LTJ + Al Gore + 9/11

I less than three Less Than Jake.

In other news, I saw Al Gore speak today at the courthouse here. I enjoyed the content and delivery of his speech much more than John Edwards' last sunday. He seemed determined, but not vengeful, which was a good move on his part. He used humor, effectively.

To provide a nice balance to this afternoon's speech, I'll be attending the showing of FarenHYPE 9/11 tonight at the student life building here. I will try to compare it and contrast it to Moore's documentary.

Blackness Prevails.

"I wear black on the outside because black is what I feel on the inside" is most likely the worst Morrissey line ever.

Shatner Back in Action.

William Shatner has teamed up with Ben Folds to make his second musical album, Has Been. Weird.

I think the most surprising tidbit from this (for me) was that Shatner is 72 years old. Now, that's old. I would like to hear some of this, so someone get it and send me a copy.

Scary.

This article from today prompted me to look up a report I heard about from the CIA.

First of all,

"Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons are disappearing from Iraq"

What??

How do materials like these disappear and neither the United States nor Iraq has anything to say about it?

Secondly, from the above article again-

"President Bush... justified the war, in part, by saying that then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was on the brink of developing a nuclear bomb that he might use against the United States or give to terrorists."

Bush then picks Charles Duelfer to launch a thorough investigation of Iraq's weapons programs, and he comes back with

"Saddam's primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the security of the Regime. He sought to balance the need to cooperate with UN inspections... with his intention to preserve Iraq's intellectual capital for WMD..."

And, from The Washington Post:

"The 1991 Persian Gulf War and subsequent U.N. inspections destroyed Iraq's illicit weapons capability and, for the most part, Saddam Hussein did not try to rebuild it, according to an extensive report by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that contradicts nearly every prewar assertion made by top administration officials about Iraq."

(That Washington Post article sometimes prompts for registration, so NY Times and CNN have similar articles.)

(Second Note, if one searches for "Charles Duelfer report" on google, then many articles will appear, and one may have access to them from there.)

TV Advertisements.

How sad is it when I see professional rap stars selling themselves for a cell phone commercial? I just saw Kanye West and what I think was "Ludacris" being all hip and cool... advertising a Boost Mobile commercial? What is that? The moment I see Rivers Cuomo selling his favorite toothpaste, I will burn all of my Weezer CDs in effigy.

...but is this worse? I don't think so... I don't think a cover of Island in the Sun by some band with vocals by Mary and Ashley-Kate is on the level of the rapper sell-out mentioned above...

but I could just be a hypocrite.

Bush says "Stay the Course".

1) October 28th, 2003. "President Bush said the US would "stay the course" in Iraq yesterday as the latest wave of violence raised questions about America's timetable for withdrawal of its forces."

"It's in the national interest of the United States that a peaceful Iraq emerges, and we will stay the course in order to achieve this."

This article (linked above in "stay the course") also mentions that "The Bush administration wants to scale down its presence in Iraq - possibly reducing its force of 130,000 troops to just 50,000 - in the next year."

However, in an article dated May 5th, 2004: "Defense officials had expected to reduce the level of U.S. troops in Iraq to about 115,000 this year and about half that by the summer of 2005. Now, they are preparing to maintain a force of 138,000 for at least the next 18 months as they have seen violence rise over the past few weeks."

2) April 13th, 2004. The President's National Address. The first question from the press and The President's response follows.

"Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, April is turning into the deadliest month in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad, and some people are comparing Iraq to Vietnam and talking about a quagmire. Polls show that support for your policy is declining and that fewer than half Americans now support it. What does that say to you and how do you answer the Vietnam comparison?"

"THE PRESIDENT: I think the analogy is false. I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops, and sends the wrong message to the enemy. Look, this is hard work. It's hard to advance freedom in a country that has been strangled by tyranny. And, yet, we must stay the course, because the end result is in our nation's interest."

3) September 23rd, 2004.

"President Bush said on Thursday that he and Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi would "stay the course" in Iraq and insisted national elections will be held there in January despite a worsening insurgency."

This article was the one that spurred my mission to find a few "stay the course" comments and assemble them next to each other. Also, in this article, Donald Rumsfeld comments on possible Iraqi elections to be held in January:

" He [Rumsfeld] said an election could perhaps be held in "three-quarters or four-fifths of the country. But in some places you couldn't because the violence was too great."

Later in the article, Allawi states "The Iraqi elections may not be perfect ... But they will take place and they will be free and fair."

...

(Except for those peaceful people located within the regions planned to be excluded from voting due to "pockets of terrorists".)

And, in closing, the funniest line of the article reads "Allawi, who said he receives death threats daily, tried to play down the negative in Iraq."

Chuck Yeager

Until I read this article, I wasn't sure Yeager was still alive. Tom Wolfe's descriptions in the novel The Right Stuff are fabulous- an American pilot who set the mold for all pilots with a southern drawl and humor, but with moxie as well. The book is definitely worth a read, and although the movie had to edit significant events out, it still did justice to the story of the developing experimental pilots who tested the limits of jets and became the first American astronauts.
With the plugs out of the way, I was a little surprised and a little disappointed to read about Chuck Yeager's current events with his new wife and feud with his children (well, three out of his four). The article portrays Yeager's (aged 81) new love interest (who, at age 45 is younger than his youngest child) as being a sketchy gold-digger (mentioning her past of issuing many small claims suits against airports and cellular telephone companies) who is manipulating Yeager's money and assets away from his family. Yeager explains that he has fully funded his children's expenses after he retired- feeling sorry for his absence during their childhood years he funneled millions of dollars to them through his company (Yeager Inc.) and through his speeches, which made from $25,000 - $50,000 each. He also has a military pension of about $85,000 a year.
I was surprised that Yeager assumed his children's lawsuits against him meant they were now his enemies although it is fairly evident that this seems to be a last-ditched effort from his family to show what this new woman is doing to their inheritance- and their father. I was also surprised that even Yeager's closet friends did not agree with his new mate. Then, I was a little disappointed in Yeager's actions (after only 2 weeks, she moved in with him and in the article it says that she was the main reason Yeager's speech payments went up to $50,000- double the previous amount, although I'm sure he didn't "need" the money to survive).
In contrast, I do believe in the self-made man and Yeager seems to be just that. So, as I can identify with the children's concerns (though they may actually just be selfish), I also see Yeager's money as being Yeager's money. I figure $5,000,000 is enough support for his four children- and he even wants to secure the futures of his grandchildren. So the rest of his money is, well, his, I suppose.