Timeline for the upcoming week
 

You'll want to program your VCRs and TiVos differently for the upcoming week, because the reality shows are going to be pre-empted for... REALITY. I took it from USS Clueless and added my own wild-ass guesses. Just for your planning purposes, everything after the first day may be drastically wrong:

Sun Jan 26: Super Bowl; a nation enjoys a final party night before turning serious

Mon Jan 27: UN Inspections report due, including information that definitively shows Iraq's nuclear program in current operation

Tue Jan 28: Israeli elections day; State of the Union night. Pre-speech news shows UN inspectors departing Baghdad, newscasters reporting in grave tones

Wed Jan 29: Release of and details of "smoking gun" materials and information about Saddam's brutality to own people and solid involvement in terrorism

Thu Jan 30: Reaction of media, public to Wednesday's information; Tony Blair arrives in Washington

Fri Jan 31: Bush+Blair announcement of start of hostilities

Sat Feb 1: Beginning of hostilities; video not yet available; anxious public awaits news but there is no real info yet

Sun Feb 2: Pundits on Sun talk shows explain situation further; DOD press conferences show first results of air war, including the taking out of almost all Iraqi radar facilities and strategic missile damage to the southernmost "Presidential Palaces"

The schedule for the following week will then be announced, but will include:

US establishes air superiority and begins "psy ops" efforts to convince Iraqi forces not to engage coalition forces. Cuts power to Baghdad but does not bomb it. Does not send in ground forces at all; watches for movement. A worried Israel dons its gas masks daily a la 1991. Rumors of Syrian involvement circulate. Gas prices rise but not spectacularly.

Re: Timeline for the upcoming week
 

Most interesting set of events. However the latter part cannot be correct. Follow troop and air craft carrier movements. Necessary troops will not be there until mid Februrary.

When will war break out? Obvious. During the three days of no moon. Must be before June. Military has problems with Summer heat.

This timeline explains the shrill accusations lately from the administrations right wing extremists such as Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. They need to get you all hyped up. Their attempt to do same with American allies such a Germany, Turkey, and Canada have already resulted in sharp rebuke. Notice the sudden diplomacy to get Turkey to not renige on their promise to accept 80,000 US troops. 80% of Turkey's voters oppose the George Jr administration position. Even worse, Turkey remains one of the most supportive in the region of US plans.

Don't forget. If we do invade Iraq, we must maintain up to 200,000 US troops in country for at least two years. Expect two years of sharply increased terrorism - this time against a country that has not been a #1 target of terrorist - the US.

USS Clueless points out that troop arrivals after the air war has started - a "Just In Time" approach - makes perfect sense. All modern US wars start with establishment of complete air superiority, and now with the taking out of very specific targets via GPS-guided missile so that there are fewer dangers before troops are in.

Also, they won't want all the troops to ever be bunched up in one location, since they make a more attractive WMD target that way.

USS Clueless points out that 1/31 - 2/1 is the new moon, which the folks in the air will prefer for their first night out... while they can get the best targets out of the way early.

Re: Timeline for the upcoming week
 

Time-line if you wish to avoid war fever

Sun Jan 26: - Football avoid all pre-game and half-time celebrations and hope the commercials are too expensive to be wasted on flag waving bullshit. Turn off television for the week.

Mon Jan 27: -expect another "big news" revelation to amount to nothing.

Tue Jan 28: -Repubs stand and Dems sit until forced to look patriotic.

Wed Jan 29:- read the news and the State of the Union speech and remember how easily Clinton also manipulated you. You realize that Republicans actually believe that Marx was right, excess productive capacity must go into war making. You begin to wonder why the free market GOP is increasing payments to folks that farm in the desert.

Thu Jan 30: - Rush to preach on smoking gun that doesn't exist.

Fri Jan 31:- Bush's numbers bounce after tuesdays empty rhetoric, air war launched before preparations finished. Osama gets exactly what he wanted, Oceana vs East Asia. War is Peace.

Sat Feb 1: - lots of good edited video of clean modern victimless war.

Sun Feb 2: - Tim explains how this war makes up for all the shirking and how we now have to shut up so our boys can kill and be killed without any qualms. Too bad my tv is still off.

I wasn't too abrasive there, was I? Sometimes, I get grumpy.

Not at all.

One other moment of clarity. Several outlets are reporting that the UN inspection team is going to give Iraq a "B" for compliance.

What they don't tell you is that the UN grades on a curve. If you're from a non-white country, they add 20 points. Hussein actually got a D.

(If you don't get this, just shuddup)

I'm afraid thats true.

OK, whatever. As long as it doesn't pre-empt Buffy.

Explain this please.

There will be big drought assistance dollars in the new budget. Some of it will go to farmers in areas that really are droughty compared to their historical averages but a lot will go to places where farming has always been dubious. I'm not a big fan of ignoring reality when it comes to agriculture. I'm generally opposed this kind of subsidy even in areas that normally get plenty of rain. In those areas private crop insurance could do the job.

Well, that timeline was wrong. Sorry.

March 1st anyone? It seems a bit too long to wait.

I rather liked your original post, Toad. It went a bit out on a limb prognostication-wise, but it didn't seem too far-fetched. I think what we are seeing here is Bush responding to the hew and cry for solid evidence first. I think the majority of Americans favor Saddam getting his butt whooped, but only if we can hang something substantial on him. Bush knows that if he appears to be ignoring public opinion and going in there like a cowboy, he risks losing majority public support, and his legacy would really suck if he had a mini-Vietnam on his hands. Hell, we've already got the protests, and there's no actual war just yet. Think what will happen if he goes in without a public perception of just cause.

And as long as I'm on the subject...does it bother anyone else that the guy with his finger on the nuclear trigger can't even pronounce the word properly?

His handlers MUST have told him not to correct it.

I think you're right there T. I'm sure I heard him pronounce it correctly on the radio a while back.

BTW Rush is on vacation and his audience prolly doesn't need conversion anyway.

I agree...there's no way that he could *not* know he's mispronouncing it, so he's obviously just decided to say it any way he wants.

Of course, now that the president says "new-kew-lur", it will be officially validated, and so be mainstreamed.

I thought the POTUS was supposed to be an educated guy?

Nah, he went to Yale. :)

I would go for mid Feb ... around the 15th ..

this will allow the Iraq lovers to enjoy valentine day ..

George and Tony to have a moon lit dinner ....

and me to take my free 7day all expenses paid holiday touring palaces in the middle east ,which i won one morning entering a competition on the back of my morning cerial box.

The heaviest of British units, the 7th Armour, also known as Montgomery's Desert Rats, are at least 6 weeks away from being ready and in position. They have not even begun departure.

An attack in late February would not leave ground units enough time to prepare for their actions. They require extensive time in position to prepare for assault. However it is possible that a ground attack would be during some other moon phase. Once air assults begin, the attack must be swift and immediate. Any prolonged war would be disasterous for American and British supply lines. Even in Turkey, a strong American ally, public opinion is a solid 80% against George Jr's invasion. This is nothing like a Gulf War where everyone in the world bend over backwards to help. The world even paid the US for that war. This war will be fought only with passive cooperation even from Canada.

The initial air assault must be during new moon - absolute darkness. Since time is against Anglo/American forces, then ground assault probably must procede immediately afterwards - probably within a week.

I just want to know what a peninchula is.

On the surface, that speech sounded fantastic:

--We need to help seniors.
--We need to help Africans with AIDS.
--We need to help the economy.
--Saddam Hussein is a bad bad man. Iraq, we just want to help you.

Had I taken that speech word for word, I might have choked up.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to catch the last bus running to Reality for the night...

Greetings from KL International airport all ;) If you're ever here the Pan Pacafic hotel is rather nice indeed.

I'm jetlagged to hell so excuse any more typos than usual.
This Feb5 revealing of intel that aparantly links Al Queda to Iraq as well as WMD info will be the killer, i'll be tuning into that one. CNBC Asia did a good cover of the State of the Union address if anyone caught it.

It's too early to speculate on when an attack will take place, the blustering about going in minus the UN was mostly for a domestic audiance, such a move would raise absolute hell. This feb 5 announcement i think is going to be a resonse to no smoking guns from the inspectors, they held back as long as they could but now they need to release that info to prove those links as well as the existance before reality interupts carefuly made warplans. If they can, well, there may be some real justification for such an attack after all, but i'm leaning towards hyperbolic bullshit rather than conclusive evidence. Time shall tell.

What are people's thoughts on the tax retusn for companies and families? (that was the drift i picked up from CNBC - i missed the speach itself) Seems to be too little too late and badly aimed according to most of the heads CNBC threw up. As you can tell my news sources have been kinda limited. The Straits times here leans so far it's in danger but put it this way - I've seen a number of Iraqi flags flying from windows here. (here being malaysia)

I'm torn on the tax break. As a matter of principle, I generally support any reduction in taxes. We know, however, that GWB is not being terribly conservative if we look at his spending desires. We are going to increase spending dramatically, while cutting taxes. This will be sold to us by misrepresenting the Laffer Curve. Lower rates will increase economic activity but without putting a hold on spending we'll probably be back to running deficits.

Politically its not a winner either since ending the double tax leaves you defending tax free income for folks in the market, while those who work for money, rather than having money work for them, pay income taxes. So lets be fair and dump the income tax.

the text
 

Here is the text of the State of the Union Address. GWBs spending goal is a 4% increase.

This week is jacking up my schedule. Tuesday night is for "NYPD Blue" and Wednesday night is for "The West Wing" and "Law & Order." If the prez needs to say something to Congress, let him do it between 8am and 5pm, or just mail them a copy of what he needs to say. I'm sure they could throw in a few grammarticular errors for him, and maybe a little twang or so, but ruining my TV watching for something that's going to be reprinted and analyzed 500,000 times in the next week is unamerican (and therefore must be eradicated).
And what's with the patriotic show that killed my programs last night? Jeff Goldblum? C'mon! Someone at NBC has a great sense of humor.

Rush probably dusted off his Y2K shelter, grabbed a couple of female interns, and is making ready to emerge from the upcoming apocalypse ready to repopulate the world with 'true conservatives'.

Y'all have probably heard this one before...
 

If You're Happy And You Know It Bomb Iraq
by John Robbins

If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty,
North Korea is too risky,
Bomb Iraq.

If we have no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think that someone's dissed us, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,
Bomb Iraq.

It's pre-emptive non-aggression, bomb Iraq.
To prevent this mass destruction, bomb Iraq.
They've got weapons we can't see,
And that's all the proof we need,
If they're not there, don't believe it!
Bomb Iraq.

If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam's gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
And he tried to kill your dad,
Bomb Iraq.

If corporate fraud is growin', bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin', bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain't easy,
And your manhood's getting queasy,
Bomb Iraq.

Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq.
For our might knows not our borders, bomb Iraq.
Disagree? We'll call it treason,
Let's make war not love this season,
Even if we have no reason,
Bomb Iraq.

(One more time!)

*That* was excellent!

Nah, he's just playing golf in the Bob Hope Classic Celebrity Pro/Am or something like that.

I can't wait until he's back. I can't take another day of Roger Hedgecock ...