recall Kerry calling his secret service agent a “son of a bitch” after the agent collided, sending Kerry falling into the snow.

When asked a moment later about the incident by a reporter on the ski run, Kerry reportedly snapped, “I don’t fall down,” the “son of a b*itch knocked me over.”

I gather that the Secret Service agent complained about Kerry’s treatment.  I also gather that the day after the incident, curious newspeople watched as Kerry took his snowboard past the 9,000 ft level on Durrance Peak, then snowboarded down the mountain, taking repeated tumbles. Reporters counted six falls in all.

And that was before the Cambodian Christmas lie got exposed.

Does all of this give us a glimpse into the mind of the man asking us for our vote?

It appears so. Mr. Kerry among other things, it shows us that Kerry has a streak of personal insecurity going that is rivaled only by Richard Nixon, on one of the latter’s worst days.  And we know where THAT led us.

Which leads us to ask, if Kerry has something to be paranoid ABOUT.  I’ll leave this to the reader’s imagination, but will point out that by his actions Kerry is indicating that he does.

I will in fairness also point out that as compared to Nixon, Kerry does have better hair, though.

Kathleen Antrim in the San Francisco Examiner:

“John F. Kerry’s campaign for president is imploding. And he knows it.
The anti-war candidate went public as a pro-war candidate this week, and the members of his beloved ‘Band of Brothers’ are exposing a whole book’s worth of ugly lies. And they’ve got details, evidence, footnotes, signed affidavits and witnesses who back up their claims.
Kerry himself bestowed immense credibility on his ‘Band of Brothers’ when he used a picture of some of them in his campaign ad titled ‘Lifetime.’
Essentially, Kerry made Vietnam, and these men, the centerpiece of his campaign. Of course, that was when he thought they’d support his candidacy. No matter that he’d never bothered to ask their permission to use them to promote his political career.
Now, however, the Kerry campaign is on a search-and-destroy mission to attack the credibility of these same men — calling them liars, all 60 of them, and saying they didn’t serve in the military with him. Really? Then why’d Kerry use their pictures in his ad campaign?”

THIS from California? Amazing.

Two great columns today on the Swift-vets. One from
Neal Boortz and the other from Ann Coulter.

Boortz examines the Press Double Stanadrd about the coverage of it all.

“If you think back I’ll wager you can’t remember one single story from any of the alphabets (ABC, NBC, etc.) questioning the motives or the honesty of the people who brought the AWOL charges..(against President Bush)”

Neal goes on to point out that were Kerry a Republican…

“The Kerry campaign would be handling multiple demands from The New York Times, the Boston Globe, ABC, NBC and the rest of the locusts for all of the medical records pertaining to Kerry’s second and third Purple Hearts.  Apologies would be demanded of the Democratic and Kerry lawyers who referred to Dr. Louis Letson, the physician who applied the band aid to Kerry’s first Purple Heart wound as a “phony” physician.  Maureen Dowd would be opining about obscene Republican operatives daring to question the medical credentials of a man who undoubtedly had saved far more lives in Vietnam than John Kerry. “

The bottom line is, as Ann Points out:

“Kerry is demanding to be made president on the basis of spending four months in Vietnam 35 years ago. And yet the men who know what he did during those four months don’t think he’s fit to be dogcatcher”

Pink Flamingo, meanwhile, is questioning how much longer the press can keep the lid on this story…

“More than money, though you should give, the Swift Boat Vets for Truth need to keep getting exposure. I just cannot believe that the National Press can keep the lid on this story for much longer. The damage this sort of cover-up will cause is so deep and substantial that we can be sure that the rules have changed forever if they follow through with their brazen attempt at manipulating the 2004 Election. At that point over 50 Million Voters will know that their side of the story will never be told by the Members of the Mainstream Press, some of whom depend on the Government enforcing monopoly rules to keep them in business.”

Reuters is among those reporting the Death of Julia child at the age of 91.

Child’s was one of the few worthwhile shows PBS put up.

Short rant: Registration.
Someone, the other day, ran a bit on their blog about it, and I confess I didn’t read it, rather hearing about it second hand. I don’t even realy know at the moment who it was; though I think it showed up as a part of James Joyner’s daily Traffic Jam segment, the day before yesterday. Maybe not.

In any event, I’ve been thining on that subject, even without actually seeing the article.

I have tended to avoid using sites that require registration as sources, particularly LINKED sources, and then particualrly when there are other sources not requiring such intrusion. I generally avoid using those sites myself, and so have been reluctant to link them… I’d rather such sites didn’t get the traffic. And anyway, I’m not to keen on sending my readers to someplace I won’t go, myself, as a rule.

(I will leave aside for the moment that the biggest offenders, here, are sites owned by the NY Times…and therefore of questionable return for the info invested to begin with.)

Now, someone is going to hit me over the head with this, I’m sure. (Shrug) However, let me state for the record; As a general rule, I won’t link from this blog to sites that require readers to register, offering copious amounts of personal information in return for seeing their advertisments.  I think such sites an unwarranted intrusion, and will not be party to their personal data collection efforts.

I’ve made no secret of my identity, here on this blog, or in my Usenet days, either. I’ve been told that’s not the best policy. But I regard it as honesty, which as the saying goes, is exatcly that. If they’re that interested in me, let them read my site.  But that info sharing is MY choice, and my info to share, as I see fit.

You as a reader shouldn’t be forced to reveal such info, simply to read a news article. And I try not to help them force you. I won’t use sites that require registering.

Which, in turn, brings up the issue of Blogs that require registration for comment sections, and so on. I’ve not thought that one through yet, though I’m leaning at being a little miffed at these, as well… Though I’ll be among the first to admit that the reasons for registering users in that cse are vastly different, arguably more justified.

Talk Like A Pirate Day – September 19

Aye, Avast!

I had avoided this story, after having already run one story on the guy that weighed 1000+ lbs a day or so ago…  But I can’t avoid it any longer, given an update to the story this morning…

WFTV reports:

“Gayle Laverne Grinds, 40, died Wednesday, after a failed six-hour effort to dislodge her from the couch in her home. Workers say the home was filthy, and Grinds was too large to get up from the couch to even use the bathroom.
Everyone going inside the home had to wear protective gear. The stench was so powerful they had to blast in fresh air.”

Here’s the money line, for me…

“Neighbors say they had no idea Grinds lived at the duplex.”

So let me get this right; The smell is so bad that everyone has to go in in rubber suits and they had to run fans into the place…and yet nobody in the next apartment can smell this for the last five years? Here’s an apartment complex where I want to live, gang…

Update: Here’s a somewhat more inclusive story, posted to the Palm Beach Post this morning. This one includes what apparently finally triggered the call for help.

Update II: The Palm Beach Post has done some follow up today.

Captain’s Quarters has some intense detail on this story.

“David Alston was never a crew member under Sen. Kerry nor could he had ever participated in combat operations with Sen. Kerry because they were assigned to two different boats.”

RTWT.

So, for all that impasioned speech at the DNC about the qualities of John Kerry, all of his ‘I was there” noises, were all a calculated LIE. This is becoming something of a theme in the Kerry campaign.

I’ll be writing about why all these lies form Kerry and his supporters, in this Sunday’s Bit’s Bit.

Rush Limbaugh asks an interesting question today… What if the “”I’m Going to Kill the President” show was to be playing during a Democrat Convention, while Bill Clinton was President?

The Politburo Diktat has issued this Blog Stamp to Bithead’s Place.

Nice to have your work recognized.

Hmmm. Oh, dear.
I’m afraid I do have one question, however;

How the beep do I TYPE now?

Aha! That’s IT! It’s a plot to SILENCE me…. You’re not cutting MY arms off!!!! Bleeding Communists!!!

(Sound: Raving man runs out into the front yard screaming something about boycotting PEZ candy…. and yelling “ARMS! ARMS!” )

(UPDATE: The proper authorities have been notified.)

(Update II: Bithead is expected to recover fully, after several years of intense candy therapy.)

Issue one:
I’m making some progress, as you can see. For a while there today, for reasons I dion’t understand, some of the links would be underlined and other times they wouldn’t be, and often in the same post. All in IE; Mozilla seemed fine. Dunno why, but I’ve got it fixed, I think. The link hover stinks, but it works. I’ll touch up the color on the thing later.

Issue 2:
Turns out, Blogger doesn’t support Trackback. If they’d put up a decent trackback I’d dump Haloscan. As it is, I had to use Haloscan’s comments section, because I couldn’t get the trackback working without it. Are you listening, Blogger?

Issue 3:
Who the heck picks the font sizes in these basic templates? I have to be running 640*480 to even see the stock CSS setups well enough to read them. Got the font sizes up a bit, should be easier to read.

Issue 4:
I’m not overly happy with the white sidebar… a light grey would have been better. Maybe later…

Issue 5:
After busting my bump for a whole &*^$*^^& day on the CSS, I find that a good 15% of my readers can’t even use CSS.  Not sure why, but I suspect there’s folks out there picking up my blog in Palm devices, possibly via AvantGo. I hope that’s the reason, anyway.

Feedback on the new design has been good, though, so I’ll consider this one a small victory. We now return you to BitsBlog, which was already in progress.