Hmmm I guess that is the SA game alright.

Now that you point it out so starkly. Years ago I had several long phone conversations with a Sheik (no name recall now, but original topic prompting first call was something esoteric. Then I did some data mining.) Oh - his English was at least as good as mine and he was prolly smarter.

Since then and via some other 1st person gossip - I'd never underestimate the chief honchos bein quite well versed in one-upping our standard bizness droids, while playin dumb. Natch.

Hmm another impetus to ditch this NS 4.5 for one of the Gecko persuasion. With jscript (or even this ancient java machine) ON, I gets blank page at that interesting sounding site:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META NAME="GENERATOR" Content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">
<TITLE>Islamic Republic News Agency ( I R N A )</TITLE>
<script language="JavaScript">



</script>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Tried it once with the WW filters off - no dice.
Looks like it's got the full-M$ blinkers on. Will try it after I play browser games. But not any form of IE - this be W98-lite and IE's gutted to bare-bones. Feel cleaner. Anyway, bookmarked.

As to Saudis near-future.. wonder what fun & games if the King gets nuked? At >$5/gallon (what we ought to be paying anyway?) - my neighbor has horses; bike can get 60 mpg if dawdled. Final datum (I haven't checked lately) - Sigma All Known Oil reserves. Last time vs est. annual usage IIRC: we had 23 years left. That's a bit short of aleph-null, no?

We like opening boxes, right? Now that Pandora - she really liked! surprises.

Ashton
waitin to be amused more

>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.

Welcome to IWETHEY!