Boy, gas has gone through the roof hasn’t it?
Every time, I pull into a Speedway, the price is rising. It’s my understanding that President Bush is going over to to beg our enemies, the Saudis (who, in fact, created the Whabi Sect to divert attention from the royal family), to relent, and open the spigots a bit more.
That should work out well.
According to international reporter Kenneth Timmerman, “Senior Iranian officials were directly involved in planning and carrying out Hezbollah’s successful takeover of Beirut last week, and believe that their victory is the first step in a new war on Israel and stepped up attacks in Iraq,” sources in Tehran tell NewsMax.com.
And he says that, “The coordination between the Iranian regime and Hezbollah was so close that Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah dispatched a personal envoy to brief Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran last week, just as his fighters were encircling the prime minister’s residence in downtown Beirut late Thursday night.”
Timmerman continues, “The envoy, Seyed Hussein Ghanon, arrived in Tehran on the morning of Friday, May 9, to personally brief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following a telephone call between the Iranian Supreme Leader and Nasrallah, in which Khamenei pledged full Iranian government support for the Hezbollah takeover of Beirut”
Later on, Timmerman posits, “Advisers to Ahmadinejad have been arguing since Friday that the Hezbollah victory should be the first step in a two-pronged attack on Israel in the coming months, Newsmax sources in Tehran say.
“Hezbollah fighters will attack Israel from the north, while Iranian-backed Hamas fighters will step up pressure on Israel from Gaza and the south, “the sources said.
They further state, “They will use thousands of surface-to-surface missiles that have been assembled under the supervision of Iranian Revolutionary Guards specialists at small factories in Lebanon itself, sources in Tehran said.
“Iran’s network of small missile component factories in Lebanon has become so efficient that they bring fully-assembled missiles into Lebanon from Syria,” the sources said.
“Only the most sensitive components, such as explosive warheads, are still imported from Iran. The rest of the components are purchased or manufactured locally, then assembled at small factories, no bigger than an ordinary house.”
If this happens, and to tell you the truth, knowing Timmerman and his work as I do, I would claim that this is coming soon to a theater near you… Whose bone-headed idea was it to stop adding to the Strategic Oil Reserve? That’s right, on Tuesday, May 13, the US House and the Senate voted to suspend the 70,000 barrels per day saved in our country’s reserve, which is to be used on in an emergency.
For some reason, we are told, repeatedly, it will bring the price of gas down, and will make consumers more comfortable. Great! The SPR has a 58-day supply, as it is.
On September 12, 2001, I wrote a column that postulated that we treated the wretched events of the day, before, as a tragedy. But in truth, it was an act of war.
I promise that if there is a two-pronged attack on Israel, we will get involved.
We have been at war since September 11, 2001. The trouble is that we have been too successful.
We are winning the Battle of Iraq. We are barely winning Afghanistan. We have been encouraged to buy plasma TVs—not save. Our enemies have bought out many of our corporations and financial institutions.
Bush was right, Cheney, more so. Both claimed that we were engaged in an inter-generational struggle – much of it fought in the dark. This is it – overture, cut the lights—if Iran is linked to attacks on Israel, we will take out every nuclear facility in that country.
We might need the oil alleviating people’s summer vacation plans for all-out war. We might need to sacrifice. Instead, we are worried about the damn polar bears. Drill off our shores (the Chinese are doing it), open ANWAR, use nuclear energy.
If we are so worried about CO2 being a problem for the polar bears, think there might be a problem with a couple of thermo-nuclear warheads going off?
We have reverted back to the feckless nineties, that is, giving a rat’s behind about stuff that doesn’t affect our survival as a species, but focused on American Idol, or the shenanigans of Paris Hilton, or Brittany Spears, among others.
We are in a war for our very survival as a nation, and we have no leadership – not a damn bit, and we have only ourselves to blame. We wanted it bland; we wanted it so that life would be easier for us.
Now, gas and food prices are skyrocketing all over the world. We are at war, for God’s sake! What part of this is so hard to grasp? If Israel is attacked, truly attacked, what do think the price of oil will be? How expensive do you think food will become?
Yet, we are bleeding out our emergency supply of oil, so that the Griswald’s can go on vacation.
We are no longer the homecoming queen to OPEC. China and India are desperately competing for this oil. OPEC is getting pretty close to throwing us under the bus.
After next January, we won’t even have a semblance of leadership. Let’s hope we survive as a nation long enough to have a democratic leader at the helm. Hardship breeds dictators.
I hope I am wrong on every bit of this. Being a student of history, I fear I’m not. Life can turn on a dime.
We have a whole fifteen percent of blacks in our prisons and illegal aliens infiltrating our borders, and many others who are using and abusing the system. This is a growing population that bad-mouths us, with the vitriol of our outside enemies.
We have another twenty percent that are loonies on the left and right. The rest of us think that life is tough. Pssshaw!
As Don Henley put it so well, “Things are gonna get mighty rough in Gomorrah by the Sea.”
(Edited by Diane Sher: Pizazz Publicity 843. 324-0900)
From an observer: Too bad, the majority of Americans haven’t taken off their dark shades, and the bushels of sand out of their peepers. There just worried if a democrat or republican will take the white house.
We usually call the 911 to the clean up squad. Changes for the better are almost hopelessly long past due. How many kids have to die at the crosswalk that needs a traffic light before we install one?
Where were you (editorial you), so called, conservatives, republicans, libertarians, independents, co-dependents, cabinets, past regimes, and fought for and established a homeland/respite for the wandering, homeless, afflicted, victims of the Holocaust, the Jews—a little, hardly, a glitch on the map, but still a corner of the world—albeit, the official Jewish State.
We, Americans, complain now about everything, and get into arguments about global warming, drilling for oil, conserving energy—fixing and repairing…having no vision or forethought about how we do things for the betterment of our planet and residents. Polar Bears deserve a life too. They are also metaphors and symbols of our neglect and foresight. Don’t discount the importance of preservation.
We are such spoiled, self indulgent children, completely void of future consequences.
Save the Planet!
Some of us ranted and raved, as we, Californians, and other left coast radicals, set out to conserve energy, and follow the path of redemption. Windmills, solar panels, conserving the forests—growing organic foods, using herbs and alternative medicines and therapies for health, conserving water during droughts, conserving electricity, catalytic converters, you name it, back in the 1970’s for starters…These were visionary pioneers in California in the 1970’s.
But everybody else laughed, especially in the South, since I’ve been here, and called us, Californians, “fruits and nuts.” Ha. Ha.
Thanks to Ralph Nader, Michael Moore and others. They are heroes, maybe flawed, but still heroes.
The Challenge in the Middle East and the IRAQ invasion and debacle.
Who listened? Israel made the case and gave warnings about the Arab/Palestinian situation—40 plus years ago.
We called it then, Middle East Crisis.
Israel/American, Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League in Brooklyn, activist and scholar/rabbi, who was finally murdered by some zealot kook in the nineteen eighties, and who, by the way, I met personally at a rally in San Francisco, along with my activist mother. He was a genius, and, knew first -hand about the intricacies of the Palestinian problem, let alone the hostilities from the Arab states.
He laid out the problems, the truths and solutions.
I like this one—One solution, he suggested, was to hand out a one-way ticket to the Palestinians, and a nice amount of cash to relocate in their home states in the Arab World where they originally came from —from where they were kicked out, therefore, displaced from their Motherlands—where they were not wanted—that is, Iraq, Iran (Persia), Saudi Arabia, Egypt, et al.
Give them an opportunity to restart their Muslim lives among their own.
Right now, their numbers outweigh Israelis…a boondoggle for a democratic state and for the Israeli Parliament! They still drive mules, pile stones up as fences for property, and enjoy outdoor conveniences—and I might say, want to suffer—not wanting a taste of democracy, clean facilities or any hint of the western world.
I saw biblically inclined water wheels still turning after centuries, pre A.D. with their masters commandeering water buffalo–all along the Nile!
I saw one light bulb hanging in an Arab woman’s hovel hut in Abu Simbel –and that is all–after the Suez Canal broke ground in the 40-50 years ago, to bring on electricity to the Arab countries.
Her stove was a campfire outdoors. The floor was dirt. No furniture—just three beds and one table lined up along the wall. No potty, of course. No running water.
I was there. They consider it a “God like” existence and are too passive to speak up; they deal with it. No leadership there. No chief tribesmen. They do not want to tamper with the old ways that are familiar. After all, they will have a better life in Islamic heaven.
Questions of oil shortages, Ice flow Shortages, the melting of our planet, flooding our resources, corrosion, erosion, the extinction of whole species, Lack of Water, Droughts, lack of food, Stock Piles of Plastic and Non-recyclables poisoning and invading our earth and food sources. T
Toxins invading our food and bodies. Air Pollution. What’s that? Second Hand or First Hand smoke. Are you still smoking?
As for oil and saving the planet…like most things, we seem to close the barn door after the cow kicks over the lantern. Too little, and too late–Lots of talk, arguments, endless pages of hard copy, and big talk.
We have so little time to repair the damages of our choices before 2008, in every nook and cranny.
How many cars do we still own own? Greed, consumerism via the Advertising industry in which I worked…self indulgences—and pushing mass transportation off the tracks, pushing us out to the burbs to live the golden lifestyle…encouraging the buy of monster mobiles which feed the portals and hunger oil mongers and moguls.
And now, it comes to “late” light, that these billions stack up their money to avoid taxes….in the Cayman Islands, and other ports, besides Switzerland, I guess. What a revelation.
I knew that in 1982, when a millionairess lady, quasi, friend, skinflint, I knew back in Los Altos, CA. got the word! Oh!!! G-d forbid we should raise their taxes, or get gas rebates from their coffers!
I visited Israel and Egypt. There is no coming to terms with
Arabs. They kill their daughters. Read the HAJ. Everyone wants to get to heaven. Awful and dangerous route to take. Suicide bombing works for mentally retarded women too, evidently.
Letter Writing as a Dagger, or Wake Up Call.
Thank goodness, you are passionate enough to blog. Thank goodness we have the means to reach the international community.
I heard the news today—and even, maybe the aliens read these blogs with their higher technology–, because, after all, the Pope stated that we should know and believe that they are God’s children too, and worthy of respect, redemption, and perhaps, conversion too?
That, they too—those horny, eye-popping, they can earn their way to heaven. But on the other hand, aren’t they already there…deep in space!?
My mother was good at activist letter writing regarding the plight and stands of Israel.
She put her pen and mouth where it counted. No internet in those days. She was the president of the local San Diego chapter of the Israeli Red Magen David (Israel’s Red Cross or Jewish Star) in 1974-77.
She defended Israel on many issues way back when, starting in the nineteen sixties in NYC, and carried her passion to California , letter writing, picketing for the sake of oppressed Jews in Russia and other nations, in the 1970’s to 1990’s before she died in 1995.
To her end, she defended the Jews seeking sanctuary from the Russian oppression, and defended Israel all the way—even backing and defended Jonathan Pollack, the alleged Israel spy, who was imprisoned for his underground work that saved helped Israel. (She also defended the blacks, and other minorities for human and civil rights…marched with MLK, as I did in Detroit.)
We say in Yiddish, translated into “Put your Tush on the Table!” Actions speak louder than words.
Israel was right on about the nukes in Iran, and no one paid attention. So they bombed one facility.
Don’t tell me that Bush or Cheney were right. We are no closer to solving anything…more oil, less terrorism…more appeasement. Arabs use the language of tribal warfare.
Invasion didn’t solve the problem—it exacerbated it, and opened Pandora ’s Box—almost parallel when the Christian converters stormed the Amazon to impose their brand of how to get to heaven…the disappearing rain forests, diseases multiplying to exterminating a culture.
We are not the holier than thou saviors all the time, imposing our “democratic” principals. Sometimes, we merely pick at the sore, burst the blister, and then spend billions to clean up the mess. More later.
Let the moron go away. Israel is at least classy and empathetic to him in honoring the idiot at the Knesset today and at other ceremonies as a PR gesture to elicit continual support from the US. They deserve it.
Bush and his “world order” cronies should sit down and shut up, before all their clay feet get stuck in their throats.
Now, who is going to clean up their mess? I am not sure. I think it’s Russian roulette with all the candidates. But if only Hillary could be another Israeli heroine, prime minister, a “Maccabean” fighter like Golda Meir, we might get somewhere.
Comment by davidfarrow — May 15, 2008 @ 10:57 pm |
Davey,
I think we have reason to believe that the world is spiraling out of control. However, the forces at play also warn us, it seems, to re-assess what is important, to slow down and to learn that love is sacrifice. We have been a loveless and godless country for centuries, thinking that god is “out there” and that we must “do his bidding”. I don’t agree that we are to do his bidding. Rather we are to be his bidding. Once we learn how to be, then actions that follow become directed not from a sense of “agenda”, an agenda that is linked to our identity as Americans or peace-nics or whatever. Our actions become pure and truly giving. When is an action truly given? No one can say. However, I feel that actions taken out of resignation, judgement or indignation also have “nation building” motives. True action is like the music which is not about the musician or his beliefs, yet no less flows from elsewhere through the musician.
As a student of ancient wisdom, and knowing that energy is neither created nor destroyed, as well as the equal-and-opposite laws of physics, I sense that we as a species are being turned around and being made to look within. It sounds solipsistic, isolationistic or passive; but I feel that less action can be more helpful regarding helping others around the world. Our “helping” has always had the hidden aspect of wanting to turn others toward the light, toward the truth- and this itself is a godless place to be since there is and never has been a way to direct others toward their own evolution. Morality cannot be legislated. One can only work to get one’s own projections to calm down and cultivate an awareness of God within. Then maybe we can learn to see God in each other.
Can we do anything to turn other minds within? This is the conservatives delemna, as I see it. Conservatism isn’t really a platform at all. Rather, it is a wanting to turn within to find liberation. No one really wants to go into that dark night. However, we all do it over and over again. After repeating this loop many times, we learn how to surrender to the ocean…. to enter it…to become it.
I also think, feel that I understand Mannings viewpoint, however, you can’t tell others how to run their affairs… unless you weren’t around to experience the War of Northern aggression. I think the only way for a person, black or white or green, to get to integrity is by learning how to respect him or herself, to honor him or herself. Manning is substituting one type of blame for another. His is to blame yourself for being lazy etc. That, to me, is like the wounded beating on the body to make it wheal faster. Or kicking a horse when it’s down. That ain’t right. Not much of value comes from a feeling of guilt. Manning is not showing us the way unless he is “the Buddha in the road”.
Lastly, I sure hope that the world is too multi-dimensional for the Iranian leaders to seamlessly merge with the Lebanese, Palestinians or other Arabs and act to wipe out Israel. If so, you’re right. it would be a very dark night.
Keep up the good work.
Comment by George — May 17, 2008 @ 2:19 am |