DO THESE MEN LOOK FRIGHTENED?

Brig. Gen. Doron Gavish, commander of the Israeli Air Defense Corps,
at left, with U.S. Rear Adm. John Richardson in Tel Aviv on Thursday.

I'll bet the Persian lunatics planning a 2d Holocaust are a bit nervous about this story [and that's a good thing.]:

TEL AVIV -- The U.S. and Israeli militaries began a combined air-defense exercise on Thursday involving about 1,000 American soldiers and simulating a scenario in which U.S. forces deploy to Israel to help defend the country against incoming missiles.

The three-week drill, the fifth since 2001, is part of a growing partnership between the two militaries that has coincided with rising fears in Israel about Iran's growing arsenal of missiles and nuclear ambitions.

"In time of need the Israel Defense Forces will protect our country, however, if decided, our defenses will be enhanced by the United States' capabilities," Israeli Air Defense Corps commander Brig. Gen. Doron Gavish told a news conference.

WE'LL NEVER FORGET HER.

And nothing was left of it at all. Where has that life gone? And what has become of all that awful torment and torture? Can it really be that nothing at all is left of it? Can it really be that no one will answer for everything that happened? That it will all be forgotten without even any words to commemorate it? That the grass has grown over it?

So I ask you: How can all this be?

--Vasily Grossman

WOULD YOU LOAN A PRICELESS ANCIENT ARTIFACT TO THIS MAN?

The British Museum won't.:

Britain's troubled relations with Iran have become further strained by a row about an ancient Persian artefact described as the world's first charter of human rights.

The British Museum is refusing to honour an agreement to lend the Cyrus cylinder to Iran because of the political turmoil that has gripped the country since the violently disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June.

The Iranian authorities have responded by threatening to sever links with the British Museum if it delays lending the 2,500-year-old cylinder, which was ordered by the Persian king Cyrus the Great to enshrine religious toleration.

Persian scholars claim the museum is right to be wary of lending the cylinder because of attempts by antisemitic historians in Iran to attack Cyrus's reputation as the father of the Iranian nation.

On a visit to Tehran's Museum of Iran this week, Hamid Baqaie, vice president of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organisation, said: "The British Museum implies the post-election political situation in Iran as its main excuse not to loan the cylinder to Iran's National Museum."

He added: "If the British Museum continues to make excuses for not loaning the artefact to the National Museum, we will, unfortunately, cease any co-operation with them, including archaeological expeditions and research."

British Museum wary of lending 2,500-year-old Cyrus cylinder because of unrest since disputed election

The director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, agreed to lend the 23cm-long (9in) clay cylinder in return for several Iranian treasures. Those pieces were the focus of a critically acclaimed exhibition about the era of Shah Abbas that sought to break down the perception of Iran as a hostile nation.

The cylinder was made around 530BC on the orders of Cyrus the Great after he invaded Babylon and freed its people from tyranny. It is known as the first charter of human rights as its cuneiform lettering decrees that everyone should be free to practise their own culture and religion. Iran's sizeable Jewish population trace their presence in Iran to this moment.

Hannah Boulton, head of press and public relations at British Museum, tried to play down the row. "When lending any material you have to check that is an appropriate moment," she said.

"We are committed to lending the Cyrus cylinder to Iran. We hope to be able to honour that commitment, we can't say when that will be. At the moment we are monitoring the situation in Iran."

DRILLING HERE, DRILLING NOW, DRILLING BETTER.

Bakersfield, beautiful Bakersfield.

I love stories like this about the oil industry for many, many reasons. A few big ones:

1) It is obvious that from the lowliest grunt in this project on up, every single person involved in it has done more real, productive work on this one aged oil field than Nobel laureate Barack Hussein Obama has done in his entire life. Come to think of it, more than his entire Cabinet, too.

2) Notice the scale of this oil-field: 2 billion [that's with a "B"] barrels of oil extracted from a single formation in BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA! AND STILL 79,000 barrels a day! That's nearly 29 million barrels a year. Do we ever see anything about this in the lamestream media?

3) If we can sink 9,000 oil-wells (not including the observation wells) into relatively populated Bakersfield CA, why the heck can't we sink even one into the desolate ANWAR region of Alaska?

4) Private industry applying its brain-power to increase efficiency and save money. Notice that this single technology effort will save one company (Chevron) more than $300 million a year. Has any government agency EVER done anything like that?

5) It underlines the great obstacles to exploiting petroleum "resources," an industry which is based on a "finite, dwindling" substance that was considered a nuisance until about 160 years ago. And it shows how American brain-power and creativity has ALWAYS been the leading force in that industry.

No, Prez. Hussein, oil companies don't make billions of dollars in profits by running outside holding their aprons out and catching million dollar bills that fall from the sky. In fact, they don't make a SINGLE dollar that way. They have to explore and research and engineer and adapt in some of the most hostile and challenging climates on earth. And then they risk having all their assets seized by hostile governments, including their own.

BTW, how easy does Hussein think it is to drill 660 observation wells in a single "used up" field? Using YOUR OWN money?

OCTOBER 9, 2009, 12:48 P.M. ET
Chevron Engineers Squeeze New Oil From Old Wells
Steam Bath for Aging Field Adds Millions of Barrels of Crude Oil to Reservoir's Output
By BEN CASSELMAN

BAKERSFIELD, Calif.-- Chevron Corp. is employing new technologies in hopes of extending the life of one of the world's oldest and most prolific oil fields, a process that is being replicated elsewhere to help the energy industry squeeze more out of aging oil basins.

The Kern River field has produced more than 2 billion barrels of oil in its 110-year history, but Chevron estimates it still holds another 1.5 billion barrels.

Chevron is using the Kern River field as a real-world laboratory, testing enhanced recovery techniques and bringing in engineers from around the world to learn them. "The thing about being in this old oil field," said Chevron engineer Joe Fram, "you can try stuff."

To get as many of those barrels as possible out of the ground—and do so cheaply enough to turn a profit—Chevron is deploying high-tech temperature sensors to monitor its production, using three-dimensional computer models to plan its wells and filtering waste water from the fields through walnut shells so it can be re-used.

Chevron's renewed focus on Kern River shows both the opportunities and the challenges facing the oil industry as the giant discoveries of the last century, from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay to Mexico's Cantarell, begin to dry up. Prudhoe Bay, for example, has suffered production declines even though more than half its 25 billion barrels of oil remain in the ground.

To get the oil out of the Kern River field, Chevron injects steam into the ground, which heats the rock and thins out the gooey liquid so that it flows more easily to the surface. The process is far more expensive than conventional oil production, with thin profit margins that can disappear entirely when oil prices drop or costs rise.

It has drilled 660 observation wells equipped with sensors to track the temperature of the reservoir so engineers can see where heat is most needed, and has developed its own equipment to direct the steam there.

Those techniques have allowed Chevron to use half as much steam to produce a barrel of oil—for an annual savings of about $300 million, according to the company.

"By turning the burner down, we save a lot of money," said Paul Harness, a senior staff geologist in the Kern River field.

Giants Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC are showing increasedinterest in such projects. Occidental Petroleum Corp. has extended the lives of fields in Oman, Colombia, and West Texas by injecting carbon dioxide, steam and other substances into the oil reservoirs.

Occidental President Steve Chazen said that with fewer new fields being discovered, maintaining production at old fields is the only way the industry will be able to meet demand for oil.

"In the long term, it's not how many fields get discovered. It's keeping the base decline under control," Mr. Chazen said.

Chevron hasn't reversed the Kern River's decline, but it has managed to slow it. Production is falling at a rate of about 2% per year, compared to an average of 7% per year from 1998 to 2005—which will mean millions of extra barrels of oil this year.

The company hopes eventually to coax out as much as 80% of the field's oil compared with the 30% that is typical in many fields around the world. Kern River had 628 million barrels of estimated reserves at the end of 2007, according to state data, up 16% from 2004.

Its longevity is already remarkable. In 1899, a father-and-son team of oil prospectors, digging by hand, struck oil by the bank of the Kern River, 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Within four years, more than 400 different companies were pumping 45,000 barrels of oil a day there, more than anywhere else in the country at that time.

Today, the Kern River field is a sea of pipelines, storage tanks and about 9,000 slowly bobbing pumpjacks that still pull nearly 79,000 barrels of oil a day from the rock below down from 140,000 barrels a day at its peak in the 1980s.

If companies can squeeze more oil out of their old fields, they don't need to find as many new ones—lessening the risk of expensive failures.

"If you can find a way to find the oil where you already are, with technology, a lot of that risk is gone," said John McDonald, Chevron's chief technology officer.

MORE ISLAMIST CRIMES AGAINST HUMAN HISTORY (II AND III)

As we reported here nearly 2 years ago, the friendly Islamic degenerates of Iran have been planning to flood a priceless world-historical archeological site, the tomb of Cyrus the Great. Now Ahmedinejad and his criminally-insane cohorts have allowed another of Cyrus's archeological sites to be destroyed, to wit, Cyrus's Palace, the Charkab:
Cyrus the Great’ Palace Faces Total Destruction

LONDON, (CAIS) -- Some sections of Cyrus the Great's palace known as Charkhab (čarxāb) located in the Borazjan Plain, in the Persian Gulf’s Bushehr Province has been completely destroyed and the remaining of the edifice is on the verge of total destruction if no action is taken soon, reported the Persian service of CHN.

According to the report, two years ago archaeologists left the site for no apparent reason and the unique early Achaemenid edifice has been left to be destroyed. The director of the team has continuously requested the recommence of some archaeological research but this has been rejected and permit denied.

Not to be outdone, Islamist vandals in southern Israel unleashed their thirst for Allah's justice on another irreplaceable site, Avdat:

These ancient pillars were standing until a few days ago

That paint wasn't sprayed there in the 3d century.

Vandals destroy ancient Negev site

By Zafrir Rinat and Yanir Yagna Haaretz Correspondents

Police yesterday arrested two Negev Bedouin on suspicion of vandalizing the southern archaeological park of Avdat as revenge for the recent demolition of homes in the area.

Police say the two suspects, aged 41 and 57, may have wreaked on Sunday what one high-ranking preservation official called "unparalleled damage" to the site.

A farmer in the area says he's experienced such revenge vandalism for years.

The two suspects are believed to have been angered by the demolition of a home of a relative; they deny they were involved and are slated to be arraigned today.

Avdat's archaeological section was recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a Heritage Site four years ago. The area was severely damaged in the late-night attack that occurred although a guard was nearby. The guard says he did not hear the shattering of archaeological finds.

The vandals knocked down arches thousand of years old, destroyed ancient columns that once supported houses of worship and spray painted the remains of a Byzantine church, according to Orit Bortnik, who heads the preservation efforts of the Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority.

The head of the authority's southern district, Raviv Shapira, said he had "never seen anything like" the destruction at Avdat. Bortnik spoke of the staff's distress: "We walked around with tears in our eyes. The people who did this caused destruction like a pogrom. They destroyed the place."

Avdat is one of four ancient Nabatean cities in the Negev. All the reconstructed cities received the exclusive UNESCO status, but Avdat was considered unique, because it held some of the world's most ancient Byzantine churches, dating back to the third century CE.

Just keep examples like this (and the Bamyan Buddhas...and the Swat Buddhas...and the Ayodha Temple...and Joseph's Tomb...and) in mind when you hear those Islamist taqqiyah-spewers claiming that Islam PRESERVED ancient civilizations.