"I don't know of anything that disgusts me more than seeing two women get married on television, where one is dressed like a man and has a haircut like a man. I guess they take turns being the man on

let's see:

test

also, the thread subject quote does make you wonder how much the senator has fantasized about lesbian couples flipping a coin and telling the other, "you're the man now, dawg"

I find Florida mildly fascinating, but his research produces some strange results - did you know that Orlando is cooler and more bohemian than Memphis?

They also probably haven't read the research which shows that the stock exchange does better under the Democrats.

As an historical matter, stocks do better under Democrats while bonds do better under Republicans. This year, Wall Streeters estimate that the reverse would be true. (of course, the massive terrorist attack that is more likely to occur under a Bush admin than a Kerry admin wouldn't exactly do wonders for the stock market)

hush nickalicious, you'll ruin another one of Momus's theories.

he's a state senator

. . . because there was no terrorism when Clinton was in office except for the Cole, the embassies in Africa, the car bomb at the WTC, the al-Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia, etc.

Since 9/11, Bush has done nothing to prevent proliferation of former USSR nuclear weapons materials and technology (including suitcase and backpack bombs), has allowed Pakistan to sweep its nuclear proliferation issue under the rug, has been unwilling to do much to inspect the vast majority of shipping containers entering the country, waited until the end of 2003 to begin to inspect any air freight and then required only random inspections, has failed to capture OBL or Zawahiri or Mullah Omar, has captured one, count'em, one sleeper cell in America, has done little to restrict terrorists' abilities to communicate and raise and transfer funds, has failed to come close to finding the source of the 2001 anthrax attacks, has failed to provide all promised homeland security funding for NYC and other major cities, has provided an outsized share of such funding to politically-sensitive parts of the country, has pulled troops out of Afghanistan to send them to Iraq, has allowed the Taliban to regain control of 1/3 of Afghanistan, has refused to confront the Saudis in any obvious way, has converted a surplus of international support for America's efforts beyond its borders into an unprecedented level of opposition to same, has royally pissed off the vast majority of the Arab world, and has made our economy more vulnerable to an attack. I believe that Kerry will be an improvement on every single one of these fronts. As Matthew Yglesias says, the problem isn't that Bush hasn't done enough in the "war on terror," it's that he's hardly fought it at all.

I find the idea that Kerry is going to be harder on Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or that he'll be more reliable in regard to defense spending pretty baffling. I'd love to see it though.

And gabb: that Clinton knew how exactly to handle bin Laden, that Bush doesn't deserve *any* credit for putting some hurt on Al-Q, that Bush "allowed" 1/3 of Afghanistan to be retaken by the Taliban, all sounds pretty conviently partisan to me.

Maybe because the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which was created by Congress in the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991, has been successfully "eliminating (or in the case of Russia, reducing) the weapons of mass destruction remaining from the Soviet era, preventing proliferation, and dismantling the associated infrastructure or transforming portions of it to engage in peaceful civilian activities."

Indeed, "The CTR Program is one of the most effective and efficient tools wielded by the U.S. government to ensure a more stable international environment, reduce weapons of mass destruction and prevent their proliferation, while forging strong and enduring ties with the former Soviet republics. CTR demonstrates the mutually held belief that weapons proliferation is a problem that all nations must face, and that the problems of tomorrow can be solved through cooperation today. Congress has appropriated over $2 billion for CTR over the past seven years -- still less than 0.5% of the defense budget over the same time period. Without CTR the costs to the United States in potential conflicts or terrorist attacks might be incalculably higher."

So is your point that Bush has done "nothing" to combat proliferation intentionally deceptive - because successful programs are already in place and ongoing efforts are being made to do just that - or are you just ignorant?

has allowed Pakistan to sweep its nuclear proliferation issue under the rug,

Except Colin Powell arrived in Pakistan today to discuss the Khan network: "He said Washington would not be "satisfied" until the network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan that leaked nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea was completely rooted out. Powell said Musharraf was "as determined as we are" to put an end to proliferation of nuclear technology. "But we can't be satisfied until the entire network is gone, branch and root," he said."

has been unwilling to do much to inspect the vast majority of shipping containers entering the country,

Unwilling to spend the staggering fortune it would cost to inspect every container, in ports where Customs officials don't necessarily have authority to do so, perhaps. Unwilling to make ports safer? Not by a long shot. You've got the Container Security Initiative placing Customs officials in major ports all over the world, inspecting containers and maximizing the effectiveness of inspections by evaluating manifests and other information to target suspicious containers. Characterizing Bush as resistant to closing security gaps in ports is blatantly deceptive.

waited until the end of 2003 to begin to inspect any air freight and then required only random inspections

You cannot inspect everything, and random inspections are performed in addition to following the guidelines of the known shippers program and inspecting manifests for errors and suspicious paperwork.

has failed to capture OBL or Zawahiri or Mullah Omar, has captured one, count'em, one sleeper cell in America,

Meanwhile, they have captured (among others):
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (primary operations leader, mastermind of Sept 11 attacks),
Abu Zubaydah (key terrorist recruiter and operational planner and member of Bin Laden's inner circle),
Ramzi Binalshibh (planner and organizer of Sept. 11 attacks),
Omar al-Farouq (Southeast Asia operations chief),
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (Persian Gulf operations chief),

and killed:
Muhammad Atef,
Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi,
Tariq Anwar Al-Sayyid Ahmad,
and a multitude of other mid level planners and managers.

has done little to restrict terrorists' abilities to communicate and raise and transfer funds

Bull Shit. Vast amounts of cash and financial assets have been seized or frozen. Terrorist-funding "charities" and other organizations have been raided, arrests have been made and assets seized. What "little" are you talking about? Bush hasn't prevented terrorists from acquiring cell phones?

You're going out of your way to deceive people, gabbneb. You're a liar.

no more partisan than it would be to point out that many of Clinton's foreign policy misadventures were initiated by Bush pere. Whoops...

I wasn't arguing at all that one party or the other makes terrorist attacks likelier because that party is more or less favored by terrorists. I don't think that they care one way or the other, and even if they did, I might take the position that we should ignore them even if it meant that an attack were more likely.

I find the idea that Kerry is going to be harder on Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or that he'll be more reliable in regard to defense spending pretty baffling.

Why? Are you aware of the Bush family's close personal and business ties to certain Saudi princes, as well as members of the bin Laden family, dating back more than 30 years?

And gabb: that Clinton knew how exactly to handle bin Laden, that Bush doesn't deserve *any* credit for putting some hurt on Al-Q, that Bush "allowed" 1/3 of Afghanistan to be retaken by the Taliban, all sounds pretty conviently partisan to me.

I don't credit Bush for anything. Yes, his office has given orders that to some extent, perhaps a large extent, have hampered the activities of "Al Qaeda," such as the term remains relevant (though everyone agrees that Islamic terrorists remain a major threat). I can't conceive of any realistic Democratic President (i.e. not Kucinich) having done less, and can easily conceive of one doing more. If Bush did not "allow" the situation in Afghanistan, how would you describe his decisions not to provide enough troops to control territory beyond Kabul and Kandahar, not to do more to gain the support of the warlords, not to challenge Pakistan's giving free reign, if not official support, to former Talibs (until recently, sort of, when he had AQ Khan to hang over their heads - a needless waste of a bargaining chip), not to provide enough funding for Karzai to establish real infrastructure, and, during the Iraq war, to remove troops, call off the search for bin Laden and let Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's territory grabs go unchallenged?

I didn't say Clinton knew exactly how to challenge bin Laden. I said that his administration gave the Bush administration a very serious warning accompanied by a plan. Bush ignored the urgency of the warning and did nothing. He also ignored a great mass of pre-9/11 intelligence information warning of the type of attack, its imminence, and its principals.

If those efforts are successful, why can Russia account for only a fraction of its nuclear weapons? And why are radiological censors being used to inspect four major American cities?

If the CTR program is adequate in its current state, why on Feb 11 did Bush call on more nations to fund it (while simultaneously proposing a US budget that provides no new money for nonproliferation efforts)? If the current regime of int'l laws is sufficient, why did it not, as Bush noted, prevent AQ Khan from selling nuclear info, and why did he call for tougher standards? And why did he wait until Feb. 11, 2004 to do all of these things?

Except Colin Powell arrived in Pakistan today to discuss the Khan network: "He said Washington would not be "satisfied" until the network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan that leaked nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea was completely rooted out. Powell said Musharraf was "as determined as we are" to put an end to proliferation of nuclear technology. "But we can't be satisfied until the entire network is gone, branch and root," he said."

Nice talk, but why did Bush make no objection to Musharraf's pardon of Khan? Why have we not questioned Khan? Could it be that the administration doesn't want the public to know that it told CIA and NSA investigators to "back off" investigating Khan (and the Saudis) prior to 9/11?

Unwilling to spend the staggering fortune it would cost to inspect every container, in ports where Customs officials don't necessarily have authority to do so, perhaps. Unwilling to make ports safer? Not by a long shot. You've got the Container Security Initiative placing Customs officials in major ports all over the world, inspecting containers and maximizing the effectiveness of inspections by evaluating manifests and other information to target suspicious containers. Characterizing Bush as resistant to closing security gaps in ports is blatantly deceptive.

What do you mean by inspect? Are you sure it would cost a staggering fortune to do 100% inspection of containers by radiation portal? In any event, I'm not saying every container, I'm saying more than the current 2% (wow, what a deterrent), and more than just the major sources. The voluntary CSI has now been implemented in most or all of the 20 major ports of the world, which is great, but something that probably would have happened much faster if these guys weren't idiots at foreign relations. In May 2002, there were reports that about 25 Islamist extremists may have entered the United States by hiding in shipping containers. Even given what CSI does, however, we still fail to address 30% of shipping to the US, and the program has yet to be implemented in a single port in the Middle East. It's not at all unreasonable to require 100%, or at least far more pervasive, inspection of shipping from the more suspect sources.

And container inspection isn't the only issue. The administration has failed to fund the Coast Guard sufficiently such that it now spends half the time guarding ports that was deemed necessary in the months after 9/11. And no efforts have been made to change the management of ports to provide a greater security orientation.

You cannot inspect everything

Yes, you most certainly can. As you admit above re container traffic, it's a question of costs and benefits. With respect to air freight, it seems quite possible to do everything or close to it.

following the guidelines of the known shippers program

and you say I'm going out of my way to deceive people?!

The Allied Pilots Association: "[J]ust trying to ‘patch up’ the acknowledged failings of the ‘known shipper program’ provides no value and develops a false sense of security."

The Asssociation of Flight Attendants: "continuing with this paperwork driven security [known shipper] security program is allowing disaster to strike again."

Meanwhile, they have captured (among others):

Yes, we have captured I think at least 1/3 to 1/2 the pre-9/11 command structure, as we know it, which is real success. Were these sacrificial lambs?

Vast amounts of cash and financial assets have been seized or frozen. Terrorist-funding "charities" and other organizations have been raided, arrests have been made and assets seized.

Of course. And yet by all acounts terrorist groups are still able to easily communicate and transfer funds.