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Really, Churak? What types of reactions have been noted? I'd like to know what to look for.
I'm not a big soda drinker, so iced tea and water do for me.
So, Lownumba, why do you think some endure? And are even thought classics?
The SPLENDA is what sweetens the ice cream I found. I personally can't tell it from sugar...but my body sure can.
Thanks for the memories, Bob! RIP eom
Castle..when did that happen? eom
Lownumba...
I have tried, and tried, and tried, to read "Dracula"...man, does it suck. Great movies, scary lead, but the book!! Could have benefitted from a good editor.
For that matter, I also HATED the ending to Stephen King's "It"..and I am a HUGE King fan. I remember, after wading through some 900+ pages, the revelation that Pennywhistle was a - if you haven't read "It" and intend to stop now -
big bug just sucked. I felt like throwing the book across the room, but it was too heavy.
BnB....
LOL! Priceless! I hear credibility being flushed.......again.
Thank you Carolyn...it gets easier to stay on all the time. It's a lifestyle change, as I'm sure you are aware. The part that I missed the most, ice cream, I have found a way around. I found sugar-free ice cream bars - orange or raspberry sherbet with vanilla ice cream - for 70 calories each! Life is complete.
Well, rudi...I don't eat a lot of bread...just 2 slices most days...and I eat sugar-free wheat bread. I also exercise 4-5 times per week. I think that makes a BIG difference.
I LOVE fruit..that's my big thing, that and fresh veggies - especially green beans, man do I love fresh green beans!
ergo...no apologies necessary..post a novel, if you wish.
Interesting stuff, ergo. Thank you. eom
Sox...
It bothers me, too, believe it or not, that we have not found anything. I wonder, often, if the intelligence you cite was a)faulty or b)old, or worse c) accurate, but aged enough that Hussein had a chance to trot the stuff over to Syria, bury it, destroy it, etc.
We do know the French were selling him propulsion packages for long-range missiles, that has not been disputed, but the question is why.
I've every confidence the truth will come out...eventually. The people of the world we live in are far to savvy to be kept in the dark.
I am in full agreement with the war, and frankly, I don't care about the presence/absence of WMDs..except for the fact that that was the reason sold to the public by the Bush administration for going in. Why not just state the obvious? That Hussein refused to comply with UN resolutions, that he was a proven threat (Kuwait in '91) to his neighbors, and that since he had not lived up to his end of the cease fire for the Gulf War that contract was null and void and hostilities would commence immediately.
Now, how about that Kobe Bryant deal? Wow.
Sox...
I could say the same for you, regarding believing anything you want so long as it supports your position, and I'd be just as accurate.
I do agree, however, that the proof will determine my ultimate decision on what/who to believe.
I find it interesting that amidst the controversy both Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair seem confident in their assertions of WMD in Iraq. I can't help but wonder what they know and will I be privy @ some point to it.
Sox...
Hans Blix, and his 200, had their collective hands tied and you know it. They had absolutely zero control over where and what they inspected. Their "inspections" were a joke.
And, while I'm on this soapbox, let's not forget that this entire war is simply a continuance of the Gulf War in 1991. Some 17 UN resolutions later, and still defiant, the U.S. had had enough.
ergo...I had not forgotten about you. Here is an example of Clinton's missed opportunities with bin Laden. And all because the "game" of politics was just too complicated for Slick.
Make no mistake, bin Laden was on our 'radar' for some time, so this should have been a no-brainer.
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 3, 2001; Page A01
The government of Sudan, employing a back channel direct from its president to the Central Intelligence Agency, offered in the early spring of 1996 to arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in Saudi custody, according to officials and former officials in all three countries.
The Clinton administration struggled to find a way to accept the offer in secret contacts that stretched from a meeting at a Rosslyn hotel on March 3, 1996, to a fax that closed the door on the effort 10 weeks later. Unable to persuade the Saudis to accept bin Laden, and lacking a case to indict him in U.S. courts at the time, the Clinton administration finally gave up on the capture.
Sudan expelled bin Laden on May 18, 1996, to Afghanistan. From there, he is thought to have planned and financed the twin embassy bombings of 1998, the near-destruction of the USS Cole a year ago and last month's devastation in New York and Washington.
Bin Laden's good fortune in slipping through U.S. fingers torments some former officials with the thought that the subsequent attacks might have been averted. Though far from the central figure he is now, bin Laden had a high and rising place on the U.S. counterterrorism agenda. Internal State Department talking points at the time described him as "one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world today" and blamed him for planning a failed attempt to blow up the hotel used by U.S. troops in Yemen in 1992.
"Had we been able to roll up bin Laden then, it would have made a significant difference," said a U.S. government official with responsibilities, then and now, in counterterrorism. "We probably never would have seen a September 11th. We would still have had networks of Sunni Islamic extremists of the sort we're dealing with here, and there would still have been terrorist attacks fomented by those folks. But there would not have been as many resources devoted to their activities, and there would not have been a single voice that so effectively articulated grievances and won support for violence."
Clinton administration officials maintain emphatically that they had no such option in 1996. In the legal, political and intelligence environment of the time, they said, there was no choice but to allow bin Laden to depart Sudan unmolested.
"The FBI did not believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time, and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States," said Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, who was deputy national security adviser then.
Three Clinton officials said they hoped -- one described it as "a fantasy" -- that Saudi King Fahd would accept bin Laden and order his swift beheading, as he had done for four conspirators after a June 1995 bombing in Riyadh. But Berger and Steven Simon, then director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, said the White House considered it valuable in itself to force bin Laden out of Sudan, thus tearing him away from his extensive network of businesses, investments and training camps.
"I really cared about one thing, and that was getting him out of Sudan," Simon said. "One can understand why the Saudis didn't want him -- he was a hot potato -- and, frankly, I would have been shocked at the time if the Saudis took him. My calculation was, 'It's going to take him a while to reconstitute, and that screws him up and buys time.' "
Conflicting Agendas
Conflicting policy agendas on three separate fronts contributed to the missed opportunity to capture bin Laden, according to a dozen participants. The Clinton administration was riven by differences on whether to engage Sudan's government or isolate it, which influenced judgments about the sincerity of the offer. In the Saudi-American relationship, policymakers diverged on how much priority to give to counterterrorism over other interests such as support for the ailing Israeli-Palestinian talks. And there were the beginnings of a debate, intensified lately, on whether the United States wanted to indict and try bin Laden or to treat him as a combatant in an underground war.
In 1999, Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir referred elliptically to his government's early willingness to send bin Laden to Saudi Arabia. But the role of the U.S. government and the secret channel from Khartoum to Washington had not been disclosed before.
The Sudanese offer had its roots in a dinner at the Khartoum home of Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Othman Taha. It was Feb. 6, 1996 -- Ambassador Timothy M. Carney's last night in the country before evacuating the embassy on orders from Washington.
Paul Quaglia, then the CIA station chief in Khartoum, had led a campaign to pull out all Americans after he and his staff came under aggressive surveillance and twice had to fend off attacks, one with a knife and one with claw hammers. Now Carney was instructed, despite his objections, to withdraw all remaining Americans from the country.
Carney and David Shinn, then chief of the State Department's East Africa desk, considered the security threat "bogus," as Shinn described it. Washington's dominant decision-makers on Sudan had lost interest in engagement, preparing plans to isolate and undermine the regime. The two career diplomats thought that was a mistake, and that Washington was squandering opportunities to enlist Sudan's cooperation against radical Islamic groups.
One factor in Washington's hostility was an intelligence tip that Sudan aimed to assassinate national security adviser Anthony Lake, the most visible administration critic of Khartoum. The Secret Service took it seriously enough to remove Lake from his home, shuffling him among safe houses and conveying him around Washington in a heavily armored car. Most U.S. analysts came to believe later that it had been a false alarm.
Taha, distressed at the deteriorating relations, invited Carney and Shinn to dine with him that Tuesday night. He asked what his country could do to dissuade Washington from the view, expressed not long before by then-United Nations Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright, that Sudan was responsible for "continued sponsorship of international terror."
Carney and Shinn had a long list. Bin Laden, as they both recalled, was near the top. So, too, were three members of Egypt's Gamaat i-Islami, Arabic for Islamic Group, who had fled to Sudan after trying to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Sudan also played host to operatives and training facilities for the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
"It was the first substantive chat with the U.S. government on the subject of terrorism," Carney recalled.
Taha mostly listened. He raised no objection to the request for bin Laden's expulsion, though he did not agree to it that night. His only rejoinders came on Hamas and Hezbollah, which his government, like much of the Arab world, regarded as conducting legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation.
Sudanese President Bashir, struggling for dominance over the fiery cleric Hassan Turabi, had already made overtures to the West. Not long before, he had delivered the accused terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal" to France. Less than a month after Taha's dinner, he sent a trusted aide to Washington.
Maj. Gen. Elfatih Erwa, then minister of state for defense, arrived unannounced at the Hyatt Arlington on March 3, 1996. Using standard tradecraft, he checked into one room and then walked to another, across Wilson Boulevard from the Rosslyn Metro.
Carney and Shinn were waiting for him, but the meeting was run by covert operatives from the CIA's Africa division. The Washington Post does not identify active members of the clandestine service. Frank Knott, who was Africa division chief in the directorate of operations at the time, declined to be interviewed.
In a document dated March 8, 1996, the Americans spelled out their demands. Titled "Measures Sudan Can Take to Improve Relations with the United States," the two-page memorandum asked for six things. Second on the list -- just after an angry enumeration of attacks on the CIA station in Khartoum -- was Osama bin Laden.
"Provide us with names, dates of arrival, departure and destination and passport data on mujahedin [holy warriors] that Usama Bin Laden has brought into Sudan," the document demanded. The CIA emissaries told Erwa that they knew of about 200 such bin Laden loyalists in Sudan.
During the next several weeks, Erwa raised the stakes. The Sudanese security services, he said, would happily keep close watch on bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the government was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over, though to whom was ambiguous. In one formulation, Erwa said Sudan would consider any legitimate proffer of criminal charges against the accused terrorist. Saudi Arabia, he said, was the most logical destination.
Susan Rice, then senior director for Africa on the NSC, remembers being intrigued with but deeply skeptical of the Sudanese offer. And unlike Berger and Simon, she argued that mere expulsion from Sudan was not enough.
"We wanted them to hand him over to a responsible external authority," she said. "We didn't want them to just let him disappear into the ether."
Lake and Secretary of State Warren Christopher were briefed, colleagues said, on efforts launched to persuade the Saudi government to take bin Laden.
The Saudi idea had some logic, since bin Laden had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, denouncing the ruling House of Saud as corrupt. Riyadh had expelled bin Laden in 1991 and stripped him of his citizenship in 1994, but it wanted no part in jailing or executing him.
Saudis Feared a Backlash
Clinton administration officials recalled that the Saudis feared a backlash from the fundamentalist opponents of the regime. Though regarded as a black sheep, bin Laden was nonetheless an heir to one of Saudi Arabia's most influential families. One diplomat familiar with the talks said there was another reason: The Riyadh government was offended that the Sudanese would go to the Americans with the offer.
Some U.S. diplomats said the White House did not press the Saudis very hard. There were many conflicting priorities in the Middle East, notably an intensive effort to save the interim government of Prime Minister Shimon Peres in Israel, which was reeling under its worst spate of Hamas suicide bombings. U.S. military forces also relied heavily on Saudi forward basing to enforce the southern "no fly zone" in Iraq.
Resigned to bin Laden's departure from Sudan, some officials raised the possibility of shooting down his chartered aircraft, but the idea was never seriously pursued because bin Laden had not been linked to a dead American, and it was inconceivable that Clinton would sign the "lethal finding" necessary under the circumstances.
"In the end they said, 'Just ask him to leave the country. Just don't let him go to Somalia,' " Erwa, the Sudanese general, said in an interview. "We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they said, 'Let him.' "
On May 15, 1996, Foreign Minister Taha sent a fax to Carney in Nairobi, giving up on the transfer of custody. His government had asked bin Laden to vacate the country, Taha wrote, and he would be free to go.
Carney faxed back a question: Would bin Laden retain control of the millions of dollars in assets he had built up in Sudan?
Taha gave no reply before bin Laden chartered a plane three days later for his trip to Afghanistan. Subsequent analysis by U.S. intelligence suggests that bin Laden managed to draw down and redirect the Sudanese assets from his new redoubt in Afghanistan.
From the Sudanese point of view, the failed effort to take custody of bin Laden resulted primarily from the Clinton administration's divisions on how to relate to the Khartoum government -- divisions that remain today as President Bush considers what to do with nations with a history of support for terrorist groups.
Washington, Erwa said, never could decide whether to strike out at Khartoum or demand its help.
"I think," he said, "they wanted to do both."
And for those who doubt the weapons inspectors were tossed from Iraq:
http://www.fair.org/extra/0210/inspectors.html
Sox...in response to your assertion that Hussein has no ties to al Qaeda, I offer:
"Bin Working Together?
Embedded correspondent Gethin Chamberlain of The Scotsman newspaper reports captured Iraqi soldiers have told British forces that Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorists are working with Saddam forces near Basrah. The Iraqi prisoners have reportedly told British Interrogators that at least a dozen Al Qaeda members in the town of Az Zubayr have been planning grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions. If found, these Al Qaeda operatives would provide the first concrete proof of a connection between Usama's terrorist network and the brutal Iraqi regime."
...and the link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82691,00.html
.......then there's this.......
"SNOW: You said on the 14th of February that you had more information to deliver about Al Qaeda cooperation with Iraq. When are we going to see that?
POWELL: I think the CIA and other intelligence agencies of the government are hard at work in generating more information, as suggested.
There is an axis between al Qaeda and Iraq. We're not trying to overstate this case, and we're not trying to force any conclusions with respect to 9/11.
But we think there's a pretty good case that with the Al-Zarqawi presence that we have seen in Baghdad, with other things that have gone on, the Baghdad regime is witting of the presence of al Qaeda in Iraq, and it is certainly a place where they can find some opportunity to perform, to act, to find haven.
And so, we don't want to overstate the case, but we're not going to listen to the case that says there is no connection, because that is inaccurate."
...and the link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,80556,00.html
....there's more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77710,00.html
Thank you, dear friend!! Welcome and come back often! eom
ergo...can you wait till tomorrow? Good! Have a good evening, folks!
Sox, you wanna talk about how this WHOLE thing could have been avoided if Clinton had accepted bin Laden on the FIVE separate occasions he was offered?
Sox...
The terrorists, responsible for 9/11, were al-Qaeda. They have training camps in Iraq, and were funded by Hussein. That's the connection...one of them, anyway.
Yes, one of our missions was accomplished - the ousting of Hussein. The rest is guerilla and will take a long time, just like the President and his generals have been saying all along.
Sox...
I cannot help that you don't get the connection. It doesn't change the fact that it exists.
And, apparently, you don't understand guerilla warfare, either.
Oh well, welcome to the board, anyway!
The point, ergo, is that the liberal media and their "the sky is falling! the sky is falling!" slant to everything fail to mention the enormous success our military is enjoying in Iraq.
Sure, death is sad, but let's not lose our resolve, lose sight of our goal, nor forget 9/11. Those are the people I mourn, more than our soldiers...after all, fighting and perhaps dying, is part of their job. And, lest you think me cold, my nephew is part of the 101st. I prayed for his safety, daily, until his tour was up. Thankfully, he's back stateside now, and not a scratch on him.
Must be the heat........
Bank Robber Writes Holdup Note on Resume
Thu Jul 24, 8:16 AM ET Add AP - Feature Stories to My Yahoo!
FORT WORTH, Texas - A bank robber made the ultimate bad career move when he wrote a holdup note -- on the back of his resume.
Police used the job-search information to identify the man, who was arrested and charged with robbing a Wells Fargo bank branch on Fort Worth's east side.
The man had tried to hide the personal information by taping black construction paper over it. But then he forgot to retrieve the note and take it with him after giving it to the teller.
Police then just peeled the tape from the note.
A tip led police to a Fort Worth motel, where the man was arrested Saturday. He remained in federal custody on a bank robbery charge in the July 15 holdup.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=817&ncid=757&e=10&u=/ap/20030724/ap_...
And I thought my cat was weird....
This Cat Burglar Is Really a Cat
Thu Jul 24, 8:17 AM ET Add AP - Feature Stories to My Yahoo!
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. - A cat burglar's booty is being hoarded in a Ventura County home.
A marauding feline named Midnight -- now dubbed Klepto Cat -- has been sneaking off in the dark to raid neighbors' homes, garages, sheds and patios, bringing home shoes, hats, shirts, socks and even a wrapped Christmas present.
It's stressful for pet owners Richard and Sue Boyd.
"We get so embarrassed by this," Sue Boyd said. "We wake up in the morning and go out and there's stuff under the truck. The cat leaves things all over. We don't want these things."
"He's a klepto cat," her husband said.
Each day, Midnight's owners leave a bag with the purloined goods hanging from their mailbox so neighbors can reclaim missing items.
It is unclear why Midnight prefers wearables.
Gary Sampson, an Indianapolis-based veterinarian who specializes in cat behavior, said the 13-year-old cat is probably drawn to body odors.
"He's obviously a hunter," Sampson said. "He's doing this at night. This is when they can get prey. It's just an extension of that."
Police Sgt. Paul Fitzpatrick said there isn't anything the police could do about Midnight's crimes, except refer the complaint to animal control.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=817&ncid=757&e=10&u=/ap/20030724/ap_...
Amen, Castle. eom
AKvetch..
Well, as long as anyone can create a board you'll have multiple boards/same subject as an occupational hazard. The boards that are not useful will die out, IMO. Such may be the case with mine. Not gonna lose any sleep over it.
Thanks for the well-wishes.
You can duke it out on my new board, if you want.
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=1875
On Wednesday, two American soldiers were killed in separate attacks on their convoys, including one near Mosul.
The latest deaths brought to 158 the number of U.S. servicemen killed in action since the war began March 20, surpassing by 11 the death toll in the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites).
Also Thursday, Arab satellite broadcaster al-Arabiya aired a tape of what it said were a group of Saddam Fedayeen vowing revenge for the deaths of Odai and Qusai Hussein.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20030724/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ir...
You know what pisses me off about these reports? Their complete lack of balance. So, 158 soldiers have been killed...how many terrorists? How many Iraqi soldiers? Makes it look like we're just on vacation in Iraq, and getting picked off.
ergo..okay...well, enjoy! eom
Welcome, ergo! How'd you find me so fast? Be sure to tell all your friends!
Okay, kids...go for it!
sarals...I think the Governor called the special session as a way to "punish" the Dems who ran away when the going got tough earlier this year.
As for polls...they are meaningless. 1,000 people from a state the size of Texas??? Give me a break.
NO, sarals...you missed the point, ENTIRELY. YOUR politicians are not playing games, they are subverting the very democracy you hold so dear by manipulation, lies, and deceit.
BIG difference, HUGE...MONUMENTAL...
I've no issue with politics and political games. I've got LARGE issues with true threats to my precious Constitution.
Now, I'm not going to get into another pointless debate with you. If you don't get it, fine. Sip your Starbucks and think you're safe.
Oh, and have the last word.........
sarals...absolutely, a mistake of rather large proportions. YOu'll get no argument from me on this one.
sarals...and how, exactly, does that compare with the situation in California? The Texas legislators were attempting to block a bill, for re-districting, by simply vacating their positions. You should have heard the outcry! How does this have any comparison to the underhanded and devious politics of Kalifornia?
And, while we are at it, re-districting is a purely political ploy and the Dems used it while they were in control. Now, however, when the Republicans want to do the same there's this cry of outrage at the politicking!
Like I said, yesterday, the Dems are a joke.
Oh, sarals...that's true all over the U.S. eom
Uh, no...sarals...I believe that is uniquely Kalifornia...IMO, anyway....never happened in TX. How about the rest of you non-Californians?
Sox...
I didn't write the article, I'm just repeating it. And, no I don't call those 16 words a "lie". Look up the meaning of the word before you go farther, btw.
And, where, pray tell was the outcry when Clinton bombed the aspirin factory, thinking it was a WMD facility? Or when he used the words "nuclear capabilities" three times in a speech to Congress, referring to Iraqi threats to security, in the same year?
My beef, with Dems, is twofold. 1) Their seeming blindspots where their own follies are concerned, and 2) their platform, built on fear.
I stole this from a post by jcradio.........
My outrage today is focused on this incredible television ad the Demcorats are running in Minnesota. Soon it will be seen in other major cities across the nation. The title of the commercial is "Truth." The commercial seeks to put across the point that President Bush lied to the American people in his State of the Union speech.
The "lie," of course, is supposed to be those now-famous 16 words. You probably have those words memorized, but here they are for those of you with short attention spans:
"The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
That statement is true. It is not a lie. The British government is standing by its intelligence assessment to this very day. So, the Democrats want to take a statement which has been verified as true, and somehow turn it into a lie in their TV commercial. Just how do you go about that? Easy, you just eliminate the first five words. On the Democrats television commercial you will see Bush simply say "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
This is blatantly dishonest. The Democrats are showing you that they will lie in order to gain some political advantage -- in this case, raising funds. But where is the media outrage? I can't watch every television news show, but on those that I have watched only one news program has pointed out that the Demcorats eliminated five words from this quote to completely change its meaning. That news channel was, of course, Fox News. Liberals will tell you that by showing what the Demcorats did with this quote Fox News Channel is proving its right-wing bias.
Whether you recognize it or not, America faces perilous times right now. We have the war against terrorism in the Middle East, and North Korea on the other side of the globe. The fact is, the American military does not have the manpower to face both threats. This may well lead to a form of capitulation in North Korea. (Thanks, Jimmy Carter!) While we face these difficult and dangerous times the leftist Democrats are working to use lies, half-truths and deceit to undermine the reputation and the very authority of George Bush. The Democrats are showing that not even the security of the United States ranks above their obsession over lost power. These people are dangerous. They will destroy America to regain political power. If you support them through money or votes you may well be part of the destruction of everything our founding fathers fought to create.
Thanks, jcradio.