Town of Braintree

Bush could not debate a Cuban ni

Bush could not debate a Cuban ninth grader
World leaders have their say before U.S. vote

World leaders and top politicians have had various things to say about the U.S. presidential election in the run-up to November 2:
ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER SILVIO BERLUSCONI
''We hope and believe that the next president will again be Bush,'' Berlusconi said on October 22 during campaigning for Italian local elections in southern Italy.
JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI
''I am very close to President Bush. So I want him to do his best,'' Koizumi said on October 14 when asked about the election.
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN
''The attacks of international terrorism in Iraq are directed not only at international coalition forces but at President Bush personally,'' Putin said in the Tajik capital Dushanbe on October 18 in a clear show of support for the president.
''International terrorism has given itself the goal of causing maximum damage to Bush in the election battle, the goal of blocking the re-election of Bush for a second presidential term.''
CUBAN PRESIDENT FIDEL CASTRO
''Bush could not debate a Cuban ninth grader, who knows more than he does,'' Castro said in a speech in February. Castro, who has outlasted nine U.S. presidents, never misses a chance to ridicule the 43rd president.
EUROPEAN UNION EXTERNAL RELATIONS COMMISSIONER CHRIS PATTEN
''Liberation rapidly turned into a brutally resisted occupation. Democracy failed to roll out like an Oriental carpet across the thankless deserts of the Middle East,'' Patten said in a speech to the European parliament in the French city of Strasbourg on September 15 as he prepared to leave his post.
''What I most worry about is that on either side of the Atlantic, we will bring out the worst in our traditional partners ... The world deserves better than testosterone on one side and superciliousness on the other.''
FRENCH PRESIDENT JACQUES CHIRAC
''We are friends (of the United States), we are allies. We are not servants, of course. And when we don't agree, we don't say it aggressively, but we say it in a firm manner,'' Chirac, a critic of the Iraq war, told a news conference on June 29 after France and the United States disagreed at a NATO summit over how to bring security to Iraq and Afghanistan.
GERMAN DEPUTY DEFENCE MINISTER WALTER KOLBOW
''The Americans look more and more like dictators with their unilateral decisions,'' Kolbow said in March 2003, referring to a phrase attributed to the Bush administration: ''Anyone who is not with us is against us.''
ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON
''I think that we never had such relations with any president of the United States ... We never had such cooperation in everything as we have with the current administration,'' Sharon said in October 2002, reflecting on ties with the United States that have remained strong under Bush.




By MINISTER SILVIO BERLUSCONI

And you thought Bush is a dunc


And you thought Bush is a dunc
President Bush is not a bozo; in fact, he may be a near-brainiac.

An American researcher has challenged popular belief and water cooler jokes about Bush's cerebral limitations by arguing - on the basis of available records - that he is not only smart but has a higher IQ than his rival John Kerry.
Based on various academic and military school records including his SAT score (1206), conservative columnist Steve Sailer has calculated that Bush's IQ is between 125 and 130.
That would put him in the ''very superior intelligence'' category and in the 95th percentile, which means only one out of 20 people would score higher.
In comparison, similar (but not same) records and tests suggest John Kerry's IQ is only around 120, says Sailer in a commentary on the conservative blog www.vdare.com.
Sailer looked at school records and tests both men took when there were enrolling into the US military at age 22 and extrapolated the results to arrive his conclusion.
''They provide no evidence that Kerry is smarter. If anything, Bush is smarter than Kerry,'' he concluded.
Popular folklore though has it that Bush is the dumbest American president in history, and one urban legend placed his IQ at a sub-normal 91. A former political rival famously described him as being ''born with a silver foot in his mouth.''
Sailer rubbishes such reports, pointing out that Bush has two Ivy League degrees (although he got a C average at Yale), while Kerry not only did not graduate with honors from Yale, but went on to do law at the rather more modest Boston College.
Sailor also suggests that Kerry, who was two years Bush's senior at Yale, got in when admission was less meritocratic.
Yale tightened up entrance requirements later, he says, revealing that the ''sudden arrival of so many brainy, bookish, leftwing nobodies may be a major reason Bush became so alienated from Yale during his later years there.''
Alma Mater to Kerry and Bush both, Yale University, incidentally, is named after Elihu Yale, an English merchant who was the East India Company's Governor of Madras in 1687 when he was tapped for funds to start the university.
Sailer describes the difference between Bush and Kerry in two words: Bush is competitive and Kerry is ambitious.
Bush, by nature and by upbringing in the hyper-rivalrous Bush-Walker clan, is driven by a need to win. For Kerry, in contrast, being President is the end, the goal of the last 45 years of his life.
Sailer however acknowledges that Kerry would probably beat Bush on a current events quiz, ''since Bush has never seemed particularly interested in learning about the duties of his job (as opposed to winning and keeping his job, at which he shows great cunning).''
In contrast, ''Kerry has been fascinated by the Presidency since his adolescence.''
Republican blogs rejoiced at the word of the US President's high IQ, although some conservative quarters are happy to let Kerry bask in the glory of being an intellectual.
''The only election Bush ever lost was a 1978 Congressional race in the Texas Panhandle, where his opponent made fun of Bush for having degrees from Yale and Harvard,'' writes Sailer.
''Bush resolved never to get out-dumbed again.''

By cerebral limitations

Bush and Cheney and Rove and Rum

Voting For Kerry?
Are you one of the ?“anyone but Bush crowd?”? You think John Kerry will be tough on terror and because of his Vietnam War record that he would lead our military better? Think President Bush and Cheney and Rove and Rummy have all been lying to you?

Think John Kerry has actually told you the truth?

I dare you to watch this.

This is the program that was going to be aired on 60+ television stations before the Democrats got all upset about it. Watch it. See precisely why they were upset. It?’s 42 minutes long. You have 42 minutes to help you make an informed decision in this Presidential election don?’t you? You have 42 minutes to assist you in making one of the most important decisions in your life right?

I dare you. We watched Moore. You watch this.
http://stolenhonor.com/

Right click, ?“save target as?” if it won?’t come up for you over the internet. It will come up if you save it to your own desktop.

I triple dog dare you to watch this.

[thanks to AIR]


By Because of hisVietnam War record

Lawsuits and Liability

Lawsuits and Liability

Only three companies in the U.S. are licensed to produce the flu vaccine: Aventis Pasteur (Fluzone), Chiron Corp. (Fluvirin), and MedImmune Inc. (the nasal spray FluMist). If more companies made the vaccines, it is unlikely the supply would have been so short, or that more doses could not have been made on short notice. Why so few?

The number of vaccine manufacturers in the U.S. has dropped from 20 to only three during the past 15 years largely as a result of lawsuits filed on behalf of supposed victims of vaccine side effects. Vaccine makers have been under nearly constant legal assault by lawyers.

Most recently, personal injury lawyers have filed lawsuits against the maker of Thimerosal, a vaccine preservative that contains mercury, claiming the compound is responsible for the recent rise in cases of autism. However, researchers have studied repeatedly the possibility of a link and have found no evidence.

According to legal expert Peter Huber, 50 to 80 percent of the cost of most vaccines is liability insurance. The risk of losing such cases, and especially the risk of losing a class-action suit that could cost the industry hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, has persuaded many companies to leave the vaccine marketplace.

The biotechnology industry has made it clear that the threat of lawsuits is keeping it from investing in new vaccines and medicines to meet the threat of bioterrorism, such as the deliberate spread of smallpox and anthrax. In a November 2002 letter to Sen. Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota), the president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), Carl B. Feldbaum, wrote, ?“Without a clear understanding of liability protection, most of our companies, particularly the smaller, innovative companies, will be unable to contract to provide preventive therapeutics or products if it means putting the future of their businesses at risk.?”

The second lesson from the vaccine shortage, then, is that until lawsuit abuse is checked, drug companies will not take the necessary risks involved with producing a sufficient supply of vaccines, much less invest in finding the next generation of life-saving vaccines.


By vaccine manufacturers