About as many as it would have taken for the OJ jury to bring in a guilty verdict.

And there's 300,000 more where they came from.

John Chapman should be forced to work at one of these mass grave sites for a week. Just one.

Preserve the dollar as the world reserve currency?

So what now? ' I'm John Kerry, vote for me and I'll make the euro the world reserve currency'?

Parachute him into Darfur. Tonight.

What an idiot! How does he think that Saddam could have influenced the world to change the reserve currency? Was such a change imminent? These people watch too many spy movies.

Speaking of spy movies, what to make of the remake of the Manchurian Candidate? Now it is an American multinational company that brainwashes American soldiers during the Gulf War, and targets one to use his war record to become president, at which time they will take control of him to do their bidding. Shades of Halliburton. Why doesn't Hollywood just secede from the union, their contempt for America could not be camouflaged less?

I thinking the idea is that prior to the war Iraq was about to change its Oil-for-Food payments from the dollar to the Euro. Big deal, you may say, but for ultra-right wing Libertarian conspracy nutbars this is the smoking gun that ties it all together. The Bush Administration, working in concert with the Council on Foriegn Relations, ginned up the war to keep Iraqi petrodollars on the dollar and not the Euro. I'm sure the Trilateral Comission, The Bilderberg Group and David Ickes' Lizards from Space are involved somehow. But plunk "Iraq+Euro" into Google and it pops up a ton of nuts talkin' the truth the people, maaaan. I find it all very tiring.

Javad Yarjani, who was then the Secretary General for OPEC, gave a speech in Oveido, Spain, on 14 April '02, to a conference titled "The International Role of the Euro", hosted by the Spanish Minister of Economic Affairs.

In his speech, Mr. Yarjani outlined why switching oil contracts from dollar denominated to Euro denominated would be very difficult, and possibly not desirable. Among those reasons were:

*OPEC member nations don't trust the long term strength of the Euro vs. the dollar.
*OPEC affects oil prices, but no longer sets oil prices, which are quoted in dollars. If OPEC decided to accept only Euros, they'd be transferring currency fluctuation risks from oil buyers to OPEC.
*The vast majority of world trade is denominated in dollars.
*OPEC members have most of their currency reserves in dollars.

Basically, Mr. Yarjani said, of pricing oil in Euroes instead of dollars, "Don't call us, we'll call you, good luck".

Now, it's always possible that the OPEC Secretary General was somehow ignorant of the fundamentals of the oil trade, or engaging in some vast dis-information campaign, but a better bet is that conspiracy nuts aren't enamored of Ockham's razor.

About the control of oil, however, Mr. Chapman is correct, but probably not in the way that he thinks. I suspect that Mr. Chapman believes that the US wants to dictate Iraq's oil output, and to whom, and at what price, it should be sold.
That is not correct, as events in Iraq have shown, which is why it's odd that this piece should be appearing now, and not six months ago, when it could have had a shred of credibility.

>John Chapman should be forced to work at one of
>these mass grave sites for a week. Just one.

What "mass graves"?
doubleplusungood thoughtcrime refs unevents.
war is peace.
freedom is slavery.
ignorance is strength.
oceania has never been at war with eurasia.
chocolate ration has been increased from twenty grams to ten.
2 + 2 = 5.
bush is goldstein.
jfk2 4 prez...

Robert, speaking of that spy movie, did you hear the NPR interview with the director?

Aside from lobbing softballs, the interviewer set him up to say, ''agenda, what political agenda? I ain't got not stinkin' agenda.'

Although apparently he does accept as fact that a few huge corporations control everything (except, I guess, Hollywood).

No Harry, I missed it. I hardly ever listen to NPR anymore. Was it "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross? All her interviews are softball.

Of course, Hollywood has no political agenda. They think of their political views as scientifically proved objective reality.

Not 'Fresh Air,' it was a regular 'news' interview.

As a professional, I have no problem with conducting an interview as a means of proving a point. I do it every day.

I do think it unethical to do it and pretend you're not.

uuih