Last night, I thought the debate was a serious blow to Bush. This morning, as the smoke clears, I see little damage done at all.

The prediction markets have barely twitched; the media spin basically calls it a tie; the polls, early as the are, seem largely unchanged.

I'm not going to argue with that. Sometimes, I like to be wrong.

I thought it would be fun to make a list of the specific things that Kerry said which particularly annoyed me. There was that whole thing about Iran, of course, but we also have:

Kyoto. Kerry bashed Bush for defying our allies on this essential international treaty... and Kerry voted against it himself! Bush should have served him his head on a platter after that one.

How about Kerry's solution to the nuclear proliferation? Let's stop building our nuclear bunker-busters, because we want North Korea to stop building their nuclear weapons, and, you know, it's kind of hypocritical for us to have weapons that they don't. What better way to influence the North Koreans that to unilaterally disarm, and set a good example?

I wanted to pound my head on the floor after I heard that.

(Speaking of North Korea... I cannot even imagine why Kerry was pushing so hard to cut China out of the talks. China is our only leverage there. What the hell was he thinking?)

Then we have Kerry's assertion that the hunt for Bin Ladin is the central front in the War On Terror. Yeah, like all of us will be safe in our beds once that one guy is dead. Here's a hint, pal - we're fighting a war against a global enemy, not conducting a criminal investigation.

Finally, I couldn't believe he had the nerve to call Iraq a colossal misjudgment, and then, within seconds, agree that we were all safer as a result. My call? We need more misjudgments like that, just as soon as possible.

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Gotta call it as I see it, kids: Kerry looked terrific in the debates tonight, and Bush just looked like crap. If the polls don't close within three days, I'll be shocked.

Keep in mind, you're talking to a guy who disagreed with just about every substantial thing John Kerry said. Nonetheless, he sure looked good saying it - decisive, intelligent, thoughtful, and quick. For a lot of folks, that impression is going to matter much more to them that the substance of his words. Kerry had it tonight, hands down.

Bush stammered and hesitated, sounding more defensive than presidential; he continually repeated the same tired lines of attack without taking the offensive against his opponent.

As I had both predicted and hoped, Kerry actually admitted to his earlier plan for giving nuclear fuel to Iran, and said he'd contain their emerging arsenal with nothing more than sanctions and talk. He even sweetened the pot by stating that nuclear proliferation was the greatest threat to the security of the United States.

Bush let him get away with it. He should have killed him with it, right there, but he let the opportunity slip away.

Kerry is back in the race, and kids, it's going to be a close one. The whole contest changed tonight, just like that.

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Watch the first debate. If Kerry does really well, he's still got a pretty good shot. If he screws it up, or even if he just manages a tie, he's toast.

Here's a taste of what's coming, from a recent Kerry speech [via Powerline]. This is great stuff:

"I begin with this belief: The war on terror is as monumental a struggle as the Cold War. Its outcome will determine whether we and our children live in freedom or in fear. It is not, as some people think, a clash of civilizations. Radical Islamic fundamentalism is not the true face of Islam. This is a clash between civilization and the enemies of civilization; between humanity's best hopes and most primitive fears. The danger we face today will become even greater if the terrorists acquire what we know they are seeking - weapons of mass destruction, which they would use to commit mass murder. We are confronting an enemy and an ideology that must be destroyed. We are in a war that must be won."

"[...] I will wage this war relentlessly with a single-minded determination: to capture or kill the terrorists, crush their movement and free the world from fear. To destroy our enemy, we have to know our enemy. We have to understand that we are facing a radical fundamentalist movement with global reach and a very specific plan. They are not just out to kill us for the sake of killing us. They want to provoke a conflict that will radicalize the people of the Muslim world, turning them against the United States and the West. And they hope to transform that anger into a force that will topple the region's governments and pave the way for a new empire, an oppressive, fundamentalist superstate stretching across a vast area from Europe to Africa, from the Middle East to Central Asia."

Seriously, this is terrific. I love this stuff.

Kerry is quite clear that our little disagreement with radical Islam is not about our policies toward Israel, it's not something that can be negotiated, and it's not something that can be handled as a law enforcement problem.

It is a war with an enemy that wants to destroy us, and who must be destroyed. This enemy must not be allowed to obtain weapons of mass destruction. The future of the free world is, literally, at stake.

Kerry is going to come at Bush with this stuff and it's going to sound great. And Bush is going to eviscerate him.

Let's start with Iran, that charter member of the Axis Of Evil. Iran represents an emerging front in this global war, because Iran is building their very own weapon of mass destruction - an arsenal of nuclear bombs. Once they succeed, it's going to be very hard to take them away.

Direct military action against a nuclear power is serious business, something which has never been attempted before. It does not take long for even the average citizen to calculate these sorts of odds.

Bush has been pretty clear about Iran. A recent interview with Bill O'Reilly - which I am quoting, imperfectly, from memory - went something like this:

O'Reilly: "So, what about those Iranian nukes, huh?"

Bush: "I sure would like to solve this diplomatically, but nothing has been ruled out. Military action is still on the table."

O'Reilly: "So, no matter what, they are not getting their nukes, right?"

Bush: "Right".

One way or another, Bush says that he will not allow Iran to complete their nuclear weapons. I believe him. So do most of you.

Kerry's position has been somewhat less direct. A few weeks back he suggested that we give Iran all the nuclear fuel they want in exchange for a promise to halt weapons development. He seems to have abandoned that position now, but touched upon the topic of Iran again in that very same speech I quoted above:

"This week, Iran announced its intention to process enough raw uranium to create five nuclear weapons."

"I will make it clear to Iran that we will lead an international effort to impose tough sanctions if they do not permanently suspend their uranium enrichment program and provide verifiable assurances that they are not developing nuclear weapons."

You hear that? If they don't stop, then Kerry is going to the UN, and he's going to get sanctions against them. Tough sanctions.

You remember sanctions, don't you? The kind we had for 12 years against Iraq? The kind that weren't given enough time to work? Remember?

Forgive me if I repeat myself, but once our Iranian friends build their bombs, it's going to be very hard to take them away. We don't have the luxury of waiting to see if the sanctions will work. In this case, using sanctions as the primary means of containing Iran's nuclear program is a genuinely stupid idea.

I would not want to be the guy defending this idea on national television.

"I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." [May 3, 03]

"Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president." [December 20]

"Iraq may not be the war on terror itself, but it is critical to the outcome of the war on terror, and therefore any advance in Iraq is an advance forward in that..." [December 15]

Kerry said each of these things, all during the campaign. Going into Iraq was the right idea - it made America safer, and advanced our cause in the War On Terror.

Was he really serious?

"The invasion of Iraq was a profound diversion from the battle against our greatest enemy - Al Qaeda -- which killed more than three thousand people on 9/11 and which still plots our destruction today. And there's just no question about it: the President's misjudgment, miscalculation and mismanagement of the war in Iraq all make the war on terror harder to win." [last week]

"President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is no - because a Commander-in-Chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe." [a few days earlier]

I guess not.

I'll quote, one last time, from Kerry's wonderful speech:

"I will wage this war relentlessly with a single-minded determination: to capture or kill the terrorists, crush their movement and free the world from fear."

Well? Was he serious this time?

How much are you willing to bet?

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Serious security problems have been discovered in each of these programs, and both should be updated to the latest versions. If you are running anything older than version Firefox 1.0PR or Thunderbird 8.0, upgrade now.

These are both pre-release programs, and the upgrade path is a little awkward. I'll tell you exactly how I did it on my XP machine in the hope that it makes your job as easy as possible.

The good news is, the whole process proved to be quite painless and reasonably free of surprises.

(For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, Firefox is an outstanding replacement for Internet Explorer, and Thunderbird is a safer, acceptable substitute for Outlook Express. I've been using both of these programs for a while now and I am quite fond of them).

To begin, download the new version of Firefox here, and Thunderbird here. Back up everything, and make those small prayers you make before messing with your machine. It can't hurt.

Ready?

Firefox:

Here's the key bit from the release notes:

It should not be necessary to create a new profile when you upgrade from a previous version of Firefox providing you do disable all extensions from the prior version before upgrading. To do this, open the old version and open Tools:Options and click the Extensions panel. Click on each of the extensions listed and choose Disable Extension. Click OK to close the Options window. Now it is safe to install Firefox.

Once you have installed Firefox, check to see if there are new versions of all of your extensions that are compatible with the new version, and install them. In the future this process may be automated.

Here's what happened:

First, I opened extension manager and disabled all the extensions, one at a time. For some reason, DOM Inspector could not be disabled, so I left it alone. (My other extensions are Sage, Googlebar, AdBlock, BugMeNot, Checky, SpellBound, CopyPlainText, OpenLongURL, Linkification, and TargetAlert).

Then I ran the installer. Of all my extensions, only Adblock and Googlebar could be updated to work in the new version, but happily, all my other settings, bookmarks, and everything else was carried over effortlessly. Easy as pie.

In my limited use so far, I do see a significant performance improvement. The old, irritating habit of occasionally failing to open a requested page seems to be a thing of the past.

I'm very, very happy.

Thunderbird:

Here's the key bit from the release notes:

Upgraders: DO NOT install Mozilla Thunderbird into a directory containing program files from a previous version. Overwriting files from a previous release WILL cause problems. To re-use the directory of a previous install, the directory must be deleted and recreated, emptied, moved, or renamed. You should not file bugs in Bugzilla if you choose to ignore this step.

The program directory does not contain profile information; any existing accounts, account settings, options, e-mail, and news messages will remain intact. This release does not require changes to your profile to function properly.

Here's what happened:

First, I used XPs Add/Remove Programs control panel to delete the old installation, including the folder c:/program files/mozilla/thunderbird. Then I ran the installer.

Flawless. Perfect. Nothing lost, no surprises.

These are better programs than most people realise, and they are getting better all the time. I'll never use Internet Explorer again.

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John Kerry earned his Silver Star by killing a Viet Cong who had tried to fire an RPG at his boat. Some critics have attacked Kerry for this, berating him for shooting a fleeing, wounded teenager in the back.

Let's cut through the crap and get clear about something. In military circles, they have a word for that sort of thing: A Good Shot.

Shooting at a fleeing enemy in a combat zone is hardly prohibited - quite to the contrary, this sort of thing is strongly encouraged whenever possible. Fleeing is not the same as surrendering. Nobody gets a free pass so they can run from one fighting position to another, even if they've already been hit.

Teenagers enjoy no special protections, either. If I recall correctly, a slight majority of our own soldiers in Vietnam were in their teens, and we had little expectation that the enemy would refrain from returning their fire in deference to their tender age.

Some of the people making these accusations were soldiers once themselves, and they should know better.

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9/11 divided us.

Some became apologetic, while others demanded war. Those of us on each side can barely talk to one another now, and both view those in the middle with suspicion.

Times like these do not change what is inside of people, but they do magnify what is there. Often, you will not like what you see; the things we could once abide in one another become less tolerable as they become more important. I think almost everyone has experienced this, and has seen friendships strained or even lost as a result.

I think that this is a natural consequence of facing something that is more important than yourself. It's not a sign that anything is wrong, it's the way the world really looks when the lights come on and we are forced to pay attention.

I could not remain the person that I am, and see this war in a different way. Every word I've uttered over the last forty years would be a lie if I were to embrace the positions of the other side. I also understand that they feel that same way about their beliefs. I can forgive them if they have as hard a time with me, as I do with them.

I want very much to know how I will remember this day. Should I spend each anniversary repacking my medical kit, checking the generator, restocking the water jugs? Should I spend it practicing at the range? Chilling out with my loved ones? Compulsively sharpening my knives?

Nothing really helps. I suppose the only thing I can count on is that I'll spend it with a hollow feeling in my gut and little to say.

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At least one of those Bush memos is fake. The proof is right here.

Charles at LGF was right - the spacing and font are from a default Microsoft word document, right down to the tab stops! Pretty impressive for a memo written in 1973.

Here's the original document. Here's a screen shot of it, rotated slightly so the text is perpendicular to the page (the red lines were my rotation guide):

[click for larger version]

Here's a Word document, typed with default settings:

[click for larger version]

Here they both are, one atop the other.

[click for larger version]

The original document was 'aged' (probably by repeatedly photocopying it) which did cause some distortion, as you can see. Some portions are stretched, while other parts line up exactly. The crucial point is that the spacing is tit-on; even the date conforms to the default tab position.

Charles also pointed out that the superscript "th" looks a little different on a mac than it does on a PC. I have a PC. The scam artist had a mac.

I was initially willing to concede that these documents might have been original when I read that the White House itself had released the copies. It turns out they had just forwarded copies that they had received by the press.

This document is a fraud. Somebody ought to go to jail for this.

And Charles ought to get a fucking medal for spotting this first.

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I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time getting past this. Maybe it's because I'm taking it all wrong.

Maybe it's because I've got it exactly right.

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