Be Excellent To Each Other

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 500342.stm

World War III is just around the corner. The US will continue to piss Russia off, they'll jump in. North Korea and China will join them.

I RECKONZ.

I do believe we're 'on the brink of something, I just wish I knew quite what and where. But yeah - everything is about the middle-east now, yo. And, for that matter, has been ever since WWI was started by, among other things, Britain's oil interests in Persia. TEH ALUMIUMUM etc.

Aye, something big is bubblin' up, maaan. In the meantime, we should all just kill ourselves.

But in all seriousness, I'm a little concerned.

You certainly should, yes.

May as well party hard then dudes.

I get thoroughly depressed when I think about things like this. I'll never be able to understand the brinkmanship that goes on between countries in this manner.

"I will test my rockets!"

"We will think about using force on you!"

"Well, we're going to kill you, and everyone you know, and 6 billion innocent people while we're at it, even though they have nothing to do with you, us, or anything with regards to this matter at hand!"

"Sounds good! Let's go!"

Nothing will happen, it's all just idle posturing.

Of course, I can say this safe in the knowledge that should I be wrong, there'll only be about 10 minutes or so for you to bask in your superiority before we're all obliterated by nuclear weapons.

Most chuckle inducing post yet posted on BETEO?

I THINK SO.

sounds like a game of MafiaScum.

Well, Israel have done this before, plenty of times.

They blew up a Iraqi nuclear base back in the 80s, and trashed a Syrian one last year. I imagine Iran will be a bit trickier though - I imagine they've learned from the others and buried everything useful under 50m of concrete and rock somewhere.

Meanwhile:

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
http://www.dieoff.org
http://www.roadkillbill.com/%21Bicyclopolis.html (slightly less depressing)

I start to feel ill when I read or think about things like this. I mean, I get really quite frightened and panicky, like every time one of those chinooks pass overhead, it makes me panic, too. or when church bells ring at times they are not supposed to, that makes me feel frightened, also.

Don't play Resident Evil 4.

You don't want to leave near my house. They go straight over on their way to a local RAF base. My mate owns the farm next door to the base. When I was a student we did a TV drama making assigment on his land and the buggers were on training and going over every 4 minutes.

Yeah, there was an air base where I used to live when I was little, those and those really fast aeroplanes that make the loud noise used to fly overhead all of the time, I didn't much like it.

We had some Tornados fly over at what seemed like tree-top height a few weeks back. Really freaking loud. Scared the crap out of our cats.

Doesn't help with stuff like this either.

But at least Iran sucks at photoshop.

Those stuff like this is actually really worrying, what will propaganda become?

Some gloomy stuff in MetalAngel's links but, we have a few sciency chaps on here, can't you all just solve the problem of generating power from nuclear fusion. AND FUCKING HURRY UP.

It all is rather childish cock-waving idiocy, isn't it? "Over the past two days, the Iranian military has tested missiles, including one that it says could reach Israel."

That's hardly the fucking death star, is it? We've had missiles that go farther than that since the 1970s, and given that America's waving its dick at Iran, and Israel has carried out more acts of violence against its neighbours than the rest of the middle easy combined, it's hardly bloody surprising the Iranians want to defend themselves. Pretending to have nuclear weapons to scare people off didn't work out for Iraq - why the fuck should they not be allowed to have a remotely effective military if we can have have the bombs on the planet and use them without fear on anyone who doesn't kiss our arse?

Gah. It's all so pointless. Screw nuclear fusion - someone needs to discover elemental anti-stupid.

Because there's a very real chance that could lead to nuclear war?

Of course the world situation isn't fair; I don't think anyone could argue that it is. But these aren't little schoolchildren playing marbles we're talking about, but countries with a huge number of rational and irrational complaints against other countries, any one of whom could potentially cause the deaths of thousands literally on a whim. In these kinds of situations it doesn't matter what's fair and what's not, but rather what's going to keep the most people the most safe. Iran is not a democracy, and its government is not pleasant. I can't believe them having nuclear weapons would benefit the people who live there and hate the fuck out of their rulers, and I certainly can't see it benifiting anyone else. It would be, by almost any yardstick, a very bad thing.

Unless the state of the world's militaries change any time soon, any country that uses nuclear weapons as an act of war would soon find itself quickly irradiated.

This didn't apply for Hiroshima/Nagasaki of course, because the Yanks were the only ones with nukes so there was no danger of MAD.

But today, MAD is real and I genuinely don't believe that even the most despotic ruler would be stupid enough to sign his own death warrant like that.

They're not testing nuclear weapons, they're testing relatively short range missiles. And getting arsey and threatening them because of it is not only hypocritical and thus inflaming things further, but needlessly provocative and utterly fucking idiotic.

Relatively short range missiles that can hit Israel, although I doubt they'd ever use those because that would be stupid. I would be very surprised if they didn't have a nuclear programme of some kind, though, what with, well, Israel.

EDIT: And this is in response to obvious antagonism from Iran, as well. It's not really as clear cut as you're making out.

No, but they are all being childish dicks.

If anyone has gotten all depressed like I did from those peak oil will kill us sites...

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/

In particular, read this excellent essay to start with:

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/200 ... oomer.html

Thanks man, you could have posted that last night though, before I started stockpiling weapons and food.

This was of course in response to an Israeli wargames session pretending to bomb Iran's (innocent until proven otherwise) nuclear facilities. It's hardly surprising Iran responded with the exact same "see, we can hit your house from here" posturing.

The situation needs one side to just back off, otherwise this is going to keep going on and, probably, escalate. Frankly I'm disappointed that Israel hasn't grown the fuck up here and acted like an adult nation and just ignored the stupid fuckers in the Iranian governement. If they're otherwise left alone Iran aren't going to start anything with Israel - they'd die. But push themn far enough into a corner with threats and it may seem to the nutjobs running Iran that they have no choice but to lash out and nothing to lose.

The US isn't helping matters either, of course.

If there's one think you don't do, it's start a war with Israel. 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, anyone?

Indeed. They have:

(1) the biggest and most capable airforce in the region;
(2) the biggest and most capable army in the region (what with every single adult being a reservist or a serving member, near enough); and
(3) a stackload of nuclear weapons.

Iran could barely deal with Iraq, for fuck's sake.

That's not an excellent essay; that's a terrible essay. No essay that uses about forty ad hominiems before it makes any points can be considered good by me. And its points aren't really very good as far as I can see; it seems to say "perhaps we'll be able to find alternatives that we don't know exist, using plans that we don't know exist, while we pre-build a transition economy when there's no economic incentive or pressure to do so". That's a dangerous position, because pretty much the only way that could work through its own reasoning is if there is a large level of concern, enough for people to change their own lives in quite a substantial way. a site named "peak oil debunked" will not make them do that.

As an aside, the word "Doomsdayers" really pisses me off, as people have a tendancy to use it to imply people with scads of evidence and extremely compelling arguments are irrational morons, and it simply isn't true.

Spot-the-obvious-mistake-FTFY

Eh?

There's no eviedence to date that Iran are developing nuclear weapons. Even the US intelligence community (ha) reckons they gave up on the idea ages ago and their nuclear enrichment programme is entirely peaceable.

Under the international nuclear treaties (to which Iran is, I believe, a signatory) they're entitled to civil nuclear power.

Yes, they've got some batshit insance cunts in charge, but so do a lot of actual nuclear powers.

"Evidence" - man, that's a good one.

Sorry, can you spell out your point for Mr Thicky here.

I think he means "since when was evidence necessary", or somesuch. Which is a good point.

Oh, as in the excellent American stance of "well, they're ragheads, and muslim to boot. Can't trust 'em." ?

I think more, "We've done it before, let's do it again!", regadless of race.

Yes; "It would be nice for us if Scenario, so let's just state that Scenario until everyone believes us, or at the very least gets bored and shuts up. Once we've taken action anyway". See also: New Labour.

Ah, I see. Then - yes, absolutely.

It's getting tediously repetitious as a governmental approach to things.

See also: New Labour's 'stance' on cannabis, particularly in the last two months. The ID cards situation also - I'm thinking chiefly of what was said yesterday in that thread, I forget who by, sorry, regarding the buried story about how expensive it was going to be.

Speaking of which, in Parliament do the tories/libdems now just stand up and ask "Does the honourable gentleman mean definitely not changing this policy, or just until they change their mind like with the income tax thing? Cos. You know. Morons. And that." whenever a Labour cabinet member states anything? The media don't seem to be asking/covering that much, and the why not BAFFLES ME.