Wednesday, August 20, 2003

“End of Year One”


Roughly around this time last year is when I started this silly little web page. It was right before my last semester of college. Quite a bit has happened since I first published an article.

First off, socially pretty much all my friends were swinging singles. Okay lame singles. However, it’s not the case anymore. I was lucky enough to find Liza who for whatever reason puts up with me. Thankfully, she has been by my side since I graduated college. It has been a long and depressing job search since I finished classes. She has been supportive and the two of us have had a lot of great times together.

Meanwhile Ryan got back with his ex, and even Duke Mr. Antisocial is dating a cool chick right now. Lima Beanz who as Price would say held a candle for Jenna for a long time beat out the competition and won her over. In an unexpected turn no one could imagine last year, the two are starting a family together. They are connected for a lifetime. There is always Drew who shouldn’t get too down on himself. He made it through his first year of law school alive. I hope that he will become a lawyer, because I plan to live a life of crime if I don’t get out of Sears soon. I have to remind myself to ask him when I see him next if killing someone seeking student loan payments is against the law.

Meanwhile there are others like Steve who recently landed a teaching job. Dan K. who will be getting married in a little of a year, I hope his computers don’t grow jealous his wife. I fear Dan will name any kids they have after computer components. For whatever reason he keeps wishing that his company lays him off so I wish him all the luck in losing his high-paying job. The Old Mantis is still around. I am still not sure exactly what he does for a living, but I know it takes him a long time to go to work. Joe is going to be a vet in 4 years, and Rick had many humorous stories for us all.

Price had the most life changing experiences I would imagine just from the stories he gave us about what war is like. I cant even put into words how strange it was to hear about what he went through during the Iraq war.

I covered lots of events, some no one cares about. I have offered many slices of life from my warped mind, and almost every prediction I have ever made turned out wrong.

Drew and MosCOW already had blogs, and soon after that, Jenna started one. Each blog far superior to this one which makes me wonder how I managed to actually increase in readers over the past 12 months. I have taken lots of heat over my lack of proofreading skills, and slammed left and right for what I have written at times. I have provided many laughs both intentional and unintentional. I hope that I have given people something to look forward to checking on the Internet when they sign on. Even a reason to avoid work at their job. It is a chore to write sometimes, and I thought about canceling the blog once or two twice.

My original intention was to wrap up this experiment a year after I started; however, I decided to extend the life of Tucker’s World for the time being. If the end is near anytime soon I will certainly signal the ending for my readers to it does not hit them all at once. Thanks for reading both of you.







"The Book"

Since I have gotten a few emails about it. I will tell you that my father's book can be purchased online at amazon.com. The books is mainly a collection of letters that a distant realtive wrote while fighting the Civil War. Other information links the letters including side notes to famous events.

If you go to Amazon.com just type in Newton Colby and the book should come up. Its a bit more money than you would expect though. I doubt anyone that reads this will actually buy the book, but its cool to check out. Last I saw they only had two in stock, although I dont know how many they order from the publisher with a book like this.

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Well I sat here after I realized an article I wrote for my blog dissolved on my computer somehow thinking how I didn’t really want to rewrite the article for a third time. Id figure it’s a good as time as any to address an issue some of my readers might have been waiting for. Before we get into it I am going to provide you with a quote.

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security."—Hillary Clinton October 2002.


"The Blog Writer, The War and The President"



Well despite the fact President Bush landed on air craft carrier a few months back and told us that heavy military combat is over for the most part, almost (if we didn’t hit it already) 100 U.S. soldiers have died. So we are not exactly out of the desert yet. Unfortunately, this “War” isn’t going to be over anytime soon. Just because we do not have, 24-hour coverage for it anymore doesn’t mean there isn’t anything going on. Thankfully, for US soldiers, Saddam’s kids are gone which will weaken resistance. Its typical of us Americans to get easily distracted and who could blame us given the number of us out of work.

As you might know I voted for Bush back in 2000. I am in small percent of my friends that I am a registered voter. Heck I don’t know anyone other than Drew that actually voted in the last election. Since Bush has made some bold moves people always ask me what I think . Than they ask me if anyone ever told me I look like Ben Stiller.


Well one of Bush’s main reasons to go to war was because Iraq had supposed weapons of mass destruction. Many people thought it was true for years, just ask the Clintons who for what ever reason were never questioned about making similar claims to Bush. Bush’s vague claim was apparently based on forged documents. He later claimed regime change and freeing the Iraqi people were objectives a weeks deep. Well the Iraqi people despite living in post-war chaos are free however its too early to tell if any kind of stable “regime” is going to be able until things settle down out there. Things really seemed to fall apart when the media broke a story that Bush had made false claims about what Iraq was hiding.


"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

First off let me clear up a common misconception the British government still stands by this claim so even if he were to say it today it wouldn’t technically by a lie. Yes, they still stand by that claim. This made people in an up-roar because of the previously mentioned forged documents provided by British intelligence. Tony Blair even came out publicly (although hardly mentioned in the US) and claimed the forged documents and the intelligence to back this claim were from separate reports. It makes sense since the forged document story had already been made public. So there is no official evidence that this claim can be filed under either category. It could be a cover-up, but than you would wonder why they have admitted to the pervious false information.


However, the US intelligence doesn’t have evidence to nod their head in agreement. In fact an early draft of the cited the US intelligence of making that claim but was changed. So at the very least Bush irresponsibly used “shady” information that could have gone either way. He likely wanted to include it in the State of the Union because it would be seen by more people than his run of the mill speech daytime on CNN opposite Jerry Springer.

Okay so did Bush have it out for Iraq from the start? Well I think George Clooney was some what right when he referred to the Bush team as a having policies similar to the Sopranos. I honestly do think the decision to go to war was decided long ago. I have many friends in the armed forces and a good number of them had almost exactly pinpointed the date the war would start a year in advance. So it was likely the year leading up to it with all the debating was just a song and dance for the American public. There is a reason why didn’t go after Saudi Arabia who has blatant ties to terrorists and September 11th., because they DO have nuclear weapons, and we are at an end game with them. So does Iran suposedly although many people think its not true. Than there is the always-popular North Korea who obviously has the nuclear capabilities to set many American Cities a blaze as they kindly put it. We don’t touch them because a war with them would pretty much mean the end of civilization With more and more countries having nuclear capabilities the US loses leverage.

So I think they knew Iraq was at best in the early stages of becoming a “made” country. So just like what happened to Joe Pesci in Goodfellas we took them out before they got their chance. So where are the weapons of mass destruction? A few theories think like many of the artifacts they were moved. Most likely to Syria in the weeks leading up to the war, and many others feel they were either dismantled ( mission accomplished I guess), or buried in the vast desert. Syria is supposedly “made” too. Although their conflicting reports that they could actually reach US soil. So far the most revealing think uncovered are old airplanes. Why they were buried pretty deep and I have no idea So its possible that chemical weapons are still buried out there. Sure if they had time to burry planes we didn’t care about why not a little antrhrax? Keep in mind I voted for Bush so throwing my arms up in the air and saying there are none doesn’t come as easily to me as others. On the other hand you would think if we have the technology to take a flea off the ass of a camel we could find traces of chemicals in the ground. Its been a year and the prospect of finding chemical weapons seem to be about as promising as my job search.

So was a Saddam threat to freedom loving Tucker? Was he a silent partner in September 11th? Well no hard evidence has been provided that he had anything to do with that horrible day. Well of course there are terrorists living in that country. That’s like asking if there are mosquitoes living in South Jersey. However their beef is mainly with Turkey. That is the country not the bird, although they might hate that featherless chicken since its started in Israel. They don’t want any peace treaties. They basically are the ones that blow busses and stuff up on CNN. So they are threat to Isreal Tucker I guess.

Now are we hypocrites for having chemical and biological weapons ourselves? To a certain extent we are. However, we are the police of the free world. How are we going to pull that off with sticks and stones. I am glad we have such weapons since we get called upon constantly to take care of things. Look at the Libya situation. Do you really thinking asking us to jump in is a coincidence? There is a reason why they don’t ask Canada to regulate.

Now are going to into Syria? I doubt first off it wouldn’t make sense militarily. WE have enough trouble in Afghanistan if you forgot about them, that is the country were most the “evil doers” from September 11th lived and we are still fighting enemy forces and losing American Soilders there too. Secondly, they shared some intelligence information with us after September 11th that helped us. The terrorists that hang out there for the most part are the ones that bother other people in other countries who aren’t us. So perhaps the weapons of mass destruction were sold to those guys with the funny names. Than of course they could turn around and sell them to al-Qaeda with a high mark up value. Than again this is just me speculating. We better hope there wasn’t any Weapons of Mass destruction in this case. However given the public knowledge of what Syria can do when push comes to shove, I doubt we will go in and find out and put our allies and ourselves at farther risk.

Now the big question one the one person’s mind who actually read this humor lacking blog (although it can be argued that is not unusual) did President Bush mislead us? Did he make Tucker regret he voted for him? Am I disappointed?



Well I think he mislead us to the point where I don’t think our only goal was to free the Iraqis. I think it was to get station in the middle east. To be able to keep a watchful eye on things and protect our interests. I think it was horribly wrong of Bush to act like the war was over, and he has made some blunders like the “Bring Them On” statement. I think the actual possession of “weapons of mass destruction” were a combination of Bush manipulating facts and figures. Although I guess telling us we were going to over throw a horrible person and free people goes over a lot better than, we are going to pick the best place in the middle east to set up shop. I think some misinformation may have been put out by others that didn’t wanted Saddam out of there. I think this decision to go to war was made maybe even before September 11th.

Was it worth it? Are we safer? Did we make things worse? Well only time will tell political junkies and news paper columnists can write all they want but we wont be able to find out until the history books include chapters about this time in America.

In all fairness, if they really wanted to mislead us at least they did not plant any WMD. However I do feel jaded and confused with all the conflicted information that is out there. I do seriously doubt we will ever see the smoking gun. I guess on the bright side one less nuclear country to worry about. One the dark side we may have created the next Afghanistan (they got pissed after we helped them out too) or managed to make an enemy out of a supposed friend like we did to Iraq. Although Saddam brought that on himself for the most part.

The sad thing is I don’t think it mattered. Bush was going to go to war if we liked it or not. At this point it would appear he either knew there was no threat and lied to the American people or he just made a horrible miscalculation rolled the dice and lost. Maybe once the ball started rolling he didn’t care that all signs pointed to we might be a tad off base. We were going to for it and try to accomplish something good if we could.


If Bush was up for relection tomorrow I wouldn’t vote for him. For one thing, I disagree on his stance on gay marriages, and for another I don’t trust him enough anymore. He needs to earn my trust back for me to vote with him with a clear conscience and confidence he will do the right things. Although I think things were blown out of proportion in some instances by the democrats if I cant understand the man’s motives when it comes to risking lives than I don’t know if I can help reelect him. The lesson I have learned from this whole incident is we are just pawns in the game played by rich powerful people. My friends Duke and Dan might be right after all. There is no point in voting.


Maybe things will work out for the best maybe we did the right thing. I have researched a lot for this article and its funny sometimes the more you know the less you understand.