Meanwhile, back in the "real world," I was listening to the local cornucopian on his car show radio broadcast in the Dallas area, and he was talking about car sales being up over a year ago, gasoline prices down slightly, and how Boone Pickens is just trying to drive the price oil up talking nonsense about Peak Oil.
As I have said before, isn't it ironic that those of us who believe that a finite world has finite limits are considered to be the "cultists," while those who, in effect, believe that we can have an infinite growth rate against a finite resource base are considered "mainstream."
In order to continue to clarify one point about my ELP recomendations, I am not advocating cutting consumption for the general good. The only thing that is going to reduce energy consumption is people's physical inabilty to pay for it. I am advocating reducing your overall consumption--especially your energy consumption--now, because, IMO, energy, and food, will become increasingly expensive in the months and years ahead.
But how do you communicate that Westexas?
In my lab everyone looks at me as a goofball even though they have not won one argument with me on the topic. The more I try the more retarded these people act. FRankly I am starting to get really upset.
Come here to get upset and have arguments, go there and make the future look like more fun and excitement than jumping into a barrel of cats and monkeys.
If the above makes any sense to you let me know, if it doesn't, let me know.
fireangel, you might tell them that oil is going to keep getting more expensive, rather than focusing on running out. The tar and bitumen (Canadian Tar sands and Oil shale) cost a heck of a lot more than light sweet crude to mine and process. Not even the most extreme Cornucopian can argue with that one.
Another good angle is ask them how long we are going to keep sending 60% of our energy dollars to people that hate us? In other word, out-conservative them. Its a national security thing.
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.
First, most people are trying their damnedest not to hate the American people, but the effing elite run thing you have been sold as a democratic government has been dropping bombs on people's heads without stint or reservation and that is a problem. People just don't like having friends and relatives blown to little bits, fact.
Canada has been drawn into this blowing people to bits business lately and I can see how your feeling of being hated arises. Next time I leave my country I will not be taking anything that indicates I am a proud Canadian, no little flags or buttons, no patriotic B.S. I will wave a flag when there is something worth waving it about. Actually maybe I will put a flag on the car, but upside down to indicate distress.
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
"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."
And who was it that eagerly bought and paid for them?
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.
That doesn't sound right - and Wikipedia disagrees with you too...
Can you link to something that supports your assertion? I'm not denying that some type of slavery has existed within the Muslim world - in fact some forms of slavery still exist there (and elsewhere). But most of the North American, Caribbean and Latin American slave populations came from the Bight of Benin.
The industrial-scale transport of human chattels across the ocean, to work on plantations producing cash crops for export, was invented by people who called themselves Christians. And it was abolished by their coreligionists.
The industrial scale transportation of slaves predates Christianity. The ancient Romans captured people to work their grainfields in North Africa, and quarries throughout their empire. The Egyptians enslaved people from Africa and used them on their building projects. The Letters of St. Peter were used to justify slavery, but the institution was very well established before Christianity or Islam.
But historical accuracy aside, I was trying to point out that you can sometimes establish a rapport with people by appealing to their mindset, or prejudices. I know, its shitty, but it works. And remember about 1/6th of the worlds exported oil originates in the KSA, and about 1/2 from OPEC. 15 out of 19 hijackers that flew into the World Trade Center came from the KSA. The main funding for the Sunni militias causing 80% of the casulties on American troops comes from the KSA. They are not our friends, and as Arianna Huffington succinctly noted, every dollar you spend putting gas in your tank puts money in the hands of terrorists. So if you care anything about the USA, conserve! If you want to end this pointless and evil war, conserve! If you want to keep money and jobs in the US, buy renewables and conserve!
Of course you are free to believe whatever you choose to believe. Facts rarely change minds around here.
In evaluating the African slave trade, there was another "Middle Passage" often neglected by most scholars—the Arab slave trade. It is often forgotten that the Arab slave trade in East Africa and the slave trade from North Africa into Inner West Africa was protracted and ruthless. Sometimes the Arabs from the north who were Moslem enslaved Africans in the south who were also Moslems, thereby violating one of the most basic customs of their faith—that no Moslem should enslave another Moslem. There is a small library of books on this subject that most scholars have chosen not to read, thereby making the Arab slave trade the best kept secret in history—although it is not a secret at all. Of the many books and documents that I have read on the subject, Slavery in the Arab World by Murray Gordon, 1987, and The African Slave Trade From the 15th to the 19th Century, in The General History of Africa: Studies and Documents 2, UNESCO,1979. I find the most informative the UNESCO book, especially the chapter, "The Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean."
I am not saying that Muslims were the sole source of slavery but those of you who keep holding up the Islamic nations as some sort of utopian do-gooders need to study your history. The history does not and has never supported that notion. The Islamic states have a history as contorted and ugly as any of the west. And given sufficient time and resources, they will assert their own version of Iraq and its horrors somewhere.
Ghawar Is Dying The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
"Alauddin Khalji�s Market Control has become famous in medieval Indian history. He fixed the price of every commodity, including slaves. The sale price of slaves was like this. The standard price of a working girl was fixed at from 5 to 12 tankahs, and that of a good looking girl suitable for concubinage from 20 to 30 and even 40 tankahs. The price of a man slave (ghulam) usually did not exceed 100 to 200 tankahs. The prices of handsome boys were fixed from 20 to 30 tankahs; the ill-favoured could be obtained for 7 to 8. The price of a child slave (ghulam bachchgan naukari) was fixed at 70 to 80 tankahs. The slaves were classified according to their looks and working capacity. In the case of bulk purchases by traders who had ready money and who had the means to carry their flock for sale to other cities,19 prices were fixed accordingly."
Another excerpt
"Low Price of Indian Slaves
Ziyauddin Barani reckons regulations regarding sale of �horses, slaves and quadrupeds� under one category. T.P. Hughes quoting the Hidayah says that slaves, male and female, are treated merely as articles of merchandise, and �very similar rules apply both to the sale of animals and bondsmen.�29 A milch buffalo cost 10-12 tankahs., a working girl was cheaper. The price of a good quality horse was 90-120 tankahs, that of a ghulam was 100 on an average. A handsome boy could be had for 20 to 30 tankahs.30 .."
I was rebutting your original point about the New World slave trade. As oilmanbob points out, industrial-scale slavery wasn't invented in 18th-Century Benin, nor was it invented in 6th-Century Hejaz - the Prophet's family owned slaves before he became the Prophet. Placing the blame for Dixie on Islam is a breathtaking example of historical revisionism (chutzpah). Nevertheless, I'll concede that the Berber Muslim-syncretist slave traders of the Maghreb were probably quite capable of spotting a profitable market and selling to the white middleman when he was offering a competitive price for their dark-skinned merchandise.
In any case, when the poor wretches got to their final destination, I suspect they found that their new owners went to Church on Sunday rather than Mosque on Friday. Though in that shadowy alternative timeline, maybe we would have been spared the unbearable torture of Whitney Houston's choral vibrato. Win some, lose some.
A word of advice: get a grip on that childish compulsion to Wikibomb any poster who points out that Islam isn't the only source of all the evil that there has ever been or ever will be in the world. Get some historical perspective; Islam (a certain recently-invented aspect of) is merely a convenient label for the Imperium's enemy du jour. Remember who sponsored the Talibs back in the 1980s. And remember who the Talib were fighting against, and what they could have done to the United States in the course of a few hours. And lighten up, for Clapton's sake.
Gotta go and do some of that oil-field stuff now. Isn't that what we were originally discussing? And not a slave in sight. Lots of crop-top blondies on the other side of that chainlink fence down at the airport, though.
Um yeah right, your choice of an example to demonstrate the moral superiority of the West, and of the USA in particular, is spot on, eh Greyzone. It's all black and white.
I mean it's not as if Jefferson owned any slaves himself or anything.
Ah, I said something bad about oldhippie's "good guys" - the Iranians. Too bad, so sad.
You are the one who is grossly ignorant of history if you believe that ANY major culture was free of the taint of slavery. But go on believing in stuff and nonsense, old hippie. Facts have never stopped you from spouting nonsense before.
Ghawar Is Dying The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Sure the Iranians are my special friends and my good guys 'cause I've said a few times here it would be exceptionally dumb for the current US administration to start a war of choice in Iran. That follows. Very logical. You are astute.
You think the clash of cultures is so bloody important, you think that loaded phrase describes anything real, you got such a bee in your bonnet over the Ayrabs, tell you what: There are plenty of wars in progress right now where you could go and kill Arabs to your heart's content. Pick one. Go. Kill.
So now we get from my pointing out Islamic involvement in slave trade to you implying that I am a racist who wants to kill "Ayrabs" (YOUR phrase, not mine). Project much, jackass?
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.
Thanks for coming back and explaining your position so nicely with no offense taken on that touchy subject.
I agree you have to talk to others within their frames of reference. As an instance, I really have had a lot of trouble following a lot of the tech talk on oil as that was right out of my range of experiences and even the day to day, off to the job lunch bucket in hand, stuff is nothing I am familiar with other than through movies.
Let us know how the fishing is there. I am feeling the call of the sea these days myself.
Last year when gas hit 3 bucks I noticed a distinct drop in the level of traffic for a while. Lately the traffic has been the worst I've encountered in five years of my NH/Mass commute.
But hey, record Dow, so everything must be just hunky-dory, right? Right???
The deeper we dig the hole, the longer the drop will be when we fall in...
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.
Where do you get this juvenile nonsense from? I'd genuinely like to know. Do you actually believe it? If so, you're sadly deluded; if not, you're depraved and corrupt. Which?
We already have, in less than a decade. Before the children of the dead even grew up. Before the Russian children who saw rape and slaughter could even finish school. Before the estates of the dead passengers in London and Spain are even settled.
We said, "We will never forget". We have forgotten where they even came from. We have forgotten what they told us they would do. We have forgotten that they have told us that "the enemy afar" must be killed. By the way, they named "the enemy afar." That's us, the Americans, and their friends the Jews.
We did not put the words in their mouths, they told us, from the days of "Moslum Brotherhood."
"We will never forget", we said. Now, the ones who have not forgotten will have to protect the ones who have completely forgotten. They do not care who has remembered or forgotten. They have told us. They will gut us for sport, while we pay them to do it.
Roger Conner Jr.
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
We cannot have ethanol and milk too, at low prices (duh! Bush).
Adding to price presures beyond cow food...
Seems milk prices are rising and global demand is growing. Austrailia is having a drought and New Zealand is maxed out. So they and Asia are looking to the US for milk.
They quote one shopper who has these choices
1)Cheese
2)Gasoline
3)A new pair of shorts for summer
1 and 2 win over 3 for her. Add this "feedback loop" (times millions of americans and millions of products) into the economy along with the subprime mess, lower housing ATM withdrawls, rising electric, nat gas rates.
But wait BC says cow waste will save us....
I wish I could wear rose colored glasses sometimes too.
Yes we are pretty maxed out down here in NZ and the diary farmers are having a ball - Fonterra (the milk export monopoly) just announced extra average payouts to farmers of $120,000NZ, and diary farms are sprouting up where ever they can (placing major burdens on aquifers in places like the Canterbury plains).
But just like the US the products are costing us more - prices just up between 6-14% (and thats here in NZ):
Extra costs coming through in running the machinery and of course feedstock via the biofuel fed inflation.
So even the producer countries are getting whacked by food inflation. The Central Bank here will continue to raise interest rates (base rate stands at a whopping 7.75%) but I really dont see how these can have much effect when its energy and food inflation that are the principle drivers of general inflation here (at least until they go so high that a genuine recession is induced).
I am not advocating cutting consumption for the general good.
If you include in that statement that things purchased for a personal good that would result an overall reduction of fossil fuel use are considered a general good, I agree. For example alternative energy products, energy efficiency items, gardening equipment wheelbarrows shovels etc. (in my case a recent purchase of 24 ft* 100ft roll of. greenhouse poly, solid FF there and that is one thing that if it already hasn't done a big jump where you are it likely soon will, 33% jump here as I walked out of the door). I think any use of FF in these directions would be beneficial personally as well as generally.
I have been building a garden because I enjoy gardens and they give me someplace to go that doesn't involve getting in a car. If one has space and time I suggest a garden as a way of reducing consumption. A hive of bees should also be considered for a garden, very nice to listen to the buzzing of the little blighters of an evening, the buzzing goes well with the curses of any neighbours who fear the little critters.
Don't listen to the talk show hosts, its bad for your blood pressure, Jeffry!
If His Idiocy is right about oil being an addiction, then recovery from the addiction may be like recovery from Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. One of the stages identified in coming to acceptance is anger, and identifing us as cultists is a way of cutting us out to persecute, and identifying us as "pointy-headed intellectuals" as Spiro T. Agnew described us. Don't worry, it will get worse.
As far as cutting consumption, we can afford the technology for things like solar, gardening tools, a fishing pole or an electric bike now. In a peak oil depression, many of us will just plain be too broke.
While we're on the subject of talk radio, it's hard to beat good ol' Rush:
We are not addicted to gasoline. Oil is the fuel of the freedom and the engine of democracy. Oil is the basis on which our economy is going to grow. We know it's going to continue to grow. We want it to grow. We want the economy to keep growing. We want it to be such that people become more and more productive, more and more prosperous. Nobody ever talks about wanting the economy to slow down and go into recession. We're always wanting the economy to grow, and with more people being born and the influx of people. It's just the natural state of human affairs.
We know it's going to continue to grow. We want it to grow.
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.
If they won't listen to repeated warnings, you might as well profit from their mistakes:
Step One: Regarding ELP, "E" and "L" to the max.
Step Two: Invest and/or work in activities related to essential goods and services, especially food and energy.
Step Three (for the more risk oriented): Look into shorting stocks of companies heavily dependent on discretionary spending and cheap energy.
Having done all of this, you might at least be in a position to help out some people in years ahead. Perhaps put them to work on your farm?
Old joke from Eighties Oil Patch Crash: Geologist applies for work at convenience store in Houston. Manager replies that they have no openings for Geologists, but they do have a couple of openings for Petroleum Engineers.
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.
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.
Of course not. Many paint the antidoomers as innumerate when its simply that we view the limits as much further in the future before being a cause of concern. The solar flux is on the order of 10^17 watts and we're only using 10^13. We can grow a hundredfold before tapping the radiative capacity of the earth or the solar budget.
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.
Build giant thorium reactors for doing thermochemical hydrogen production, crack CO2 out of limestone with other reactors, run over cobalt catalists for diesel fuel.
Pricy sure, not impossible.
Similarly, build solar concentrators for thermochemical hydrogen production. Or just turn most of it into electricity and adjust infrastructure accordingly.
Meanwhile, back in the "real world," I was listening to the local cornucopian on his car show radio broadcast in the Dallas area, and he was talking about car sales being up over a year ago, gasoline prices down slightly, and how Boone Pickens is just trying to drive the price oil up talking nonsense about Peak Oil.
As I have said before, isn't it ironic that those of us who believe that a finite world has finite limits are considered to be the "cultists," while those who, in effect, believe that we can have an infinite growth rate against a finite resource base are considered "mainstream."
In order to continue to clarify one point about my ELP recomendations, I am not advocating cutting consumption for the general good. The only thing that is going to reduce energy consumption is people's physical inabilty to pay for it. I am advocating reducing your overall consumption--especially your energy consumption--now, because, IMO, energy, and food, will become increasingly expensive in the months and years ahead.
But how do you communicate that Westexas?
In my lab everyone looks at me as a goofball even though they have not won one argument with me on the topic. The more I try the more retarded these people act. FRankly I am starting to get really upset.
Fireangle,
Come here to get upset and have arguments, go there and make the future look like more fun and excitement than jumping into a barrel of cats and monkeys.
If the above makes any sense to you let me know, if it doesn't, let me know.
Your compadre in disaster,
CR
fireangel, you might tell them that oil is going to keep getting more expensive, rather than focusing on running out. The tar and bitumen (Canadian Tar sands and Oil shale) cost a heck of a lot more than light sweet crude to mine and process. Not even the most extreme Cornucopian can argue with that one.
Another good angle is ask them how long we are going to keep sending 60% of our energy dollars to people that hate us? In other word, out-conservative them. Its a national security thing.
Hi Bob,
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.
First, most people are trying their damnedest not to hate the American people, but the effing elite run thing you have been sold as a democratic government has been dropping bombs on people's heads without stint or reservation and that is a problem. People just don't like having friends and relatives blown to little bits, fact.
Canada has been drawn into this blowing people to bits business lately and I can see how your feeling of being hated arises. Next time I leave my country I will not be taking anything that indicates I am a proud Canadian, no little flags or buttons, no patriotic B.S. I will wave a flag when there is something worth waving it about. Actually maybe I will put a flag on the car, but upside down to indicate distress.
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
"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."
And who was it that eagerly bought and paid for them?
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.
That doesn't sound right - and Wikipedia disagrees with you too...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade#Slave_Market_Regions
Can you link to something that supports your assertion? I'm not denying that some type of slavery has existed within the Muslim world - in fact some forms of slavery still exist there (and elsewhere). But most of the North American, Caribbean and Latin American slave populations came from the Bight of Benin.
The industrial-scale transport of human chattels across the ocean, to work on plantations producing cash crops for export, was invented by people who called themselves Christians. And it was abolished by their coreligionists.
The industrial scale transportation of slaves predates Christianity. The ancient Romans captured people to work their grainfields in North Africa, and quarries throughout their empire. The Egyptians enslaved people from Africa and used them on their building projects. The Letters of St. Peter were used to justify slavery, but the institution was very well established before Christianity or Islam.
But historical accuracy aside, I was trying to point out that you can sometimes establish a rapport with people by appealing to their mindset, or prejudices. I know, its shitty, but it works. And remember about 1/6th of the worlds exported oil originates in the KSA, and about 1/2 from OPEC. 15 out of 19 hijackers that flew into the World Trade Center came from the KSA. The main funding for the Sunni militias causing 80% of the casulties on American troops comes from the KSA. They are not our friends, and as Arianna Huffington succinctly noted, every dollar you spend putting gas in your tank puts money in the hands of terrorists. So if you care anything about the USA, conserve! If you want to end this pointless and evil war, conserve! If you want to keep money and jobs in the US, buy renewables and conserve!
http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa101101a.htm
Wikipedia disagrees with Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade
And they still do it (even in that liberal do-no-wrong fascist state called Iran):
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/iran_sex_slave_trade
10 centuries purely for Muslim countries then 4 more centuries for the rest of the world:
http://mondediplo.com/1998/04/02africa
MIT documents the extent of slave trade by western nations in conjunction with Arab slavers.
http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/History/21H-912The-World-Since-1492Sprin...
Of course you are free to believe whatever you choose to believe. Facts rarely change minds around here.
I am not saying that Muslims were the sole source of slavery but those of you who keep holding up the Islamic nations as some sort of utopian do-gooders need to study your history. The history does not and has never supported that notion. The Islamic states have a history as contorted and ugly as any of the west. And given sufficient time and resources, they will assert their own version of Iraq and its horrors somewhere.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
A link with detailed description of Slave trading by Sultan's from Afganistan.
http://voi.org/books/mssmi/ch10.htm
An excerpt
"Alauddin Khalji�s Market Control has become famous in medieval Indian history. He fixed the price of every commodity, including slaves. The sale price of slaves was like this. The standard price of a working girl was fixed at from 5 to 12 tankahs, and that of a good looking girl suitable for concubinage from 20 to 30 and even 40 tankahs. The price of a man slave (ghulam) usually did not exceed 100 to 200 tankahs. The prices of handsome boys were fixed from 20 to 30 tankahs; the ill-favoured could be obtained for 7 to 8. The price of a child slave (ghulam bachchgan naukari) was fixed at 70 to 80 tankahs. The slaves were classified according to their looks and working capacity. In the case of bulk purchases by traders who had ready money and who had the means to carry their flock for sale to other cities,19 prices were fixed accordingly."
Another excerpt
"Low Price of Indian Slaves
Ziyauddin Barani reckons regulations regarding sale of �horses, slaves and quadrupeds� under one category. T.P. Hughes quoting the Hidayah says that slaves, male and female, are treated merely as articles of merchandise, and �very similar rules apply both to the sale of animals and bondsmen.�29 A milch buffalo cost 10-12 tankahs., a working girl was cheaper. The price of a good quality horse was 90-120 tankahs, that of a ghulam was 100 on an average. A handsome boy could be had for 20 to 30 tankahs.30 .."
Wooooah there GZ!
I was rebutting your original point about the New World slave trade. As oilmanbob points out, industrial-scale slavery wasn't invented in 18th-Century Benin, nor was it invented in 6th-Century Hejaz - the Prophet's family owned slaves before he became the Prophet. Placing the blame for Dixie on Islam is a breathtaking example of historical revisionism (chutzpah). Nevertheless, I'll concede that the Berber Muslim-syncretist slave traders of the Maghreb were probably quite capable of spotting a profitable market and selling to the white middleman when he was offering a competitive price for their dark-skinned merchandise.
In any case, when the poor wretches got to their final destination, I suspect they found that their new owners went to Church on Sunday rather than Mosque on Friday. Though in that shadowy alternative timeline, maybe we would have been spared the unbearable torture of Whitney Houston's choral vibrato. Win some, lose some.
A word of advice: get a grip on that childish compulsion to Wikibomb any poster who points out that Islam isn't the only source of all the evil that there has ever been or ever will be in the world. Get some historical perspective; Islam (a certain recently-invented aspect of) is merely a convenient label for the Imperium's enemy du jour. Remember who sponsored the Talibs back in the 1980s. And remember who the Talib were fighting against, and what they could have done to the United States in the course of a few hours. And lighten up, for Clapton's sake.
Gotta go and do some of that oil-field stuff now. Isn't that what we were originally discussing? And not a slave in sight. Lots of crop-top blondies on the other side of that chainlink fence down at the airport, though.
Aleikum as'Salam,
PUD.
Um yeah right, your choice of an example to demonstrate the moral superiority of the West, and of the USA in particular, is spot on, eh Greyzone. It's all black and white.
I mean it's not as if Jefferson owned any slaves himself or anything.
You know nor care nothing about the history of slaving. Nothing. This is just an occasion for you to throw some racist venom around.
Ah, I said something bad about oldhippie's "good guys" - the Iranians. Too bad, so sad.
You are the one who is grossly ignorant of history if you believe that ANY major culture was free of the taint of slavery. But go on believing in stuff and nonsense, old hippie. Facts have never stopped you from spouting nonsense before.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Sure the Iranians are my special friends and my good guys 'cause I've said a few times here it would be exceptionally dumb for the current US administration to start a war of choice in Iran. That follows. Very logical. You are astute.
You think the clash of cultures is so bloody important, you think that loaded phrase describes anything real, you got such a bee in your bonnet over the Ayrabs, tell you what: There are plenty of wars in progress right now where you could go and kill Arabs to your heart's content. Pick one. Go. Kill.
So now we get from my pointing out Islamic involvement in slave trade to you implying that I am a racist who wants to kill "Ayrabs" (YOUR phrase, not mine). Project much, jackass?
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.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for coming back and explaining your position so nicely with no offense taken on that touchy subject.
I agree you have to talk to others within their frames of reference. As an instance, I really have had a lot of trouble following a lot of the tech talk on oil as that was right out of my range of experiences and even the day to day, off to the job lunch bucket in hand, stuff is nothing I am familiar with other than through movies.
Let us know how the fishing is there. I am feeling the call of the sea these days myself.
Last year when gas hit 3 bucks I noticed a distinct drop in the level of traffic for a while. Lately the traffic has been the worst I've encountered in five years of my NH/Mass commute.
But hey, record Dow, so everything must be just hunky-dory, right? Right???
The deeper we dig the hole, the longer the drop will be when we fall in...
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
Hi Out,
Where do you get this juvenile nonsense from? I'd genuinely like to know. Do you actually believe it? If so, you're sadly deluded; if not, you're depraved and corrupt. Which?
Love,
PUD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khobar_Towers_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_March_2004_Madrid_attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:New_York_Times_9-11.jpg
We said, "We will never forget."
We already have, in less than a decade. Before the children of the dead even grew up. Before the Russian children who saw rape and slaughter could even finish school. Before the estates of the dead passengers in London and Spain are even settled.
We said, "We will never forget". We have forgotten where they even came from. We have forgotten what they told us they would do. We have forgotten that they have told us that "the enemy afar" must be killed. By the way, they named "the enemy afar." That's us, the Americans, and their friends the Jews.
We did not put the words in their mouths, they told us, from the days of "Moslum Brotherhood."
"We will never forget", we said. Now, the ones who have not forgotten will have to protect the ones who have completely forgotten. They do not care who has remembered or forgotten. They have told us. They will gut us for sport, while we pay them to do it.
Roger Conner Jr.
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
Thanks oilmanbob. Sorry did not reply earlier after asking a qt. I think it is probably a more viable apporach.
Other 'real worldness' -
Will milk become America's new oil?
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/11...
We cannot have ethanol and milk too, at low prices (duh! Bush).
Adding to price presures beyond cow food...
Seems milk prices are rising and global demand is growing. Austrailia is having a drought and New Zealand is maxed out. So they and Asia are looking to the US for milk.
They quote one shopper who has these choices
1)Cheese
2)Gasoline
3)A new pair of shorts for summer
1 and 2 win over 3 for her. Add this "feedback loop" (times millions of americans and millions of products) into the economy along with the subprime mess, lower housing ATM withdrawls, rising electric, nat gas rates.
But wait BC says cow waste will save us....
I wish I could wear rose colored glasses sometimes too.
Re; NZ and milk production
Yes we are pretty maxed out down here in NZ and the diary farmers are having a ball - Fonterra (the milk export monopoly) just announced extra average payouts to farmers of $120,000NZ, and diary farms are sprouting up where ever they can (placing major burdens on aquifers in places like the Canterbury plains).
But just like the US the products are costing us more - prices just up between 6-14% (and thats here in NZ):
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4080583a3600.html
Extra costs coming through in running the machinery and of course feedstock via the biofuel fed inflation.
So even the producer countries are getting whacked by food inflation. The Central Bank here will continue to raise interest rates (base rate stands at a whopping 7.75%) but I really dont see how these can have much effect when its energy and food inflation that are the principle drivers of general inflation here (at least until they go so high that a genuine recession is induced).
"...I really dont see how these can have much effect when its energy and food inflation that are the principle drivers of general inflation here..."
I agree. I know in the US they can/do/will play monetary games to keep things floating. I'm not sure the outcome(s) other than how WT has laid it out.
If you include in that statement that things purchased for a personal good that would result an overall reduction of fossil fuel use are considered a general good, I agree. For example alternative energy products, energy efficiency items, gardening equipment wheelbarrows shovels etc. (in my case a recent purchase of 24 ft* 100ft roll of. greenhouse poly, solid FF there and that is one thing that if it already hasn't done a big jump where you are it likely soon will, 33% jump here as I walked out of the door). I think any use of FF in these directions would be beneficial personally as well as generally.
I have been building a garden because I enjoy gardens and they give me someplace to go that doesn't involve getting in a car. If one has space and time I suggest a garden as a way of reducing consumption. A hive of bees should also be considered for a garden, very nice to listen to the buzzing of the little blighters of an evening, the buzzing goes well with the curses of any neighbours who fear the little critters.
Don't listen to the talk show hosts, its bad for your blood pressure, Jeffry!
If His Idiocy is right about oil being an addiction, then recovery from the addiction may be like recovery from Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. One of the stages identified in coming to acceptance is anger, and identifing us as cultists is a way of cutting us out to persecute, and identifying us as "pointy-headed intellectuals" as Spiro T. Agnew described us. Don't worry, it will get worse.
As far as cutting consumption, we can afford the technology for things like solar, gardening tools, a fishing pole or an electric bike now. In a peak oil depression, many of us will just plain be too broke.
While we're on the subject of talk radio, it's hard to beat good ol' Rush:
He's not addicted to Oxycontin, either. Everybody keeps 3,000 pills around the house of hillbilly heroin.
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.
If they won't listen to repeated warnings, you might as well profit from their mistakes:
Having done all of this, you might at least be in a position to help out some people in years ahead. Perhaps put them to work on your farm?
Old joke from Eighties Oil Patch Crash: Geologist applies for work at convenience store in Houston. Manager replies that they have no openings for Geologists, but they do have a couple of openings for Petroleum Engineers.
This is one of the most trite strawmen that everyone loves to repeat.
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.
Who exactly said you can have an infinite increase in energy consumption from a finite energy supply? It sure wasn't me.
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?
Of course not. Many paint the antidoomers as innumerate when its simply that we view the limits as much further in the future before being a cause of concern. The solar flux is on the order of 10^17 watts and we're only using 10^13. We can grow a hundredfold before tapping the radiative capacity of the earth or the solar budget.
Build giant thorium reactors for doing thermochemical hydrogen production, crack CO2 out of limestone with other reactors, run over cobalt catalists for diesel fuel.
Pricy sure, not impossible.
Similarly, build solar concentrators for thermochemical hydrogen production. Or just turn most of it into electricity and adjust infrastructure accordingly.