{"id":20,"date":"2001-12-06T14:22:46","date_gmt":"2001-12-06T19:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/wordpress\/dancing_on_graves"},"modified":"2001-12-06T14:22:46","modified_gmt":"2001-12-06T19:22:46","slug":"dancing_on_graves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/2001\/12\/dancing_on_graves.html","title":{"rendered":"Dancing on Graves"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nDoing some more reading, this time on the
\nHoly Land Foundation<\/a>, which had its assets
\nfrozen by the US government a couple of days ago. The group had some
\nchoice words on the matter, calling it an “attack on Islam”, among other things.\n<\/p>\n

\nWell, today an
\nFBI memo
\ncame to light<\/a>, describing various ties between the HLF and Hamas. My favorite part
\nwas the snippet from a 1995 fundraiser in Los Angeles, where a Hamas military leader spoke:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n“I hope no one is recording me or taking any pictures, as none are allowed…
\nbecause I’m going to speak the truth to you. It’s simple. Finish off the Israelis.
\nKill them all! Exterminate them! No peace ever!”\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThe event raised $207,000, some of which went to reward the families of
\nsuicide bombers. It took us six years<\/em> to shut these people down?\n<\/p>\n

\nOk, let’s turn to some happy news: Enron has now come
\nbegging
\nus<\/em> for power<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n“We don’t want to dance on anyone’s grave,” said Oscar Hidalgo, spokesman for the California
\nDepartment of Water Resources. “But this is sort of ironic.”\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nNonsense, Mr. Hidalgo! Dance, I say, dance!\n<\/p>\n

\nWe’re also being treated to a number of sad stories about poor rank-and-file Enron employees,
\nwhose retirement funds melted away as Enron’s stock fell from $90 to
\nchange-under-the-couch-cushion levels. Looks like the
\nLabor Department is even getting involved. You’ve got to hand it to the U.S. government — even if
\nyou’re a bunch of arrogant manipulative trash-talking middlemen, the plodding old Labor
\nDepartment will cheerfully step in to save your ass. That’s duty for you.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut let’s face it. Enron and the other energy traders simply took advantage of the
\nmassive loopholes in our own “deregulation” scheme. We Californians wore a short skirt
\nand asked for it. After all, in 1995 we allowed ourselves to be distracted by the
\nburning issues of the day, such as whether or not to provide cheap preventative medical care to
\nillegal immigrants. Hmmm… sexy issue with lots of people screaming on both sides,
\nor complex arcane issue involving huge transfers of money and power? Guess which one
\npenetrated our consciousness? Fortunately, we had plenty of experts (Gov. Wilson,
\nlegislators of both parties, and hordes of industry lobbyists) to decide the tough issues for us.\n<\/p>\n

\nNot to beat this Enron thing to death, but a few days ago I heard an “industry analyst”
\non NPR assuring the public that despite the debacle, energy production would continue.
\n“Power plants will continue to create electrons,” he said.\n<\/p>\n

\nArrrgh. All together, now: power plants don’t create electrons.<\/em> And
\nwhile we’re on the subject, power plants don’t move electrons, either.<\/em> Neither
\ndo computers. If we’re talking AC power, electrons just shake back and forth. That’s about
\nit. And DC power? Well, you<\/em> crack open your<\/em> Halliday and Resnick and
\ncalculate the electron drift speed for typical values of current and wire diameter. Then
\ncall ZDNet<\/a>
\nand let them in on the secret. I’m sure they’ll thank you for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I hope no one is recording me or taking any pictures, as none are allowed… because I’m going to speak the truth to you. It’s simple. Finish off the Israelis. Kill them all! Exterminate them! No peace ever!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}