Beirut Under Attack!!!!

PingBad · Guru Joined: 05 Feb 2005 Posts: 2026 Location: New Zealand

interesting, I've always been taught (in NZ anyway) that India is part of the asian continent while Israel, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, etc is of the Middle Eastern...

I would, however, like to see what makes ChatLink think that Israel is a mini-america, get their point of view on their statement

Mary · SearchIRC Admin Joined: 03 May 2003 Posts: 692

The map delineating continents is different from maps that determine race by origin. With so many people emigrating and intermarrying, our ability to associate a certain look or culture with a specific geographic area is getting very muddy.

PingBad · Guru Joined: 05 Feb 2005 Posts: 2026 Location: New Zealand

indeed

[S]niperR · none Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 6

In Brunei.. we do not care about each others religion.. we care for our friendship and give equalty to everyone. War on the internet? it's just what we all do everyday ain't it...?!

PingBad · Guru Joined: 05 Feb 2005 Posts: 2026 Location: New Zealand

ORenyRen · none Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 38

Chatlink was right on one account. Israel is small. Israel is only slightly larger than New Jersey.

Mary · SearchIRC Admin Joined: 03 May 2003 Posts: 692

Heads up on an interesting, and disturbing article by Walid Phares

Hizbollah's offensive in Lebanon has begun

"the aim of Hezbollah’s summer war with Israel, was to provoke a “strike-back” at the Lebanese Government and reshape the balance of power in Lebanon to the advantage of the Teheran-Damascus axis"

http://worlddefensereview.com/includes/phares111306pr.html

Read it all.

Stefano · Eleet Joined: 03 Apr 2005 Posts: 527 Location: Beirut

Stefano · Eleet Joined: 03 Apr 2005 Posts: 527 Location: Beirut

btw i was in lebanon few hours ago.
a friend of mine who was politicial got assasinated few days ago..
things are going bad over there.

but we all know in lebanon that those who assasinated him arent the pro syrians. we are an old nation maybe one of the oldest on this planet. we know all those tricks. we belive a western country or their peeps in leb killed their one of their own to blaim the pro syrians to retake over the blanace and gain sympathy of the people... politics sucks..

Mary · SearchIRC Admin Joined: 03 May 2003 Posts: 692

magpie · Idler Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 454 Location: Essex, UK

You can't withdraw, you want oil.

Mary · SearchIRC Admin Joined: 03 May 2003 Posts: 692

Magpie, do the research. ALL of Iraq's oil wells put together have a capacity of 82 billion barrels.

The US has fields containing about 40 billion barrels of crude oil and 1.0-1.2 trillion barrels of shale oil. Canada's largest oil field, Athabasca, is expected to produce an estimated 1,700 to 2,500 billion barrels. Mexico has 37 billion barrels.

Here's a math problem for you. If the US has 1,240,000,000,000 barrels of oil in the ground, and we consume 19.6 million barrels per day, how long will our own oil last before we have to take over countries and steal their oil?

1,240,000,000,000 / 19.6 = 63,265,306,122
(amt of oil in ground) / (used per day) = (days until we run out of oil)

63,265,306,122 / 365 = 173,329,605
(days we will have oil) / (days in year) = (years until we run out of oil)

The US buys oil on the open market, just like every other country. We're buying the cheapest available, and a portion of that comes from the Middle East. But we don't lack reserves of our own. In fact, our national strategic reserve is over three years of oil held in tanks around the country. When that runs out we can start pulling from ANWR and the Rockies and Appalachia and have enough to last until the sun goes nova. So come up with another excuse.

magpie · Idler Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 454 Location: Essex, UK

Since when did I restrict my comment purely to Iraq?

Here's some crude oil reserve figures: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/reserves.html

I'm ignoring all the figures quoted for shale oil because those guestimates are even worse than those for crude - you also don't have the shale oil infrastructure to replace your dependence on crude in a short period of time. Thus you are still dependent on crude.

Reserves also aren't everything. It's production that counts. Here's some production figures: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables1_2.html

Seems like you aren't producing enough oil, and you need to import some. That won't change overnight.

You'll also never be completely energy independent. Katrina is a good example of why not.

It's also all very well saying that you have the largest SPR in the world (or maybe the second largest), but the maximum you can withdraw per day is about one third of the number of barrels you consume.

Is this a good enough excuse? :)

PingBad · Guru Joined: 05 Feb 2005 Posts: 2026 Location: New Zealand

Hold the phone...

Mary · SearchIRC Admin Joined: 03 May 2003 Posts: 692

The oil shale deposits in the United States are the largest in the world.

Long before petroleum, people burned shale. It's a rock. It can be burned directly, like coal, or "cracked" to extract oil.

There really wasn't a large market for oil before the industrial revolution (late 1800's). Then, businesses needed machines and those machines needed oil. Geologists knew petroleum came squirting out of the ground in buckets, so they went looking and found it, mostly in Texas and in the Middle East. Shale was abandoned - why produce a costly inferior product when petroleum was plentiful, cheaper and easier to get?

If the price of a barrel of oil is under forty US dollars, shale oil is not competitive with crude oil. The low price of petroleum kept investors away from identifying shale oil deposits and developing ways to extract and refine the product. But now that the cost of oil is over $60 and shows no sign of declining, there is a renewed interest in shale.

Currently the best process forces superheated steam into the mine, and slowly, over 4 or 5 years, the shale separates into oil and gas and can be removed. The US strategic oil reserves have traditionally been three years supply (though I believe after Katrina and the development of Gulf offshore oil rigs and Athabasca that was reduced) precisely because that was estimated to be the time needed to ramp up US production.

Magpie, the US does not currently produce enough oil to cover our needs - the above explains why. Its like cooking dinner when you have a restaurant down the corner that sells delicious food cheaper than you can make it yourself. Why bother? I also think there's an element of strategy here... use up everyone else's oil before tapping into your own supply.