With little sign of the US/Russian peace conference getting far this thing isn't going to get easier.
There will never be any major western intervention in Syria. In fact, after the utter disaster of Iraq, I doubt if there will ever be any serious western military intervention in the Middle East ever again (apart from dropping bombs and drones).
Those days are done.
The way drone technology is advancing, the more we can get involved without committing troops.
The Earls of Mar have been prominent Peers since 1014.
In 'The Offshore Islanders' Paul Johnson claims that Cromwell's family were one of the few, of the time, who could reliably trace their ancestry pre-Norman Conquest (outside of royalty and the highest nobility).
If true it's a nice irony, as Cromwell finally destroyed the last vestiges of supreme Norman kingship, and was very much the Anglo-Saxon.
My family can reliably trace ourselves back to Mohammed, Brian Boru and St. Louis on my Dad's side. My Mum's side only takes us back to Oliver Martyn
With little sign of the US/Russian peace conference getting far this thing isn't going to get easier.
There will never be any major western intervention in Syria. In fact, after the utter disaster of Iraq, I doubt if there will ever be any serious western military intervention in the Middle East ever again (apart from dropping bombs and drones).
Those days are done.
No one expects 'major' Western intervention. The question is, will there be any concerted effort, which has always revolved around the options of a) arms, b) intelligence and c) the creation of a no fly zone but without using aircraft to enforce it, after a very odd kind of half hearted tap on, tap off approach led by the US.
They have been the only three things on any table for some time.
I don't want us to give them a penny, or a bullet. If anything, right now, I'd prefer Assad to WIN. His Syria, however despotic, was at least tolerant of minorities.
Good for you but neither your nor my opinion will make a fart in space worth of difference to what happens.
I forgot to mention Assad family tolerance of the Sunni majority was and is legendary in its benign nature.
Off topic, but Josias, yesterday I found out who you were named after... you built the Wey & Arun Navigation. (Was walking along it between Shamley Green and Guildford).
:-)
And many other things. I'm actually more a fan of his father, William Jessop, but Josias seemed a much more interesting pseudonym, and Josias built the fascinating Cromford and High Peak railway line, the literal halfway point in the evolution from railways to canals.
Sadly both father and son are little known nowadays, but it is hard to travel in the UK without finding things they had their fingers in. William should be better known than his younger compatriot and sometime pupil, Telford, but Telford had something the Jessop's did not - a flair for self-publicity and aggrandisement.
'Well he cocked his pope predictions up and lost big...'
I lost a little, in a race no-one in their right mind should bet serious money on, after writing on 12th March...
"A little history may help at this point. Almost like clockwork since 1878, every election has alternated between producing a favourite, and an almost complete surprise.
In 2005, 1963, 1939, 1914 and 1878 the Cardinal Electors played it safe, while in 1978 (twice), 1958, 1922 and 1903 they were prepared to “roll the dice”, often in order to break a deadlocked conclave.
If this pattern holds, 2013 will produce a (late) surprise…
Could the surprise be the first non-European pope in 1,282 years? [since Gregory III, a Syrian elected in AD 731] ...
{...}
Other cardinals have recently expressed a preference for a Third World Pope, from Latin America in particular."
Did you actually expect me to name the winner? :roll:
With little sign of the US/Russian peace conference getting far this thing isn't going to get easier.
There will never be any major western intervention in Syria. In fact, after the utter disaster of Iraq, I doubt if there will ever be any serious western military intervention in the Middle East ever again (apart from dropping bombs and drones).
Those days are done.
No one expects 'major' Western intervention. The question is, will there be any concerted effort, which has always revolved around the options of a) arms, b) intelligence and c) the creation of a no fly zone but without using aircraft to enforce it, after a very odd kind of half hearted tap on, tap off approach led by the US.
They have been the only three things on any table for some time.
I don't want us to give them a penny, or a bullet. If anything, right now, I'd prefer Assad to WIN. His Syria, however despotic, was at least tolerant of minorities.
Good for you but neither your nor my opinion will make a fart in space worth of difference to what happens.
I forgot to mention Assad family tolerance of the Sunni majority was and is legendary in its benign nature.
I've been to most of the Middle East, including Syria. And Syria was a notably calmer, better place to be, say, a Christian than many other Arab countries.
Assad's regime was harsh and brutal, but it wasn't utterly demonic like Saddam's Iraq. And given that the rebels now appear to be thoroughly infiltrated by AQ and various jihadists, it's pretty likely that if the rebels win, the next Syrian regime will be even worse than Assad's, and much more hostile to the west.
Why should we pay to enable this? Enough. Let them sort out their own civil war.
In that case, no problem. No Russian intervention, no Hizbollah intervention, no Qataris, no Saudis. I'd buy into that. But it also isn't going to happen.
The West talked fine and looks like Chamberlain arseholing about on the plane back from Munich. Thats my problem with it. It started of fas essentially a grass roots rebellion. It turned into what it is by dint of the fact nobody grabbed the thing by the scruff of the neck.
With little sign of the US/Russian peace conference getting far this thing isn't going to get easier.
There will never be any major western intervention in Syria. In fact, after the utter disaster of Iraq, I doubt if there will ever be any serious western military intervention in the Middle East ever again (apart from dropping bombs and drones).
Those days are done.
No one expects 'major' Western intervention. The question is, will there be any concerted effort, which has always revolved around the options of a) arms, b) intelligence and c) the creation of a no fly zone but without using aircraft to enforce it, after a very odd kind of half hearted tap on, tap off approach led by the US.
They have been the only three things on any table for some time.
I don't want us to give them a penny, or a bullet. If anything, right now, I'd prefer Assad to WIN. His Syria, however despotic, was at least tolerant of minorities.
Good for you but neither your nor my opinion will make a fart in space worth of difference to what happens.
I forgot to mention Assad family tolerance of the Sunni majority was and is legendary in its benign nature.
I've been to most of the Middle East, including Syria. And Syria was a notably calmer, better place to be, say, a Christian than many other Arab countries.
Assad's regime was harsh and brutal, but it wasn't utterly demonic like Saddam's Iraq. And given that the rebels now appear to be thoroughly infiltrated by AQ and various jihadists, it's pretty likely that if the rebels win, the next Syrian regime will be even worse than Assad's, and much more hostile to the west.
Why should we pay to enable this? Enough. Let them sort out their own civil war.
In that case, no problem. No Russian intervention, no Hizbollah intervention, no Qataris, no Saudis. I'd buy into that. But it also isn't going to happen.
The West talked fine and looks like Chamberlain arseholing about on the plane back from Munich. Thats my problem with it. It started of fas essentially a grass roots rebellion. It turned into what it is by dint of the fact nobody grabbed the thing by the scruff of the neck.
Hi Y0kel! How are the flag protests in Belfast going?
With little sign of the US/Russian peace conference getting far this thing isn't going to get easier.
There will never be any major western intervention in Syria. In fact, after the utter disaster of Iraq, I doubt if there will ever be any serious western military intervention in the Middle East ever again (apart from dropping bombs and drones).
Those days are done.
No one expects 'major' Western intervention. The question is, will there be any concerted effort, which has always revolved around the options of a) arms, b) intelligence and c) the creation of a no fly zone but without using aircraft to enforce it, after a very odd kind of half hearted tap on, tap off approach led by the US.
They have been the only three things on any table for some time.
I don't want us to give them a penny, or a bullet. If anything, right now, I'd prefer Assad to WIN. His Syria, however despotic, was at least tolerant of minorities.
Good for you but neither your nor my opinion will make a fart in space worth of difference to what happens.
I forgot to mention Assad family tolerance of the Sunni majority was and is legendary in its benign nature.
I've been to most of the Middle East, including Syria. And Syria was a notably calmer, better place to be, say, a Christian than many other Arab countries.
Assad's regime was harsh and brutal, but it wasn't utterly demonic like Saddam's Iraq. And given that the rebels now appear to be thoroughly infiltrated by AQ and various jihadists, it's pretty likely that if the rebels win, the next Syrian regime will be even worse than Assad's, and much more hostile to the west.
Why should we pay to enable this? Enough. Let them sort out their own civil war.
In that case, no problem. No Russian intervention, no Hizbollah intervention, no Qataris, no Saudis. I'd buy into that. But it also isn't going to happen.
The West talked fine and looks like Chamberlain arseholing about on the plane back from Munich. Thats my problem with it. It started of fas essentially a grass roots rebellion. It turned into what it is by dint of the fact nobody grabbed the thing by the scruff of the neck.
Hi Y0kel! How are the flag protests in Belfast going?
Still going believe it or not. They'll be boosted by the presence of probably about 50 anti capitalist protestors from overseas later on this week.
Have to say, Obamas itinerary when he is over has had some of the poorest (or perversely best) leak management Ive seen. Its got to the stage where people say he is going to one place as a way of denying a leak that he is going to another....
With little sign of the US/Russian peace conference getting far this thing isn't going to get easier.
There will never be any major western intervention in Syria. In fact, after the utter disaster of Iraq, I doubt if there will ever be any serious western military intervention in the Middle East ever again (apart from dropping bombs and drones).
Those days are done.
No one expects 'major' Western intervention. The question is, will there be any concerted effort, which has always revolved around the options of a) arms, b) intelligence and c) the creation of a no fly zone but without using aircraft to enforce it, after a very odd kind of half hearted tap on, tap off approach led by the US.
They have been the only three things on any table for some time.
I don't want us to give them a penny, or a bullet. If anything, right now, I'd prefer Assad to WIN. His Syria, however despotic, was at least tolerant of minorities.
Good for you but neither your nor my opinion will make a fart in space worth of difference to what happens.
I forgot to mention Assad family tolerance of the Sunni majority was and is legendary in its benign nature.
I've been to most of the Middle East, including Syria. And Syria was a notably calmer, better place to be, say, a Christian than many other Arab countries.
Assad's regime was harsh and brutal, but it wasn't utterly demonic like Saddam's Iraq. And given that the rebels now appear to be thoroughly infiltrated by AQ and various jihadists, it's pretty likely that if the rebels win, the next Syrian regime will be even worse than Assad's, and much more hostile to the west.
Why should we pay to enable this? Enough. Let them sort out their own civil war.
In that case, no problem. No Russian intervention, no Hizbollah intervention, no Qataris, no Saudis. I'd buy into that. But it also isn't going to happen.
The West talked fine and looks like Chamberlain arseholing about on the plane back from Munich. Thats my problem with it. It started of fas essentially a grass roots rebellion. It turned into what it is by dint of the fact nobody grabbed the thing by the scruff of the neck.
But western vacillation was inevitable, following
1. The total, utter, enormous, squalid trillion dollar catastrophe that was the invasion of Iraq (and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan)
And
2. The discovery of vast shale gas reserves everywhere we've looked, meaning the Middle East and OPEC are getting ever less important (a trend that will intensify)
This is the new normal: The west doesn't interfere in the Middle East, as long as it doesn't affect us, because we get no benefit, its far too messy and complex, and we don't care about the oil any more. Essentially the Middle East is becoming like Africa, in the western mindset.
Then they need to sh1t or get off the pot. All in, or not in.
The sheer volume of additional water is mind-blowing. The river is supposedly 9 metres higher than usual at Budapest. The Danube is 300 metres wide there.
With little sign of the US/Russian peace conference getting far this thing isn't going to get easier.
There will never be any major western intervention in Syria. In fact, after the utter disaster of Iraq, I doubt if there will ever be any serious western military intervention in the Middle East ever again (apart from dropping bombs and drones).
Those days are done.
No one expects 'major' Western intervention. The question is, will there be any concerted effort, which has always revolved around the options of a) arms, b) intelligence and c) the creation of a no fly zone but without using aircraft to enforce it, after a very odd kind of half hearted tap on, tap off approach led by the US.
They have been the only three things on any table for some time.
I don't want us to give them a penny, or a bullet. If anything, right now, I'd prefer Assad to WIN. His Syria, however despotic, was at least tolerant of minorities.
Good for you but neither your nor my opinion will make a fart in space worth of difference to what happens.
I forgot to mention Assad family tolerance of the Sunni majority was and is legendary in its benign nature.
I've been to most of the Middle East, including Syria. And Syria was a notably calmer, better place to be, say, a Christian than many other Arab countries.
Assad's regime was harsh and brutal, but it wasn't utterly demonic like Saddam's Iraq. And given that the rebels now appear to be thoroughly infiltrated by AQ and various jihadists, it's pretty likely that if the rebels win, the next Syrian regime will be even worse than Assad's, and much more hostile to the west.
Why should we pay to enable this? Enough. Let them sort out their own civil war.
In that case, no problem. No Russian intervention, no Hizbollah intervention, no Qataris, no Saudis. I'd buy into that. But it also isn't going to happen.
The West talked fine and looks like Chamberlain arseholing about on the plane back from Munich. Thats my problem with it. It started of fas essentially a grass roots rebellion. It turned into what it is by dint of the fact nobody grabbed the thing by the scruff of the neck.
But western vacillation was inevitable, following
1. The total, utter, enormous, squalid trillion dollar catastrophe that was the invasion of Iraq (and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan)
And
2. The discovery of vast shale gas reserves everywhere we've looked, meaning the Middle East and OPEC are getting ever less important (a trend that will intensify)
This is the new normal: The west doesn't interfere in the Middle East, as long as it doesn't affect us, because we get no benefit, its far too messy and complex, and we don't care about the oil any more. Essentially the Middle East is becoming like Africa, in the western mindset.
Then they need to sh1t or get off the pot. All in, or not in.
How much will oil dependence be reduced by fracking, I thought the main impact was on coal and other gas sources.
Well: the answer is to that question is multi-faceted :-)
1. The initial phase - as is being proposed by Cuadrilla and others - will only reduce our dependence on foreign gas. There is no suggestion that the resources around Blackpool contain more than modest amounts of NGLs, condensate or oil.
2. The US is on to the second phase of fraccing - that is, identifying oil trapped in tight rocks, that are not amenable to regular drilling (the pores in which the oil is stored are either not connected or are simply very small). This is what is currently happening in the Bakken (not a shale) or the Eagle Ford or the Permian Basin. As yet, no-one has identified tight oil resource in the UK that can be exploited by fraccing, but that may well change. (As an aside, the South Downs are *incredibly* prospective for oil, with plenty of natural oil seeps and an abundance of anticlines. The locals seem strangely resistant to drilling this area of natural beauty, however.)
How much will oil dependence be reduced by fracking, I thought the main impact was on coal and other gas sources.
And, just as an aside, you can convert CH4 (aka methane or natural gas) to oil. The Pearl GTL plant in Qatar is probably the single most profitable oil and gas investment of the last decade, and that literally sows together gas molecules to make oil (well, technically diesel) ones.
Off topic, but Josias, yesterday I found out who you were named after... you built the Wey & Arun Navigation. (Was walking along it between Shamley Green and Guildford).
:-)
And many other things. I'm actually more a fan of his father, William Jessop, but Josias seemed a much more interesting pseudonym, and Josias built the fascinating Cromford and High Peak railway line, the literal halfway point in the evolution from railways to canals.
Sadly both father and son are little known nowadays, but it is hard to travel in the UK without finding things they had their fingers in. William should be better known than his younger compatriot and sometime pupil, Telford, but Telford had something the Jessop's did not - a flair for self-publicity and aggrandisement.
How much will oil dependence be reduced by fracking, I thought the main impact was on coal and other gas sources.
And, just as an aside, you can convert CH4 (aka methane or natural gas) to oil. The Pearl GTL plant in Qatar is probably the single most profitable oil and gas investment of the last decade, and that literally sows together gas molecules to make oil (well, technically diesel) ones.
As a second aside, you will never, ever get permission to build a GTL plant in the UK.
(I was touring the Pearl plant in Qatar just before it started up. The process of converting gas to oil is incredibly oxygen intensive - it acts as a catalyst - and I was standing underneath a massive, football pitch sized, air seperation unit from the German firm Linde. The Shell engineer explained to me that "when this plant is running at full capacity, these units will suck out twenty times the oxygen from the air than is used by all the living things in Qatar."
I asked "would I notice any effect from this if I stood here?"
The sheer volume of additional water is mind-blowing. The river is supposedly 9 metres higher than usual at Budapest. The Danube is 300 metres wide there.
Off topic, but Josias, yesterday I found out who you were named after... you built the Wey & Arun Navigation. (Was walking along it between Shamley Green and Guildford).
:-)
And many other things. I'm actually more a fan of his father, William Jessop, but Josias seemed a much more interesting pseudonym, and Josias built the fascinating Cromford and High Peak railway line, the literal halfway point in the evolution from railways to canals.
Sadly both father and son are little known nowadays, but it is hard to travel in the UK without finding things they had their fingers in. William should be better known than his younger compatriot and sometime pupil, Telford, but Telford had something the Jessop's did not - a flair for self-publicity and aggrandisement.
How much will oil dependence be reduced by fracking, I thought the main impact was on coal and other gas sources.
Well: the answer is to that question is multi-faceted :-)
1. The initial phase - as is being proposed by Cuadrilla and others - will only reduce our dependence on foreign gas. There is no suggestion that the resources around Blackpool contain more than modest amounts of NGLs, condensate or oil.
2. The US is on to the second phase of fraccing - that is, identifying oil trapped in tight rocks, that are not amenable to regular drilling (the pores in which the oil is stored are either not connected or are simply very small). This is what is currently happening in the Bakken (not a shale) or the Eagle Ford or the Permian Basin. As yet, no-one has identified tight oil resource in the UK that can be exploited by fraccing, but that may well change. (As an aside, the South Downs are *incredibly* prospective for oil, with plenty of natural oil seeps and an abundance of anticlines. The locals seem strangely resistant to drilling this area of natural beauty, however.)
Not so. Tight oil fracking has been going on both onshore and offshore for decades. Also drilling has been going on in the South Downs for decades. One of the first wells I drilled 25 years ago was at Washington just north of Worthing. Since then I have been involved in drilling operations at at least 25 different locations across southern England and there are plenty of active oil fields in environmentally sensitive areas throughout the southern counties.
The sheer volume of additional water is mind-blowing. The river is supposedly 9 metres higher than usual at Budapest. The Danube is 300 metres wide there.
antifrank
Is you flat in Budapest in Buda or Pest?
Budapest's famous bridge is modelled on the much smaller one across the Thames at Marlow by William Tierney Clark:
Hey, and guess what! nobody believes a word that Cammo says, except, that is, the idiot editor of the Telegraph. As usual the comment section sez it all. Must be why this section is so readily dispensed with in that paper.
This is about five miles from where I live, so I guess I need to get me a Stetson:
The country's first natural gas deposits were found at the entrance to Heathfield tunnel to the north of the station in 1895. The find was not exploited until the following year when the railway company drilling for water and smelt gas at 312 feet. A pressure of 140lbs. to the square inch was found to exist and it persisted for about six years. The railway quickly put the gas to good use by illuminating the station. In 1901 some Americans, under the name of 'The Natural Gas Fields of England Ltd.,' sank further bore holes, one reaching a depth of 400 feet. The output of one of these was recorded at 15 million cubic feet a day - equivalent in those days to one eighth of the total daily sale of gas in London. Due to its purity the gas was found to be of great value in research in aid of safety in mines and bottled supplies were taken. By 1934 the gas supply had run out for all practical purposes and the station lighting was converted to use ordinary town gas
This is about five miles from where I live, so I guess I need to get me a Stetson:
The country's first natural gas deposits were found at the entrance to Heathfield tunnel to the north of the station in 1895. The find was not exploited until the following year when the railway company drilling for water and smelt gas at 312 feet. A pressure of 140lbs. to the square inch was found to exist and it persisted for about six years. The railway quickly put the gas to good use by illuminating the station. In 1901 some Americans, under the name of 'The Natural Gas Fields of England Ltd.,' sank further bore holes, one reaching a depth of 400 feet. The output of one of these was recorded at 15 million cubic feet a day - equivalent in those days to one eighth of the total daily sale of gas in London. Due to its purity the gas was found to be of great value in research in aid of safety in mines and bottled supplies were taken. By 1934 the gas supply had run out for all practical purposes and the station lighting was converted to use ordinary town gas
How much will oil dependence be reduced by fracking, I thought the main impact was on coal and other gas sources.
Well: the answer is to that question is multi-faceted :-)
1. The initial phase - as is being proposed by Cuadrilla and others - will only reduce our dependence on foreign gas. There is no suggestion that the resources around Blackpool contain more than modest amounts of NGLs, condensate or oil.
2. The US is on to the second phase of fraccing - that is, identifying oil trapped in tight rocks, that are not amenable to regular drilling (the pores in which the oil is stored are either not connected or are simply very small). This is what is currently happening in the Bakken (not a shale) or the Eagle Ford or the Permian Basin. As yet, no-one has identified tight oil resource in the UK that can be exploited by fraccing, but that may well change. (As an aside, the South Downs are *incredibly* prospective for oil, with plenty of natural oil seeps and an abundance of anticlines. The locals seem strangely resistant to drilling this area of natural beauty, however.)
Not so. Tight oil fracking has been going on both onshore and offshore for decades. Also drilling has been going on in the South Downs for decades. One of the first wells I drilled 25 years ago was at Washington just north of Worthing. Since then I have been involved in drilling operations at at least 25 different locations across southern England and there are plenty of active oil fields in environmentally sensitive areas throughout the southern counties.
Yes: fraccing (aka well stimulation) has been going on for a long, long time. This time, though, we're attacking formations that are insufficiently porous and permeable to be called traditional 'reservoirs'.
Solar power is actually looking very promising as a technology right now, and if improvements continue at the same rate it could be competitive even with shale.
However, it helps if you don't allow the French to get you into trade wars with your component manufacturers:
Conventional oil peaked in 2006, and the shale plus other gunk plus smoke and mirrors won't delay our inevitable surrender to the Laws of Thermodynamics to any significant degree...
With little sign of the US/Russian peace conference getting far this thing isn't going to get easier.
There will never be any major western intervention in Syria. In fact, after the utter disaster of Iraq, I doubt if there will ever be any serious western military intervention in the Middle East ever again (apart from dropping bombs and drones).
Those days are done.
No one expects 'major' Western intervention. The question is, will there be any concerted effort, which has always revolved around the options of a) arms, b) intelligence and c) the creation of a no fly zone but without using aircraft to enforce it, after a very odd kind of half hearted tap on, tap off approach led by the US.
They have been the only three things on any table for some time.
I don't want us to give them a penny, or a bullet. If anything, right now, I'd prefer Assad to WIN. His Syria, however despotic, was at least tolerant of minorities.
Good for you but neither your nor my opinion will make a fart in space worth of difference to what happens.
I forgot to mention Assad family tolerance of the Sunni majority was and is legendary in its benign nature.
I've been to most of the Middle East, including Syria. And Syria was a notably calmer, better place to be, say, a Christian than many other Arab countries.
Assad's regime was harsh and brutal, but it wasn't utterly demonic like Saddam's Iraq. And given that the rebels now appear to be thoroughly infiltrated by AQ and various jihadists, it's pretty likely that if the rebels win, the next Syrian regime will be even worse than Assad's, and much more hostile to the west.
Why should we pay to enable this? Enough. Let them sort out their own civil war.
In that case, no problem. No Russian intervention, no Hizbollah intervention, no Qataris, no Saudis. I'd buy into that. But it also isn't going to happen.
The West talked fine and looks like Chamberlain arseholing about on the plane back from Munich. Thats my problem with it. It started of fas essentially a grass roots rebellion. It turned into what it is by dint of the fact nobody grabbed the thing by the scruff of the neck.
But western vacillation was inevitable, following
1. The total, utter, enormous, squalid trillion dollar catastrophe that was the invasion of Iraq (and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan)
And
2. The discovery of vast shale gas reserves everywhere we've looked, meaning the Middle East and OPEC are getting ever less important (a trend that will intensify)
This is the new normal: The west doesn't interfere in the Middle East, as long as it doesn't affect us, because we get no benefit, its far too messy and complex, and we don't care about the oil any more. Essentially the Middle East is becoming like Africa, in the western mindset.
Then they need to sh1t or get off the pot. All in, or not in.
So you agree we should shit on the Jihadists?
Sorry Sunil, back at work. Im not sure where the idea that I ave some of love in with jihadists ever came from.
Comments
http://news.yahoo.com/islamists-said-execute-15-old-syrian-boy-heresy-224113788.html
I am astonished that we are considering sending arms to these people.
Aid for refugees is fine, mediation as far as it is possible, but arms no.
I forgot to mention Assad family tolerance of the Sunni majority was and is legendary in its benign nature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Boru
*boom, 'tish*
I lost a little, in a race no-one in their right mind should bet serious money on, after writing on 12th March...
"A little history may help at this point. Almost like clockwork since 1878, every election has alternated between producing a favourite, and an almost complete surprise.
In 2005, 1963, 1939, 1914 and 1878 the Cardinal Electors played it safe, while in 1978 (twice), 1958, 1922 and 1903 they were prepared to “roll the dice”, often in order to break a deadlocked conclave.
If this pattern holds, 2013 will produce a (late) surprise…
Could the surprise be the first non-European pope in 1,282 years? [since Gregory III, a Syrian elected in AD 731] ...
{...}
Other cardinals have recently expressed a preference for a Third World Pope, from Latin America in particular."
Did you actually expect me to name the winner? :roll:
The West talked fine and looks like Chamberlain arseholing about on the plane back from Munich. Thats my problem with it. It started of fas essentially a grass roots rebellion. It turned into what it is by dint of the fact nobody grabbed the thing by the scruff of the neck.
Have to say, Obamas itinerary when he is over has had some of the poorest (or perversely best) leak management Ive seen. Its got to the stage where people say he is going to one place as a way of denying a leak that he is going to another....
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/06/10/308268/top-political-and-religious-leaders-gather-in-unity-conference-in-scotland/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22835154
The Daily Mail has much better pictures on its website than the BBC has managed:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2338449/Danube-reaches-record-levels-historic-capital-Budapest-goes-high-alert-river-burst-banks.html
The sheer volume of additional water is mind-blowing. The river is supposedly 9 metres higher than usual at Budapest. The Danube is 300 metres wide there.
1. The initial phase - as is being proposed by Cuadrilla and others - will only reduce our dependence on foreign gas. There is no suggestion that the resources around Blackpool contain more than modest amounts of NGLs, condensate or oil.
2. The US is on to the second phase of fraccing - that is, identifying oil trapped in tight rocks, that are not amenable to regular drilling (the pores in which the oil is stored are either not connected or are simply very small). This is what is currently happening in the Bakken (not a shale) or the Eagle Ford or the Permian Basin. As yet, no-one has identified tight oil resource in the UK that can be exploited by fraccing, but that may well change. (As an aside, the South Downs are *incredibly* prospective for oil, with plenty of natural oil seeps and an abundance of anticlines. The locals seem strangely resistant to drilling this area of natural beauty, however.)
(and, allegedly, his senior adviser was the Ard Glic - the High Wise One - or as the English called him, the Wise-Ard)
(I was touring the Pearl plant in Qatar just before it started up. The process of converting gas to oil is incredibly oxygen intensive - it acts as a catalyst - and I was standing underneath a massive, football pitch sized, air seperation unit from the German firm Linde. The Shell engineer explained to me that "when this plant is running at full capacity, these units will suck out twenty times the oxygen from the air than is used by all the living things in Qatar."
I asked "would I notice any effect from this if I stood here?"
He said "you wouldn't want to stand here.")
Is you flat in Budapest in Buda or Pest?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlow_Bridge
http://ukgeneralelection2015.blogspot.co.uk/
I suppose in order to get the results by constituency one requires all sorts of nerdish knowledge such as which wards are in which seats?
The country's first natural gas deposits were found at the entrance to Heathfield tunnel to the north of the station in 1895. The find was not exploited until the following year when the railway company drilling for water and smelt gas at 312 feet. A pressure of 140lbs. to the square inch was found to exist and it persisted for about six years. The railway quickly put the gas to good use by illuminating the station. In 1901 some Americans, under the name of 'The Natural Gas Fields of England Ltd.,' sank further bore holes, one reaching a depth of 400 feet. The output of one of these was recorded at 15 million cubic feet a day - equivalent in those days to one eighth of the total daily sale of gas in London. Due to its purity the gas was found to be of great value in research in aid of safety in mines and bottled supplies were taken. By 1934 the gas supply had run out for all practical purposes and the station lighting was converted to use ordinary town gas
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/h/heathfield_sussex/
http://yosp.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=131&Itemid=854&lang=en
http://jgslegacy.lyellcollection.org/content/54/1-4/572.abstract
"he's a pompous twit..."
Solar power is actually looking very promising as a technology right now, and if improvements continue at the same rate it could be competitive even with shale.
However, it helps if you don't allow the French to get you into trade wars with your component manufacturers:
http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/chinese_tariffs_cast_doubts_on_sainsburys_solar_programme
Conventional oil peaked in 2006, and the shale plus other gunk plus smoke and mirrors won't delay our inevitable surrender to the Laws of Thermodynamics to any significant degree...
http://carnegie-mec.org/2013/06/07/syria-s-strategic-balance-at-tipping-point/g95a