Hey, Dave's back! Okay, back to the conversation.

You're right, I'm zig-zagging, and I apologize. It's just that we both tend to make more than one point in any given post, and so I don't always remember to answer all of yours.

Be fair, though, you still haven't answered all of mine. At least, not that I've noticed ... it could have easily been lost in all of this weirdness ...

I can answer one of your points, which was that the Afghanistan-route for the pipeline just isn't good. I'll be honest and say that I don't know enough about building pipelines to say whether that's true or not, so I'll take your word for it ... HOWEVER ... we aren't discussing whether or not it's actually a good idea. We're discussing whether or not Unocal and Enron and the other big contributors to the Shrub's campaign think it's a good idea, and they apparently do. If this makes them idiots, well, hey, that's what I've been saying all along. :)

Unless you want to hypothesize that Haliburton doesn't really have that contract (as they themselves claim on their website), or that Unocal and Enron didn't ever tell congress that they think Afghanistan is the preferred route as long as they can just get rid of the Taliban (the statement coming from a government-run website), I think you have to accept those sources as reasonable, y'know? If they aren't reasonable, then we're into a completely different conspiracy theory. :)