Cheap Blogging Crutch 03.31

Up In Smoke: How Marijuana Ruined States’ Chances Of Invalidating Health Care Law In Court
The passage of health care set off a rash of frivolous lawsuits from state AG's with hopes for higher office and a penchant for wasting the money of cash strapped governments in times of economic crisis. Will they succeed? No. But that inevitability isn't so much interesting as why they will fail to succeed, besides the basic "not understanding the Constitution" thing. Essentially the Supreme Court, and Antonin Scalia in particular, recently ruled in a marijuana case that the government had a right to regulate interstate non-economic activity as a part of regulating interstate commerce. So unless Scalia totally reverses his opinion for political means, any challenge that makes it to the Supremes isn't likely to even pass muster with the conservative wing. Actually, that sounds incredibly likely. Still, marijuana: is there anything it can't do?

Beijing to sweeten stench of rubbish crisis with giant deodorant guns
For some countries a sensible response to a garbage crisis would be better collection and disposal methods, moves to make sure less waste is produced, or even recycling programs. Not China though. Instead of actually responding to their crippling garbage crisis they've just decided to buy a really big can of Axe body spray and just drench their trash in it so people don't have to smell it. Efforts are already underway to paint the trash to look like land and convincing people to ignore it. I think we may have to admit that China may be taking the lead away from us in the Ignoring Potentially Disastrous Environmental Problems category. Ouch. We really seem to cherish that one too.

Art of the Steal: On the Trail of World’s Most Ingenious Thief
What if you were a savant. And not one of those crappy ones who is only good at something like math, the viola, or counting toothpicks that Charlie Babbitt dropped on the floor. No, a savant at stealing shit. Such is the skill of one Gerald Blanchard, a man with the preternatural ability to seemingly exploit any flaw in security. Wired tells his story and how he was caught by two Winnipeg cops.

The most dangerous drug isn't meow meow. It isn't even alcohol...
Charlie Brooker, the man who did this, explains how newspapers, especially newspapers covering drugs, are the most dangerous mind destroying drug on the planet. And he's talking about British ones too. I imagine if he ever had to read an American one or watch American 24 hour news, he'd take his own life.

New Study Estimates Mass Deportation Of Undocumented Immigrants Would Cost $285 Billion
In a tremendous blow to Mexican hating everywhere, it turns out that if we decided everyone in the restaurant, service, farming, and labor industries it'd cost close to $300 billion, or $922 in tax dollars for everyone in the US. Everyone American that is. Not to mention it would completely depopulate California and force white people to get their hands dirty while laboring... and maybe completely cripple US economic growth. Plus who would militias and border state Republicans and Southern Republicans and most Republicans hate then? The Polish? On the other hand, if you put undocumented workers on a path to legalization, it could add nearly $1.5 trillion to GDP over the next decade. I think we know the clear and obvious path here. You start rounding up Mexicans and I'll go door to door collecting $922 a person.

Stay classy, Hannity

We always like to mock Sean Hannity here at TB, and why not? The man is probably the most baldfaced liar on TV and he doesn't even have the nerve to be an interesting kind of crazy like Glenn Beck. I mean all he does is work himself into outraged conniptions about minor events he exaggerated and stories he invented in a annoyed windbaggy tone. No weeping, no stunts, no chalkboard. Boring evil.

And it's worked out pretty well for Hannity, as he's knocked down a $100 million dollar contract just for his radio show alone. But that's not enough money for him apparently, and has taken to using a charity he ostensibly started to help wounded soldiers and children of wounded soldiers and decided it should effectively be run as a PR machine and goodie bag dispensery for himself, his friends and his family. It's a shocker, I mean he just looks so trustworthy.

For the last several years, Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance “charity” have conducted “Freedom Concerts” across America. They’ve told you that they are raising money to pay for the college tuition of the children of fallen soldiers and to pay severely wounded war vets.
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But it’s all a huge scam.

In fact, less than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferret the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes. Moreover, despite written assurances to donors that all money raised would go directly to scholarships for kids of the fallen heroes and not to expenses, has begun charging expenses of nearly $500,000 to give out just over $800,000 in scholarships.

And who revealed all of this? Conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel. Et tu Brute? Media Matters, not one to give Schlussel credit, even goes so far as to say that her numbers check out and points to further work done on the Charity Navigator page. There, on the website that rates and analyzes charities to see if they're scamming people and how much of the money they get is actually spent on their supposed cause, alleges that Hannity's charity might even spend less on wounded veterans than Schlussel does. Noting that by Freedom Alliance's own tax filings they have taken in almost $50 million since 2003 and doled out only &1.8 million to the families of veterans.

I guess this is why Hannity is always railing against the government for misuse of revenue: he sees that kind of abuse first hand all the time and must have a sixth sense for when it's happening.

Well this is all just so surprising. I mean, for one, who thought Sean Hannity would be so thoroughly dishonest is his dealings? Secondly who thought that a charity he started in an attempt to get publicity for himself and puff his chest out about how he cares more about the troops than liberals, wouldn't actually be committed to the spirit of charity? On the other had he did get a lot of free promotion and content for his radio and TV shows and he did get to meet Trace Adkins and Toby Kieth a bunch of times, so defrauding the American public and wounded soldiers worked out like gangbusters. Stay classy, Sean, I know you will. Can't wait to hear about how this is all a giant liberal conspiracy against you.

Broken in Brief: Thieves Steal $18.2 Million in Daring Weekend Heist

HOLLYWOOD—In what was amongst the largest and longest thefts in recent US history, today police put out an all points bulletin for the arrest of suspects in connection with a daring three-day raid across the country that resulted in an estimated $18.2 million dollar haul for the perpetrators.

“We would like this country to be on the lookout for actor Paul Bettany, director Scott Stewart, and the studio ironically titled Screen Gems in relation to the release of the so-called film Legion into theaters” announced the director of the FBI’s Robbery/Cinematic Homicide Division, Will Franks.

“It is to be assumed that they are armed… without any sense of taste or the ability to recognize competent storytelling or dialogue. It is suspected that they might have seen or at least partially remembered hearing about the movie the Prophecy. Co-star Dennis Quaid is purported to be with them and is to be considered needing money and in an extremely desperate state.”

The FBI vowed to bring down the men “with extreme prejudice” for what they feel is a coordinated theft of $6-$12 dollars from hundreds of thousands of people at close to 2,500 locations, 7-8 times each day between Friday and Sunday. Officials will charge the men with premeditation for the robbery pending confirmation that nearly two years of pre-production, filming, post-production, and marketing went into unleashing this “film” on an unsuspecting public.

“I will not rest until these sick freaks are brought to justice,” yelled Franks, a veteran of the previous arrests of the makers of Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Superman Returns, most romantic comedies, and the men who decided to let people view Avatar without the benefit of 3D to distract from a shop-worn plot and pedestrian dialogue.

As of press time the group is rumored to be using Legion to engage in smaller thefts throughout the week with another planned robbery next weekend expected to net roughly 40% of this weekend’s haul.

It is hoped that Stewart, Bettany, and Screen Gems can be apprehended before the August 2010 release of Priest, their next diabolical gambit to steal from the American public en masse.

I fart in New Jersey's general direction

With a disinterested populace set to go out tomorrow and vote in record lows, our attention moves to the New Jersey Governors race between Jon Corzine and Chris Christie, which has been accused of degrading the human spirit. First it was just a typical race between two deeply unlikable men, squabbling for political power. But soon things got classy as, in the face of flagging poll numbers, the incumbent Corzine was all like "Yo momma ain't the fat one, you the fat one, fatty" and then Christie was all like "Call me fat again, bitch. Call me fat again, you bald bitch" and a Governor's race in America was contested on a platform of fat jokes and subsidies for more Kevin Smith Jersey movies.

But now, as voters get ready to trudge to the polls, look at both names, sigh mournfully, and ask an election worker if they actually have to pick one of them, comes something that truly offends everyone: Chris Christie ripped off a Monty Python sketch for one of his political ads. That son of a bitch!

Chris Christie, the Republican candidate for Governor of New Jersey in Tuesday's knife-edge gubernatorial election, has been called out as a copyright thief.
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The official campaign advert -- titled "Deja Vu" -- attacks incumbent New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine by using scenes from a famous skit on the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" TV show that features Michael Palin. The ad is on Christie's official YouTube campaign site, and has already aired on national TV.

But neither Christie -- a lawyer for 22 years -- nor anyone in his campaign bothered to seek any permission for using the copyrighted material in his election spot.

Now this is something to get outraged about and decide an election over: ripping off the Deja Vu sketch. He doesn't even do it in a good way either, he just runs the beginning of the sketch with lame text attacks about Corzine underneath. It looks like it was put together in a high school A/V class. But it has done one positive thing: it has allowed Monty Python members Michael Palin and Terry Jones to inject themselves into the race, threaten lawsuits, and take easy potshots at Christie's former status as a Karl Rove recommended, George Bush appointed US attorney (something that should have had him disqualified from the race almost immediately).

"I'm surprised that a former U.S. Attorney isn't aware of his copyright infringement when he uses our material without permission. He's clearly made a terrible mistake. It was the endorsement of Sarah Palin he was after -- not that of Michael Palin."
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"It is totally outrageous that a former US Attorney knows so little about the law that he thinks he can rip off people. On the other hand -- another of Bush's legal appointees was Alberto Gonzales and he didn't seem to know much about the law either...," Jones said.

So to any of our readers who are living in Jersey, don't vote for Chris Christie. Not because he's an awful candidate or because you think Jon Corzine resembles a human, no, because Christie has affronted the comedy Gods in an illegal and, most importantly, unfunny way. Also, because he's a fatty fat fat fat. At least he didn't rip off the Argument Clinic Sketch.

Afghan shenanigans

Afghanistan has been in the news a lot recently. From the President surprisingly (sarcasm) ruling out a reduction in troops today after he spent an entire political campaign running on an Afghan troop increase, to the GOP telling Nancy Pelosi that they were going to put her "in her place" just because she pointed out that House Democrats might not be so eager to support an Afghan troop increase just because Gen. McChrystal wants one. Plus there's this little matter of the UN firing it's #2 man in Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith. Why? Just because he had a little problem with the whole matter of Hamid Karzai stealing the recent election there.

The United Nations fired its No. 2 official in Afghanistan on Wednesday after the diplomat, Peter W. Galbraith, wrote a scathing letter accusing the head of the mission here of concealing election fraud that benefited the campaign of the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai.

“For a long time after the elections, Kai denied that significant fraud had taken place, even going to the extreme of ordering U.N. staff not to discuss the matter,” Mr. Galbraith wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

“And, at critical stages in the process,” he wrote, “he blocked me and other U.N.A.M.A. professional staff from taking effective action that might have limited the fraud or enabled the Afghan electoral institutions to address it more effectively.” U.N.A.M.A. refers to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan

The UN then got even angrier because he decided to point that out in newspapers nationwide. I think what they want Galbraith, and the world, to understand is something we've discussed on this blog a few times: when an election is rigged to put or keep someone we like in power, then that's just an extension of the category we like to cal "democracy working". When elections are rigged to put or keep people we don't like into power, or even a legitimate election puts someone we don't like into power, that's what we call "a travesty of democracy", a "subversion of the people", and "something we need to invade over." This is the basic theory of democracy in relation to foreign policy and Galbraith should understand that as the UN's #2 man in Afghanistan. Excuse me, former #2 man.

So the leader is rigging elections, everyone is scrambling to cover it up, the Taliban is resurgent, we don't have enough troops, casualties are on the rise, and everyone stopped caring about this when everyone realized no noe in government cared about catching that "9/11 mastermind" guy. Yeah, this definitely sounds like a massive troop increase is the right and popular thing to do.

Now he wants to talk

Bernie Madoff is spilling his guts. Unfortunately it's not because someone sliced him open like a taun-taun and needs to use his body husk to warm something. No he's getting loquacious about how he stole all that money. Let me see if I can figure out his brilliant scheme: take people's money, take more people's money, tell them you're totally making them rich, take more people's money, meet with SEC and tell them everything's copacetic, take more people's money, and then watch it all crash down as your easily disprovable scheme is thwarted by someone paying attention. Is that about right?

A lawyer for victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme says the financier told him during a 4 1/2-hour prison interview plenty of details about the fraud, including how it took place and how securities regulators missed catching him.
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Nancy Fineman, a lawyer who works with Cotchett and attended the interview, said Madoff described his meetings with the Securities and Exchange Commission while he was committing the fraud and the fact the SEC was unable to catch him, which didn't seem to surprise him.

Authorities say Madoff cost thousands of investors over several decades at least $13 billion as he told them the money had grown to about $65 billion.

See, all you have to do to be taken seriously on Wall Street is to declaratively state you have made a ton of money and then hope you said it forcefully enough that no one will ever say "prove it." If you want to deceive the SEC all you have to do is hope that they're lazy enough to never actually spend two consecutive seconds looking at your house of cards, even if they have respected investors openly telling them you're running a scam. I do like the notion that Madoff's Ponzi scheme was different than all the other Ponzi schemes and that he is needed to unravel the mystery inside a riddle wrapped up in an enigma that is taking the money of suckers and paying returns out of the money taken from other suckers.

I did like this quote:

"I think he's not happy to be where he is, but he's certainly not complaining," the lawyer said. "The guy's facing 150 years. That's a long time for anybody."

I wouldn't worry, I don't think there's any possibility Bernie will end up having to do the full 150.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years for Ponzi Scheme

Shit, here I was sitting all smugly waiting to put up some post comparing mandatory minimums for drugs to the assuredly light sentence Madoff would get for stealing billions of dollars. Then they had to go and give him the maximum 150 years sentence. Ouch. If there's any consolation it's that the world will be a wondrous new place that will finally have flying cars and shit when he walks out those prison gates in 2159 at the ripe old age of 221.

Just kidding, he'll be long dead and un-mourned. Is there any chance we can get the judge to make sure the body stays in the prison for the full 150 years? Lacquer the corpse up, mount in on a wall, and leave it there as a message to all the little country club kids who come in for the "Scared Straight: White Collar Edition" program.

Bernie Madoff less of a scumbag than previously thought

Madoff's Ponzi Scheme: $50 Billion Figure May Be Fictitious

Bernard Madoff and $50 billion. His name and that number have become inseparable in describing the enormity of what has been called the largest white-collar fraud in history. It's a figure that has helped demonize Madoff and relegate big-time money managers charged in subsequent securities schemes to mere "mini-Madoff" status.

Investigators claim Madoff himself told them that he stole $50 billion, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the number may be as fictitious as the sprawling fraud that he allegedly ran.
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Harbeck said he believes the $50 billion estimate is unreliable because it "includes entirely fictitious profits" that Madoff said he brought investors over the years. Even the $17.1 billion that the SEC recorded last year as being held by Madoff Investment Securities LLC _ once thought to be the legitimate side of his operation _ "does not appear to reflect reality," he added.

Oh, well then, only $17 billion. The man's practically a saint. What's all the fuss? I wonder if we can bail him out to cover his losses?

First he lies about his company, lies about the profits, then lies about how much he stole? Some people. I hope he feels bad about lying about exactly how many billions he thieved.

So, however big of a douchebag you thought Bernie Madoff was, reduce that number by half. He's still probably one of the biggest Wall Street scumfucks there ever was (an boy what an achievement that is) but let's not give the man any undue credit. So, if you thought he needed to spend a month in the public stockades, it's probably more like 2 weeks/a week and a half. To add insult to injury, as long as the TARP fund is handing out money to Wall Street, Bernie didn't even run the biggest Ponzi scheme ever. Some guys never win.

Broken In Brief: Burris stakes claim for lamp, end table

WASHINGTON--After his attempt to seize the senate seat vacated by President-Elect Barack Obama was rebuffed by Congress, former Illinois attorney general Roland Burris publicly claimed ownership of two floor lamps and a brass doorknob that were left behind in Mr. Obama's office and moved to claim an ornate end table gifted by the Prime Minister of Fiji and placed just outside the office entrance of the junior senator from Illinois.

Burris, who was appointed to the senate seat by Illinois Governor Rod "I'm so corrupt, I shit Daleys" Blagojevich, was told upon arriving at the Capitol that his credentials were not in order and that he would not be seated with the 111th Congress.

"Frankly, we are dismayed." said Burris attorney Timothy W. Wright III. "We intend to avail ourselves of the justice system and pursue this seat with everything at our disposal. In the interim, Mr. Burris plans to lay hands on Ted Kennedy's decanter, a couple of duvet covers, and a jar of that stuff they use to keep Nancy Pelosi's skin tight. I think it's beet juice. Anyone who tries to deny him these items is denying the will of the voters."

Efforts to get Mr. Burris on the record were rebuffed as the Senator-Select was busy trying to figure out the proper seat configuration in his Ford Windstar so that he could fit both the end table and his entire entourage inside. The final configuration was rumored to be both back seats down and Mr. Burris' press secretary sitting on the lap of Mr. Wright.

Mommy and Daddy are grifting for Xmas

The American spirit remains undeterred. Can't afford presents or basic goods? Fuck it, take 'em anyway. You deserve them and so do your children. If Mattel didn't wan't your kids to get a Memphis Jookin' Elmo they shouldn't have made it so damn appealing and stocked it in stores that aren't susceptible to the snatch and dash.

Police departments across the country say that shoplifting arrests are 10 percent to 20 percent higher this year than last. The problem is probably even greater than arrest records indicate since shoplifters are often banned from stores rather than arrested.

Much of the increase has come from first-time offenders like Mr. Johnson making rash decisions in a pinch, the authorities say. But the ease with which stolen goods can be sold on the Internet has meant a bigger role for organized crime rings, which also engage in receipt fraud, fake price tagging and gift card schemes, the police and security experts say.

Don't we know it. The TB grifter ring has netted us profits in the thousands over the last few weeks. In fact if Sean or I gives you a gift this holiday season it was 100% stolen, either from a store or from a vulnerable person in a parking lot. You're able to get nicer things this way.

Just remember, if it's too expensive, you don't have to walk away. Just know where the exits are and don't stop running until you can't hear the sirens.

Same old same old

The Bailout Isn't Being Policed Properly: Government Accountability Office

In the first comprehensive review of the rescue package, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday that the Treasury Department has no mechanisms to ensure that banking institutions limit their top executives' pay and comply with other restrictions.
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In a response to the GAO, Neel Kashkari, who heads the department's Office of Financial Stability, said the agency was developing its own compliance program and indicated that it disagreed with the need to work with regulators.
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The GAO is one of three watchdogs that Congress has assigned to monitor the extraordinary $700 billion financial rescue package, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. A congressional oversight panel is scheduled to issue its report on Dec. 10. In addition, Congress created an inspector general's office to oversee the program, but the confirmation of veteran federal prosecutor Neil M. Barofsky to the post has been blocked in the Senate by a senator who remains anonymous under Senate practice.

Who could have foreseen...blah blah blah. Protections get put in, regulations made, laws signed....and then the Bush Administration makes sure that none of them get implemented, says it'll set up its own oversight, and commences an unfettered handout of billions while Democrats stand on the sidelines going "Hey....wait, this doesn't seem right!"

So financial institutions aren't complying with regulations (see how much they've learned!) and we have no measure to make them comply or even know what they are doing because the position tasked with making them comply is being held up by one person in the Senate. But don't worry, Neel "Don't annoy with with your pissant questions" Kashkari is totally going to get around to setting up his own compliance program and he's going to set it up any day now, what with all the time he and Hank Paulson have left at their jobs.

Take heart, America. That money is being pissed away for companies to make dividend payments, mergers, and to buy other, smaller, failing banks, and every regulation is not being followed and no one will do anything about it. Is that par for the course or did Bush and the Treasury Department hit a birdie this time? Remember this when you find out that we left Detroit's bailout in a burlap sack outside Gordie Howe's house and aren't sure Ford or GM even got it.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.11

Has Anyone Seen a Stray H-Bomb?
FYI, in 1968 a US B-52 carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed into the water off of Greenland's Thule Air Force Base. Only three of the bombs were recovered. As of now there is one unexploded H-Bomb sitting at the bottom of a frozen bay, unable to be found by us, the Brits, the Danes, or Greenlandianeers. Or so they would have us believe. Perhaps the UK is sitting on a classic, retro, vintage '68 US H-Bomb and wants to show it off to look cool. Maybe there's some mutant whale creature named Bjorn with a taste for haddock that's going to rise from the Baffin Bay to lay siege to the Queen of Denmark in her ice castle in the capital city of Nuuk. Maybe it'll just explode and drop half of Greenland or a giant ice shelf into the sea creating a massive tidal wave that destroys the eastern seaboard. Sleep tight!

Cosmic 'Dark Flow' Detected Across Billions Of Light Years
Some sort of gravitational pull that lies outside the known universe is pulling the known universe towards it at a speed of about 2 million miles per hour. They gave it a creepy name, "the dark flow", and I'm sure it will kill us all with it's unexplainable, outside the universe ghastliness. Perhaps it is God pulling us towards him with a string, perhaps another bully universe is flushing us down a cosmic toilet, maybe it's the gravitational pull of yo fat ass momma. The only question is will CERN kill us before it does?

Fred Phelps Plans to Picket Funeral of Obama's Grandmother
Degenerate piece of shit Fred Phelps (picketer of gays, the military, and Mr. Rogers) and his collection of mouth breathing God-fascists are planning to picket the funeral of President-elect Obama's grandmother. Crafty sorts that they are, they have contingency plans for whatever state the funeral takes place in. Hopefully the Secret Service wails on them with their government issue America batons. Or God causes them to realize the pathetic futility of their lives with a well timed lightning strike. Either or.

A Quiet Windfall For U.S. Banks
Hey, hey, hey, while you weren't looking, fuck while no one was looking, Big Bank Hank Paulson illegally got rid of a law he didn't have the authority to get rid of that saves banks $140 billion by allowing them to set up shady tax shelters. Further more lawmakers weren't aware of this until recently and won't do anything about it because it might monkey with some of the mergers that went on. Did I mention it was totally illegal for Paulson to do this? Thank God he's in charge, otherwise we might not get totally fucked out of every cent in Washington. Could you at least use guns and masks to steal? It's slightly more respectable.

This bailout was such a great idea

Banks to Continue Paying Dividends

U.S. banks getting more than $163 billion from the Treasury Department for new lending are on pace to pay more than half of that sum to their shareholders, with government permission, over the next three years.

The government said it was giving banks more money so they could make more loans. Dollars paid to shareholders don't serve that purpose, but Treasury officials say that suspending quarterly dividend payments would have deterred banks from participating in the voluntary program.

Critics, including economists and members of Congress, question why banks should get government money if they already have enough money to pay dividends -- or conversely, why banks that need government money are still spending so much on dividends.

That's right, 52% of the bailout is going to pay out dividends to stock holders. Sorry, that should have had an exclamation point or two at the end of it. That's why this is a crisis right? Because dividends aren't being payed out, right? Not credit markets or housing markets failing, dividend payments for companies in dire financial straits not getting handed out. I guess if you own stock in these companies, you ought to be happy, you are getting your taxpayer bailout money back. What tremendous luck. I sure am glad we got a Goldman Sachs/Wall Street insider lording over everything, otherwise the important shit like this would get overlooked because most people's natural reaction would be to say "Fuck dividend payments." But those people are wrong for some reason. This is exactly what our money should be spent on, because...free market...something, something.

Stealing Atrios' bit

Short answers to stupid questions:



No. No they aren't.

DRAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE, Fidel, you boy!

If Cuba has a milkshake and I have a milkshake and I have a straw...

Cuba claims massive oil reserves

The state-owned Cuban oil company says the country may have more than 20bn barrels of oil in its offshore fields - more than double the previous estimate.

Cubapetroleo's exploration manager said drilling in the offshore wells would begin as early as the middle of 2009.

Such reserves would place Cuba among the top 20 oil producing nations.

Uh-oh, looks like we're going to need to add Cuba to the list of places we shouldn't import oil from. Let's see the list includes the entire Middle East, Venezuela, and Russia. Perhaps we just need a sufficient offshore operation. You know, giant rigs drilling slightly at an angle. I believe the term is slant drilling. Steal Cuba's oil, that's got to bump up our 3% of the world's oil reserves up a couple percent. I'm sure the CIA already has a plan and there are still a couple people in the backrooms there still pissed about the Bay of Pigs. I say let them commence Operation Plainview. We can drill our way out of this energy crisis.