What the Hell are they thinking ?

About: uae firm eyeing u.s. ports - nation/politics - the washington times, america's newspaper

This is one story that needs thorough exposure & investingation. Who knows what shady interests are involved in making this happen? Some time ago the Chinese were trying to buy the port of Long Beach for their shipping & use & it was vetoed, I think. Why not this one? The argument "it's in Dubai's interest ..." doesn't float in my book. It is in the interest of a suicide bomber NOT to blow himself up! It is in the Interest of Iran NOT to get into a nuclear war with the US & try to bring on Armageddon.

And yet this enemy seem to do things "against their interest" all the time.

Comments

Mark de LA says

More info on the buy from Bloomberg. Why US companies don't run US ports is something to look into.

Mark de LA says

Google news feeds on this item can be subscribed to by pressing the Atom or RSS button on the left hand column of this Google News page.

BTW is there a wiki reference way of referring to feeds? The feed itself is here, but your browser will handle the front end to that. In Opera going to the feed just pops into a imbedded feed reader.

Mark de LA says

It might be interesting to use FastBlogIt to collate the discovery of what is going on here, but I feel I know the results anyway. With Globalization comes the loss of economic & political nationalism - the quest for money redraws the boundaries. It's both good and bad news. The good news is that nations have to rethink whether they can destroy eachother without hurting themselves. The bad news is we are turning our economies over to negotiating groups like the WTO & the G8 which are not elected bodies, but appointed through possibly corrupt power structures.
Investigation of this consequence will give us a strong eeEK!

- the news that a consortium of other countries (like the Middle East or China+the ME ) no longer have to conquer us militarily - they can just buy us with oil money or something else we have outsourced.

Mark de LA says
More follow up info here today url http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/gaffney/060213 - just keeping the story alive via google feeds.

Mark de LA says
Another follow up here - some senators noticed & the WH shed no real light. uri http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--portsecurity0216feb16,0,7856482.story?coll=ny-region-apnewjersey

Mark de LA says
Today's update is here: url http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060217/NEWS01/602170361/1006 I hope this story doesn't go away. The WH & other so-called authorities don't seem to want to open up this case to public view. This is one case where I think it is necessary. Considering the possible affect on the economy if all ports were simultaneously nuked!

Mark de LA says
I guess this one is heating up enough so no need to make further updates without a news database handy. It now offers opportunity for Bush Bashing so it will take on a life of it's own. uri http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185479,00.html

Seth says

source: Dave Winer

I love the political storm President Bush is caught in over the UAE port managers, because it is totally unfair, as he says it is. Of course they're perfectly qualified to manage the ports. They're not terrorists. They employ Americans. There's no extra risk. I love it because it's exactly the kind of dirty trick Bush uses, the same kind of dumb emotional illogic, and like his opponents he's left stammering like an idiot, caught in the headlights, explaining how it's not really an issue. It's the Swift Boat logic turned back at the master. It's as if Karl Rove was working for the Dems. I love it because it's funny and it's justice.

You know how Bush's attitudes make me feel. Now bear in mind that i am not in the political know ... i am just a citizen ... and these are just my feelings. But Bush makes me feel that he is just into the power of the thing. You can get it from his swagger. He goes "I can make you guys go to war" ... then i can turn around and "ignore threats" ... "I am omnipotent" ... "what i say goes". Now where is that dick sign ? ... oh well i'll flash the next best thing

Mark de LA says

SSDD!

- I was about to give up on this one because the News weather front gathered wind and became a News Hurricane - no need to add mine to it. That being said, the real story is 2-fold. The labor unions that contribute to Hillary & the demos don't like port modernization of the UAE company because they will no longer get their 100k for nothing jobs . On the other hand the Bush bashers can finnaly think they are on the right of Bush by writing "homeland security" 100 times a day on the blackboards of our tranced out minds! Won't work, tsk! tsk!

Seth says
Just keeping up with the story. The UAE has banned boing boing from view in their country.

Mark de LA says

Not a fan nor a detractor of boing! I wonder if Saudia Arabia also does the same. Should we block Saudi oil if this is true ?

Mark de LA says
Also China blocks just about anything they don't like - even Google cooperates. Should we block Chinese goods? (they already control the port of LongBeach, Calif.) Should we e.g. block all those nice cheap gadgets & stuff we find in Wallmart from entering the country ? Look at the appliances in your house, odds are at least one is Chinese made (& I don't mean Taiwan!). Then again the chips in your electronic devices are mostly made overseas except perhaps the Inten Inside.

Seth says
If China, a soverign country, wants a closed society ... wants to block dissident knowledge from getting to their people, who are we as Americans to tamper with that ? On the other hand i feel for the suppressed massess in closed societies ... after all, we are human beings first and Americans second. But then that same argument works with anyone you meet on the street ... why are you, my fellow stranger acting like a jerk, Here let me fix that for you .... that does not work ! This is where tolerance and respect for soverign borders needs to trump human rights.

Mark de LA says
Those in power in China, a soverign country, want a closed society. Most of the rest of the Chinese people don't! Did you gloss by that point boobie?

Mark de LA says

M 2006-02-25 22:20:58 2741

update 21 not 6 ports are involved.

Mark de LA says
Here is another eek!

from the NY Post on Saturday via WorldNetDaily.com - essentially it is an Al Qaida claim to have infiltrated the UAE government. If nothing else, it suggests that Al Qaida reads the news in this country.

Mark de LA says

seth 2006-02-25 14:11:20 2741

If China, a soverign country, wants a closed society ... wants to block dissident knowledge from getting to their people, who are we as Americans to tamper with that ? On the other hand i feel for the suppressed massess in closed societies ... after all, we are human beings first and Americans second. But then that same argument works with anyone you meet on the street ... why are you, my fellow stranger acting like a jerk, Here let me fix that for you .... that does not work ! This is where tolerance and respect for soverign borders needs to trump human rights.

Yep! Sounds a lot like you agree with Startrek's Prime Directive! Which sounds nice for imaginary worlds. On the other hand soverign borders change over the history of time. If we had done that in WW-II we would probably be eating sushi or speaking German. Verstehen sie?

In the words of CFR mandkind as a whole needs to figure out what to do with evil in this epoch.

Mark de LA says

seth 2006-02-25 10:37:23 2741

Just keeping up with the story. The UAE has banned boing boing from view in their country.

You missed the part below from the Boing!

source: ... We understand that this is due to the fact that the makers of the SmartFilter software, which is used by governments and private sector customers, just added BoingBoing to a category occupied mostly by porn sites. We have contacted Secure Computing, the makers of Smartfilter and are attempting to help them correct their error. We will post an update on BoingBoing soon.

...apparently somebody thought it was porn.

Mark de LA says
BTW, have you noticed that terrorism ignores ALL borders ?

Mark de LA says
Well, now, is it 6 terminals, 21 terminals (see somewhere above) or 9 ? The news is not that clear. [see: uri http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/2/28/131844.shtml?s=ic]

Mark de LA says

M 2006-02-28 09:31:32 2741

seth 2006-02-28 09:07:17 2741

listen to npr morning edition url http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5236849

Old news recycled to look like new news & taken out of context! what else do you expect from NPR. See Rush's program on that here.

Seth says
apparently Bush might have business interests in UAE url http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/03/news_video_clips_rev.html

Mark de LA says

seth 2006-03-03 13:38:25 2741

apparently Bush might have business interests in UAE url http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/03/news_video_clips_rev.html

Yep, & so did Bill Clinton - contributions to his slush fund (The Clinton Library) etc. - here is thegoogle of his stuff.

Mark de LA says
& now that the Dubai ports news-front has gone & been forgotton: there seems to be a bidding war. I never unsubscribed from the google feed on this one & I still get ~ 2 a week. The last I heard a couple weeks ago was that Dubai still technically owned the disputed ports but was looking for a buyer. So who owns our airports, railroads, other ports, & manufacturing base.....who knows?

Mark de LA says
Just in case you thought it was over, finished & done with my intrepid subscription to Google News on the subject has this story. Basically Dubai is still trying to sell to someone acceptable. This just proves that some stories are never finished OR that the media moves on & one still needs to be vigilant.

Mark de LA says
Remember Dubai ? My feed from Google still sends a story now & then. This one is the latest. Dubai is still trying to sell what they bought from a company in the UK.
The public has long forgotten. They are more interested in salacious sex scandals.

This too shall pass. (someday)
Kudos to Google for maintaining such a long audit trail on the story in their RSS feed.

Mark de LA says

And now watch the Middle Easterners get control of DOW Chemical corporation! I wonder what could happen?

I guess the 21st century form of warfare is simply to buy your enemy! The spread of capitalism seems to have worked too well!

Mark de LA says

Wow - so much has changed since this went out - a follow-up might be interesting. I wonder how much we owe China today.

What the Hell are they thinking ?

About: uae firm eyeing u.s. ports - nation/politics - the washington times, america's newspaper

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