January 23, 2004
THE NEW SUV
You drive an SUV? Well, you’re financing terrorism, according to these folks. Here’s a script from one of their ads:
This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV. This is the oil company executive that sold the gas that George bought for his SUV. These are the countries where the executive bought the oil, that made the gas that George bought for his SUV. And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV.
Bad George. But times have changed; the new terror-funding consumable is no longer oil:
The al Qaeda terror group has embraced heroin trafficking to such an extent that its leader, Osama bin Laden, is now a "narco-terrorist," says a U.S. congressman just back from a fact-finding mission in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"It seems clear to me heroin is the No. 1 financial asset of Osama bin Laden," Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois Republican, told The Washington Times. "There is a need to update our view of how terrorism is financed."
There’s also a need to update those anti-SUV ads:
Posted by Tim Blair at January 23, 2004 03:39 AMThis is Ben the filthy junkie. This is the heroin that Ben bought with money earned selling stolen household goods. This is the dealer that sold the heroin that Ben bought with money earned selling stolen household goods. These are the criminal gangs from whom the dealer bought the heroin, that was cut with battery acid to make the junk that Ben bought with money earned selling stolen household goods. And these are the terrorists who get money from those criminal gangs every time Ben fills up his collapsed, scab-coated veins.
Fight terrorism. Kill Ben!
> This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV. This is the oil company executive that sold the gas that George bought for his SUV. These are the countries where the executive bought the oil, that made the gas that George bought for his SUV. And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV.
Coleridge did a nice version beginning
And this reft house is that, the which he built,
Lamented Jack! and here his malt he pil'd,
Cautious in vain! these rats, that squeak so wild, ...
that seems to capture the opposition's present situation. (Biographia Literaria Ch I, end)
Posted by: Ron Hardin at January 23, 2004 at 03:58 AMThe vast majority of petroleum imports (in the US at least)are not used for SUVs but for heating oil. The makers of the ad should throw their grandmas into the snow if they think cutting oil comsuption would help anything.
Posted by: Junkyard God at January 23, 2004 at 04:06 AM...these are the cops who enforce the stupid laws that keep the price of drugs so high. And these are the dealers hoping governments never get out of the morality business ...
Posted by: superboot at January 23, 2004 at 04:26 AM2004 SUV at 8 MPG - "Financing terrorism"
1996 Dodge Intrepid at 22 MPG - "Financing terrorism at 36.36 percent"
1992 Hyundai Excel Sprint at 30+ MPG - Style Dork.
Posted by: Roger Bournival at January 23, 2004 at 04:31 AMDidn't Arianna drive a Lincoln Navigator, right before she decided to be gung-ho on the environment? Methinks this speaks of an attention-span issue.
That, along with the bad math, is enough to discount her views as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by: Slartibartfast at January 23, 2004 at 06:06 AMAnyone got any figures on the value of the drug 'industry' versus the value of oil in SUVs?
Would bumping off Ben (and crippling the drug 'industry') put more out of work
than getting George onto a 50cc motorbike?
If nothing else, buying Saudi oil funds Wahhabi mosques and schools around the world.
Posted by: Andjam at January 23, 2004 at 10:16 AMNeed to add on another link to the Junkie ad--
Here's the government bureaucrat who makes her living providing clean needles and other ~social services~ to Ben the Junkie, making sure he can keep stealing houshold goods to pay the criminal gangs whose money goes to the terrorists.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at January 23, 2004 at 11:52 AMSUV performance not what it should be? Lingenfelter can help.
Posted by: S Whiplash at January 23, 2004 at 01:20 PMi've always hated these lines of thought. so what if they get their money from drugs or oil or whatever? you stop them by killing them, not by taking away their money. and even if you did stop using oil/drugs/etc., they'll just find a new way to get money.
let's see, they use oil money? okay, let's all ride horses. uh oh, now they're capturing wild horses and selling them. everyone ride bicycles! now they're selling bike parts. walk! shoes. crawl! first aid for all those scratched up palms and knees.
Posted by: samkit at January 23, 2004 at 01:56 PMAs of 2002, Canada was the largest supplier of oil to the United States.
http://www.ott.doe.gov/facts/archives/fotw246supp.shtml
Stop buying SUV's. Those damn canuck terrorists are evil!
Ok ... most of the Canadian terrorists are immigrants from countries that are near countries that used to be the number one exporter of oil to the USA.
(Except for those immigrants from India who blew up an airliner in the 1980's ... but that doesn't matter because they blew up the plane over the ocean. And most of the passengers were Indian so no one really cares too much where it left from.)
Posted by: Bruce at January 23, 2004 at 04:02 PMOsama lied, Junkies died, lets have a Ba'ath on the side!
Wow these infantile chants are fun! No wonder lefties look permanently orgasmic.
Posted by: Quentin George at January 23, 2004 at 08:29 PMOsama bin Laden is a narco-terrorist?
Let's fix that right quick. Phillip Morris ought to be able to go into the recreational pharmaceutical business. They'd wipe the floor with Al-Queda.
Yeah, and we should kill them too. But letting Phillip Morris drive them into bankruptcy would be cool in the meantime.
Posted by: Ken at January 24, 2004 at 07:01 AM