• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

In my day, never was longer.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

People are weird.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Second rate reporter says what?

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We will not go back.

He really is that stupid.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Books are my comfort food!

Mobile Menu

  • 4 Directions VA 2025 Raffle
  • 2025 Activism
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / A Good Move

A Good Move

by John Cole|  July 30, 200311:51 am| 8 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs

FacebookTweetEmail

This is an executive order I can support wholeheartedly:

President Bush signed an executive order Tuesday that bans the import of rough diamonds used to finance civil wars in Africa.

The order, which goes into effect Wednesday, brings the United States — the world’s largest diamond importer — into compliance with an international agreement prohibiting trade in “conflict” or “blood” diamonds.

The agreement, approved by the United Nations, creates a paper trail so that rough stones can be traced to a legitimate mine.

Diamond production has financed deadly conflicts in countries including Angola, Sierra Leone, Congo and Liberia. Human rights groups say rebels use forced labor to mine diamonds, then use the proceeds to buy weapons and finance military activity.

A threefer- stop putting money into the hands of terrorists, help to cu down on human rights abuses, and help those nations who engage in legitimate diamond trade. I can handle that- not to mention it is UN approved!

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Futures Markets
Next Post: This Is Infuriating »

Reader Interactions

8Comments

  1. 1.

    Devon

    July 30, 2003 at 11:55 am

    It’s about time. I hope this will make people recognize the ugly truth behind all of the overpriced engagement rings women are sporting these days.

  2. 2.

    Sean Hackbarth

    July 30, 2003 at 1:20 pm

    What this does is increase the DeBears monopoly

  3. 3.

    David Perron

    July 30, 2003 at 2:29 pm

    That would be DeBeers. And I’m not entirely sure it would. If those diamonds are more than a drop in the bucket of the diamond market, selling them on the open market out of a free, democratic country will do far more to destroy the DeBeers monopoly than paying a few blood diamonds on the black market do.

    And by your logic, isn’t the fact that we all buy our women diamonds from the DeBeers monopoly more evil than supporting repressive regimes by purchasing blood diamonds?

    The decision to ban or not ban blood diamonds should be made devoid of any consideration of the DeBeers monopoly. It’s a separate issue.

  4. 4.

    DANEgerus

    July 30, 2003 at 8:48 pm

    Yeah, and Jesse’s already got his right?

    http://frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9085

  5. 5.

    M. Scott Eiland

    July 30, 2003 at 9:14 pm

    “What this does is increase the DeBears monopoly”

    De Bears haven’t had a monopoly since the salad days of Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, and William “Refrigerator” Perry.

  6. 6.

    cameron

    July 30, 2003 at 11:54 pm

    I think it was the Canadian government or a Canadian company who started to engrave, very minutly, a polar bear on their diamonds, signifying that there diamonds came from Canada, or some non war-supporting African company.

    I’ve personally never been all that supportive of diamonds(I know, sounds cheap), but there is such a glut of diamonds being held back from the market, that if they were actually introduced(as opposed to being kept in warehouses) that they would literally be worth a dime a dozen.

    Emeralds and rubies are much more rare than diamonds, yet so much less expensive, in price and in the manufactured belief that diamonds are the best.

    The value of diamonds is one of the great myths in our society.

    Of course DeBeers won’t tell you that. ;-)

  7. 7.

    David Perron

    July 31, 2003 at 11:24 pm

    My wife has a 1.7 kt Ceylon sapphire sitting on her finger. Coupla small diamonds on either side. I’ve always liked sapphires better.

    Emeralds are rather more fragile than sapphires or rubies. Sapphires and rubies are more or less the same thing with different trace elements. I think it’s not far off when we can just diamond-coat our glasses instead of that rather flimsy scratch-coating we use now, and window panes made of diamond are commonplace. Hey, we’ve got sapphire windows in pretty close to square-foot size already.

  8. 8.

    Mark

    February 9, 2004 at 1:20 pm

    I think you all have the wrong end of the stick. The banning of conflict diamonds won’t increase DeBeers monopoly – it is the DeBeers monopoly, by artificially inflating the price of a stone that is so plentiful in Africa, that makes diamonds such a nice way to finance genocide against Hutus, Tutsis, or whoever. Its just one more way that evil DeBeers carries on the legacy of the vicious Cecil Rhodes, who basically used Aficans as slaves in his mines.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - twbrandt - Belle Isle, Detroit, Michigan 7
Image by twbrandt (7/18/25)
Donate

Recent Comments

  • chris green on Friday Night Open Thread – How About a Little Music? (Jul 19, 2025 @ 1:49am)
  • prostratedragon on Friday Night Open Thread – How About a Little Music? (Jul 19, 2025 @ 1:47am)
  • Mr. Bemused Senior on Friday Night Open Thread – How About a Little Music? (Jul 19, 2025 @ 1:37am)
  • NotMax on Friday Night Open Thread – How About a Little Music? (Jul 19, 2025 @ 1:36am)
  • trollhattan on Friday Night Open Thread – How About a Little Music? (Jul 19, 2025 @ 1:29am)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
No Kings Protests June 14 2025

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!