Which Yiddish word best describes Mohammad Sabban?

Oil money is a windfall they get by geographical coincidence. They can use this windfall wisely (as, for example, is being done in Dubai) to build a real economy. Otherwise, when the oil money runs out, they can eat sand.

There's a lovely saying: "Lack of Planning on your part does not consitute an emergency on my part."

Bradley writes, "Lack of Planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

That's a great saying though it seems to define how our government operates sometimes.

Regarding energy efficiency and its effect on oil producing nations, my response is duh! If we stop using so much oil it will have a detrimental effect on countries such as Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran. Gee, we wouldn't want that to happen to such a lovable gang like that! It's a crime that the U.S. hasn't done more to achieve energy independence from oil. Create a market for a viable, non oil energy production? Then some of our pals I just mentioned will have to look to Allah to pay for the spreading of their 'peaceful beliefs' we all are told we should be accepting of.

Well, wait a minute. You might be being flatly stupid again.

What? Why so rude?

Because this is the old ploy that has worked on you time and time again to get you to open your wallet for taxes, fees, "special" assessments and so forth.

It's not a "loss". It's a lower projected income.

You can't lose what you have not earned. That's an abstract we can damned well do without.

I don't blame the Saudi's for laying the groundwork for this.

Everyone else has their hands out, why not them?

Their population is exploding without an explosion in jobs. Without massive oil revenue, that country will collapse. As in total collapse.

If going green means that the Saudi Government might implode in a few years time. Sign me up. Looks like I am know walking to work!

I don't see why the Saudis don't start exploring solar. I mean... they live in a desert! They have TONS of sunshine.

Or, alternately, making products out of sand... blocks for construction? Glass?

Oh, boo-hoo-hoo...my heart goes break for the poor Saudis.

I like Brian's saying, but the version I heard is a little more economical. "Poor planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on mine."

The world has its hands out and America always pays the brunt of it.

Maybe Obama can add to the Nobel Prize by assuring the Suadi's of financial support if ther oil revunues go kaput.

Well the poor Saudis can always sell off all their gold-plated cars, houses, and toilets seats! No sympathy from this corner!

Interesting...

It kind proves us that Saudi-Arabia, in all his Islamist Glory, is bankrupt on anything more technological than pumping petrol (a technology they stole from the United-States).

Why I am not surprised? ;)

Y'know, this could almost make me get behind the green movement. Almost.

Keep in mind also that there's not a single year-round river in the entire country. Saudis get fresh water for their exploding population from oil-fired desalination plants. That's an insanely expensive way of making drinking water, but it's been subsidized by their OPEC revenues, so far.

The thought of desperate Saudis drinking their oil and eating the pages of their Korans is very appealing to me, for some reason.

> That's an insanely expensive way of
> making drinking water, but it's been
> subsidized by their OPEC revenues,
> so far.

You make it sound so sinister... They burn oil for electricity in Burbank, too... Nutty! And I'd bet there are times when your native Canada uses HER oil to tame the horrors of the natural world.

Saudi Arabia is a desert environment. If you can think of a way to get them some fresh water without chewing up other resources, speak up.

Just the headline makes me smile every time I read it.

This would be the same Saudis who fund Wahabbi extremists, would it not? The ones who are buying our Universities and politicians?

I gave at the office. I do have a tip, though. Politicians can only be rented, never bought.

Politicians can only be rented, never bought.

Just like yer beer! o.O

The Saudi's tried one of the worlds largest (to that date) solar power projects in the early 80's and gave up on it when it became uneconomical.
They just recently signed an agreement to do a pilot of another large scale solar power plant.
But as most people don't realize, solar produces electricity which does nothing for transportation based on liquid fuel.

And I could be wrong but I think those desalinization plants are powered by Natural Gas not oil.

And if you think we've got problems now, wait for the day the Saudi Royals are overrun by the masses/bin laden wannabes.

The Saudi desalination plants are oil-fired, though there are a few pilot solar ones. The largest plant is described here:

http://www.water-technology.net/projects/shuaiba/

Such plants provide 70% of their drinking water. The rest comes from aquifers full of fossil water that will never be replenished in a country with no rivers and hardly any rain, and which is being pumped out at a furious rate while getting more & more saline. They will have twice as many thirsty mouths in 25 years or so.

There's been a lot of innovation in solar power over the past few decades. None of these new ideas have come from Saudis. They have even more sunlight than oil, so a bit of foresight & planning could have gone a long way to save them from begging for handouts.

I read something 15 years ago about there being around 2,500 "princes".

Maybe just the two.

(Sorry.)

There are 5,000 + now, with about 200 senior princes:

http://www.datarabia.com/royals/home.do

That's all well and good, Martin, but do any of them play fuzztone guitar?

(Serious, thanks for the research, good to know.)

Their population is exploding without an explosion in jobs. Without massive oil revenue, that country will collapse. As in total collapse.

Oh Darn...if they are required to kill the infidels, I wonder what their religion says about them being our bitches?

"You over there...bring me those Koran pages...my menstruating wife needs to swipe her snatch."

:-D

-Julie

"Saudi Arabia is a desert environment. If you can think of a way to get them some fresh water without chewing up other resources, speak up."

Actually, one way that was actually used for a while was to send oil tankers, unloading at New Jersey, up the Hudson River to fill up with fresh water for the return trip. The river water was, of course, merely going to the sea. Unfortunately, there wasn't a way to keep oil residue in the tanks from escaping into the river during the ballast changeout (salt water is admitted for ballast at the terminal), and so the US properly forbade them from doing that.

It's been a while. They might be doing it again with the proper oil traps - and that's all that keeps them from getting 100 thousand tons of fresh water per VLCC trip.

And, of course, a solar distiller works wonders.

"They have even more sunlight than oil, so a bit of foresight & planning could have gone a long way to save them from begging for handouts."

They could have massive solar plants that produce 100% of their electricity and that wouldn't replace a dime of their billions in oil revenue.

I remember some pipe dreamer talking about transmitting solar electricity from Saudi to Europe but that will never be feasable in our lifetimes if ever.

I'll take your word for the fact that their population will double in 25 years, I know it's growing at a tremendous rate. Some estimates have the unemployment rate at 25% right now. What happens in 25 years? Add in a drop in Oil revenue if worldwide demand falls significantly and Saudi Arabia, our best friend in the Arab world, is toast.

What also is toast is the role the Saudi's play in stabilizing the worlds oil markets. We actually get very little of our oil from Saudi but it's their production moves (up + down) that keep the oil markets as stable as they are.

Bitch about the Saudi's all you want but without them, it's a different world.

Are they "begging for handouts" now? I came in late. Aren't they sitting on the biggest aggregation of everyone's favorite natural resource?

Sincerely ignorant here: If there's some better & cheaper process for making water that's based on sunlight or wiggling puppy tails or prayer, why don't they use it?

You know, I bet if the Saudis stopped funding Wahabbism and various offshoots of the terrorist movement, the state might be able to save some funds for a rainy day. I know that'd be a drag for the Saudis, but we all must suffer sometimes.

If there's some better & cheaper process for making water that's based on sunlight or wiggling puppy tails or prayer, why don't they use it?

There's not, really, but I bet if the Saudis had a modern capitalist economy that had grown organically, rather than a system of petrodollar redistribution, someone there would have come up with such a process. Jumping straight from "nomads in the desert" status to "possessors of more wealth than *you* can imagine" tends to short-circuit those aspects of society that encourage innovation and risk.

Municipal-scale solar desalination using modern reverse-osmosis and multi-effect humidification technology is feasible. Here's an article about a plant with an eventual capacity to serve 250,000 people under construction in Port Augusta, South Australia:

http://www.ecosmagazine.com/?act=view_file&file_id=EC134p4.pdf

It's Australians & other westerners who are doing all the work to make big-scale solar desalination a reality, and preparing for their future water & energy needs today. Every barrel of oil the Saudis burn to make drinking water is a barrel they're not selling on the world market. If $ 370 million had not been spent pampering those 5000 princes, the Port Augusta plant could be being built in Riyadh. "Begging for handouts" was an overstatement, but the Saudis are asking to be compensated for failing to prepare for their own future.

Losers don't get the prize money. Screw em, they've still got plenty of money, plenty of oil, and plenty of time before the worst. They can work for themselves now, or eat sand later.

> Saudis are asking to be compensated
> for failing to prepare for their own
> future.

Don't mean to be a stickler, but...

Well of course I do, of course I do. That's why we're HERE, for fuck's sake... The tyranny of small differences and all that.

But they're not asking to be compensated, they're just paying for their failures to prepare. And they will continue to do so.

It's not that the trends you and Marion describe aren't perfectly correct. They are / you are. And I'm not an "America should be more humble" kind of guy.

But if anyone really knew how to bring a culture of that sort into a modern frame of mind, they should have put in a call to Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld in about January of 2003. America's energy policy is fucked up, too... For many years, the Vegas/Hendersonville area has had explosive growth, and it's a horrible place to put a city if you think energy will one day be more expensive. A Martian would be as appalled by that as by water policy in the Persian Gulf.

(Just sayin'. I've visit in July. 109 degrees, and the animals drive around like it's nothing special.)

All true, Crid. But America has a bounty of the best technical & entrepeneurial minds, & the ability to attract more from all over the world. Saudi Arabia, not so much.

Nuclear desalination is an option for Las Vegas. That's how aircraft carriers & nuclear submarines get their fresh water. But there's not a single commercial reactor in Nevada, and politicians & green activists have done their best to whip people into a frenzy. Witness the hysteria over Yucca Mountain. People in Vegas & elsewhere are going to pay for their shortsightedness & extravagance. But they still have a chance of landing on their feet. Will they come to their senses in time? We'll all find out.

I don't know what the water sitch is like in Vegas... I'm just talking about all the electricity required to keep the skin from bubbling off the shoulders of two million people who live there. (That's FOUR million shoulders!) It's a weird place to see a city pop up so rapidly, when the popular mind is clouded by all these silly, presumptive nightmares about a forthcoming environmental/energy apocalypse.

You're the Canadian Martin, right?

'K.

I loves me some Vegas, like I loves me some NYC or New Orleans. No US cities are more fun for boozy miscreants like me. I have no idea how Vegas' energy consumption works under a model that doesn't involve incredibly cheap, probably petroleum powered energy. I'd sacrifice Vegas though, if need be. No great music I know of from Vegas.

More nukes! The right choice for the environment... And you! (slogan advice welcome)

In Y2K there was a great Earth Wind and Fire tribute band, I think it was Bellagio, or that Roman thing down the street.

OK, upon reflection, they may not have been that great. I was just a middle-aged man in the mood to feel young again. It worked, though.