Civilians Death Rate in Iraq Less Than in Washington, DC

This is actually quite interesting.

Usually you can't get BernardR to shut up, no matter how wrong he is.

But ask him if "BernardR" is just the latest incarnation of a series of former usernames and he doesn't make a peep. Nothing. Not a word. Not an "of course not!" or an "I'm not going to justify that question with a response," or even a "that's none of your business." Just a complete and utter blackout.

BernardR, your silence on this matter is DEAFENING. Is it embarrasment? Shame? Pride? What is it about the question that clams you up?

Hmmm...

My name is BernardR. I will not give you my last name.

I believe you sent me a post discussing Debra LAW. You indicated that she was indeed a most informative and learned poster. I agree. You must know that the best strategy for you and any poster who, because they cannot rebut most of my arguments, simply cannot abide my posts, is to take my arguments and destroy them.

There is a thread on Global Warming. I am very proud of what I did on that thread. I laid out my evidence and no one rebutted it. I also showed how those who gave arguments in favor of the most outrageous statements on global warming were in error.

Get with the program, sir--rebut my arguments. I will rebut yours when I am able to do so.

Do not indulge in the puerile Ad Hominem attacks. It just shows that you are unable to reason and argue.

Nobody cares what your last name is. That wasn't the question.




Great! Here's my argument: "BernardR" is just the lastest in a series of former usernames that you have had for A2K.

Rebut away.

from Gertrude Bell and the Birth of Iraq by Chris Calder.

and Ludwell Denny in his book We fight for Oil writes

I think Steve should read the following______________________

Debate brews: Has oil production peaked?
By David J. Lynch, USA TODAY
Almost since the dawn of the oil age, people have worried about the taps running dry. So far, the worrywarts have been wrong. Oil men from John D. Rockefeller to T. Boone Pickens always manage to find new gushers.

Indonesian workers arrange barrels of oil in Jakarta, Indonesia, in June.
By Tatan Syuflana, AP

But now, a vocal minority of experts says world oil production is at or near its peak. Existing wells are tiring. New discoveries have disappointed for a decade. And standard assessments of what remains in the biggest reservoirs in the Middle East, they argue, are little more than guesses.

"There isn't a middle argument. It's a finite resource. The only debate should be over when we peak," says Matthew Simmons, a Houston investment banker and author of a new book that questions Saudi Arabia's oil reserves.

Today's gasoline prices are high because Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. But emergency supplies from strategic oil reserves in the United States and abroad can largely compensate for that temporary shortfall. If the "peak oil" advocates are correct, however, today's transient shortages and high prices will soon become a permanent way of life. Just as individual oil fields inevitably reach a point at which it gets harder and more expensive to extract the oil before output declines, global oil production is about to crest, they say. Since 2000, the cost of finding and developing new sources of oil has risen about 15% annually, according to the John S. Herold consulting firm.

As global demand rises, American consumers will find themselves in a bidding war with others around the world for scarce oil supplies. That will send prices of gasoline, heating oil and all petroleum-related products soaring.

"The least-bad scenario is a hard landing, global recession worse than the 1930s," says Kenneth Deffeyes, a Princeton University professor emeritus of geosciences. "The worst-case borrows from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: war, famine, pestilence and death."

He's not kidding: Production of pesticides and fertilizers needed to sustain crop yields rely on large quantities of chemicals derived from petroleum. And Stanford University's Amos Nur says China and the United States could "slide into a military conflict" over oil.

Rising global demand for oil

There's no question that demand is rising. Last year, global oil consumption jumped 3.5%, or 2.8 million barrels a day. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects demand rising from the current 84 million barrels a day to 103 million barrels by 2015. If China and India ?- where cars and factories are proliferating madly ?- start consuming oil at just one-half of current U.S. per-capita levels, global demand would jump 96%, according to Nur.

Such forecasts put the doom in doomsday. Many in the industry reject the notion that global oil production can't keep up. "This is the fifth time we've run out of oil since the 1880s," scoffs Daniel Yergin, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1991 oil industry history The Prize.

In June, Yergin's consulting firm, Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) in Cambridge, Mass., concluded oil supplies would exceed demand through 2010. Plenty of new oil is likely to be found in the Middle East and off the coasts of Brazil and Nigeria, Yergin says.

"There's a lot more oil out there still to find," says Peter Jackson, a veteran geologist who co-authored the CERA study.

Based on current technology, peak oil production won't occur before 2020, Yergin says. And even if it does, oil production volumes won't plummet immediately; they'll coast for years on an "undulating plateau," he says.

Debate growing sharper

Both sides in the peak oil controversy agree that oil is a finite resource and that every year, the world consumes more oil than it discovers. But those are about the only things they agree upon.

As the debate has persisted, it's grown personal. "Peak oil" believers disparage those who disagree as mere "economists" in thrall to the magic of the marketplace or simple-minded "optimists" who assume every new well will score.

Yergin emphasizes that the CERA study was developed by geologists and petroleum engineers, not social scientists. Of Simmons, Yergin says: "He's wonderful at stirring up an argument and slinging around rhetoric. ... For some of these people, it seems to be a theological issue. For us, it's an analytic issue."

When they're not trading insults, the two sides disagree fiercely over the likelihood of future technology breakthroughs, prospects for so-called unconventional fuel sources such as oil sands and even the state of Saudi Arabia's reserves.

The world's No. 1 oil exporter, in fact, is at the center of Simmons' new book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, which has reinvigorated the peak oil argument.

Simmons says it's impossible for global production to keep up with surging demand unless the Saudis can increase daily production beyond today's 9.5 million barrels and continue pumping comfortably for decades. And, indeed, Yergin is counting on the Saudis to reach 13 million barrels a day by 2015.

Yet while the oil reserves of U.S. firms are verified by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Saudis ?- like other OPEC countries ?- don't allow independent audits of their reservoirs. So when Riyadh says it has 263 billion barrels locked up beneath the desert, the world has to take it at its word.

Simmons didn't. Instead, two years ago, he pulled about 200 technical papers from the files of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and performed his own assessment. His conclusion: The Saudis are increasingly straining to drag oil out of aging fields and could suffer a "production collapse" at any time.

Yergin is more optimistic both about the Saudis and the industry's prospects in general. If the past is any guide, technological breakthroughs will reshape both demand and supply, he says. In the 1970s, for example, the deepest offshore wells were drilled in 600 feet of water. Today, a Chevron well in the Gulf of Mexico draws oil from 10,011 feet below the surface.

Widespread use of technologies such as remote sensing and automation in "digital oil fields" could boost global oil reserves by 125 billion barrels, CERA says. Already, advanced software and "down hole measurement" devices to track what's happening in the well have elevated recovery rates in some North Sea fields to 60% from the industry average of 35%, Jackson says.

Technology also won't stand still on the consumption side of the equation, Yergin says. "By 2025 or 2030, we'll probably be moving around in vehicles quite different from the ones we drive today. Maybe we'll be driving around in vehicles that get 110 miles to the gallon," he says.

That's more than a guess. Toyota's 2001-model Prius hybrid got 48 miles per gallon; the 2005 model was up to 55 mpg. If automakers focused solely on energy efficiency, 110 mpg isn't out of the question.

Still, breakthroughs don't just happen, and in the late 1990s, after oil prices fell as low as $12 a barrel, major oil companies slashed research spending. Some who previously doubted the peak oil claims now wonder whether the industry is equipped to develop the necessary innovations.

"Before 1998, I was on the side that said, 'Technology solves all problems,' " says Roger Anderson of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. "The problem is, after $12 oil, oil companies responded by merging and firing large portions of their technical staff."

Now, the International Energy Agency in Paris estimates that $5 trillion in new spending is needed over the next 30 years to improve exploration and production.

The limits of technology

As oil prices ?- now about $63 a barrel ?- stay elevated, so-called unconventional supplies of oil become economically feasible. Exhibit one: enormous deposits of Canadian oil sands, which could eventually yield more than 170 billion barrels of oil. On the list of the world's biggest oil countries, that total puts the USA's northern neighbor behind only Saudi Arabia.

That's the good news. The bad news is that wringing oil from the sludge-like tar sands is difficult and costly, and requires enormous quantities of water and natural gas ?- itself an ever-pricier fuel.

Deffeyes calls talk of substantial tar sands production "the fantasy of economists," adding: "They believe if you show up at the cashier's window with enough money, God will put more oil in the ground."

In recent months, the peak oil camp has received support from some fairly sober quarters, including the U.S. government. A 91-page study prepared in February for the Energy Department concluded: "The world is fast approaching the inevitable peaking of conventional world oil production ... (a problem) unlike any yet faced by modern industrial society."

So far, almost no one in government is calling for immediate action because of the peak oil argument. But in a recent interview with USA TODAY, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman sounded less than sanguine about the future.

"There's plenty of oil to deal with this over the near term, five years. But if you look out over the next 20, 25 years, we expect demand to grow 50% to 120 million barrels a day. I wouldn't want to opine that's available," says Bodman, a former professor of chemical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It could be, but I don't know."

END OF QUOTE

I noticed the news that 43,443 people were killed in traffic deaths in 2005, the highest number since 1990. This compares to around 2,600 in Iraq since 2003, so if the number is annualized, less then 1,000 per year, or approximately 2% the number of traffic deaths per year.

I realize every life of a soldier is precious, but it seems like a tolerable price to pay to be rid of a guy that had every intent of developing WMD, and if given the chance, would pass them to terrorists to use here on us to kill millions or more.

Interesting too I don't hear a peep, not a whimper out of the Ted Kennedys, the Nancy Pelosis, the Harry Reeds, and all the rest about how intolerable it is to allow people to die on the roads. Where is the call to abandon cars and go back to the horse and buggy, or better yet, walking, because runaway horses killed alot of people too.

I did the math on the likelihood of being killed in Iraq if you were one of the appx. 1.4 million on active duty in the services vs the likelihood of being killed on the highways if you were one of the appx. 300 million Americans, and my calculations showed you are about 4 times more likely to be killed in Iraq as an active duty serviceman than being killed on the highways as an American. So it is quite a bit more dangerous, but not orders of magnitude more dangerous in Iraq.

Meanwhile The US has a population of almost 300 million but only 150,000 troops in Iraq.

Get out your calculator okie.

So the death rate for the US for traffic accidents is about 14 per 100,000. The death rate for soldiers in Iraq is about 667 per 100,000. Where would you rather be? on the road in the US or as a soldier in Iraq?

Twain was right. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

I am curious how you can be 4 times more likely to be killed in Iraq if you ARE NOT IN THE DAMN COUNTRY. For gods sake okie. You are looking completely off the deep end.

Oh yes. Over 2,500 dead Americans because some dictator had wet dreams over WMD and a lot of speculation based on no evidence. You seem to forget that Saddam needed a conservative government like the Reagan administration to help him develope those WMD. Saddam didn't have that did he?

Obviously you put very little value on life of the American soldier. Lets let him go out and die for speculation and conjecture.

I noticed you conservatives are very prophetic about the people you dislike. You know for certain, without a shadow of doubt, what they're going to do. If you guys are so prophetic why is it your not rich from your lottery bets.

If you guys know so much about what your enemies are going to do why is it you failed to see the God awful mess our blundering president got us into? Why is it you couldn't see the power vacuum that would arise with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein; a power vacuum that would be filled by Iran?

Tell us okie, O' Great Prophet, what is Iran going to do in the coming year. Is Iran developing a nuclear weapon and if so how long will it take? What will Iraq be like a year from now and what will the final outcome of this conflict be. What course of action must we take with regards to the rise in power of Iran?

If you have the gift of prophecy such that you know for certain what Saddam would do if he had acquired WMD's then these questions of prophecy should be childs play for you.

I used active duty service, not just people in Iraq, Parados. I could have added inactive reserves as well but I didn't. Not everybody in the U.S. drives a car either, Parados so cool it.

To comment on it further, I looked at it from the standpoint of evaluating the risk factor of Iraq in terms of commitment and resources expended by our military as a whole. Many of those not in Iraq are actively working in support stateside, or in training relative to possibly going there at some point, so I did the statistic as a group effort of everyone on active duty military. I realize Iraq is only one portion of our military commitments worldwide, but nevertheless I think my statistics are valid. You can run the numbers for only those people in Iraq and the numbers look worse, but hey its an unstable place Parados. I admit that, but I am simply placing a comparison or context with some other things that kill people. Calm down.

xingu, the world is a dangerous place. Not all our fault, xingu. So it was speculation and conjecture? Well, the CIA told the president it was a slam dunk. Where is your memory, xingu. I have no idea what Iran is going to do? Do you think we should declare war on Iran? If you think we have problems in Iraq, just wait for that. I have no gift of prophecy, xingu. It was the prediction and the fears of many people in intelligence services and by your own Democrats, including Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and many others. You people are so predictable. Stick your finger in the air, see which way the wind is blowing, and that is your position today. No recollection of what happened or what you said yesterday. Not only do you forget what you said, but practically even denying you said it.

When I say you, I am talking about your side; I don't know what you said in early 2003. If you opposed the war then, as you do now, I can respect that. What I do not respect is the flipflopping politicians that will not take any responsibility for anything, but instead attempt to blame George W. Bush for 100% of everything. Such politicians are losers. And don't use the spin that Bush made it all up and lied to Congress. The Democrats try to make the case, and some believe it 100%, but it does not fly in my opinion. I have a memory.

Okie- These people who excuse Saddam are just scum. Saddam is a murdering tyrant who must pay for his crimes( he will)
'
But note that Pathetic Parados and Xingu want to excuse a murderer who rivalled Adlof Hitler,Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin in his murderous excesses.

Note:


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Islam's Hitler

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Posted: June 12, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com


A report in Geo-Strategy Direct revealed the existence of a Shiite Arab website called "Edrisi" which claimed, "Our association has found 18 million files related to former Iraqi prisoners, that are being kept at a secure place now, 35,000 of which, that have been studied belong to the executed Iraqis." Edrisi also said that Saddam's regime murdered as many as 6 million Iraqi dissidents in Iraq's killing fields.

In Baghdad, the hottest selling videos aren't made by Hollywood, but by Saddam. Like the Nazis before them, Saddam's Baathists kept meticulous records, including videotaping thousands of executions that Iraqis are scooping up from street vendors like CDs at a rock concert.

The videos aren't popular because the Iraqis are bloodthirsty and longing for the good old days of mass executions, but are being bought up by Iraqis hoping to trace missing relatives. The killings went on right up to the end, with tens of thousands being killed in the final month - between March 20 and April 20, according to a Fox News report.

The numbers are fuzzy simply because they are so vast. The Shiite estimate of 6 million is considerably higher than previously published victim totals, but even the Arab press acknowledges that the death toll at the hands of Saddam's executioners numbers in the millions.

A May 25 article by Hazem Saghiya in Al-Hayat claimed, "The number of those murdered by Saddam ... ranges between a million and a million and a half ..."
**********************************************************

You see, Okie, Parados and Xingu are the type who would have screamed that it was not necessary for the US and the allies to invade and liberate Europe in World War II AND A LOT MORE THAN 2,500 AMERICAN TROOPS DIED THERE, OKIE.

Parados and Xingu probably would have not thought that it was worth any American lives to stop the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust.

Well, President Bush knew that Saddam had murdered at LEAST A MILLION OF HIS PEOPLE and that was ONE of the reasons we went into Iraq.

If I recall correctly, Okie, did we not go into Kosovo because we wanted to stop the ethnic slaughter?

Get your calculator out again Parados. You count only those troops that are in Iraq. Let us count then only those people that are in their cars. I tried but could not find a statistic showing what percentage of the 300 million people are in a vehicle on average throughout a 24 hour period each day. If you can find a statistic, please correct the record, but for this exercise I estimated each and every American spent 2 hours per day in a vehicle on the road system of this country. Obviously some spent more and some spent hardly any or none. Correcting the statistic for this consideration brings the death rate to about 174 per 100,000 people on the roads, as calculated for the 2005 death rate on the roads. Assuming your statistic is correct for the death rate for U.S. soldiers in Iraq is 667 per 100,000, then it is merely about 3.8 times more dangerous to be in Iraq as an American soldier as it is to be in a vehicle on America's roads. If it turns out that each American averages only 1 hour on the road per day, then being an American soldier in Iraq would merely be roughly twice as dangerous as being on the road in America.

If you can find a statistic showing exactly how many hours an average American spends in a vehicle on the road system each day, we can refine the statistic.

I don't know what games you are trying to play here, okie, but the death rate for traffic accidents is 14 per 100,000 people-not 14 per 100,000 people who are in their cars at the time. So your above post is irrelevant.

Parados called me down previously for using the number of people in the active armed services, instead of only the soldiers in Iraq. So to play his game, I decided to use only the people that are in their cars on the road, and not include the people sitting at home or somewhere else during the day. By doing so, my statistic more accurately compares the risk of the actual time spent driving or riding in a vehicle on America's roads vs the actual time spent as a soldier in Iraq.

Parados, I also have reason to doubt your 667 per 100,000 death rate for servicemen in Iraq. My calculator says we've been there about 3.3 years, so divide 2,615 by 3.3 = 792 deaths per year. I could not find average troop strength since 2003, but simply dividing an estimate of 150,000 troops gives a death rate of 528 per 100,000 per year. This figure concludes it is only about 3 times more dangerous to be on duty in Iraq as it is to be on our nation's roads.

okie,

You can play games all you want but then you have to subtract all the pedestrian deaths in auto accidents and all the other kind of vehicle deaths.

So you need to subtract about 6000 pedestrian deaths and another 750 bicycle deaths. Then you need to subtract the 4,000 or so motorcylce deaths since you are only counting time people spend in cars. Then it looks like you need to subtract for tractor trailor deaths too since that isn't a car either. That loses you another 5000 or so.

Twain would be proud of you so far with the way you are making comparisons and using figures beyond what they are.

Not to interrupt your fine argument,

but I can't believe this asinine thread is still going on.

And here I am contributing to it.

Cycloptichorn

Did Brandon ever tell his employer that he'd be ok with a cut in his salary?

I don't think you can cut someone below minimum wage

Cycloptichorn