When you ride ALONE you ride with bin Laden: What the Government SHOULD Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism, by BILL MAHER is a compilation of funny stories to help drive its many serious points into our thick heads. Just so you know, I really like this book. It is a great addition to any coffee table as it is full of classic U.S. wartime posters and funny caricatures. I normally don't do this but I thought I would share with you one little section, "The Oxygen of Terrorism," from his book.

The Oxygen of Terrorism
Until warfare becomes completely automated, women will never do as much as men in war. Men are physically stronger, and so we need them out front and on the battlefield more. That’s just reality, and any arguments to the contrary are politics.

But when called upon in America, women have given 100% of what they can give, which is enormous and essential. Just like in the workplace, women who are good workers are the best workers.

But give up diamonds? That’s a gut check for women today, who might want to compare themselves to women another generation, that of my mother, who was an Army nurse in World War II and never expected diamonds, let alone worried about giving them up.

Colin Powell said, “Money is the oxygen of terrorism,” which is Secretary of State talk for “It’s all about the Benjamins.” And terrorists don’t use banks or securities, which are assets that can be frozen. They’re crazy, not stupid. And they don’t hide it under their mattresses – we’ve seen the caves. No, the bin Ladens of the world take their dirty oil money and convert it into dirty, untraceable things like diamonds. Diamonds are small, easily smuggled, not stopped by metal detectors and can’t be identified by dogs – although they can be sniffed out by women from 1,000 yards” that’s over nine football fields to you and me.

Not only are diamonds a perfect way for terrorists to launder their money – it’s the one thing they do launder – but diamonds actually appreciate in value, so the bad guys see a profit when they convert their diamonds back into cash. So, guys, when you’re buying her that diamond to tell her “you’d do it all over again,” you might be enabling the terrorists to do it all over again. A diamond may be forever, but terrorism, promiscuously funded, will be too.

Let’s make the connection clearly by tracing the path of the diamond. Diamonds start out in the earth, and eventually that earth is part of a country, like Sierra Leone. Angola or the Democratic Republic of Congo. In those countries, desperate battles for control have been going on for decades, and the armies that fight the battles finance their ambitions with diamonds. Villagers are forced to mine the diamonds by ruthless rebels who maintain order through terror: by raping the women and hacking off the limbs of the children – something, by the way, you never see in the DeBeers ads. The rebels then smuggle the diamonds into neighboring dictatorships in exchange for guns and cash. There the diamonds are sold to the highest bidder – whether they be terrorists or “legitimate” dealers – and finally they’re laundered in Europe, shipped to America, and end up in the jewelry stores when they’re purchased by men and given to women in exchange for oral sex.

In the feminized nation we live in, it’s practically national policy that women are more evolved than men – but if that’s so, how come they’re still so impressed by shiny objects? Women complain that men are mesmerized by big breasts, but unlike diamonds, which are a commodity, at least breasts are natural. Well, no so much in L.A., but in general.

I know it’s hard. Women think about diamonds like men think about sex. Like leeches think about blood.

I once told a woman – who happens to be one of the nicest people ever, who only lives to help injured puppies and lonely children and old people – about the horrible situation in Africa with the diamonds. I told her about the rebels, and how they cut off the arms of children, all so they can control and sell diamonds.

My friend looked sad and forlorn. And then in a tiny voice, she asked:

“Both arms?”

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