Posted on 05/04/2007 8:13:17 PM PDT by LFOD777
Robert James Woolsey Jr.-Jim to his friends-isn't your typical Prius driver. Educated at Stanford, Oxford, and Yale, he was facing down the Russians in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks of the late 1960s before he was out of his 20s. He's held a series of senior government posts; the walls of his office bear signed photographs and messages of thanks from every president since Nixon. In 1993, Bill Clinton made him director of Central Intelligence, giving him control of the CIA's $30-billion annual budget and its network of tens of thousands of agents and a brief to run covert operations against America's enemies, whoever and wherever they might be. His diaries probably read like a Tom Clancy novel.
Since he stepped down from that assignment, he's become one of Washington's most hawkish hawks, agitating early for the removal of Saddam Hussein, pointing a finger at Iraq in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and calling for the bombing of Syria. By rights, Woolsey ought to drive a big, bad Hummer. Instead, he drives a Prius, and he says that if you live in a country dependent on imported oil, it's your patriotic duty to do the same. His argument is simple: It's a bad thing for transport to depend on oil when the great majority of that oil lies in volatile parts of the world whose governments are hostile to the West. Moreover, he argues that, by making the Middle East so wealthy, we're indirectly subsidizing terror. For Woolsey, the cash register at your local gas station is a collection box for Al Qaeda. "We're paying for both sides in this war, and that's not a good long-term strategy," he says. "I have a bumper sticker on the back of my Prius that reads, 'Bin Laden hates this car.'"
(Excerpt) Read more at motortrend.com ...
They tried to import Russian cars, but the cars rusted out before they got half way across the Atlantic.
Some have Al Gore’s libs have waded into the deep end of the pool.
LFOD777 - April 21, 2007
berstbubble - April 15, 2007
The next generation of Prius will use lithium ion batteries. They are less polluting than the nickel metal hydride batteries currently used. They also have a higher power density which means that the batteries can be smaller and lighter.
Yep and the flip side of this is if we were to seriously reduce our dependence on foreign oil by switching to an alternative, such as hydrogen or electric from nuclear, this would increase the oil supply on the world market, thus driving the price down. Suddenly China would be provided an abundant source of cheap energy. Take that you Muzzies!
One common theme amongst Leftists and enviroweenies is the law of unintended consequences. We see it in every scheme they come up with. Brainiacs they ain't....
“Maybe if liberal Democrats would stop holding daily pep rallies for terrorists in which they repeat terrorist comments that Iraq is a quagmire, President Bush is a liar and our troops are failures, then maybe the troops would have a better chance.”
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You’re right. If the Dems would support this war then petroleum money would not be used by radicals in enemy regimes to battle against us.
I’m not sure how the two are connected but maybe if I drink what you seem to be drinking for breakfast, this might make sense.
Woolsey raises the most interesting question. Is a country such as Saudi Arabia an ally? The answer is obviously no. But we must pretend that they are our allies because we have a business relationship which is mutually vital to both countries. I do not believe America was founded for freedom, it was founded for independence which is a more inclusive concept than freedom. We have lots of freedoms but we are not independent as long as we must pretend like Saudi Arabia and a lot of other Islamic states are allies.
One thing that always ticks me off, is the whining I hear from the libs in Austin about the commuters. They want everyone to save fuel by riding the bus and drive the hybrids. Yet, I still see them in their Volvos with kerry/edwards bumper stickers and ONE PERSON per vehicle and stuck in the same traffic we are in on a daily basis.
I've been riding a van pools since 1990 and driving a van pool since 1992 when we went to the four day /10 hour workweek. I used to have five riders who rode 35 miles each way and three who rode 25 miles each way. Go figure the passenger miles per gallon on that load. The first van I had was a Chevy Astro and it got around 22 MPG.
I now have a Dodge Ram that only gets 15 MPG, but accommodates nine passengers, and three of us ride the entire 35 miles. I pick up six other about 1/2 way to work. Most days, there are seven or eight riders. Three of us ride 840 miles per week and the others ride 800 miles per week for a total of 1640 miles. Using 12 MPG as the mid point, my van pool is getting over 130 passenger MPG.
That is the best way to reducing fuel consumption in the US, but the Americans always have their love affair with their cars. Most people have neighbors or friends who live within a few blocks of home and work within a few miles of each other. I don't understand why not more people carpool to and from work.
Let’s find out who the epa workers, present government officials, past government officials,senators and representatives, are receiving and have received arab money. I understand there are some who are on a lot arab countries government payroll.
Then let’s get busy in ANWR, begin drilling off CA, MA, in the Gulf of Mexico, next door to the chinese who are already drilling there, then open up oil wells that have been plugged, go after shale oil and build some new refineries. And keep working to find better ways of operating oil dependent industries with alternative fuels.
No so obvious to me. What is your definition of an ally?
Go back to your cave and sharpen the knives that you stab the troops in the back with.
America and the war on terror are not to blame for high oil prices.
That is what murderous anti-American terrorists say to justify slaughtering people.
No real conservative would agree with that, only a hate-filled liberal would.
ROFL!!!!!!!!
Reading some of the comments here has me scratching my head whether some have a clue what they are talking about. Woolsey was CIA head under Clinton but Clinton never talked to him. Woolsey was always hard on Islamic terrorism and is today. He is nothing like Tenet who is a certifiable idiot.
As to the Prius, I don’t own one but I do own a Ford Escape Hybrid and can tell you that there is a 50% improvement in fuel mileage and energy is recovered upon braking. The technology is sound and the vaunted battery “problem” is palpable nonsense. There is plenty of power and absolute quiet at stop lights and low speeds when it runs on the electric motor. I’ve had no problems at all and the Prius will absolutely do great things toward saving on oil consumption which feeds Islamic terrorism. Diesels would be fine as well but whether or not they can pass emissions are an open question. A friend of mine claims 55 mpg on his VW TDI and 850 miles on a tank of fuel.
What I would do if I had the power would be to increase the price of gasoline to $10 a gallon and that would effectively shut down the demand from the Middle East and Venezuela and we can move quickly to alternative methods of transports. The status quo is a prescription for disaster. We got by on three gallons gasoline a week during WWII and the American people in the middle of a war to retain our civilization ignore the peril of the status quo.
That’s the only such gas station in the entire country
http://www.terrorfreeoil.org/franchise/locations.php
Hybrids sold in the U.S. (April 2007): 28,330
http://www.hybridcars.com/market-dashboard/apr07-us-sales.html
One way to logically define something is by list. And in our nation’s case that list would be a short one. The United Kingdom, Israel, and India are our allies. There may be a few more but not many. I do not really have a problem with Saudi Arabia, but our relationship with Saudi Arabia is based on oil, oil, and oil. Because our need for oil is so great we have always attempted to exploit their resources and they have always attempted to receive fair payment for that exploitation and use those monies to create stability to their nation state. A nation state in the Arab world is a difficult thing to sustain as nation states have become the targets of Islamic fundamentalism. The Middle East is such a difficult to place for the only remaining superpower to navigate. In one sense the Kurds are our allies and the things that would bond us are not something so material as oil but they have not organized in a way that we can recognize them as a nation state. And for whatever reasons, our treatment of them has been wretched and in my view unacceptable.
That said, I'd still like to blow his head off.
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