Quiz for the day. Who said the following tidbits in a speech about 4 years ago? I put my favorite parts in bold text with comments below each part.
For whatever lies ahead, our men and women in uniform deserve the very best weapons, the very best equipmentt, the best support, and the best training we can possibly provide them. And under President Bush they will have them all.
(body and vehicle armor anyone?)
...
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.
(no doubts here, you?)
...
The elected leaders of the country have a responsibility to consider all available options, and we are doing so. What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat is give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness. We must not simply look away, hope for the best, and leave the matter for some future administration to resolve.
(all available options...as long as invading is the decision we come to)
...
Some have argued that to oppose Saddam Hussein would cause even greater troubles in that part of the world, and interfere with the larger war against terror. I believe the opposite is true. Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the entire region. When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving peoples of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace. As for the reaction of the Arab "street," the Middle East expert, Professor Fouad Ajami, predicts that after liberation, in Basra and Baghdad the streets are "sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans." Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced, just as it was following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991.
( wow, just......wow)
And the answer is......
Our lovable, totally realistic VP
Link
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Random news clippings after Katrina
I'm new to this, so I don't have any links to these stories, sorry. They are an assortment of stuff that caught my eye and I saved for one reason or another. Most of them are from NOLA.com if I remember correctly.
1----Early Wednesday, National guardsman and the police department's SWAT team swarmed the Algiers Fischer Housing Development, where someone fired on nearby technicians trying to restore cell phone service. Two men were arrested.
This just blows my mind. Why people would shoot at out of town workers trying to help the city is disgusting to me.
2----But their fears were based on actual experiences. The day after the hurricane, Pervel was carjacked as he tried to check on his other properties in the neighborhood. Two guys clubbed him on the head with a sledgehammer, grabbed his keys and stole his van, which he had filled with hurricane supplies, a full tank of fuel and his credit cards. The next afternoon, as Pervel and his mother, Harris and Stubbs stood on their porch, a gunfight between armed neighbors and "looters" erupted on the corner of Pelican and Valette streets, half a block away. The neighbors, whom Pervel would not identify, shot two of the men. "We screamed to Mrs. P., 'Hit the deck,' and she did," Harris said.
This is from an article published soon after Katrina about an event that happened in my neighborhood. I'm so glad I didn't stick around to see this. People that did stay have some pretty vicious stories of the aftermath. Thankfully the military set up their command post close to my house and peace and quiet were restored fairly quickly. It was still disturbing to see how jumpy my neighbor was almost two months afterwards though.
3---- Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner, said he too has been overwhelmed by the offers of help from his congressional colleagues, some of whom traveled to the state to personally deliver relief supplies like water and ice.
But he's also been able to personally attest to the breakdowns of bureaucracy that delayed the resolution of urgent requests for help, he wrote this week for the Wall Street Journal. Among his examples:
"A mayor in my district tried to get supplies for his constituents, who were hit directly by the hurricane. He called for help and was put on hold for 45 minutes. Eventually, a bureaucrat promised to write a memo to his supervisor."
"Evacuees on a boat from St. Bernard Parish could not find anyone to give them permission to dock along the Mississippi River. Security forces, they say, were prepared to turn them away at one port."
"A sheriff in my district office reported being told that he would not get the resources his office needed to do its job unless he e-mailed a request. The parish was flooded and without ."
typical NOLA bureaucracy at work. Need I say more?
4----The most bizarre such case, he said, came not from New Orleans but from farther west near the coastal town of Cameron, where Hurricane Rita left behind a casket. The dead man was from the Cameron graveyard, where he had been buried in the 1950s. In 1957, Hurricane Audrey had dug up the casket and carried it out of the cemetery. It had been sunk somewhere in a salt marsh east of town until Rita came ashore and resurrected it again.
"He'd been lost there underwater nearly 50 years," Yennie said. "There were barnacles on his coffin."
This one made me scratch my head. Life is just plain out weird sometimes.
1----Early Wednesday, National guardsman and the police department's SWAT team swarmed the Algiers Fischer Housing Development, where someone fired on nearby technicians trying to restore cell phone service. Two men were arrested.
This just blows my mind. Why people would shoot at out of town workers trying to help the city is disgusting to me.
2----But their fears were based on actual experiences. The day after the hurricane, Pervel was carjacked as he tried to check on his other properties in the neighborhood. Two guys clubbed him on the head with a sledgehammer, grabbed his keys and stole his van, which he had filled with hurricane supplies, a full tank of fuel and his credit cards. The next afternoon, as Pervel and his mother, Harris and Stubbs stood on their porch, a gunfight between armed neighbors and "looters" erupted on the corner of Pelican and Valette streets, half a block away. The neighbors, whom Pervel would not identify, shot two of the men. "We screamed to Mrs. P., 'Hit the deck,' and she did," Harris said.
This is from an article published soon after Katrina about an event that happened in my neighborhood. I'm so glad I didn't stick around to see this. People that did stay have some pretty vicious stories of the aftermath. Thankfully the military set up their command post close to my house and peace and quiet were restored fairly quickly. It was still disturbing to see how jumpy my neighbor was almost two months afterwards though.
3---- Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner, said he too has been overwhelmed by the offers of help from his congressional colleagues, some of whom traveled to the state to personally deliver relief supplies like water and ice.
But he's also been able to personally attest to the breakdowns of bureaucracy that delayed the resolution of urgent requests for help, he wrote this week for the Wall Street Journal. Among his examples:
"A mayor in my district tried to get supplies for his constituents, who were hit directly by the hurricane. He called for help and was put on hold for 45 minutes. Eventually, a bureaucrat promised to write a memo to his supervisor."
"Evacuees on a boat from St. Bernard Parish could not find anyone to give them permission to dock along the Mississippi River. Security forces, they say, were prepared to turn them away at one port."
"A sheriff in my district office reported being told that he would not get the resources his office needed to do its job unless he e-mailed a request. The parish was flooded and without ."
typical NOLA bureaucracy at work. Need I say more?
4----The most bizarre such case, he said, came not from New Orleans but from farther west near the coastal town of Cameron, where Hurricane Rita left behind a casket. The dead man was from the Cameron graveyard, where he had been buried in the 1950s. In 1957, Hurricane Audrey had dug up the casket and carried it out of the cemetery. It had been sunk somewhere in a salt marsh east of town until Rita came ashore and resurrected it again.
"He'd been lost there underwater nearly 50 years," Yennie said. "There were barnacles on his coffin."
This one made me scratch my head. Life is just plain out weird sometimes.
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