Zell Miller preceded Vice President Dick Cheney, saying that "nothing makes this ex-marine more mad" when American troops in Iraq are called "occupiers" instead of "liberators" by what he calls democratic "partisans."

Well sir, tell that to the Iraqi's.

When United States troops remained in Germany and Japan after World War Two, not one soldier, NOT A SINGLE SOLDIER was shot or killed by militia groups.

How many American soldiers have died since the day Bush landed on an Aircraft Carrier and announced "Mission Accomplished?" As of September 1st 2004, twice as many as were killed before the mission was accomplished.

And don't liberators do deeds like repair the infrastructure, rather than skim off billions for profits or importing cheap labor instead of hiring unemployed young Iraqi's in need of work?

Do liberators round up random groups of teenagers, toss them in jails like Abu Ghraib, and subject them to humiliation akin to (if not outright) torture?

Do liberators appoint corrupt Baathist officials and promulgate a constitution instead of holding free elections, because the Bush administration was more interested in creating economic opportunities for foreign investors and multinational corporations? This is what happened when General Jay Garner was pulled out of Iraq in June 2003 and replaced by Paul Bremer.

And is it to liberate Iraq that appointed ambassador John Negroponte says this week that he is going to divert reconstruction spending into security forces? Will the Iraqi's see Americans as liberators when they are dying from depleted Uranium, who have sewage in their water supply, and who can't get more than 4 hours of electricity because privatization has been an absolute failure. Does that hate in their eyes come from the love they have for what is presumed by speakers at the Republican podium?

And now in the wake of these compiled failures, the urge for stability is so great that we are in the midst of creating a police state headed by a new thug named Allawi, using the same police that Saddam used, and the same prisons where Saddam tortured.

Living in a bubble, blind patriots don't connect the ineptitude of the Bush administration to the current results, since they have assumed the morality of ending one dictator will automatically produce a glorious democracy of freedom regardless of history and deep rifts in the Iraqi state. We don't take up arms in the United States when we disagree politically, but will the well trained, armed militias of the Kurds, Shitites, and Sunni's do so.

According to observers with 20-30 years of knowledge and real experience in the region (as opposed to the ideologues who safely write position papers in the cubicles of statuesque offices at think-tank Washington D.C.) no one in Iraq believes the elections of 2005 will matter at all.

This is not a "miscalculation." That word implies that you dutifully multiplied 2 and 4 and ... oops ... you got 6. This is a disgraceful failure, and the vehemence of rebuttal is just defiant denial. Not only did the administration not study for the test, not only did they not pay attention in class or do their homework, but they also presumed they didn't even have to read the book on how to effectively pursue foreign policy and warfare.

But some people who take a shit will eat it too.

Beating the chest and shouting "USA" is not going to change reality. And completely misses the point. Admitting that the Iraq war is a disaster because of incompetence and lies is not anti-patriotic. Are we going to chop off our nose to spite the face?

Two sources you can consult : Robert Fisk and juan cole.

Picture of old geezer with squishy face, wearing a band-aid on his chin to mock Kerry -- based on lies that he believes to be true.

On Tuesday, 31 August 2004, at the GOP conventions, Schwarzenegger said:

I finally arrived here in 1968. What a special day it was. I remember I arrived here with empty pockets but full of dreams, full of determination, full of desire.The presidential campaign was in full swing. I remember watching the Nixon-Humphrey presidential race on TV. A friend of mine who spoke German and English translated for me. I heard Humphrey saying things that sounded like socialism, which I had just left.

But then I heard Nixon speak. Then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting the government off your back, lowering the taxes and strengthening the military.

Mister, I-don't-take-no-special-interest-money-unless-it's-corporate-special- interests Schwastikaneger lied.

Yes Schwastikaneger said he took no special interest money, and when asked why he's taking millions from corporate lobbyists by some upsnippity reporter, Schwastikaneger said he meant unions.

And what things did his friend translate sounded like "socialism?" Could it be that ole Schwastikaneger threw uneducated nonsense to the hungry idiotic dogs so that he could fed of off their irrational screams?

Hubert Humphrey of all people. Hubert Humphrey was a great speaker with a passion for the rights and freedoms of all men. This is the man who bravely made a speech at the 1948 Democratic convention where he wanted his party to enter the "beautiful light" by ending southern segregation and add a civil rights plank. Was ending the culture of racism socialism?

He happened to be Vice President when Lyndon Johnson was president, and became the Democratic nominee by default after Johnson resigned and Robert Kennedy was assassinated. What could Schwastikaneger be talking about? What could Humphrey have said that "sounded like socialism?"

Let's look at some Humphrey quotes from http://home.att.net/~howington/hhh.html

Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity-- an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.
--Hubert H. Humphrey "All-America Tribute to Archbishop Iakovos," speech, 15 Jan. 1967, Chicago, Ill.

Much of our American progress has been the product of the individual who had an idea; pursued it; fashioned it; tenaciously clung to it against all odds; and then produced it, sold it, and profited from it.
--NO DATE GIVEN

"We cannot use a double standard for measuring our own and other people's policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantees of those practiced in our own country."
--1948

"I am not here to judge whether people are locked in poverty because of themselves or because of the society in which they live. All I know is that they are there and we are trying to do something about it."
--1966

"It is all too easy for a society to measure itself against some abstract philosophical principle or political slogan. But in the end, there must remain the question: What kind of life is one society providing to the people that live in it?"
--1966

"When we say, 'One nation under God, with liberty and justice for all', we are talking about all people. We either ought to believe it or quit saying it ."
--1966

"Equality means equality for all - no exceptions, no 'yes, buts', no asterisked footnotes imposing limits."
--1967

"Be clear where America stands. Human brotherhood and equal opportunity for every man, woman, and child, we are committed to it, in America and around the world."
--1967

"What you do, what each of us does, has an effect on the country, the state, the nation, and the world."
--1968

"My philosophy has always been that benefits should percolate up rather than trickle down."
--1971

"There is no such thing as an acceptable level of unemployment, because hunger is not acceptable, poverty is not acceptable, poor health is not acceptable, and a ruined life is not acceptable."
--NO DATE GIVEN

What I do hear is a sense that there is a moral obligation by our society to have a bottom level, a bare minimum so that no one should have to be born into poverty, ignorance, or suffer the indignity of bankruptcy merely because they become sick. This does not mean government handouts or welfare queens. This means food stamps so that children don't have to starve. This means a free public education so that everyone has access to the same opportunity. This means that no one should be exploited or profit from the sick and disabled.

All too often, that word is abused by politicians with a hidden agenda and a vain eye looking at power. Schwastikaneger is no exception.

"When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down for four years in a war in Vietnam with no end in sight, when the richest nation in the world cannot manage its economy, when the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of war is plagued by unprecedented racial violence, when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad, or to any major city at home, then its time for new leadership for the United States."
-- President Nixon, 1968 RNC Acceptance Speech

"The speech-makers kept saying "we did not seek this war," and that it was imposed on us, and by God we were going to keep hitting back. That is, the rhetoric was that of righteous anger, of the avenging victim. While this argument works with regard to Afghanistan (which the US did not invade, only providing air cover to an indigenous group. the Northern Alliance), it is hollow with regard to Iraq. Only by confusing the "war on terror" with the war on Iraq could this rhetoric be even somewhat meaningful, and it is not a valid conflation.

"No American president has more desperately sought out a war with any country than George W. Bush sought out this war with Iraq. Only Polk's war on Mexico, also based on false pretexts, even comes close to the degree of crafty manipulation employed by Bush and Cheney to get up the Iraq war. Intelligence about weapons of mass destruction was deliberately and vastly exaggerated, producing a "nuclear threat" where there wasn't even so much as a single gamma ray to be registered. Innuendo and repetition were cleverly used to tie Saddam to Usama Bin Laden operationally, a link that all serious intelligence professionals deny.
-- Juan Cole, at www.juancole.com

Every now and then I'll pick up the local rag out here in liberal land, the San Francisco Chronicle. Occassionally there is an insightful piece, and there are a few good reporters on the staff, but for the most part the "comical" is just another down-sized newspaper owned by the Hearst Corporation, with ill-informed self-important hack writers and a lot of slush reporting that reeks of the worldview of corporate executive bean-counters, cheerleaders of the impersonal magical delusion that is the misunderstood globalism ideology.

This morning was no different. I have since learned to avoid the editorial opinion page because it makes my stomach hurt to read what is presented as factual, or how insidious arrogant banter can be congruent to thoughtful reason.

So today there was this opinion from some naval insider expert who actually thought that the greatest accounting scandal was .... take a guess? Nope, not Enron. Nope the greatest accounting scandal was the WMD accounting by the Saddam regime. Yep, this fool was making muck about how Saddam's minions would make 40,000 tons of Sarin and write down 50,000 on the books, or vice versa.

He titles his piece "An accounting scandal that could dwarf Enron ."

And that was the gist of the opinion. No mention was made of how the stocks of the mythical Sarin gas were destroyed in the 1990's by international inspectors. No mention was made of how the Reagan administration sold Hussein the original stockpile of bio-chemical weapons, with Rumsfeld as the man who made the deals.

The navy fool who presumed he was cute and smart, was deceptive beyond belief. He mentioned how David Kay signed some document saying that Saddam needed to get rid of these WMD monsters ... but said not one word, NOT ONE DAMN WORD, about how the same David Kay returned from Iraq in January 2004 to resign and testify before Congress that not only were there NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, but that he had serious concerns that the credibility of the Bush administration was a matter of grave concern.

Although he has since mended fences with the Bush administration, David Kay did have a genuine crisis of conscience and decided the truth was more important. But not this hack Naval expert named Douglas A. Borer, an associate professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey.

Wowwie-zowwie, an associate professor, really.

Here's a moment of lucidity offered by this Borer fellow:

Hussein swore on a stack of Korans no weapons or programs existed, but virtually every intelligence analyst on the planet did not believe him, because the books did not balance. David Kay and Richard Butler, both former U. N. chief weapons inspectors, have testified that official Iraqi records seized in the 1990s clearly showed significant quantities of various chemical agents that Iraq had produced, but did not turn over for destruction.

Bush agreed with the intelligence experts -- one side of the deadly ledger did not match the other. These ledgers served as the most compelling evidence that the president pointed to in making his case for war.

And despite the artful comments about swearing on the Koran, even according to the same David Kay, there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, swearing or not. And in the 2000 election, GW Bush didn't swear on a bible when he said he didn't believe in nation building, but what do you call it when you invade a nation, appoint their leaders and write their new constitution?

And those mythical mobile trailers that Colin Powell mentioned? And the yellowcake Uranium that never was? And the aluminum tubes that were supposed to be for centrifuges, except that oops, they were actually not anywhere near thick enough. And all of the statements of certainty about WMD made by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Cheney...

But hey, since one side of the deadly ledger did not match the other, Bush went to war on a shoestring, ignoring the advice of his generals, paying top dollar for the lies of Ahmed Chalabi and the skimmed profits for the intricate webs of insider Halliburton consultants and sub-contractors. And the "compelling evidence" all came from the Office of Special Plans created by Rumsfeld and headed by Douglas Feith, where all intelligence was routed and doctored first, and spiced up or ignored the reports to suit what they intended to on day one.

Mr. Borer, you should apply the Enron accounting principles to the Rumsfeld intelligence selecting principles.

John McCain just told a captive audience that anyone who doesn't understand the dangers out there in terrorist land is delusional?

Oh, so the administration's sloppy, arrogant ability to conduct the wars on terror represents fearless leadership.

We are told that Mr. Bush makes unpopular decisions, that he doesn't follow the tide. But he listens to the advice of men who doctor his intelligence briefing, who pay Ahmed Chalabi $100,000 a month to tell them falsehoods taht they want to hear, who have Israeli spies in their offices, who out CIA agents trying to snuff out terrorist networks for partisan political motivations, and who allow Pakistan's military dictatorship to sell nuclear secrets on the black- market without so much as a slap on the wrist.

Oh, Bush is so successful at this war on the big bad ambiguous "terror" that he allowed Halliburton and corporate insiders to do whatever they wanted in Iraq, even if that meant an inability to adequately supply the troops with food, ammunition, and guns. In the beginning of that war, our troops had to be fed by Italian troops, because Halliburton couldn't supply MRE's that weren't rotten. Our troops were using AK-47's captured from Iraq because Halliburton couldn't supply enough equipement. They skimmed the profits off first, and bought the supplies as cheaply as possible ... and this is what the Army commission concluded in it's own investigation.

The company which Halliburton sub-contracted to deliver the mail refused to deliver it to the soldiers in Iraqi outposts, and forced soldiers to drive 70 miles through potential ambush territory just to pick up their mail. And then they overcharged the military for this lame service!! Oh, and you can bet this ineptitude certainly does wonders for morale of the soldiers. What ever happened to the days when the military provided these services without private contractors?

Did I mention sending the unprepared National Guard to Iraq when they should be hear protecting the homeland. Did I mention dangerously overextending the military, and ignoring the recommendations of top brass of whom every single warning about Iraq came true.

And the Iraqi soccer team the Bush used as an example of how great his actions have been? In a Sports Illustrated article (another bastion of liberal ideas no doubt) every single member of the Iraqi soccer team asked Bush not to use them for his political purposes. Every single one wanted the military out. One member of the team had this to say: "How can Bush face his God knowing he has killed so many?"

But you go ahead and believe Bush is a valiant, bold leader who is going to protect us from terror. Meanwhile, you need to go back and brush up on Senator McCarthy. He too was praised for his boldness, and his bravery. And then one day America woke up and saw McCarthy for the drunken opportunist that he was. Yes, he was a really a drunk, and the corporate anti-unionists used the Red Scare to pursue their own political agendas under the guise of patriotism.

Myself, I know a phony when I see one.

There were more police in New York City keeping an eye on the peaceful protestors, than there are military personnel in Afghanistan, which is bombing voter registration areas and asking the American appointed president to resign.

And cutting the budget that would secure our ports and beef up local fire- fighters and police forces is another grand example of an effective war on terror. Keep in mind that the Administration did not even want a national agency of airport baggage screeners because they thought it was better to allow the same inept private firms repeat the same poor performance because they prefer making money more than providing adequate security.

John McCain is just another vainglorious fool who sees a chance to be a national figure, and he's so politically ambitious that he'll sell his soul to the devil to have a chance at the Presidency.

If someone slimed my honorable war record after I was in a prison camp for 5 years, if someone belittled and insulted my family like Bush did to McCain in 2000 South Carolina, there's no way I would praise this man in public.

And what does this Republi-thug party that swore they would not use 9-11 for partisan gains do on day one? Choose one of the many 9-11 family members to cry on stage before a national audience.

You can call this leadership. I call it disgusting and disgraceful.

But some people will blind themselves in order to pursue their relentless ambitions. What a shame. I used to have respect for McCain.

And I'm sorry if you fall for this bull too. You can't fight a war on terror, with the same foreign policy that created the anger which causes people to perform terrorist acts. They don't "hate our freedom". They hate our foreign policy.

Would you want a nation to invade, pillage our museums, destroy our electric grid and sewage maintance systems, promulgate a new constitution that allows foreign companies to import Mexican labor replacements and export 100% of the profits, and then appoint all the officials in the government? Would the nationalism of Americans who rose up and fought be terrorists?

Think about it people.

"...isn't it hilarious how the absolute worst thing the Right has been able to dredge up about John Kerry is that he might sort of maybe have exaggerated some facts about his various Vietnam medals and acts of and valor and deeds of astounding heroism, which is sort of like saying well sure you saved 10 babies from that burning building, but jeez, you were wearing special shoes at the time and by the way couldn't you have saved 11? Traitor! And how hard should we guffaw while we note that, as Kerry was volunteering in Vietnam and earning his medals and risking his life in the most volatile and ugly and pointless and lethal and hideous war in American history unless you count Iraq, which you really really should, Dubya was "serving" in the Air National Guard, which we all know translates to mean "hangin' down in Tijuana slamming tequila shooters and annoying the waitresses, all while praising Jesus that he had a daddy who could keep him away from scary complicated violent stuff."
--Mark Morford--

SOURCE: http://sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgif=/g/a/2004/08/27/notes082704.DTL&nl=fix

I'm sick of these people whining about how come Kerry didn't do this or Kerry didn't do that. Or how come he let them put him on the defensive? Or whatever.

We have got to understand how much power the media has to present the world and not let our opinions be influenced by the suggestive wording and visual stimulations offer by media production. What you see on TV is all produced, down to the sequence in which the images are presented, and the words used. How much time spent on any one event, and what does not make the screen are all decided by corporate executives and lawyers that you don't see.

Yes, it is that simple. The media is an octopus of multi-layered corporate bodies, and it's gonna stay that way until we start enforcing the anti-trust laws. If you think a story doesn't get pulled, or edited because of the concern of some legal advisor representing the holding company and advertizers - - then you are quite ignorant of reality.

No matter what Kerry does, media talking gossip artists would have lambasted him, because they don't have an imaginative thought in their pompous self- important mind. They are too busy practicing how to look and sound to spend time educating themselves.

Had Kerry reacted as you wanted, the corporate media and their shills would have portrayed him as out of control, and they would have edited his words and chose poor soundbites to make Kerry seem out of touch with mainstream America.

So Kerry took the high road and let the American people see these lying bastards for who they are. Some Americans won't see a lying bastard, and there's nothing anyone can do to reach these people.

You might think yourself the best armchair warrior in the world, but you don't fight a pig by jumping in the pig-sty. The pig will only blame you for the mud, and what can you do when you are covered in mud -- nothing! The lying whores will all gossip about Kerry's mud, while they bust out with soap and water to clean off their pre-ordained holy-man, arming the followers with all the necessary phrases and word bombs they need.

You see this is a religious revival, and television has became the vehicle.

Kerry has a strong inner confidence, and you don't get to see the pounding he and Edwards are doing everyday because the media doesn't show it too you. It took guts to come back from Vietnam and try to get the truth. It took guts to persist in the BCCI banking investigation for 3 years when everyone was too afraid to touch it. Yea, he voted against the Iraq funds in the second vote because it was going to pass anyway. He voted for the funds on the first vote because that vote would have scaled back some (not all) of the tax cuts to pay for the funding. He voted yes on the first vote, but every single self- proclaimed fiscally responsible Republican voted against the funds because they preferred to pile more debt on the nation.

How many of you even knew there were two votes on the Iraq funds? How many of you heard of BCCI? And now you expect the media to fairly present anything?

You don't see Edwards and Kerry, because they don't show you Kerry and Edwards, except for a suggestive 10 or 15 second clip culled from an hour long event -- followed by overpayed meat-heads pontificating about the meaning of the edited clips. This is the world in which the meat-heads live. This is the world to which they are responding, and in that stuffy room, they give you all the culled facts and necessary details to portray themselves as knowledgeable. They make grandiloquent statements and pat themselves on the back as the representatives of what they call true America. But this is like tearing out and presenting all but 10 of the pages from a 500 page book for people who won't bother to read the 500 page book for themselves, and then acting like they have a firm grasp on reality while the pasty, cosmetic blush gleams off of their shiny faces.

Do you want the shills in the corporate media to babysit your mind?

People who go see Kerry and Edwards in person are allowed to ask questions and participate, without having to be searched for evidence of liberal paraphrenalia or the need to sign a loyalty oath. They get to hear more than 10 seconds and talking media heads. They come away feeling that these are two people who care about this country, who take the time to listen, and who take time to fill their minds with information.

And when those who disagree shout out, or make statements with bull-horns, the Secret Service does not force the local police to make arrests. Try going to a Bush rally with a Kerry T-shirt and you are asked to leave, or forced to take the shirt off.

Throw away the TV, get on the internet, start informing yourself, and start talking to your neighbors instead of getting pacified by lame sitcoms that remind you when to laugh, cry, or get scared by a digitally mastered soundtrack.

It's time to get real baby.

Today I walked past a fellow with a Nader button on his shirt. His Tee-shirt contained the words "Anti-war.com" on the front. He was carrying his groceries.

When he walked by I had the temerity to utter, "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush."

Immediately this fellow told me that Kerry was for the war, and then told me I should cut my hair.

I didn't see how the length of my hair was pertinent to the details of the argument, and mentioned that I could accuse him of having short hair, so what?

And besides, look at the President on your One dollar bill -- or the writer of the declaration of Independence whose nabob is on the US nickel. I don't think length of hair has anything to do with an individual's integrity (or lack thereof.)

He then started to tell me that Kerry was lying about his war record, which I thought was ridiculous, since he would have gotten his information from the corporate media that Naderites are so quick to protest. I mentioned the facts, as they stand. Every single one of the persons that were on the same boat as Kerry stand by Kerry. All of the military records stand by Kerry. The only individual who was on the same boat with Kerry, the gunner Steve Gardner, admitted when questioned thathe was not on the same boat with Kerry at the time of Kerry's first purple heart -- which was the incident to which Mr. Gardner claimed "first-hand knowledge." Charles Rood, an editor for 35 years at the Chicago Tribune, was the only other lieutenant alive who was on that mission, and he stood by Kerry's events in a recent article in the tribune, stating that the swiftboat vets were saying things that he knows to be "untrue."

Louis Letson was not the doctor whose name was on the medical form, whose name was Carreon. Letson says he had this medic sign his forms, but this is not very believable since Kerry's shipmates who were with him disgustedly said otherwise. Shrapnel in the air as a result of bullets flying is a wound that needs to be seen by a doctor. It's only an inch to severing the Aorta artery. Does a man have to be blown to bits and disabled in order to deserve consideration?

Thurlow and O'Neill have been caught in so many discrepancies, that anything they say is not worth listening to. And Hannity can selectively read parts of Kerry's diary, but it proves nothing but Hannity's willingness to carry out character assassination. Top Secret Swiftboat missions dropping off Green Berets in Cambodia did occur. Do you think Kerry is going to write Top Secret information in his journal?

And so what? One can denounce 527 groups all one wants, but this 527 group was advised by top administration lawyer Ginsberg -- who resigned, and actually wants the public to believe that he was advising the group to make sure that there was no coordination. And Moveon.org's advertisements are at least truthful.

When President Bush talks about Billionaires writing checks, he's talking about his longtime Texas friend Jim Perry who wrote the checks that got the Swiftboat group started . Moveon.org has always been a grassroots organization, whereas the swiftboat vets were coached by the same political consultants who smeared John McCain, signing affadavits acclaiming first-hand knowledge they did not have. A sheet of paper that attests that someone told you something about someone else does not hold up in a court of law. Signing an affadavit based upon heresay is called perjury.

So this fellow immediately starts telling me how Kerry shot a teenager in a loin-cloth in the back, and then says that Kerry was a war criminal.

Man, oh man, how ill-informed of a voter is this Naderite, who presumably wants to toss Corporations overboard, and yet is so filled with corporate abetted lies.

I didn't get a chance to ask him if he heard Kerry's testimony before Congress that the Swiftboat vets selectively editted. Had he taken the time to hear (or read) the testimony, he would have known that Kerry was merely recounting what other vietnam veterans had told him in a Detroit meeting. He would have known that Kerry stated he did not see or participate in the crimes he was speaking, but did state that he did participate in Free-fire zones and search and destroy missions, because it was part of the military mission as set forth by the military top brass leaders. Kerry was not trying to discredit or dishonor the soldiers. He was trying to present the facts so that there could be changes in leadership, instead of allowing the continuation of what he thought was failed policy.

This Naderite chose to throw these accusations out at me, while I calmly tried to explain the facts and tell him where he could get better informed. But he was not interested in listening and chose to stay ignorant. Instead, he decided to get personal, and again told me I needed to cut my hair, while walking away, thinking he had the last word.

I told him that his personal vendettas meant nothing to me, and that he shouldn't presume to be informed just because he saw something on TV, or heard a rumor that confirmed his preconceived ideas. Cable companies and media conglomerates will sensationalize a story without the least bit of journalistic integrity.

So if you want to find out the facts you can go look them up for yourself. Don't presume that you got the straight story just because you saw a few fellows on cable television with deep roots to a Republican smear campaign.

You can go to http://www.salon.com and search for "swiftboat vets."

Or you can go read a large compendium that refutes the lies sponsored by friends of the Bush administration at http://www.eriposte .com/media/liars_inc/swiftboat.htm.

I have written a tome on this topic, because I do research when I find myself to be ill-informed. If you want to read what I said you can go to the Voice of the People section, or read a text document I wrote here.