CAN NORWAY SAVE AMERICA?

A COMPANY IN NORWAY has invented a machine they call the OS-1 estimated to separate a million gallons of toxic oil and sea water a day. Does the Oil Swallow work as hyped? Will the President heed the call to send it into the Gulf? Will America be saved. Stay tuned. There's no government mistake worse than overlooking the obvious...

Day 50 of this devastation hovers as we recall the haunting countdown during Iran hostage crisis of the Carter administration. Will the White House respond to the outreach, or continue to bumble through? Word is they are turning down help from foreign entities because of the Jones Act, but the truth is the Jones Act has been waived several times already, including by the Bush administration. This is absolutely NO RATIONAL POINT to limit our clean-up opportunities, only political points. Keep an eye on the fall-out in the coming days, weeks, and months. It won't be pretty.

HOT CHILI PEPPERS IN THE BLISTERING SUN

PAMELA GELLER STRIKES OIL at the new president's feet, and let's just say, that's not a good thing. Our Atlas Shrugs blogger does this one up fine, in true showmanship stylings and aplomb. Don't miss a frame.

LIBERTY GASOLINE IS GOOD NEWS

On a whim today, I decided to research these new Liberty gas stations that are becoming ubiquitous in the Tri-State area of Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia. Imagine my surprise to learn that this gasoline supply outfit is a Virginia founded and operated company, and pumps up fresh American Gulf of Mexico crude via pipelines to Fairfax and Richmond refineries. It's a remarkable story. Finally my conscience can rest. Goodbye Saudi and Venzuelan oil.

For my research efforts, I now have a family gasoline pump wholly American, and I salute with all I have—dear Virginia Liberty!

Thank you, Mr. Holtzman...

THREE AREA OIL PRODUCERS qt the turn of this new century were tired of competing against Sheetz's low gasoline prices so they did something about it. They formed Liberty Petroleum LLC to sell unbranded gas at some of their convenience stores.

In 2001, Bill Holtzman, owner of Holtzman Oil in Mt., Jackson, (Shenandoah County) Va., has joined with Blackie Bowen of Ewing Oil in Hagerstown and Frayser White of Valley Oil in Charlottesville to form the new company. Earl Cox, a former oil industry executive, is heading up the Liberty Petroleum operation based in in Staunton, Va.

Holtzman said the three Liberty owners met while serving on committees with major oil companies. "I said that I was going into the private brand business. The three of us said, 'Yes, it's a good idea to join together because we're not in each other's territories.' That was about a year and a half ago, and now things are really rolling."

Within the next few years, the trio hopes to sign up 90 oil distributors (also known as jobbers) to form a group of as many as 2,000 C-stores east of the Mississippi selling private-branded Liberty gasoline. About 95% will be conversions of existing stations, the balance new builds.

"Liberty is a LLC and the three of us own it," said Holtzman. "It's like a major oil company. Holtzman Oil, Ewing Oil and Valley Oil will all buy from Liberty, and Liberty will sell to other jobbers. We just picked up another one in Bedford [Pa].

"It could snowball with monster numbers. There are lots of jobbers who need a private brand. For gasoline customers, it's 40% who buy by brand and 60% who buy on price. This puts us on both playing fields and gives us the ability to compete with Sheetz."

Altoona, Pa.-based Sheetz has 270 C-stores, mostly in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. Its sales are estimated by Hoover's Online to be $1.6 billion, or about $5 million per store. Another competitor, mainly in Pennsylvania, is Wawa with 500 stores that do about $1 billion in annual sales.

In the past, Holtzman and Bowen have spoken out against Sheetz's business tactics. Holtzman complained about a so-called Sheetz C-store at the Mt. Jackson Interstate 81 exit really being a truck stop, while Bowen testified before the Maryland legislature in support of a law that would outlaw pricing gas below wholesale cost. It passed, as did similar legislation in Pennsylvania and West Virginia that prevents gas retailers from selling below cost for extended periods of time to drive out local competition.

The Liberty Petroleum may yet encounter another competitor, the Petroleum Marketers Association of America (PMAA) based in Arlington, Va. "We've formed the Petroleum Marketers Oil Company LLC, and we're looking into it as a separate company," said Holly Tuminello, director of communications at the PMAA. "We're just in the beginning stages, talking to potential suppliers. We haven't yet come up with a brand name, but it will be a national brand."

Tuminello said driving the PMMA strategy is concern over "all the mergers of big oil companies. Eighteen months ago we did a survey of our members and they are looking for an alternative to the majors." Through its state associations, PMAA represents 8,000 oil distributors.

As for the Liberty operation, Tuminello said, "They're members of our organization, and we think it's a great idea and support their efforts."

Holtzman said Liberty's gasoline supplier is Energy Merchant Corp. out of its Baltimore office, but the gas comes from the Gulf of Mexico by two pipelines into Fairfax and Richmond, where jobbers will pick it up in their own tanker trucks.

Sheetz and Wawa sell their unbranded gas at four to five cents below the price at Exxon, Chevron and Amoco stations. Liberty will be in that same price range. All claim their gas is the same as that of the big oil companies, the only difference being in the additives used. In fact, Liberty's pumps display a logo which says, "100% Certified Quality Gasoline."

Echoing Holtzman, Cox said demographic changes are dictating that C—store owners consider selling unbranded, less expensive gas. "This is an important marketing situation, where the older age population, 45 to 50 years old and up are more brand loyal, where they say, `What's good for Dad is good for me.' However, Gen X and Gen Y people look for price and convenience. Sheetz has done a good job in that area because they're capturing the customer that is price conscious."

Cox said Liberty Petroleum is basically a licensing agent. "Liberty does not invoice or have receivables. We license them [other jobbers] to use the brand, and we earn a fractional cent on aper gallon basis."

Liberty hopes to have funneled of between 50 million and 60 million gallons by the end of the year, said Cox, earning $.002 on each gallon purchased by participating jobbers. This will pay for Liberty's salaries, office overhead, travel and advertising. By next year, Cox hopes volumes increase to between 75 million and 100 million gallons.

A native of Mount Jackson, Va., Bill Holtzman initially began his career in agriculture in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. In 1972, while working full time in the apple industry, he purchased a small, local Gulf fuel business for $37,000, and worked tirelessly in the evenings and on weekends to launch his new business, Holtzman Oil. Today, Holtzman Oil Corp. is a Chevron, BP, Exxon, Texaco, and Liberty supplier in Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia, and is one of the largest employers in Shenandoah County, Virginia.

OIL PRICES SET TO JUMP

JUST AS AMERICANS ARE FINALLY beginning to reap the benefits of plunging gasoline prices—including more money in their pockets—OPEC is getting ready to squeeze them once again by cutting oil production and driving up prices to refineries.

The 13-nation global oil cartel—which includes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela—will hold an emergency meeting in Vienna Friday to discuss the steep and rapid decline in oil prices.

"The era of cheap oil is finished," Iran's Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari boasted on Tuesday. When asked what price Iran would want for its oil, Nozari declared, "The more the better."

"A few member nations have voiced their intentions of pushing for a cut in production, including Qatar, Iran, as well as OPEC's president Chekib Khelil, who said that output could be slashed by as much as 2 million barrels a day," analysts for Raymond James & Associates told MarketWatch.com.

When oil peaked at more than $147 a barrel in July, gas prices soared to above $5 a gallon in some parts of the U.S., and Americans were forced to cut back on driving. With the price of oil at about $73 a barrel on Tuesday, pump prices have fallen to as low as $2.30 a gallon.

The price dip in oil—and gasoline— finally is working its way into the beleagured American economy, putting a few extra dollars in the hands of consumers just as the home heating and holiday shopping seasons begin.

Read it all.

NO BREAK ON FUEL COSTS FOR MILITARY

WASHINGTON (AP) - Military units fighting in Iraq and elsewhere will see another hike in fuel costs next week. The cost increase will be the second time the Defense Department has had to raise rates in the middle of the budget year because of soaring oil prices.

On July 1, the cost for refined fuel will jump from $127.68 a barrel to $170.94. That is an astounding 34 percent jump in just six months and more than double what was being paid on behalf of the troops three years ago.

The new costs translate to about $4.07 a gallon for jet fuel and $4.70 a gallon for diesel.

A Pentagon spokesman said the price increase is needed to cover an anticipated $1.2 billion rise in fuel costs in the next three months. He said it will not affect ongoing military operations, but could affect daily support activities

This is simply outrageous, lacking what left of Western military intelligence. The US needs to leave Iraq, bill the Saudis for protection and the Iraqis for reconstruction, or both. This continued "white hat" approach is pernicious failure.

FITZGERALD: HOW DUMB, HOW LONG?

HUGH FITZGERALD OF JIHAD WATCH today asks, "How dumb do we have to be, and for how long?" The answer of course, is blowing in the wind. And you know what that means. Massive destruction. Bombs and explosions of every sort do indeed tend to present the olfactory sensitive with a peculiar odor of the day. But until then, let's just play with words, and send them money, yep that's what they need, more money, boast our misguided leaders.

SAN'A, Yemen - A bomb rigged to a motorcycle blew up amid a crowd of worshippers leaving Friday prayers at a mosque in a rebel stronghold of northern Yemen, killing at least 18 people and wounding about four dozen, officials said. –from this news article

Shi'a and Sunnis at it again. Yes, of course, the American government must do what it can to try to stop this kind of internecine warfare among Muslims, in Yemen as in Iraq. Otherwise there might be a "catastrophic" situation. Otherwise there might be "chaos" in the Middle East.

And somehow this "chaos" and this "catastrophe" that will ensue will, we are told, be bad for us, in ways always unspecified, as if we are simply to accept the conclusion of our betters—you know, the people in the government who pick up their news just as you and I do, but who lack the time, and the inclination (unlike you, unlike me) to spend the time to read about Islam, to read the texts of Islam, to learn what the Western students of Islam (not the espositos but the real thing) have said about the contents of Islam.

For they are just too occupied and preoccupied to sit in a room and read. They may be cosseted, chauffeured about, and so on, but their daily lives are full of meetings, and hectic busyness, and travelling hither and yon, and getting someone above to "sign off" on something, and coming up with "policies" that need to be formulated by consulting with everyone and his brother, and then written up in the stilted bloodless bureaucratic language which is now the favored medium—they know no other, they have never been exposed to any other—of those in the government, and who presume to instruct, and to protect us. They have to deal now with this crisis, now with that, and with every part of the world.

How can someone as mediocre as Bush, advised by someone as mediocre as Rice—people who have never had the inclination or leisure to read widely in history, or to exercise their imaginative faculty through literature—be expected to have read about Islam? Yet if you cannot imagine something, it is difficult to think about it. If you cannot imagine an islamized Western Europe, if it is simply beyond you, then you will not worry about what that would mean, and are not likely to come up with ways to avoid that completely plausible and deplorable, and entirely avoidable, future for the heart of the West.

One more thing. If leaving Iraq would, as some direly warn, cause great disruption, chaos, a "catastrophe" in the area, then why don't any of the Sunni Arab states, presumably those who would have the most to lose, bother to give any aid at all to the government of Iraq? Answer: why should they? They do not wish to shore up Shi'a who rule in Baghdad. They will, however, continue to urge the Americans to stay, in order to keep the Sunnis in Iraq supplied with guns and money and with a powerful protector that will pressure the Shi'a to make concessions, and concessions—and the Americans will, listening gravely to the advice of rulers of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other small sheikdoms, fall for it, not realizing how they are being suckered.

And if leaving Iraq would, as some direly warn, lead to terrible disruptions in the supply of oil (during the Iran-Iraq War, that lasted for eight years, there was little disruption and the price of oil went steadily down), then why aren't other oil-consuming nations concerned? Why hasn't China lifted a finger, or spent a penny, to help promote stability and prosperity in Iraq? Could it be that the Chinese are, like the Sunni Arabs, perfectly content to watch the continuing squandering of American money, material, men, morale, happy to see us bleed ourselves, in order to do something which will benefit China and other oil-consumers as much as, perhaps more than, it will benefit the United States?

How dumb do we have to be, and for how long?

Get our troops out of Iraq. Let he chips fall where they may. Inform the public what we are really up against, Begin preparations for all-out war. Seal the ALL borders. Stop all Muslim immigration. Issue national identity cards. Begin a national rationing program for pertinent goods, especially petroleum products. Modify trading levels with China until they bulk up their safety oversights and rectify the massive trade deficit the US has been complaining about for over a decade. Tell Americans that each of us need to gird our loins with the American spirit and start acting like we've got good sense. Maybe, just maybe, candidate Ron Paul had a good idea, or two, or several.

And here's some positive news (well, the ACLU is against it, as well as all the usual suspects who are probably not quite as "law-abiding" as they would have us believe) on the defense front. The LA Times has reported that the LAPD has instituted a new anti-terrorism program that should serve as a national model for detecting suspicious activity, reporting it peer to peer and upward to the federal levels.

ROCKEFELLERS RIP EXXON

As someone who actually spent quality time among the Rockefellers working for the minimum wage of $1.65/hr during my years as a teenager on offshore Cumberland Island, GA, this story warmed my heart. I spent several years in manual labor doing an odd assortment of jobs learning the construction trade from the time I was fourteen up through my senior year in highschool on the island where my pop worked as a master carpenter. Cumberland remains accessible to this day either by boat or by small four or six-seater plane, the latter to land on an old field requiring one or two flyovers to chase the feral cattle and horses from their grazing pasture, and is primarily under the authority of the National Park Service now.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, several branches of the Carnegie-Rockefeller clan were building "summer cottages" for themselves on family land they had inherited through the lineage of Thomas Carnegie, who had purchased the island and had built several plush mansions there in the 1880s before most of them were lost to fire and dilapidation due to later abandonment. Thomas also had a more famous brother named Andrew, the steel magnate turned library philanthropist. The families still hold onto parcels of land improved back in my own times, but a settlement was reached after years of law suits stipulating that when the last remaining immediate heir from that generation has passed away, the US government will control it all.

This was a special time in my life, and worthy of a blog or two in its own right, but keeping to the topic of the day:

MEMBERS OF THE ROCKEFELLER family took a fight with Exxon Mobil Corp. public yesterday, challenging the oil giant spawned by their namesake to split the roles of chairman and chief executive officer and to focus more on renewable energy.

The family members, who describe themselves as the company's longest continuous shareholders, said they are concerned that Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil is too focused on short-term gains from soaring oil prices and should do more to invest in cleaner technology for the future. Separating the leadership roles, they argue, would better position the company for challenges to come.

"They are fighting the last war, and they're not seeing they're facing a new war," said Peter O'Neill, who heads the Rockefeller family committee dealing with Exxon Mobil and is the great-great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller.

Mr. O'Neill said he had the support of more than 80 percent of family members older than 21. Family representatives said that they were not sure how much of the company they own collectively but that it represented a significant holding. Mutual funds and other institutional investors, not individuals, are the company's top shareholders.

Read it all.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND THE WAR

In speaking to the global energy question Morgaan Sinclair writes that the Middle East Forum had a Middle East Briefing in New York with Jim Woolsey in November 2005. Woolsey explained the situation this way:

Every time in the past that America has started making noises about environmentalism and getting off oil, the Saudis have flooded the short-term light sweet crude market, which then lulls Americans into a false sense of security about prices, and all the investment capital for alternative energies dries up.

Now that the 4AR IPCC reports have come out—and climate science is no longer based on (really sage) models, but data, the Keeling Curve is absolutely incontrovertible in its implications. There is no longer any serious debate (except among those on the payroll of Big Oil and Coal) about what is going on. There is only debate about whether or not the bullet has left the gun or whether we have a little bit of time to top the Type Climate changes from hitting us hard.

Hansen says the bullet has left the chamber; Holdren, McCarthy et al. claim that we have 5-10 years to reverse course.

Now the Saudis know that the worldwide community is onto the global climate change problem ("global warming" is a very unfortunate misnomer, because it's about climate extremes of both hot and cold triggered by an overly warm general atmospheric condition). So now they're not bothering with playing around with short-term resources.

THEY ARE TRYING TO BANKRUPT THE WEST WHILE SHARI'A COMPLIANT BANKS ARE FUNNELING THE MONEY OUT OF THE USUAL INTERNATIONAL MARKETS INTO ONES THEY CONTROL SO THEY CAN BECOME THE WORLD'S LENDERS.

GET OFF OIL. It's much more serious on both fronts than most people image. Coal is not the answer. Corn is a disaster. But back-end switch grass ethanol is a good solutio. Switch grass grew on the American prairie before the US was settled (except by Indians) and it is what we grow on agricultural fallow years to replenish the soil. So we MUST grow it, and with switch grass ethanol the farmers can make money off something that is usually not productive, and it doesn't interfere with the production of food.

Nix on coal. And liquid coal carbon sequestration is an outright LIE. It's bullshit.

If you feel you need more education on global climate change, click here. This article is a couple of years old, but the situation looks even worse now than it did then. But this is a superlative article to get a TRUE overview of the problem. D. Holdren (immediate past pres of AAAS) explains it extremely well for the non-scientist.

To get a picture of why Woolsey says that Republicans who realize the war on terror is real, and Democrats who realize that the environmental problems are real SHOULD BE NATURAL ALLIES. So we must get off oil for a plethora of reasons:

(1) We are paying our enemies $1 billion a day for oil, and they are making bombs with it.

(2) That kind of balance of payments problem bleeds the jugular of the American economy.

(3) We don't dare tell 'em to shove it.

(4) The Chinese, who bear us no good will, are holding our paper on that debt, as well as selling us cheap goods, which also bleeds the economy of $1 billion a day.

(5) This situation makes it impossible for us to really stop anything. We can't tell the Saudis and Chavez to shove it with any authority. We can't tell the Bangladeshis to take care of their population problems. We can't help the starving of Africa. We can't demand that bad governments and religions stop abusing women.

We invented the light bulb, the airplane, the radio, the television, and nuclear fission. We went to the moon. It's not a matter that we can't. It's a matter that we're too damned soft and lazy and arrogant to fix it.

"No civilization was ever conquered from without that did not first destroy itself from within."
—Will Durant

BOYCOTT MIDDLE EASTERN OIL

An informed consumer is key is helping wean Americans off oil pumped by the corrupt Saudis and other OPEC nations. This information is available from the Department of Energy. Each company is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing. These companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell.................. 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco..........144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil............130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway.......117,740,000 barrels
Amoco....................62,231,000 barrels

Citgo Gas comes from Hugo Chavez, the communists dictator from Venezuela, whose policies are running his country into the ground. Here are some large companies that DO NOT import Middle Eastern oil:

Sunoco................0 barrels
Conoco................0 barrels
Sinclair..............0 barrels
BP/Phillips..... .....0 barrels
Hess................. 0 barrels
ARC0. ................0 barrels

TRUMAN AND THE BOMB

Revisionism seems to know no bounds these days. Much has been made lately by such people as Lyndon La Rouche, the Oddly Named Truthers, and certain other bleeding heart cartels about the nature of the lead-up to President Harry S. Truman's use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The lack of and the twisting of historical knowledge almost amazes me. People chatter about the decision to use the A-bombs as if Japan was just minding its own business and the evil USA suddenly decided to drop the bombs on them for no reason.

WELL, THAT AINT THE WAY IT HAPPENED! Japan had been attacking China since 1937, and featured such atrocities as the Rape of Nanking. It was for this reason that the U.S. cut off supplies such as oil to Japan. That is what "antagonized" them into attacking Pearl Harbor in 1941 (anybody still remember that?). The Japanese then declared war after the attack. Did the USA force them to do that as well?

And as far the caveat of knowing about the attack ahead of time, an attack was suspected, but just as in the case of September 11, there was no specific beat on what kind of attack to expect. "Experts" predicted one by submarines or sabotage, not by air (Sorry, Pearl Harbor Truthers). Once the war in the Pacific commenced, Japanese prison camps rivaled the Nazis in brutality, and even included beheadings (sound familiar).

Certainly much worse than can be said about Club Gitmo. And contrary to revisionist belief, Japan was not ready to surrender as long as the Emperor was protected. That was the view of a few pragmatic politicians. The vast majority of the government and populace were ready to fight to the end, and were arming themselves for such. Estimates run that an invasion would have cost anywhere from to 10 million Japanese lives, and extended the war by several years.

After suffering the devastating bombs, some Japanese military officers tried to stop the Emperor from making the surrender announcment. And after finding old Japanese soldiers still hiding in the jungles of isolated islands, who refused to surrender, this seemed to have been part of the early indoctrinization process of the Japanese people. These are not the peace-loving people that Western PCers want to believe they were.

These two bombings initiated dreadful atrocities that one should vigilantly hope will never face mankind again. But so did ALL the warfare of the past century, the one before it, and the one before it, et cetera. War is hell. War kills, maims, disfigures, and disturbs. But the United States and its people continue to be labeled international monsters by the Hate America crowds when in fact it is certain of committing far less violence than what the WW2 Japanese actually was carrying out for far longer in its very active war of aggression.

TOPPLING THE OIL CARTELS

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Robert Zubrin, the president of Pioneer Astronautics and also president of the Mars Society. For many years he worked as a senior engineer for Lockheed Martin. In addition, he is the author of the critically acclaimed nonfiction books The Case for Mars, Entering Space, Mars on Earth; the science fiction novels The Holy Land and First Landing; and articles in Scientific American, The New Atlantis, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Mechanical Engineering, and The American Enterprise. He has appeared on major media including CNN, CSPAN, the BBC, the Discovery Channel, NBC, ABC, and NPR. He is the author of the new book, Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil.

FP: Robert Zubrin, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Zubrin: Thank you for inviting me.

FP: What inspired you to write this book?

Zubrin: For the past two decades, I have devoted most of my engineering work towards advancing the space program. However the events of September 11, 2001 caused me to give pause and think about what I might be able to do to help out here on Earth. Then, as I researched the problem, it because very apparent that the terror cult was being promoted by Middle eastern tyrannies using oil money, which is to say our money, and that this is what had to be addressed if the war on terror was to be won.

You know there is an old aphorism, "there are three things necessary to wage war: money, money, and yet more money." Well, the same is true of jihad. So consider the following. In 1972, the USA paid out $4 billion for oil imports, an amount equal to 1.2% of our defense budget at that time. Last year, we paid $260 billion - which was half of what we paid for national defense! Over the same period, Saudi oil revenues have grown in direct parallel from $2.7 billion in 1972 to $200 billion in 2006, and this year are likely to exceed $300 billion. And if something isn't done to break the oil cartel, the situation is likely to get much worse, because with China and India industrializing, world demand for fuel is going up, and OPEC is in position to exploit this to effect further radical price hikes -- in fact they've raised prices 50% this year alone. We are financing a war against ourselves, and the way things are going, we will soon be paying the enemy more than we are paying our own military.

Furthermore, the situation is even worse, because as a result of our dependence on enemy oil, we cannot effectively strike back at them. Take the Iranian nuclear bomb program, for example. We could shut it down in an afternoon just by striking their very vulnerable oil export terminal at Kharg Island. No oil exports = no cash = no nuclear bomb program. But we can't do that right now because of the effect on the world economy of a shutdown of Persian Gulf oil. The same is true in our dealing with the Saudis. In effect, they are using their own fragility as a shield against us, saying "you can't hit us because we have a glass jaw." And, given our dependence on them, the ploy works. But take away that dependence, and we can dictate terms to them.

So the battle for energy security is the decisive front in the war on terror. And that is an area where I, as an engineer, believe I have something to contribute.

FP: Expand for us on how Americans are funding radical Islam by buying gas.

Zubrin: Saudi Arabia is the largest recipient of international oil revenues, over two trillion dollars in the past three decades, and, as documented by numerous sources cited in my book, they have used a substantial fraction of this cash to finance a global effort to spread Wahhabi totalitarian cult ideology. They have funded a whole alphabet soup of front organizations such as the MWL, the WAMY, and the IIRO, for this purpose, as well as to directly fund terrorist groups, and have set up over 20,000 madrasses outside of Saudi Arabia to teach millions of young boys that the way to paradise is to kill Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Taoists, animists, humanists, etc. It was the graduates of this indoctrination effort who killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, and thousands of our troops in Iraq in the period since. But they've killed plenty of other people too, in countries ranging from Biafra and the Sudan, to former Soviet central Asia, to Indonesia and the Philippines, where vicious attacks on Buddhists and Christians are ongoing.

Then there is Iran, a terror state which receives the majority of its income from oil. It is oil money that is funding Hezbollah, an Iranian terror asset which is now setting up bases in Latin America, by the way. It is oil money that is funding the Iranian nuclear bomb program, which could give those Hezbollah operatives the weapon they need to inflict mass destruction on their potential victims- which will soon include not only Israeli or European cities, but targets in the Western Hemisphere as well.

Read it all.

WEAKENING THE CAMP OF ISLAM

Despite SOS Condi Rice's stern admonition, somebody's not listening.
Clearly, one of the most brilliant insights and policies the Reagan administration articulated was that as long as Iran and Iraq were fighting each other, they would constitute a lesser threat to everyone else. History has reflected this, since shortly after the Iran-Iraq war ended, both found new enemies.

When Sunnis and Shiites are channeling their Islamic jihad impulses into fighting each other rather than harassing everyone else, humanity as a whole is safer.

Jihad is a virtual imperative in Islam. It will either seep into the daily lives of those eager to please their bloodthirsty diety as intersectarian, interethnic, intertribal, interparty, inter(whatever) warfare between Muslims or else as warfare against humanity as a whole (e.g. all non-Muslims). The bottom line is that if Muslims are not fighting themselves, they pose an existential threat to everyone else.

There is a strategic lesson here.

But no, Bush had to lunge for Saddam Hussein, who terrified the Saudis; for the belated honor of his dad, Bush senior; supposed easy oil, and some heretical fantasy about being a war president. Democracy? What a joke!

NOTIONS OF TRANQUILITY

Terror-Free Oil Initiative is dedicated to encouraging Americans to buy fuel that originated from countries that do not export or finance terrorism. By promoting those companies that acquire their fuel supply from nations outside the Middle East and expose those companies that do not, they help educate the American public about the oil-terrorism connection and press those in power to take the necessary steps to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.