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gasaholic
"The reason is both simple and complex: oil. Washington is determined to dominate the world's richest new source of oil, Central Asia's Caspian Basin, over which sit the former Soviet states of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgystan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. Well before Sept. 11, the US already had special forces operating in Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan. Last spring, Osama bin Laden advised the unworldly Taliban regime to turn down a low bid from the US oil firm Unocal to build a pipeline to export Central Asian oil - awarding it instead to a rival Argentine firm. The US cut off discreet financial aid to Taliban and began updating contingency plans to invade Afghanistan and install a compliant regime. Events of Sept. 11 facilitated this decision."
presidential chew toy
"My mother always said, 'When you're eating pretzels, chew before you swallow,"' Bush said. "Always listen to your mother."
energy concerns
enron weekend round-up
smog dogs
"Virginia environmental officials have hired a contractor to place two teams of technicians at different sites in Northern Virginia and Richmond beginning in March for a nine-month $300,000 pilot program. The teams, from Connecticut-based Environmental Systems Products, will set up at on-ramps and other high-traffic areas. They like to call their device the "AccuScan Remote Vehicle Emissions Testing System," though some in the industry prefer the term "smog dog."
The system shoots an invisible beam of light through a car's exhaust plume to measure a range of pollutants, and a video camera records license plate numbers. Computers in a van parked nearby crunch the emissions data."
rascal racicot
"The political reforms passed after Watergate had two somewhat paradoxical consequences. On the positive side, outright, cash-in-a-bag corruption became quite rare in Washington. On the negative side, sleaze got much more inventive. The fruits of this trend included such instruments of dubious virtue and technical legality as corporate soft money, "honoraria" for speech-making, campaign contribution "bundling," insider stock deals for members of Congress, and ever more blatant forms of influence-peddling."
df tribune
The Future of bin Ladenism
Pipeline Politics
Carlyle's Way
Bush Family Value$
Bad Intelligence Causing Pentagon-CIA Rift
A Creeping Collapse in Credibility at the White House
band on the run
"There, boasted a flurry of HBO press releases, several dozen construction workers had labored mightily to build an 80-square-foot high-definition movie screen, a viewing tent, and a reception area that could accommodate up to 1,000 guests, "as well as lounge and bar space." The occasion for all this was not so much the annual D-day commemoration, which was squeezed in after lunch, but an event that had for all intents and purposes replaced it: the star-studded premiere of Band of Brothers--a $125-million television miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, based on the book by Stephen E. Ambrose, telling the true-life story of Easy Company, and appearing on a TV screen near you in early September."
clear channel
"The United States is more likely to suffer a nuclear, chemical or biological attack from terrorists using ships, trucks or airplanes than one by a foreign country using long-range missiles, according to a new U.S. intelligence estimate."
df gazette
Saudi Arabia's anti-American fiction
Arms Buildup Enriches Firm Staffed by Big Guns
Is George W. Bush God’s President?
The Nixon Story You Never Heard
the wright approach
"It's true that, with victory coming sooner than just about anyone (including Krauthammer) predicted, street demonstrations died young. Regimes weren't toppled. But my main concern was never about regimes being toppled. My concern was—and is—about what may be the scariest trend in the world: Thanks to technological evolution, man-in-the-street rage, even if it doesn't assume regime-toppling form, is increasingly lethal. Very small groups of people—including groups of one—can take a real toll on the national psyche."