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These wouldn't be bad places to live, unless it's too close to the cesspool that is L.A.

Actually LA itself is a major producer of oil in the US. LA has oil wells all over the city and surrounding area.

Africa isn't exactly a safe place to live. Latin America... depends which country. Brazil would probably be ok, Venezuela or Columbia would be a bad idea.

Like Latin America, there are good places and bad places to live in Africa. Personally I'm hoping to go to Brazil in a few years.

Australia would be ok, but East Timor would definitely not considering what happened there recently.

It's better in East Timor than it was fro 1975 to after independence in the late '90s. However as far as oil drilling is concerned right now Australia controls almost all of the Timor Gap oil. This is from when Indonesia ruled East Timor they signed an agreement with Australia. East Timorese are fighting the agreement though.

Basically, my point here is that, for offshore drilling, in the near future, a career here will take you to far-away and possibly highly unsafe places, not places where you'd want to bring your family.

And my point was that not all of the oil drilling is in the Gulf of Mexico, irrespective of safety.

You keep mentioning this East Timor, I never really paid to much attention to it because I didn't think the US was involved in it outside of not protesting it. You seem fixated on it so I brushed up a littlw and it seems that I'm once again correct. Wikipedia often gets rewriten to support one cause or another. So when I confirmed my position with the link you gave to the wiki as well as followed it to the same conclusion from other links in the site, I checked a few other placed too. It apears the the US didn't support anything at all. They just didn't object to it. You make it sound like we were directly behind it and ford was the most evil president until Bush.

I call BS. Ford and Kissinger encouraged or gave green light to Suharto to invade East Timor:

From the National Security Archives at George Washington University: Ford and Kissinger Gave Green Light to Indonesia's Invasion of East Timor, 1975: New Documents Detail Conversations with Suharto
Finally, according to the State Department, 90 percent of the weapons used in the invasion came from the United States. Two years later, as the atrocities in East Timor were reaching a peak, President Jimmy Carter authorized an addition $112 million in weapons sales to Indonesia.
Coverage of the fall of Suharto reveals with startling clarity the ideological biases and propaganda role of the mainstream media. Suharto was a ruthless dictator, a grand larcenist and a mass killer with as many victims as Cambodia's Pol Pot. But he served U.S. economic and geopolitical interests, was helped into power by Washington, and his dictatorial rule was warmly supported for 32 years by the U.S. economic and political establishment. The U.S. was still training the most repressive elements of Indonesia's security forces as Suharto's rule was collapsing in 1998, and the Clinton administration had established especially close relations with the dictator ("our kind of guy," according to a senior administration official quoted in the New York Times, 10/31/95).
But Suharto is a U.S. ally, and has conducted his atrocities with either the approval or the active participation of the U.S. government.
Despite the atrocities and numerous U.N. resolutions condemning the invasion and occupation, the U.S., Japan and a number of Western European countries continue to provide the invader with about $5 billion in annual economic assistance.
The Indonesian dictator (pdf) then raised the Timor issue, saying, "We want your understanding, if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action." Ford replied: "We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem and the intentions you have."
Suharto needed Washington's go-ahead due to a 1958 agreement that prohibited Indonesia from using U.S.-origin weaponry, which made up 90 percent of Jakarta's arsenal at the time, except for "legitimate national self-defense." (2) For this reason Kissinger suggested that the invasion be framed as self-defense, thus circumventing any legal obstacles.
Ford, Kissinger and 1975
East Timor was ruled by Portugal for about 3 centuries. During World War II, thousands of East Timorese lost their lives helping Australia forces fight against the Japanese. East Timor was then invaded by Indonesia shortly after Portugal abruptly left, in 1975. This was the day after U.S. President Ford's visit to Indonesia, with what people have suspected as being a "green light" to invade. At that time, Indonesia had military, economic and politica

You keep mentioning this East Timor, I never really paid to much attention to it because I didn't think the US was involved in it outside of not protesting it. You seem fixated on it so I brushed up a littlw and it seems that I'm once again correct. Wikipedia often gets rewriten to support one cause or another. So when I confirmed my position with the link you gave to the wiki as well as followed it to the same conclusion from other links in the site, I checked a few other placed too. It apears the the US didn't support anything at all. They just didn't object to it. You make it sound like we were directly behind it and ford was the most evil president until Bush.

I call BS. Ford and Kissinger encouraged or gave green light to Suharto to invade East Timor:

From the National Security Archives at George Washington University: Ford and Kissinger Gave Green Light to Indonesia's Invasion of East Timor, 1975: New Documents Detail Conversations with Suharto
Finally, according to the State Department, 90 percent of the weapons used in the invasion came from the United States. Two years later, as the atrocities in East Timor were reaching a peak, President Jimmy Carter authorized an addition $112 million in weapons sales to Indonesia.
Coverage of the fall of Suharto reveals with startling clarity the ideological biases and propaganda role of the mainstream media. Suharto was a ruthless dictator, a grand larcenist and a mass killer with as many victims as Cambodia's Pol Pot. But he served U.S. economic and geopolitical interests, was helped into power by Washington, and his dictatorial rule was warmly supported for 32 years by the U.S. economic and political establishment. The U.S. was still training the most repressive elements of Indonesia's security forces as Suharto's rule was collapsing in 1998, and the Clinton administration had established especially close relations with the dictator ("our kind of guy," according to a senior administration official quoted in the New York Times, 10/31/95).
But Suharto is a U.S. ally, and has conducted his atrocities with either the approval or the active participation of the U.S. government.
Despite the atrocities and numerous U.N. resolutions condemning the invasion and occupation, the U.S., Japan and a number of Western European countries continue to provide the invader with about $5 billion in annual economic assistance.
The Indonesian dictator (pdf) then raised the Timor issue, saying, "We want your understanding, if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action." Ford replied: "We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem and the intentions you have."
Suharto needed Washington's go-ahead due to a 1958 agreement that prohibited Indonesia from using U.S.-origin weaponry, which made up 90 percent of Jakarta's arsenal at the time, except for "legitimate national self-defense." (2) For this reason Kissinger suggested that the invasion be framed as self-defense, thus circumventing any legal obstacles.
Ford, Kissinger and 1975
East Timor was ruled by Portugal for about 3 centuries. During World War II, thousands of East Timorese lost their lives helping Australia forces fight against the Japanese. East Timor was then invaded by Indonesia shortly after Portugal abruptly left, in 1975. This was the day after U.S. President Ford's visit to Indonesia, with what people have suspected as being a "green light" to invade. At that time, Indonesia had military, economic and politica

According to Allan Nairn, a journalist who's been an Indonesia eyewitness for decades, most of even the legitimate aid money is funneled through governments like the Indonesian, which then funds further attacks on any surviving, devastated populations of these resource-rich "rebellious" regions. Nairn does recommend ETAN, which funnels aid to the indigenous "PCC" relief org - which seems the most conscionable course, at least until someone blows the whistle on them.

I think you've shown that you don't know what you're talking about.

Like CNN showinf dead Iraqi children but never showing someone dying from 9/11. But then again that was here in the United States and they must not have reporters here. Or maybe they are just showing there anti-us attitude again.

Or maybe, and believe me, this is a hypothetical, they didn't show the dead from September 11th because dead Iraqi children had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Or, to generalize further, Iraq had nothing to do with Sep. 11.

Or maybe it's because two wrongs don't make a right, and CNN realized that killing Iraqi civilians isn't justified by dead American civilians, even if Iraq had been responsible for Sept. 11.

Maybe that in the ignorant person in me talking. But I would rather be ignorant than uninformed like you. If you watch CNN you only see Anit-US stories.

Anti-US stories like what? East Timor, where we basically green-lit the Indonesian invasion? What's that, you've never heard of it? I figured that the anti-US CNN would have been telling that story. Anti-US, about all those anti-globalization protestors that were illegally jailed by DC Police Chief Ramsey?

Why do I always miss those liberal, anti-US stories?

East Timor is a good one. Those freedom-loving Americans turned a blind eye to annexation and genocide for the sake of Indonesian oil, and only the support of a few socialist states --- and the forum of the UN --- kept their struggle alive.

That's right, baaaaaaad Americans ...

Oh wait, I forgot that American Peacekeeper's are serving in East Timor ...

Well that's ok, it's just another case of America exporting it's troops to impose their jack-booted capatalism down the throats of ...

Oh wait, it seems that when the US Navy showed up in Dili harbor, they hosted the East Timorese boy scouts and rebuilt an Elementary school

Well that's ok too, because if it wasn't for the World Bank and other U$ capatalist institutions sticking it to East Timor ...

Oh wait, you mean that even critics of US policy in East Timor acknowledge that the US is one of East Timor's largest aid donors

Err ... um ...

Stupid America, always ruining my diatribes with facts!

Why have you not heard about / heard evidence for these US atrocities? Because the mainstream media are complicit, and you obviously haven't read many of the alternative radical left media like Z Magazine or SCHNews. See e.g.

I have to agree with another poster on this site. Sometimes we accuse the government of concealing the truth, when we should also consider that sometimes lamestream media actually cannot support its accusations so it searches for sympathetic ears that are itching to hear anything sounding credible to back up their claims.

Also, remember that the U.S. (and Israel for that matter) at least try to point out how thier attacks are military in nature, and for the most part can back them up to anyone interested in the justified use of the term "reasonable doubt." How can this then even compare to organizations that have blatantly called for attacks on civilian targets?

One can't say that in case 'A' there is loss of civilian life and in case 'B' there is loss of civilian life therefore they are equal. If they are not equal then they are not even justified in calling for an 'Eye' for an 'Eye'.

Oh and about Indonesia it was a horrible event. But aren't we supposed to be talking about US and its lapdogs attacking civilians, not a passive acceptance ofthe actions of another government in civil war?

East Timor was also sovereign nation that had some oil.