Iran nukes the US dollar at OPEC meeting

Cheney isn't gonna like this one!

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad has a point - the US is taking the oil, and leaving behind little green IOUs. At one point, the suckers wake up.

This is gonna get ugly.

Ahmadinejad: OPEC Members Interested in Converting Cash Reserves Into Non-Dollar Currency

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that OPEC's members have expressed interest in converting their cash reserves into a currency other than the depreciating U.S. dollar, which he called a "worthless piece of paper."

"They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper," Ahmadinejad told reporters after the close of the summit in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. He blamed U.S. President George W. Bush's policies for the decline of the dollar and its negative effect on other countries.

"All participating leaders showed an interest in changing their hard currency reserves to a credible hard currency," Ahmadinejad said. "Some said producing countries should designate a single hard currency aside from the U.S. dollar ... to form the basis of our oil trade."

Ruh-Roh - Did Bush just say "World War III"

Yup, he did.

It's on. Something to do with $90 oil perhaps?

But that's exactly what Bush and Ahmadinejad want. Something about Hidden Imam's and jesus returning and oil prices I think. Kinda spooky to have religious kooks running countries, eh?

Nice to see Putin picks sides too... Something to do with $90 oil perhaps?

Bush warns of World War III if Iran goes nuclear

US President George W. Bush said Wednesday that he had warned world leaders they must prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons "if you're interested in avoiding World War III."

"We've got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel," Bush said at a White House press conference after Russia cautioned against military action against Tehran's suspect atomic program.

"So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," said Bush.

On Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shias, the destruction of Israel, and the price of your house

In Iraq, you've got Iran's Shia routing the Sunnis with our troops stuck in the middle and no plan to get out. The Shias will win this battle hands down, and will control central and southern Iraq and the oil, it's just a matter of time.

In Gaza, the Hamas/Iran vs. US/Fatah final battle has ended, and the US's Fatah has lost, Iran's Hamas has won. Next they'll take the West Bank.

Then comes Lebanon, where Iran's funded, trained and armed Hezbollah will soon enough destroy the US's Lebanese government. That won't even be a contest, and it's gonna start in days. How do I know?

Because Iran's President told us EXACTLY what he was going to do a few days ago, and now he's doing it. Amazing. He also said Israel would be destroyed. And then the hidden imam reappears.

There may come a time very soon where the world wished it had taken him more seriously, and where investors all over the world wish they had been more liquid and less extended.

GAZA CITY In Gaza, it was a day of major victories for Hamas and its backers in Iran and Syria and of devastating setbacks for the Western-backed Fatah. In one particularly humiliating scene, masked Hamas fighters marched agents of the once-feared Preventive Security Service out of their headquarters, arms raised in the air, stripped to the waist and ducking at the sound of a gunshot.

In recent months the US, with Israel's agreement, had sought to use Dahlan as a counterweight against Hamas, funnelling him weapons, money and men. The plan has disastrously backfired


BAGHDAD - A handful of Sunni mosques were attacked or burned Thursday, but curfews and increased troop levels kept Iraq in relative calm a day after suspected al-Qaida bombers toppled the towering minarets of a prized Shiite shrine.

Wednesday's attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra, which was blamed on Sunni extremists with links to al-Qaida, stoked fears of a surge in violence between Muslim sects. A bombing at the same mosque complex in February 2006 that destroyed the shrine's famed golden dome


BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - A bomb ripped through a vocal anti-Syrian lawmaker's car near the popular waterfront in the Lebanese capital Wednesday, killing him and nine other people in the latest assassination of a Lebanese opponent of Damascus.

The blast, a new blow to the stability of this conflict-torn nation, comes days after the government began putting together an international tribunal ordered by the United Nations to try suspects in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut two years ago - a move strongly opposed by Syria and its allies in Lebanon.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president said on Sunday the Lebanese and the Palestinians had pressed a "countdown button" to bring an end to Israel.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who triggered outrage in the West two years ago when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map", has often referred to the destruction of the Jewish state but says Iran is not a threat.

"With God's help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine," Ahmadinejad said in a speech.

Columnist: Record gasoline prices great news for U.S.

I commented the other day that the only thing that'd get America off the crack is $10 gas. Mass transit, conservation, urban planning, energy policy, hybrids, alt fuels, the end of suburbia, you know the drill. It hurt America to have cheap gas a bit ago. Made us stupid. Time to get smart.

Meanwhile, look what's going in in Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq and hell even Kazakhstan. It's all about oil folks, we're addicts, and yet we do nothing on the demand side. All we do is try to control the supply side, and we have failed.

Hurrah! Great news! When I filled up my car's gas tank yesterday, I paid an all-time record $3.41 a gallon, and experts are predicting that gasoline prices may soon reach $4 a gallon.

I can't wait!

I'm not kidding. I am more convinced than ever that unless gasoline prices rise above $4 a gallon, there won't be a nationwide uproar strong enough to force Washington to get serious about reducing the U.S. suicidal dependence on foreign oil.

Barring $4-a-gallon gasoline prices, America will not get serious about reducing toxic emissions that worsen global warming, and will continue to fund corrupt Middle Eastern kingdoms that deny basic civil rights to women and fund Islamic fundamentalist schools, some of which preach violence against innocent ''infidels'' in the name of Allah.

And, closer to home, without $4 a gallon gasoline, Washington will most likely continue filling the pockets of oil-rich tropical autocrats.

Venezuela's narcissist-Leninist President Hugo Chávez is a perfect example of U.S. oil-funded radicalism. When he was first elected in 1998 and oil prices were at $9 a barrel, Chávez was ridiculing critics who speculated that he would become a radical leftist. ''Me, a Communist?'' he asked reporters.

Today, with oil prices at more than $62 a barrel, Chávez ends his speeches proclaiming ''Socialism or Death!'' He claims that the United States is ''the cruelest, most terrible, most cynical, most murderous empire that has existed.'' And he chaperones Iranian Holocaust-denying President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad throughout Latin America.

Granted, the Bush administration will tell you that it is doing a lot to reduce America's oil consumption. In his recent State of the Union address, Bush laid plans to reduce U.S. gasoline usage by 20 percent over the next 10 years, among other things by increasing the supply of alternative fuels such as ethanol.

But Bush, a Texas oilman at heart, and the U.S. Congress, not immune to the car lobby, are far too timid in attacking the U.S. foreign oil addiction.

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Ruh-roh... President and Commander in Chief Cheney stands on side of ship off coast of Iran and flips them off

Everyone enjoying that $4 a gallon gas and living in homes 50 miles away from work? Good. So is oilman Cheney. And he's only got 20 months left to finish his grand plan.

In Gulf, Cheney warns Iran of U.S. resolve

Vice President Dick Cheney used the deck of an American aircraft carrier just 240 kilometers off Iran's coast as the backdrop Friday to warn the country that the United States was prepared to use its naval power to keep Tehran from disrupting oil routes or "gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region."

Little of what Cheney said in the cavernous hangar bay of the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, one of two carriers whose strike groups are now in the Gulf, was new. Each individual line had, in some form, been said before, at various points in the four-year-long nuclear standoff with Iran, and during the increasingly tense arguments over whether Iran is aiding the insurgents in Iraq.

But Cheney stitched all of those warnings together, and the symbolism of sending the administration's most famous hawk to deliver the speech so close to Iran's coast was unmistakable.

Cheney's sharp warnings appeared to be part of a two-track administration campaign to push back at Iran, while leaving the door open to negotiations. It was almost exactly a year ago that the United States offered to negotiate with Iran as long as it first agreed to halt enriching uranium, a decision in which Cheney, participants said, was not a major player.

Similarly, the speech Friday was not circulated broadly in the government before it was delivered, a senior American diplomat said.

"He kind of runs by his own rules," the official said.

What's the price of gas back there in America?

I haven't driven for over a year and a half, so I could care less if it's $2 or $10 a gallon. Actually I'd rather see $10 a gallon so that way more hybrids would be on the roads, less of those stupid tank-size SUVs, less far-flung Wal-Mart exurbs, and much more use of light rail, trains and buses.

But for America to head that direction, I think $6 - $8 per gallon gas is key (at today's prices). If those terrorists had succeeded in destroying the Saudi oil infrastructure the other day, $6 would have been in the realm of reality overnight. Or watch what happens if we (or Israel) attack Iran... Think home values are plunging on the city fringes today? Just wait.

It's $8 a gallon here in the UK, and yes, almost everyone I know uses public transport. The only people who seem to drive are rich people, people who have to for whatever reason, ladies who lunch (i.e. soccer moms), and public transport snobs. As cities get more and more crowded, not only will driving get more expensive, but it'll be quicker to get from A to B using transport. You'll see.

If I were president, I'd phase in a higher gas tax (raise it 50c a year for 10 years), I'd get serious about fuel efficiency standards for all manufacturers, I'd launch a tax-credit-based conservation jihad, and I'd build a nationwide world-class mass transport system (using the gas tax).

What's Bush's energy policy by the way? What are his ideas on the issue? Anyone? Anyone?

Fill up those tanks, sell those houses - Iran's getting nutty...

Ya really gotta give it up for Iran, their nutjob President and their shia islamic doomsday-cult-leaders. They sure have cojones...

* Continue building nukes - check

* Thumb nose at UN, Security Council and world community - check

* Abduct British hostages, threaten with death - check

* Kill American soldiers while meddling in Iraqi affairs - check

* Call for the destruction of Israel and deny the Holocaust - check

* Eagerly await the return of the Hidden Imam - check

Yup, everything is right on track I'd say. President Cheney must be barely able to control himself tonight, as he rolls on the ground with glee...


Stay tuned...