Which is a pity, because there’s a case to be made that renewable energy, once all the subsidies for Big Oil are stripped out (and we’re not even counting the Pentagon Subsidy of using our armed forces as bully boys for Big Oil), is cheaper.

Just checking.

John @ 52

Our control or otherwise of Iraqi oil can’t hurt either Russia or China unless we leave it in the ground – in which case it will hurt us too. (Economics fact.)

Assume we decide not to sell any Iraqi oil to China, and we simply ship it to America and consume it here. All the oil we would have bought from Mexico, Venezuela, etc., but no longer do, because we’re supplying ourselves with Iraqi oil, is now available on the free market, where China can buy it. Oddly enough, the amount that’s newly available from non-Iraqi sources is exactly equal to the amount we took off the market by self-consuming. So… no net effect.

Not exactly. Europe needs light sweet crude (very good oil out of the ground, like most ME nations have), as do many other nations. Venezualan and Canadian stuff is very heavy. China’s gearing up for it, but we can deal with it right now.

Yupper. It’s going to be another five years minimum before the heavy and extra-heavy stuff can be produced in quantities sufficient to keep China’s boom going.

the most disturbing thing about your post pheoniz women is the fact that it actually makes bush and the PEEnac tp look machaivellan

I prefer to believe anyhting that might look planned was mor coincidence for they are all morons as far as anything I can see

Exactly. It’s probably more an outgrowth of disaster capitalism than anything else.

1) Fine, Iraq was about oil.

To add to that, every congressional politician is thankful that Bush did what he did regardless of what they say. Reason: If oil were to soar out of control, the American people would throw these people out of their positions so fast they wouldn’t have time to pack their offices. I don’t care if you are Bush, Clinton, or Obama…they are all thankful this happened and they are not the lightening rods.

2) Gore’s Global Warming Theory.

Based off what we are being told, we will be facing cataclysmic scenarios very soon if we don’t slow the production of green house gas. If this is the case, shouldn’t we be shutting down most activities in the US and civilized world. People give the argument that we need to move to alternative energy sources. It will take a decade for most of these ideas to become solvent on a macroscopic level. Currently Ethanol is being touted as one of the greatest energy sources, yet it costs more money (and energy) to produce than what it returns. Right now, oil & coal are our only alternatives (and nuclear).

Side note on Gore, does it not bother any of you that this guy has three houses that are on average 10x the size of the average American and uses about the same amount of resources (10x) to support those homes? He fly’s routinely in a private jet which leaves a carbon foot print equal to me driving my “gas-guzzling” Dodge Truck for the next 20 years. Then again, I am just a truck-driving hick, what do I know. Guess I can buy some ‘carbon credits’ to make up for my 12mpg (like Gore and Edwards).

“think too much worrying about the next president.”

You mean the one that might select 3 SCOTUS justices?

The one that could refill the bully pulpit with another load of bullshit and koolaid?

Nahhh…I say we go for the twofer, and take congress AND the oval office.

Of course, that means we pick a candidate to nominate who can hammer on bush and the GOP like they were 20 penny nails, for what they’ve done to us with the debacle in Iraq.

Hillary need not apply. :o)

Valley Girl @ 95

Thanks for the update, Skippy. I guess they have nutters there too.

And wasn’t it a coincidence that the judges decision was determined within days of the Nobel prize announcement….sure wasn’t wingnut planning now was it?

going into kitchen to get more tinfoil for new hat

The judges decision, based on the “Scientific Consensus” of the Intergovernmental P on Climate Change (that’s the group that won the other half of the Nobel Peace Prize with Gore) merely said that of the over 200 “errors” asserted by the plaintiff, 95% of the plaintiffs claims were not valid (according to the Scientific Consensus). He stated the remaining 5% of the “errors” in “An Inconvenient Truth” were inconsequential to the conclusions of the IPPC. Broadly, Gore’s film and the Scientific community were in AGREEMENT.

But the judge, refusing to ban the film, asked for claifications on the 9 points be included in the Teachers kits that accompanied the film.

The judge called these 9 points of difference between the IPCC Report and Gore’s film “errors” because these could not both be true. Either the IPCC or Gore was in error. But a closer analysis of these “differences” actually indicates that Gore didn’t really vary from the IPCC at all. One some other cases Gore used particular examples as fact, where the IPCC stated that the impact of human-originated global warming was “probable” or “a contributing factor”.

IOW…the assertion that the decision lends support to the Global Warming Deniers is false…it doesn’t…except when the actual judgement is distorted by the media. Remember that the judge used the IPCC report as the “gold standard” of Scientific Evidence…and that report is quite firm about stating that Global Warming is a man-made phenomenon that is going to create serious economic, health, food-supply and political problems in the next few decades.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoi….._thing.php

Imagine if you will, a wide-spread, unified insurgency against the US. Imagine the mission of Blackwater et al being changed. Imagine a draft.

It’s all balanced on the head of a pin. Really.

Slaughter of the Innocents
from Information Clearing House

The truth: we are conducting a slaughter of innocents in Iraq that is as bad as anything the Nazis did in their Eastern Front campaign.

Something is Rotten in Iraq and the Pentagon

By Dave Lindorff

10/15/07 “Counterpunch” — – Isn’t it odd that in the air attack that the US military claims killed 19 high-ranking leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and 15 civilians, all the slain Al Qaeda members were men and all the men were Al Qaeda, while all the civilians were women (6) and children (9)?

Think about this a minute.

This means that no women were Al Qaeda–and yet we know that women also fight, and also blow themselves up as suicide bombers. Yet these women were all civilians. The children, of course, were children.

And we’re to believe that there were no men who were innocent bystanders? All those adult males who were killed were “bad guys.”

Yet there were innocent bystanders: the women and the children. Somehow, any innocent bystanding men managed to duck out of the way, or the bullets and bomb fragments (and I’m sure they were fragmentation bombs that were used, as well as a withering spray of machine-gun fire) that hit all those poor women and kids, just somehow (magically?) missed the men.

Pretty amazing huh?

Except that it’s an absurd claim that should insult our intelligence.

It’s not like the Pentagon has a list of all the enemy fighters, after all. What actually happens is the military has people come in after an action, and they find all these dead people. They look at the guys and have to decide, are they fighters or are they civilians? If the guy’s got a gun in his hand, or nearby, they might assume he’s a fighter, but is that a good test in a country where every guy has an AK47? And if he doesn’t have a gun? Do you honestly think all 19 of those dead guys had a gun with him? I doubt it. These were people fleeing an attack by US troops and planes. They were–whether fighters or ordinary citizens–fleeing for their lives in a surprise attack. If they didn’t have a gun with them at the time, they wouldn’t have stopped to get one.

It’s actually the same thing with the Pentagon attributing ALL the roadside bomb attacks in Sunni areas to old-style Improvised Explosive Devices, while those in Baghdad and elsewhere (even in mixed and Sunni areas) are ALL caused by Shiite Militias and the more deadly EFP’s (Explosively Formed Projectiles).

AND all those MUST BE supplied by IRAN.

That’s right, in July one would have to believe that not a single fatal attack by road-side bombs outside the Sunni Triangle was instigated by Sunnis. They were all done by Shiites. And not a single one of those Shiite attacks were not EFP’s. Stretches credulity!