Anti-Drilling Crowd Should Worry About the Saudis

*“The cause of the discord: The Jews conspired against Islam and its people.”

*“In these verses is a call for jihad, which is the pinnacle of Islam…Only through force and victory over the enemies is there security and repose.”

*God “prohibits killing the soul...unless for just cause…unbelief after belief, adultery, and killing an inviolable believer intentionally.”

These quotes are from Arabic language, secondary-school textbooks at northern Virginia’s Islamic Saudi Academy. As the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported June 11, “The Commission’s review of these textbooks found that they did contain passages justifying violence toward and even killing of apostates and so-called polytheists.” Under scrutiny last October, the Academy scrubbed from its website the fact that its program “is based on the Curriculum of the Saudi Ministry of Education.” Some six million Saudi students read these official textbooks.

The Islamic Saudi Academy is operated by the Saudi Embassy and sponsored by the Saudi government. The Saudi state, in turn, is being funded quite lavishly today by average American motorists who purchase $4.08-per-gallon gasoline, partially refined from Saudi crude oil. U.S. airlines, shippers, factories, and other petroleum buyers inadvertently underwrite such Saudi-inspired hate.

This news alone should get Congress off its collective fanny. It should prod them into liberating America from dependence on OPEC, a cartel centered in an unstable, often unfriendly region. Sputtering growth, rising unemployment, and plunging airlines -- all exacerbated by record oil prices -- should spur Congress to ease America’s petroleum-fueled pain. Instead, Democrats and their environmental allies Just Say No.

House Democrats on June 11 blocked Rep. John E. Peterson’s (R.- Penn.) legislation to allow oil drilling 50 miles from America’s shores. Obstructionist Democrats could not fathom such activity, even 38 miles past where the horizon gobbles everything. Nor is the Just Say No crowd impressed that Hurricane Katrina slammed Gulf oil platforms with nary a spill.

President Bush and Senator John McCain both just proposed lifting federal restrictions on offshore oil drilling; in McCain’s case, provided that individual states want it. Good news. And yet, like many Democrats, McCain opposes tapping the 10.4 billion barrels of crude accessible via a 2,000-acre parcel of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 2.5 times the size of Central Park. Alaskans strongly favor drilling ANWR. McCain rejects onshore development at ANWR, but presumably would allow offshore drilling there. McCain’s muddle trumps Democrats, who generally oppose both.

Meanwhile, Governor David Paterson (D.-N.Y.) last month scuttled an offshore terminal for offloading low-carbon liquefied natural gas. Paterson opposed “industrializing” Long Island Sound, even though 17,000 vessels already carry 47 million tons of cargo annually through Bridgeport, New Haven, and New London, Connecticut.

The Cape Wind project similarly has stalled off Cape Cod as Massachusetts’ Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry and other eco-yachtsmen want their ocean views unencumbered by clean, renewable windmills.

Back on shore, green activists mothballed a 500-megawatt, 20,000-acre wind farm in Valley County, Montana. They complained last fall that 400-foot turbines would disturb a nearby wilderness area. GreenHunter Energy offered to whittle the facility back to 170 megawatts, but no go. So, no wind power.

Environmentalists Just Say No to the Sunrise Powerlink solar-energy project. They oppose a 150-mile, $1.5 billion high-voltage line connecting desert-based photovoltaic cells with San Diego Gas & Electric’s customers. Earth to Earth-huggers: Electricity does not travel by telekinesis.

Ecologists have stymied new refineries since 1975. A potential 200-year supply of oil shale remains shuttered in the Rockies. Carbon-free atomic power plants draw green ire. Hydroelectric dams? How dare humans inconvenience fish?

The green-Left’s mantra is “Renewables!” Splendid. Imagine that we tripled solar, wind, and geothermal output. They then would generate a whopping 2.2 percent of U.S. energy supplies.

Unfortunately, either we boost supplies or watch oil prices rocket skyward. China understands this, which is why it is developing oil off Cuba’s coast -- about 10 miles from where House Democrats just this month said America dare not drill.

Progress, shmogress. Who needs those city lights anyway? Let’s cancel the 21st Century and hand out candles and extra blankets. Better yet, let’s kill two birds with one stoning and simply join our Saudi friends in the 7th Century A.D.

Anti-drilling people should be wary of Saudi Arabia. THEY SHOULD ALSO WORRY ABOUT MEXICO...an excerp from todays’ piece by Willie on Mexico is especially informative...A failed nation state is the likely outcome south of the US border. Energy network attacks, growing poverty and inequality, inadequate government services, growing power of organized crime, corruption & desertion of police forces, assassination of judges and officials without consequences, and growing farmer bankruptcy are contributing to a failed system in Mexico. The current farm product price changes have resulted in tremendous additional disruption, losses, and disruption to Mexican agriculture businesses. Needs of people, upheld laws, tax structures, allegiance to authority, and sense of urgency all seem to be in breakdown mode, and have been for several months. Remarkably, the US press networks refuse to cover the stories that form long links in an ugly chain. The division between rich and poor is stark, and growing worse. Furthermore, the system is geared to aggravate that division. The failed state of Mexico will be evident from the top down, from the financial deterioration of its federal government, from the decline in their squandered energy business. Gigantic federal deficits will be the next major story coming from Mexico, along with energy strangulation by labor unions and drug lords who will continue to hold oil pipelines hostage. One must wonder if, amidst growing chaos, whether an external attack might occur of suspicious origin. Many believe autumn in 2001 saw such an event in New York City. When half the US population harbors suspicion, the doubt no longer qualifies as quackery. Mexico could ‘benefit’ from conjured disinformation to keep the nation together. The leaders and oligarchs manage to exploit the situation further for personal gain, in both nations.

UGLY DETAILS ON MEXICAN OIL INDUSTRY

The supply of crude oil to the United States is huge from Mexico, behind only Saudi Arabia (#2) and Canada (#1). As the oil supply production falters further in Mexico, a struggle will ensue as to whether the US receives less oil, or the Mexican customers receive less oil. This has been my concern for months, expressed regularly in the Hat Trick Letter. Now Mexico has finally announced a notable cutback in oil supply to the Untied States of almost 150 thousand barrels per day, another news story totally ignored by the US press networks. One would think that the obvious answer is for domestic customers to receive their own Mexican supply. If they decide to cut back on US oil exports, then the Mexican trade gap will be subjected to enormous deficits. Their Peso will drop in value badly, leading to widespread systemic price inflation EVEN WORSE THAN NOW. If however, they decide to deny domestic customers and satisfy US oil demand, then the Mexican economy will suffer shortages of gasoline and petrochemical products (like lubricants, synthetic fibers, fertilizer). Gasoline prices will skyrocket in highly visible fashion, leading to possible riots. This is a ‘lose-lose’ decision. So far, it seems cutbacks to US shipments and retention of domestic supply is the direction that Mexican authorities have chosen.

The Mexican energy picture has been deteriorating for some time, with an impact on their national finances soon to be felt. The elephant oil field Cantarell had been on an established 15% annual decline in year 2006 and year 2007, offset by expansion elsewhere in smaller volume from other Mexican projects. Now the Cantarell decline rate is 30% annually. However, according to the Mexico City business journal El Financiero, the broader national energy product output has been in major decline for a full year. Last June 2007, gasoline production fell in output by 56.4% at PEMEX refineries, versus the previous June output. Clearly, it follows the trend down in oil production, with less oil from which to derive products. The Mexican economy consumes 800 to 840 thousand barrels of gasoline per day, with any shortfall made up by imports. The shocking data point here is that their gasoline imports rose by 92.1% in June of 2007, versus the previous year, and continue to rise. The trend has continued, as Mexico is witnessing a gradual reduction of its trade surplus dominated by oil shipments.

No new gasoline refinery has been built in Mexico in over 20 years, not as bad as in the US, where no new refinery has been built in 35 years. The net financial impact is that Mexico earned $34.7 billion in FOREX reserves in 2006 from oil export, but of that, $10 billion was spent on gasoline import, or 29% of the gain. The trend continues to kill off their trade surplus, as they continue to import more gasoline and produce less crude oil. The great boon from oil discovery in the 1970 decade is coming to an end. Their oil exports in the first half of 2007 stood at 1.718 million bbl/day, 10% less than the first half of year 2006. The Mexican trade surplus from energy is vanishing. Analysts expect it to be gone by 2011. They do not enter disruption and a breakdown of order into the equation. It could be sooner. They do not seem to enter in growing gasoline import, which forces the timetable forward. The effect on their national politics will be severe, causing a failure of state, with a broad internal breakdown of order. Gold usually responds to such crises, even if in Mexico.

Then there is the North American Alliance, all surreptitiously planned by those in power. The greater plan seems intended (without debate, analysis, or vote) to share US financial might, broad technology expertise, pharmaceutical depth, augmented by military prowess WITH Canadian energy supply and mineral wealth and certain other expertise WITH Mexican cheap labor, energy supply and mineral wealth, and a bonus of new port facilities.

Faltering crude oil supply interrupts the Mexican contribution. A chaotic state down south in Mexican might conceivably disrupt the entire Alliance plan, perhaps only if it leaks over into a US problem. This could happen if millions of Mexicans jump the border into the US, or if their drug lords expand operations into California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. IF MEXICO IS FORCED TO INFLATE WITH MASSIVE FEDERAL EMERGENCY FUNDS, OR FACES WIDESPREAD DEFAULTS AND BOND FAILURES, CONDITIONS MIGHT ARISE FOR BROAD MOVEMENT INTO GOLD AS REFUGE. The process is deteriorating, again without any reporting from the sleepy lapdog US press networks.

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldenJackass/1213983840.php

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