Hizzoner points to evils of oil

ny daily news ^ | August 5, 2006 | BY MICHAEL SAUL

[Flavius]

Says when we buy imported crude, cash goes to terrorists

BY MICHAEL SAUL DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

Mayor Bloomberg says our country's 'dependency on foreign oil' goes straight to 'funding Al Qaeda.' Mayor Bloomberg took on a new cause yesterday, attacking the oil-rich countries that he said exploit the United States' dependency on petroleum - then use the U.S. money to "buy arms for terrorists."

"This constant dependence on oil is something that leaves this country vulnerable every day," Bloomberg said on his weekly WABC radio show.

"Two reasons. One, what happens if it gets cut off overseas? And we're never going to have enough capacity domestically," he said. "And, two, where are these petro dollars going? They are going to buy arms for terrorists who are going to attack freedom around the world and, as 9/11 showed, they can attack here as well."

Earlier in the show, Bloomberg specifically linked the nation's dependence on foreign oil to the funding of the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

The mayor said the country's "dependency on foreign oil" goes straight to "funding Al Qaeda. I don't think there's any argument about where these petro dollars are going," Bloomberg declared.

"It's unfortunate that a mayor of his stature would make such statements," said Nail Al-Jubeir, a spokesman for the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington. "I urge him to read the 9/11 report, which should answer his concerns."

Saudi Arabia, considered an ally of the United States, is this country's third largest supplier of oil.

Al-Jubeir said he was very disappointed that Bloomberg would make such a "blanket" and "unfounded" allegation.

"I don't know what the intent of it was," Al-Jubeir said. "But the mayor - with his background in business - should know better than that."

Asked if he understood how Bloomberg's comments could be deemed offensive, Wayne White, former deputy director of the State Department's Middle East intelligence office during the Bush administration, said, "Oh, dear God, yes."

"There are good petro dollars and bad petro dollars - lots of good ones and some bad ones," White explained.

White said he and others believe that some of the petro dollars Iran gets go to fund Hezbollah in Lebanon. But according to government figures, the United States imports no oil from Iran, and less than 1% from Syria.

White described the mayor's remarks as "unhelpful" because "it diminishes the awareness of the extent to which a lot of petro dollars are going into many important efforts by the governments that are getting them."

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the United States currently imports less than 17% of its crude oil from the Persian Gulf. The top suppliers of oil to the U.S. are Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria.

In fact, since 1999, Canada has been the largest supplier of oil to the United States.

"There's a very strong energy relationship between the two countries, and we're hoping to get that message out," said Bernard Etzinger, a spokesman for the Canadian Embassy in Washington.

Stu Loeser, Bloomberg's press secretary, conceded yesterday that not every dollar spent on foreign oil is funding a terrorist organization.

"Nevertheless, there are oil producing entities that have direct ties to terrorist organizations, and that's what the mayor was talking about," he said.

Asked if the mayor wanted to apologize to the Saudis and others who may have taken offense by his statement, Loeser declined to comment.

"He speaks his mind," Loeser said. "Most people who were listening know what he was talking about."

Fuel for thought

Mayor Bloomberg said there's no question that U.S. dependence on foreign oil means more money for terrorists. Here's where we get most of our oil (as of May):

1. Canada . . . . . . .(16.3%) 2. Mexico . . . . . . .(12%) 3. Saudi Arabia . . ..(10.5%) 4. Venezuela . . . . .(10.3%) 5. Nigeria . . . . . .(8.4%)

[Flavius]

Mayor Bloomberg says our country's 'dependency on foreign oil' goes straight to 'funding Al Qaeda.'

[tomzz]

We need to ban the importation of oil. Of all the things we could possibly do to hurt the feral regimes and terrorists of the world, that one is numero uno. We have several untapped sources of oil, any one of which could easily supply all our needs, but the only way to get from here to there is the same way you stop smoking. It would mess us up about as bad as we were messed up during WWII for about a year, and after the one hard year, we'd be fifty times better off and the terrorists would all be singing the blues and squeeling like pigs.

[Westlander]

Yep, He's working hard.
http://www.e85fuel.com/database/locations.php?state=nyNew%20York

[Dog Gone]

We need to ban the importation of oil.

You're joking, right?

[Cobra64]

We need to ban the importation of oil.

Okay. Effective September 1, 2006. No oil is allowed to be imported into the United States.

What is the next step? What is your plan? Resources, budget, and timeline?

We'll wait.

[Texas Eagle]

Fine, Bloomy. Can we expect to hear you promote drilling in Alaska when you run for President?

Oh, wait. He's a Liberal so that would be "no".

I always forget Libs are big on pointing out problems and lacking on solutions.

[oceanview]

I heard this interview live - this story is hype, he was generally discussing the issue of energy in the context of the NYC blackouts, saying how we had to stop trying to thwart alternative sources - nuclear, wind, natural gas terminals, etc - which kept us reliant on oil.

where did the money for 9-11 come from? all those saudis who mysteriously died after 9/11, who were likely some of the funding links - where did they get their cash, from selling italian ices at Mecca?

[The Electrician]

They are going to buy arms for terrorists who are going to attack freedom around the world and, as 9/11 showed, they can attack here as well

Clearly Mike wants to reserve his own right to attack freedom here, and does not like the competition...

[Shooter 2.5]

Copy and pasted from another of today's threads.

Let's pretend you and another person are on a deserted island and food is slowly disappearing. While the food is still abundant, you buy from your neighbor while it's still inexpensive.

After a few months, your neighbor is out of food that you and he had eaten. You still haven't touched the food that you had surplused.

To remain alive, you can still eat your food but your neighbor doesn't have any to eat since his is all gone.

You can now make a decision if you want to help your neighbor stay alive or starve to death while you wait to be rescued.

[tomzz]

Timeline and plan:

Give the nation a sixty day warning as to what is going down. After sixty days, implement all of the following to the greatest extent possible:

• Ban the importation of oil to the US, permanently.
• Implement neighborhood worksites to substitute electrons for as much of the oil and rubber as possible. More than half of the population of most metro areas do not need to be in one physical location more than one or two days a week.
• Ban frivolous use of oil for a year, including motor sports and the like.
• Implement carpooling schemes such as was done during the oil crises of the 1970s.
• Agressively go after every source of oil and natural gas available to us including offshore of floriduh and Ca., ANWR, the new sites under the Rockies, shale oil, all of it. Oil companies would know that there was no other future in America, and that nobody would ever be allowed to wreck the plan by selling OPEC oil for 10/barrel for two years.
• Agressively go after new kinds of vehicles, particularly the MYT engine and lithiu-ion battery vehicles.
• Fund startup companies to produce the means to replace existing car engines with the MYT engine, which should be feasible due to the much smaller size of the new engines.
• Aggressively go after a plan to replace as much of the nations use of steel as possible with carbonfibre. The typical car weighs three times what it might using carbonfibre.
• Aggressively go after new nuclear power plants.
• Share these new technologies with others as we perfect them to further collapse the world price of oil.

[facedown]

You have vivid imagination.

[ClaireSolt]

Would you settle for Czar, or will only God Almighty satisfy you?

[Alberta's Child]

Good heavens -- this man is a moron.

The U.S. could stop importing oil from the Middle East tomorrow, and nothing would change.

[USMA '71]

This freakin' guy is an absolute loon! How could anyone in their right mind ever consider him a Presidential candidate - for either party???

[Cobra64]

Your plan makes New Orleans Katrina disaster look like a picnic.

There isn't one point that deals with reality.

Your points sound like Democrat promises with zero substance. Did you pick these up from the DNC?

[tomzz]

You'd rather live under sharia law?

[GOP_Raider]

What about building some new oil refineries for the first time since before I was born?

[tomzz]

Thanks, that needed to be on the list. YOu might could accomplish pretty much the same thing with a tarrif sufficient to keep imported oil at or above fifty dollars a barrel for all time, I don't know, but I strongly believe that the whole thing has to be implemented as a national policy and done quickly. Again the present situation is basically an accumulation of bad habits, like smoking.

[Cobra64]

You'd rather live under sharia law?

Meaningless limp retort.

Explain how your proposal (below) works.

- Implement neighborhood worksites to substitute electrons for as much of the oil and rubber as possible. More than half of the population of most metro areas do not need to be in one physical location more than one or two days a week.

Short version:

Yup, just press a few buttons on your Game Boy and hundreds of millions of tons of steel will be instantly available to make the drill pipe, casings, bits, structurals for rigs. Caterpillar, Case, Terex machines will majestically appear on the Western slope of Colorado and Wyoming harvesting oil shles. Refinieries will pop up majically when the Amazing Kreskin waves his wand. Commercial commerce, heating oil, natural gass will continue unabated.

After all, all the doers in the blue collar working world need only show up at the office twice a week. The wild catters, pipe fitters, steel smelters and machinists, can sit around the office drinking decaf coffee, smoking cigars, brining in wells and building the industry infrastructure.

Of course nuclear energy is a snap. Just pop in a tape from Westinghouse or GE and fast forward the Tivo.

Care to have me discuss another of your points? I've been in the oil and steel industries all of my life.

[tomzz]

I did not say that all of those things could be done quickly, but some could. Moreover, there is a huge difference between the amount of time we're etaking to build things today and the times it took to build things in WWII, e.g. the seebees turning a forest into a runway in ten days or the P51 going from paper to flight in three months. Things like that CAN be done wehen the country puts its mind and national energies to it.