http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,66125,00.html It seems that the Indonesian police conspiracy theory is now completely discredited. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,66159,00.html Westerners have been lovingly including Muslims into our countries, holding hands, and chanting our peace mantras. We expect that Muslims will become part of each Western nation’s circle of peace. Meanwhile, following known Muslim religious tenets, Muslims have been forming alliances which make themselves, not members of their respective cultures, but members of a worldwide culture of Muslims. Also following known Muslim tenets, some of these Muslims have been conspiring to conduct war against us. We can clam up and bury our heads up our asses, but that’s what got us into this predicament. Shutting up isn’t what Muslim extremists have been doing, and it isn’t what they plan to do. In the face of the attacks we’ve heard from Western Muslim leaders “You can’t blame us for what these extremists have done”… over and over again… “You can’t discriminate against us”. But where is the Muslim mainstream condemnation? “These extremists should be caught and executed”… not once have I heard it. If Western Christians conspired to kill thousands of people, ANY people, Christians everywhere would be screaming to take their lives. If the law failed to do so, we would form militias and take care of it ourselves. Where is this sentiment, much less action, in the Muslim community? The biggest influx of Muslims into Western nations came 2 to 10 years ago, by invitation with Hindus, Seeks, etc. I don’t share the views of most of these people, but can share my space with them. But people who refuse to become part of my culture, whose religious beliefs call for killing people in order to convert my government into a conforming authoritarian religious government… I can’t and won’t tolerate. If Westerners survive this assault, it will be good for us. Surviving it will mean that we will have defeated the Muslim conspiracy. We will have stopped thinking that thinking peaceful thoughts will bring us peace. We will have stopped thinking that all cultures are equal, that we must tolerate the beliefs of those who intend us harm. …or we won’t survive.
Some thoughts to share with my surfer family: This is a whole new form of warfare, from NYC to Bali, Chechnya to the Phillipines. Global in scope, any the stakes couldn’t be higher. One thing isn’t new though, people will suffer. I don’t see any way out of it, it’s the tredegy of war, it’s our nature to destroy ourselves, like cavemen throwing rocks at each other. Remeber this: Anytime America kills people, it’s a result of policy gone bad. When Saddam/Arafat-Hamas/Al-Queda kills, it’s a calculated pre-meditated act of murder. Period. Lets get real here. Also, how much $$$ do we give Egypt & the Palestinians for humanitarian aid? Are we really that bad? The new Afghans gov’t. while not perfect, is the best thing that those poor bastards have had in 40 years. Finally, didn’t we install the present German and Japanese goverenments at bayonet point?
. . . . I mean . . . I AM still wondering who you hypothetically thought of as responsible for the French oil shipment??? It was such a surprise to me to hear that the French were buying oil from SH - of course then it made sense to me about where their recent disagreement was coming from. And I thought it was that superior intellect refusing to act barbaric. But I don’t have that illusion about the French anymore . . their government hid having sold AIDS tainted blood to perhaps thousands - definitely hundreds of hemophiliacs who were under the illusion it was safe. And that was relatively recent!!! Like in the 80’s - way long enough after the disease had enough data. That quiet austerity was just looking from one guy to the next, saying nothing. So I guess the above fact doesn’t surprise me that much. But the twist you may or may not have implied regarding who the obvious may or may not have been in terms of that ship . … still alludes me. And for that matter the Bali massacre. But I’m starting to get the idea of all of this . … so I appreciate your starting this discussion off. Thanks noodle. It may not be about surfing but it’s important and regardless of the details that anyone person here has said, they’re all sentiments that give me faith in American men right now. Their hearts are strong and as the Dalai Lama would say . … they have compassion. Sorry guys . … mush from a female but nothing wrong in acknowledging it. We’re beyond being an innately violent society - thank god . . . - I mean when I was young I thought by now we would be flying around like the Jetsons. In a sexist way I guess . … a while back I boiled it all down to the basic human component . . of fear. But . . . then I had to boil it down to the basic human component of fear . and testosterone. Which is finally irrelevant I admit, because without it, there would be no “us”. But all aggression is fear . … you can’t even say it is the desire for power. Because the desire for anything is still a result of fear, . . fear that one isn’t going to survive with as much as they have. Noodle I guess you’re right about how our just thinking peace won’t do it . … but if we all used the right brain just a bit more . … I keep on thinking we’d get off of this plane of existence and sort of transcend it into a different reality. Ah but I guess that might be the next exit. Into the deep blue . .
On a recent tour of India, I was visiting with an Indian Muslim community leader, Syed Shahabuddin, and the conversation drifted to the question of why the Muslim world seems so angry with the West. “Whenever I am in America,” he said, “people ask me, `Why do they hate us?’ They don’t hate you. If they hated you, would they send their kids to be educated by you? Would they look up to you as a model? They hate that you are monopolizing all the nonrenewable resources [oil]. And because you want to do that, you need to keep in power all your collaborators. As a consequence, you support feudal elements who are trying to stave off the march of democracy.” The more I’ve traveled in the Muslim world since 9/11, the more it has struck me how true this statement is: Nothing has subverted Middle East democracy more than the Arab world’s and Iran’s dependence on oil, and nothing will restrict America’s ability to tell the truth in the Middle East and promote democracy there more than our continued dependence on oil. Yet, since Sept. 11, the Bush-Cheney team has not lifted a finger to make us, or the Arab-Islamic world, less dependent on oil. Too bad. Because politics in countries dependent on oil becomes totally focused on who controls the oil revenues - rather than on how to improve the skills and education of both their men and women, how to build a rule of law and a legitimate state in which people feel some ownership, and how to build an honest economy that is open and attractive to investors. In short, countries with oil can flourish under repression - as long as they just drill a hole in the right place. Think of Saudi Arabia, Libya or Iraq. Countries without oil can flourish only if they drill their own people’s minds and unlock their energies with the keys of freedom. Think of Japan, Taiwan or India. Do you think the unpopular mullahs in Iran would be able to hold power today if they didn’t have huge oil revenues to finance their merchant cronies and security services? Do you think Saudi Arabia would be able to keep most of its women unemployed and behind veils if it didn’t have petrodollars to replace their energies? Do you think it is an accident that the most open and democratizing Arab countries - Lebanon, Jordan, Bahrain, Morocco, Dubai and Qatar - are those with either no oil or dwindling oil reserves? They’ve had to learn how to tap the talents of their people rather than their sand dunes. The Pentagon is now debating whether Saudi Arabia is our enemy. Yes and no. There is a secularized, U.S.-educated, pro-American elite and middle class in Saudi Arabia, who are not America’s enemies. They are good people, and you can’t visit Saudi Arabia without meeting them. We should never forget that. But the Saudi ruling family stays in power not by a democratic vote from these progressives. It stays in power through a bargain with the conservative Wahhabi Muslim religious establishment. The Wahhabi clerics bless the regime and give it legitimacy - in the absence of any democratic elections. In return, the regime gives the Wahhabis oil money, which they use to propagate a puritanical version of Islam that is hostile to the West, to women, to modernity and to all non-Muslim faiths. This bargain suits the Saudi rulers well. If they empowered the secularized, pro-American Saudis, it would not be long before they demanded things like transparency in budgeting, accountability and representation. The Wahhabi religious establishment, by contrast, doesn’t care how corrupt the ruling family is in private - as long it keeps paying off the clerics and gives them a free hand to impose Wahhabi dogma on Saudi society, media and education, and to export it abroad. So while there are many moderate Saudis who do not threaten us, there is no moderate Saudi ruling bargain. The one that exists does threaten us by giving huge oil resources to the Wahhabi conservatives, which they use to build mosques and schools that preach against tolerance, pluralism and modernity across the Muslim world - and in America. And it is our oil addiction that keeps us from ever confronting the Saudis on this. Addicts never tell the truth to their pushers. Until we face up to that - and curb our consumption and encourage alternative energies that will slowly bring the price of oil down and force these countries to open up and adapt to modernity - we can invade Iraq once a week and it’s not going to unleash democracy in the Arab world.
I don’t give a rat’s (tail) what kind of government those people choose. I just want them to quit killing us. When you go to the store for a loaf of bread, you’d think it would be proper for the merchant to pull out a gun and BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF? Where exactly is the crime associated with trading Muslims for oil, enough money to make them filthy rich? Why do Muslims resent us? You left out that lots of them say it’s because we support Israel. Some of them say it’s because of our consumptive lifestyle? And you believe that? So Mrs. Bairds should hate us for being “addicted” to her bread. Sir, you are very gullible. Their governmental structures are at least compromises with their religion, at most pure, Koran-dictated religious governments. The Koran dictates how these people should live from their daily prayers, to their subjugation of women, to their types of government. America trying to “stave off the march of democracy”? Your premise is feces. How about, these people religiously believe that their way of life, especially with the massive influx of oil money, should have made them the most powerful people on earth? When they look to that position they only find Christians, living in security and freedom. When they look at their own situation they find ignorance, squalor, and parched earth. They resent the hell out of it. Exactly what did Clinton and Gore, in eight years of administration do to strong arm Americans into using less petroleum, Hmmmmm? Well they raised gasoline taxes… but they raised ALL taxes. When Bush wanted to drill in Alaska to end our dependence on Muslim oil Clinton, Gore, and every liberal in congress screamed bloody murder. Now I can tell that you’re a good American socialist because you believe that America is responsible for violating the sovereignty of other countries to stop what you think is wrong inside those countries. News flash… You can’t do that. You can’t even enforce democracy on other countries. Hello… they’re sovereign. Your logic would give other countries the right to invade America if they didn’t like what we were doing to each other. Wait… you just sided with Muslims extremists for doing just that. Again, nothing those people think about our lives can justify killing us. You want to fix how people of other nations live, but you’re all against protecting the innocent victims of power hungry tyrants. When a rogue nation like Iraq threatens its neighbors with instant annihilation, harbors the people who are killing thousands of Westerners, and flaunts his agreement with the UN … you look to see if your guy is in the Presidency. You’re a real piece of work.
Man, this is to heavy for me. I’m getting a tank of gas, grabing my oil base stick and hitting the beach. I’d stop by and pick up Jingo, but she is going to wait until she has to surf in a burka.
P.S. You point out that in Saudi Arabia, U.S. oil dollars have been feeding Wahab religious hatred of America. After the Kosova war America drastically reduced the amount of oil it buys from Saudi Arabia. It is this reduction, not Wahab’s hatred of America, which is causing the Saudi ruling family’s refusal to aid the West’s eminent attack on Iraq, another Wahab-centered oil producer. But this reduction hasn’t stopped the rhetoric of people like you… any excuse to hate America. You people will condemn America even if we do what you want. Has anyone notice the French connection to the Washington D.C. sniper? …French reappraisal for blowing up their oil tanker? Nah… he’s just a renegade who escaped into America on his own. I guess there are always crazies in every nation willing to perform an act like this. All they need is for the authorities to look the other way.
Man noodle . … . what happened to your cool guy??? You have got an agenda and in response to every intelligent - and what Friedman said is so absolutely true - for you to STILL be spouting about Bush - alright already . . .how many here raise their hand because we can see that noodle thinks Bush is the answer for the century??? Where is your objectivity??? Look at history . … wars keep up their impetus in being driven . … .not on sheer lunatic religious beliefs . … but ALWAYS ALWAYS on ECONOMICS. It always lies underneath everything. Oil, Land, Water, Money, weapons and finally drugs - which is still just land (poppy fields in Burma, coca fields in South America, weed fields in Mexico . . . whatever) - these are the mainstays of war . … not religion. Sure you’ll have the Irish English thing going on for a long time, and the ? (my alzheimer’s) Sarajevo . . . Moslem . … European . … .but those are constant and ongoing built-up revenge back and forth . … not full blown out wars. Investigate those and you have oil behind them. What he says is totally critical to explaining the impetus that educates their children to hate us. But when it comes down to it, that hate would not be able to be manifested in a society that was more content and more free and more educated and more independent. And what Friedman says is the frigging foundation BEHIND all the crap that you are railing against. We can see the Bush family is at the top of your list of do gooders . … frigging that right there has got to make everyone wonder if that isn’t what comes first in your logic. Because you haven’t broken it down. If you don’t take in EXACTLY WHAT FRIEDMAN says - and by the way there is no reason to get so personal and leave that cynical sort of, excuse me, but asshole type write-off at the end there. I mean noodle this isn’t you! I know, you haven’t been moving those baby toes around enough . … .alright. I am sorry . … but usually you make so much sense, the fact that you didn’t take in what Friedman said so objectively . … I mean can you debate back without bringing in your partisan politics. This is beyond 2 or 3 frigging American presidential administrations guy . . … this goes back a whole long way . … . and what he says is crucial to understanding the fact that palestinians - especially young palestinians feel they have nothing to lose … BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE!!! They haven’t been allowed to have anything!!! The moslem leaders with oil do exactly what he says. And if they don’t have oil, and they’re not progressive, they’re like Arafat . … and they just want to hold onto their power and they’ll sacrifice all their little bombers for as long as they can hold onto it. He is so right in that frigging drilling in Alaska is NOT THE ANSWER TO THE FUTURE. COME ON NOODLE - it’s time to get off of the oil wagon. So I don’t give a rat’s ass what Bush tried to drill in Alaska . …it’s an archaic form of energy . … it’s going out. It might as well be blood it’s been responsible for blood baths for too long now . … anyway . … I can see your blasting my stupid comments . … but not objective, intelligent facts that obviously have no personal agenda.
“But this reduction hasn’t stopped the rhetoric of people like you… any excuse to hate America. You people will condemn America even if we do what you want.” Man did you read the same thing I did??? The guy didn’t say he hated America??? It’s the full moon . . man. Bet you’re a water sign. Cancer, Pisces or Scorpio. Hands down you are blowing up today. A bit too edgey . … the guy didn’t say what you summed up. Whew . … man you need a massage.
So this poster found an Indian who is an expert on democracy? And the Indian’s qualification? He claims that Muslims like most people are really not responsible for their actions, because they aren’t responsible fro the way they were raised. I’m sick of hearing apologists for anything anti-American say that about anybody. Millions of the world’s citizens have grown up in such wretched, pathetic, abusive families and cultures that it would turn our stomachs. But they don’t fly airliners full of people and jet fuel into 100 story buildings. They don’t kill their neighbors with nerve gas. They don’t blow themselves up on crowded busses. Yes, this war has a cause in crude oil. If Saddam had no crude oil, he wouldn’t be able to afford weapons of mass destruction. Yes, I can say plenty about how the Middle East was mostly owned by Great Britain. Some was owned by France. Great Britain responsibly gave up its holdings by parsing its colonies among the few ruling families, to Pakistan, India, and to European Jews. France merely walked away, and left its colonies for the locals to fight over. The issue on the table is democracy. The poster said how somehow Americans are thwarting Middle East democracy by buying oil in the region… and that’s why Muslims hate us. Excuse me, but Americans weren’t given democracy either. American colonists were subjugated by the same British empire which subjugated the Middle East. British merchants were paying colonial British trade magnates and governors for the products and wealth they could filch from us. Our forefathers gave their lives to make us free and remove the yoke of America’s subservience to Britain. What did Middle Easterners do? Nothing. Muslims in the Middle East couldn’t care less about democracy, and for 1500 years, never did. Name one Middle Eastern democracy besides the democracy Bush installed in Afghanistan, a country which America had to turn into a rock pile first. The poster loves complaining about the terrible conditions which Middle Easterners live when, like you, he thinks that Americans are responsible. Okay, what’s the point? I assumed, as with all socialists, his point was for America to fix those conditions. According to you I assumed wrong. Then both of you are complaining merely to indict America. And about attacking your political heroes, while defending mine… I didn’t start bashing anybody. You were drawn into this discussion when my assertion that the Bush administration may have lied about the cause of the French tanker explosion made you all giddy. You thought that you might have caught Bush in a lie. I’m glad the Bush administration lied about the cause of the French tanker explosion. The lie gave France a chance to reassess their UN veto without losing face. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that France was complicit in the lie. Now let’s talk about what really brought down TWA flight 800, and why Bill Clinton kept the information from us. The poster asserted that Bush was responsible for Muslims killing us because he did nothing to stop Americans from buying Middle East Oil. Again, Bush’s opponents didn’t do anything either. Again, who’s bashing who? It seems hypocritical to me. Both of you people defend democracy when you see a way to argue that America is against it. But both of you seem very anxious for America’s leaders to remove our right to buy whatever fuel we want. Or again, am I making the incorrect assumption that you are complaining because you want to fix it. Either that, or again, you are merely complaining because Americans are doing it. Gee, I don’t know where one could get the idea that either one of you hates America… Jerry Falwell got in trouble with the radical left because he complained that Americans’ sinful lives caused us to be attacked on 9/11/01. Now you people are complaining that American’s buying products from Middle Easterners is causing us to be attacked. Bullshit. I’ve heard enough complaints about people minding their own business, and not enough complaints about the people killing them. No Americans, no Brits, no Australians did anything to cause these attacks. The Muslims who bought and made the bombs, and blew away the lives of innocent men, women, and children caused these attacks. When these guys cut through our doors with curved knives, kill our sons, torture us, and put our daughters in bondage, you can tell them “wait, I hate Bush too”. They’ll get a hoot out of that.
“Above all the US is wrong, wrong, wrong” no dude, your premise is feces. With muslim fundamenalism, it’s the 8th century clashing with the 21st. They need to get with the times. So do you, it’s not 1968 anymore. The times, they are a changin’, something’s blowing in the wind --your BS
The Bush team’s ridiculous and wildly inflammatory anti-drug ads are still running in heavy rotation. You know the ads I’m talking about – the ones where innocent-looking, middle-class teens admit their culpability for the consequences of the drug trade. “I helped blow up buildings,” says one doe-eyed youth. So if that is legitimate logic, and our president says that it is, I wonder if we might turn the tables on him by starting a little ad campaign of our own to sabotage another misguided Bush campaign: the War on Conservation. The thought occurred to me after the startling announcement that the administration was taking precious time off from an actual, necessary war – the one on terrorism – to sue the state of California for daring to require that carmakers put more energy-efficient models on the road. Turning the letter of the Federal Clean Air act against its clear intent, Department of Justice lawyers lined up on behalf of the administration’s friends in the hydrocarbon-loving auto-manufacturing industry and argued that as long as California’s cars are in compliance with the lax Federal standard, the state cannot impose a tougher one. For those keeping score, the Bush administration is in favor of states’ rights when the states want to weaken federal safety standards of any kind, and against states’ rights when the states want stronger measures. So how about using the same shock-value tactics the administration uses in the drug war to confront the public with the ultimate – and much more linearly linked – consequences of their energy wastefulness? Imagine a soccer mom in a Ford Excursion (11 mpg city, 15 mpg highway) saying, “I’m building a nuclear bomb for Saddam Hussein.” Or a mob of solo drivers toodling down the freeway at 75 mph shouting in unison, “We’re buying weapons that will kill American soldiers, marines, and sailors! Yahoo!” It’s not just a fantasy. Last week, talking to my friend Scott Burns, co-creator of the “Got Milk?” campaign, I was delighted to hear that he already had two ad scripts ready to go. The first one feels like an old Slim Fast commercial. Instead of “I lost 50 pounds in two weeks” the ad cuts to different people in their SUVs: “I gassed 40,000 Kurds,” “I helped hijack an airplane,” “I helped blow up a nightclub,” and then in unison: “We did it all by driving to work in our SUVs.” The second, which opens on a man at a gas station, features a cute kid’s voice-over throughout: “This is George.” Then we see a close up of a gas pump. “This is the gas George buys for his car.” Next we see a guy in a suit. “This is the oil company executive who makes money on the gas George buys.” Close up on Al-Qaeda training film footage: "This is the terrorist organization supported by money from the country where the oil company does business. " It’s followed by footage of 9/11: “We all know what this is.” And it closes on a wide shot of bumper to bumper traffic: “The biggest weapon of mass destruction is parked in your driveway.” Pretty effective. Can the administration seriously deny that oil dollars do, actually, finance a spreading slick of evil in the world today? In Iraq, oil money has kept Saddam’s repressive regime afloat even in the midst of tough UN sanctions. According to a report just released by the CIA, Saddam has been spending his oil money on conventional arms and weapons of mass destruction, while starving and torturing his own people. In Saudi Arabia, our second largest foreign supplier of oil, the money you spend at the pump over here pays for a feudal monarchy that gorges itself on excess while bankrolling terrorist mischief abroad with its support of suicide bombers. Even our close ally Kuwait, our eleventh largest oil supplier, manifests an ambivalence toward America that, if you accept the Bush administration’s drug-war arguments about the validity of remote effects, resulted in this month’s assassination of an American Marine on military exercises. Thank you, Exxon. Would it be so painful for us to slow down the intravenous drip of oil that keeps these hideously anti-American regimes alive? There are car companies with electric and hybrid cars already on the market. And a little pressure on our wasteful ways could unleash a new wave of good old American inventiveness. But instead of applying the marketing skills it uses for its wrong-headed drug war to the eminently worthwhile cause of saving energy, Bush, Inc. has sided with the Enrons of the world to stifle energy-saving technology and keep America in an artificially prolonged state of dependence. Of course, waiting for the Bush administration to get religion on energy conservation would be about as fruitful as waiting for Saddam to welcome U.S. inspectors to his palaces. It ain’t gonna happen. Unless, that is, the public makes it happen. Anyone willing to pay for a people’s ad campaign to jolt our leaders into reality?
How can you tell when an unethical debater is losing? She changes the subject. Sounds like you must know some very important people. Congratulations! You must be a very important person. One of the things I really like about the constitutional democracy which our forefather made for us is the Tenth Amendment. Liberties not specifically reserved for government are specifically granted to the people. It’s not the purview of any level of government to take away citizens’ freedom, in your case the freedom to buy a reasonable automobile, even though a majority of people may favor taking that freedom. Or how about the Fourteenth Amendment: Citizens have a right to equal protection under the law. Laws governing interstate commerce govern how cars are made. One state can’t restrict trade by enforcing punitive restrictions on the cars made to travel everywhere in America. Your law would create artificial auto maker incentives which would force people in other states to abide by the same restrictions. Your law sucks. You have no right to force auto makers to do R&D, and expend more fuel than the new system would save. And the expense? I’m sure the mantra of most socialists is “Californians will gladly pay for it”. Californians don’t have that much money. Auto makers will be forced with a choice. Either spread the cost among all 50 states, or stop selling cars. And the practicality of your law? I remember how the catalytic converter was supposed to cut down on C and CO emissions. It caused a huge increase in NOx emissions, a class of chemicals far more dangerous to people. The catalytic converter like so many touchy feely socialist mandates wastes more fossil fuel both in manufacture and in operation than it saves on the road. Your law will create the same problems. So what is the history of our emission laws? Our vehicles are much more efficient than they used to be. Did that happen because of emission laws? No! It happened in spite of emission laws. Car makers knew that their best bet for emitting fewer combustion products was to burn less fuel. However, more efficient engines also meant better acceleration. So how did the American public put these efficiency improvements to work? They bought bigger, faster cars which used only slightly less fuel than before. Then our need for highway speed ate up the difference in efficiency. I can smell unfair trade practices a mile away. I’ll bet a dollar to your dime that behind the scenes, the UAW, with the full support of U.S. automakers, is sponsoring your bill. U.S. auto sales are slumping, and U.S. automakers are losing sales to superior foreign manufacturers. You’ll find the U.S. auto makers already in full design mode, having their foreign designers working up $60,000 tin cans for us to ride in. The foreign jobs won’t be able to catch up for at lease 4 years. The U.S. auto makers, in conjunction with willing liberal congressional accomplices pulled the exact same scams with Samurai “rollovers”, catalytic converters, and yes, once before with California emission laws. I don’t drive a gas guzzler, but I don’t drive a Yugo. My relative drives a big SUV, but he efficiently hauls around his family of seven in it. People like you would have him driving around two cars which collectively would burn more fossil fuel than he burns now. No, people like you are tinhorn tyrants. You would pass laws limiting how many children other people are allowed to have. People like their cars and you can’t stand it. But it’s okay because you don’t have a right to dictate the needs of other people. Pro drugs? Okay with me. Go do the right thing.
even discover where I said I hated America. I mean I admire your thoughts and passion . … I just don’t think you have to trump up someone who is joining you in discussion and label them - as this . . … . (man if you really take your head down a notch and read Friedman once more, and read what I said once more, I understand by now it is boring and not that enlightening . … but guy … you’re finding aggression and what you obviously are labeling hateful comments . … .from words that don’t even begin to say that.) Friedman didn’t say that America was the only evil power buying oil from the middle east, plus he didn’t say it was an evil power in the first place. Oh well . . hell you just want to have someone to bash . … I mean there’s absolutely nothing you said that applies to my views on America and the muslims. But you can not fight terrible vicious stupid massacres with stupid hate and doesn’t listen to dialect. Fearful aggressive stupid people can obviously be extremely destructive . . . I just don’t see anyone here qualifying to be under that category. You . … .nor Friedman . … nor I. And I should think that you could see that you are talking among people with as much heartfelt passion as you have . … for the absolute misery and abysmal consequences that all this killing has accomplished - and to lash out with no discernible evidence that anyone is saying they hate America . … is lowering yourself closer to the standard of the moronic animals who obviously lash out blindly and brutally. And THERE I did not say you were anywhere near that level, I am just saying . … you’re reading way too much menace into opinions that are only guilty of NOT being carbon copies of yours. That is a very appropriate and valid statement I just said, and perhaps in the future you might think a bit and see if you are not just FINDING something in your own head to last out at.I will not continue anymore on this, which I know you are thankful for. And no, I was not drawn into the discussion by any mention of any presidential administration. Merely by the mention of something that had hurt by heart it sounded so brutal . … . your first sentence in this whole string merely said something about Bali, no where at all did you mention political sides. It was a good intelligent sensitivity that made you start it, again I thank you.
now this is not a person who hates America and loves and feels pitiful towards Muslims. Just because they are aware of the fact that THE FUTURE IS HERE ALREADY, ITS BEEN HERE FOR A WHILE, BUT WE UH . . … WOULD JUST LIKE TO KEEP THE GOOD OLD BOYS POWERS THAT BE … GOING STRONG . … cause hell. . . .every other member of his family . … (if they’re not stoned on Xanax . … oh . …that’s a low irrelevant blow . . .anyway - this was good . . . . not really Arianna I would think, but sounds as smart
It is hard to imagine an address closer to the heart of American power. The offices of the Carlyle Group are on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, midway between the White House and the Capitol building, and within a stone’s throw of the headquarters of the FBI and numerous government departments. The address reflects Carlyle’s position at the very centre of the Washington establishment, but amid the frenetic politicking that has occupied the higher reaches of that world in recent weeks, few have paid it much attention. Elsewhere, few have even heard of it. This is exactly the way Carlyle likes it. For 14 years now, with almost no publicity, the company has been signing up an impressive list of former politicians - including the first President Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker; John Major; one-time World Bank treasurer Afsaneh Masheyekhi and several south-east Asian powerbrokers - and using their contacts and influence to promote the group. Among the companies Carlyle owns are those which make equipment, vehicles and munitions for the US military, and its celebrity employees have long served an ingenious dual purpose, helping encourage investments from the very wealthy while also smoothing the path for Carlyle’s defence firms. But since the start of the “war on terrorism”, the firm - unofficially valued at $3.5bn - has taken on an added significance. Carlyle has become the thread which indirectly links American military policy in Afghanistan to the personal financial fortunes of its celebrity employees, not least the current president’s father. And, until earlier this month, Carlyle provided another curious link to the Afghan crisis: among the firm’s multi-million-dollar investors were members of the family of Osama bin Laden. The closest the Carlyle Group has previously come to public attention was last May, when a Seoul-based employee called Peter Chung was forced to resign from his £100,000-a-year job after sending an email to friends - subsequently forwarded to thousands of others - boasting of his plans to “fuck every hot chick in Korea over the next two years”. The more business-oriented activities of Carlyle’s staff have been conducted much more quietly: since it was founded in 1987 by David Rubenstein, a policy assistant in Jimmy Carter’s administration, and two lawyer friends, the firm has been dispatching an array of former world leaders on a series of strategic networking trips. Last year, George Bush Sr and John Major travelled to Riyadh to talk with senior Saudi businessmen. In September 2000, Carlyle hired speakers including Colin Powell and AOL Time Warner chair Steve Case to address an extravagant party at Washington’s Monarch Hotel. Months later, Major joined James Baker for a function at the Lanesborough Hotel in London, to explain the Florida election controversy to the wealthy attendees. We can assume that Carlyle pays well. Neither Major’s office nor Carlyle will confirm the details of his salary as European chairman - an appointment announced shortly before he left the House of Commons after the election - but we know, for the purposes of comparison, that he is paid £105,000 for 28 days’ work a year for an unrelated non-executive directorship. Bush gives speeches for the company and is paid with stakes in the firm’s investments, believed to be worth at least $80,000 per appearance. The benefits have attracted political stars from around the world: former Philippines president Fidel Ramos is an adviser, as is former Thai premier Anand Panyarachun - as well as former Bundesbank president Karl Otto Pohl, and Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the SEC, the US stock market regulator. Carlyle partners, who include Baker and the firm’s chairman, Frank Carlucci - Ronald Reagan’s defence secretary and a former deputy director of the CIA - own stakes that would be worth $180m each if each partner owned an equal slice. As in many areas of its work, though, Carlyle is not obliged to reveal the details, and chooses not to. Among the defence firms which benefit from Carlyle’s success is United Defense, a Virginia-based contractor which makes vertical missile launch systems currently on board US Navy ships in the Arabian sea, as well as a range of other weapons delivery systems and combat vehicles. Carlyle’s other holdings span an improbable range, taking in the French newspaper Le Figaro and the company which bottles Dr Pepper. “They are big, and they are quiet,” says David Mulholland, business editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly. “But they’re not easy to get information out of, [but] United Defense are going to do well [in the current conflict].” United also owns Bofors, a Swedish munitions manufacturer. Carlyle has said that it does not lobby the federal government, thus avoiding a conflict of interest when, for example, Carlucci met Rumsfeld in February when several important defence contracts were under consideration. But critics see that as a matter of definition. “It should be a deep cause for concern that a closely held company like Carlyle can simultaneously have directors and advisers that are doing business and making money and also advising the president of the United States,” says Peter Eisner, managing director of the Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit-making Washington think-tank. “The problem comes when private business and public policy blend together. What hat is former president Bush wearing when he tells Crown Prince Abdullah not to worry about US policy in the Middle East? What hat does he use when he deals with South Korea, and causes policy changes there? Or when James Baker helps argue the presidential election in the younger Bush’s favour? It’s a kitchen-cabinet situation, and the informality involved is precisely a mark of Carlyle’s success.” The world of private equity is an inherently secretive one. Firms such as Carlyle make most of their money buying firms which are not publicly traded, overhauling them and selling them at a profit, so the process by which likely targets are evaluated is much more confidential than on the open market. “These firms certainly don’t go out of their way to get into the headlines,” says Steven Bell, chief economist at Deutsche Asset Management. “They’d rather make a splash in Institutional Pensions Week. The aim is to realise very high returns for your investors while exerting a high degree of control over the company. You don’t want to get into the headlines when you force the management to fire a director.” The process has worked wonders at United, and this month the firm announced plans to go public, giving Carlyle the chance to cash in its investment. But what sets Carlyle apart is the way it has exploited its political contacts. When Carlucci arrived there in 1989, he brought with him a phalanx of former subordinates from the CIA and the Pentagon, and an awareness of the scale of business a company like Carlyle could do in the corridors and steak-houses of Washington. In a decade and a half, the firm has been able to realise a 34% rate of return on its investments, and now claims to be the largest private equity firm in the world. Success brought more investors, including the international financier George Soros and, in 1995, the wealthy Saudi Binladin family, who insist they long ago severed all links with their notorious relative. The first president Bush is understood to have visited the Binladins in Saudi Arabia twice on the firm’s behalf. The Carlyle Group does not employ anyone at its Washington headquarters to deal with the press. Inquiries about the links with the Binladins (as most of the family choose to spell their name) are instead referred to someone outside the company, on condition he is referred to only as “a source familiar with the relationship”. This source says: “I can confirm the fact that any Binladin Group investment in Carlyle has been terminated or is being terminated. It amounted to a $2m investment in the Carlyle II Fund, which was anyway a very small portion of a $1.3bn fund. In the scheme of the investments and in the scheme of the business of either party it was very small. We have to get this into perspective. But I think there was a sense that there were questions being raised and some controversy, and for such a small amount of money it was something that we wanted to put behind us. It was just a business decision.” But if the Binladins’ connection to the Carlyle Group lasted no more than six years, the current President Bush’s own links to the firm go far deeper. In 1990, he was appointed to the board of one of Carlyle’s first purchases, an airline food business called Caterair, which they eventually sold at a loss. He left the board in 1992, later to become Governor of Texas. Shortly thereafter, he was responsible for appointing several members of the board which controlled the investment of Texas teachers’ pension funds. A few years later, the board decided to invest $100m of public money in the Carlyle Group. The firm’s magic touch was already bringing results. Today, it is proving as fruitful as ever.
The Bush team’s ridiculous and wildly inflammatory anti-drug ads are still > running in heavy rotation. You know the ads I’m talking about – the ones > where innocent-looking, middle-class teens admit their culpability for the > consequences of the drug trade. “I helped blow up buildings,” > says one doe-eyed youth.>>> So if that is legitimate logic, and our president says that it is, I > wonder if we might turn the tables on him by starting a little ad campaign > of our own to sabotage another misguided Bush campaign: the War on > Conservation.>>> The thought occurred to me after the startling announcement that the > administration was taking precious time off from an actual, necessary war > – the one on terrorism – to sue the state of California for daring to > require that carmakers put more energy-efficient models on the road.>>> Turning the letter of the Federal Clean Air act against its clear intent, > Department of Justice lawyers lined up on behalf of the administration’s > friends in the hydrocarbon-loving auto-manufacturing industry and argued > that as long as California’s cars are in compliance with the lax Federal > standard, the state cannot impose a tougher one. For those keeping score, > the Bush administration is in favor of states’ rights when the states want > to weaken federal safety standards of any kind, and against states’ rights > when the states want stronger measures.>>> So how about using the same shock-value tactics the administration uses in > the drug war to confront the public with the ultimate – and much more > linearly linked – consequences of their energy wastefulness? Imagine a > soccer mom in a Ford Excursion (11 mpg city, 15 mpg highway) saying, > “I’m building a nuclear bomb for Saddam Hussein.” Or a mob of > solo drivers toodling down the freeway at 75 mph shouting in unison, > “We’re buying weapons that will kill American soldiers, marines, and > sailors! Yahoo!”>>> It’s not just a fantasy. Last week, talking to my friend Scott Burns, > co-creator of the “Got Milk?” campaign, I was delighted to hear > that he already had two ad scripts ready to go. The first one feels like > an old Slim Fast commercial. Instead of “I lost 50 pounds in two > weeks” the ad cuts to different people in their SUVs: “I gassed > 40,000 Kurds,” “I helped hijack an airplane,” “I > helped blow up a nightclub,” and then in unison: “We did it all > by driving to work in our SUVs.”>>> The second, which opens on a man at a gas station, features a cute kid’s > voice-over throughout: “This is George.” Then we see a close up > of a gas pump. “This is the gas George buys for his car.” Next > we see a guy in a suit. “This is the oil company executive who makes > money on the gas George buys.” Close up on Al-Qaeda training film > footage: "This is the terrorist organization supported by money from > the country where the oil company does business. " It’s followed by > footage of 9/11: “We all know what this is.” And it closes on a > wide shot of bumper to bumper traffic: “The biggest weapon of mass > destruction is parked in your driveway.” Pretty effective.>>> Can the administration seriously deny that oil dollars do, actually, > finance a spreading slick of evil in the world today? In Iraq, oil money > has kept Saddam’s repressive regime afloat even in the midst of tough UN > sanctions. According to a report just released by the CIA, Saddam has been > spending his oil money on conventional arms and weapons of mass > destruction, while starving and torturing his own people.>>> In Saudi Arabia, our second largest foreign supplier of oil, the money you > spend at the pump over here pays for a feudal monarchy that gorges itself > on excess while bankrolling terrorist mischief abroad with its support of > suicide bombers.>>> Even our close ally Kuwait, our eleventh largest oil supplier, manifests > an ambivalence toward America that, if you accept the Bush > administration’s drug-war arguments about the validity of remote effects, > resulted in this month’s assassination of an American Marine on military > exercises. Thank you, Exxon.>>> Would it be so painful for us to slow down the intravenous drip of oil > that keeps these hideously anti-American regimes alive? There are car > companies with electric and hybrid cars already on the market. And a > little pressure on our wasteful ways could unleash a new wave of good old > American inventiveness.>>> But instead of applying the marketing skills it uses for its wrong-headed > drug war to the eminently worthwhile cause of saving energy, Bush, Inc. > has sided with the Enrons of the world to stifle energy-saving technology > and keep America in an artificially prolonged state of dependence.>>> Of course, waiting for the Bush administration to get religion on energy > conservation would be about as fruitful as waiting for Saddam to welcome > U.S. inspectors to his palaces. It ain’t gonna happen. Unless, that is, > the public makes it happen. Anyone willing to pay for a people’s ad > campaign to jolt our leaders into reality? Dear Poster, Plagiarism is a no-no even when visiting a surf design forum. I have had dinner at the Huffingtons (work related) and I sincerely doubt that Arianna would be visiting Swaylocks. So please, dont insult anyones ignorance and post other peoples thoughts as your own. Give credit where credit is due. Carry-on Noodle et al. Magoo PS 2-4 today at HB. Check it out boys… http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/ Twice a week, for the last five years, Arianna Huffington has written a column syndicated in such papers as the Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News and Boston Herald. The most recent columns are listed below; the rest can be found by typing a word or phrase into the search box above or browsing the archives. If she hasn’t written on a topic you’re looking for, just wait awhile, she’ll get to it eventually.
Dear Poster, Plagiarism is a no-no even when visiting a surf design forum. I have had dinner at the Huffingtons (work related) and I sincerely doubt that Arianna would be visiting Swaylocks. So please, don’t insult anyone’s ignorance and post other peoples’ thoughts as your own. Give credit where credit is due. Carry-on Noodle et al. Magoo PS 2-4’ today at HB. Check it out boys… http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/ Twice a week, for the last five years, Arianna Huffington has written a column syndicated in such papers as the Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News and Boston Herald. The most recent columns are listed below; the rest can be found by typing a word or phrase into the search box above or browsing the archives. If she hasn’t written on a topic you’re looking for, just wait awhile, she’ll get to it eventually.