Re: fyi/laurie mylroie

Henry Sholar wrote:

> > Okay, let's look at the Krugman piece:
> >
> > "But the real question is why Halliburton chose that particular supplier?a 
> > company with little experience in the oil business, mysteriously selected 
> > as the sole source of gasoline after what appears to have been a highly 
> > improper bidding procedure. Why did it get the job? We don?t know. But 
> > it?s interesting to note that the company appears to be closely connected 
> > with the al-Sabahs, Kuwait?s royal family. And the al-Sabahs, in turn, 
> > have in the past had close business ties with the Bush family, in 
> > particular the President?s brother Marvin."
> >
> > Krugman's piece is riddled with suggestions like this, with benign knives 
> > like "it's interesting to note" (more below). Does Krugman bother to do 
> > any further investigation, any further interviews about exactly why, 
> > before simply stopping here and noting that it's "interesting"? No, his 
> > bias makes it convenient to stop here and presume the worst.
>
> He doesn't presume the worst: the worst is that Halliburton has been 
> ripping off the soldiers fighting this war,
> the taxpayers paying for it, and everybody else it can rip off. 6 million 
> repaid for the gas deal with the Kuwati royal family; 16 million over 
> pumped up prices for food;

Henry, I found this report about that from Agence France Presse after a mere 
15 seconds on Google News search:

"The Army Corps of Engineers decided in November it needed more fuel and 
kerosene than originally anticipated, but the Kuwaiti government would not 
allow any Kuwaiti supplier other than Altanmia to submit bids, according to 
the waiver.

"So back in December, we asked KBRS (Kellogg, Brown and Root Services) to 
provide more fuel from Kuwait and Turkey. We couldn?t provide more fuel from 
Turkey because there was some transportation problems at the border at that 
time. We had to go back to Altanmia," said Carol Sanders, an Army Corps of 
Engineers spokeswoman.

"KBRS then negotiated some reductions in price because of the enlarged scope 
of the contract, she said.

"Since Altanmia was now KBRS?s sole source of supply, US regulations 
required it to obtain cost and pricing data from the supplier to justify its 
asking price. According to the waiver documents, Altanmia refused on the 
grounds that Kuwaiti law forbids disclosure of such data."

Now the above explanation addresses Krugman's allegations in his review 
about both Halliburton's high prices and why they were limited in their 
choice of suppliers. And Agence Presse France isn't some US conservative 
media outlet. Now, is this explanation addressed in either of the books 
Krugman reviews? Because it certainly wasn't addressed in his review.

> > "The family history of the Bushes helps us to understand one of the great 
> > tragedies of American political history. After the disputed election of 
> > 2000, the nation badly needed a president who would seek reconciliation. 
> > Instead it got a deeply divisive leader, who made a mockery of his 
> > campaign promise to be a "uniter, not a divider.""
> >
> > That "disputed election" was counted and recounted by every major newpaper 
> > (including the New York Times) and media outlet in the country for months 
> > after the election, taking into account uncounted chads, hanging chads, 
> > missing chads, chaddy chads, and everything single one of them (WITHOUT 
> > EXCEPTION) came up with the same result - Bush won. The vague insinuation 
> > in the phrase "disputed election" (which insinuates far more than the mere 
> > fact that Al Gore legally disputed the results) is a dead giveaway of a 
> > biased mindset.
>
> How about http://www.ericblumrich.com/gta.html for starters.
> "dead givaway"  now that's great language for Florida, 2000.

Ah the infamous Greg Palast, and his contention that George Bush would have 
lost Florida had more than 50,000 voters not been disenfranchised through an 
ex-felon voting policy. Unfortunately for Palast, something expected then 
happened. That ex-felon voting policy was reversed by the Florida 
legislature in March of 2001, so an anti-Republican surge in voting was 
expected in the next elections a full year and a half later. But what 
happened? Jeb Bush not only won the governorship, but won by a landslide (13 
percentage points), and Republicans won 18 out of 25 avaliable US House 
seats. Strange for a state that 2 years earlier supposedly went slimly 
Republican only because 50,000+ mostly Democratic voters had been 
disenfranchised. We'll see whether Palast's missing 50,000+ show up this 
year.

> > "Before he was elected governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, in partnership with 
> > a Cuban refugee whom Phillips suggests had CIA connections, bought an 
> > office building with $4.6 million borrowed from a savings and loan. When 
> > the S&L went bankrupt, the loan was taken over by the federal Resolution 
> > Trust Corporation, which for some reason allowed the partners to settle 
> > their debt for only $500,000. In another deal, Jeb was paid handsomely by 
> > a company selling pumps to Nigeria that somehow received large-scale 
> > financing from the US Export-Import Bank."
> >
> > Which "for some reason" allowed that. Any follow up investigation or 
> > interviews about what that reason was before publishing this? Nope. Just a 
> > nice sweet little insuation for your reading pleasure.
>
> Check with the Justice Dept., it is their charge --$74 million in taxpayer 
> money fraudulently obtained by
> the MWI Corp. of Deerfield, FL.

I checked. The lawsuit isn't directed at Jeb Bush at all, but at his 
business partner, and accuses him of going into business with "a member of a 
prominent national political family in an attempt to bolster MWI's sales 
abroad." Does Krugman mention that? No. Does the book he reviews mention 
that? Don't know, does it?

> > "Neil Bush sat on the board of another S&L, Silverado, which made $200 
> > million in loans?subsequently defaulted?to an oil company that in turn 
> > gave Neil large loans with no obligation to repay. In recent divorce 
> > proceedings it has emerged that a firm backed by Chinese businessmen, 
> > including the son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, paid Neil large 
> > sums in return for vaguely defined services."
> >
> > Any attempt to clarify that "vagueness" through interviews before 
> > publishing this with an insinuation of the worst? Nope.
>
> Bush was one of the defendents in the Silverado scandal who agreed to pay 
> millions in reimbursements.
> His "work" in China has been  extensively covered in the press lately, 
> Millions for his name.

Well despite Krugman's scant insinuations, I can't say that I'd be surprised 
at this one anyway. I never had much in my heart for Neil Bush. But using 
this against George Bush (senior or junior) is like using Roger Clinton 
against Bill.

> > "There are others, like George H.W. Bush?s post-presidential employment by 
> > the Carlyle Group, the private global investment firm whose Saudi 
> > investors included members of the bin Laden family."
> >
> > You mean the members of the bin Laden family who DISOWNED bin Laden? Who 
> > have criticized him for what he has donw?
>
> Well, that might be lately, Anthony. Remember that bin Laden (the bad one) 
> was helping the CIA run a war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Yes he did, but the bin Laden family disowned him back when he was exiled in 
1994, so to subtley link Osama with George HW Bush's post-presidential 
(i.e., post 1993) employment relationship with the bin Laden family is quite 
a stretch. But that doesn't stop Krugman from doing it, does it?

> Krugman, is writing a fuckin' book review there Anthony. He is going to 
> summarize, dangle sparkly little goodies in order that you read the books.

Linking George Bush senior to Osama through business deals with his family 
only one year before they disowned him is just an innocent "sparkly little 
goody"?

> > "It is important to realize that our general background coping, our 
> > familiarity with the world, is what Being and Time is all about. Indeed, 
> > Heidegger says explicitly that "this familiarity with the world . . . goes 
> > to make up Dasein?s understanding of being." This understanding of being 
> > provides a background understanding of what matters and of what it makes 
> > sense to do. Moreover, this background coping gives us a space or a 
> > clearing in which things and people can show up as mattering and 
> > meaningful for us."
> >
> > Look at that quote in his second sentence. First, I'd like to know exactly 
> > where that is in SuZ, so I can read the context and see what exactly he 
> > left out in the middle of it.
>
> Happy hunting. I'm sure what he left out will be the missing WMD, or a hint 
> at where they can be found in Iraq or Syria.

My theory is that they were taken by Greg Palast's 50,000+ disenfranchised 
Democratic voters, who are all hiding somewhere in the Everglades with them.

> > Secondly, he explicitly equates "our general background coping" with "our 
> > familiarity with the world" in the first sentence, and then uses the quote 
> > in the second sentence to equate those with "Dasein's understanding of 
> > being." Later in the paper, he describes this "background coping" with our 
> > background "practices". Therefore, he is equating our "background 
> > practices" with "Dasein's understanding of being". That's my take. If it's 
> > not accurate, please explain how not, in light of the above quote from his 
> > paper.
>
> I think what you want to know is whether he is talking about Dasein's ontic 
> understanding of Being or Dasein's ontological understanding of Being,  
> because you want to fit it somehow in your determinist grid of what is, by 
> your peculiar determinist view of hermeneutical ontology.

I'm not the one who denied that Dasein has power over the possibilities onto 
which it projects itself and is thrown. That's Heidegger. So if practices 
are in our power, then that can't be what Heidegger means. That's why I want 
to know where the above quote occurs, because from the first sentence in the 
quote, I presume that it is from SuZ, not the later Heidegger. So if Dreyfus 
is using SuZ to bolster his claim that Dasein has power over its 
understanding of Being, then he makes Heidegger blatantly contradict himself 
in the same work.

Anthony Crifasi

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