Radical Muslims And Ritual Human Sacrifice

I read an oped piece in the New York Post from a couple of weeks ago and it was really eye opening. It is absolutely a must read for everyone concerned about Islamic terrorism. Ralph Peters, author of Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World., explains how this new brand of Islamic Terror is very different than the old terror that Europe has been "living with" for the past several decades. Here's an excerpt:

The Islamic terrorists we now face will never become statesmen. They wish to shed our blood to fortify their faith, to impose their beliefs upon the world, to placate a vengeful god.

That doesn't offer much room for polite diplomacy. Islamic terrorists have reverted to the most primitive of religious practices: human sacrifice. Their brand of Islam is no "religion of peace." They're Aztecs without the art. And it takes a Cortez to deal with them.

According to Peters, the US is leading the way in the most effective way to deal with these terrorists. "Old Europe" is setting itself up as a target and will likely see something that dwarfs 9/11. I'd like to hear what others think about this article. Also, if anyone has links to other oped or articles Ralph Peters has written, please leave them in the comments.

Iran Matching Nuclear Warheads To Missiles

MSNBC and Reuters are reporting that Colin Powell and the state department has reason to believe that Iran is working on putting nuclear warheads on their missiles.

"I have seen some information that would suggest that they have been actively working on delivery systems. . . . You don't have a weapon until you put it in something that can deliver a weapon," Powell told reporters traveling with him to Chile for an Asia-Pacific economic summit. "I'm not talking about uranium or fissile material or the warhead; I'm talking about what one does with a warhead."
....
"I'm talking about information that says they not only have these missiles, but I am aware of information that suggests that they were working hard as to how to put the two together," Powell said, referring to the process of matching warheads to missiles. He spoke to reporters during a refueling stop in Manaus, Brazil.
....
"There is no doubt in my mind -- and it's fairly straightforward from what we've been saying for years -- that they have been interested in a nuclear weapon that has utility, meaning that it is something they would be able to deliver, not just something that sits there," Powell said.

There are also separate reports saying that Iran is enriching Uranium to be used in nuclear weapons according to an exile group called the National Council for Resistance in Iran, or NCRI.

On Wednesday, Mohaddessin used satellite photos to pinpoint what he said was the new facility, inside a 60-acre complex in the northeast part of Tehran known as the Center for the Development of Advanced Defense Technology. The group said that the site also houses Iranian chemical and biological weapons programs and that uranium enrichment began there a year and a half ago, to replace a nearby facility that was dismantled in March 2004 ahead of a visit by a U.N. inspections team.

The group gave no evidence for its claims, but Mohaddessin said, "Our sources were 100 percent sure about their intelligence." He and other group members said the NCRI relies on human sources, including scientists and other people working in the facilities and locals who might live near the facilities and see suspicious activities.

They predict that Iran will have a deliverable nuclear weapon within the next 5 to 6 years. This is serious. The Bush administration said that it hasn't decided what to do with this information but plans to take it to the UN Security Council.

I doubt that Iran will be the recipient of an invasion like Iraq. I believe our forces are too spread out until we have more stability in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nevertheless, we have a unique opportunity to put pressure on Iran and support many of the democratic revolutionaries already present in Iran from our position in Iraq and from our new bases in the region.

LINKS:
Captains Quarters
Right Wingnuthouse
The Key Monk

OK, I Did It

I hate these things on other people's blogs so what do I do? I do the quiz just to see what happens. Then when I saw how fitting it was, I decided to post it. I'm so ashamed of myself....




Which Monty Python & the Holy Grail Character are you REALLY?
brought to you by Quizilla


Please read on to my more serious posts.

Fritz Hollings' Farewell Speech

Fritz Hollings, Senator from South Carolina, gave his farewell speech on the Senate floor. In Hollings' typical irreverent style, he made these comments excerpted from Fox News:

"I don't leave with the idea that the Senate is not what it used to be... We've got a way better group of senators," he said, recalling that when he arrived in Washington in 1966, "We had five drunks or six drunks."

He said now, "We don't have time to be drunks."

Hollings noted that there was only one woman, Margaret Chase Smith (search), R-Maine, in his first years in the Senate, and that she was "outstandingly quiet."

"Now we've got 15 or 17 and you can't shut them up," he joked. There are 14 women senators.

Apparently this is typical Fritz. He's an 82 year old man with a long history in the Senate. They were meant to be jokes and they're being taken as such. I thought they were funny. The thing I want to point out, though, is the double standard. I wonder what the reaction would have been if a republican had made these jokes. Would it be all over the media? Would women's groups come out denouncing the whole party because of these few words? Would women Senators go on camera talking about how shocked they are that this kind of Neanderthal thinking still had a place in the Republican Party? Of course we can't ever know for sure, but I tend to think we'd be getting a different reaction from the media and other groups had Fritz been a Republican, I mean, look at what happened to Sen. Trent Lott.

An article worthy of the Onion

While reading Drudge, I read a story that read like a story written for the satirical news website, the Onion. The Boca Raton News printed a story about a psychological disorder related to John Kerry losing the election that many people in Palm Beach county are suffering from.

A post-therapy John Kerry supporter spoke out about her trauma treatment for the first time this weekend, saying Florida psychologist Douglas Schooler took her from the depths of despair over President Bush’s victory to a new lease on life.

Forty-four year old Karen of Boca Raton, a divorced mother of one who didn’t want her last name in print, called the trauma specialist’s intensive election therapy “profoundly effective” and described his hypnosis technique as “a healing process.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Karen told the Boca Raton News in an interview. “I was very devastated and very astonished that people would re-elect this president. I was moody about the war and economic issues. I felt very unsettled and fearful. I thought, ‘Oh no, what will happen for four years?’”
Karen, whose medical insurance covers the treatment, said she approached Schooler last week after finding herself unable to function publicly due to President Bush’s re-election.

“Dr. Schooler absolutely understood the pain this election caused me and he opened my mind to a new point of view,” Karen said. “You’re relaxed, he talks to you and you just come out of it feeling more positive and renewed. It took one session. He did some relaxation techniques and probably did some things I didn’t even realize.”
A Schooler client for seven years, dating back to her divorce, Karen said the doctor helped her realize it had been unhealthy for her to expect Kerry to win.

“If I’d had time, I would have volunteered for Kerry, but I work full-time,” Karen said. “I was so invested emotionally, watching the debates, and was very disturbed whenever I heard a Marine has been killed. I thought Bush’s actions were war crimes. But I’m sleeping again since the therapy and have felt better ever since. I don’t know what will happen now, but I’m going to take it day by day and see what happens.”
The Boca Raton News reported last week that more than 45 South Florida Kerry supporters sought psychological help after the Democratic candidate conceded to Bush on Nov. 3.

That number, including 20 patients treated by Schooler, had risen to more than 50 by the weekend.

As I read through the article, I couldn't believe that this was real. I kept thinking that it was satire. People are actually seeing therapists because John Kerry lost the election. Maybe this is the natural result of outcome-based education or no-score little league.

The thing is, every side loses elections. While I was glad that Bush won the presidency, living in California, I had some disappointments as well. I voted against the state funding embryonic stem cell research and I definitely voted against Nancy Pelosi for Senator. Both of those races were very important to me, but they lost. So what am I going to do about it? Will I stay in bed for weeks in a deep depression at the direction my state is going? Will I rant and rave and gnash teeth every time I think of the election? Even if John Kerry had won, would I consider it the end of the world? Of course not. It would energize me to do even more to further my issues. It will make me work that much harder to convince others of my view points. This blog, in a small way, is my way of doing that. I present my views and try to give logical arguments in support of them. If I can convince just 1% of the people that come by and read my posts, then I'm doing some good and am furthering my cause.

In the end, people have to realize that we can't control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we react to them. Instead of choosing depression and a doomed outlook on the world, I'll choose to fight.

UPDATE:

Apparently Rush Limbaugh has made fun of this article as well. There's a second story about this Here

Celebrating Veteran's Day

I just wanted to let all members of the armed forces past and present know how much I and my family truly appreciates them. They are the reason we are safe in our country. They are the reason we have the freedoms that we enjoy. They are the reason we are the most successful representative democracy in the history of civilization. May God bless all servicemen, veterans, and their families. Their sacrifice is appreciated.

I wanted a discussion on how we can show appreciation to our veterans and our servicemen. Please feel free to leave comments on ways we can support those who have fought and are fighting for our country and stories of things that you or someone you know has done to show their gratitude.

Let me share one that I just heard this morning on the radio on the way to work.

A listener called in about her son who has been fighting in Afghanistan. He had just been back on leave for 2 weeks for the birth of his baby. While here, he had taken their car in for a brake job. Another customer in the repair shop insisted on paying for the brake job for him to express thanks for all that he was doing in Afghanistan to protect our country.

So please leave other stories that you might have about showing appreciation for our troops and veterans.

What To Do With Specter

There's a lot going around about what Senator Specter did and whether he should still get the chairmanship of the judicial committee. I've mainly stayed off the topic since it seemed to be everywhere else, but I've sparred somewhat with liberals in comments on their blogs and thought I should put forth my position before putting it to rest, at least for now.

Specter did a very stupid thing. I think he knows that now, though at the time I don't think he realized what he was doing. He spouted off, as most Senators do, and offended a large number of Bush supporters by asking Bush to only send centrist judges because the country was so split during the election. He made two mistakes in this.

Republicans are still fuming about the judge nominees in the last 4 years. Bush sent, not pro-life judges, but strict constructionist judges that were committed to interpret the constitution and not find new rights that weren't previously there. Democrats see that as pro-life since that is how Roe v. Wade came to be. Specter is a moderate Republican who is pro-choice. Democrats used a back-handed way denying these judges a vote (they had enough votes to approve them) with a Senate rule allowing filibustering.

His second mistake was coming out in open opposition to his party. He won as a Republican and got support for his campaign, not only from the party, but also from Bush himself when we actively campaigned for his re-election. Now I do not believe that the party can dictate how Specter can vote for these nominees, but I do believe that he has the obligation to help the party and the president give these nominees a vote.

He didn't realize the Pandora's Box he opened with these comments. Letters and phone calls flooded in calling for the party to not put him in as chairman of the judicial committee. Some assume that it's part of some sort of Christian Right conspiracy to make sure they have the power in the government. I just think it was from a group of conservative Republicans sick and tired of allowing people with a litmus test for judges run the show. He has since come out in support of the president and said that he would support getting the judicial nominees their vote.

Should Specter still get the chairmanship? I think he should. The flood of calls, letters, and e-mails have humbled Specter and reminded him that he still has to answer to the American people. Nevertheless, the Republican party needs to be inclusive. We need to accept those that share most of our ideals but may disagree with just a few policies. If all moderate, pro-choice Republicans are destined to be banned from leadership, how long are they going to stay Republicans? Does that mean that we have to cave to their issues? No, of course not. Each Senator can vote their conscience and answer to their constiuency. But they can still have a place in the party. Nobody wins elections unless they give people that don't agree with every plank in the platform a place within the party as well.

LINKS:

Anti-Everything has the opposing view and some of my comments in the comment section.
Powerline
Mount Virtus
Blogs For Bush

Is It A Mandate?

Many pundits and bloggers are quick to point out the reasons that the President didn't get a mandate. Let's look at some of the reasons he did:

Bush is the first president to win a majority since 1988. This is something the left's beloved President Clinton could never muster.

Because of the high turnout, Bush received more popular votes than any president in history.

For the first time since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934, the president has strengthened his party's position in the Congress for both of his elections.

The first President since 1924 to re-elect majorities in the House and Senate

The first President since 1936 to gain seats in both the House and Senate

And it's that last three that are the most important. People not only voted for Bush, but they also voted for the Senators and Congressmen (Congresspeople?) that holds his same ideals. This shows that the people like the Republican platform and the goals that Republicans have for our nation.

I've never really listened to the President's weekly radio address and the rebuttal but I happened to be driving on Saturday when the local talk station broadcast (rebroadcast?) the addresses. The President talked about uniting the country and some plans he has for country. What was interesting was the rebuttal. It was given by Nancy Pelosi, the Congresswoman from California and minority leader in the House. She basically said that the Democrats want to unite the country but put it on the President to make sure it happens. In other words, she asked what will President Bush do for them. She's not the only ones. I've heard left leaning reporters and Democrats make it clear that they're not going to budge on what they want, regardless of the fact that they've lost elections all over the country including the presidency. This is amazing! Their attitude is not: Since you won, what can we do for you? It's: Since we lost, what will you do for us? The Democrats are giving no indication, whatsoever, that they're ready to cooperate with the president and with the will of the majority of the country.

Whether it's considered a mandate or not, the fact is that President Bush has won the election. The President has made promises in the campaign that he has an obligation to fulfill now that he has been elected because he was elected based on those promises. We, the American people that elected the president, require him to stand up to his end of the bargain no matter what the losing party says or does. That's the way of democracy. If you win, you further your agenda. If you lose, your agenda gets stalled.

Here's a short laundry list of things I'd like to see happen:

Appoint strict constructionist judges, judges that will interpret the constitution and not make law.

Move Social Security toward privatization.

Revamp the tax system. Specifically I support the Fair Tax.

Fight a strong War on Terror and fulfill our commitment to the afghans and Iraqis.

Make the tax cuts permanent.

Shrink government.

Kerry Voters are More Intelligent....Or Are They?

A coworker e-mailed me a web page, though he admitted to me that he hadn't checked it out yet. Here's the gist:

People that voted for John Kerry have higher IQs. The site shows a table that lists each state and the average IQ for that state in order from highest IQ to lowest. The top 16 plus 3 more sprinkled in towards the top voted for Kerry and everyone else (mostly below 100 IQ scores) voted for Bush.

When I first saw it, it obviously didn't seem right. It lined up to well and the IQ numbers just didn't make sense. I then set out to do some research.

Lest you be deceived, here is what I found:

This actually originally comes from the 2000 election with Al Gore. The table has merely been re-color coded to reflect the returns of the 2004 election. Apparently this was so appealing to liberals that they believed in it right away and it was even reported in some reputable publications such as the St. Petersburg Times in Florida and the Economist magazine. Shortly after the publications, they were retracted because the numbers are just basically fabricated. This is basically a feel-good table to make people that voted for the candidate that lost.

Here's a web site with this information, not to mention links to the real IQ by State information.

UPDATE:

Mediakit explains more extensively other reasons this is bad data in adition to the numbers being just plain wrong.

Introspection? Naw, I'll Just Hurl Insults!

With the loss of the election on Tuesday many Democrats are starting to ask themselves: "What went wrong?" They've lost the Presidency 5 out of the last 7 elections and they're steadily losing seats in both houses of Congress. Slate has run a series of articles from different Democrats discussing just that point.

Of interest is an article written by Jane Smiley, an author of many novels and essays. Smiley seems to throw introspection right out the window in favor of sheer, brute insults at the Americans that voted for George W. Bush.

The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not....

The reason the Democrats have lost five of the last seven presidential elections is simple: A generation ago, the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey, workers and consumers. The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now, Cheney is the capitalist arm and Bush is the religious arm. They know no boundaries or rules. They are predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant. Lots of Americans like and admire them because lots of Americans, even those who don't share those same qualities, don't know which end is up. Can the Democrats appeal to such voters? Do they want to? The Republicans have sold their souls for power. Must everyone?

Could it be that Democrats are losing touch with the majority of Americans? No. Could their nuanced positions and weak stance on protecting America be wrong for America? No. Could the Democrats be doing anything wrong whatsoever? Of course not! According to Smiley, There is one simple reason that George W. Bush won the election. Americans are sniveling ignorant morons who can't tie their shoes but can be manipulated into voting for Republicans.

Jane Smiley is revealing more as to why the Democrats are losing than she thinks. Democrats think that the majority of people can't take care of themselves and therefore take it upon themselves to take care of them. Democrats don't trust people to make the right decisions. They can't conceive that Conservatives believe in what they do because of rational reasoning and thought. They can't fathom that people don't want to be taken care of and think (erroneously, of course) that they can take care of themselves. They feel they are smarter and superior to the masses. This is the reason they are losing power and they will continue to lose power until they come down off of their high horses and see eye to eye with the rest of America.

Until they can start looking inward and change themselves instead of trying to change us, they'll just have to get used to the title: "Minority Party".

LINKS

Powerline

County by County Vote

This picture looks so familiar....



Perhaps John Edwards is right. We do have 2 Americas. We have the self-reliant, independent, rural, and sub-urban America and we have the government-loving, dependent, and urban America.

(picture from Captain's Quarters)

Early Exit Polls Fakes

All night as election results started coming in, the network reporters discussed what went wrong with the exit poll numbers. In past years, the exit polls could usually offer a mostly accurate view of the trend of the votes coming in. In 2000 these polls were part of the reason Gore was called in the state of Florida before the polls had even closed in the pan handle. Because of the 2000 fiasco, the exit polls were revamped but in the 2002 election they were again giving inaccurate results to the point that the National Election Pool stopped releasing data.

This year was the worst year yet with respects to exit polling, but this election there was a difference. As investigated by the American Spectator, the early exit poll numbers that came in were fakes put out by the Kerry campaign.

According to at least three sources, one inside the Kerry campaign, and two outside of it, but with ties to senior Kerry advisers, some of the "early polling numbers" were in fact direct reports from Kerry campaign or Democratic Party operatives on the ground in such critical states as Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin. According to a Washington lobbyist with knowledge of the numbers, the numbers were packaged together so as to appear to be exit poll results. They were then scrubbed through several sources to land in the lap of sympathetic bloggers who these operatives believed would put the numbers up with little question.

Shortly thereafter, the real exit polling came out still showing Bush behind but not by such huge margins.

This was obviously a way to not only give encouragement to Kerry supporters and suppress Bush supporters, but to also try and discredit the new media. Unfortunately, too many bloggers as well as the Drudge Report were so eager for data to post, that they weren't careful about the source. It's not entirely their fault, of course. This was intentionally meant to fool them. Even Carl Rove took them at face value, though he was obviously skeptical of them. Nevertheless, as a new news source, we need to be more careful. I watched anchors report with barely concealed glee how they didn't report the bad poll data but that the internet had.

Here's the deal. Exit polls are obviously inaccurate. It's simply a way for the networks to make a whole news day out of something that you can't know until evening time. It's meant to give a horse-race feel to the election which does nothing more than give the networks ratings. Likewise, the constant polling throughout the whole campaign with huge margins of error do little more than to give an idea of what's happening rather than an accurate view of where the country is. Polling is just a tool with limited worth. It will continue to be used as a tool. What we need to get away from is the poll becoming the news rather than the candidates or their views. I can't tell you how often I've read or heard news stories that did nothing more than just report this poll or that poll. At risk of repeating myself, polls are not news. They are a tool, and a tool of limited effectiveness at that.

LINKS

Captains Quarters
Powerline
Shot In The Dark
The Daily Blogster
View From A Height
American Kestrel

Election Thoughts

I spent much of the night last night flipping between different coverages of the election. I'm lucky being on the west coast in that I didn't have to stay up so late to find out that we weren't going to get a concession that night. I only had to stay up until 11:30. I have some observations about the election and the coverage.

I watched most of the coverage on CNN. CNN actually surprised me. For the most part you didn't see frustration or bitterness on the part of the reporters as it became clear that Bush was going to win. They seemed to be making a concerted effort to try and do an impartial analysis on the election results. The one glaring exception was when the results of New Jersey came out, how excited they were to point out that even though many people from New Jersey were killed in 9/11 and that their number one priority was terrorism according to the exit polls, they overwhelmingly voted for Kerry. This was just a bit irritating considering there really wasn't much doubt, ever, that New Jersey would go for Kerry. It's a democratic stronghold. So it's hardly indicative of anything that New Jersey went for Kerry. At any rate, kudos to CNN for trying to keep the reporting impartial.

I don't really understand how they project states for a candidate. It seems that some states get projected with a mere 1% of the precincts reporting while others have to wait for hours. I understand that if the percentage is close, you can't have a clear winner. Nevertheless, they seemed to sit on Florida without calling it even though nearly all of the precincts had reported and there was a 5 point spread. Ohio is another one. The spread was a lot closer but it was clear that the margin was increasing and not decreasing and there just weren't many votes left to count. CNN didn't project Ohio until late in the morning today.

I was impressed that the President decided to wait for Kerry to concede before he claimed victory. Kerry made it apparent that they wouldn't concede until the provisional ballots were counted in 11 days regardless of how unlikely it could make a big enough difference to swing the state in his favor. Bush could have went out and claimed victory causing a lot of contention but, like the class act he is, decided to just sit tight and wait for the concession confident in his win.

Kerry impressed me that he didn't make the country wait for 11 days before conceding. It took him longer to concede than I think was logical, but I'm very glad he finally did it this morning. He could have drawn this out and it would have been within his right, but he decided to reunite instead of divide and that's commendable.

Yet again, we showed the world that the United States of America can handle the democracy that we made fashionable throughout the world. UN election monitors were not needed. We showed the Jimmy Carters out there that we can handle ourselves and manage even a close election in a civilized manner.

I'm obviously very happy with the results of this election. Republicans increased their seats in both of the house and the Senate and retained the presidency. President Bush is the first president since 1988 to get a majority of the popular vote, receiving more popular votes than any other president in history, and the first president that won purely by Electoral Votes in a first election to win a second term. The biggest surprise of this election was the key issue on American's minds. It wasn't the war on terror. It wasn't Iraq. It wasn't the economy. It was values. Americans are still a values-oriented people and it's good to see that it's important to our people as a whole.

Please Vote

I would encourage everyone to vote for Bush, but even if you don't agree, just vote for whomever you support. It's your patriotic duty.

Why Do We Have the Electoral College?

I was surfing some blogs and I came across a post from Cybervassals.com asking to explain the Electoral College. I commented and gave a short explanation, but I thought I'd post on it as well because I think a lot of people have this same questions.

The Electoral College goes back to the idea that the United States is a union of independent states. Essentially it is the states that elect the president. Each state has the number of votes equal to the number of congressman + senators in that state. When you vote for president, you're indicating to your state legislature how you want your state to vote. The state legislature then sends their electors to cast all of their votes (in most cases) for the candidate with the majority. Technically, I believe, a state doesn't necessarily have to allow its citizens to vote for the president, though that is the way every state in the US does it. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that.)

There is no reason a third party can't win an election. Each state has laws as to how to get on the ballot and usually there are about 5 or 6 party candidates to choose from. In the end, though, these other parties aren't well supported and don't get enough votes to carry a state and therefore earn the electoral votes.

US Senators used to be elected by the legislatures of each state as well but that was changed with the 17th amendment in 1913 to have the senators elected through a direct election by the people of the state. Originally the Senate was supposed to represent the state government and the House of Representatives was supposed to represent the people of the state.

On a side note, some believe that the 17th amendment is the reason for the government getting too large and money and corruption being too much a part of the federal government. Many have called for a repeal of the 17th amendment. See a CNN story about it here.

Basically the Electoral College is the last remnant of federalism left in the United States.

Note: This is according to my understanding of civics. If I'm wrong on any of these points, please comment and I'll make any corrections necessary.

UPDATE:

I've been asked in comments whether I think it should be abolished. I have to tell you that I used to feel very strongly that we should go to a national election system, but more recently I've been leaning the other way.

When I read the constitution and I do research into the history of our government, I can't help but see some genius in how the founding fathers set up our nation. They wanted to try and keep as much of the government as local as possible where people have a chance of making change. According to that CNN article above, since they've changed the way Senators are elected, Senate campaigns have spent tremendous amounts of money with the voter getting very little access in return. That's not how things were meant to be.

Since the Civil War, the states have lost more and more of their rights to the federal government in direct violation of the constitution without the country even bothering to amend the document. I'm a firm believer in States rights. With the power at the state level, we the people have greater control over the laws.

I guess this has been a long way around explaining what I think about it. I think the federalizing of our nation is not a good thing and the electoral college, being the last remnant of federalism, would be worthwhile to hold onto if for no other reason than to remind us how things should have been.

Who Does Osama Want?

I've seen in blog after blog all over the web people claiming that they know who Osama Bin Laden wants to win the election. Bush supporters say that he supports Kerry because of his soft stance against terrorism. Kerry supporters say that he supports Bush because of how effective Bush has been as a promotional tool for recruiting Al Qaeda operatives.
Finally Bin Laden, himself, has declared his support in the latest video. The New York Post published this article (via Drudge) concerning this.

Osama bin Laden warned in his October Surprise video that he will be closely monitoring the state-by-state election returns in tomorrow's presidential race — and will spare any state that votes against President Bush from being attacked, according to a new analysis of his statement.

I think that we can now settle this question once and for all. Osama supports John Kerry and will try and influence our election in Kerry's favor with the threat of force. Think about that and all of its implications when you vote tomorrow.

LINKS

Powerline has the link to the full text of Osama Bin Laden's video.
Blogs For Bush
American Kestrel
SCSU Scholars
Vultures Row is humurous