You can go back to before the industrial revolution or the very beginning of it when Jefferson had to send marines to the Pirate Coast to rescue US sailors who had been taken as slaves. And that is not an isolated event either. These cultures clash because they have fundamentally differing belief systems. That doesn't make either culture "right" or "wrong" but they do not get along and have never gotten along very well.

I am the first to admit that the US is in the wrong this time but that doesn't mean that the US or the west was always in the wrong in each prior event. Anyone who believes that is a damned fool.

They may not hate us but they do a really good impression of it.

P.S. Remember that the vast majority of those people of color sold into slavery in the new world were first captured and sold by these same Islamic pirates from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli.

Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett

CrystalRadio, you misunderstood me. I apparently wasn't clear enough. The arguements are for hopefully changing the minds of people who deny cheap oil, at least enough change to begin to analise the situation.

I certainly agree with you about the current regime, I'm a committed peacenik. I was at eight demonstrations before the invasion of Iraq by the United States, and many more since. I voted against them twice, and think that GWB is the worst president since Franklin Pierce (1856-1860), who was the president who allowed militas to form and battle it out in Kansas, the biggest cause of the American Civil War.

In the US we've allowed the mainstream media to divide us into camps, Liberal/Conservative, Peak Cultist/Cornucopian Evangelical Christian/secular humanist. And its been incredibly divise and is blocking the truth in many areas, because most people don't fit 100% in any camp. But they use certain code words and topics to identify each other.

So what I tried to say is couch your arguements in such a manner as to appeal to others in the group you want to communicate with. Its an old revolutionary communist trick. So if your friend is concerned about national security, talk about how our national security is threatened by the huge level of oil imports; conservation is our patriotic duty. If your friend is a committed christian, talk about the concept of stewardship, a duty to pass on the world in as good a condition as you received it by cutting carbon emmissions. None of this is a lie, its just good salesmanship. Agree with them first, then educate them to agree with you because of what they already believe.
Its not possible to win an arguement, but it is possible to change someones point of view by coming to a concensus.

CrystalRadio said,
"I know I shouldn't let myself be drawn in to this, but oh well, just call me irresponsible, but I find that part of your statement rather offensive."

The United States however, can at least enjoy this one aspect of it's very real jeopardy: Since we (whether the bulk of our people know it or not) a nation now facing a threat to it's very existance, as a nation we are starting not to give a fvck who may find our statements or our actions "offensive" (the truth often is).

Your point is well taken Crystal, we may have brought it on ourselves. We may deserve it. Some have even argued that we could have sold survivors of Auschwitz down the river for oil, and wallowed in the black filth.

Too late for all that. All the Saudi boot lickin' for oil now won't help us. You play the ball where it lies.

The Wahhabi Islamists whose pockets we are shoving hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars of oil money too because we refuse to use our own brains and technology would be all the happier to see any American laid out with their guts open to the sun at the first possble opportunity.

The Americans don't want to hear it. They would rather sit around and dream of the great "meltdowns" and "dieoffs" and "catastrophes" based on that glorious day when the oil runs out. Fantasy upon fantasy is built based upon idiotic speculation, while the real threat is watching for the gap, the place we are not looking, the tear in the fence.

If we are ignorant enough to let our guard down, the talons will rip American flesh asunder for sport, the final "victory" of their righteousness. Do you want a preview? Look at the raped and murdered schoolgirls of Beslan.
Oh, yes, we had forgotten them, while we soared to off to new heights of infantile fantacy about "running out of oil" (I thought "peak" wasn't about "running out?"), we had forgotten the real brutality in the world, hadn't we?

And Putin, the fvckin big talker but non doer, like Bush, did nothing to the real slaughterers. The whole gang of useless shitt. They run when the real threat hits. Where is their sacred honor on either side, to protect their own nations?

"to people who hate us?", you ask? You damm right they hate us, they hate humans in general terms, but us more than most.

Make no mistake, let them bastardds get a hold of the U.S., and "Peak Oil" will hold no fear by comparison. And when we buy their oil, waste it away, and make no effort to change, because it's too much work, or because the neo-primitivist propagandists undercut our will to do so, or the anarchist greens threaten every project we propose, we are giving them the sword to finish us off with. How long do you think you Primitive Green tree fairies will survive when they come for you?
You talk "sheepie"? It will more like butchering lambs. And if you wonder how they will treat your daughters, look back at Beslan. If you think your left wing leadership will protect you any better than the cowards we have now, look at Putin.

And should the great Canadian dream of watching the U.S get sliced, diced and dried in the sun ever come true, let's see how long they can hold their own against the murdering sons of the Order of the Raping Killers of Beslan.

OHHH, CANADA....

RC

I guess you typed this out on your Blackberry as you drove to work in your car powered by a perpetual motion device.

Actually, I have suggested that we make a transparency of the Saudi crude oil production profile and then invert it. It would then show a production low in 2005, with increasing production since then. So, viewed correctly, we can expect to see an infinite increase in Saudi oil production.

But I gotta go. I promised to fix dinner. We have this magic pantry. No matter how much food we take out of it, it spontaneously regenerates and it is full every morning.

Hello Dezakin,

I assume you are being sarcastic.

If not: please tell me how I can refill an now empty waterglass without going back to the kitchen faucet. Next, tell me how to refill an empty gastank when petrol gas-stations are extinct. It took approx. 200 million years to create the first fillup.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

westexas: One could make a pretty good case that it makes sense to arrange things so that one benefits financially from the mistakes of those who refuse to recognize that we can't have an infinite rate of increase in consumption of a finite energy supply.

Dezakin: This is one of the most trite strawmen that everyone loves to repeat.

I rest my case.

Edit:

What if Peter Huber, Michael Lynch, Daniel Yergin, et al, are a lot smarter--and much more ruthless--than we think? What if they are deliberately implementing the following strategy?

Encourage debt financed consumption.

Go long on energy companies and other providers of essential goods and services.

Go short on companies dependent on cheap energy and discretionary spending.

Sit back and enjoy the profits.

Swiss and humor, always a strange match :-P

Let me try.

Convenience stores pay very little and hire people no one else will hire to work the counter, selling cigarettes, gasoline, small medicines (aspirin etc.), packaged food and other sundries at hours when larger stores are closed.

When skilled people loss their jobs and become desperate for ANY job, they will chose such work (or work at McDonalds).

So many very skilled oil people were laid off during the 1980s that many low pay jobs were filled with high skill people. So many that there were no more jobs available, even the lowest paid jobs. So the convenience store can chose who they want to hire to sell cigarettes and gasoline.

So they have hired all of the geologists that they want, much are willing to hire a couple more petroleum engineers.

I hopes this helps :-)

Alan

Benjamin!!

For crying out loud, people have taken apart the E3 crap in front your very eyes multiple times yet you continue to throw it around as if it is real.

You are a real piece of work, sir. A genuine propaganda machine. There is no point in even replying to you any more when multiple answers that have debunked your bogus numbers go ignored by you.

Let me give you some advice, Ben baby! Go INVEST in E3! Go invest YOUR entire life savings! If it is as good as you say, why aren't you fully invested in it? If you're not, then you're a raving lunatic hypocrite.

While I disagree often with Dezakin, he is heavily into the nuclear side and "walks the walk". But you? You're a con man.

Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett

Hothgor?

I meant Benjamin Cole, of course. Not you GZ.

Having just finished the excellent and well-reasoned The Upside of Down, it's extremely difficult to read the usual cornucopian crap that infests this site. Luckily, Homer-Dixon includes some suggested reasons why we continue to deny the obvious...you don't want to know the analogy he uses, it's not flattering.

40 to 1. Thank you Jesus! We are saved!

>Check out the E3 website. They use cow dung and corn stalks to fire the plant, no natural gas....they include all inputs in the 5 to 1 calculation....it is a wonderful step forward...inside the plant, they claim 40-to-1 energy in-energy out....expect further betterments in an infant industry...

They Sure do use Natural gas, and Diesel too! Natural gas is converted to fertializer to replace nitrogen and essential minerals that where transported to the furnance. Extra diesel fuel burned to harvest and transport the dung and stalks to the furnance.

>I expect a price dump, and we should think about heavy gasoline taxes going forward...

Great, more money for gov't subsidies and other Gov't pork spending that drives up inflation. That a great way to increase consumption as consumers spend every dollar they make in order to avoid losing money to inflation. Plus gas taxes do zitch for oil consumption overseas (eg China, India, etc). What ever we don't buy, someone else will because demand for oil exceeds supply.

Is that more used dope smoke coming out your ignorant ears, old hippie? I (a) did not defend Christian culture involved in slavery, (b) did not deny it in any way, shape or form, (c) made no references to race whatsoever, and (d) simply pointed out that Islam is as dirty as any culture when it comes to slavery.

You don't like this and then call that racism? Your brain is fried worse than I thought.

Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett