port deal gets fishier

the more we hear about this deal to outsource the management of key US ports to a company owned by a bunch of emirs in the gulf, the more rotten it smells.

right now the administration is trying to peddle the line that the security measures they worked out with dubai ports world are unprecedented. i guess they're trying to convince us that means that the agreement is really stringent. but when you get a whiff of the details, it sure smells like they're unprecedented in laxity. get this latest little gem:

In approving the purchase, the administration chose not to require Dubai Ports to keep copies of its business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to orders by American courts. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate requests by the government.

Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries.

boy, you talk about some fast-talking used car salesmen. in case you didn't catch that, they're planning to allow the dubai company not to keep their records in the US where they could be subpoenaed by law enforcement, nor will they need even a token american on hand who can be prosecuted for non-compliance. and they're tring to tell us that makes us safer.

can anyone be so thoroughly programmed by the propaganda that they can believe this stuff anymore? just yesterday they were trying to claim that while the president feels so strongly about supporting this deal that he'll veto congress' attempts to scuttle it, he really didn't know anything about it. at one and the same time. now there's a level of flip-flopping right up there with schrodinger's cat.

but even the duplicity aside, there's something really screwy about those two details, and these are just the ones that got out. those provisions are SOP, the experts tell us, so why would they be blowing them off in this case? i can't think of a single hypothetical that would make this omission work out in our interest.

instead the administration is trying to convince us that they've implemented some kind of super-secret plan that makes this ultra-secure.

the busheviks working out a secret back-room deal with oil-rich sheiks and emirs. really now, can even the most mindless bushevik apologist not have qualms about that?

flip-flop overdrive

anyone curious just how long george w. bush's new year's resolution to cut down on foreign oil would last?

less than 24 hours.

apparently the pusher-man called him up right away, worried that one of his best customers was toying with kicking the habit:

Speaking after Mr Bush’s Tuesday night State of the Union address, Edmund Daukoru, Nigeria’s energy minister and president of Opec, said: “We do believe that energy issues cannot be handled in a unilateral way; we all have to work together towards global energy security.”

Privately, Opec officials were more direct in warnings about Mr Bush’s declared intention to reduce America’s dependence on Middle East oil by 75 per cent by 2025. But they emphasised Opec would avoid a confrontational tone in its commentary.

An Opec delegate said: “Comments like that are unrealistic. Everyone knows the world will continue to depend on Middle East imports.” The organisation would raise concerns about such statements damping investment at meetings with the European Union and other organisations “more aligned with Opec’s view”

Opec’s concern was shared widely across the industry. John Felmy, chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute, which represents the US oil and gas industry, said: “If one of your big customers tells you they do not want to buy from you in the future, then of course this will impact how much you invest.”

...Opec delegates and Mr Bartenstein place responsibility for oil price volatility mainly on consuming countries that have failed adequately to invest in refineries and pipelines needed to get oil to their consumers.

got that? "gee, we know your gas prices are skyrocketing there in the US because industry hasn't built any refineries in decades there. and now with this talk of us not being bestest buddies anymore, well we might have to reconsider the terms of our relationship..."

but of course we all know that gee dubya is a man of firm resolve! surely he wouldn't let this kind of cheap threat from wannabe mafiosi change his mind once it's made up, right?

well, uh... not so much.

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

...Bush vowed to fund research into better batteries for hybrid vehicles and more production of the alternative fuel ethanol, setting a lofty goal of replacing "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

He pledged to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

Not exactly, though, it turns out.

"This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.

...Asked why the president used the words "the Middle East" when he didn't really mean them, one administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that "every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands." The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he feared that his remarks might get him in trouble.

you really have to read the full copy of each article to believe it. especially the numbers shell game they're trying to play. "well we're importing 2.2 million barrels a day now from the middle east, and it'll be 6 million in 2025, but if everyone drives a hybrid that'll save 5 million across the board, which is almost 6 million and, um..."

man, i expected them to at least claim they were making some kind of progress on this one, bogus or not. but it seems like the white house is afraid of even the appearance of reducing the money flow to the oil industry and their terrorist pals.