There is irony that it appears the Roman's were in fact, doing the right thing trying to nip Christianity in the bud. One wonder what the world would be like if monotheistic religion had never gained a foothold, if European civilization hadn't been decimated by the Inquistion, the dark ages etc. and Arab civilizaiton hadn't been decimated by Islam. Religious fanatics tried really hard to suppress Copernicus and Galileo. If they had succeeded we might still be flat Earthers thinking the Sun resolves around us and America would still be populated by peaceful communists in tune with nature.
If you've read much Nietzsche he does a pretty good job of covering why Christianity is a philosophy for the weak and the weak minded.
Well for someone who doesn't have a horse in this race you sure seem fond of Bush and willing to trash Clinton. I'm suspecting you are one of the many lately who were raging Bush fans when he was popular and are now distancing yourself from him now that he looks like a goober with plummeting approval ratings, and failing at every thing he tries lately. For an independent you sure seem fond of everything Little George does.
"Clinton is the only elected president to EVER be impeached"
Whoopie. And what does that prove other than the House was controlled by a bunch of right wing nut jobs who were so blinded with hatred for the Clintons and so hungry to lynch him, that they impeached him when there was no case, and the Senate being a more moderate body promptly and sensibly shot it down.
I don't have any real fondness for Democrats but I'd take Clinton or Gore in a heartbeat over Bush, especially if they had a chance to just be President instead of being constantly hounded by right wing nut jobs so they can't do their job. Bush, on the other hand, has had a free ride for no obvious reason and he deserves some hounding.
"if you or anyone has a better solution I'd sure love to hear it"
Yea, take a true conservative's approach. STAY THE HELL OUT OF IT, until it directly threatens U.S. security which in Saddam's case would probably be never, instead of getting in the middle of something that was more about Israel's security than America's. Me personally I could have cared less that Saddam invaded Kuwait, the Emir is just as despicable a ruler as Saddam, the only thing in his court is he is a Bush family friend. Let the Saudi's etc deal with it, it threatened their security they have plenty of money and weapons.
" it can be very helpful for people who other things don't work for"
Well that can be said about medical Marijuana. Do we have to get Merck of Phizer to want to market, and profit from it, to get the Federal government to allow it. For people wanting to expand their consciousness I image LSD is helpful. For people looking to improve their sociability Ecstasy is very helpful.
Is CX717 an American drug companies marketing name for Meth. American drug companies are missing out on some major bucks not being able to market Meth. If they can give it a new name, have the Bush administration give them a green light in the name of free enterprise I'm sure it will be fine to start selling it over the counter or maybe at worst with an easy to acquire prescription. After all the government lets them sell Oxycontin, often with the drug company's full knowledge its going out the back door on to the steet. It is for all practical purpose legalized narcotics.
The entire Bush administration apparently. The delusional neocons thought a western secular democracy would automatically break out when Saddam went down. It was delusional and flew in the face every historical and contemporary fact on the ground. Either that or they thought they could strongarm a supposedly sovereign government in to writing a constitution and doing what the U.S. told them to do, or rig the elections and get their puppet Allawi in. They may still succeed in the later in the next round of elections.
"WMD existed (how do you think he gassed the Kurds?) and he no doubt took the extra time allowed him to get rid of any hot potatoes he was holding."
The Kurd gassing was more then 20 years ago, no one in the U.S. gave a damn at the time. This was just a propaganda tool to get suckers like yourself salivating to take Saddam down. The Kurds were waging an armed insurrection against Iraq and Turkey. Most governments suppress insurrections ruthlessly, the Turks have too, do you want to take the Turks down? If the Kurds lived in the U.S. and tried to secede the U.S. government would crush them just like Saddam only probably more so (you know like Lincoln did in the Civil War). The American fixation on it now is insane. So what if he gassed them. He could have bombed and strafed the village and the outcome would have been the same. If you want to have retroactive toppling of governments over WMD's, the U.S. should be the first to go down since it nuked hundreds of thousands of civilians in Japan. What exactly is the difference other than the U.S. loves its double standards.
"Clinton was a scholar, look how much it mattered he still got caught with his dick in some minimum-wage interns."
He was still a vastly better President than George W. could ever hope to be. Men are men, many chase women. George's dad had an affair in office too, IMPEACH. George W.'s life up to about 40 was nothing but doing drugs, chasing women and getting hammered, why aren't you upset about that. Clinton was a victim of an 8 year right wing witch hunt that did grievous damage to the nation, they never found anything after hundreds of millions of dollars worth of searching other than he lied about sex which is what married men do when caught cheating. The one thing they did achieve is they soured the country on the Democrats by constantly bombarding the public with false accusations against the Clintons for eight solid years. It worked, they finally got power back. Contrast this small transgression for which there was an impeachment circus versus the Bush administration which lies about everything, stuff that matters. They lied about stuff that is squandering hundreds of billions of dollars and getting thousands of people killed and maimed for life. You sure seem to have a another odd double standard here. I"M OUTRAGED BECAUSE CLINTON HAD SEX AND LIED ABOUT IT versus Bush lied us in to war... ho hum... thats OK.
"Would you argue that I have some moral obligation"
Uh no, you are delusional to think that I care where you live as long as its not near me. Why don't you stay as far away from Canada as you can get and just stop dumping on it. One of your worst problems seems to be you are so obsessed with hating Canada its completely eating you up. Having read your dribble for a couple of days I'm sure they are just glad you are gone. I'm confident they don't want someone who thinks its cool to shoot trespassers anywhere near Canada. You sound like you are an all American, and would really fit in Texas. Your stars are just totally crossed that you were born Canadian. Now please just shut up, don't really care what you have to say anymore.
Suuuuuurrrrrrreeeee. Dude you bit like a starving dog with read meat dangling in front of him.
""Well Bush's Daddy didn't do this or that... blah blah blah Well Bush is, he's standing up and doing something.."
Yea he's doing something alright, he walked straight in to quicksand and he is currently up to his neck and on his way down.
You see George W's dad IS vastly smarter, better informed and more sophisticated than his goober son. His dad was an A student, his son C at best. His dad was studying the world, was ambassador to China, and head of the CIA while his son was playing baseball, snorting cocaine, pickling his liver and chasing women. His dad was smart enough to realize that Saddam really and truly sucked but letting Shia clerics take over Iraq, which is the inevitable result of elections, will be just as bad if not worse for the U.S. in the long run. He smartly left well enough alone and didn't get the U.S. bogged down in a $300 billion dollar quagmire with thousands of dead and wounded Americans.
The ush and Co. in to taking down Saddam for them, by selling Cheney and Co. bullshit stories about WMD's. Either they bought it hook, line and sinker or they were so thirsty for war they ran with it even though they knew it was Bullshit.
Chalibi is an Iranian agent when it suits his needs. The Iranians have been trying to take down Saddam, and free their Shia brethren in Iraq, since pretty much since the Iranian revolution and never been able to do it. They just managed to sucker the U.S. in to doing it for them and it cost them $0 dollars and $0 lives. It cost the U.S. $300 billion dollars at least and 1800 lives and counting. When its all said and done and the U.S. finally gets sick of the place and leaves their will be a Shia Islamic government that looks a lot like the Taliban or Iran, in fact the area around Basra, the Shia capital, is already looking like Taliban town.
George W. has in fact laid the foundation for a potential Shia fundementalist Islamic empire, hostile to the U.S., across all the biggest oil fields in the Middle East. The Saudi oil fields next door to Iraq are in areas dominated by Shia's too. Who won the war in Iraq, it wasn't all the peoples of Iraqi, it wasn't the U.S., it was the Iranian's and their Shia brethren in Iraq. Well the Kurds made out alright too though the day they try to secede the Turks will probably invade them. The Turks hate the Kurds as much as Saddam does, and have killed their fair share too. Saddam didn't gas the Kurds for no reason. The Kurds were waging a bloody civil war against Iraq to gain an independent Kurdistan. Their brethren are still waging a war in Turkey to achieve the same goal.
George W., he will be known throughout history with this signature line.... what a goober.....
"which is now free to tell them to get the hell out, and refuse to sell oil to the US."
Yea maybe someday. It ain't gonna happen anytime soon. The day the Iraqi government does that there are about a dozen actors in the region inside and outside of Iraq that would pounce and either seize power or split the country in to a 3 part civil war. All the Kurds and many Shia's already want to split Iraq in to 3 countries which is why the constitution wrangling continues. The Kurds want to take the oil fields in the north and secede and the Shia's want to take the oil fields in the south and create a Taliban style Islamic republic and leave the Sunni's in the middle in poverty.
Any Iraqi leader that isn't naive knows that if they did start crossing the U.S. they run a high risk that the CIA would start working to topple them either through a coup or election rigging. The CIA has done this scores of times since World War II. I really doubt with as much blood and gold as the U.S. has invested in this that they are going to walk away with a democratically elected Islamic fundamentalist government allied with Iran selling all their oil to China and with French and Russian companies running their fields, and with no military bases in Iraq or Saudi Arabia.
If could happen but if it does it just shows how badly the Bush administration thought this out, or rather didn't think this thing out past Shock and Awe, pulling down Saddam's statue, and the roses. Or maybe it just shows how incompetent they really are. The voting dynamics were obvious before the invasion. 60% of the popluation are Shia and most of them are devout Mulsims. Thats why George W.'s dad left Saddam in power the first time around. He knew Saddam was better than another fundamentalist Islamic government which is what you get putting democracy in Iraq.
Watching Charlie Rose recently a guest completely nailed it. The U.S. didn't win the Iraq war after 300 billion dollars 1800 dead and thousands wounded. Iran did and they didn't have to lift a finger. Chalibi may have well been an Iranian agent whose mission was to sucker the U.S. in to taking down Saddam for them, using false WMD charges and the Bush administration fell for it hook, line and sinker.
"The US has undertaken the monumental task of rebuilding the oil infrastructure....The US is not asking for anything in return."
I really doubt that. If the U.S. rebuilds it, it will only be if Halliburton gets the lion's share of the contracts and it will mostly probably be paid for with Iraqi oil revenue, which is just a back door way to take Iraqi oil revenue and put it in American pockets. Halliburton are specialists at defrauding their customers.
"The US has a long history of doing the right thing, for the right reasons -- much to the dismay of the pundits of the day."
That is completely ridiculous. The U.S. has done the wrong thing countless times for more than a century, certainly as far back as the Spanish American War. Did anyone in school ever teach you about the Phillipine America War. Probably not.
The U.S. overthrown countless sovereign and popular governments and replaced them with ruthless right wing dictators, whose only qualification was their willingness to kill leftists.
I think your problem is you get all your news and history from U.S. biased sources which ALWAYS belabor all the good and completely brush under the rug all the bad. The media and education system in pretty much every country does that. No one ever burdens schoolchildren with facing the fact their country isn't perfect, they'd rather fill them with the heroic history of Washington crossing the Delaware and D-Day. They don't ever tell kids the U.S. killed and tortured hundreds of thousand up to a million Filipinos trying to crush an anti occupation insurgency like the one in Iraq today.
"Just because something is nothing more than an amalgam of cells - or a single cell - doesn't mean it doesn't represent, even if only philosophically, human life. Why is it valid in the macro scale, but not micro?"
Oh that question is so backwards. Actually it appears in the eyes of the right to life crowd life is vastly more precious and sacred in the micro scale than it is in the macro. People like Geroge W. abort these supposedly sacred lives all the time, not in an abortion clinic, fertility clinic or research lab but in the steets of Iraq or bygone years the jungles of Vietnam or hills of Korea. They abort sacred lives of people who have families to support, and which families and societies have spend yeart nurturing, raising and educating.
Why exactly should we be spending this vast energy debating stem cell research while we seem to spend very little energy debating the rightness or morality of the wars we start. Well the opponents of the wars spend a lot of time fretting over them but the "right to life" people advocating them lately don't really seem to much care about the morale issues of sending people to kill and be killed, and its not even in self defense. They create slogans, catch phrases and build false cases to justify killing this supposedly sacred life and then just do it.
"the following is one effort to save the lives of these tiny children that you refer to:"
Geez, why don't you people spend ALL your energy keeping the MILLIONS of young children alive that are starving to death each year, and those are nasty painful deaths, instead of obsessing over Terry Schiavo or giving birth to every stand of DNA in existence. The thing right to lifers don't get is DNA is in fact incredibly cheap to the point of being worthless. It is really easy and fun for most couples to create more if you need them. When you obsess over turning them all in to living organisms a mother nurtured for 9 months and which after birth have to be fed, clothed and housed in a world that is running out of food, energy and space you are creating more problems than you are solving.
Bottomline is unless we reach a point where we have stabilized world population growth, and all the babies born in to the world can be properly cared for and have a chance at a decent life, trying to maximize birth rate is INSANE.
The hard core right to lifers are just as opposed to birth control pills as abortion. Its a hot topic lately that some pharmacists who are extreme right to lifers are trying to stop filling valid prescriptions for birth control pills because it violates their religious views. Not a problem in the city but in one pharmacy small towns it certainly could become a problem, especially if the right to lifers start seeking to shut down every pharmacy in the area that distributes birth control pills the same way they've sought to shut down abortion clinics, and in some areas have completely shut down access to abortions.
There is an ulterior motive to the right to life in a religious context. Maybe it is just based on moral grounds and the belief human life is sacred, but elimination of abortion and birth control also results in faster growth in the numbers of followers of that religion. Population growth for a religion leads to political power, less persecution, control of land and more dollars landing in the collection plate on Sunday. In the religion game:
Power = Population growth
Catholic went from zero to 1 billion in 2 thousand years thanks to prohibiting birth control.
In a world bursting at the seems its turning in to a real problem that religions want to continue to maximize population growth. When you have a population of 6 billion and rising, many of whom can't be fed, life isn't quite as sacred as religions contend unless you want to achieve hell ON Earth.
In Israel an ulterior motive of giving up control of Gaza is population and population growth between warring religions. When you count all Arabs in Israel proper and the occupied territories they are rapidly approaching parity in numbers with Jews, and will soon out number them. Muslmis are breeding at a much higher rate than Jews in Israel. If Israel were to allow all Arabs to vote (which it never has in the the occupied territories) Arabs would seize control of Israel by democratic means. Israel is for all practical purposes an apartheid state because they don't let most Arabs vote, and very soon they will be a minority ruling a majority just like Whites ruled majority Blacks in South Africa. Once they spin off a million Arabs in Gaza into national limbo they maintain a hard majority much further in to the future.
The other paradox about supposed right to lifers like George W. is, if life is so sacred how can he justify sending actual living breathing human beings with lives and families who depend on them to die in optional wars like the one in Iraq. How is a living, breathing soldier or Iraqi civilian's life so meaningless as to throw it away for no clear reason, while at the same time you obsess over the existence of a tiny water bag full of DNA. I can see a right to lifer justifing killing and being killed if it was essential for survival of their family and society but the war in Iraq didn't qualify on that count in any way.
All in all you can understand right to life and maximizing population growth in the context of 2000 years ago or even 200 years ago when the world was relatively empty but today if it continues its going to lead to the eventual resource collapse of the planet.
"But you keep harping on people who are not in my situation: I *do* have the gold-plated health insurance and can earn far more in the U.S. than in Canada."
Dude, good for you, I'm glad you are so self centered enough that as long as your life is wonderful in Country A that make Country A better than B in some asbolute sense.
If you recall when we started this pointless waste of time, my original objection was that you were stating as an absolute that Canada was hell on earth and the U.S. is heaven. If you had had just said "for me" the U.S. is way better I probably wouldn't have spent the last two days debunking all the BS you've shoveled trying to PROVE Canada was a living nightmare in an absolute sense which it simply isn't.
Sorry friend but that article didn't contradict anything I said. The fact is conventional oil sources which are cheap and easy to extract probably are peaking. The fact is tar sand and oil shale can in fact continue to provide petroleum products far in to the future. As I said and as the article says it will be difficult, resource intensive and expensive. Here are a couple other backgrounders from Wikpedia on oil shale and tar sand.
Note in particular for oil shale the in-situ extraction method:
"Royal Dutch/Shell has been developing a method using electrical heating in Colorado, some 200 miles (320 km) west of Denver. A heating element is lowered into the well and allowed to heat the kerogen over time, slowly converting it into oils and gases, which are then pumped to the surface. This greatly reduces the footprint of extraction operations - to no more than a conventional oil well. It could also potentially extract more oil from a given area of land, as the wells can reach much deeper than surface strip-mines can."
I think you and your article severely underestimate the capacity and desire of the fossil fuel industry to prolong its existence, as well as their capacity for innovation with their multibillion dollar coffers being filled with high oil prices. If in-situ proves commercially feasible, with this technique you could presumably build a nuclear reactor in the oil shale field, and extract petroleum products from it until the cows come home. For just oil shale estimates are 1.6 trillion barrels of oil with 60-70% in the U.S.
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying exploiting these oil resources is necessarily good, but I think you are naive to think that it wont happen when oil runs out rather instead of the fossil fuel giants all of a sudden getting green and developing new energy sources. You article is especially misleading in suggesting natural gas and vast quantities of water are mandatory in extracting the oil. Those were just a couple of established methods. For oil shale extraction you mostly just need heat and you can get heat from a variety of sources, including electricity and nuclear.
Another interesting letter to add to the mix was one to the New York Times, to which he was a prominent signatory, which condemns the massacre of Palestinians at Deir Yassin in 1948 and is especially critical of a future Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, refering to him and his Freedom party as Fascists.
The massacre at Deir Yassin helped propel many Palestinians in to abandoning their homes and home lands for refugee camps.
"there isn't a order or magnitude difference in Canada's favor anywhere."
I don't think I ever said there was. You started this B.S. by claiming Canada was an order of magnitude worse than the U.S. and it just ain't so.
Fact is getting health care that works is incredibly hard and both the U.S. and Canada have failed:
- The U.S. wins if you are in an upper income bracket and have gold plated health insurance especially at your employers expense. You can get great healthcare. You also do OK if you are very poor and on Medicaid or old and on Medicare. In those two areas Canada the U.S. are more the same than alike. It very socialized and VERY inefficient and it costs people dearly in their payroll taxes. Social security is more like Canadian pensions than different.
- The U.S. system falls flat in two areas. If you are low to middle income and don't have gold plated insurance from your employer, you end up alongside the 40+ million who are uninsured and one catastrophic illness away from bankruptcy or who don't seek the care they need early when its cheap and it turns catastrophic. The other area its completely failing is profiteering by health and drug companies who are driving up health care costs at a completely out of control pace. This is draining the U.S. economy, killing U.S. competitiveness and each year causing employers to slash or completely drop insurance coverage. The profit obsessed health care industry and its out of control costs is eventually going to lead to a full fledged economic crisis. Big companies like GM are already trying to slash healthcare benefits for their worked because they can't afford them anymore and compete globally.
The U.S. is headed for a system where only the affluent or people in the socialized part of the system will get health care, and the rest will die early and broke.
As for the nanny state during the years I lived in Ontario they went from major social safety net to a tax and benefit cutting provincial government that turned the parks of Toronto in to massive camp grounds for the homeless. I dislike welfare for those able to work but I also dislike the mentally ill and drug addicted living and dieing in the streets of big cities which make downtown areas in many cities in the U.S. in to hell holes.
"And, increasingly, we do not wish to be a part of such tax-slavery. Ominously, the Canadian government is making it harder to leave."
I assure you once you acquire U.S. citizenship you pay taxes to Uncle Sam until the day you die and its also very hard to renounce your citizenship, especially if you are wealthy since they don't want you to leave for a tax haven in the Caribbean. If you are a U.S. citizen working in Canada you are OK up to about $72K or so thanks to tax treaty, if I remember. At that point you start getting doubled taxed by Canada first, and then the U.S. starts double taxing you.
You can't prove motivation unless some inside whistblower leaks documents. The reality is the number of refineries in the U.S. is half what it was in the 20 years ago though a lot of closures were small and inefficient refineries that stopped being viable when Federal price controls and subsidies ended under Reagan in 1981. Capacity has dropped from over 18 million barrels in 1981 to a little over 16 million today though demand is slightly higher. There is very little excess capacity today which is very profitable but it also means refineries are often working at close to 100% of capacity, they aren't getting sufficient down time for maintenance, accident rates are higher and when an accident of major failure shuts down a big refinery it further tightens supply and pushes up prices further.
Here is one good reference with charts. In particular look at this chart. Again 1981 is a landmark year because thats when Federal price controls and subsidies ended, low efficiency refineries dropped like flies and we got a supposed "free market" which unfortunately has lead to sky high prices today.
Not sure I should really imply there is a conspiracy here though its quite possible the industry is working together to keep refining capacity on a razor thin margin which helps push prices up, especially in the summer. You could call it efficient free market at work or some could call it price fixing to maximize profits.
I've seen Saudi officials being questioned by the press about high oil and gasoline prices and they will always shoot back with a key part of the problem is inadequate refining capacity in the U.S.
I'm thinking my first attempt to answer you was a little verbose, let me try shorter and simple.
"War for oil" doesn't mean the U.S. occupies country, pulls tankers in harbor and ships oil to U.S. for free. That would tick off the U.S. oil companies which have vast political clout as much as the host company and the world.
Its way more subtle than that.
"War for oil" mean the U.S. takes down hostile government, installs friendly/puppet government the U.S. can dominate politically and militarily. The U.S. then insures U.S. oil companies and more importantly U.S. oil field service companies (a.k.a. Halliburton) get the contracts to control and develop the oil fields and get to profit mightily from its sale. The victim country also understands that if it tries to nationalize the field, or replace the U.S. companies with French, Russian or Chinese companies they run a high risk the U.S. will topple that government and install a new one to insure the U.S. always gets the outcome and control it craves so much.
Its also VERY important to the U.S. that it makes sure oil is traded in U.S. dollars and not Euros because this makes the dollar the dominant world currency which is critical to U.S. economic survival, especially with as much money as the U.S. has to borrow every year.
There is comedy in the fact that you are comparing todays production against prewar production when Iraqi oil was embargoed, the U.N. was messing in it with Oil for food, and sanctions made fixing infrastructure difficult at best. Iraqi oil production was in a shambles before the war and its still in a shambles after the war. You can blame the prewar situation on Saddam but it was more due to U.S. and U.N. sanctions. The before situation certainly originated with George H.W. Bush and the after originated with George W. Bush though Clinton contributed in the middle.
Also quoting the number for ONE good month and declaring victory is silly since Iraqi production gyrates wildly month to month based on the success of sabotage and insurgent attacks.
Its a simple fact the U.S. isn't going to double Iraqi oil production in the current climate like Cheney was telling everyone they would.
"Contrary to common misbelief, the US did not invade Iraq to steal their oil."
Well in the short term the coalition provisional authority did in fact steal it. They took the money from oil sales and transfered it in to the pockets of American contractors and Bush adminsitration cronies like Halliburton. Here is just one of many examples write up. Here is another article on rampant fraud under the CPA and its puppet government under Allawi.
That said I'm sure all the war profiteering was just a side show.
I'm more inclined to think rather than "steal" Iraqi oil the U.S. was seeking more to "control" Iraqi oil and further completely dominate militarily the worlds biggest oil producing region Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran.
Control comes in three forms and always has EVERY time the U.S. and Britain have intervened in an oil producing country in the last century, Iran in the 50's was another classic example of the tactics I describe below:
A. Topple a hostile government and install a friendly puppet government you can manipulate. The Iraqi government is completely dependent on the U.S. to stay in power so the U.S. can dictate and manipulate it at will.
B. Maintain military bases in the dominated country so if it strays to far out of line you can threaten and if necessary topple the government again and install a new and better puppet.
C. Insure U.S. and British oil companies and even more important oil field service companies like Halliburton are given the inside track for the contracts to service the oil fields and produce and sell the oil. If you have U.S. companies on the ground in the oil fields the U.S. controls and profits from the oil. You need enough blackmail influence to insure they don't give the contracts to anyone else.
Its always been the U.S. objective to insure they have enough military bases in the region that they can intimidate the governments there and block any strategic movies in to the region by Russia and China. Saudi bases didn't work well because the Saudi's put to many restrictions on them. The current bases in Iraq are much better since the weak Iraqi government can't dictate to the U.S. what it does there. They are also better suited to intimidate and attack the next two targets on the list Syria and Iran.
Iran in the 50's is a great historical reference to see exactly how this policy works. U.S. overthrew a sovereign government, installed the despotic Shah, and insured U.S. oil companies were given the contracts to control Iran's oil production. Prior to this the oil fields were in British hands and they were taking the lions share of the profits. The Iranians got fed up with the Brisish taking all the profits and nationalized them. The CIA, with British prodding, toppled the government, and then the oil contracts went in to U.S. hands and the British were ticked. Google search for TPAJAX which is the CIA codeword for one of the other grand schemes for taking
Coal fired power plants and steel mills are just as much of the problem as oil and gas and coal isn't going to run out for hundreds of years.
Also once oil gets expensive enough, like it pretty much already is, it becomes economical to start tapping oil shale and tar sands in the Western U.S. and there is most probably enough oil there to last for hundreds of years too. Its just really dirty, expensive, energy intensive and hard on the land scape cooking it out of the rock and sand. Pilot projects started during the energy crisis in the '70's, then oil prices cratered and it wasn't economical so they all stopped. All indicators are oil is going to stay high now and that is going to green light resuming oil shale and tar sand extraction.
The world isn't running out of oil, its running out of cheap, easy to extract oil. It doesn't help that Iraq's oil production is now in a shambles thanks to George W. It also should be noted gas and oil prices are high more due to market manipulation than shortages. Supplies are tight but speculators are taking advantage and inflating prices far beyond market realities. In the U.S. refiners have also intentionally reduced refining capacity to insure there is a perpetual tight supply of gas. They make huge profits maintaining an artificial shortage in refining capacity. If they built adequate refining capacity they would make much less money. Oil is not a real free market in this world. Oil companies have consolidated back to a near monopoly status, and they collude to rig prices. If we lived in a world with real free markets someone would step in, build new refineries and create competition and lower gas prices but for some reason no one does.
There is irony that it Russian scientists betting against global warming and you have to wonder if there is an ulterior motive. The Russian government has as much incentive as Exxon Mobile to deny global warming and launch a PR blitz against it. People forget but Russia is one of the worlds largest oil and gas exporters. Europe is massively dependent on Russian gas. The one save grace for the Russian economy is its vast oil and gas reserves. The current high oil prices have been a major boost to Russia's economy which was a key motivator in Putin and his cronies seizing control of Yukos, one of Russia's largest, formerly privately held oil, companies.
"The discrepancy comes from my treating gun-deaths as the only source of murders, which, they are not."
There wasn't a discrepancy, what you said was flat wrong. The parent said:
"Canada has a remarkably low murder rate."
You said:
"It's on a par with the U.S., per capita."
Its not. Its 3X higher in the U.S. So now you are claiming you were talking about murder with guns. Well in fact murder with guns is lower still. Only 1/3 of murders in Canada used guns versus 2/3rds in the U.S.
Here is a good article with charts. Violent crime is just consistently higher in the U.S. while Canada is at about parity in non violent property crimes. Here is the wikipedia article on the subject though Wikipedia isn't a very reliable source. It does say:
"Compared to the United States Canada has far lower rates of violent crime such as murder, assault, and rape. Through the 1990s, the homicide rate in the United States was three times higher than it was in Canada, while the American rate for aggravated assault was double the Canadian rate. The rate for robberies was 65% higher in the United States."
"Canada's crime rate is close to the average of Western Europe. Canada has a fair bit more crime than Japan. Canada has a lower crime rate than almost every country in the developing world."
"One of the most common explanations of the higher violent crime rate in the United States are guns. Gun crimes are far more common in the United States. Only one third of Canadian murders involve firearms compared to two thirds in the States. Guns are far more likely to be used in robberies in the United States. Gun ownership rates are much higher in the United States, especially handguns. Most Canadian weapons are rifles or shot guns owned by farmers and target shooters, and are less likely to be used in crimes. More assault weapons are banned in Canada than the United States. Canada also has a national gun registry. Even before the creation of the national gun registry, the two biggest provinces, Ontario and Quebec had a long history of strict gun controls. Paradoxically, however, after declining since the late 1970s, Canada's homicide rate has actually increased slightly since the national gun registry was enacted. Canada has more guns and fewer controls on them than Western Europe or Japan."
Now to your next claim since you've completely veered off murder since you've been completely debunked there:
"violent crime against women is double in Canada, per capita, than what it is in the U.S."
Why don't you provide a URL to support that. First off I think you mean rape or maybe sexual assault not violent crime. Murder and assault are across the board higher in the U.S. and that doesn't change for women.
Now rape you might have a case because a few of the statistics I find do show Canada is 2X higher per capita than the U.S. But there is a problem. The definition of rape is different in every country, state, etc. This article says this about Rape law in Canada:
"Rape. In 1982, new legislation replaced the offense of rape with the new offense of "sexual assault." Sexual assault can take the form of unwanted touching, and need not involve penetration. There are three levels of sexual assault, graded by the amount of violence involved."
Rape is unfortunately statistically impossible to track. The definition varies in every jurisdiction. The percentage of actual versus reported cases is also wildly unpredictable. A place with strong shield laws is going to have more rapes cases filed than one that doesn't.
To be honest if this is the best you can do in your crusade to crucify your homeland maybe you should go back to the drawing board.
Dude you need to try using a few more words next time, you didn't make your point. Who is "they", Al Qaeda, Saddam, who knows? By collateral damage do you mean women and children getting killed in Iraq is good because it teaches those nasty terrorists what will happen if they launch another 9/11. If so you should probably seek councilling, because your sick. Those women and children in Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. You just put yourself down at the same level as Al Qaeda if killing innocent women and children that had nothing to do with 9/11 is your idea of how to make your point.
Man just stop the bullshit, please. You are making a fool out of yourself. Its the number of murders per 100,000 people. Its a totally black and white statistic unlike all the insane anecdotal and biased mud you are slinging Canada's way.
Just admit it, you are so blinded with hatred of Canada you will say anything to trash it, even stuff that is totally untrue.
I should add about the list the 5 countries above the U.S. are all countries that have seen dramatic social upheaval in the last 20 years, and are struggling for social order South Africa, Russia, Latvia and Estonia. The U.S. has no excuse for being a world leader in murder for as long as it has, other than Americans are to fond of guns and violence, and guns are to easy to get.
Of course your the guy that cherishes the right to shoot people who stray on to your land so I'm wasting my time arguing this point.
"Those young NCOs and company-grade officers are the core of the armed forces, and will form the backbone of that force for the next 15-20 years."
Of course the other possibility is many of them will become the backbone of an antiwar movement and might aggressively work to bring down the government that lied them in to a grizzly, pointless war.
Thats what happened with many of the vets coming back from the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the 80's. They turned in to the heart of a movement that helped bring down the Communist party (a.k.a. the fat cats), who sent them off to a horrific war where and turned them in to both bloody thirsty killers and sitting ducks with PTSD in spades.
The vets in Iraq aren't in quite as bloody and savage a place as Afghanistan was and maybe they well get out sooner. But then then too the vets in Iraq have a nasty edge, they now know that the top two reasons the Republican fat cats used to justify sending them in harms way were a complete lie. Don't think the Soviet Union sunk so low as to lie to justify invading Afghanistan.
Of course another route Iraqi vets might take is to stay in and rise in the ranks. Maybe down the road they will fight harder against civilians who both lie them in to a war, and completely botch post victory planning which led them in to a quagmire. Unfortunately people who make it in to the top ranks of the military tend to do it because they always follow orders, no matter how insane they are.
"The military needs every one of those Iraq vets healthy and sane, particularly since they now possess expertise in urban combat, the most-costly and dangerous of military endeavors."
You are talking like you are looking forward to the prospect of the U.S. spending the next 20-30 years getting bogged down fighting one urban insurgency after another. To be honest I think I would prefer the U.S. had no need for soldiers with urban warfare skills to fight more Iraq's in the future because either:
A. The politicians figure out better ways to resolve problems B. If the politicans do have to resort to force that they aren't so stupid as to get bogged down in urban insurgency quagmires that are nearly impossible to win.
Urban warfare is universally bad because its the form of ground warfare that results in maximum innocent civilian casualties which is why many of those vets have PTSD, watching women and children get waxed.
Dude at this point you just shot your credibility to hell, not like it wasn't already gone. You are just trying to make up stuff to trash Canada at this point and most of it is complete BS.
The chart I found for 2000 has the U.S. per capita murder rate at 5.64 and it has the dubious distinction of being 6th highest in the world. South Africa rules at 50+ and Russia is second at 20+.
Canada is 1.76 and down around 21st on a list of 38. Thats a more than 3X difference.
Luxembourg is best at 0.23 though its not a complete list.
Well at this point I guess you just proved your nuts if you think killing people for trespassing is GREAT. I would say you probably did fit in great in Texas.
Later dude, you're not worth arguing with and I sure hope you don't move in next door.
Slashdot Mirror
There is irony that it appears the Roman's were in fact, doing the right thing trying to nip Christianity in the bud. One wonder what the world would be like if monotheistic religion had never gained a foothold, if European civilization hadn't been decimated by the Inquistion, the dark ages etc. and Arab civilizaiton hadn't been decimated by Islam. Religious fanatics tried really hard to suppress Copernicus and Galileo. If they had succeeded we might still be flat Earthers thinking the Sun resolves around us and America would still be populated by peaceful communists in tune with nature.
If you've read much Nietzsche he does a pretty good job of covering why Christianity is a philosophy for the weak and the weak minded.
Let the Christian flamage begin.
Well for someone who doesn't have a horse in this race you sure seem fond of Bush and willing to trash Clinton. I'm suspecting you are one of the many lately who were raging Bush fans when he was popular and are now distancing yourself from him now that he looks like a goober with plummeting approval ratings, and failing at every thing he tries lately. For an independent you sure seem fond of everything Little George does.
"Clinton is the only elected president to EVER be impeached"
Whoopie. And what does that prove other than the House was controlled by a bunch of right wing nut jobs who were so blinded with hatred for the Clintons and so hungry to lynch him, that they impeached him when there was no case, and the Senate being a more moderate body promptly and sensibly shot it down.
I don't have any real fondness for Democrats but I'd take Clinton or Gore in a heartbeat over Bush, especially if they had a chance to just be President instead of being constantly hounded by right wing nut jobs so they can't do their job. Bush, on the other hand, has had a free ride for no obvious reason and he deserves some hounding.
"if you or anyone has a better solution I'd sure love to hear it"
Yea, take a true conservative's approach. STAY THE HELL OUT OF IT, until it directly threatens U.S. security which in Saddam's case would probably be never, instead of getting in the middle of something that was more about Israel's security than America's. Me personally I could have cared less that Saddam invaded Kuwait, the Emir is just as despicable a ruler as Saddam, the only thing in his court is he is a Bush family friend. Let the Saudi's etc deal with it, it threatened their security they have plenty of money and weapons.
" it can be very helpful for people who other things don't work for"
Well that can be said about medical Marijuana. Do we have to get Merck of Phizer to want to market, and profit from it, to get the Federal government to allow it. For people wanting to expand their consciousness I image LSD is helpful. For people looking to improve their sociability Ecstasy is very helpful.
Is CX717 an American drug companies marketing name for Meth. American drug companies are missing out on some major bucks not being able to market Meth. If they can give it a new name, have the Bush administration give them a green light in the name of free enterprise I'm sure it will be fine to start selling it over the counter or maybe at worst with an easy to acquire prescription. After all the government lets them sell Oxycontin, often with the drug company's full knowledge its going out the back door on to the steet. It is for all practical purpose legalized narcotics.
"who didn't see that coming?"
... ho hum ... thats OK.
The entire Bush administration apparently. The delusional neocons thought a western secular democracy would automatically break out when Saddam went down. It was delusional and flew in the face every historical and contemporary fact on the ground. Either that or they thought they could strongarm a supposedly sovereign government in to writing a constitution and doing what the U.S. told them to do, or rig the elections and get their puppet Allawi in. They may still succeed in the later in the next round of elections.
"WMD existed (how do you think he gassed the Kurds?) and he no doubt took the extra time allowed him to get rid of any hot potatoes he was holding."
The Kurd gassing was more then 20 years ago, no one in the U.S. gave a damn at the time. This was just a propaganda tool to get suckers like yourself salivating to take Saddam down. The Kurds were waging an armed insurrection against Iraq and Turkey. Most governments suppress insurrections ruthlessly, the Turks have too, do you want to take the Turks down? If the Kurds lived in the U.S. and tried to secede the U.S. government would crush them just like Saddam only probably more so (you know like Lincoln did in the Civil War). The American fixation on it now is insane. So what if he gassed them. He could have bombed and strafed the village and the outcome would have been the same. If you want to have retroactive toppling of governments over WMD's, the U.S. should be the first to go down since it nuked hundreds of thousands of civilians in Japan. What exactly is the difference other than the U.S. loves its double standards.
"Clinton was a scholar, look how much it mattered he still got caught with his dick in some minimum-wage interns."
He was still a vastly better President than George W. could ever hope to be. Men are men, many chase women. George's dad had an affair in office too, IMPEACH. George W.'s life up to about 40 was nothing but doing drugs, chasing women and getting hammered, why aren't you upset about that. Clinton was a victim of an 8 year right wing witch hunt that did grievous damage to the nation, they never found anything after hundreds of millions of dollars worth of searching other than he lied about sex which is what married men do when caught cheating. The one thing they did achieve is they soured the country on the Democrats by constantly bombarding the public with false accusations against the Clintons for eight solid years. It worked, they finally got power back. Contrast this small transgression for which there was an impeachment circus versus the Bush administration which lies about everything, stuff that matters. They lied about stuff that is squandering hundreds of billions of dollars and getting thousands of people killed and maimed for life. You sure seem to have a another odd double standard here. I"M OUTRAGED BECAUSE CLINTON HAD SEX AND LIED ABOUT IT versus Bush lied us in to war
"Would you argue that I have some moral obligation"
Uh no, you are delusional to think that I care where you live as long as its not near me.
Why don't you stay as far away from Canada as you can get and just stop dumping on it. One of your worst problems seems to be you are so obsessed with hating Canada its completely eating you up. Having read your dribble for a couple of days I'm sure they are just glad you are gone. I'm confident they don't want someone who thinks its cool to shoot trespassers anywhere near Canada. You sound like you are an all American, and would really fit in Texas. Your stars are just totally crossed that you were born Canadian. Now please just shut up, don't really care what you have to say anymore.
"I got the joke and played along..."
.... what a goober .....
Suuuuuurrrrrrreeeee. Dude you bit like a starving dog with read meat dangling in front of him.
""Well Bush's Daddy didn't do this or that... blah blah blah Well Bush is, he's standing up and doing something.."
Yea he's doing something alright, he walked straight in to quicksand and he is currently up to his neck and on his way down.
You see George W's dad IS vastly smarter, better informed and more sophisticated than his goober son. His dad was an A student, his son C at best. His dad was studying the world, was ambassador to China, and head of the CIA while his son was playing baseball, snorting cocaine, pickling his liver and chasing women. His dad was smart enough to realize that Saddam really and truly sucked but letting Shia clerics take over Iraq, which is the inevitable result of elections, will be just as bad if not worse for the U.S. in the long run. He smartly left well enough alone and didn't get the U.S. bogged down in a $300 billion dollar quagmire with thousands of dead and wounded Americans.
The ush and Co. in to taking down Saddam for them, by selling Cheney and Co. bullshit stories about WMD's. Either they bought it hook, line and sinker or they were so thirsty for war they ran with it even though they knew it was Bullshit.
Chalibi is an Iranian agent when it suits his needs. The Iranians have been trying to take down Saddam, and free their Shia brethren in Iraq, since pretty much since the Iranian revolution and never been able to do it. They just managed to sucker the U.S. in to doing it for them and it cost them $0 dollars and $0 lives. It cost the U.S. $300 billion dollars at least and 1800 lives and counting. When its all said and done and the U.S. finally gets sick of the place and leaves their will be a Shia Islamic government that looks a lot like the Taliban or Iran, in fact the area around Basra, the Shia capital, is already looking like Taliban town.
George W. has in fact laid the foundation for a potential Shia fundementalist Islamic empire, hostile to the U.S., across all the biggest oil fields in the Middle East. The Saudi oil fields next door to Iraq are in areas dominated by Shia's too. Who won the war in Iraq, it wasn't all the peoples of Iraqi, it wasn't the U.S., it was the Iranian's and their Shia brethren in Iraq. Well the Kurds made out alright too though the day they try to secede the Turks will probably invade them. The Turks hate the Kurds as much as Saddam does, and have killed their fair share too. Saddam didn't gas the Kurds for no reason. The Kurds were waging a bloody civil war against Iraq to gain an independent Kurdistan. Their brethren are still waging a war in Turkey to achieve the same goal.
George W., he will be known throughout history with this signature line
"which is now free to tell them to get the hell out, and refuse to sell oil to the US."
Yea maybe someday. It ain't gonna happen anytime soon. The day the Iraqi government does that there are about a dozen actors in the region inside and outside of Iraq that would pounce and either seize power or split the country in to a 3 part civil war. All the Kurds and many Shia's already want to split Iraq in to 3 countries which is why the constitution wrangling continues. The Kurds want to take the oil fields in the north and secede and the Shia's want to take the oil fields in the south and create a Taliban style Islamic republic and leave the Sunni's in the middle in poverty.
Any Iraqi leader that isn't naive knows that if they did start crossing the U.S. they run a high risk that the CIA would start working to topple them either through a coup or election rigging. The CIA has done this scores of times since World War II. I really doubt with as much blood and gold as the U.S. has invested in this that they are going to walk away with a democratically elected Islamic fundamentalist government allied with Iran selling all their oil to China and with French and Russian companies running their fields, and with no military bases in Iraq or Saudi Arabia.
If could happen but if it does it just shows how badly the Bush administration thought this out, or rather didn't think this thing out past Shock and Awe, pulling down Saddam's statue, and the roses. Or maybe it just shows how incompetent they really are. The voting dynamics were obvious before the invasion. 60% of the popluation are Shia and most of them are devout Mulsims. Thats why George W.'s dad left Saddam in power the first time around. He knew Saddam was better than another fundamentalist Islamic government which is what you get putting democracy in Iraq.
Watching Charlie Rose recently a guest completely nailed it. The U.S. didn't win the Iraq war after 300 billion dollars 1800 dead and thousands wounded. Iran did and they didn't have to lift a finger. Chalibi may have well been an Iranian agent whose mission was to sucker the U.S. in to taking down Saddam for them, using false WMD charges and the Bush administration fell for it hook, line and sinker.
"The US has undertaken the monumental task of rebuilding the oil infrastructure....The US is not asking for anything in return."
I really doubt that. If the U.S. rebuilds it, it will only be if Halliburton gets the lion's share of the contracts and it will mostly probably be paid for with Iraqi oil revenue, which is just a back door way to take Iraqi oil revenue and put it in American pockets. Halliburton are specialists at defrauding their customers.
"The US has a long history of doing the right thing, for the right reasons -- much to the dismay of the pundits of the day."
That is completely ridiculous. The U.S. has done the wrong thing countless times for more than a century, certainly as far back as the Spanish American War. Did anyone in school ever teach you about the Phillipine America War. Probably not.
The U.S. overthrown countless sovereign and popular governments and replaced them with ruthless right wing dictators, whose only qualification was their willingness to kill leftists.
I think your problem is you get all your news and history from U.S. biased sources which ALWAYS belabor all the good and completely brush under the rug all the bad. The media and education system in pretty much every country does that. No one ever burdens schoolchildren with facing the fact their country isn't perfect, they'd rather fill them with the heroic history of Washington crossing the Delaware and D-Day. They don't ever tell kids the U.S. killed and tortured hundreds of thousand up to a million Filipinos trying to crush an anti occupation insurgency like the one in Iraq today.
"Just because something is nothing more than an amalgam of cells - or a single cell - doesn't mean it doesn't represent, even if only philosophically, human life. Why is it valid in the macro scale, but not micro?"
Oh that question is so backwards. Actually it appears in the eyes of the right to life crowd life is vastly more precious and sacred in the micro scale than it is in the macro. People like Geroge W. abort these supposedly sacred lives all the time, not in an abortion clinic, fertility clinic or research lab but in the steets of Iraq or bygone years the jungles of Vietnam or hills of Korea. They abort sacred lives of people who have families to support, and which families and societies have spend yeart nurturing, raising and educating.
Why exactly should we be spending this vast energy debating stem cell research while we seem to spend very little energy debating the rightness or morality of the wars we start. Well the opponents of the wars spend a lot of time fretting over them but the "right to life" people advocating them lately don't really seem to much care about the morale issues of sending people to kill and be killed, and its not even in self defense. They create slogans, catch phrases and build false cases to justify killing this supposedly sacred life and then just do it.
"the following is one effort to save the lives of these tiny children that you refer to:"
Geez, why don't you people spend ALL your energy keeping the MILLIONS of young children alive that are starving to death each year, and those are nasty painful deaths, instead of obsessing over Terry Schiavo or giving birth to every stand of DNA in existence. The thing right to lifers don't get is DNA is in fact incredibly cheap to the point of being worthless. It is really easy and fun for most couples to create more if you need them. When you obsess over turning them all in to living organisms a mother nurtured for 9 months and which after birth have to be fed, clothed and housed in a world that is running out of food, energy and space you are creating more problems than you are solving.
Bottomline is unless we reach a point where we have stabilized world population growth, and all the babies born in to the world can be properly cared for and have a chance at a decent life, trying to maximize birth rate is INSANE.
The hard core right to lifers are just as opposed to birth control pills as abortion. Its a hot topic lately that some pharmacists who are extreme right to lifers are trying to stop filling valid prescriptions for birth control pills because it violates their religious views. Not a problem in the city but in one pharmacy small towns it certainly could become a problem, especially if the right to lifers start seeking to shut down every pharmacy in the area that distributes birth control pills the same way they've sought to shut down abortion clinics, and in some areas have completely shut down access to abortions.
There is an ulterior motive to the right to life in a religious context. Maybe it is just based on moral grounds and the belief human life is sacred, but elimination of abortion and birth control also results in faster growth in the numbers of followers of that religion. Population growth for a religion leads to political power, less persecution, control of land and more dollars landing in the collection plate on Sunday. In the religion game:
Power = Population growth
Catholic went from zero to 1 billion in 2 thousand years thanks to prohibiting birth control.
In a world bursting at the seems its turning in to a real problem that religions want to continue to maximize population growth. When you have a population of 6 billion and rising, many of whom can't be fed, life isn't quite as sacred as religions contend unless you want to achieve hell ON Earth.
In Israel an ulterior motive of giving up control of Gaza is population and population growth between warring religions. When you count all Arabs in Israel proper and the occupied territories they are rapidly approaching parity in numbers with Jews, and will soon out number them. Muslmis are breeding at a much higher rate than Jews in Israel. If Israel were to allow all Arabs to vote (which it never has in the the occupied territories) Arabs would seize control of Israel by democratic means. Israel is for all practical purposes an apartheid state because they don't let most Arabs vote, and very soon they will be a minority ruling a majority just like Whites ruled majority Blacks in South Africa. Once they spin off a million Arabs in Gaza into national limbo they maintain a hard majority much further in to the future.
The other paradox about supposed right to lifers like George W. is, if life is so sacred how can he justify sending actual living breathing human beings with lives and families who depend on them to die in optional wars like the one in Iraq. How is a living, breathing soldier or Iraqi civilian's life so meaningless as to throw it away for no clear reason, while at the same time you obsess over the existence of a tiny water bag full of DNA. I can see a right to lifer justifing killing and being killed if it was essential for survival of their family and society but the war in Iraq didn't qualify on that count in any way.
All in all you can understand right to life and maximizing population growth in the context of 2000 years ago or even 200 years ago when the world was relatively empty but today if it continues its going to lead to the eventual resource collapse of the planet.
"But you keep harping on people who are not in my situation: I *do* have the gold-plated health insurance and can earn far more in the U.S. than in Canada."
Dude, good for you, I'm glad you are so self centered enough that as long as your life is wonderful in Country A that make Country A better than B in some asbolute sense.
If you recall when we started this pointless waste of time, my original objection was that you were stating as an absolute that Canada was hell on earth and the U.S. is heaven. If you had had just said "for me" the U.S. is way better I probably wouldn't have spent the last two days debunking all the BS you've shoveled trying to PROVE Canada was a living nightmare in an absolute sense which it simply isn't.
Sorry friend but that article didn't contradict anything I said. The fact is conventional oil sources which are cheap and easy to extract probably are peaking. The fact is tar sand and oil shale can in fact continue to provide petroleum products far in to the future. As I said and as the article says it will be difficult, resource intensive and expensive. Here are a couple other backgrounders from Wikpedia on oil shale and tar sand.
Note in particular for oil shale the in-situ extraction method:
"Royal Dutch/Shell has been developing a method using electrical heating in Colorado, some 200 miles (320 km) west of Denver. A heating element is lowered into the well and allowed to heat the kerogen over time, slowly converting it into oils and gases, which are then pumped to the surface. This greatly reduces the footprint of extraction operations - to no more than a conventional oil well. It could also potentially extract more oil from a given area of land, as the wells can reach much deeper than surface strip-mines can."
I think you and your article severely underestimate the capacity and desire of the fossil fuel industry to prolong its existence, as well as their capacity for innovation with their multibillion dollar coffers being filled with high oil prices. If in-situ proves commercially feasible, with this technique you could presumably build a nuclear reactor in the oil shale field, and extract petroleum products from it until the cows come home. For just oil shale estimates are 1.6 trillion barrels of oil with 60-70% in the U.S.
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying exploiting these oil resources is necessarily good, but I think you are naive to think that it wont happen when oil runs out rather instead of the fossil fuel giants all of a sudden getting green and developing new energy sources. You article is especially misleading in suggesting natural gas and vast quantities of water are mandatory in extracting the oil. Those were just a couple of established methods. For oil shale extraction you mostly just need heat and you can get heat from a variety of sources, including electricity and nuclear.
Another interesting letter to add to the mix was one to the New York Times, to which he was a prominent signatory, which condemns the massacre of Palestinians at Deir Yassin in 1948 and is especially critical of a future Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, refering to him and his Freedom party as Fascists.
The massacre at Deir Yassin helped propel many Palestinians in to abandoning their homes and home lands for refugee camps.
"there isn't a order or magnitude difference in Canada's favor anywhere."
I don't think I ever said there was. You started this B.S. by claiming Canada was an order of magnitude worse than the U.S. and it just ain't so.
Fact is getting health care that works is incredibly hard and both the U.S. and Canada have failed:
- The U.S. wins if you are in an upper income bracket and have gold plated health insurance especially at your employers expense. You can get great healthcare. You also do OK if you are very poor and on Medicaid or old and on Medicare. In those two areas Canada the U.S. are more the same than alike. It very socialized and VERY inefficient and it costs people dearly in their payroll taxes. Social security is more like Canadian pensions than different.
- The U.S. system falls flat in two areas. If you are low to middle income and don't have gold plated insurance from your employer, you end up alongside the 40+ million who are uninsured and one catastrophic illness away from bankruptcy or who don't seek the care they need early when its cheap and it turns catastrophic. The other area its completely failing is profiteering by health and drug companies who are driving up health care costs at a completely out of control pace. This is draining the U.S. economy, killing U.S. competitiveness and each year causing employers to slash or completely drop insurance coverage. The profit obsessed health care industry and its out of control costs is eventually going to lead to a full fledged economic crisis. Big companies like GM are already trying to slash healthcare benefits for their worked because they can't afford them anymore and compete globally.
The U.S. is headed for a system where only the affluent or people in the socialized part of the system will get health care, and the rest will die early and broke.
As for the nanny state during the years I lived in Ontario they went from major social safety net to a tax and benefit cutting provincial government that turned the parks of Toronto in to massive camp grounds for the homeless. I dislike welfare for those able to work but I also dislike the mentally ill and drug addicted living and dieing in the streets of big cities which make downtown areas in many cities in the U.S. in to hell holes.
"And, increasingly, we do not wish to be a part of such tax-slavery. Ominously, the Canadian government is making it harder to leave."
I assure you once you acquire U.S. citizenship you pay taxes to Uncle Sam until the day you die and its also very hard to renounce your citizenship, especially if you are wealthy since they don't want you to leave for a tax haven in the Caribbean. If you are a U.S. citizen working in Canada you are OK up to about $72K or so thanks to tax treaty, if I remember. At that point you start getting doubled taxed by Canada first, and then the U.S. starts double taxing you.
You can't prove motivation unless some inside whistblower leaks documents. The reality is the number of refineries in the U.S. is half what it was in the 20 years ago though a lot of closures were small and inefficient refineries that stopped being viable when Federal price controls and subsidies ended under Reagan in 1981. Capacity has dropped from over 18 million barrels in 1981 to a little over 16 million today though demand is slightly higher. There is very little excess capacity today which is very profitable but it also means refineries are often working at close to 100% of capacity, they aren't getting sufficient down time for maintenance, accident rates are higher and when an accident of major failure shuts down a big refinery it further tightens supply and pushes up prices further.
Here is one good reference with charts. In particular look at this chart. Again 1981 is a landmark year because thats when Federal price controls and subsidies ended, low efficiency refineries dropped like flies and we got a supposed "free market" which unfortunately has lead to sky high prices today.
Not sure I should really imply there is a conspiracy here though its quite possible the industry is working together to keep refining capacity on a razor thin margin which helps push prices up, especially in the summer. You could call it efficient free market at work or some could call it price fixing to maximize profits.
I've seen Saudi officials being questioned by the press about high oil and gasoline prices and they will always shoot back with a key part of the problem is inadequate refining capacity in the U.S.
I'm thinking my first attempt to answer you was a little verbose, let me try shorter and simple.
"War for oil" doesn't mean the U.S. occupies country, pulls tankers in harbor and ships oil to U.S. for free. That would tick off the U.S. oil companies which have vast political clout as much as the host company and the world.
Its way more subtle than that.
"War for oil" mean the U.S. takes down hostile government, installs friendly/puppet government the U.S. can dominate politically and militarily. The U.S. then insures U.S. oil companies and more importantly U.S. oil field service companies (a.k.a. Halliburton) get the contracts to control and develop the oil fields and get to profit mightily from its sale. The victim country also understands that if it tries to nationalize the field, or replace the U.S. companies with French, Russian or Chinese companies they run a high risk the U.S. will topple that government and install a new one to insure the U.S. always gets the outcome and control it craves so much.
Its also VERY important to the U.S. that it makes sure oil is traded in U.S. dollars and not Euros because this makes the dollar the dominant world currency which is critical to U.S. economic survival, especially with as much money as the U.S. has to borrow every year.
"Not "in shambles".
There is comedy in the fact that you are comparing todays production against prewar production when Iraqi oil was embargoed, the U.N. was messing in it with Oil for food, and sanctions made fixing infrastructure difficult at best. Iraqi oil production was in a shambles before the war and its still in a shambles after the war. You can blame the prewar situation on Saddam but it was more due to U.S. and U.N. sanctions. The before situation certainly originated with George H.W. Bush and the after originated with George W. Bush though Clinton contributed in the middle.
Also quoting the number for ONE good month and declaring victory is silly since Iraqi production gyrates wildly month to month based on the success of sabotage and insurgent attacks.
Its a simple fact the U.S. isn't going to double Iraqi oil production in the current climate like Cheney was telling everyone they would.
"Contrary to common misbelief, the US did not invade Iraq to steal their oil."
Well in the short term the coalition provisional authority did in fact steal it. They took the money from oil sales and transfered it in to the pockets of American contractors and Bush adminsitration cronies like Halliburton. Here is just one of many examples write up. Here is another article on rampant fraud under the CPA and its puppet government under Allawi.
That said I'm sure all the war profiteering was just a side show.
I'm more inclined to think rather than "steal" Iraqi oil the U.S. was seeking more to "control" Iraqi oil and further completely dominate militarily the worlds biggest oil producing region Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran.
Control comes in three forms and always has EVERY time the U.S. and Britain have intervened in an oil producing country in the last century, Iran in the 50's was another classic example of the tactics I describe below:
A. Topple a hostile government and install a friendly puppet government you can manipulate. The Iraqi government is completely dependent on the U.S. to stay in power so the U.S. can dictate and manipulate it at will.
B. Maintain military bases in the dominated country so if it strays to far out of line you can threaten and if necessary topple the government again and install a new and better puppet.
C. Insure U.S. and British oil companies and even more important oil field service companies like Halliburton are given the inside track for the contracts to service the oil fields and produce and sell the oil. If you have U.S. companies on the ground in the oil fields the U.S. controls and profits from the oil. You need enough blackmail influence to insure they don't give the contracts to anyone else.
Its always been the U.S. objective to insure they have enough military bases in the region that they can intimidate the governments there and block any strategic movies in to the region by Russia and China. Saudi bases didn't work well because the Saudi's put to many restrictions on them. The current bases in Iraq are much better since the weak Iraqi government can't dictate to the U.S. what it does there. They are also better suited to intimidate and attack the next two targets on the list Syria and Iran.
Iran in the 50's is a great historical reference to see exactly how this policy works. U.S. overthrew a sovereign government, installed the despotic Shah, and insured U.S. oil companies were given the contracts to control Iran's oil production. Prior to this the oil fields were in British hands and they were taking the lions share of the profits. The Iranians got fed up with the Brisish taking all the profits and nationalized them. The CIA, with British prodding, toppled the government, and then the oil contracts went in to U.S. hands and the British were ticked. Google search for TPAJAX which is the CIA codeword for one of the other grand schemes for taking
Coal fired power plants and steel mills are just as much of the problem as oil and gas and coal isn't going to run out for hundreds of years.
Also once oil gets expensive enough, like it pretty much already is, it becomes economical to start tapping oil shale and tar sands in the Western U.S. and there is most probably enough oil there to last for hundreds of years too. Its just really dirty, expensive, energy intensive and hard on the land scape cooking it out of the rock and sand. Pilot projects started during the energy crisis in the '70's, then oil prices cratered and it wasn't economical so they all stopped. All indicators are oil is going to stay high now and that is going to green light resuming oil shale and tar sand extraction.
The world isn't running out of oil, its running out of cheap, easy to extract oil. It doesn't help that Iraq's oil production is now in a shambles thanks to George W. It also should be noted gas and oil prices are high more due to market manipulation than shortages. Supplies are tight but speculators are taking advantage and inflating prices far beyond market realities. In the U.S. refiners have also intentionally reduced refining capacity to insure there is a perpetual tight supply of gas. They make huge profits maintaining an artificial shortage in refining capacity. If they built adequate refining capacity they would make much less money. Oil is not a real free market in this world. Oil companies have consolidated back to a near monopoly status, and they collude to rig prices. If we lived in a world with real free markets someone would step in, build new refineries and create competition and lower gas prices but for some reason no one does.
There is irony that it Russian scientists betting against global warming and you have to wonder if there is an ulterior motive. The Russian government has as much incentive as Exxon Mobile to deny global warming and launch a PR blitz against it. People forget but Russia is one of the worlds largest oil and gas exporters. Europe is massively dependent on Russian gas. The one save grace for the Russian economy is its vast oil and gas reserves. The current high oil prices have been a major boost to Russia's economy which was a key motivator in Putin and his cronies seizing control of Yukos, one of Russia's largest, formerly privately held oil, companies.
"The discrepancy comes from my treating gun-deaths as the only source of murders, which, they are not."
There wasn't a discrepancy, what you said was flat wrong. The parent said:
"Canada has a remarkably low murder rate."
You said:
"It's on a par with the U.S., per capita."
Its not. Its 3X higher in the U.S. So now you are claiming you were talking about murder with guns. Well in fact murder with guns is lower still. Only 1/3 of murders in Canada used guns versus 2/3rds in the U.S.
Here is a good article with charts. Violent crime is just consistently higher in the U.S. while Canada is at about parity in non violent property crimes. Here is the wikipedia article on the subject though Wikipedia isn't a very reliable source. It does say:
"Compared to the United States Canada has far lower rates of violent crime such as murder, assault, and rape. Through the 1990s, the homicide rate in the United States was three times higher than it was in Canada, while the American rate for aggravated assault was double the Canadian rate. The rate for robberies was 65% higher in the United States."
"Canada's crime rate is close to the average of Western Europe. Canada has a fair bit more crime than Japan. Canada has a lower crime rate than almost every country in the developing world."
"One of the most common explanations of the higher violent crime rate in the United States are guns. Gun crimes are far more common in the United States. Only one third of Canadian murders involve firearms compared to two thirds in the States. Guns are far more likely to be used in robberies in the United States. Gun ownership rates are much higher in the United States, especially handguns. Most Canadian weapons are rifles or shot guns owned by farmers and target shooters, and are less likely to be used in crimes. More assault weapons are banned in Canada than the United States. Canada also has a national gun registry. Even before the creation of the national gun registry, the two biggest provinces, Ontario and Quebec had a long history of strict gun controls. Paradoxically, however, after declining since the late 1970s, Canada's homicide rate has actually increased slightly since the national gun registry was enacted.
Canada has more guns and fewer controls on them than Western Europe or Japan."
Now to your next claim since you've completely veered off murder since you've been completely debunked there:
"violent crime against women is double in Canada, per capita, than what it is in the U.S."
Why don't you provide a URL to support that. First off I think you mean rape or maybe sexual assault not violent crime. Murder and assault are across the board higher in the U.S. and that doesn't change for women.
Now rape you might have a case because a few of the statistics I find do show Canada is 2X higher per capita than the U.S. But there is a problem. The definition of rape is different in every country, state, etc. This article says this about Rape law in Canada:
"Rape. In 1982, new legislation replaced the offense of rape with the new offense of "sexual assault." Sexual assault can take the form of unwanted touching, and need not involve penetration. There are three levels of sexual assault, graded by the amount of violence involved."
Rape is unfortunately statistically impossible to track. The definition varies in every jurisdiction. The percentage of actual versus reported cases is also wildly unpredictable. A place with strong shield laws is going to have more rapes cases filed than one that doesn't.
To be honest if this is the best you can do in your crusade to crucify your homeland maybe you should go back to the drawing board.
Dude you need to try using a few more words next time, you didn't make your point. Who is "they", Al Qaeda, Saddam, who knows? By collateral damage do you mean women and children getting killed in Iraq is good because it teaches those nasty terrorists what will happen if they launch another 9/11. If so you should probably seek councilling, because your sick. Those women and children in Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. You just put yourself down at the same level as Al Qaeda if killing innocent women and children that had nothing to do with 9/11 is your idea of how to make your point.
Man just stop the bullshit, please. You are making a fool out of yourself. Its the number of murders per 100,000 people. Its a totally black and white statistic unlike all the insane anecdotal and biased mud you are slinging Canada's way.
Just admit it, you are so blinded with hatred of Canada you will say anything to trash it, even stuff that is totally untrue.
I should add about the list the 5 countries above the U.S. are all countries that have seen dramatic social upheaval in the last 20 years, and are struggling for social order South Africa, Russia, Latvia and Estonia. The U.S. has no excuse for being a world leader in murder for as long as it has, other than Americans are to fond of guns and violence, and guns are to easy to get.
Of course your the guy that cherishes the right to shoot people who stray on to your land so I'm wasting my time arguing this point.
"Those young NCOs and company-grade officers are the core of the armed forces, and will form the backbone of that force for the next 15-20 years."
Of course the other possibility is many of them will become the backbone of an antiwar movement and might aggressively work to bring down the government that lied them in to a grizzly, pointless war.
Thats what happened with many of the vets coming back from the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the 80's. They turned in to the heart of a movement that helped bring down the Communist party (a.k.a. the fat cats), who sent them off to a horrific war where and turned them in to both bloody thirsty killers and sitting ducks with PTSD in spades.
The vets in Iraq aren't in quite as bloody and savage a place as Afghanistan was and maybe they well get out sooner. But then then too the vets in Iraq have a nasty edge, they now know that the top two reasons the Republican fat cats used to justify sending them in harms way were a complete lie. Don't think the Soviet Union sunk so low as to lie to justify invading Afghanistan.
Of course another route Iraqi vets might take is to stay in and rise in the ranks. Maybe down the road they will fight harder against civilians who both lie them in to a war, and completely botch post victory planning which led them in to a quagmire. Unfortunately people who make it in to the top ranks of the military tend to do it because they always follow orders, no matter how insane they are.
"The military needs every one of those Iraq vets healthy and sane, particularly since they now possess expertise in urban combat, the most-costly and dangerous of military endeavors."
You are talking like you are looking forward to the prospect of the U.S. spending the next 20-30 years getting bogged down fighting one urban insurgency after another. To be honest I think I would prefer the U.S. had no need for soldiers with urban warfare skills to fight more Iraq's in the future because either:
A. The politicians figure out better ways to resolve problems
B. If the politicans do have to resort to force that they aren't so stupid as to get bogged down in urban insurgency quagmires that are nearly impossible to win.
Urban warfare is universally bad because its the form of ground warfare that results in maximum innocent civilian casualties which is why many of those vets have PTSD, watching women and children get waxed.
"It's on a par with the U.S., per capita."
Dude at this point you just shot your credibility to hell, not like it wasn't already gone. You are just trying to make up stuff to trash Canada at this point and most of it is complete BS.
The chart I found for 2000 has the U.S. per capita murder rate at 5.64 and it has the dubious distinction of being 6th highest in the world. South Africa rules at 50+ and Russia is second at 20+.
Canada is 1.76 and down around 21st on a list of 38. Thats a more than 3X difference.
Luxembourg is best at 0.23 though its not a complete list.
"I could kill adult trespassers after dark."
Well at this point I guess you just proved your nuts if you think killing people for trespassing is GREAT. I would say you probably did fit in great in Texas.
Later dude, you're not worth arguing with and I sure hope you don't move in next door.