all for him. now who are the nominees ?

IMHO, no, he didn't.

Look to the MSM now.

They are making a big deal of this.

Sure sign it was planned.

You totally missed the point Westexas.

And you understand missing the point because?

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/54/106.html

the administration of President Lyndon Johnson deliberately triggered the Vietnam War by orchestrating the Tonkin Gulf incident and duping Congress

Lets see - fake incident

Daniel Ellsberg, at the November 1995 Vietnam Veterans Institute Conference, was far more critical of those who served in the executive branch and notably more apologetic: "What I did not reveal in the Summer of 64...was a conspiracy to manipulate the public into a war and to win an election through fraud...which had the exact horrible consequences the founders of this country envisioned when they ruled out, they thought as best they could, that an Executive Branch could secretly decide the decisions of war and peace, without public debate or vote of Congress....Senator Morse, one of the two people who voted against the Tonkin Gulf Resolution told me in 1971, '...had you given us all that information...seven years earlier, in 1964, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution would never have gotten out of Committee. And, if it had, it would never have passed....' But there was a time in my life later...knowing the consequences of all these policies...when I did say to myself that I'm never going to lie again with the justification that someone has told me I have to....I've never been sorry I've stopped doing that."

The Gulf of Tonkin incident is one of thousands of such incidents that happened in the past.

So you are claiming there are thousands of fake incidents? Incidents people 'feel bad' about later?

Oh, pray tell, do you have a list of them?

You totally missed the point Westexas. During the cold war these types of things happened more times than we even know

Do ya think?

The question is, what do Bush/Cheney plan to do. I suggest that you research the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

antidoomer -

I am well aware that there were plenty of cat-and-mouse games played between US and Soviet subs and aircraft during the Cold War. These perhaps served a legitimate purpose in testing each others' capabilities and defenses.

However, I get a very bad taste with this particular one. As you probably know, the Iran Navy is essentially a third-rate force consisting of 3 Russian Kilo class subs plus a handful of frigates, corvettes, fast missile boats, and a whole bunch of tiny patrol boats. So, there really wouldn't be much point in Iran's testing of our capabilities because they have to know they would get thoroughly stomped in any outright armed naval conflict with the mighty US Navy.

So, the questions in my mind are i) WHY? and ii) WHY NOW?

Given the delicate situation between Iran and the US, why would the Iranian government want to provoke the US and give the Bush regime the pretext for the attack it would love to launch against Iran? It would appear to me that the Iranians would have little motivation in creating an incident, whereas the Bush regime has plenty of motivation, much of it quite obvious.

Then we have the question of whether this incident has anything to do with Bush's upcoming visit to Israel, a visit in which what to 'do' about Iran will surely be discussed in exhaustive detail.

As with the Gulf of Tonkin incident, what is made of the incident by the US will be far more important than the physical incident itself. In this case no missiles were launched, no shots were fired, and no vessels from either side were damaged. Yet, I suspect that the Bush regime and the MSM are going to milk this one for all it's worth. How they play this will tell you a lot about what is really going on.

Given the overall situation, I am not so readily inclined to believe that this was just a case of some good 'ol boys in the Iranian Navy having a little fun with the Americans. Could it be that the Iranians have concluded they are going to be attacked by the US one way or the other, so it might be to their advantage to start trouble on their terms and their schedule rather than that of the US?

One could speculate forever, but the proof will be the degee to which this is made out to be a big deal requiring positive military action.

Lotta point missing going on.

The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, which drew the US into the Vietnam war, never happened as it was reported in the media.

The Vietnamese attack on the USS Maddox may have happened after the Maddox fired first. The attack on the USS Turner Joy didn't happen.

And we are in entirely different territory now than we were then.

SCT -

I believe the "real" Silkworm (a name given by the west to the original HY-1) is too heavy to be toted around in patrol boats. It's 2500kg.

HY-1: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/hy-1.htm

Probably couldn't even get up on skis behind a boat w/something like that :-)

HY-2: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/c-201.htm

I'm quite certain the radars on the HY series are profiled and jamming and other defensive measures are ready. I wouldn't be surprised at all if all the games are just an attempt to get the latest paint colors off the missiles by the US.

NR

As far as I can tell, there is no change in power anyways. The same people will charge after the inauguration, so is there any importance to the date.

Ron Paul isn't likely to win, and even if he did, he would just get assassinated for his anti-Fed (NWO) attitude. The *REAL* powers that be won't let that happen.

I get the feeling (more and more lately) that these events are *scripted* and we are just along for the ride.

One of the many reasons I worry that GWB will supply a world war - it will answer many challenges provided by the current situation and make him and his colleagues even richer. Then he can move to Paraguay (but you have to wonder what wonderful things you have planned to need that move).

/tin hat off

Twentieth Amendment. The Vice president elect becomes president.

The response to the death or disability of a president elect after the election but before inauguration day would be driven by a number of factors.

First if the president elect were to die before the electoral college were to meet then the voters while free to vote for whom ever they wished would most likely vote for the vice presidential candidate of the winning party, the vice presidential voters would also be free to vote for the candidate of their choice. Probably voting for a person chosen by the original vp candidate now president presumptive.

If however there was no consensus among the electors then the us house of reps would choose the president, and or the senate would choose the new vp as the vp is the titular head of that body.

Although the house would vote for the president, it would be by state not individual member, which means that Bernie Sanders of vt would have one vote as would the whole California delegation.

Any state that had a evenly split delegation and could not agree would not have a vote.

This scenario almost played out in each of the last two elections as a shift of less than 1% in two or three states would have tied the electoral college.

If the electoral college has already voted and the president elect dies then the vp would move up to the presidency and then nominate his or her replacement.

If the president elect were to be permanently disabled after the electors meet, but before being sworn in presumably the vp would then become president, as not having been sworn in the office is technically vacant, however the argument could be made that the vp would only be acting president.

If the president elect were to be permanently disabled before the electors were to meet and would be unable to perform his or her duties then the electoral college would be in a quandary, some state require their electors to vote for the winner of their election, while others do not. Some electors may vote for the vp and others may have to vote for the disabled presidential candidate or will do so out of loyalty, also the vice presidential electors would probably vote for the original vp candidate, so the vp would probably be elected and the choice of president could again end up with the house of representatives,

If the electoral college hasn't met yet, then the electors pledged to the dead candidate may vote for someone else instead. Presumably the dead candidate's party would scramble to designate a replacement ticket.

If the electoral college has met, then the highest number of votes transmitted to congress would be for a dead candidate. Congress at that point would probably handle that the same way they would if there were no electoral college winner, following procedures that are explicitly detailed in the constitution. The house delegations would vote by state, with the majority of states deciding a winner (which could be anyone, even someone that had not been running), while the senate would select the VP.

There are only a few days between this point and the January 20th inaugural, but that is the window of time that really is interesting. You are right in that, during that window, there really are no constitutional provisions covering a president-elect's death. My guess is that the congress would just re-vote in that case, and the Supremes would probably support them in that.

Bush Begins Preparations For Nation's Final Year

January 5, 2008

WASHINGTON—As his last term in office winds to a close, President Bush has directed White House aids and Cabinet staff to begin preparing for 2008, the nation's 232nd and final year in existence.

"Our great nation will be a shining, then blinking, then slowly fading beacon to the world," Bush said. "As our time as a sovereign country with borders and currency comes to a close, let us hope we will be remembered for all the great things we accomplished, and not for the 1960s."

"We sure did have some good times, didn't we?" Bush added.

To help the members of Congress pass the time until both houses are a jagged shell of concrete and marble, looted of valuables by roving bands of nomadic warlords to sell for spears and kerosene, Bush submitted to the Senate a short list of what he called "Dream Projects" to be carried out in the tenuous weeks following Dec. 9, 2008.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bush_begins_preparations_for