Guest Commentary

I've hardly seen any news or commentary in the last three days. Brother Jim poses some interesting questions about the Saudis, and I'll share them with you:

Does it seem possible that the Saudis killed 4 "gunmen" immediately after the "gunmen" killed Paul Johnson, the New Jersey helicopter builder, to try to staunch an exodus of expatriates? I mean, what would you do, if you were a rich guy and these expatriates were important to your cash flow? Maybe give them something to wonder about, something to stick around for and see what pans out? If so, I'm just glad I'm not one of the gunmen those Saudis found convenient for the role. And
I'm glad I'm not (nor wasn't) Mr. Johnson, convenient leverage to help the rich guys' enemies to get those expats packing. And no puns on role and roll, please.

So am I to believe that the Saudis could not stop the killing of Mr. Johnson, and now cannot locate any pieces of Mr. Johnson, but knew exactly who and where the perpetrators were, enough to go in shooting?

Trying to discern what is really going on, knowing (or at least strongly suspecting) most information we get is being cranked out by unscrupulous spin-writers who probably don't much of know the truth either, is like trying to write out equations for string-theory.

Why are the Israelis training Kurdish guerrillas? The alliances here are strange -- Turkey/Kurd fighting is picking up, Israel is helping the Kurds -- good timing for the Summer Games? And ceding sovereignty to those wacky Iraqis.

Can you say OIL SHOCK AND AWE GEE?