is that Saudi Arabia can be replaced, if necessary. As you say, a few $Bn in refinery refitting, all in a weekend's work in the little polities around Houston. Most of that cash would wind up in the hands of the people who get to move pipes around, not entirely a Bad Thing; some of it would come nearby to me (I don't mind, tho it's likely to jack my rent a bit).

As for the Iranians -- my Dad summarized it thus, when Ruholla Khomenei was the Media Favorite(TM): the U.S. Government primarily screwed up when they installed the Shah, by not giving the clerics any power in the resulting government. They found that intolerable, and started finding ways to reverse the policy. Viola.

Somebody here posted the addy of the [link|http://www.irna.com/|Islamic Republic News Agency] site a while ago. I've been visiting it occasionally, and have gone so far as to include it in my favorites links -- reminds me a lot of my Stalinist East German friends from the early Eighties: still observing the forms ("Imperialists", "Great Satan") but easy enough to see that their hearts aren't in it.

No. The primary role Saudi Arabia has had in the last few years is and has been as a spoiler. Even though they don't get their primary revenue from the United States, their policy is that alternate energy sources are bad for them; when anything starts looking credible, they start dropping the price, with the intent of making oil just cheap enough that the alternate doesn't make sense. Same with "conservation"; why conserve if you can afford not to? Note Pournelle's observation that there's nothing inherently virtuous about conservation per se; you have to be conserving for some purpose for it to make any sense, else you might as well don a hair shirt and move to the desert.

One of the bits of fallout from all this current mess is that Saudi Arabia may not have *quite* such a nice rep in future. I have a friend who's there at the moment (actually, at this instant he's in Poland for Christmas vacation, but you know what I mean) and he finds it quite tolerable. Of course he's something of an ascetic anyway; as he describes it, I'd be nuts in a week.

>I'd never underestimate the chief honchos bein quite well versed in one-upping our standard bizness droids, while playin dumb. Natch.

::bitter chuckle:: That's a safe bet. Yer typical biznessdroid is outsmarted by rabbits, fleas, and (especially) cockroaches.

As for the web site, try [link|http://www.irna.com/index_old.shtml|http://www.irna.com/index_old.shtml] -- a *gasp* *shudder* mostly-HTML version of the above, without the flash. One rather suspects that not all the people IRNA tries to reach have all the latest goodies.

>Last time vs est. annual usage IIRC: we had 23 years left. That's a bit short of aleph-null, no?

Well, considering that we've had roughly 25 years of oil left since about 1950... of course, the entire planet can't be made of the stuff, and even if it was, that is a finite supply. And, overall, if we're gonna use the stuff up, might as well use up other people's first. If whether or not to buy a Ford Excessive was the only question, not much objection here to $5 gas; I can figure ways to get by, maybe even run the '74 Ford pickup with 390CID on alternate weekends. But at the moment, that's a trivial byproduct. Inexpensive oil lets us keep lots of games going -- fresh vegetables in Michigan winter comes to mind.

It occasionally burns me to see trivialities blown out of proportion when it isn't me doing it ;-) Our economy is founded on cheap power [word chosen -- I hate the mealymouthism "energy"] and as it stands, oil is where it's at. 7000-lb "SUVs" are the economic equivalent of friction in that scenario -- try to minimize where possible, but you ain't gettin' rid of it. In just the same way, the right wing was able to successfully demonize assistance to poor people by waving "welfare Cadillacs" and similar in everyone's face. Don't fall for the same tactic; better yet, don't promote it.