Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (149967)	10/30/2004 5:16:10 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Kerry Says U.S. United on Terror, Slams Bush reuters.com Sat Oct 30, 2004 04:34 PM ET By Patricia Wilson DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Democratic challenger John Kerry declared solidarity on Saturday with President Bush against Osama bin Laden, but criticized his Republican rival's strategy for capturing the al Qaeda leader. Three days before the election, the Massachusetts senator said he and Bush were united in their resolve to hunt down bin Laden, who jolted the race on Friday with a video threatening new violence. But Kerry refused to back off his long-standing argument that Bush made a huge mistake three years ago by failing to send American troops after bin Laden -- blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States -- when he was believed to be trapped in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan. "We are united as Americans," he told a rally in Des Moines. "There's no Democrat, there's no Republican. We are all Americans and all united in our determination to seek out and destroy Osama bin Laden and the other terrorists." Without mentioning the tape directly in Des Moines or earlier in Appleton, Wisconsin, Kerry said the United States needed "the leadership of our troops and the strategies that make us safe" and promised to do better at both than Bush. "As I have said for two years now, when Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords," Kerry said. Bush had said shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks that he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive," but the al Qaeda leader has not been caught. Kerry aides said they would not let the new bin laden tape overshadow the campaign debate about who could make America safer, but they appeared to wrestle with how to handle it. TORA BORA Kerry had dropped his usual reference to Tora Bora at a Miami rally on Friday night, after Bush accused the Democrat of using a local television interview to politicize the issue. In a response to a question about the bin Laden tape, Kerry repeated his assertion that the president bungled the chance to catch the al Qaeda leader. Renewing the attack on Saturday, Kerry said: "Instead of using the best-trained troops in the world who wanted to avenge America for what happened in New York and Pennsylvania and Washington, it was wrong to divert our forces from Afghanistan so that we could rush to the war in Iraq without a plan to win the peace." In a close and bitter race, some political analysts believe the bin Laden tape could help Bush by reminding voters of his perceived strength -- fighting the war on terror. Others said it could benefit Kerry by reminding them that the al Qaeda leader was still at large. "We will certainly know by Tuesday night sometime," Kerry adviser Mike McCurry said. Kerry said he was better equipped than Bush to fight "a smarter, more effective, tougher, more strategic war on terror." "I will use all of the power that we have and all of the leadership skill that I can summon, and that is, believe me, more than what we have today," he said. In a pitch to women voters and independents, Kerry pictured a spouse at a polling booth on Tuesday wondering how long a loved one would have to stay in Iraq and children asking "daddy, mommy, when are you coming home, are you coming home?" "And they're going to wonder whether or not we can afford four more years of a president who is unwilling to admit any mistake that he has made and says he would absolutely do everything all over again, even knowing there's no connection to al Qaeda, no weapons of mass destruction." Kerry promised a new start in Iraq and said he would persuade more allies to help with security and reconstruction. But countries such as France and Germany that opposed the war have given no indication of any new willingness to help even if the Democrat is elected.

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (149967)	10/30/2004 6:05:20 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

NASA analyst: Bush wore a device during debate [link to photos is below] George W. Bush tried to laugh off the bulge. "I don't know what that is," he said on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, referring to the infamous protrusion beneath his jacket during the presidential debates. "I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt." Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons. For the past week, while at home, using his own computers, and off the clock at Caltech and NASA, Nelson has been analyzing images of the president's back during the debates. A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject. "I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate," he says. "This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt." Nelson and a scientific colleague produced the photos from a videotape, recorded by the colleague, who has chosen to remain anonymous, of the first debate. The images provide the most vivid details yet of the bulge beneath the president's suit. Amateurs have certainly had their turn at examining the bulge, but no professional with a résumé as impressive as Nelson's has ventured into public with an informed opinion. In fact, no one to date has enhanced photos of Bush's jacket to this degree of precision, and revealed what appears to be some kind of mechanical device with a wire snaking up the president's shoulder toward his neck and down his back to his waist. Nelson stresses that he's not certain what lies beneath the president's jacket. He offers, though, "that it could be some type of electronic device -- it's consistent with the appearance of an electronic device worn in that manner." The image of lines coursing up and down the president's back, Nelson adds, is "consistent with a wire or a tube." Nelson used the computer software program Photoshop to enhance the texture in Bush's jacket. The process in no way alters the image but sharpens its edges and accents the creases and wrinkles. You've seen the process performed a hundred times on "CSI": pixelated images are magnified to reveal a clear definition of their shape. Bruce Hapke, professor emeritus of planetary science in the department of geology and planetary science at the University of Pittsburgh, reviewed the Bush images employed by Nelson, whom he calls "a very highly respected scientist in his field." Hapke says Nelson's process of analyzing the images are the "exact same methods we use to analyze images taken by spacecraft of planetary surfaces. It does not introduce any artifacts into the picture in any way." How can Nelson be certain there's some kind of mechanical device beneath Bush's jacket? It's all about light and shadows, he says. The angles at which the light in the studio hit Bush's jacket expose contours that fit no one's picture of human anatomy and wrinkled shirts. And Nelson compared the images to anatomy texts. He also experimented with wrinkling shirts in various configurations, wore them under his jacket under his bathroom light, and couldn't produce anything close to the Bush bulge. In the enhanced photo of the first debate, Nelson says, look at the horizontal white line in middle of the president's back. You'll see a shadow. "That's telling me there's definitely a bulge," he says. "In fact, it's how we measure the depths of the craters on the moon or on Mars. We look at the angle of the light and the length of shadow they leave. In this case, that's clearly a crater that's under the horizontal line -- it's clearly a rim of a bulge protruding upward, one due to forces pushing it up from beneath." Hapke, too, agrees that the bulge is neither anatomy nor a wrinkled shirt. "I would think it's very hard to avoid the conclusion that there's something underneath his jacket," he says. "It would certainly be consistent with some kind of radio receiver and a wire." Nelson admits that he's a Democrat and plans to vote for John Kerry. But he takes umbrage at being accused of partisanship. "Everyone wants to think my colleague and I are just a bunch of dope-crazed ravaged Democrats who are looking to insult the president at the last minute," he says. "And that's not what this is about. This is scientific analysis. If the bulge were on Bill Clinton's back and he was lying about it, I'd have to say the same thing." "Look, he says, "I'm putting myself at risk for exposing this. But this is too important. It's not about my reputation. If they force me into an early retirement, it'll be worth it if the public knows about this. It's outrageous statements that I read that the president is wearing nothing under there. There's clearly something there." - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Kevin Berger is a senior news editor at Salon. salon.com

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (149967)	10/30/2004 6:15:19 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Kerry 55, Bush 45 ____________________________________________ The Editor of Vanity Fair Makes His Prediction... Posted by James Wolcott 10.29.04 4:06PM jameswolcott.com That's my election prediction. Weigh it for what it's worth: nothing. How did I arrive at that figure, as I rode the Metroliner back from DC this morning? (I was on C-SPAN last night, an hour and a half of pure enlightment that will be rebroadcast again this weekend--I'll post the details when i have them.) Oh, I could pull out electoral wonk explanations, such as how a big turnout (which this election will be) benefits Democrats, how Bush remains sunken below the 50 percent level in nearly all of the battleground state polls (a dire state for an incumbent to be in), how young people are showing a motivation to vote not seen since 1992 (when they helped put Clinton over), how Bush has managed to erode so many once-solid pockets of support (losing Arab Americans in Michigan, throwing the evangelicals a curve with his offhand, last-minute endorsement of gay civil unions, etc), how the news cycle has turned against him, all that. But for shorthand what I did was take the Nickolodeon Poll for kids, which has correctly predicted the last four elections, and work from there. The bright youngsters who took part in this poll, 400,000 strong, voted Kerry 57, Bush 43. Since kids are naturally exuberant, until it's beaten out of them by the System, I shaved off two points from Kerry, gave those two to Bush. Kerry 55, Bush 45, that's my lighter than air prediction. One complication: the networks are broadcasting news of a new bin Laden videotape, a pre-Halloween scare. I have no idea how this tape will play out politically since the specific contents are unclear as yet--whether it will rally lots of voters to the president out of fear or remind them that Bush for all his Terror Fighter swagger hasn't been able to nab this guy. Or perhaps it will be a wash for both candidates. The nonreaction of the stock market to word of a new bin Laden tape suggests this. But it's a tricky business for Bush should he tout this tape as proof the evildoers are still out there, since Kerry can then toss back the failure to capture bin Laden at Tora Bora--a storyline he's already established.