Posted on 06/09/2004 10:38:46 AM PDT by Ol' Dan Tucker
I completely agree with you. Additionally, it was sold to the voters at ~$1 billion and ended up costing more than $5 billion, which works out to more than $1000 for every man, woman, and child in the state of Colorado. The fine marble, vast polished granite slabs, etc, are monuments to the immense waste of taxpayer dollars.
It also represents a sorry first in history in having caused the first fully functioning airport (Stapleton) to be shut down for purely political reasons, namely, to force traffic to DIA. As soon as the baggage-mangling, uh, handling machines got working, they couldn't destroy the runways of Stapleton fast enough. Nevermind the possible need for that airport in the future.
That said, the fact remains that the three-letter FAA abbreviation for a given airport is not the only way it is referred to by the public, including by public officials.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1151517/posts
Former senior Reagan advisers who spoke with UPI solely on condition of anonymity told how the Reagan group ingeniously had targeted Soviet hard-currency earnings. If Moscow were broke it couldn't develop or buy weapons and couldn't even pay the troops of its overextended military machine, much less finance wars of liberation around the world. It could talk tough, but "it would no longer be tough," as one former Reagan official put it.
The first blow was struck in May 1983, when American pressure forced the International Energy Agency to put a limit on European exports of Soviet natural gas, blocking huge sums of money from reaching Moscow. But natural-gas earnings were only a Kremlin sideshow: Russia's top engine of economic wealth was its oil industry, which generated half of its hard-currency earnings, these sources said.
By early 1983, the Treasury Department, under the direction of Casey and Weinberger, had completed a voluminous study of U.S. and Soviet energy costs. The study had discovered that the best price required by the United States for a barrel of crude oil was only $20. This was far below the $34 per barrel being charged in 1983. If oil prices came down, it would save the United States almost $72 million a year, or almost one percent of the gross national product. What would a fall in the oil price do to the Russians?
Very ugly things, it seemed. The study concluded that while a cut in oil prices would boost U.S. economic welfare, the same cut would have a "devastating effect on the Soviet economy," in the words of one former Reagan adviser. In fact, Reagan National Security Adviser Bill Clark told Schweizer that "Ronald Reagan was fully aware that energy exports represented the centerpiece of Moscow's hard-currency earnings." The energy-export industry was working at full capacity. A drop in price, and the Russians were badly lamed.
Soon U.S. officials were huddling in Geneva with the Saudi oil adviser, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani. Following the meeting, the United States announced it was cutting its oil imports from 220,000 barrels per day to 145,000 barrels. In late February, the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar, met with senior U.S. officials, including Casey and Weinberger, according to former Reagan officials who were involved.
Abruptly, the Saudis boosted production of oil, resulting in lower world prices. By August 1985, Saudi production jumped from 2 billion barrels a day to 9 billion. Since Saudi Arabia was the swing producer in OPEC, which used its production levels to control the market price of crude, the effect was instantaneous. In Russia, the effect was calamitous, former Reagan officials said.
How did the price cuts affect Saudi incomes? Did they lose money on the deal? Hardly. According to former senior CIA officials, CIA currency-exchange specialists bounced billions of dollars of Saudi currency reserves from one currency to another: from the Belgian franc to the British pound and back. This earned the Saudis "billion of dollars" in the words of one former official.
"Reagan's doctrine was simple -- no quarter for the Soviet Union, no concessions. Instead, stop and counter it any way you could -- whether it was support for free unions or groups resisting its encroachments," said a former White House staffer.
bump
Wrong. The Clarke quote about 9/11, 9/12 and 9/13 was about these flights. This is old news and this article is crap.
Note we are talking about 9/13. These were not "the exception" as you state.
Flights begin to arrive at Metro airport
Thursday September 13, 2001
Excerpt:
It was unclear when flights would resume flying out of Metro, but flights began arriving at the airport Thursday afternoon.
~snip~
U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said commercial and private planes would be allowed to fly effective 11 a.m. EDT Thursday.
~snip~
Not quite the big scandal it's been portrayed as, hm?
See my post and link from 9/13/01 posted at #45.
That was not a return to regular flights, it was a short list only. Not general. Every flight had to be explained.
I can read and understand what I posted.
Atlantic Coast Airlines Returns To Operation
First Flights Have Departed
More Complete Schedule of Service Expected Tomorrow
Ping to post #49.
Actually, no, that is not the case.
Their credibility is in tatters.
It is not the Bush administration's credibility that has been destroyed.
So, after lying about it for years, the govt finally admits this.
And what you posted suggested -- and a clear and obvious suggestion too --- that gee willikers the skys reopened on Thursday. They did NOT. Very few flights, all for good reasons. Stranded heavies, organ transplants, etc. Or were they all for good reasons? To paraphrase Orwell: Are some animals more equal than others? Why?
Great find, cyncooper. You are our premier detective.
People here were saying all flights were grounded on 9/13 period. That is not the case. I didn't do anything but present the facts here.
A theft came in the bakery and took eleven donuts. The owner caught him -- the owner yelled "You stole a dozen donuts!"
The bold thief rejoined, "That is not the case!" For indeed, it wasn't. Eleven is not twelve.
But for most honest folks, it IS close enough.
~rolling my eyes~
It's good your eyes are so flexible. Means you are keeping in good health.
Binoculars?
Every ATC controller out there would say "They must have permission, don't they"?
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