h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been to Spain once, and France once. I only got the impression I was acting like an obnoxious american once, and I was being obnoxious. Although I'm not sure it was a purely american form...

I've had a couple European friends, and they definetely came to the US with their own pre-conceived notions of what the US was like. But after living here awhile, they realised that it certainly wasn't as "bad" as they had originally thought it would be. They were open minded...

Which leads me back to my original post on this thread. Being close-minded and insulated towards other cultures is one of the chief complaints people on this thread make about Americans. And yet the behaviour of some of the harshest critics is nothing if not close-minded, rigid and insulated.

In my original post I used the word "hypocrit" to describe this behaviour, and that really offended some people. Oh well, don't act hypocritical if you don't want to be called on it.

dave

BB, do please calm down. Okay, you're right, it was Saturnine who used the term 'racist', I apologise for attributing it to you, but in the light of recent events, can you blame me? You seem a bit obsessive about the subject.
'Race' is a word I think that everyone uses - you can go on all you like (til the cows come home) , about there being no such thing as race, but a) Saturnine used the term, not me
b) if you look carefully at what i put, I was making the same point as you - Americans are not 'one' race, so how can one be racist against them?
c) It's shorthand, everyone uses it, what ought I to have said: "ethnic/cultural and kinship group" or some such other clumsy neologism?
BB, it's time you learned to chill out, lay off the personal abuse and learn that when someone says something, *anything* involving the word 'race', it doesn't mean they're doing it to upset you!

http://www.magenta.nl/crosspoint/us.html

You didnt upset me sweet heart, you never have.

I am not obsessive about racism I probably give it LESS attention than it deserves, but being someone who doesnt understand the issue I guess you will never agree with that, which is a shame. Yes I know you were married to a Moari, but that does not appear to have enlightened you and it seems you are not interested in being enlightened either. Like I say thats a shame.


It's shorthand, everyone uses it,
I dont use the word "race" in every day conversation, only when talking about racism. I dont you the word "caste" or any of the words that relate to the fallacial division of people on this planet. What is more I know lots of other people who dont either. Maybe they once did and learnt better, I used to refer to myself as half-caste but not since I came to understand the deeper meaning of that phrase.

Just because you think you know that "everyone" uses it does not make it so. Why cant you understanf this simple fact; what is in your head is not the absolute truth.


you can go on all you like about there being no such thing as race, but a) Saturnine used the term, not me

You should have ANOTHER look back Della. Saturnine used the word racist it was you who used the word race. Which is why Im explaining it all to you AGAIN.


if you look carefully at what i put, I was making the same point as you - Americans are not 'one' race,

(You, me, Americans and Iraqis are all one.)
I unlike you have looked carefully at what you posted you were not making the same point as me. You said there are varying races and I say there are none how on this little green planet are those two things the same. I suggest you look up the words: VARYING and NONE.


what ought I to have said: "ethnic/cultural and kinship group" or some such other clumsy neologism?

As someone who has claimed to be anti-racist in the past you "ought" to have some idea already. I wonder why someone who claims to be anti-racist avoids using more acceptable language simply because its clumsy. I guess it really is too much to ask that you add a few syllables to a sentence and learn some new words that arent in- or even less offensive to the majority of people on this planet. The fact that your not sure what to say and have a habit of being accidently offensive suggests that you dont really know much but just like to talk like you do. Here's an idea why dont you read some of those links I posted. You never know you might learn something.

BB, first, why gum up the works with your dogged obsession with 'race'?
Second *don't* call me sweetheart! You know you did it to be annoying, and it's just juvenile.
Three - why so personally abusive and insulting, and (3b) why do *you* get away with being personally insulting?
Four - <>
Right back at you! (BTW - I never said it was...)
Five - I could find links and stories from such sources as New Scientist, to show that doctors are now starting to be concerned at new studies that have shown that different "races" react differently to some drugs and treatments.
Question: Will Blicky (a) deny the existence of said studies? (b) accuse the researchers of racism? (c) Irrelevantly call me a stupid lying moron (again) and assert that I *can't* have read such articles?

1) Gum up the works? Have I broken H2G2 I thought you might have understood my concern with the issue but clearly not. My mistake for overestimating you mental capabilities.

2)OK as requested I will never call you sweetheart again.

3)Three - why so personally abusive and insulting, and (3b) why do *you* get away with being personally insulting?
(As you have trouble understanding a lot of what I post I thought it was best to simply pose the question back to you as you do much the same as me and get away with it too. So when you've worked it out you will have your answer in simple words that you can understand plus there will be no possibility of you misreading AGAIN.

4)No you have never said in so many words but you do like absolutes like always, ever and never aswell as imperatives like must. EG "everyone must agree" or "I know much more about adoption than you ever will" S you know more than me do you? You know more than I will ever be able to learn? it's hard to tell which you are fuller of BS or youself sometimes. I avoid things like this but you have done it over and over, there are example on this thread. Show me where I have done this and I will show you the facts to back it up if I cant I will conceed that I dont "know".

5) Go ahead please do I'd be genuinly interested.

I will show you links that prove some people are allergic to penicilin and others aren't. Or how two sisters can be prescribed different contraceptive pills because they do not have the same body chemistry. Race is still, always was and always will be a fallacy.


Question: Will Blicky (a) deny the existence of said studies? (b) accuse the researchers of racism? (c) Irrelevantly call me a stupid lying moron (again) and assert that I *can't* have read such articles?

Your improving I have called you a liar (because you've lied) called you stupid (when you have been) but never called you a moron. Thats Wraith's favourite remember?

Blicky, do chill out. Putting a little rainbow smiley-face doesn't help; you're still being abrasive.

> Gum up the works? Have I broken H2G2 I thought you might have understood my concern with the issue but clearly not.

When Della says 'gum up the works' I think (don't let me put words in your mouth!) that you've halted the discussion to have an argument on the meaning of 'racism.'

> My mistake for overestimating you mental capabilities.

Try not to resort to insults, Empty... er.. I mean Blicky.

We can get into semantics like the difference between "racism," "bigotry," and "prejudice." It's not important what we call it. What it means is making a decision about a group of people based upon preconceived ideas. I think we can all agree that it's wrong.

Let's go back to the reason why we're talking about this. Empty Sky routinely makes statements that are based upon his own prejudices. I think if we asked him, he would deny that the prejudice was against any ethnic group in particular. Unless... and this is a big one here, stay with me... Empty Sky believes that all Americans make up a new ethnic group. In that case, yes, we can say that Empty Sky is a racist. But a safer statement to make is that Empty Sky is prejudiced. Like most prejudiced people, when he is met with an individual that doesn't fit his stereotype of an Average American, he manages to resolve his internal conflict with "Oh, but you're an atypical American." This will happen with any American that he gets to know well.

> Race is still, always was and always will be a fallacy.

Blicky, by this I'm assuming that you mean dividing people up by race is a fallacy. I agree. The less distinction we make between people from different cultures, the closer we come together as a global society.

I dont put the smiley to offset any abrasiveness, I just put it on all my posts.

Biologically, humans are clearly all one race or species.

However, in common usage "race" is often used to refer to rough ethnic groupings. Perhaps it would be better if this was something that never crossed people's minds, but we're not thought police, and altering definitions of language to try to change the way people think (and no mincing, this is what political correctness is all about) is fairly futile.

Empty appears to become annoyed with anyone who doesn't agree with views, which he often expresses in an overstated and sweeping way.

Sorry to be pedantic...

>>>from http://www.dictionary.com

race (n)

1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.

2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.

3. A genealogical line; a lineage.

4. Humans considered as a group.

5. Biology. An interbreeding, usually geographically isolated population of organisms differing from other populations of the same species in the frequency of hereditary traits. A race that has been given formal taxonomic recognition is known as a subspecies.

6.A breed or strain, as of domestic animals.

7. A distinguishing or characteristic quality, such as the flavor of a wine.<<<

Please take note of classification number 2, which was the definition I was using to make my original point that has caused so much controversy.

I'm a racist... I definitely believe that without a channel or slot, bearings or shuttles can become dislodged wreaking all kinds of mechanical havoc.

Im well aware that when you try to get people out of their mental ruts you will meet some resistance and even create some tension, I am sorry for everyone who goes round with these out date and plainly false ideas in their heads, but Im not forcing anyone to change. Im merely stating an argument in my opinion a very important one that can affect us, everyone of us many times a day without us knowing and has at its crux something that could be the downfall of humanity or what might save our planet.

Im not trying to be thought police, its called "political correctness" for a reason its about redressing long standing and terrible inequities.

What getting newsreaders to change from saying it was a black day to saying it was a terrible day is important?

Yes it is. The Nazi's from day one did not erect concentration camps and herd the Jews, Gypsys and Homosexuals. They built up to that using words as propaganda, this propaganda was founded on age old myths like the blood label and anti Gypsy sterotyping. False science that the Nazis said proved that Homosexuals were defective people. The more the words that conveyed these ideas became common parlance the more the ideas just seemed normal and right.

Hilter managed to get people to do the unthinkable by getting people not to think about it. He made his ideas common sense, he made them into the things that everyone thought but no one thought about.

The triangle trade that lasted for centuries selling black skinned people as if they were property, transporting them like they were livestock and killing them like they were pests survived because in the Spanish language their name came from they were not people they were negros = black object. they were people just like you and I but not in name and therefore not under the law. This was all during and after the enlightenment. European culture had been reborn and it was copying the worst aspect of the Roman Empire.

The first use of biological warfare was when white Americans handed out blankets contaminated with small pox to the Native americans. The first gas attacks against the Kurds were ordered by Winston Churchill because he saw them as "uncivilised people". In the 1930's the American Government prolonged the suffering of black americans with VD just to see what the prolonged onset looked like in humans. Cruel in itself but worse when you consider that they were being given asprin which the sufferes were told would cure it. A little closer to home Cromwell's actions in Ireland reduced its population by nearly a third. Two hundred years later the British Goverment refused to order in extra stock of food to allieviate the famine as the suffering and deaths from starvation of our near neighbours were not enough of a reason to interfere with the free market. In his official report Judge Macpherson said that the police failed and inpart purposely botched the investigation into the murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence because of institutionalised racism.

I could go on but I dont want to clog up the thread with my little obsession.

Political correctness is not just about words it is about peoples lives, jobs, health and emotional well being. Do you know any people who have suffered because of the forced inequties between people that are created by incorrcet ideas like sexism and racism?

Do you know anyone who sat in the bath crying, trying to wash himself white with a scrubbing brush and ajax scouring powder so the other little boys wouldnt tease him at school? Well you do now.

Anyway now I've explained that you can all go back to talking about suspension on vehicles and arguing whether they are trucks, mini vans or cars.

Number five....

Hey, Blicky - this article is from New Scientist, July '01. As you can see, though it backs you in saying that there is 'no such thing as race' inasmuch as there is no genetic markers particular to any one ethnic background. However, they tested people from different 'racial backgrounds', which, BTW, is the sense in which I used the word - they studied haplotypes from '21 whites, 20 blacks' etc. It would be ridiculous for a scientific study to talk about studying haplotypes from '20 people from an Asian ethnic/cultural/linguistic and cultural background'. The study was done in the USA, published there then was in the 'news' section of New Scientist, URL below...

Surprise variation found in human genes

13:32 13 July 01


There are an average of 14 versions of each human gene, new research has found. This unexpected amount of genetic variation should force a rethink on the human genome, says the team at Genaissance Pharmaceuticals based in New Haven, US.

The team analysed 313 genes from 82 Americans from four racial backgrounds. Estimates vary, but there is probably a total of about 30,000 human genes.

"We've looked at the largest number of individuals and diverse populations that's ever been done," said Gerald Vovis, Genaissance chief technology officer. "The most surprising finding was the fact that we found an enormous variation within these genes which had not been known before."

The new study suggests that while humans have only 30,000 genes, there are between 400,000 and 500,000 gene versions. Vovis said these differences might partly explain why people respond so differently to the same medications.

Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute in the US told Reuters: "We have been talking a lot about how similar all our genomes are, that we're 99.9 per cent the same. That might tend to create an impression that it's a very static situation. But that 0.1 per cent is still an awful lot of nucleotides."
Tailored medicine
The Genaissance team analysed SNPs - small stretches of DNA where there is known to be a high degree of variation between people. But, rather than looking at individual SNPs, they studied closely bunched sets which are inherited together, called haplotypes. The number of different haplotypes for each of the 313 genes varied from two to 53, but the average was 14.

The team studied haplotypes from 21 whites, 20 blacks, 20 people of Asian descent, 18 Latinos and three Native Americans.

They found no variation between gene versions that could define any one of the ethnic groups, Volvis said. But they did find that different versions of a gene are more common in a group of people from one geographical region, compared with people from another.

The company says it hopes to catalogue the haplotypes of every human gene by analysing DNA from 90 people from Africa, Asia and Europe. Volvis says he hopes this knowledge will help doctors choose the most effective medical treatments according to a person's genetic make-up.

The research was published in ScienceExpress

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991016
(This is going to be my final word on the subject - Lentilla is correct in her posting below yours...)

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/conspiracytheories/saudi.html

Is it a conspiracy or a coincidence? There is a long and tangled history between the Bush family and the elite of Saudi Arabia.







There are many business and connections between the Bush family and the elite of Saudi Arabia.



It begins in the 1970's in Houston, Texas, when George W. Bush was just starting out in his family's two businesses of politics and oil. The powerful - and very rich - Bin Laden family helped fund his first venture into oil.

The cozy friendship continued for decades. After a terrorist attack at a barracks in Saudi Arabia which killed 19 Americans, the bin Laden family received a multi-billion dollar contract to re-build. And incredibly, George Bush Sr. was in a business meeting at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington on the morning of September 11th with one of Osama Bin Laden's brothers.

Below is a timeline that details the relationship between the Bin Laden and Bush families that culminates in the tragic events of September 11th.

1968
George W. Bush joins the Texas Air National Guard, a coveted position that ensures he doesn’t have to serve in Vietnam. While a member of the Guard, Bush meets and befriends Jim Bath, a former Air Force pilot and budding entrepreneur.

1976
George H. W. Bush becomes director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). During his tenure, Bush helps provide training for the Saudi royal family’s palace guard, cementing a relationship that proves critical to the Bush family’s fortunes. Bush also privatizes various CIA assets, with Bath considered one of the beneficiaries because of his involvement in the aircraft business. Bath will later tell a business associate he works for the CIA and was recruited by Bush Sr.







Jim Bath is alleged to be the link between the Bin Laden and Bush families.


Salem Bin Laden, older brother to future al Qaeda leader Osama, enters into a trust agreement with Jim Bath, whereby Bath will act as the bin Laden family’s representative in North America, investing money in various business ventures. Bath also becomes the business representative of Khalid bin Mahfouz, a member of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful banking family and owners of the National Commercial Bank, the principal bank of the Saudi royal family.

1978
Charles W. “Bill” White, a former Annapolis graduate and US Navy pilot, graduates from Harvard’s business school. He is then introduced to Jim Bath who is looking for someone to manage his real estate company. Bath hires White as his partner. Money from the bin Laden and bin Mahfouz families is invested in Bath’s real estate company. Among other things, Bath buys the Saudis an airport, office and apartment buildings, and invests in Texas banks. Eventually, Salem Bin Laden and Khalid bin Mahfouz buy an enormous mansion in River Oaks, Houston’s most affluent neighborhood. Read an interview with Bill White







Bush Jr. was a young man when he received funding for his first oil venture from Jim Bath.

George W. Bush starts up an oil company in Texas called Arbusto 78. Bath will invest money from Salem bin Laden and Khalid bin Mahfouz in this new company. Bill White is told by Bath that more than $1-million of the Saudis’ money was pumped into Bush’s venture.

1979
The Carter administration, through the CIA, begins to fund the fledgling mujahadeen in Afghanistan – six months before the Soviet invasion – in the hopes of drawing the USSR into its own Vietnam.

1980
George H.W. Bush runs for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party, but loses to Ronald Reagan. He becomes Reagan’s running mate and eventual vice-president.

1981
Osama bin Laden, son of the founder of the Bin Laden Group, the largest construction company in Saudi Arabia, travels to Afghanistan to help the mujahadeen in their bloody war against the Soviet Union.

1986
Bill White and Jim Bath have a falling out. Bath then launches 28 frivolous lawsuits against White, leading to White’s financial ruin and expulsion from Houston’s business community. White fights the lawsuits, refusing to take a huge pay off to keep silent about his knowledge of Bath’s relationship to the Saudis and Bush family. Read an interview with Bill White

1987
Harken Energy, a company that George W. Bush’s failed oil companies have been folded into, receives $25-million stock offering underwritten by significant players connected to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), a Middle Eastern banking concern. Bush is key to Harken obtaining the money.

1989
The Soviets pull out of Afghanistan after the CIA spends (US) $3-billion on the largest covert operation in its history. Osama bin Laden returns to Saudi Arabia, angry with how the Americans abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet retreat.







Bin Mahfouz, Osama's brother-in-law, lived in Houston and had ties to both the bin Ladens and Jim Bath.


1988-92
The BCCI scandal breaks. The bank is exposed for being a massive criminal enterprise, catering to some of the most notorious villains of the 20th century, including Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega, terrorist leaders Abu Nidal, and the Medellin drug cartel and for being involved in money laundering, the Iran contra scandal, and pilfering investors’ cash. At the time of its collapse, Khalid Bin Mahfouz (see above) was COO of BCCI, and is eventually fined $225-million to settle felony charges for stealing investors’ money.

1991
The first Gulf War occurs, whereby George H. W. Bush is determined to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait to ensure the Iraqi dictator doesn’t have a stranglehold on world oil markets. Osama bin Laden urges the Saudi royal family to find an Arab solution, by raising an army on their own to fight Hussein. When the royal family invites the U.S. in to do the job instead, Bin Laden becomes disenchanted with the House of al-Saud. His anger grows when after the war the US leaves 20,000 troops behind in Saudi Arabia. Soon Bin Laden makes a deal with the Saudi royal family: he is allowed to leave the kingdom with his fortune, and will receive funding for al Qaeda from various Saudi charities and banks, but in return he must not launch attacks against the royal family. Bin Laden settles in the Sudan, aiming his ire at the US.

1992
George H. W. Bush loses to Bill Clinton. Eventually the former president becomes an adviser to the Carlyle Group, a powerful Washington-based private investment firm with interests in the defense industry. Among his duties, Bush helps strengthen Carlyle’s ties to the Saudi royal family. He will later visit Saudi Arabia and the bin Laden family compound. The bin Ladens eventually invest in the Carlyle Group. Carlyle buys a company called Vinnell Corp., which provides training to the Saudi palace guard. George W. Bush briefly sits on the board of directors of one of Carlyle’s subsidiaries.

1993
The first attack on the World Trade Centre, which is connected to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, occurs.

1994
George W. Bush becomes governor of Texas.

1995
Five American soldiers are killed in a car bomb in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis quickly execute the suspects they arrest, ignoring wishes from the FBI to interrogate them beforehand.

The Taliban come to power in Afghanistan with the backing of Pakistan’s notorious intelligence agency, the ISI.

1996
Osama bin Laden is forced to move from the Sudan to Afghanistan under pressure from the Clinton administration. Neither the US nor the Saudis make an effort to arrest him – despite the opportunity offered up to them by the Sudanese government.

June
A truck bomb blows up the al-Khobar barracks, housing US air force personnel in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 soldiers. A group called Saudi Hezbollah claims responsibility. Eventually, the Clinton administration drops the investigation because it does not want to upset relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran – the country that funds Hezbollah.









The Saudis - including Bin Mahfouz meet with an al Qaeda representative at a Paris hotel in 1996.




Summer
A meeting of prominent Saudis occurs in a Paris hotel. Among the attendees is the head of Saudi intelligence, Turki bin Faisal, and Khalid bin Mahfouz. They meet with a representative of al Qaeda and agree to extend the earlier arrangement made between the Saudi royal family and Osama bin Laden – whereby in return for cash, al Qaeda agrees not to attack inside Saudi Arabia.

The CIA produces an internal report that documents the numerous Saudi charities that are funding terrorists. Osama bin Laden’s name is mentioned.

1998
Al Qaeda makes it most audacious attack to date by blowing up US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people.

2000
January
Ziad Jarrah, pilot of Flight 93, which would crash into a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11, is stopped and interrogated at an airport in United Arab Emirates (UAE). He is returning from al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and is carrying Islamic religious material on him. The US is informed of the interrogation but not the details.

January
A high-powered meeting of al Qaeda occurs in an apartment complex in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Attending the meeting is Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, the number three man in al Qaeda and mastermind behind the 1998 US embassy attacks, and architect of the USS Cole and 9/11 attacks to come. Also at the meeting is Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two Saudi citizens who would end up as hijackers on Flight 77, the plane that crashes into the Pentagon on 9/11.

The CIA learns about the meeting beforehand and asks the Malaysian secret police to place it under surveillance. Video footage and photographs of the dozen men in attendance are taken, though no tape recording is possible. After the meeting breaks up, Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar fly to the US on their own passports, landing in Los Angeles. There they are met by Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national who works for the Saudi civil aviation authority. Just prior to picking up the two would-be hijackers, Al-Bayoumi meets with a member of the Saudi consulate in LA – a man connected to terrorist activity.

Al-Bayoumi takes al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi to San Diego, puts them up in an apartment, signs a lease, holds a party for them, enrolls them in flight school and gives them money. Later, the FBI concludes that al-Bayoumi is likely a Saudi intelligence agent. Al-Bayoumi also passes on thousands of dollars to the hijackers that originate from Princess Haifa, wife of Prince Bandar Saudi ambassador to the US.

May-June
Members of the Hamburg cell, including ringleader Mohammed Atta, enter the US. They are traveling on Saudi visas, all of which contain errors on them.

September
Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar move into the home of a local imam in San Diego, Abdussattar Shaikh. The imam is an FBI informant. In fact, Shaikh holds meetings with his FBI handler while al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar sit in a room next door. Shaikh contends he was never told what mission the hijackers were on. His FBI handler, meanwhile, was never informed by his superiors to look out for al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.

October
The USS Cole, sitting in a harbour off the coast of Yemen, is attacked by a boat laden with explosives, killing 17 sailors.

November
George W. Bush is elected president of the US in a contested election. Support for his campaign from the oil industry is generous.

2001
In the months leading up to 9/11, the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency receive a burgeoning mountain of intelligence that a terrorist attack of some magnitude, and launched by Al Qaeda, is imminent. They assume the attack will happen overseas.

January
The CIA and FBI begin to piece together the importance of the individuals who met a year earlier in Malaysia. Despite the information they have, neither al-Hazmi nor al-Mihdhar are placed on the State Department and Customs watch list.

April
Al-Hazmi is stopped for speeding in Oklahoma. He is let go because his name does not appear in the police officer’s data bank as a wanted man.

May
The CIA will later determine that Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, architect of 9/11 and al Qaeda’s other attacks, was entering the US as late as this month, despite the fact he is a well-known figure in the terrorist netherworld, his name first becoming known to the CIA as early as 1995.

June
CIA and FBI meet to talk about al-Mihdhar. But the CIA does not hand over critical information to the FBI. Again, the men are not placed on any watch list and a search for them is not initiated.

July
A Phoenix, Az.-based FBI counter-terrorism agent writes a lengthy memo in which he says it has been noticed that a high number of Arabs, possibly with connections to al Qaeda, are taking flying lessons in local flight schools. His memo is ignored by FBI headquarters.

August
President Bush receives a detailed and lengthy presidential daily briefing from the CIA in which Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda’s aim of launching an attack against the US is discussed. To this day, the Bush White House refuses to release the contents of this briefing to Congressional inquiries into 9/11.

The CIA finally puts al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar’s name on the watch lists. By then it is too late. The FBI and CIA do a limited search for the men.

Sept. 11/2001
The attack occurs. The morning of the attack George Bush Sr. is meets with members of the Carlyle Group in Washington. Bin Laden's own brother is at the meeting. Members of the Bin Laden family are allowed to leave the U.S. without questioning two days later.

Whoa, just had the wierdest case of deja vu...

I just tattoo'd zoomer's post on my arm so I'd remember it...Do I have to do it again on my right arm?

dave

*Is it a conspiracy or a coincidence?*

Who am I to decide?

"Conspiracy or Coincidence?" is a fine title for a movie!
Hollywood could buy it,it even has a plot!
Just wondering who will get to write the ending?

I think it was Robert Fnord Aspirin, author of the highly amusing Illuminati chronicles, who said "the most abiding superstition of the 20th century is the belief in coincidence"

I think it was Robert Fnord Aspirin, author of the highly amusing Illuminati chronicles, who said "the most abiding superstition of the 20th century is the belief in coincidence"


And I thought WRONG. It was Robert Anton Wilson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson