Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (5176)	3/4/2004 3:08:22 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 173976

The government has eased Clinton-era oil and gas drilling restrictions on a large tract of desert grassland in New Mexico in a decision that benefits a large Republican donor in the state. The donor, George Yates, says his contributions and fund-raising assistance to Vice President Dick Cheney had nothing to do with the decision. dfw.com Cheney participated in a political fund-raiser hosted by Yates in 2002, and Yates has made over $90,000 in personal campaign donations over the past five years, almost all to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political donations. "I'd give to more Democrats if I really wanted to buy influence," Yates said of his political donations. "CEOs of large corporations that are worried about access give to both, but I don't play that game. I give to people who represent my political philosophy and as a result, I stand to be criticized." Yates Petroleum, an oil and gas company controlled by relatives of Yates, contributed over $100,000 in the 2002 elections, making it the No. 1 donor in New Mexico, according to the center. "My uncles and cousins don't have an interest in Otero Mesa on federal lands and I have no ownership in Yates Petroleum," George Yates responded. Steven Griles, the No. 2 official at the Interior Department, once lobbied for Yates Petroleum, but "that has nothing to do with me or Otero Mesa," Yates said.

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (5176)	3/4/2004 3:10:04 PM
From: James Calladine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

All This Talk Of Civil War, And Now This Carnage. Coincidence? Robert Fisk 03 March 2004 "The Independent" - Odd, isn't it? There never has been a civil war in Iraq. I have never heard a single word of animosity between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq. Al-Qa'ida has never uttered a threat against Shias - even though al-Qa'ida is a Sunni-only organisation. Yet for weeks, the American occupation authorities have been warning us about civil war, have even produced a letter said to have been written by an al-Qa'ida operative, advocating a Sunni-Shia conflict. Normally sane journalists have enthusiastically taken up this theme. Civil war. Somehow I don't believe it. No, I don't believe the Americans were behind yesterday's carnage despite the screams of accusation by the Iraqi survivors yesterday. But I do worry about the Iraqi exile groups who think that their own actions might produce what the Americans want: a fear of civil war so intense that Iraqis will go along with any plan the United States produces for Mesopotamia. I think of the French OAS in Algeria in 1962, setting off bombs among France's Muslim Algerian community. I recall the desperate efforts of the French authorities to set Algerian Muslim against Algerian Muslim which led to half a million dead souls. And I'm afraid I also think of Ireland and the bombings in Dublin and Monaghan in 1974, which, as the years go by, appear to have an ever closer link, via Protestant "loyalist" paramilitaries, to elements of British military security. But the bombs in Karbala and Baghdad were clearly co-ordinated. The same brain worked behind them. Was it a Sunni brain? When the occupation authorities' spokesman suggested yesterday that it was the work of al-Qa'ida, he must have known what he was saying: that al-Qa'ida is a Sunni movement, that the victims were Shias. It's not that I believe al-Qa'ida incapable of such a bloodbath. But I ask myself why the Americans are rubbing this Sunni-Shia thing so hard. Let's turn the glass round the other way. If a violent Sunni movement wished to evict the Americans from Iraq - and there is indeed a resistance movement fighting very cruelly to do just that - why would it want to turn the Shia population of Iraq, 60 per cent of Iraqis, against them? The last thing such a resistance would want is to have the majority of Iraqis against it. So what about al-Qa'ida? Repeatedly, the Americans have told us that the suicide bombers were "foreigners". And so they may be. But can we have some identities, nationalities? The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has talked of the hundreds of "foreign" fighters crossing Saudi Arabia's "porous" borders. The US press have dutifully repeated this. The Iraqi police keep announcing that they have found the bombers' passports, so can we have the numbers? We are entering a dark and sinister period of Iraqi history. But an occupation authority which should regard civil war as the last prospect it ever wants to contemplate, keeps shouting "civil war" in our ears and I worry about that. Especially when the bombs make it real. robert-fisk.com

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (5176)	3/4/2004 3:17:51 PM
From: CalculatedRisk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

Raymond, I think your numbers are too generous for George W. Bush. Your post lists: G.W. Bush : 69,000 jobs LOST per month There have been 2.931 Million private sector jobs lost since Bush took office. He has been in office for 38 months. That gives, G.W.Bush: 77,131 jobs LOST per month! SOURCE: bls.gov