Credibility and Virginity

King Features Syndicate, Inc. ^ | 01-05-04 | Reese, Charley

[Theodore R.]

Credibility And Virginity

What President Bush does not understand (don't worry, I'm not going through the whole list) is that credibility, like virginity, cannot be recovered once it's lost.

He thinks it's unimportant that he took the country to war based on the false claim that Saddam Hussein had amassed large amounts of chemical and biological weapons and was on the verge of handing them to terrorists. His attitude is: "Hey, what's your problem? We got rid of a bad guy."

Well, the problem is that now any American who believes anything the Bush administration says without a ton of proof to back it up is a fool. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Like a lot of old sayings, it's a basic truth. Do you really think an administration that would lie about reasons for going to war won't lie to further its re-election efforts or to cover up other blunders?

I know that for a lot of young people, Watergate and the Vietnam War are now "that real old stuff," as a baby sitter once described any history that had occurred prior to her puberty. But for many Americans of that generation, it was their first exposure to wholesale lying by the federal government. My own first exposure had occurred in the 1950s, when I caught the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a pack of lies about imported fire ants.

So, do you think the Bush administration is telling you the truth about mad cow disease? I don't. The Bush administration says that the discovery of one case of mad cow disease poses a minimal risk. Well, what exactly is the minimal risk of a disease that is 100 percent fatal and incurable? "Minimal," when it comes out of the mouth of a bureaucrat, is a code word for acceptable. In other words, a few dead Americans are an acceptable price to pay for preserving a multibillion-dollar beef industry. That's fine, unless you happen to be one of the dead ones.

If the risk is so minimal, why are they trying to recall all of the meat? They have told us that the most dangerous parts of a sick cow are the spinal cord and brain, and that these were "left out of the food chain." Do you think slaughterhouses debone cows with surgical precision? That'll be the day.

The human form of mad cow disease is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD. Did you know there are about 300 cases of CJD in the United States every year? Did you know that clusters of CJD have occurred in: Pennsylvania in 1993, Florida in 1994, Oregon in 1996, New York in 1999-2000, and Texas in 1996? These cases were all classified as "sporadic," which sounds to me much more like semantics than science. Usually, clusters of disease are indicative of an environmental factor.

Laura Manuelidis, section chief of surgery in the neuropathology department at Yale University, conducted a 1989 study that found that 13 percent of people who died after being diagnosed as having Alzheimer's disease actually had died of CJD.

"Now people are beginning to realize that because something looks like sporadic CJD, they can't necessarily conclude that it's not linked to mad cow disease," she told United Press International.

There is no good tracking system for CJD, and obviously no good tracking system for cows with mad cow disease. Think about this: If you're a cattleman and you find a sick cow you suspect of mad cow disease, what is in your selfish interest: to report it and lose your whole herd or shoot it and bury it? If you're a bureaucrat in the USDA, what is in your self-interest: to tell the truth and have the agribusiness lobbyists howling for your scalp or to follow the administration line? I'm not saying that altruists don't exist, but they are rare birds in the human flock.

As of now, hamburger I don't grind myself and all other processed meats are off the menu. I would advise you to take the same steps.

Otherwise, one day, you might hear the president say: "Hey, what's your problem? We preserved the beef industry." There are some things I aspire to, but being part of the acceptable price for achieving somebody else's political and economic goals is not one of them.

© 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

[dirtboy]

Charley never ceases to amaze. He demands limited government - unless it's his sacred cow (pun intended) that is at steak.

[vto]

Like father like son.

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[HarleyD]

And what the RATS don't understand is they're heading for a BIG LOSS come November.

[Russ]

You always add sooo much to the conversation...

[new cruelty]

What President Bush does not understand (don't worry, I'm not going through the whole list) is that credibility, like virginity, cannot be recovered once it's lost.

I got as far as the above before I stopped reading. Substitute the name Bush with the name clinton and this statement would be more appropriate and absolute.

[Diogenesis]

Some few words and SO MANY ERRORS.

First, it is vCJD and not CJD.
Second, ignored AGAIN in this article.

========= Chemical Warhead found in Kirkuk =============

Chemical warhead found at an Iraqi air base, marked with a green band,
the symbol for chemical weaponry. Trace amounts of a nerve agent were found
at two spots along the ~meter-long warhead. These amounts are consistent with
leakage from the chemically armed weapon. A 13-foot missile was found next to it.

---

========= IRAQI WEAPONS from France USED Against US and Coalition Heroes ========

French missiles were found by the Poles, and to protect France, blown up.

The pompous froggies said they did not say "2003". Decide for yourself.

---

========= Mass Graves =========

In Najaf, skull unearthed from yet another mass grave of Saddam.

---

========= Halabja =========

Dead children, previously playing in Halabja
Victims of Saddams' WMD in March 1988.

---

=========== Documents linking Atta, Saddam, Nidal, bin Ladin ===========

Handwritten letter dated Feb. 19, 1998 linking bin Laden and Saddam Hussein
discussing arrival of a secret envoy sent by bin Laden to Iraq.
The signature beneath the letter is a codename, "MDA" - the Mukhabarat.

---

=========== 911 Atrocities ===========

Those who do not learn from the PAST or who profit by such terror,
again condemn innocent Americans to repeat it.

[tbpiper]

Like father like son.

Reese has a father?

[wita]

I do hope you are correct. I'm not so sure South Dakota would agree with you.

[HarleyD]

I hope so too. :O)

[verity]

Petri dish. ;~)

[Agnes Heep]

Otherwise, one day, you might hear the president say: "Hey, what's your problem? We preserved the beef industry."

This moron obviously believes that the "multi-billion dollar beef industry" is nothing more than an elaborate joke. The jobs of the middle-class people who work in the industry and all the other industries that support it are likewise, nothing but huge jokes. The same is true for the nutrition of millions of people who rely on beef produced in this country as a source of protein that maintains health, growth and immunity. And of course he can't understand why we can't simply bring the industry down; since it's nothing but a great big joke, and besides, profits are involved.

[capt. norm]

"credibility, like virginity, cannot be recovered once it's lost."

Reese has just described his own problem.

His credibility went out the window years ago.

"The pot doth call the kettle black."

[ravingnutter]

The vial of botulinum bacteria discovered in Iraq by U.S. arms inspectors – which experts call the most poisonous substance known to man – is "a weapon of mass destruction," the State Department's top spokesman announced yesterday.

"Botulinum kills people, it kills people in large quantities. Botulinum is a weapon of mass destruction, yes," said State spokesman Richard Boucher," according to an Agence France-Presse report. "Anything that destroys on a massive scale is a weapon of mass destruction."

The botulinum had been stored in a vial discovered in an Iraqi scientist's refrigerator, where it had been stored for safe keeping since 1993.

Noting that the vial of live botulinum bacteria had been hidden in an Iraqi scientist's home refrigerator, Kay, testifying before Congress, said the discovery "illustrates the point ... about the difficulty of locating small stocks of material that can be used to covertly surge production of deadly weapons."

Source

[Egon]

I'm not so sure South Dakota would agree with you.

Tell me about it. I lived there for a little over ten years.

But if Minnesota (where I'm at now) can do it (and they might!), I can certainly believe that South Dakota might break with tradition!

[Mike Darancette]

He thinks it's unimportant that he took the country to war based on the false claim that Saddam Hussein had amassed large amounts of chemical and biological weapons and was on the verge of handing them to terrorists.

And how does this idiot know that the claim is false?

[Eala]

Democrat Quotes on Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction