George OB1
I accept your advice, graciously given, and offer my unqualified apology to all participants for my lapse in manners by indulging in personal insults, and further apologize to Lord Ellpus and say that I admired most of the content of your comments.
rayban
rayban1 wrote:George OB1
I accept your advice, graciously given, and offer my unqualified apology to all participants for my lapse in manners by indulging in personal insults, and further apologize to Lord Ellpus and say that I admired most of the content of your comments.
rayban
..and I accept this apology, and give mine to you, and anyone else, for any offence that I may have caused.
It was, and still is, not the appropriate time for this specific argument , IMO, and has caused me to let fly, which has resulted in emotive language.
Lash what gets people like me and lorde out of our seats is comments like yours here
"The British are in a position to take their mits off of NI and allow the Irish to work out their destiny with NI's inhabitants."
which just demonstrates your lack of understanding of a very complicated situation. If only it was that simple.
Further you dont seem to have paid much attention to the progress that has been made, particularly since the Good Friday Agreement 1998. The "war" is over. There is no longer discrimination in NI against the Catholic minority (soon to be the majority btw, they breed faster). There is a devolved government, currently suspended unfortunately. There is a perfectly legal and democratic mechanism for Irish Republicanism to express itself in NI, that is the goal of a 32 county united Ireland is a legitimate political aim in NI, providing it is pursued through the democratic process. The only problem (from the Republican viewpoint) is that not enough people want it.
Personally I always used to favour a united Ireland, but I never thought it was something worth killing people for. A sudden abandonment of the N Irish of British descent would have produced a civil war involving Scotland. Now at least the killing has stopped, and the longer "peace" prevails, the harder it is to resume. Tony Blair did a magnificent job in forcing through the NI Agreement, it will go down as a big plus on his political record, something that might counterbalance his disastrous policy of following America into Iraq.
Tony Blair gets very angry when people suggest 7/7 might not have happened had he (Blair] not taken us "pillion passenger" into Iraq.
Blair is not stupid. He must have realised that making war on Iraq was likely to increase the risk of terrorism at home. (He was told as much by the intelligence services].
To my mind the problem is not the beligerency of the current American administration, or the reaction to that which exploits religious fanatacism, but the West's and in particular American dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
Its so simple when you spell it out, and yet no one in main stream politics seems willing to discuss it.
Its been known for decades that oil production will peak and decline. Non opec oil production is already past peak. Jimmy Carter made an impassioned plea for the US to modify its oil consumption pattern way back in 1977, but that message was ignored.
Now the simple fact is that the US imports nearly 60% of its oil. The British made deals with Persians. Then the Americans did the same with the Saudis. The fact is oil matters. We set up kings tyrants and dictators all over the Middle east and guaranteed their safety (from their own people as much as anyone) providing they did our bidding over oil. Now the oil even in OPEC countries is approaching peak. Demand continues to rise, and the remaining easy to get at oil is increasingly concentrated in and around the Gulf. (I was going to add Caspian, but its land locked).
Bin Laden wants to see oil at $200 barrel. And he wants Western infidels out of the holy lands of Islam.
At the root of all the trouble we see today is western dependence on middle eastern oil, and our failure to modify our behaviour. Now the only alternative is to take control of the oil fields by force in order to guarantee supply. We should have acted 25 years ago.
Steve-
I agree with you.That is why I have taken steps to reduce my dependence on oil.
The difficulty,which I have thought about a lot,is what would happen if everybody behaved like me.
Whither the stock market and pensions.What about unemployment and the infrastructure associated with high oil use.Would mental health be affected.
I think it fair to say that we are addicted to oil use;oil junkies.And property prices also.
On the Trivia threads I am almost persona non grata for questioning the whimsical use of oil.
What is difficult to deal with is that many people who gratuitously use oil are strongly opposed to the war when,as you say,they are the cause of it.
And you just try and tell them.It is as if they live in two worlds sealed off from each other.
The structural changes commensurate with a significantly decreased dependence on oil will take some managing.Especially in a democracy.
You know, the one thing that amazes me with these forums is how quickly the posts build up. I had to search through five previous pages worth to find where my post was and then looked from then on to see a reply to my question, only to find that it does not exist (at least not from the person I directed the question to).
I won't bring the question back up again, as we don't want to go back down that route again.
Dependence is probably the only reason we support some of these nations.
Look at China, for example. It's a wonderful economic investment for American companies, so the rhetoric used against this so-called Communist country isn't very strong. However, North Korea is closed and you cannot profit from it. Heck, even the North Koreans don't have enough of what they already have and need, so the rhetoric is much harsher.
Spendius thanks
The trouble is we are so used to using vast amounts of hydrocarbons that we think no more about it than we do breathing air. We just dont notice it. We are like children who think milk comes from cartons. We go to the petrol station fill up pay and go. When was the last time you had a discussion with the girl on the cash desk about the politics of petroleum? [Never of course, despite the fact that BP now stands for 'Beyond Petroleum' according to their advertising... I had a 'discussion' about the price of bananas recently but that was just a misunderstanding].
But I dont think we can be blamed for this, we are not encouraged to think. Governments like to keep the populace in a state of relative ignorance, that way they get re elected. If they told the truth, for every person shocked into changing their lifestyle, there would be 3 prepared to vote for a political party who said it wasn't necessary.
This is where you are right that managing the change is going to be incredibly difficult. In the long term there are technical solutions that can both satisfy energy demand and combat climate change but our addiction to hydrocarbons has caused us to ignore what needs to be done for too long. And in the short term we get our oil at the point of a gun.
Steve.
Cripes man-you're the first guy I've heard talk sense on this.We are 10 times worse than any heroin addict.We don't even know we are addicted.When I point it out to people they think I'm nuts.It's outside their comprehension and that is a major political fact.
I'll do day after day on the couch and everybody I know is off somewhere.50 miles is nothing.Just for a pub lunch or something equally dumb.They all think I'm nuts too.They would freak out if oil was shut off.The counsellors would need counselling.And,of course,advertising encourages them to go at it harder.And they are mostly on medications as well.
It's the ones insulting Mr Bush and Mr Blair who make me spew.I don't feel confident that democracy can survive such ridiculous states of mind.
Like Bob Dylan said
"The truth is obscure
Too profound and too pure
To live it you have to explode."
Just keep telling them-if you've got St Vitus's Dance on wheels you are the war.
Anyway-serious cricket at last.(but oil's involved in that).
Steve
I've ridden 550 miles on my bicycle since I bought it on March 18th.
That's a lot of gas saved. Not to mention the fact that I've lost weight and feel great.
I don't know how the riding is in England when it gets soggy, but here in the States it is perfectly accomplishable to cut one's hydrocarbon use down considerably.
Cycloptichorn
Well done bi cyclo
I tend to walk. I live in a town just outside London. There is nowhere here I cant walk to in 1/2 hour max. I actually like walking!
we have an excellent network of (under used) cycle tracks too and one of these days I'm going to get one of these
http://www.bromptonbicycle.co.uk/
(although they are outrageously expensive imo)
I like walking as well. One of the major reasons I moved to Austin was because it was so accessible by bike or foot (or bus).
That folding bike is crazy! Here's mine:
http://www.harobikes.com/2004/v2/
Except in silver/white instead of blue.
Removing our societies from the hydrocarbon dependance is going to take conscious choices on the part of consumers, I'm afraid, in order to shift our models of living and city planning to more sustainable ones.
I've seen commodity studies that show that it takes a TENFOLD increase in price before consumers really begin to turn away from traditional products; I assume gasoline will work the same way, at least here in the US. That being the case, I don't think that Americans are going to allow themselves to be priced out of driving anytime soon (unfortunately).
If more people would walk or ride a bike, the world would be a much, much better place....
Cheers
Cycloptichorn
My friend has one but its very nickable so he's got all the accessories. including
heavy duty lock
2 ton concrete mooring anchor for use with lock
diesel forklift for handling said anchor
10 ton low loader truck for transporting forklift, anchor, lock, bicycle and the rest of the family
"Peak oil" - referring to the assertion that petroleum extraction will peak in the next decade or so and decline rapidly after that - is a myth. Known reserves will enable increased production for three to five more decades, and a combination of new discoveries and improved extraction technology will provide for an extended slow decline after that.
Oil is fungible in a global market - it doesn't matter much where it comes from.
The United States expended huge domestic reserves in defeating Germany and Japan in WWII - an amount equal to decades of current consumption. The Allied war effort was largely sustained by U.S. oil -- a factor that perhaps Steve should consider here.
Britain imported virtually 100% of its petroleum consumption prior to the discovery of the North Sea oil fields.
THe efficiency of modern economies, based in major part on petroleum should also be considered here. Modern agriculture produces and distributes food with far less energy requirement than past methods. The United States has high per capita energy consumption (but not quite as high as that of Canada), however it also has the highest economic output per unit of energy consumed in the world. In economic terms the U.S. is the most efficient consumer of energy in the world.
THe world population has increased enormously over the past 120 years. We could not sustain this population without petroleum. Saying we are addicted to oil is like saying we are addicted to life. Replacement energy sources are already being developed, and there is every reason to expect that normal economic forces will guide the needed transition.
None of this should be taken to imply that voluntary economies in consumption should not be made or encouraged. (I commuted to work on a bicycle - when I was not at sea - for most of two decades.). However the return to the imagined organic, bucolic world envisioned by many "environmentalists" can be achieved only if about 2/3rds of the world's population volunteers to die.
I agree that the 'organic utopia' is a myth.
But I think the next stage in our development as a society will be one of increasingly efficiency when it comes to energy and hydrocarbon usage.
As with most problems I suspect the answer to our woes will lie in a balance; reduced usage of oil, greater usage of renewables (or biking and walking), better recycling and efficiency.
Or, synthetic hydrocarbons/oils that are grown would provide a nice boost to a limited resource market. I'd like to say Hydrogen would do the same but I fear that we are much farther away from that then projected.
Cycloptichorn
well thanks for your post George
I believe the last time I referred to Peak Oil you dismissed it as pseudo scientific fantasy. I really wish it was, but from all that I have read its not. Its a real phenomenum dictated by geology, not economics. And in my view it explains a great deal of what is going on around us today.
July 20, 2005
Britain Takes Step Toward Deporting Radical Clerics
By ALAN COWELL
LONDON, July 20 - Britain took the first step today toward deporting firebrand clerics to Arab and other countries, striking a preliminary agreement with Jordan that could lead to the expulsion of a suspected close ally of Osama bin Laden.
After the London bombings, the move was the latest sign that - belatedly in the eyes of its critics - Britain is cranking up antiterrorist procedures, moving away from a longstanding policy of offering sanctuary to Muslim radicals who might face torture or the death penalty in their own countries.
Britain's home secretary, Charles Clarke, also said he had authorized a global list of suspects likely to be expelled from or barred entry into Britain if they were found to be "preaching, running a Web site or writing articles which are intended to foment or provoke terrorism."
The measures against what the police here call "preachers of hate" follow years of taunts by foreign intelligence services that British tolerance of radical clerics and terror suspects wanted in other places had turned London into "Londonistan" or "Beirut-on-Thames."
Almost two weeks after the attacks on July 7 killed 56 people, Britain still seemed in a state of shock as it grasped for ways to explain why four British-born Muslims rode into London aboard a commuter train with backpacks of explosives that detonated on three subway trains and a double-decker bus.
Less than a month before the attacks, Britain's top intelligence and law enforcement officials concluded that "at present there is not a group with both the current intent and the capability to attack the U.K.," according to a confidential terror assessment.
Prime Minister Tony Blair defended those who had made the judgment, saying in Parliament, "I'm satisfied that they do everything that is possible to protect our country."
The security assessment was sent to British government agencies, foreign governments and corporations in mid-June, and prompted the British government to lower its formal threat assessment by one level.
But just weeks earlier, the country's ranking police officer, Sir Ian Blair, the head of Scotland Yard, had offered a less optimistic assessment, saying a "credible threat" existed.
"The intelligence report that I see and my colleagues and security services see tell us that there is a credible threat," he said in an interview with Ahmed Versi, the editor of the monthly Muslim News. "There is a clear evidence of people reconnoitering, moving money around, there's a lot of stuff on e-mail and the Internet."
"I suppose I'd rather be accused of saying there's too much of a threat than appearing to be complacent," he said, according to a transcript of the interview. "We don't do the American stuff of raising instant warnings."
Mr. Versi said today that the interview was conducted on May 20 but was published in the June 24 issue of The Muslim News, two weeks before the London bombings.
A spokeswoman for Scotland Yard, who spoke in return for anonymity under police procedures, said the remarks reflected Mr. Blair's assessment of the security situation at the time he gave the interview. Neither in the interview, nor subsequently, has Mr. Blair said he had advance knowledge of the July 7 attacks, for which the authorities have said they had no warning.
But Mr. Blair said he believed that home-grown Islamic terrorism - possibly including suicide bombings - had taken root in Britain since the attacks on the United States of Sept. 11, 2001.
"It's here and we have to understand it's here," he said in the interview. "If something as horrific as a suicide bomber happens, and if in some ways it's connected with the Muslim community, the impact of that on the community is going to be appalling."
As evidence of a threat, he cited two cases. One was that of Kamel Bourgass, 31, an illegal immigrant from Algeria sentenced to life in prison for killing a police officer and to 17 years for plotting an attack with the poison ricin. The second case was that of Saajid Badat, 25, a British-born Muslim sentenced to 13 years for plotting to blow up an aircraft. He was said in court to be an associate of Richard C. Reid, known as the shoe-bomber.
In Parliament today, Mr. Clarke, the home secretary, tallied new measures designed to restrict access to Britain using immigration restrictions.
"In the circumstances we now face, I've decided that it's right to broaden the use of these powers to deal with those who foment terrorism or seek to provoke others to terrorist acts," he said. "To this end I intend to draw up a list of unacceptable behaviors which would fall within this."
At the same time, Prime Minister Blair's office said Britain had reached an agreement in principle with Jordan which will allow Britain to deport Jordanian citizens without fear of them being mistreated. The prime minister's office said the agreement would be the first of several with other countries, possible in North Africa.
Britain is bound by international convention not to deport people to countries where they risk inhuman or degrading treatment. It also says it does not return deportees to countries where they might face the death sentence.
One cleric possibly affected by the new policy, which could take months to implement in the face of likely court challenges, is Abu Qatada, a Jordanian-born cleric who has been called in court documents a "right-hand-man" in Europe of Osama bin Laden and a spiritual guide to Al Qaeda.
Abu Qatada, a Palestinian with Jordanian nationality, was given political refugee status here in the early 1990's. A Jordanian military court sentenced him in his absence to life imprisonment in 1999 in connection with a series of bombings.
After the Sept. 11 attacks he was placed under house arrest then jailed under antiterror laws until last March, when he was placed in an observation program.
He is one of several outspoken clerics. Another is Egyptian-born Abu Hamza al-Masri, who is in detention facing extradition hearings instituted by the United States. A third, Syrian-born Omar Bakri Mohamed, broke his silence on the July 7 bombing on Tuesday to blame British voters and mainstream British Muslims. Mr. Bakri has long been associated with the radical Al Muhajiroun group.
Anjem Choudary, a British-born figure also linked to Al Muhajiroun, declined to condemn the July 7 bombings and said in a BBC radio interview that there was a "very real possibility" of another attack.
"The real terrorists are the British regime and even the British police who have tried to divide the Muslim community into moderates and extremists, whereas this classification does not exist in Islam," he said.
The Daily Telegraph devoted part of its front page today to photographs of three people. "The men who blame Britain," was the headline with images of Mr. Bakri, Mr. Choudary and Ken Livingstone, the maverick London mayor.
In a separate BBC interview today, Mr. Livingstone was asked what had motivated the bombers and, in reply, blamed "80 years of western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of the western need for oil."
Asked if he denounced the London bombers, he said he also denounced "those governments which use indiscriminate slaughter to advance their foreign policy, as we have occasionally seen with the Israeli government bombing areas from which a terrorist group will have come, irrespective of the casualties it inflicts, women, children and men."
"Under foreign occupation and denied the right to vote, denied the right to run your own affairs, often denied the right to work for three generations, I suspect that if it had happened here in England, we would have produced a lot of suicide bombers ourselves," he said.
interesting post ci where was it from?
nyt eh thanks
another blair? what was his name not ian or tony but ?
anyway no doubting the veracity of above article but the nyt blair sure hit the credibility of that newspaper
