Friday, October 23, 2009

T. Boone Pickens Demands Oil For His Sacrifice

I'm always a bit surprised at how honest some people are about their pro-imperialist beliefs:

T. Boone Pickens told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are “entitled” to some of Iraq’s crude because of the large number of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq.

Boone, speaking to the newly formed Congressional Natural Gas Caucus, complained that the Iraqi government has awarded contracts to foreign companies, particularly Chinese firms, to develop Iraq’s vast reserves while American companies have mostly been shut out.

“They’re opening them (oil fields) up to other companies all over the world … We’re entitled to it,” Pickens said of Iraq’s oil. “Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars.”

11 comments:

  1. the same way if you run into a china shop and break a bunch of their plates you're basically entitled to a bunch of new plates once they're done cleaning up after you. this is how it works in real life, right?

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  2. are you really comparing the war in Iraq to a man in a china shop? People losing their lives is not the same as breaking plates. If you REALLY want to make this analogy work I think the story needs to be if one walked into a china shop and while trying to break the plates was murdered by one of the shop keeper's sons. I think his family and friends might be entitled to some free plates in that scenario.

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  3. "People losing their lives is not the same as breaking plates."

    Really?! My goodness, I've based so much of my life around the plate-life equivalence.

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  4. @JN. Do you hear that? It is the sound of your sarcasm going unappreciated.

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  5. Shogen asked: `Why does the enlightened man not stand on his feet and explain himself?' And he also said: `It is not necessary for speech to come from the tongue.'

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  6. @JN. Thank you for that. Very clearly you have pointed out that your snarky remarks are the response of a foolish man who thinks himself enlightened. Maybe next time you should heed the words of another great man. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

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  7. huh, you arent very good at koans- try again.

    Two monks were watching a flag flapping in the wind. One said to the other, "The flag is moving."
    The other replied, "The wind is moving."

    Huineng overheard this. He said, "Not the flag, not the wind; the mind is moving."

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  8. Perhaps, but you forget Gasan when he said "Those who speak against killing and who desire to spare the lives of all conscious beings are right. ...But what about those persons who kill time, what about those who are destroying wealth, and those who destroy political economy? We should not overlook them. Furthermore, what of the one who preaches without enlightenment? HE is sucking my cock."

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  9. One day anonymous asked the master, "what is the meaning of your comparison?"

    By way of reply the master threw a bowl of dog vomit at anonymous. At that moment anonymous was enlightened.

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  10. I can not help, but feel touched in a personal way by that last story. Sometimes I too worry that I too am anonymous. Then, I look into the mirror and I am relived for at least I am not J.N.

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  11. One day anonymous was walking through a market. He overheard a customer say to the butcher, "Give me the best piece of meat you have." "Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You can not find any piece of meat that is not the best." At these words, anonymous was enlightened.

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