Bookworm Room

I met a semi-retired petroleum engineer in Alberta that was working on the Canadian tar sands development. I asked him what he had heard regarding the size of the Bakken oil field. He indicated that, pessimistically, it contained 1x the reserves of Saudi Arabia, while the optimistic projection was 3x the Saudi oil reserves.

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Tweet Would anyone care to explain to Mr. Bookworm the difference between an extremist sect breaking its country’s laws by discriminating against women, and a country that has as an integral part of its law and culture murderous attacks on women, “witches,” children and gays? He professes to be bewildered.

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Tweet I’ve never doubted Obama’s fundamental anti-Israel beliefs, nor have I ever thought he’s on a right, or even a sane, track in the Middle East. As much as anything, though, my feelings regarding Obama’s Israel/Middle East attitudes were predicated on a gut attitude resulting from his pre-presidency friendships and his execrable Cairo speech. Now, [...]

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Tweet Israel as the next Saudia Arabia?   According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, Israel’s unusually large and high-quality shale oil reserves may yield as much oil as all of Saudi Arabia’s proven oil reserves. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576242420737584278.html   These discoveries are in addition to of Israel’s recently diclosed gas reserves, also anticipated to [...]

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Tweet Poor Cassandra was cursed by the Gods with the gift of making accurate prophecies that no one would believe.  The disasters she foresaw always came true, but she was helpless to stop people (and nations) from racing towards their doom.  The endings were always so terrible — and Cassandra was herself swept up in [...]

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Tweet In 1989, when it became clear that the former Soviet Union could no longer stop the spread of Democracy in the Eastern Bloc countries, many of us naively assumed that a new dawn of peace and harmony was about to arrive.  We envisioned lions and lambs frolicking together, all bedecked in dewy flowers.  What [...]

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Tweet Didn’t Obama bow to the king? A Saudi court on Saturday convicted a female journalist for her involvement in a TV show, in which a Saudi man publicly talked about sex, and sentenced her to 60 lashes. Rozanna al-Yami is believed to be the first Saudi woman journalist to be given such a punishment. [...]

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Tweet I’ve predicted in this blog that, if America continues to coddle Iran, Saudi Arabia will give Israel access to its air space, although it may well lie about that fact later.  Iran’s bluster was fine with the Arab Muslim nations as long as they thought the U.S. would ultimately slap down any Iranian pretensions [...]

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Tweet Those of us who were paying attention knew that Obama was lying during the campaign season when he claimed that he was Israel’s best friend.  The words sounded pretty, but we knew about (a) his nonexistent track record supporting Israel in the Senate and (b) his affiliations with people (Wright, Powers, etc.) who demonize [...]

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Tweet Charles Johnson, at Little Green Footballs, has been urging less heat on the Obama bow matter because, as he and Newt both point out, Bush bowed too.  I agree with Johnson that hysteria on the subject is badly placed — although I think hysteria on any subject is badly placed.  Still, I do think [...]

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Tweet The head of the UN General Assembly just called Israel an “apartheid” state.  In other words, Israel is emblematic of evil in the world.  I’ve finally realized what the problem is:  Israel has a mixed population. Think about it:  Iraq expelled her Jews and hounded her Christians into obscurity.  Saudi Arabia makes it illegal [...]

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Tweet If I had to give one single reason for drilling the hell out of whatever energy resources America has to offer, it would be to de-fund the medieval sharia system that thrives in Saudi Arabia.  Right now, Egypt is in an uproar because a 53-year old Egyptian physician convicted of malpractice against one of [...]

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Tweet Watch Pat Condell quick before they try to ban him again: Also, if you’re British, sign the petition. And if you’re British and don’t have enough info to sign the petition, Condell provides these helpful links: YouTube censors comedian shock http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknew… Saudi cleric favours one-eye veil http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/midd… Islamic finance in London http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/… http://www.arabnews.com/?page=6&s… http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfr… [...]

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Tweet American feminists, who have done quite a number on Palin, are remarkably silent about the mind-boggling restrictions placed upon, and indignities visited upon, their sisters in Saudi Arabia: A new prohibition may be added to the long list of those placed on women in Saudi Arabia: A new sentence according to Islamic law (fatwa) [...]

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Tweet I’ve tried to be mellow about the Saudis.  My all-American training in moral relativism has allowed me to find excuses for the misogyny that makes women 54th class citizens, and for the antisemitism that makes it illegal for Jews to travel to Saudi Arabia, and for the censorship that makes possession of a Bible [...]

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Tweet You have to read this to believe it, but I’ll give you a hint:  a school in New Hampshire had an evening celebrating Saudi culture that included marginalizing all the girls!  After you read it, imagine the other possibilities, such as a Jewish party celebrating Cossack culture, or the late Roman Empire having a [...]

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Tweet Longtime readers know that one of my favorite book series is C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series. In the Narnia series, my favorite book has come to be The Last Battle — which is the Biblical end of the world, Narnia style. Within that book, my favorite scenes take place after the Apocalypse, when the saved [...]

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