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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (43882)	5/12/2004 11:11:06 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793917

We're Not Running Out of Oil By Don Boudreaux on The Economy Cafe Hayek MIT economist M.A. Adelman has a solid article cato.org in the current issue of Regulation, published by the Cato Institute. It’s entitled “The Real Oil Problem.” No one is better equipped to write on this subject. Among the myths Adelman exposes is the one that shrieks “We’re running out of oil!” First he points out that “reserves” is typically a shorthand term for the more technical term “proved reserves,” and any “well’s proved reserves are the forecast cumulative profitable output, not the total amount of oil that is believed to be in the ground.” Then Adelman goes on: But the “running out” vision never works globally. At the end of 1970, non-OPEC countries had about 200 billion remaining in proved reserves. In the next 33 years, those countries produce 460 billion barrels and now have 209 billion “remaining.” The producers kept using up their inventory, at a rate of about seven percent per year, and then replacing it. The OPEC countries started with about 412 billion in proved reserves, produced 307 billion, and now have about 819 left..... Growing knowledge lowers cost, unlocks new deposits in existing areas, and opens new areas for discovery. In 1950 there was no offshore oil production; it was highly “unconventional” oil. Some 25 years later, offshore wells were being drilled in water 1,000 feet deep. And 25 years after that, oilmen were drilling in water 10,000 feet deep – once technological advancement enabled them to drill without the costly steel structure that had earlier made deep-water drilling too expensive. Today, a third of all U.S. oil production comes from offshore wells. He also reports on a recent study he did with Campbell Watkins in which they could find no evidence that the process of finding new crude-oil deposits in non-OPEC countries, and developing these into reserves, is getting harder or more expensive: "Statements about non-OPEC nations' 'dwindling reserves' are meaningless or wrong."

To: LindyBill who wrote (43882)	5/12/2004 11:17:08 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793917

9/11 Panel Grandstanding Again By Captain Ed on War on Terror - Captain's Quarters The Washington Post reports today that the 9/11 Commission, whose public hearings provoked bitter partisan bickering but produced little in the way of actionable information, now wants to question al-Qaeda detainees: The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is trying to gain access to some members of al Qaeda in U.S. custody to pose questions to them, panel officials said yesterday. ... The Sept. 11 panel, which has sporadically feuded with the Bush administration over access to information and witnesses during the past year, already has had access to transcripts and reports about al Qaeda detainees in U.S. custody, officials said. But an ability to directly question them would give the panel a remarkable level of access to detainees held in secrecy and generally off limits to defense attorneys. The panel has particular interest, the Post reports, in interviewing Zacarias Moussaoui and Ramzi Binalshibh. Lee Hamilton, the ranking Democrat, claims that "they have a procedure in mind" for questioning these and possibly other detainees. What they don't explain is why they feel the need to directly question them. They have access to the interrogation reports, as the Post makes clear in the article. They also have access to the interrogators. Do they mean to imply that these politicians can somehow do a better job of interrogating terrorists than the FBI and the CIA? Obviously, the idea here is not to gather more information; the 9/11 Commission hopes to drum up publicity by grandstanding once again. Either they get to meet the detainees, up close and personal, for no particular reason except for their own ego, or they force the Bush administration to act like grown-ups and block access, which allows the panel to paint the White House as uncooperative again. Let's remember that the panel's original mandate was to determine the mechanics of the intelligence failures that led us to be unprepared for the 9/11 attacks, not to play Clue with the crimes themselves. Someone needs to put Hamilton and his Baker Street Irregulars back in their box. They have all the information they need to fulfill their original mandate, and we don't need them expanding their swollen mandate any further than it's already gone. Their continued efforts at self-aggrandizement have irreparably damaged this panel's reputation and have relegated its eventual product to nothing more than partisan fodder in an election year. Besides, with all of the sensitivity towards detainees currently in vogue, wouldn't having Jamie Gorelick question Moussaoui amount to humiliation and abuse?