redmoddata/lines_train_2M · Datasets at Hugging Face

text stringlengths 1 330k
June 30, 2011 at 11:52 AM
\| License Photo
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, June 30 (UPI) -- Underlining the escalating cold war between Saudi Arabia and its rival Iran, former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal proposes the kingdom use its oil power to drive down prices to batter the Islamic Republic's sanctions-hit economy.
That would ratchet up tensions in the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East at a time of unprecedented political upheaval.
Iran and other hawks in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries blocked Saudi-led efforts to boost oil production to bring down prices, driven up sharply by the region-wide turmoil, at the cartel's summit in Vienna June 8.
But the Saudis have already boosted their production, and industry analysts say Riyadh is likely to reach 9.5 million barrels per day, the highest level in three decades and near the kingdom's maximum capability.
Prices have slipped back from $127 a barrel earlier this year to around $100 a barrel.
That was due to the Saudi action, and also to the decision by the Paris-based International Energy Agency to release up to 60 million barrels over the coming month from strategic stockpiles.
But the effort by the IEA, the West's energy watchdog, is likely to be limited, and it will be up to OPEC moderates like Saudi Arabia to ensure prices remain at a manageable level.
The Financial Times said the IEA release of strategic reserves was a stopgap measure until "the oil from the Gulf arrives, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates will still find a market for their extra oil."
Turki stressed Saudi Arabia was prepared to replace Iran in the global market, thus depriving Tehran of vital revenues to keep its sagging economy functioning -- and funding its nuclear and long-range missile programs.
"To put this into perspective, Saudi Arabia has so much (spare) production capacity -- 4 million bpd -- that we could almost instantly replace all if Iran's production." That currently stands at 4.2 million bpd.
Iran invariably favors high prices, but it wants to push them up as high as it can these days to counter the growing impact of U.N. sanctions imposed in June 2010, reinforced by U.S. and European Union sanctions, on its oil-dependent economy.
The friction between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran -- one the recognized leader of the Muslim world, the other a fundamentalist challenger -- goes way back to a 7th century religious schism in Islam's early years between mainstream Sunnis and breakaway Shiites.
But the two Islamic titans facing each other across the gulf are now locked in a new phase of this struggle that could result in a nuclear arms race in a region that sits on around 40 percent of the planet's known oil reserves.
The Wall Street Journal said Turki warned U.S. and British military commanders meeting outside London earlier this month that if Tehran does not curtail its contentious nuclear program, Riyadh will seek to cripple Iran's economy through its oil weapon and will seek nuclear weapons of its own.
"Iran is very vulnerable in the oil sector and it is there that more could be done to squeeze the current government," he reportedly told the gathering at an air base outside the British capital on the same day Saudi Arabia butted heads with Iran in Vienna.
Iranian acquisition of nuclear arms, the prince said, would compel Saudi Arabia "to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences."
Turki did not spell out what those consequences might be, but a senior official in Riyadh said, "We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't."
While most analysts agree Iran is currently vulnerable because of sanctions, some doubt the action outlined by Turki would paralyze Iran's economy.
Iran's response to an oil war with the Saudis would probably be to stir up trouble with the Shiite majority in the kingdom's Eastern province, its oil hub.
Tehran could also seek to interfere with Saudi oil exports moving through the chokepoint Strait of Hormuz at the southern end of the gulf.
Turki, son of the late King Faisal, has no formal government position, but he's often used to float trial balloons regarding Saudi foreign policy.
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Tuesday, August 14, 2007
George Cardenas! Drink Our Water - the Best in America! Tax Bottled Water!
'What are you drinking?'
'What you pay for it?'
'Three Dollars'
'There's a fountain over there - the water's all paid for.'
'This is better; it's in a bottle.'
That was a conversation that I had with each of my three children. They, each one of them, believe that McDonald's is haute cuisine because it is packaged and marketed by suits who get obscene salaries and shilledby a Clown right out of Michael Jackson's wildest dreams - that clown really creeps me out!
Enter Chicago Alderman George Cardenas. A guy with His head locked on it's swivel! NO GOOSE GUTS - NO NANNY STATE GOOFBALL IDEAS - COMMON SENSE. Tax bottled water. Bring in some revenue without costing the tax-payers a lung! We paid for the water already. Now, we need to bottle it ourselves - horrors for some delicate souls no doubt.
Chicago has the best and cleanest water in the nation thanks to the Jardin Water Filtration Plant. It keeps up with the toxins tossed into our Lake by the Brits of BP Oil. Great corporate citizens those beauties. This tax makes sense and it will make solid dollars out the two-bit tax. Too bad it missed LaLaPalooza - plenty of Green Tree Huggers drinking redundant water out of petroleum based by-product toxic vessels! How many empties to make Mt. Vrdolyak even higher along the Bishop Ford? There is so only so much room in that land-fill and with all the disposable diapers, six-pack rings, Pringles Packs, and old polyester suits and softball jerseys - Mt. Vrodolyak is getting tighter than pockets on a fat man's pants. Tax them water bottles. 'Three Bucks A Bottle!???!!!' We, Chicagoans, have perfectly good Lake Michigan Straight!
Call it the vain idiot tax -for paying a lung for water in the first place: 'I drink only Aqua Snob!' That certainly makes you smarter, taller and thinner! Gee, where can I toss my hard-earned dollars away like you, Cuthbert? Do Eskimos purchase vanity ice cubes? No doubt the would, if they had an Inuit Idiot like Joe Moore in the Frozen North! Tax Plastic Bottled Water! Alderman Cardenas, you are on!
Bottled water - bottled by whom? - comes in petroleum waste products - landfill fuel that tax-salaried employees must haul away. Let's help pay those folks - Tax Bottled Water! We got plenty of the best drinking water in the world, tight here in Chicago. Alderman Cardenas, you are great example of why Mexican Americans deserve their growing leadership position in American Political Life: effective, smart and public spirited ideas that can and should be implemented! Well done, Sir!
Now watch all of the nitwits League and Coalition up against you! You'll do fine , Alderman!
No comments:
View Full Version : Cthulhu-ish?
Soft Serve
12-10-2008, 02:35 AM
I don't believe in internet piracy. I just take what I know and add my own systems to it. What I know about Call of Cthulhu (RPG) is practically nothing. BUT I do know that H.P. Lovecraft wrote amazing stories which I am still in the process of reading...rephrase that...enjoying.:biggrin:
What I did for this campaign was take recent inspirations and mash them into something beautiful. A 1920's setting, where (seemingly) random cult activities are growing ever more popular all around the world. I have almost completely done away with magic, and the d20 system altogether. On top of that your character will have no statistics such as Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, etc. No skills, no feats, no nothing.
Now for my reasoning behind it. Because to me it seemed unrealistic that a man beat over the head with a lead pipe didn't instantly hit the ground just because the cheerleader who hit him doesn't have a high strength score. Tell your little sister to beat you in the head with a pipe and tell me it doesn't hurt because your bigger than her...And on that note, (remember it's 1923) why must I roll to hit a cultist who is standing in front of me, not wearing armor, when if I have a pistol I have most likely received training on how to use that pistol? And why does the bullet no matter where it hits him, not slow him down in any way, shape or form? Because it only did 1d6 damage? oh ok...
My goal was to create a realistic game, where character didn't "level up" and a bullet to the dome is still a bullet to the dome. Your able to take damage just as easily as any of the creatures or people your fighting, and all odds are against you. If this seems unfair, or un balanced, or your too scared to pick it up and try.
Then welcome to my redesigned horror genre.:laugh:
12-10-2008, 09:42 AM
Very interesting. If you need some suggested resources for helping put together a basic rules formula to run under your game, let me know. I know a few (very) rules lite systems that might be of use to you and which are actually quite awesome in and of themselves.
Soft Serve
12-10-2008, 11:13 PM
I pretty much set a number you have to beat for everything based on the way everything is developing around it. The creature running straight for the players that's human shaped and sized isn't hard to hit and basically doesn't require a roll unless your aiming for specific parts of it. The kraken which is rocking your boat while swinging you around like a ragdoll in the grasp of one of it's tentacles, which is also partially underwater and hard to judge the distance...that's a harder target.
I pretty much have the system down, and there haven't been any flaws in the way I'm running it except the occasional two players trying to do the same thing at once, or them jumping the gun and poofing themselves to the destination instead of anouncing that they are walking to the destination. Little things like that are as easy to correct as a typo though.
12-14-2008, 04:00 AM
Sounds interesting. What times are you playing?
Soft Serve
12-15-2008, 08:58 AM
When we can on Saturday Sunday and Wednesday unless people make schedule changes.
Soft Serve
12-17-2008, 07:52 PM
Soft Serve
12-21-2008, 06:36 PM
haha another bump. I don't want to let this thread die!!
Netanyahu in silent protest at UN over Iran deal
2015-10-01 22:55
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has savaged the nuclear deal with Iran and has gone on a silent protest at the United Nations General Assembly.
President Abbas raises Palestinian flag for first time at UN
2015-10-01 08:05
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has raised the Palestinian flag at the United Nations for the first time with a promise that it will be raised soon in Jerusalem, 'the capital of our Palestinian state.'
Abbas out of synch, options

June 30, 2011 at 11:52 AM

| License Photo

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, June 30 (UPI) -- Underlining the escalating cold war between Saudi Arabia and its rival Iran, former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal proposes the kingdom use its oil power to drive down prices to batter the Islamic Republic's sanctions-hit economy.

That would ratchet up tensions in the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East at a time of unprecedented political upheaval.

Iran and other hawks in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries blocked Saudi-led efforts to boost oil production to bring down prices, driven up sharply by the region-wide turmoil, at the cartel's summit in Vienna June 8.

But the Saudis have already boosted their production, and industry analysts say Riyadh is likely to reach 9.5 million barrels per day, the highest level in three decades and near the kingdom's maximum capability.

Prices have slipped back from $127 a barrel earlier this year to around $100 a barrel.

That was due to the Saudi action, and also to the decision by the Paris-based International Energy Agency to release up to 60 million barrels over the coming month from strategic stockpiles.

But the effort by the IEA, the West's energy watchdog, is likely to be limited, and it will be up to OPEC moderates like Saudi Arabia to ensure prices remain at a manageable level.

The Financial Times said the IEA release of strategic reserves was a stopgap measure until "the oil from the Gulf arrives, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates will still find a market for their extra oil."

Turki stressed Saudi Arabia was prepared to replace Iran in the global market, thus depriving Tehran of vital revenues to keep its sagging economy functioning -- and funding its nuclear and long-range missile programs.

"To put this into perspective, Saudi Arabia has so much (spare) production capacity -- 4 million bpd -- that we could almost instantly replace all if Iran's production." That currently stands at 4.2 million bpd.

Iran invariably favors high prices, but it wants to push them up as high as it can these days to counter the growing impact of U.N. sanctions imposed in June 2010, reinforced by U.S. and European Union sanctions, on its oil-dependent economy.

The friction between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran -- one the recognized leader of the Muslim world, the other a fundamentalist challenger -- goes way back to a 7th century religious schism in Islam's early years between mainstream Sunnis and breakaway Shiites.

But the two Islamic titans facing each other across the gulf are now locked in a new phase of this struggle that could result in a nuclear arms race in a region that sits on around 40 percent of the planet's known oil reserves.

The Wall Street Journal said Turki warned U.S. and British military commanders meeting outside London earlier this month that if Tehran does not curtail its contentious nuclear program, Riyadh will seek to cripple Iran's economy through its oil weapon and will seek nuclear weapons of its own.

"Iran is very vulnerable in the oil sector and it is there that more could be done to squeeze the current government," he reportedly told the gathering at an air base outside the British capital on the same day Saudi Arabia butted heads with Iran in Vienna.

Iranian acquisition of nuclear arms, the prince said, would compel Saudi Arabia "to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences."

Turki did not spell out what those consequences might be, but a senior official in Riyadh said, "We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't."

While most analysts agree Iran is currently vulnerable because of sanctions, some doubt the action outlined by Turki would paralyze Iran's economy.

Iran's response to an oil war with the Saudis would probably be to stir up trouble with the Shiite majority in the kingdom's Eastern province, its oil hub.

Tehran could also seek to interfere with Saudi oil exports moving through the chokepoint Strait of Hormuz at the southern end of the gulf.

Turki, son of the late King Faisal, has no formal government position, but he's often used to float trial balloons regarding Saudi foreign policy.

Trending Stories

Nobel Prize in medicine awarded to parasitic disease scientists

Womb transplants begin in U.K. after Sweden's success

Scientists find roadmap that may lead to 'exercise pill'

Secure Citizen Portal

E-mail address:

Password: (case sensitive)

Need an account? »

Why do I need an account?

Having an account will allow you to apply (and re-apply) for jobs online, manage your e-mail subscriptions in one place, and have access to secure online services in the future.

What is an "activation code" and why is it necessary?

An activation code allows us to confirm e-mail addresses and prevent automated robots from creating accounts on our system. Please note that even though the e-mail is sent out instantly, it might take 5-10 minutes for your system to receive it. Also, some e-mail systems misidentify the activation e-mail as spam, so be sure to check your bulk/spam folder.

What if my e-mail address changes after I create an account? Can I update my account with my new e-mail address?

Yes. Please understand that for security reasons, all e-mail address changes require another activation code be sent to the current (old) e-mail address.

What if I don't have an email account?

Creating an email account is very easy to do. You can create an email account with google, yahoo, or a variety of other email providers.

The account system isn't working for me. What should I do?

Please make sure your browser is standards compliant. We make every effort to support all major browsers, but there are known issues and problems with some browsers still in use. If you continue to have problems, please use our contact form and provide us with as much information as possible. We will make every effort to resolve the issue in a timely manner.

E-mail address:

First name:

Last name:

E-mail address:

(an e-mail with an activation code will be sent here.

Need an e-mail account?)

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(alpha numeric characters only, 6-12 in length)

Password: (confirm)

Verification text:

(type the letters 'FBCDB' in the text box above.)

E-mail address:

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

George Cardenas! Drink Our Water - the Best in America! Tax Bottled Water!

'What are you drinking?'

'What you pay for it?'

'Three Dollars'

'There's a fountain over there - the water's all paid for.'

'This is better; it's in a bottle.'

That was a conversation that I had with each of my three children. They, each one of them, believe that McDonald's is haute cuisine because it is packaged and marketed by suits who get obscene salaries and shilledby a Clown right out of Michael Jackson's wildest dreams - that clown really creeps me out!

Enter Chicago Alderman George Cardenas. A guy with His head locked on it's swivel! NO GOOSE GUTS - NO NANNY STATE GOOFBALL IDEAS - COMMON SENSE. Tax bottled water. Bring in some revenue without costing the tax-payers a lung! We paid for the water already. Now, we need to bottle it ourselves - horrors for some delicate souls no doubt.

Chicago has the best and cleanest water in the nation thanks to the Jardin Water Filtration Plant. It keeps up with the toxins tossed into our Lake by the Brits of BP Oil. Great corporate citizens those beauties. This tax makes sense and it will make solid dollars out the two-bit tax. Too bad it missed LaLaPalooza - plenty of Green Tree Huggers drinking redundant water out of petroleum based by-product toxic vessels! How many empties to make Mt. Vrdolyak even higher along the Bishop Ford? There is so only so much room in that land-fill and with all the disposable diapers, six-pack rings, Pringles Packs, and old polyester suits and softball jerseys - Mt. Vrodolyak is getting tighter than pockets on a fat man's pants. Tax them water bottles. 'Three Bucks A Bottle!???!!!' We, Chicagoans, have perfectly good Lake Michigan Straight!

Call it the vain idiot tax -for paying a lung for water in the first place: 'I drink only Aqua Snob!' That certainly makes you smarter, taller and thinner! Gee, where can I toss my hard-earned dollars away like you, Cuthbert? Do Eskimos purchase vanity ice cubes? No doubt the would, if they had an Inuit Idiot like Joe Moore in the Frozen North! Tax Plastic Bottled Water! Alderman Cardenas, you are on!

Bottled water - bottled by whom? - comes in petroleum waste products - landfill fuel that tax-salaried employees must haul away. Let's help pay those folks - Tax Bottled Water! We got plenty of the best drinking water in the world, tight here in Chicago. Alderman Cardenas, you are great example of why Mexican Americans deserve their growing leadership position in American Political Life: effective, smart and public spirited ideas that can and should be implemented! Well done, Sir!

Now watch all of the nitwits League and Coalition up against you! You'll do fine , Alderman!

No comments:

View Full Version : Cthulhu-ish?

Soft Serve

12-10-2008, 02:35 AM

I don't believe in internet piracy. I just take what I know and add my own systems to it. What I know about Call of Cthulhu (RPG) is practically nothing. BUT I do know that H.P. Lovecraft wrote amazing stories which I am still in the process of reading...rephrase that...enjoying.:biggrin:

What I did for this campaign was take recent inspirations and mash them into something beautiful. A 1920's setting, where (seemingly) random cult activities are growing ever more popular all around the world. I have almost completely done away with magic, and the d20 system altogether. On top of that your character will have no statistics such as Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, etc. No skills, no feats, no nothing.

Now for my reasoning behind it. Because to me it seemed unrealistic that a man beat over the head with a lead pipe didn't instantly hit the ground just because the cheerleader who hit him doesn't have a high strength score. Tell your little sister to beat you in the head with a pipe and tell me it doesn't hurt because your bigger than her...And on that note, (remember it's 1923) why must I roll to hit a cultist who is standing in front of me, not wearing armor, when if I have a pistol I have most likely received training on how to use that pistol? And why does the bullet no matter where it hits him, not slow him down in any way, shape or form? Because it only did 1d6 damage? oh ok...

My goal was to create a realistic game, where character didn't "level up" and a bullet to the dome is still a bullet to the dome. Your able to take damage just as easily as any of the creatures or people your fighting, and all odds are against you. If this seems unfair, or un balanced, or your too scared to pick it up and try.

Then welcome to my redesigned horror genre.:laugh:

12-10-2008, 09:42 AM

Very interesting. If you need some suggested resources for helping put together a basic rules formula to run under your game, let me know. I know a few (very) rules lite systems that might be of use to you and which are actually quite awesome in and of themselves.

Soft Serve

12-10-2008, 11:13 PM

I pretty much set a number you have to beat for everything based on the way everything is developing around it. The creature running straight for the players that's human shaped and sized isn't hard to hit and basically doesn't require a roll unless your aiming for specific parts of it. The kraken which is rocking your boat while swinging you around like a ragdoll in the grasp of one of it's tentacles, which is also partially underwater and hard to judge the distance...that's a harder target.

I pretty much have the system down, and there haven't been any flaws in the way I'm running it except the occasional two players trying to do the same thing at once, or them jumping the gun and poofing themselves to the destination instead of anouncing that they are walking to the destination. Little things like that are as easy to correct as a typo though.

12-14-2008, 04:00 AM

Sounds interesting. What times are you playing?

Soft Serve

12-15-2008, 08:58 AM

When we can on Saturday Sunday and Wednesday unless people make schedule changes.

Soft Serve

12-17-2008, 07:52 PM

Soft Serve

12-21-2008, 06:36 PM

haha another bump. I don't want to let this thread die!!

Netanyahu in silent protest at UN over Iran deal

2015-10-01 22:55

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has savaged the nuclear deal with Iran and has gone on a silent protest at the United Nations General Assembly.

President Abbas raises Palestinian flag for first time at UN

2015-10-01 08:05

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has raised the Palestinian flag at the United Nations for the first time with a promise that it will be raised soon in Jerusalem, 'the capital of our Palestinian state.'

Abbas out of synch, options