Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

[Matt Cavanaugh]

From now on they will just be "con".

A+ should host their next event in France, and call it Con-con.

[Tony Parsehole]

As they approach DefCon One, the FTB/Skepchick/Skepticon Axis conducts missile testing.

http://www.bannedinhollywood.com/wp-con ... ood-02.gif

The average Skepchick commentator after lurking at the Slymepit:
https://images.encyclopediadramatica.se ... Faggot.gif

[Tony Parsehole]

Oops, forgot the pharyngula post - another sinfest looney tune.

http://i.imgur.com/w0D58tF.jpg

And they lap it up.
They wouldn't know humour if.......Something really humourous happened.

[some guy]

PZ has an excellent post over on Panda's Thumb (and probably also at his FTB site) addressing an article in Christain News that was putting a creationist spin on an article published by real scientists.

It is PZ at his best: not only pointing out where the creationists were wrong and confused and lying, but at the same time explaining with a lot of detail about the interesting issue that the scientific study was addressing.

These types of posts by PZ were what initially drew me to his blog and kept me there. He dismantled the creationist arguments in a way that also educated the reader about some interesting topic of biology.

Well done PZ.

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2013/06 ... ation.html

[Tony Parsehole]

For extra points, guess who said the following:

But what I’m asking, you jew-boy nigger fag-head hysterical bitch, is this: are just any consequences OK? All consequences? And if you give me the wrong answer I will blow your head off. And kill your grand children.

Jesus?

[Mykeru]

From now on they will just be "con".

A+ should host their next event in France, and call it Con-con.

http://www.art-expertise.com/uploadVisu ... 7_zoom.jpg

I see what you did there.

[Gumby]

Tom Foss / June 17, 2013, 12:21 pm

I’d love to have a job where I could skip out on my duties to write stuff on the Internet attacking a colleague/guest/supporter of my organization, and then get full support from my bosses for doing so, without so much as a slap on the wrist. How did Ron Lindsay land such a cushy position?

This gem was in the comments section of a post by Rebecca Watson. I was almost blinded by the irony.

Haha. Those sour grapes sure are creating a lot of whine.

[Pitchguest]

Todays new additions in the misogyny thread include:

Greta Christina, Ed Brayton, Richard Carrier and multiple examples from 'The Atheist Experience's' Martin Wagner.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=328


For extra points, guess who said the following:

But what I’m asking, you jew-boy nigger fag-head hysterical bitch, is this: are just any consequences OK? All consequences? And if you give me the wrong answer I will blow your head off. And kill your grand children.

http://img.pandawhale.com/39003-wat-gif-ou2N.gif

[FrankGrimes]

And my question is: why do people want to pay money to see/watch someone who has no quals to speak about something they are on a stage to speak about? Back at JREF I was told that if I wanted knowledge I shouldn't go to these things. Is that right? I've never been to one but I'm keen to go - even if there were shit flingers I'd go but only if I thought I could trust the knowledge of the people I was interested in seeing. And after RW's Evo Phsycho

Are these things just big fucking wank-fest, pretend knowledge, fun hangouts? If so, I'm not interested. Doubt I'd be going back to any organised parties either (why the fuck are there alcohol fueled parties being promoted as points of interest?!), especially if all they are is what I've seen from the Skepchick vidz.

Apart from that, I've said it before and I'll say it again... ^^ what they said ^^

Remember that the people you are talking about are demanding to be treated like infants. They want to be part of the "smarter than everyone else" crowd (IE Atheism/Skepticism, in their mind), and within that, they want to be part of the IN group. Watson's popularity was at the right time. She is a Celebrity(to them) but is still accessible, same with Myers.

You mean I can attend a con that will reinforce my sense of superiority over all the people I hated my whole life, AND I can spend time with the *actual* Rebecca Watson and the great PZ Myers? What's that? You want me to buy you a beer/several beers/dinner, but I can stand at the edge of the group you are talking to for 15 minutes! What a deal!!! I am so smart, and cool. Definitely cool. Everyone in High School was wrong about me.

In that case, I'm there! If all I have to do is pay for dinner, drinks (I guess I wouldn't be "cool" if I didn't get pissed too) and a coffee (pass on the elevator), I'd do it for sure. Just to get the chance to hang out with such brilliant minds. I'd even buy and wear a ceramic badge if it made me cool. Though only if cool means pretentious, obstinate, malicious, lazy and incompetent.

[Garlic]

From now on they will just be "con".

A+ should host their next event in France, and call it Con-con.

http://www.art-expertise.com/uploadVisu ... 7_zoom.jpg

I see what you did there.

Actually, I see what he also did there.

/French

[Mykeru]

In the A/S blog-o-sphere someone posts something somewhere.

http://www.bannedinhollywood.com/wp-con ... ood-12.gif

And Oolon springs into action

[EdwardGemmer]

well, here's the official Skepticon annoucement. Feel free to post comments on it. I put the second comment on there, no one else seems to be commenting. I think these people are mad to fall over themselves to support FTB / Skepchick.
http://skepticon.org/skepticon-says-goo ... urce=pubv1

The last post there so far:

I would have a hard time joining a conference with representatives from American Atheists given the current accusations against them. I hope we can agree that mistreating black women is an issue we need to face as a community, even if we do like noses, faces, hats, and dinosaurs.

:popcorn:

One persistent criticism against feminism is that it ignores black women. Kind of like right now.

[Mykeru]

From now on they will just be "con".

A+ should host their next event in France, and call it Con-con.

http://www.art-expertise.com/uploadVisu ... 7_zoom.jpg

I see what you did there.

Actually, I see what he also did there.

/French

What were you looking at in that print, their eyes?

[Tony Parsehole]

In the A/S blog-o-sphere someone posts something somewhere.

http://www.bannedinhollywood.com/wp-con ... ood-12.gif

And Oolon springs into action

HAHAHAHAHA! That's spot on!

[Lsuoma]

Oops, forgot the pharyngula post - another sinfest looney tune.

http://i.imgur.com/w0D58tF.jpg

That is so unfunny, I think it gave me leprosy!

[Tony Parsehole]

Oolon's reaction when either Rebecca Watson, PZ Myers or Ophelia Benson retweet him:

https://images.encyclopediadramatica.se ... astard.gif

[J.D.]

Reading my feed, say Hemant's piece on the AA legal suit. Saw Matt and Co rush to defend their buddy by any means necessary. I did see that Matt is following Becky's lead - pink beard? WTF? Is he going through his midlife crisis as well? All he needs now is hipster glasses.

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/9199/aq7.png

Oh Matt, you're such a rebel.
http://i44.tinypic.com/fpeyu.jpg

Well given his extremely sheltered upbringing (Matt Dillahunty, "I was raised in a loving, Southern Baptist home and was a fundamentalist Christian for over 20 years"), it's not a mid-life crisis; it's more like a sad, pathetic 44 year-old going through teenage angst for the first time.

BTW, I had the misfortune of watching a clip of Dilahunty speaking soon after Abbie gave a very professional, scientific talk at some conference held in Texas(?) a few years ago. His talk featured him swearing almost every other word. It went over like a lead balloon. The man-boy apparently has no sense of time and place for these things.

Who knew Dilahunty would be used as the basis for the Christian character play by Kristen Wigg in the almost funny film "Paul". Right after the alien reveals to her how the Universe actually works and that there is no god, she discovers it's OK to swear and can't stop.

http://videos.kristenwiig.org/view/83/paul-clip-03/

[FrankGrimes]

Ok, the world is against me. After spending two days building a computer for my son I can't d/l Gimp. Thought I'd d/l a proper installer but looks like it's just a plugin add on or something
.

Basket of lynx anyone?

[FrankGrimes]

Oh, and GoT, the book sucks ass. Worst writing since OB's latest - what that was.

[FrankGrimes]

*whatever

[EdwardGemmer]

Reading my feed, say Hemant's piece on the AA legal suit. Saw Matt and Co rush to defend their buddy by any means necessary. I did see that Matt is following Becky's lead - pink beard? WTF? Is he going through his midlife crisis as well? All he needs now is hipster glasses.

I don't think his video was particularly caring about the lawsuit and seemed to try and rush past that in favor of claiming Ed Clint did something wrong. That said, props to him for actually mentioning it and saying there is a problem v. ignoring it or praising AA for how they've handled it.

[EdwardGemmer]

Also it looks like Bridget Gaudette is not commenting because she thinks she will be deposed (something I think seems pretty likely). However, she seems pretty supportive of Clint's article.

[Kareem]

Ok, the world is against me. After spending two days building a computer for my son I can't d/l Gimp. Thought I'd d/l a proper installer but looks like it's just a plugin add on or something
.

Basket of lynx anyone?

Gimp for Windows

[FrankGrimes]

Ok, the world is against me. After spending two days building a computer for my son I can't d/l Gimp. Thought I'd d/l a proper installer but looks like it's just a plugin add on or something
.

Basket of lynx anyone?

Gimp for Windows

Thanks :)

[Mykeru]

The worst part?

http://i44.tinypic.com/fpeyu.jpg

The carpet matches the drapes.

Go ahead, just try to get that image out of your head

[jjbinx007]

BTW, I had the misfortune of watching a clip of Dilahunty speaking soon after Abbie gave a very professional, scientific talk at some conference held in Texas(?) a few years ago. His talk featured him swearing almost every other word. It went over like a lead balloon. The man-boy apparently has no sense of time and place for these things.

Yep, I've noticed that too.

FWIW, I think Matt generally does a good job of hosting The Atheist Experience. On the show he presents strong arguments in an easy-to-understand way but he's a surprisingly shitty public speaker off the show, and his car videos are abysmal.

Also, his pro-feminist arguments are much weaker than his arguments in favour of atheism/against religion, and even his delivery makes him seem like a brainwashed religious person. I can completely imagine him being a Christian minister when I watch any of his wishy-washy "we must listen to the wimminz" videos.

[Parody Accountant]

does anyone know where it is possible to upload a copywrited video, with a private link that can be accessed and watched?

YouTube blocked it, even though it is a private link, however, if I am signed in as me, I can watch it.

I'd like to be able to access the video without being signed in with my Google account. If one needs to be logged in to access it, but the login does not require the password to my main Gmail account, that is just fine.

Vimeo?

Any other recommendations?

Google Drive might work for you. It's basically a small hard drive. If the video is short, and the filesize is manageable - you could just download it wherever you're logged in and play it locally.

Sorry if this isn't that helpful.

Given that google actively reads whatever files you store with them, using them for this purpose is a pretty bad idea. Unless you want to have your account terminated, and are wanting to be lazy about it.

I've got dozens of mp3's in attachments in emails that I've sent myself (gmail), and I would happily store some of my favorite mp3's on google drive in a similar fashion. Google is unable to determine if I've purchased them legally or not. I'm not worried in the least.

On the other hand, if you have a bunch of cammed or even suspicious filenames
"[KTA-DGAFTorrentz.on.nimp]CAM_5.1_Xvid_AAC_scene_Superman_2013_WORKPRINT.avi" , I bet an algorithm could sniff them out pretty quickly (renamed or not).

A copyright is not proven infringed just because you stored your legally obtained copy on the cloud. The real glass ceiling is the file size of the movie. It's just not practical for many people to go through the trouble, when they really just want YouTube type functionality.

[codelette]

well, here's the official Skepticon annoucement. Feel free to post comments on it. I put the second comment on there, no one else seems to be commenting. I think these people are mad to fall over themselves to support FTB / Skepchick.
http://skepticon.org/skepticon-says-goo ... urce=pubv1

The last post there so far:

I would have a hard time joining a conference with representatives from American Atheists given the current accusations against them. I hope we can agree that mistreating black women is an issue we need to face as a community, even if we do like noses, faces, hats, and dinosaurs.

:popcorn:

One persistent criticism against feminism is that it ignores black women. Kind of like right now.

Feminism in the US is a social club for sheltered upper/middle class white ladies. When the shit hits the fan and they get the dresses soiled; then they throw the darkies and the trailer trash to the curb.
Fuck those bitches. They have done nothing for women like me.

[J.D.]

The worst part?

http://i44.tinypic.com/fpeyu.jpg

The carpet matches the drapes.

Go ahead, just try to get that image out of your head

I'd bet he also has nipple rings.

[Zenspace]

Lest we forget who we really are, why we are here and why we fight the fight and search out the lulz, for Truth, Justice and the American Slymepit Way, presented for you by the greatest old, white male misogynist of them all:

http://www.richarddawkins.net/foundatio ... -blue-dot#

It helps, on occasion, to remember the very small place we all occupy in the Universe.

[ReneeHendricks]

In the A/S blog-o-sphere someone posts something somewhere.

http://www.bannedinhollywood.com/wp-con ... ood-12.gif

And Oolon springs into action

Yes. Every place I go on the 'net regarding A/S topics, Oolon the Asshat is there. Usually whining "slymepit this" or "slymepit that". One day...just one day I'd like to go to different forums/sites and not see his sniveling crap.

[J.D.]

The worst part?

...

The carpet matches the drapes.

Go ahead, just try to get that image out of your head

I'd bet he also has nipple rings.

and his shaved.

[J.D.]

and his shaved.

Fuck,

IS shaved.

[Tony Parsehole]

Yes. Every place I go on the 'net regarding A/S topics, Oolon the Asshat is there. Usually whining "slymepit this" or "slymepit that". One day...just one day I'd like to go to different forums/sites and not see his sniveling crap.

Just ask him the real reason why he stopped posting at the Pit. That usually shuts the little fucker up.

*Cough* Cough* viewtopic.php?p=30208#p30208

Legend has it, that when the moon is full, you can still hear Oolon's butthurt over that comment to this day.
http://images.dailyexpress.co.uk/img/dy ... 370439.jpg

[ReneeHendricks]

Yes. Every place I go on the 'net regarding A/S topics, Oolon the Asshat is there. Usually whining "slymepit this" or "slymepit that". One day...just one day I'd like to go to different forums/sites and not see his sniveling crap.

Just ask him the real reason why he stopped posting at the Pit. That usually shuts the little fucker up.

*Cough* Cough* viewtopic.php?p=30208#p30208

Legend has it, that when the moon is full, you can still hear Oolon's butthurt over that comment to this day.
http://images.dailyexpress.co.uk/img/dy ... 370439.jpg

Oh, I know all about that. And I know the slimy little shitbag lurks around here so he can go running back to FTB/etal and do his little Chester the dog act. I try very hard not to engage him any more as all I can hear is that "Look at me Spike!" bit in my head whenever he types out his insipid, sycophantic babble-speak.

[Zenspace]

...
The irony is when PZ asked me to join it was because they realized that video was going to be more of a popular media than blogs, and so they wanted to get some video bloggers on to boost their network. How has this great plan worked out?
Well they got Me, ZOMGitscriss, Aronra and nonstampcollector to join.
I was kicked off, Crissy was never really active and has since dropped off their front page. Aron is still there, but has essentially stopped making videos, and NSC joined and left for reasons that were difficult to pin down.
In the meanwhile PZ and the A+ community have comprehensively pissed off almost the entire secular community on YT

Its also bizarre, up until I joined FTB, tbh I never looked or read at any of their blogs. Now I look at them on a semi regular basis because its just so........ :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

For all their dismissal of you, maybe they should have listened, learned and got the stick-of-self-righteousness out of their asses when it came to you and what you bring to the marketplace of ideas, as it were. You've had close to 49 million views during your 6+ year YouTube history. That's, roughly, 20.6k views/day. Which is very impressive. It's especially impressive as it's one-third the 61k page-views/day (out of it's average of 19k unique visitors) ALL of FreeThoughtBlogs takes in (of which 51% of the page views are ping-backs in cat fights and relentless self-promotion).

More impressive than page/views day, is your over-all reach. Even though you're not even the biggest atheist YouTuber with your 184k followers (for example, The Amazing Atheist has 485k followers and just over 127 million video views in a career spanning five fewer months) you seem to have far more unique accounts, of which I'm sure many are inactive, than all of the individuals FtB likely attracts.

Anyway, when it comes to footprint within the atheist movement, you were right. YouTube is the place to be if you want to reach people. And the FtB crowd, with their constant BS, has really done themselves in on YouTube.

What I find most interesting about the FftB Youtube experience is that even FftB realizes that their act cannot survive open, unmoderated exposure in a public forum - hence the refusal to permit comments. The recent Carrier A+ video is the perfect example. Their profit motive is centered around blog hits and the video views will not contribute to that (as far as I know) coupled with the links back to FftB with the all-but-guaranteed trashing they would get from the tens of thousands of slymers in the youtube audience basically creates a lose-lose environment for them.

[Metalogic42]

Yes. Every place I go on the 'net regarding A/S topics, Oolon the Asshat is there. Usually whining "slymepit this" or "slymepit that". One day...just one day I'd like to go to different forums/sites and not see his sniveling crap.

Just ask him the real reason why he stopped posting at the Pit. That usually shuts the little fucker up.

*Cough* Cough* viewtopic.php?p=30208#p30208

Legend has it, that when the moon is full, you can still hear Oolon's butthurt over that comment to this day.
http://images.dailyexpress.co.uk/img/dy ... 370439.jpg

Oh, I know all about that. And I know the slimy little shitbag lurks around here so he can go running back to FTB/etal and do his little Chester the dog act. I try very hard not to engage him any more as all I can hear is that "Look at me Spike!" bit in my head whenever he types out his insipid, sycophantic babble-speak.

I will not stand for this defamation campaign against Chester the dog!

[Zenspace]

The Skepticon comments are certainly...educational. A commenter named Yoryor expresses his displeasure with their decision, defends Lindsay and points out how they're hurting themselves. Lauren Lane's response?

We are sorry that you do not like our jokes about hats, but we sure as heck enjoyed it. Do you like jokes about dinosaurs? Check out this one:What did dinosaurs use to make their hotdogs?

…Jurassic Pork!

How old is she, six?!

I rest my case. :roll:

[ReneeHendricks]

Metalogic42 - that's the sad bit for me. I really like Spike and Chester.

[Dick Strawkins]

http://i44.tinypic.com/fpeyu.jpg


Good Morning, Son?

[Zenspace]

The worst part?

http://i44.tinypic.com/fpeyu.jpg

The carpet matches the drapes.

Go ahead, just try to get that image out of your head

you...you....MYKERUUUUUUUU!!!!!!! :suimouth:

[zenbabe]

http://i44.tinypic.com/fpeyu.jpg


Good Morning, Son?

Oh no!
You are an evil wicked dastardly person!

[J.D.]

...
Yes. Every place I go on the 'net regarding A/S topics, Oolon the Asshat is there. Usually whining "slymepit this" or "slymepit that". One day...just one day I'd like to go to different forums/sites and not see his sniveling crap.

Don't let him get to you. Oolon only deserves mockery and ridicule.

http://i.imgur.com/g8m01Kn.jpg

[EdwardGemmer]

I see Black Skeptics is the first FtB site to actually do a writeup about the lawsuit.

[Jonathan]

I see Black Skeptics is the first FtB site to actually do a writeup about the lawsuit.

And many of the commenters quickly descend into a game of "shoot the messenger".

[bhoytony]

Completely off-topic but I found it amusing:

[youtube]NvtxFFj6eDY[/youtube]

[youtube]aR8qtxts1jY[/youtube]

[Gefan]

Good point, the subject can be quite broad. Also, thanks for the warning! :lol:

Let's see, where to start...

My general approach to many subjects is to focus primarily on the broader, big-picture, so let's try that for starters: geographic global energy availability (fossil fuels) vs global economy, which would naturally segue into broad effects on individual countries. We can drill down from there if the interest holds. How's that?

So as not to divert the lulz-train into a brick wall how 'bout I recommend some reading.
Notice I didn't say "light reading".
Start with "Twilight in the Desert" by the late Matthew Simmons. Simmons spent most of his life in the oil industry and related capital fields. He said some fairly loopy things about the Deepwater Horizon but that came after the publication of Twilight and the couple of decades of research that went into it. The Deepwater stuff doesn't affect the math of his earlier work or that of M. King Hubbert before him.
If you're really overburdened with free time then go track down a bunch of Simmons' cited sources. Bear in mind that I am not responsible for your falling into a coma whilst trying to read a lot of them.

All my actual material is in boxes back in the US but I could make a few points from memory where the figures would still be about right. Even those would go on for far too fucking long for me not to likely get shit-canned by Lsuoma so I'll stick to just two for starters (followed by half a dozen salient facts)

1. The shale hype is about financial speculation. Even using the numbers quoted by the industry itself it's impressive only to people who don't understand the scale of the problem. It's at least one order of magnitude short of having a significant impact.
The only reason anyone's heard of shale is that the price of oil has finally gone high enough to make it (briefly) viable.
Which leads us to:
2. We're not running out of oil so much as we're running out of economically retrievable oil.
The absolute cap on what's recoverable is "net energy". Once it takes more than a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil out of a field the field is effectively "dry" regardless of how much goop may actually still be down there.
Before you even get to that point there is the problem of the financial cost of extraction. Vast oceans of $200 a barrel oil don't do anyone any good because the global economy is designed to run on $20 a barrel stuff and the higher the cost goes the worse the effect on the capital formation you need to pursue further extraction efforts. Some countries can bear higher oil costs than others but it seems pretty much impossible to grow the global economy by the time you get to $100 a barrel. By the time you get to $150 (or thereabouts) everything crashes.
Right now demand's being (somewhat) kept in check by the fact that any increase in economic activity tends towards driving up the oil price and resultant "demand destruction" when the oil price curtails further growth.
In the longer run you're nonetheless still stuck with the following facts:
1. We're burning (if you average out the estimates) 7 barrels for every new barrel we're discovering.
2. Annual consumption first exceeded discovery in 1981. The margin has widened steadily since.
3. The oil price increased by close to 1000% over the 1970s but discoveries dropped in the same decade despite that massive economic incentive to pursue them.
4. No "super giant" (300,000 to 400,000 barrels a day) field has been discovered anywhere on Earth since the 1970s (Cantarell in Mexico was the last one).
5.Saudi Arabia produces roughly 10% of global output and is (arguably) the world's largest producer. Five super giants produce 85% oftheir production. All these fields are many decades old.
6. "Proven Reserves" are only what national governments say there are. There is no independent auditing. Shortly after Kuwait, UAE and Iran all arbitrarily announced their "proven reserves" had gone from around 30 billion barrels each to 90 billion each the Saudis announced they'd suddenly gone from 150 billion to 250 billion. The only time there's ever been an independent audit of "reserves under management" was as a resultant of a whistleblower at Royal Dutch Shell and resulted in a revision downward (I forget the by how much by it was around 25%).
7. Out of the 80-odd oil producing nations 60-odd of them are in production decline.

See? I told you this would be boring.

[ReneeHendricks]

...
Yes. Every place I go on the 'net regarding A/S topics, Oolon the Asshat is there. Usually whining "slymepit this" or "slymepit that". One day...just one day I'd like to go to different forums/sites and not see his sniveling crap.

Don't let him get to you. Oolon only deserves mockery and ridicule.

http://i.imgur.com/g8m01Kn.jpg

LOL - brilliant pic!

[Kareem]

http://i44.tinypic.com/fpeyu.jpg


Good Morning, Son?

:rimshot:

[bhoytony]

Walking always brings the worry of leaks, especially when one of those mini-floods happen mid-step. Ugh.

Bullshit. As you've probably noticed I'm a bit of an expert on your "moon time" and ladies problems in general. I've seen all those adverts on the telly, so I know for a fact that when you've got the painters in the first thing you do is run out and start skateboarding/skydiving/bungee jumping.
If there's anything you need to know on the subject, just ask.

[Kareem]

http://www.quickmeme.com/good-morning-s ... /?upcoming

[Kareem]

Walking always brings the worry of leaks, especially when one of those mini-floods happen mid-step. Ugh.

Bullshit. As you've probably noticed I'm a bit of an expert on your "moon time" and ladies problems in general. I've seen all those adverts on the telly, so I know for a fact that when you've got the painters in the first thing you do is run out and start skateboarding/skydiving/bungee jumping.
If there's anything you need to know on the subject, just ask.

Where does a woman's blue liquid come from?
And why do they like yogurt so much?

[Scented Nectar]

Walking always brings the worry of leaks, especially when one of those mini-floods happen mid-step. Ugh.

Bullshit. As you've probably noticed I'm a bit of an expert on your "moon time" and ladies problems in general. I've seen all those adverts on the telly, so I know for a fact that when you've got the painters in the first thing you do is run out and start skateboarding/skydiving/bungee jumping.
If there's anything you need to know on the subject, just ask.

Lies, I tell you! Lies of the patriarchy. What we really do, is, we paint our menstrual-hut resort towns red by jogging, swimming and horseback riding.

Ugh, The Pit jinxed me this morning, or so I'd think if I believed stuff like that. You see, after all that talk about wishing for menopause, I went to the bathroom and... SURPRISE!!! My wished-for menopause is not here yet. :x

[Zenspace]

Good point, the subject can be quite broad. Also, thanks for the warning! :lol:

Let's see, where to start...

My general approach to many subjects is to focus primarily on the broader, big-picture, so let's try that for starters: geographic global energy availability (fossil fuels) vs global economy, which would naturally segue into broad effects on individual countries. We can drill down from there if the interest holds. How's that?

So as not to divert the lulz-train into a brick wall how 'bout I recommend some reading.
Notice I didn't say "light reading".
Start with "Twilight in the Desert" by the late Matthew Simmons. Simmons spent most of his life in the oil industry and related capital fields. He said some fairly loopy things about the Deepwater Horizon but that came after the publication of Twilight and the couple of decades of research that went into it. The Deepwater stuff doesn't affect the math of his earlier work or that of M. King Hubbert before him.
If you're really overburdened with free time then go track down a bunch of Simmons' cited sources. Bear in mind that I am not responsible for your falling into a coma whilst trying to read a lot of them.

All my actual material is in boxes back in the US but I could make a few points from memory where the figures would still be about right. Even those would go on for far too fucking long for me not to likely get shit-canned by Lsuoma so I'll stick to just two for starters (followed by half a dozen salient facts)

1. The shale hype is about financial speculation. Even using the numbers quoted by the industry itself it's impressive only to people who don't understand the scale of the problem. It's at least one order of magnitude short of having a significant impact.
The only reason anyone's heard of shale is that the price of oil has finally gone high enough to make it (briefly) viable.
Which leads us to:
2. We're not running out of oil so much as we're running out of economically retrievable oil.
The absolute cap on what's recoverable is "net energy". Once it takes more than a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil out of a field the field is effectively "dry" regardless of how much goop may actually still be down there.
Before you even get to that point there is the problem of the financial cost of extraction. Vast oceans of $200 a barrel oil don't do anyone any good because the global economy is designed to run on $20 a barrel stuff and the higher the cost goes the worse the effect on the capital formation you need to pursue further extraction efforts. Some countries can bear higher oil costs than others but it seems pretty much impossible to grow the global economy by the time you get to $100 a barrel. By the time you get to $150 (or thereabouts) everything crashes.
Right now demand's being (somewhat) kept in check by the fact that any increase in economic activity tends towards driving up the oil price and resultant "demand destruction" when the oil price curtails further growth.
In the longer run you're nonetheless still stuck with the following facts:
1. We're burning (if you average out the estimates) 7 barrels for every new barrel we're discovering.
2. Annual consumption first exceeded discovery in 1981. The margin has widened steadily since.
3. The oil price increased by close to 1000% over the 1970s but discoveries dropped in the same decade despite that massive economic incentive to pursue them.
4. No "super giant" (300,000 to 400,000 barrels a day) field has been discovered anywhere on Earth since the 1970s (Cantarell in Mexico was the last one).
5.Saudi Arabia produces roughly 10% of global output and is (arguably) the world's largest producer. Five super giants produce 85% oftheir production. All these fields are many decades old.
6. "Proven Reserves" are only what national governments say there are. There is no independent auditing. Shortly after Kuwait, UAE and Iran all arbitrarily announced their "proven reserves" had gone from around 30 billion barrels each to 90 billion each the Saudis announced they'd suddenly gone from 150 billion to 250 billion. The only time there's ever been an independent audit of "reserves under management" was as a resultant of a whistleblower at Royal Dutch Shell and resulted in a revision downward (I forget the by how much by it was around 25%).
7. Out of the 80-odd oil producing nations 60-odd of them are in production decline.

See? I told you this would be boring.

Not boring at all to me, but I think I may have just heard Steersman's head hitting his desk. :lol:

The good news - I'm actually familiar with about 90% of what you provided above, so we are on pretty solid ground between us. I've seen first hand the effects here in the US of oil prices and your figures are spot on. Once the local price at the pump hits $4 a gallon the economy cycles downward again, so yes - we have already hit the upper limit of the oil/economy relationship. Right now we are locally at $3.75 per gallon and are kind of in the top functional slot of economic cruise control. Global competition for the limited resource is in a fixed feedback loop now and will only get worse, so this window is certainly not an open ended condition.

How about this: lets side-step the boring numbers part as it appears we may not need to drag everyone else down with that part. Instead, lets go right into short-term speculation and maybe others can join in. With that in mind:

Given the geographical location of the primary fossil fuel assets outside of the territories of the greatest consumers (primarily USofA and China - both of whose economies are irretrievably intermingled and cannot function without said fuels), how do you see the global scenario playing out in the near future, say the next decade or two?

[Rystefn]

Actually, this is just Rystefn's subconcious working out it's issues. Let's go with the one you were offered after you complained about it being a 6 inch nail.

Bwahahahaha! Are you really trying to turn it around like I'm the one backing out for complaining about you moving the fucking goalposts. You dishonest little shit, I bet you think that was clever.

[Mykeru]

Yes. Every place I go on the 'net regarding A/S topics, Oolon the Asshat is there. Usually whining "slymepit this" or "slymepit that". One day...just one day I'd like to go to different forums/sites and not see his sniveling crap.

Just ask him the real reason why he stopped posting at the Pit. That usually shuts the little fucker up.

*Cough* Cough* viewtopic.php?p=30208#p30208

Legend has it, that when the moon is full, you can still hear Oolon's butthurt over that comment to this day.
http://images.dailyexpress.co.uk/img/dy ... 370439.jpg

Of course, all discussions of Oolon downloading kiddie porn, which should be made loudly and often at every available opportunity, should also include the reasonable assumption that he was the one who posted it in the first place.

[cunt]

Not boring at all to me, but I think I may have just heard Steersman's head hitting his desk. :lol:

The good news - I'm actually familiar with about 90% of what you provided above, so we are on pretty solid ground between us. I've seen first hand the effects here in the US of oil prices and your figures are spot on. Once the local price at the pump hits $4 a gallon the economy cycles downward again, so yes - we have already hit the upper limit of the oil/economy relationship.

Try $8.39 a gallon in the UK. $4 a gallon is not your upper limit (unfortunately).

[cunt]

Actually, this is just Rystefn's subconcious working out it's issues. Let's go with the one you were offered after you complained about it being a 6 inch nail.

Bwahahahaha! Are you really trying to turn it around like I'm the one backing out for complaining about you moving the fucking goalposts. You dishonest little shit, I bet you think that was clever.

I didn't say you were backing out. Now who's being dishonest.

[Metalogic42]

Good point, the subject can be quite broad. Also, thanks for the warning! :lol:

Let's see, where to start...

My general approach to many subjects is to focus primarily on the broader, big-picture, so let's try that for starters: geographic global energy availability (fossil fuels) vs global economy, which would naturally segue into broad effects on individual countries. We can drill down from there if the interest holds. How's that?

So as not to divert the lulz-train into a brick wall how 'bout I recommend some reading.
Notice I didn't say "light reading".
Start with "Twilight in the Desert" by the late Matthew Simmons. Simmons spent most of his life in the oil industry and related capital fields. He said some fairly loopy things about the Deepwater Horizon but that came after the publication of Twilight and the couple of decades of research that went into it. The Deepwater stuff doesn't affect the math of his earlier work or that of M. King Hubbert before him.
If you're really overburdened with free time then go track down a bunch of Simmons' cited sources. Bear in mind that I am not responsible for your falling into a coma whilst trying to read a lot of them.

All my actual material is in boxes back in the US but I could make a few points from memory where the figures would still be about right. Even those would go on for far too fucking long for me not to likely get shit-canned by Lsuoma so I'll stick to just two for starters (followed by half a dozen salient facts)

1. The shale hype is about financial speculation. Even using the numbers quoted by the industry itself it's impressive only to people who don't understand the scale of the problem. It's at least one order of magnitude short of having a significant impact.
The only reason anyone's heard of shale is that the price of oil has finally gone high enough to make it (briefly) viable.
Which leads us to:
2. We're not running out of oil so much as we're running out of economically retrievable oil.
The absolute cap on what's recoverable is "net energy". Once it takes more than a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil out of a field the field is effectively "dry" regardless of how much goop may actually still be down there.
Before you even get to that point there is the problem of the financial cost of extraction. Vast oceans of $200 a barrel oil don't do anyone any good because the global economy is designed to run on $20 a barrel stuff and the higher the cost goes the worse the effect on the capital formation you need to pursue further extraction efforts. Some countries can bear higher oil costs than others but it seems pretty much impossible to grow the global economy by the time you get to $100 a barrel. By the time you get to $150 (or thereabouts) everything crashes.
Right now demand's being (somewhat) kept in check by the fact that any increase in economic activity tends towards driving up the oil price and resultant "demand destruction" when the oil price curtails further growth.
In the longer run you're nonetheless still stuck with the following facts:
1. We're burning (if you average out the estimates) 7 barrels for every new barrel we're discovering.
2. Annual consumption first exceeded discovery in 1981. The margin has widened steadily since.
3. The oil price increased by close to 1000% over the 1970s but discoveries dropped in the same decade despite that massive economic incentive to pursue them.
4. No "super giant" (300,000 to 400,000 barrels a day) field has been discovered anywhere on Earth since the 1970s (Cantarell in Mexico was the last one).
5.Saudi Arabia produces roughly 10% of global output and is (arguably) the world's largest producer. Five super giants produce 85% oftheir production. All these fields are many decades old.
6. "Proven Reserves" are only what national governments say there are. There is no independent auditing. Shortly after Kuwait, UAE and Iran all arbitrarily announced their "proven reserves" had gone from around 30 billion barrels each to 90 billion each the Saudis announced they'd suddenly gone from 150 billion to 250 billion. The only time there's ever been an independent audit of "reserves under management" was as a resultant of a whistleblower at Royal Dutch Shell and resulted in a revision downward (I forget the by how much by it was around 25%).
7. Out of the 80-odd oil producing nations 60-odd of them are in production decline.

See? I told you this would be boring.

This is not boring.

[Mykeru]

I see Black Skeptics is the first FtB site to actually do a writeup about the lawsuit.

And many of the commenters quickly descend into a game of "shoot the messenger".

Attention Black Folks.

We understand you people may be upset about this completely untrustworthy woman making accusations against our allies at American Atheists, but please don't get uppity. We suggest you check your complaining negro privilege and suck it up for the greater good. That is to say, for us, your betters.

Yours Truly,

The Free Thought Bwanas

How annoying would it be to refer to them as such?