It's nuclear power, not oil, that worries the Middle East

[jpak]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/23/do2303.xml

With oil prices topping $135 a barrel yesterday, you might imagine the one part of the world that is not desperately searching for new energy sources would be the Middle East.

While Western governments have been thrown into paroxysms of economic angst over soaring oil prices, those countries lucky enough to contain an abundance of this liquid gold have never had it so good.

It was not so long ago – the turn of the century, in fact – when prices were struggling to rise above $10 a barrel, that there were dark mutterings about the ability of some of the world’s largest oil producers to survive the dramatic turn-around in their own economic fortunes.

Autocratic regimes, such as that presided over by Saudi Arabia’s ruling family, for example, have always been able to counter calls for greater democracy and fiscal accountability by showering the grateful populace with the oil largesse. But when the good times ended, and serious questions were asked about where the all the money gone, there were fears many of these governments might fall. Rather as Mr Brown is discovering here in Britain today.

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[Dogmudgeon]

1. In other news reported to The Telegraph ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2000899/Man-admits-%27having-sex%27-with-1,000-cars.html">Man admits having sex with 1,000 cars

Edward Smith, who lives with his current "girlfriend" – a white Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla, insisted that he was not "sick" and had no desire to change his ways.

"I appreciate beauty and I go a little bit beyond appreciating the beauty of a car only to the point of what I feel is an expression of love," he said.

...

Mr Smith, 57, first had sex with a car at the age of 15, and claims he has never been attracted to women or men.

But his wandering eye has spread beyond cars to other vehicles. He says that his most intense sexual experience was "making love" to the helicopter from 1980s TV hit Airwolf.

...

Mr Smith is now part of a global community of more than 500 “car lovers” brought together by internet forums.

Because there is more to life than just nucular fission. And sometimes, you need a different reason for :rofl: and :evilgrin:

--p!

[losthills]

3. In other news reported by Pigwidgeon:

"Not only is nuclear waste recycling technology improving, new approaches are being developed to "denature" radioactive material, or to quickly render it non-radioactive. "

By Golly-- I think we're saved!!!!

[bananas]

2. "For us the good times are back again, and this time we've got to make the most of it."

"Not since the hey-day of the politically-motivated Opec price rise in the 1970s, when Arab oil producers sought to punish the West for supporting Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war, has the region been so awash with petro-dollars.

"As a senior member of one of the Gulf States’ leading royal families recently remarked to me, “For us the good times are back again, and this time we’ve got to make the most of it.”

[NNadir]

4. I'm not worried about Arabs with reactors, but then again, I'm not a racist.

Arabs have a right to nuclear reactors: All of humanity does.

I frankly despise the Cheney equation: Arab + uranium = nuclear war.

The number of nuclear wars since 1946 is zero.

The number of dangerous fossil fuel wars since 1946 is not zero.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Deja Q]

6. The number of nuclear wars needed had better remain lower than 1.

[NNadir]

7. It is now equal to one. Interestingly, the only nuclear war in history started as a dangerous

fossil fuel war.

[Zachstar]

8. BINGO!!