Heartland

a balance of men and women because I've always felt that a political system should involve voters electing the correct number of penises or vaginae to fill out the House of Commons evenly, rather than the merit of the individual candidate. we should give corporations the finger because private comp...

I was toying with the idea of a trip to Bordeaux to top up the cellars, but now it looks like it'll be a Fall trip to the rolling hills of Japan.

Yeah, it makes me laugh (or is that cry?) when I'm told inflation has been under 3% for the last decade, when houses prices around here have doubled in that time.... and house payments are most people's expensive monthly outgoing...

Madness, I tell you, madness.

All in all, I'd say the probability of Iraq either directly or indirectly attacking Israel with WMD to be not impossible, but so extremely unlikely as not really worth any weight. I'm going to have a hard time proving the intent of the former regime with pure evidence, but I'm not so sure Israel wo...

No, no, I think you missed what I was saying in that last post. Kuwait would have been in his sights for an attack, but probably not directly using WMD. He could invade using conventional forces, and then use WMD as a deterrent against a First Gulf War-style counter attack; "if you kick me out ...

You used game theory in an economic context, expand that economic thinking.

Not sure that those two countries would be on the list for a direct act. For example, invading Kuwait and using WMD as a deterrent would probably be more useful for the former regime.

... I'll give you the key. Maybe.

What would be the effect of Saddam launching a WMD (assuming he also had the military capability to do so) attack on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia?

A lot of dead bodies.

With the voice as shot as it is, I'll pass. I'm more interested in discovering some previously unknown video tape of some gigs from 83, or even better, the alleged secret one live gig they did with Patty in 1987.

There may be easier ways of making money, but for keeping it you should own a few politicians. :):) Well, I agree with that! But its interesting to note that inflation alone would causes prices to rise 25% since 2000, so its only a 5% or so raise in real terms. Of course its interesting to think th...

Ok, lets back up a bit. The reason I bought up the subject was not to prove that the war and nothing to do with oil, but to show that there was more to the war than oil. So if somebody were to prevent some undeniable evidence that the USA wanted in on Iraq oil, it wouldn't shift my position, because...

No, I'm listening, I just don't agree ;) Clearly we have different views on what constitutes evidence, so we're probably not going to get much further until we resolve that point. Its interesting that evolution has evolved the human mind to work on incomplete information, while two people with very ...

I dunno, I think there must be an easier way to make money than my going into politics... having to risk your career on re-election every few year, loss of privacy, having to suck up to the most despicable people... I don't doubt money is apart of it, but many politicans are already multi-millionair...

Me too; even better at investing it.

That's why I can afford a Porsche now :)

I live in the North East corner of the zone of Evil Bastardy. Nice neighbored, but the taxes are way too high

Again, I think you post some interesting articles, but nothing which screams 'evidence for the USA going to war over oil'. Its circumstantial. Well, I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree on this. I feel I do a rather good job of filtering out the anti-American/anti-Bush BS, and you feel y...

2002 Porsche 911 Targa.

Nice car, bad maintenance fees.

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Why do you think the first duty of the Royal Marines was to secure the oil terminals in southern Iraq? Why do you think the first Iraqi government building secured by US troops in Baghdad was the Oil Ministry? Oil represents 95% of Iraq's economy. The Hussein regime had previously attempted to dest...

Personally, I feel safer with a few terrorist groups kicking around, armed only with small high explosives, than a large country with an army in procession of WMDs, which could easily trigger another World War. Not that either situation is ideal, of course... Just to point out though, that I am a du...

Too many points, too many points! I'll start with math; Iraq produces around 2,000,000 barrels of oil a day. Assuming the Coalition gobbled up all those barrels, at $100 per barrel, thats $200,000,000 per day. When you consider that troops in Iraq are costing the US *alone* over $300,000,000 per day...

Well, I pretty much agree with that. I'm not really commenting on whether the war was a mistake or not, or whether things were handled as well as they could have been... its just that I believe the war wasn't primarily motivated by the quest for oil - rather, the US faced a prisoner's dilemma, and m...

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Reminds me of listening to most Cure albums.

Moving said war discussion to a new home, overlooking the North Sea

http://www.myheartland.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=16709

(New thread broken off from the US Election thread) 1: Roughly 2 years prior to the invasion, Iraq started to sell it's oil (via the Oil For Food Program) in Euros, rather than US$. 3: The UK joined in to secure a supply of oil because in 1998/99 North Sea oil and gas production peaked and has been ...

people are asked if they are happy with their lives,

Ah, the scientific method at work in the modern age... nothing subjective about that then