Although I am more conservative leaning than liberal I have to agree with GoHarley on this one.
Companies need to be able to profit or our way of life ceases..... BUT....
Companies are not allowed to gouge say, after a Hurricane (you know, charging $5.00/gal for water) and have been busted big time in the past for doing just that. In the war scenario, they should be able to make some profit, but if it borders on gouging then it is not only wrong, but outright unpatriotic, IMHO.


MC

I don't have enough facts to defend Haliburton or denounce them. They may be uniquely qualified for the job in a field with few competitors for such a large scale project. I think there may be alot of assuming going on. Just don't always be so quick to jump on a big company as a devil. I'd like to hear both sides on this before making a judgement.

I'm with you there. I don't have problem with big business (I love Microsoft and Starbucks) until I get the sense that they are screwing the American taxpayer.

I've got some facts at work concerning Halliburton and Bechtel that I'll hunt down and post on Monday.

mc - sorry i did not check the board lately

The difference between Cubans coming here and wanting the u.s. to do something about cuba and all of us going to canada and wanting them to do something is that cubans do not have a vote or any rights in their own country we do. We can and often do take to the street and the voting booth to get what the majority of us want. Cubans take to the streets to protest and they get shoot. You do that a few times while the world turns its back and you get the idea that it may not be a good Idea.

Castro won the people of cuba over to communisms with promises of freedom and change . A land of plenty were all would be equal and have jobs and free education. ( I think I heard that at the dem. debate last week ) All castro did was to throw out a dictator and replace it with another one, him. The cuban people will be better off with a freely elected goverment like yours.

As far as cubans wanting castro in charge. I truley doubt it. In a communist country it does not take a very large population of belivers to rule the lives of millions. Death and fear can always be used to control a unarmed population. Hitler, stallian, The china's and casrto are all supports of gun control. The ever increasing rotatione of hollywood elites that visit cuba in support of a dictaor like castro is just appalling to me.

If the president can get more votes and free the oppressed people of cuba at the same time , GREAT, but just becouse you may get votes for doing something good does not mean that you should not do it. Hell getting more votes is how elected officals know they are doing a good job. Besides It will cost him more votes in other parts of the country then it will gain him in florida.

A demacrate backed out of a revolt of the cubain people at the bay of pigs and it is about time we swipe that dishoner from our record. (yes I know it was orginized but the cia,but thats what there for ).

Any how the the fishing in cuba has to be good. bone fish of flys anyone?

I have fished bonefish in Cuba. It was Great! Wonderful people. A truly beautiful country. They are so poo most of theior army does public service work and few have guns. If we would let US tourists visit we might have more influence. I wonder why we see Cuba as a bigger threat than China? Maybe becasue there are a ton of Cuban voters in Florida?

Since the fall of the U.S.S.R. cuba has not been a therat at all. Its not about a threat its about freeing people. we can do something about cuba not china. China is to large and rich for us to taclke right know. When people say we should not do something about cuba or Iraqi or some other place becouse we are not ingaging china or North korea they are being dishonist. We can not do anything about china and korea becouse they do have nuclear weapons. We did somthing about Iraqi before they got nuclear weapons. We keeped nukes out of cuba for a good reason, it was to close to retailate aginst. Now we have to do something about helping the people of cuba over thru their corrupate goverment.

i dont want to start any fights and I don,t know you but if you are visiting cuba under castro you are helping him enslave his people and you should be ashamed of your self. your money went to castro not the cuban people. you help him pay his armies and run his prisons. Castro would love to open his country to tourist and raises millions for arms and more mansions. the only way to destroy castro is to cut off his funds. for many years the russians supported castro in exchange for him sending troops around the world (mostly africa and south america) to spread communisim. With out the russians castro is a dieing leader. Now he keeps his rule going by getting euorpeans and former soveit states to spend their holidays and cash there. With that and the tax on money wired in to cuba from faimlies in the states he makes enough to keep going. One day he will die and if we have kept the goverment poor enough the people will revolt at that moment as long as their is not a strong replacement for castro with enough funds to run a army. we bet the russians in the money game with out firing a shoot and we can do the same with castro. Now onw has comminted on why hollwood elite are always sucking up to castro the last few years. not only hollywood but a lot of democratic spokesmen. why is it . I have heard him called a great leader in the newas . great at what? enslaving people.

Staarcraft: I do not wish to get into a big debate. I can see you have heartfelt beliefs. But as someone who has been there and travelled much of the island, I can tell you much of what you beleive is not what I saw.

The small amount I spent went to folks like the little old lady who set up a card table to sell her homemade cupcakes. I doubt Castro got any of that money. She got the money for what she did. I spent money with a man who was rolling cigars and with a fishing captain who had a battered old boat, and with a cab driver driving a 1956 buick. These people were much better of becasue of my visit. It was a small but real form of capitalism.

The truth is Castro will rule till he dies. Then, I hope not, but I beleive his brother Raul will assume his role.

The Cuban people are much beter off with tourism, than without. It's about their only viable industry. Those people suffer needlessly bescause of our embargo. It hasn't worked in 40 years, unless you consider keeping the Cuban people destitute working. Do we think that after 40 years they are going to rise up and revolt?

If we really want to help them we should stop turning back and deporting the courageous folks who try to get here by rafts!!!

Don't get me worng. I think Castro is an evil man. but he will be rich no matter how poor we make his people. We should help the Cuban people all we can by free trade.

P.S. In case yopu are wondering, I went to Cuba legally. There are several exeptions to the treasury ruling against Americans travelling to Cuba. Canadians enjoy Cuba's beaches by the droves. Thousands of them travel there every week in the winter. The tourism dollars spent by the Canadians provide much needed jobs for thousands of impoverished Cubans. Sure Castro gets some of the $$ but the net effect is many more peole who can feed their families.

I do not beleive it is dishonest to ask why we so eagerly open our trade doors to china. nuclear weapons or not we sure do not have to agressivlly trade with them. We do it simply for huge economic benefit. We don't trade with Cuba for political benefit.

I agree with you about china. I wish we did not trade with them at all. but the fact is they have enough of a economy to compete with us in markets around the world, cuba does not. I was not aware that the canadians go to cuba in such large numbers. But it just proves my point that as long as castro gets tourism money he can keep on ruling. I would like to see a real embargo aginist cuba not the poor excuse we have seen the last 40 yrs. we need to cut all trade and tourisam off from cuba by blocking their ports . Is it going to happen ,no but I wish it would. You said it your self , you spent money there to help some people. the old lady did not give money to castro, I did not give money from my garage sale to bush either but when i spent that on gas he got his taxes. I bet the cabby and the fish captian did in the form of permits and such. All goverments work the same way, its just a matter of who controlls it in the end. disspite what some people think we the voters still control this country, but only castro and his buddies control cuba and by going there, legal or not you help him. I could go to cuba to if I want but I will never go until castro is gone. I will never go to china either as long as its communist And I would really like to. They are both really beutifull places. I want to go to mongola now that it is not communist any longer (big big big trout). I will never go to france unless I get to piss on thier tower but thats another story.

Back to Haliburton, this is another example of either a lack of a plan or not communicating well what the plan is... which is why Bush is coming under ever increasing scruitiny. What the Bush admin should be doing is requiring Haliburton to offload or offset some of the work to Iraqi contractors(setting aside whether Haliburton should have been the sole contractor to begin with or whether a bid should have been undertaken). Recent hearings in the Senate have revealed that Iraqi contractors are not being considered in this rebuilding process and are far cheaper than what we're paying Haliburton. This not only drives up the price, but even further alienates the US from the Iraqi people. Instead, the Bush admin continues on this info guarded approach, throwing out a few genereal comments, no specifics with different stories coming from the various department heads.

Mr Bush, you need to come clean with what your plan is and start leading.....!!!!

The following excerpt is from a letter written to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget by a US Congressman:

I think those are some pretty good examples, along with the gouging of fuel, of where the American taxpayer is beng taken advantage of. The fact that these companies are huge Bush campaign contributors and have such close ties with the Whitehouse through Cheney reeks of conspiracy. There's just too much going on to be purely coincidental.

You can read the entire letter here.

What many of you (and most Americans) seem to not understand about letting in so many in the name of humanitarianism is that although the thought is a valiant one, it is destroying this country. Think of the US as a boat. It floats well above water, but if it keeps taking on passengers it will eventually flounder and sink..... We are to our limit of supporting other countries and taking on more immigrants. If we could stop the illegal intrusion, then we could take on many more legal immigrants. But with an estimated 8-10 million (very conservative estimate) we are bursting at the seams.
Although I feel bad for people in many countries, Cubans are not high on my list. They are right in line with Puerto Rico and even though we basicall own that country (but they run it) their country is in a shambles. Unemployment is always at 20% or higher, and nearly all its citizens are on public assistance. Setting up our style of government will not necessarily solve Cuba's problems.
Funny how so many want to free Cuba, but many of the same are against freeing the Iraqi's.

For those that wish to argue my immigrant thoughts, just look to California and especially Arizona. Over-immigration has had dire effects on both, and Arizona is actually bankrupt because of its overwhelmingly large illegal immigrant problem........

MC

Did you see the story about the kid that joined the Army with a fake green card? Now that he's back from Iraq, somehow the Army found out he's actually an illegal.

Should he get to stay and receive citizenship through Rove's amnesty program? Or should he be deported because he's an illegal immigrant and fraudulently joined the Army?

Jesus was a liberal; Hitler was a conservative.

american companies are even importing workers from the phillipines and s.e. asia to iraq which is making the iraqis that want to work even angrier...

I would have to say that since he entered fraudulently, all bets are off....... If I were to buy a lottery ticket and win the $$ but was under 18 and showed fake ID, would I be allowed to keep the $$??

Pretty common sense to me, and I think that is the problem with illegals... They get rewarded with "amnesty", drivers licenses, free medical care, etc.... And we wonder why they keep coming in droves.....

MC

The Bush Irag Policy has always stunk. Just as he did with the United Nation when he had to rush in there (Iraq) and save the free world from all those WMD without UN envolvement. Guess he figured it would win his re-eleection and make money for special interest Hillerburton and weapons makers. Gotta keep the fear cranked up so it will be even easier to rip us off for our freedoms, resources and quality of life. Just blame everything on 911 and stick it to em!

And you thought his buddy's with Enron could rip off the public without a conscious? Bush is making them look like choir boys. It was the choir boys (Ken and company) that funded his last campaign, so I would bet the unwilling contributors (Enron Investors) will not be voting for him this time around. But who needs their votes when the Florida Cuban vote is ready for the taking. All he needs to do is make the Cuban people suffer a little (economics), connect them to his Axis of Evil campaign and WMD and presto who cares about the Enron losers.

Don't be surprised if the Gonzales boy comes up again. Remember Him? His father could be labled a terrorist or something for choosing to stay in Cuba and the boy could find his way back to his wonderful Uncle and relative in Florida while kicking and screaming for dad. Save thoses toys and dust off those Cuban flags because they might be needed in Florida soon.

Wonder what Janet Reno would do? <img border="0" alt="[wall]" title="" src="graemlins/wall.gif" />

Figured you'd like that one, Grandpa. :p

Pardon my ignorance, but what flag is that?

goharley....you can't put anything over on ole grandpa....Notice how I didn't fire back...I think Hitler was a facist just to set the record straight. Jesus may have been a Libertarian and not a liberal ...atleast the 2003 version....

I was going to fake you out and say that the flag is for my new country: GrandpaVille...no liberals allowed inside our borders. BUT....I must tell the truth..the flag is the Edmonds Yacht Club burgee (that's flag in yachting lingo)

You're right on both accounts. It's too bad about Hitler, though. With his charisma and leadership ability (NOT style) he could have been fabulous. Too bad he was insane. If he could have stayed focused on good instead of evil he probably could have brought Germany to a level equal to the US. Just think - all that Oktoberfest beer instead of BudweiserMillerCoors.

Speaking of fascists, there are members in the current administration that could easily fit into that description. But that's a whole 'nother thread.

Cool flag. Can't wait until I can get out of this sled and into a real boat to fish the blue.

I see you must have read an advance copy of Alan Colmes" book. One of the chapters is called "Jesus was a liberal"....