Go Bugeaters!

Glint's a desparate[sic] rube."
Anonymous. - Friday, April 04, 2003 at 18:24:14 (EST)

"The Stooges are kind of a guy thing and Pete is desparate[sic]
to be thought of as a guy." 
Anonymous. - Thursday, April 03, 2003 at 11:25:07 (EST)

"Because we're about nothing more than buying things, and 
desparately[sic] trying to validate ourselves with our lawn-
mowers and telescopes that we can't even figure out how to 
use, and looking out at the world with little pig eyes?" Boris Gomez - Monday, March 10, 2003 at 03:34:03 (EST)

"So desparate[sic]. Such an asshole. 
Anonymous. - Tuesday, March 04, 2003 at 12:44:24 (EST)

"The crynics of Brazil are desparately[sic] trying to move assets offshore"
Anonymous. - Monday, October 28, 2002 at 22:51:03 (EST)

"You seem desparately interested in the wild-west scene 
that the can-fire must have been. OK: like, I'm burning 
some clippings and splinters in the barrel."
Law-abiding Citizen - Saturday, October 19, 2002 at 13:20:09 (EDT)

"Somehow, I just can't be angry at Glint for this latest outbreak of desparate[sic] lying. "
formerly tolerant of Glint - Wednesday, October 16, 2002 at 10:11:48 (EDT)

"His sad laments for the likes of Forest and Jeremiah and 
MK show just how desparate[sic] the poor, pathetic pervert is."
Anonymous. - Wednesday, September 18, 2002 at 15:38:00 (EDT)

Excellent illustrated piece
"Kill him! Kill him! Get it over with, get rid of him," screamed Sabir Abdul Rahan, one of the militiamen.

Thu Apr 10, 9:26 AM ET  
 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Emboldened by the U.S. military's 
apparent quick rout of Iraqi forces, conservative hawks in 
America are setting their sights on regime change in Iran 
and Syria. 

"It's time to bring down the other terror masters," Michael 
Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute wrote on 
Monday -- two days before U.S. troops swept into the heart 
of Baghdad -- in a piece entitled "Syria and Iran Must Get 
Their Turn." 

"Iran, at least, offers Americans the possibility of a 
memorable victory, because the Iranian people openly loath 
the regime, and will enthusiastically combat it, if only 
the United States supports them in their just struggle," he 
added. "Syria cannot stand alone against a successful 
democratic revolution that topples tyrannical regimes in 
Kabul, Tehran and Iraq." 

While some conservatives believe the example of Iraq could
serve to undermine the governments of some of its 
nondemocratic neighbors, others simply hope it will 
dissuade them from seeking biological, chemical and nuclear 
weapons. 

John Bolton, under secretary of state for arms control and 
international security, told reporters in Rome he hoped 
Iran, Syria and North Korea -- which the United States 
believes is pursuing a nuclear weapons program -- will get 
the message. 

"We are hopeful that a number of regimes will draw the 
appropriate lesson from Iraq that the pursuit of weapons of 
mass destruction is not in their national interest," he 
said, citing the three when asked what the post-war period 
may hold. 

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who on March 28 warned 
Syria and Iran not to meddle in the Iraq war, said on 
Wednesday the United States had evidence Damascus might be 
helping Saddam's relatives and supporters flee the country. 

While he did not cite Syria or Iran by name, Vice President 
Dick Cheney said in a speech to newspaper editors that the 
United States must "do whatever it takes" to defeat 
terrorism and must confront nations that sponsor it. 

The United States regards Iran and Syria as state sponsors 
of terrorism. U.S. officials believe both are pursuing 
weapons of mass destruction, accusing Iran of seeking 
nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program aims to 
produce electricity. 

"In removing the terror regime from Iraq, we send a very 
clear message to all groups that operate by means of terror 
and violence against the innocent," Cheney said. "The 
United States and our coalition partners are showing ... we 
have the capacity and the will to wage war on terror and to 
win decisively." 

"We have a further responsibility to help keep the peace of 
the world and to prevent the terrorists and their sponsors 
from plunging the world into horrific violence," he added. 
   
Frank Gaffney, a senior Pentagon official under former 
President Ronald Reagan, said he believed that regime 
change should be the U.S. policy toward Iran and Syria and 
said the United States could not rule out the use of force. 

"If the threat metastasizes in such a way that we consider 
it to leave us no choice but to use military force then 
that would have to be an option," he said. 

Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy think tank, 
said many Iranians would like to see their government 
change and the United States should help them through 
information flows, economic assistance and possibly covert 
activity. 

"The use of military force is probably genuinely the last 
resort here, but I certainly think it's like that we're 
going to see efforts made to bring about change in Iran as 
well as Syria ... and perhaps elsewhere in the region as a 
matter of the natural progression of this war on terror," 
he added. 

'The critics have proven to be wrong'
Thursday, April 10, 2003
 
  
The allied invasion of Iraq, according to many pundits and 
observers, would prove to be "another Vietnam."

The Pentagon, arrogant and overconfident, had grossly 
underestimated Iraqi resistance, marching its troops down 
a "road of ruin" toward an inevitable "bloodbath."

Even before the first bombs had dropped on 
Baghdad, "quagmire" had become the buzzword of Gulf War II.

But today, as coalition forces and Iraqi civilians continue 
to destroy the last remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime -- 
dragging the dictator's statue through the streets of 
Baghdad -- it is clear that many of the war's doomsday 
prognosticators were dead wrong.

Years from now, when scholars and historians look back on 
the Iraqi invasion, one unavoidable issue will be the sheer 
volume of inaccurate forecasts that preceded the actual 
fighting. If truth is often the first casualty of war, then 
punditry is surely this conflict's second fatality.

"A lot of people discussing this didn't really know what 
they were talking about," said John Thompson, director of 
the Mackenzie Institute, and himself an oft-quoted expert 
on the Iraqi war. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

With the war all but over, the quagmire is nowhere to be 
found.

Allied ground forces did not get bogged down on the way to 
Baghdad, despite charges that Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. 
Defence Secretary, had dispatched too few troops to the 
desert.

Saddam's army did not lure allied soldiers deep into the 
city, trapping them in a deadly ambush of guerrilla warfare 
and chemical weaponry that many said would transform side 
streets into coalition graveyards.

The regime's elite Republican Guard, lauded as much for its 
fearlessness as its cunning tactics, was mediocre at best. 
From the first allied tank incursion on Monday, it took 
just three days for the capital to fall.

One analyst predicted early on that "the war will be akin 
to throwing a grenade into a huge hornet's nest." In the 
end, however, the hornets packed little sting.

Yesterday, as the media broadcast images of U.S. troops smoking and joking in Saddam's marble presidential palaces, 
some headlines were still predicting a final showdown in 
Baghdad. "Hussein's regime fights on," one declared.

But while fighting has been tough in certain pockets of the 
city, Iraqi resistance has been mostly sporadic and 
disorganized -- far from the "acid flashbacks to Vietnam" 
that New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd recently 
predicted.

"Some of the things we were supposed to see were products 
of our own imagination as opposed to being products of 
anything that the Pentagon told us," said Wesley Wark, a 
professor of international affairs at the University of 
Toronto. "In terms of the pace of the advance on Baghdad, 
the critics have proven to be wrong."

But they were wrong about much more than just the allied 
advance to Baghdad.

Observers warned the U.S.-led invasion would ignite an Arab 
uprising in the region, prompting thousands of potential 
suicide bombers to rush to Saddam's defence and motivating 
millions of others to revolt against their own governments.

As of last night, the Middle East was not in flames.

Saddam failed to launch his missiles at Israel; nor did he 
manage to set more than a handful of Iraq's oil fields 
ablaze.

Casualties, both among allied forces and Iraqi civilians, 
were also relatively low.

Many pundits had predicted Vietnam-style body counts, but 
that never materialized. During the three-week invasion, 
fewer than 100 U.S. troops and 30 British soldiers have 
been confirmed dead.

In Washington, more than 58,000 names adorn the Vietnam War 
Memorial.

Independent estimates put the number of Iraq's civilian 
casualties at approximately 1,000, with thousands of others 
wounded. Although most would agree that one civilian death 
is too many, the number is well off the four million 
casualties that a group of medical experts, taking into 
account the environmental catastrophe associated with a 
possible nuclear attack, predicted last November.

The list of unfulfilled prophecies goes on and on.

Observers said the war would trigger a flood of Iraqi 
refugees, but camps in Jordan, Syria and Turkey remain 
almost empty.

To the chagrin of the White House, the invasion has failed 
to unearth Saddam's suspected stock of weapons of mass 
destruction. Troops recently discovered approximately 20 
medium-range missiles believed to contain sarin and mustard 
gas, but the substances are still being tested.

But of all the expert predictions that did not materialize, 
perhaps none was more repeated than the certainty of a 
terrorist attack on American soil.

"That's one of the mysteries so far," Dr. Wark said. "Where 
is al-Qaeda?"

There is, of course, a bigger question: How can so many so-
called experts get it so wrong?

No Vietnam. No Arab uprising. Definitely no quagmire.

Retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie, himself a hired 
pundit, said the flurry of inconsistent pronouncements is 
the inevitable by-product of new-age war reporting.

"What other war have you had 24-hour coverage with a whole 
bunch of retired State Department and general officers that 
are being called upon to fill up the airwaves?" he said 
yesterday. "I wouldn't want to name names, but I must admit 
that because CNN and other networks had to use so many of 
them, there were a number of them that were much more TV 
personalities that had been doing this for conflict after 
conflict than they were military analysts."

Earlier this week, Brian Burridge, the commander of British 
forces in the Gulf region, lashed out at the media for 
turning the war into "reality TV" -- high on guesswork and 
low on analysis.

For example, if an embedded journalist reported that a 
battalion of troops was eating only one meal a day, 
analysts back at the studio would tell viewers that the 
supply shortage was a clear indication the U.S. war plan 
was in ruins.

In many ways, Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie said, networks rely on 
dramatic predictions of bloody street battles and 
inevitable carnage to help advertise the ongoing coverage, 
keeping people glued to their televisions.

Such incessant punditry has evolved into a staple of all-
day news stations. And consequently, so has incorrect 
punditry.

During the campaign to oust the Taliban regime, for 
instance, observers warned of a "brutal Afghan winter" that 
would surely hinder a quick American victory. By the time 
January rolled around, balmy was about as "brutal" as 
the "Afghan winter" got. (Similarly, the fierce heat of 
Iraq's summer proved to be no obstacle to invading troops, 
though many grumbled about the need to constantly wear 
their anti-chemical suits.)

Last October, while police in the U.S. capital hunted for a 
serial sniper, many experts were certain the person who 
killed 10 random victims was a lonely white male in search 
of revenge.

Authorities later arrested two black men in search of money.

In the end, the countless talking heads of the Iraqi war 
may have simply underestimated the U.S. military -- while 
at the same time overestimating the Iraqi forces.

U.S. commanders undoubtedly worried about the same doomsday 
scenarios as the pundits -- burning oil fields, guerrilla 
warfare and urban ambushes, to name a few -- but the plan 
they drew up appeared able to anticipate most of the 
expected Iraqi strategies, thwarting them before they even 
began.

"Obviously the Americans are the class act of conventional 
warfare," said Jim Keeley, a political science professor at 
the University of Calgary's Centre for Military and 
Strategic Studies.

Many annual events that we celebrate, such as birthdays, occur on
a specific calendar date.  New Years Day is always on January 1. 
Independence Day is July 4.  Traditionally, the only national
holiday whose date changed from year to year was Thanksgiving which
is pegged to the fourth Thursday in November.

Several traditional holidays are now observed on Mondays and so
their dates vary from year to year.  Memorial Day, Labor Day,
Columbus Day, President's Day, and MLK's birthday are all Monday
holidays.  

Although their dates change from one year to the next, the Monday
and Thursday holidays always occur about the same week each year. 
Merchants find the Monday holidays particularly useful for their
annual three-day weekend sales events.  However, Easter bucks the
system.

Easter can occur in March or April.  The date is determined
astronomically from the positions of the earth and moon in relation
to the sun.

Traditionally Easter is said to occur on the first Sunday, after
the first full moon, following the vernal or spring equinox.  The
vernal equinox marks the start of spring and may occur on March 19,
20, or 21 in our currently used Gregorian Calendar.

For simplicity the astronomical vernal equinox is ignored in the
formula used for calculating Easter.  The equinox is assumed to be
March 21.  That means that Easter depends primarily on determining
when the next full moon - known as the "Paschal Moon" - occurs.

Technically the astronomical definition of "full moon" isn't used
either.  Instead the "ecclesiastical" full moon used is defined as
the 14th day of lunation, or 14 days past new.  New Moon is
determined by what is called the "Metonic cycle" which is named
after the Greek philosopher Meton of Athens. (The Metonic cycle is
approximately 19 years in length.)

According to Guy Ottewell in his Astronomical Calendar, if March 21
is a Saturday and the Paschal Moon falls on that day then Easter
comes earliest - on March 22.  On the other hand, if April 18 is a
Sunday and the Paschal Moon falls on that day, then Easter will
come at its latest - on April 25.

Once the date of Easter has been calculated, then the other related
dates of observation can also be pegged.  These include Good
Friday, Maundy Thursday, Ash Wednesday, Shrove or Fat Tuesday, and
the season of Lent. 

The first Easter coincided with the Jewish Passover.  In subsequent
years Easter was celebrated on the Sunday which followed Passover. 
The Jewish Calendar was reformed several hundred years later.  In
1582 the Roman Catholic Church replaced the Julian Calendar with
the Gregorian Calendar and thus the two religious holidays are now
more or less independent.

The association of Easter with the Passover and the Passover in
turn based on astronomical criteria leads to an interesting
question:  Is it possible to determine the precise date of Christ's
crucifiction?  Many scholars have addressed the subject and several
possible dates have been proposed.

Astronomer Sten Odenwald has also addressed the issue.  Based on
contemporary political and religious information, biblical
writings, and a lunar eclipse he has determined the most likely
date of the crucifiction to be Friday, April 3, 33 AD.  His
analysis is interesting and can be found on-line at
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q867.html.  For more
astronomical information see Dr. Odenwald's "Astronomy Cafe" page
at http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/.

As far as Christian holidays go, Easter is the only whose
commemoration is done in the spirit of the 14th verse of the first
chapter of Genesis.