When your editor was a child, he used to listen to Warren Zevon’s Mohammed’s Radio and think, “Well we won’t have to be lining up around the block for Arab gasoline when I’m grown up, because we will live in spaceships and I will have sex with Linda Ronstadt all the time, like in that Philip K. Dick book.” Linda Ronstadt is old now, too, and Warren Zevon is long dead and so is Philip K. Dick, but we all still have to pretend to pay attention to the Continuing Crisis in the Middle East because even the Prius gets thirsty for that sweet Arabian black tea. And one of the just-leaked leaks from WikiLeaks’ broken condom says that Saudi Arabia is totally full of the B.S. when it comes to oil reserves, which were exaggerated by more than 40% and have been rapidly declining since at least 2007.
From the just-posted CNN article headlined “WikiLeaks: Saudi oil reserves exaggerated; decline inevitable”:
(CNN) — Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves may have been grossly over-estimated and its capacity to continue pumping at current capacity exaggerated, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable sent from the kingdom in 2007.
The cable, obtained by WikiLeaks and published in the British newspaper The Guardian, cited the views of Sadad al-Husseini who had been in charge of exploration and production at the Saudi state-owned company Aramco for 12 years until 2004 ….
“According to al-Husseini, the crux of the issue is two-fold,” the cable says. “First it is possible that Saudi reserves are not as bountiful as sometimes described and the timeline for their production not as unrestrained as Aramco executives and energy optimists would like.”
Ha, such diplomatic language! [CNN/Guardian]
{ 165 comments }
Peak oil is a myth, you infidel!
The free market will make more oil. Somehow. Don't bother asking for specifics.
God loves America and won't let us run out of oil. Yes, this is an argument I've actually seen published.
That means something.
If we had oil, of course.
If the free market wanted alternative energy, it would produce it magically, without any upfront investment on our part.
What the article doesn't take into account is Saudi Arabia's unlimited supply of dinosaurs.
EXXON AKBAR!
James Howard Kuntsler's head just exploded.
Also: Cannonball Run, nice. When Burt was occasionally funny and Jaime Farr could still get paid for B-roll footage.
Cannonball Run? No, that is from The Clash video for "Rock the Casbah" — still the greatest/only punk-rock hit song/video about Islamic fundamentalists, oil supplies to the West, U.S. military aid to Middle East dictators and Arab-Israeli relations.
My bad. The Clash, of course! Now I have to listen to The Magnificent Seven.
And thanks to your response I cannot edit my post. Curse your superior references, Ken Layne!
You mean that in a couple decades they may sink back to being just another historical footnote?
Can't happen soon enough, henngh? Just an oil well and a flag.
Allah willing.
I'm confused by the words in the picture: are they a command or a description of a cause-and-effect relationship?
No More Oil!
Why does Saudi Arabia hate America?
If God loves America so much, why'd he put the oil under the Mahommettans' lands?
So Ken, you wanted to be Jerry Brown when you grew up.
Although he kicked Linda to the curb.
he still has his governor's car with the "no fat chicks" bumper sticker.
Ahh, back in Meg Whitman's golden years when California was full of promise…
Lol dumb bitch.
Hard to believe a bunch of inbred, repressed royalty would screw up so badly.
On an unrelated note, is Jeb running in 2012?
Now who the fuck are we going to protect/bomb?
You really can never go wrong with Iran. Although North Korea is a good second guess.
BTW, the Enquirer, Firedoglake, and the Other 98% percent all have items up about an Boehner sex scandal with a lobbyist. I'm torn. I want to laugh my arse off at The Orange One, but on the other hand, I don't want to know that he actually has sex.
Having occasionally seen a porn or two, I have come to the realization that some people will fuck anything. Including doing the Boehner.
Carrot porn?
he can put it where the sun don't shine!
Is it Clarence Thomas' wife? There, now everyone can lose their lunch cookies.
That is totally an image I did not need.
The person he's supposedly cavorting with is a lobbyist. I didn't see an indication of gender or age.
How soon we forget. Jack reported on the Enquirer's story about a week ago, and according to the linked story one's a 46-year-old former Congressional staffer; the other a lobbyist whose age was not given; both women.
http://wonkette.com/437000/national-enquirer-shoc…
Ha ha. I like how you have to specify that the affairs were with women because with Repubs, you never know!
Oh, that's right! Well, that's proof that Wonkette is on the cutting edge of sex related political gossip.
Damn straight. Or not as the case may be. But Wonkette is my go-to source for sex related gossip, political or otherwise.
My money is on Boehner crying after sex.
But the official Republiklan Talking Point will be "At least it was with a woman".
No more oil = No more ass kissing for Prince Bandar. Soooooo sad.
Drill baby drill – how else is Mom gonna get her future date rapers and cheerleaders to soccer practice?!?!?!111? Them SUVs don't run on commie vegetable oil.
I am *shocked* I tell you that a finite resource that gazillions of folks use/waste may run out. What will my asshole neighbor with his Hummer do? AOL/HuffPo says an asteroid is going to hit the earth in 2036–let's pray to baby Jeebus that the oil holds out until then.
I do love our media. There's a very, very tiny chance that this asteroid may hit the Earth in 2036; 1 in over 100,000. And places like HuffPo treat it as a certainty that asteroid is definitely going to hit us.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/republicans-vote…
I love that article; but the sad part is I could see that actually happening.
If God didn't want America destroyed by an asteroid, he would move the Earth.
The Earth moves all the time. God is just setting up a trick shot.
If we're really lucky, the asteroid will be made of oil.
And not full of Aliens.
It's time to invest in some leather chaps and start scouting for a feral kid sidekick.
We don't need another hero, man.
One word for you: Boomerangs.
You mean kids who impoverish their parents attending elite schools and then come home to live, again?
No, those are hipsters.
They don't live at home, though. Not technically. They crash on a friend's couch in Brooklyn Heights, work (very) part-time at a bike shoppe, play in a post-rock band, & hit their parents up for money every four to six weeks.
You mean because global warming will melt the ice caps and cover the entire planet in ocean?
Oh wait, that was the rip-off; sorry.
Shall I put my tiny music box collection up on eBay?
I knew I shoulda bought that gyrocopter when I had the chance!
And blame the Jews. Don't forget to blame the Jews.
You got it, sugar tits.
Tina Turner is ready to stage a comeback?
I expect my flying car to be electric, so fuck Saudi Arabia.
i just want a goddamn jetpack. is that too much too ask?
This just proves that facts have an inherent liberal bias.
Enjoy paying $10 a gallon to fill up your giant, 10 mpg SUV with long-dead trees, suckers!
Plan B: $20/gallon for recently-dead corn or switchgrass converted into "oil." 100 BTUs in, 101.05 BTUs out, not counting the fertilizer and pesticide.
This is bad news for my "hybrid", which burns both oil and rubber.
No problem. We'll all be driving electrics. (Now where the fuck did I put that 1000 mile coil of extension cord? Damn! Tough growing old…mutter…mutter).
Sucks to be Saudi Arabian. Of course it's always sucked to be Saudi Arabian.
Why? They can always go back to their Bedouin existence, once the money drys up.
They'll always have Mecca.
Well, that explains why those savages held on to all of their muhaddabs
Is panic acceptable as a response? Hurry. Time is… important.
Maybe Jimmy Carter had a point. Oh well, we're all screwed anyway.
You're right, this is all Carter's fault. Reagan never would have let this happen!
Let's de-fund Carter's lawn. That'll show him.
Please don't make me get all rational and realize that if Reagan's campaign hadn't cheated by illegally contacting the Iranians to not let the American hostages go, we would have probably instituted alternative energy in the early 1980s and would have been done with petroleum for at least the last decade. Don't make me go there. Then I cry.
"PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT SHEIK BEHIND THE CURTAIN"
-Floating Green Head-
I love Linda Ronstadt. Even the new larger one.
Best ever National Anthem, 1997 World Series, Dodger stadium, Miss Ronstadt. I have allways and will allways lerve her totally. Her Blue Bayou is the best campfire song ever.
"It's so easy to fall in love……."
Technically, it's Roy Orbison's song.
Roy Orbison wrote the National Anthem?
I wish.
Her version , that Orbison warble is hard to do after copious amounts of stuff that get's passed around at campfires.
…oh c'mon, calm down everyone! You guys are acting like their aren't any other countries that we can invade/subjugate in the world?!?! ARGENTINA and BRAZIL I'm talking to you!!!!
Canada's got oil and they're right next door.
What Canada has is actually oily sand that if you pump enough poison into it will release a small amount of oil. This is what the world has bee reduced to with its oil addiction. It's like licking the syringe after you're done shooting up.
Venezuela too–Hugo always looks ready to rumble.
…considering that we released Manuel Noriega a couple of years ago I guess the South American Strong Man suite in club fed is available now.
And don't forget Mexico. Plus they have drugs and fatty foods. I'm sort of surprised we haven't invaded them all ready and that a third of our country is not land that used to belong to them.
…according to Lou Dobbs they already invaded us!
What's that sound? Oh it's the sound of falling interest in democracy in the Middle East!
If our sons and daughters didn't die for oil, then what did they die for????
Do hand jobs count since 'Murica needz moar jobs?
hand jobs should be like laundry or dishes. done because they must be done.
Is this good news for John McCain?
Ohhh, you made me look it up: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RmeEjt2eKHc/Ru9s3y7kJrI…
This is still my fave: http://sfist.com/attachments/SFist_Brock/jerry_br…
Wow, that was a blast from the past. She has the face and the voice and an angel.
Shit. Looks like we're gonna need more Air Supply.
Not to worry. Dr. Spock, aka Barry Obarmer, will simply shit di-lithium crystals so that the matters and the auntie matters can dance in unison and all energy will be free forever and forever
ahemamen.Only if and when shitting dilithium crystals becomes economically competitive. Free market solutions!
There isn't an infinite supply of oil? Get outta here! Next you're going to tell me that pumping cows full of hormones so they'll produce more milk is making the kids who drink that milk go through puberty earlier and earlier, or that pouring pollutants into the air causes asthma or something. Crazy talk!
Jebus will create more when enough people pray for it, just like he did the first time!
Or that stuffing ourselves with corn syrup and lard is giving us diabetes.
in honor of the alt-text… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DbFYsi9iSg
rock el casbah!!!!
that is AWESOME.
I second.
Dear Julian Assange
Goddamn you for revealing all our most important secrets.
Very truly yours,
Exxon-Mobil, BP, Texaco, etc.
It's not like this is a big secret. But the Sauds have never admitted it.
Who are you gonna believe, some Swedish sex pervert or a guy who held hands with George Bush?
When the Saudis stop exporting oil, will they also stop exporting the even more dangerous Wahhabi brand Islam? Hope so, cause that shit can get you killed. (Address all bombs to your own embassy, you fucks. Thanks.)
Joe Strummer — dead too.
No more oil? The sharif don't like it!
You know the sheriff's got his problems too.
He will surely take them out on you…
R.I.P. Warren Zevon.
I miss Warren. :-(
I saw him in NOLA in 1996. The performance of "Excitable Boy" made it onto a recording he released called "Learning to Flinch." That rebel yell you hear at the beginning of the song–that's me and three of my friends going absolutely apeshit as we sucked down Heinekens from the corner of the bar of Tipitina's…good times.
That's cool! I'll listen to the album tonight when I get home.
I regret that I have but one fist to up a Wonketteer thread about Warren Zevon.
Okay, he's gone, but does that mean we can't just send lawyers, guns, and money?
I'll sleep when I'm dead too….
I'd give Warren mea maximum upfista, were he not inconveniently dead, so I'll just doink everybody on this thread. Even Da Proprietor.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! That's where the Palins shoot fish. We can't bomb them. It's the land of snark milk & honey.
I saw Prince Bandar exaggerating how much oil he's got at Trader Vick's
And his hair was perfect.
Everyone, come here, come over here and look at this. This right here, this is witty, people. If you want to be witty, any of you, try to emulate this man here.
Now Bandar's shit's fucked up.
Don't it make you want to rock and roll, all night long?
And party every day!
Ha!
I love the Rock the Casbah video. It was filmed in Austin before Austin was cool (to outsiders at least … it was always cool to those of use who lived there in the 70s and 80s).
You mean before the Sound Exchange became a Subway sandwich shop?
Couldn't agree more. Every band who was anyone played in Austin. And by today's Texas standards Austin is about as foreign as the surface of the sun.
"…decline inevitable.."
I'm no energy expert like Sarah Palin™, but didn't the oil reserves begin to decline the moment we pumped out he first barrel. Unless Jesus is making water in petroleum these days, or the Jews remembered out how to make one day's oil last eight, we're screwed.
Not having any oil is going to put us through some changes, Lord
Sort of like a Waring blender.
Poor, poor, pitiful us.
Interesting tidbit from the cables:
While stating that he does not subscribe to the theory of "peak oil," the former Aramco board member does believe that a global output plateau will be reached in the next 5 to 10 years and will last some 15 years, until world oil production begins to decline.
So he doesn't believe in peak oil, but he does believe oil will peak. Well, that's a relief! Continue your guzzling, America!
He believes in a thing that looks, sounds, and functions exactly like peak oil, but is definitely not peak oil.
Whenever I hear a stupid comment made by our oil baron overlords I hear Colonel Sanders shouting "Keep Firing Assholes!" Funny that.
Poor, poor, pitiful we.
We agree we should go oil-free
They say their reserves are to the brim
But it's just a whim
By which they hope to keep us on the limb
Pump that last bit out and it'll be rapture for all of us.
Hey, we did start ramping up research into alternative energy sources in the 70s after the oil embargo, but then Reagan can in and quickly put a stop to that sensibleness.
Don't worry. If it gets bad, we'll just trade arms for hostages again, and bomb Libya.
Know what? I prefer the smell of gasoline in my tank to the smell of banana skins in my flux capacitor. Smells like victory.
It's one of the few songs my buddies and I can play even after being overserved.
Think that was by design. Warren played it lots of times after he had been overserved.
My favorite version is on the recently-released live album from the Roxy in LA, Stand In the Fire. Zevon changes the lyrics to "Even Jimmy Carter's got the highway blues."
Linda Ronstadt? Ken, I congratulate you on your good taste. I had a huge girl crush on Linda in my youth.
And I really do need to invest in a good bicycle.
Ken, I wasn't that young, but I wanted to fuck all the time with that lady replicant in the movie they made from that Phillip K. Dick book. Sean Young, I believe? But then I saw her on that Skating With The Has-Beens show a couple of months ago, and I had a very sad sad. All of the beautiful girls of my youth are turning into old ladies, and here I am, still 19 years old, virtually.
She also turned out to be a certifiable nutburger, not that I'm anyone to point fingers.
That only makes her more irresistable, the crazy ones, they are wild in the sack, or so I have heard, guys talk, you know, word gets around, I hear.
Have you watched any of the PBS series Pioneers of Television? All those beautiful people now look like parking lot rubbers. Depressing, in an oh-god-we're-all-gonna-die way.
Oh, fuck you. Try being 63.
Cheer up oldie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRj-S8Aklcw
Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and others will blame this on Obama and democracy in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…….
Absolutely. The rising gasolene prices in America now are already being blamed on Obama as a way to force Americans to accept his alternative fuels agenda, the evil bastard.
Of course, when Americans were paying 4 bucks a gallon in the summer of 2008, it was because of the invisible hand of the free market.
So Sheiks have been lying about the amount of lube and how fast they can get it up?
It's almost like a Trojan horse, and makes me want to giggle like a French tickler.
I haz a Saud.
opec noes!
Yes, it's going to be just like a junkie going cold-turkey … if smack was also a source of food, heat, cheap transportation, electricity & half of everything man-made around us.
Are sand & rocks good carbs or bad carbs? I forget.
Useful idiots, the spike in oil prices paid for weapons purchased. Oil down to $86.xx per barrel. Even if true, that would mean 140 years worth of reserves vice 220 years (provided no new sources of energy are found). But it makes a great argument to drill here at home instead of sending our money overseas. It would be ironic if we sink our country by not using our own resources and it gets taken by a country that will. You have to ask who side our "leaders" are on. here will be even less money available for social services if continually send our wealth abroad.
Thats gonna be a sad part of the world to be livin in.
Oil? Shit, those assholes will die of thirst before the oil gives out. The next World War will be over water, not oil. Sorry for the lack of snark.
Will Andy Dick do? Or, is that a bridge to nowhere too far?
Well, inshallah, this is one less potential country we'll bomb in the not-too-distant future. Time to reinvade/reliberate Kuwait or some shit.
ROCK THE CASBAH
19 Dancing Oswalds
=5 Dancing Israelis
Where will you be when the lights go out on broadway and the streets are full of out of gas cars?
I'm wondering what we are all going to do when the oil is gone. Go back to Coal and Whale Oil?
Michael Ruppert is sounding more prophetic with each passing day.
Otherwise known as the Bard College Alumni Association!
Wait, you know my kid?
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