Month: October 2004

God bless you, Mr. Tufte.

From Robertson Says Bush Predicted No Iraq Toll, by David D. Kirkpatrick, The New York Times, Oct. 21, 2004:

“In the CNN interview, [Pat] Robertson reversed himself on one prophecy. On his ‘700 Club’ television program in January, he declared that Mr. Bush would win re-election ‘in a walk,’ and added, ‘I really believe I’m hearing from the Lord it’s going to be a blowout election in 2004.’
“On Tuesday, however, he conceded, ‘I thought it was going to be a blowout, but I think it’s razor thin now.’“

How much can we “trust” in God, if He can’t be held a simple, clear point of view? Does God have the experience, the know-how, and the can-do attitude this country needs right now? Is God truly a uniter, or is He the worst divider known to man? It’s time to send God and the other fat cats from heaven a message on November 2nd. Vote God out.
I’m the anti-Christ, and I approve this message.

One lucky terrorist clutches the Bush Adminstration’s greatest nightmare, the uranium-equipped Vaccinatron 2000, which threatens to carry black-market flu vaccines into America’s largest cities, thereby obliterating all old people
From “Bush Defends Himself Against Kerry’s Charges”, the Washington Post, October 20, 2004:

President Bush pivoted sharply to domestic issues Tuesday, parrying Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry’s charges that the president had bungled the flu-vaccine program and would undermine Social Security in a second term.
With two weeks to go before Election Day, Kerry, fighting to reduce a small deficit in opinion polls, condemned Bush’s policies on health care and economic matters. Bush largely dropped the offensive he started Monday against Kerry’s credentials on security issues, moving quickly to defend his domestic record and charging that Kerry was willing to make outlandish assertions to win election.
[…]
Kerry aides said that in shifting to domestic concerns, Bush was responding to recent polls that show him with a narrow lead over Kerry but also show majorities of Americans saying the country is headed in the wrong direction. Bush aides said the president was not being defensive on domestic matters but rather tarring Kerry as a fear-monger using “old-style scare tactics” and as a candidate who would say anything to get elected – a charge Bush used effectively against Al Gore four years ago.

From “Kerry Discovers Flu Vaccine Shortage in Battle Against Bush”, Bloomberg, October 20, 2004:

Bill Pierce, a spokesman for Thompson, defended the Bush administration’s handling of the flu-vaccine issue. “What we don’t need people to do is scare seniors,” he said. “Senator Kerry has been doing that.”

And, finally, the coup de grace, from “Cheney, Invoking the Specter of a Nuclear Attack, Questions Kerry’s Strength”, the New York Times, October 20, 2004:

Vice President Dick Cheney cast doubt Tuesday on whether Senator John Kerry was strong enough to fight terrorism, and asserted that the nation might one day face terrorists “in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us,” including a nuclear bomb.
As he toured southern Ohio by bus seeking to energize Republican supporters, Mr. Cheney hit hard on a central theme of the Bush campaign: that the president has a better grasp than Mr. Kerry of the threats facing the nation, and the will to stymie terrorists. As in previous campaigning, the vice president invoked the specter of terrorists’ attacking an American city.
“The biggest threat we face now as a nation,” he said, “is the possibility of terrorists’ ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us – biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind – to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.”

Just in case you were wondering, it looks like John Kerry is not a heretic after all. And he got cleared by the No. 2 guy at the Inquisition, no less. From The New York Times:

BOSTON, Oct. 19 – The Roman Catholic Church’s official news service quoted an unnamed Vatican official on Tuesday as saying John Kerry was “not a heretic” for his stance on abortion rights.
The article by The Catholic News Service also quoted an unnamed Vatican official as saying Mr. Kerry was not about to be excommunicated because “you can incur excommunication” automatically “only if you procure or perform an abortion.”
[…]
But on Tuesday, Father Di Noia, an American priest who is highly influential in his position as under secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, took steps to distance himself from the letter. He told The Catholic News Service that “the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has had no contact with Mr. Balestrieri” and that Mr. Balestrieri’s “claim that the private letter he received from Father Basil Cole is a Vatican response is completely without merit.”
Father Di Noia’s remarks to the news service seem to reflect a reluctance by at least some Vatican officials to be perceived as trying to meddle in an American presidential election, experts on the Vatican said.

Way back a long time ago, there was an ugly sentiment in this country that the Catholic Church was a foreign organization whose leadership went out of its way to control the decisions of its members, and that its members, therefore, could not be trusted to be good American citizens. Of course, that view was just used as a pretext by Americans who were simply anti-immigrant. But it seems to me that the (admittedly very few) bishops who are going around saying that it’s a sin to vote for pro-choice candidates are playing into exactly that stereotype.

Courtesy, Asthmatic Weasels Blog.
From the BBC:

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said on Tuesday that vaccine manufacturer Aventis Pasteur would be able to produce an extra 2.6 million doses.

What Secretary Thompson neglected to mention was that the so-called Aventis is the result of a merger between a French (Rhône-Poulenc) and a German (Hoechst) company. Does the Bush Administration not realize that this company practically personifies the Axis of Weasel? Is it not possible that these vaccines could secretly contain defeatist chemicals intended to weaken our country’s resolve? Should they not, at least, label these vaccines such that patriotic Americans can be aware of the origins of the vaccines being injected into their (equally patriotic) children?