There are a lot of folks who can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in the USA.

Well, there's a very simple answer.

Nobody bothered to check the oil. We just didn't know we were getting low.

The reason for this is purely geographical: All the oil is in Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Wyoming, etc.; All the dipsticks are in Washington, DC.

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:

29 have been accused of spousal abuse

7 have been arrested for fraud

19 have been accused of writing bad checks

117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses

3 have done time for assault

71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

14 have been arrested on drug-related charges

8 have been arrested for shoplifting

21 are currently defendants in lawsuits

84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year

Can you guess which organization this is?

Give up yet?


It's the 535 members of the United States Congress.

The same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.

There are thousands of blogs on the web and they are often interlinked, creating an eco-system of ever-changing ideas on the net.

"Google's buy is a recognition that the news in future will be reported by ordinary people with their own particular bias on stories," said Mr Holahan (CEO of Newbay Software)

"Google buying Blogger validates the importance of weblogs to the internet ecosystem. You can't devalue people and the things they care about."

"Indeed, there's something significant somewhere in all this. I was thinking last night (and this isn't an ageist put-down) how, in the year when you were born, I was about to take my first acid trip using Californian Owsley acid (I grew up in Liverpool, where things were happening quite bigtime, at the time) - and somehow there's a connection there. (There's also a connection inasmuch as I was born in what had been the American Generals' HQ in England in WW2). I became aware, when recently at the Green Gathering, surrounded by thirtysomethings, enjoying it and also noticeably valued by them, of this energy-connection to do with the choices for change that I made at that time - which many of my generation, of course, don't share (or they've buried), and which many of your generation variously embody. The interesting thing here is that, while physically my generation is older (with some of the dubious and sometimes jaded wisdom arising from that) your generation is evolutionarily more advanced - as it now is with our respective children and juniors too."

The stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction is not a warrant for waging war. Weapons of mass destruction whether they are nuclear, chemical, biological, or conventional are a threat to human life and habitat by whoever possesses them. They are not tolerable in the hands of any state, whether it is large or small, rich or poor, and headed by a dictator or by an elected politician. Such weapons need to be eliminated from the arsenals of every state, a task that is not the self-declared prerogative of any government but the responsibility of the global community of all peoples and states. There will be no lasting peace on earth until all weapons of mass destruction are destroyed, their production and stockpiling proscribed, and strategies calling for their use replaced by strategies of dialogue, negotiation and, if necessary, internationally agreed economic and political sanctions.

Attempting to eliminate weapons of mass destruction with weapons of mass destruction is to fight violence with violence on the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, a policy that can end up making everyone blind and toothless. Aggressors and terrorists must be stopped, but war is not the way to stop them.

The Club of Budapest is an informal association of creative people in diverse fields of art, literature, and the spiritual domains of culture. It is dedicated to the proposition that only by changing ourselves we can change the world - and that to change ourselves we need the kind of insight and perception that art, literature, and the domains of the spirit can best provide.

"Why of course the people don't want war. . . . That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

In his first public comments about the antiwar demonstrations by millions of people over the weekend in the United States and abroad, Mr. Bush said his overriding goal was to protect the American people and that leadership sometimes involved bucking public opinion.

"Size of protest — it's like deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus group," Mr. Bush said in response to a reporter's question at the White House. "The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security, in this case, the security of the people."

"New York—The massive, coordinated outpouring of anti-war protest in more than 600 different cities across the globe on February 15 was something unprecedented in world history. Commentators reached and grasped to come up with anything to compare it with: The parties that wreathed the world during the millennium? The revolutions of 1848?

It was a vast event, the largest protest in history (involving an estimated 10 million people worldwide). An attempt to stop a war before it even started, it saw the marshaling of a new, autonomous, self-organized resistance that began with the globalization movement and now threatens to bring on board masses of mainstream, middle-class citizens."

"As conservatives long suspected, Bill Clinton's loyalty, as evidenced in this speech, is not primarily to this country. His loyalty is to the liberal European elites who adore both him and the prospect of the world where America is no longer the world's sole super power. (Clinton also warned against US efforts to "dominate and run the world.")

For Clinton, a new UN resolution on Iraq is merely a means to a larger goal-"the chance to integrate the world, to make the United Nations a more meaningful, more powerful, more effective institution." The crowd went nuts.

Bill Clinton is still the biggest figure on the Democratic stage. He still raises the most money. He still exerts influence through Hillary and pal DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe. He is still beloved by Hollywood. Republicans should call upon all Democrats to either embrace or distance themselves from this World According to Clinton. Do they agree with Clinton that the US shouldn't try to be a dominant world force? Do they agree that our main goal should be an "integrated world." Do they agree that we're ripping off the UN by not sending more money Kofi's way?

Meanwhile, if Bill Clinton wants, sometime in the future, to be named Secretary General of a super-sized UN, he already has the campaign theme down pat: America Last."

Having bombed Dublin and, perhaps, a few IRA training bogs in Tipperary, we could not have afforded to be complacent. We would have had to turn our attention to those states which had supported and funded the IRA terrorists through all these years. The main provider of funds was, of course, the USA, and this would have posed us with a bit of a problem. Where to bomb in America? It's a big place and it's by no means certain that a small country like the UK could afford enough bombs to do the whole job. It's going to cost the US billions to bomb Iraq and a lot of that is empty countryside. America, on the other hand, provides a bewildering number of targets.

Should we have bombed Washington, where the policies were formed? Or should we have concentrated on places where Irishmen are known to lurk, like New York, Boston and Philadelphia? We could have bombed any police station and fire station in most major urban centres, secure in the knowledge that we would be taking out significant numbers of IRA sympathisers. On St Patrick's Day, we could have bombed Fifth Avenue and scored a bull's-eye.