that to be totally dependent on solar that Europe should put large solar plants in North Africa, do you still think it is a good idea after this happened?

Islamist militants have killed 24 Algerian paramilitary policemen - in one of the worst single attacks this year, according to reports.

They were ambushed near the settlement of Mansoura, east of the capital, said Algerian newspapers. The convoy was reportedly escorting Chinese workers.

There has been no official confirmation of the incident.

Algeria's militants, many veterans of the 1990s civil war, operate under the name al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

kosh wrote:that to be totally dependent on solar that Europe should put large solar plants in North Africa, do you still think it is a good idea after this happened?

Islamist militants have killed 24 Algerian paramilitary policemen - in one of the worst single attacks this year, according to reports.

They were ambushed near the settlement of Mansoura, east of the capital, said Algerian newspapers. The convoy was reportedly escorting Chinese workers.

There has been no official confirmation of the incident.

Algeria's militants, many veterans of the 1990s civil war, operate under the name al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Yes, I do.

EDIT; why not quote the context bit at the bottom of the article? It's easy -

The BBC's Christian Fraser in Cairo says the roads heading east from Algiers into the rugged, mountainous parts of the country are a notoriously dangerous place to be.

Overall the number of attacks in Algeria appears to be in decline, but in recent weeks there has been a sudden spike, he adds.

The insurgents killed five paramilitary policemen late in May and a week later shot dead nine soldiers.

So
a) A single country
b) Not exactly solar-farm terrain (and specifically dangerous areas that'd be ruled out by risk assessment)
c) Arguably not even part of an increasing trend

Why not just mention the whole sand/corrosion thing? That was an interesting point, and I don't think I ever managed to track down whether it was a problem or not.

So you're willing to trust your countries energy supplies to a country that is full of militants?

kosh wrote:So you're willing to trust your countries energy supplies to a country that is full of militants?

Yes, because we don't already import oil from dodgy places like Saudi Arabia (thinking about it, not a bad location for solar power surely?), Nigeria, Russia et al? f### me, the worlds energy supplies pretty much already come from militant countries (with the exception of uranium from Australia, I guess - and even then Kazakhstan* has the 2nd largest reserves).

There are many arguments to be made RE: the stability or otherwise of countries which provide energy, be it conventional or hypothetical. However, using this story to try and make this point is - i'm sorry - idiotic. Seriously.

We have a single incident in a single country. You are using this to
a) state that country is full of militants (when the very same news story points to a recent decrease in attacks, and in a particular region irrelevant to this particular topic) - I always suspect it's borderline racism that we (i.e. westerners) make this type of assumption, as if our own countries don't have their own selection of nutcases (UK: Combat 18, US: various militias in the woods, Eire/N.Ireland: CIRA, Spain: ETA, etc)
b) applying this single incident in a single country to be wholly indicative the entire continent, or at least a significant chunk of it
c) Ignoring the whole gigantic (and it is gigantic) side argument about the benefits (or indeed risks) of massive investment in relatively poor countries, together with the obvious room for alteration in society, security, etc that can accompany sensible investment of this type

I'm pretty sure there's a latin term for using a single case to draw out a ridiculous set of conclusions when arguing, but I can't be bothered looking it up right now.

*It says quite a bit about Kazakhstan, IMO, that their last election had monitors from - of all places - the PRC. Yeah, that PRC.

It wasn't just this one incident, that whole area has had lots of militants for a while now, in fact Algeria not too long ago had a coup de tat to stop them from taking over the government. This incident was just the latest. Putting your power supplies in the desert like that would just be like putting a big sign that says "please screw me".

Yes, because we don't already import oil from dodgy places like Saudi Arabia

And the result was a major rise in radical islamism and terrorism. Can anyone say "9/11"?

single case

There were many other cases, this one was just the nail in the coffin for yours.

with the exception of uranium from Australia, I guess

Which is stable, yes? Also Canada has huge reserves as well. If that wasn't enough, if your government was willing to subsidize it you could even get Uranium from sea water. That means you don't have to get your fuel from dodgy places.

I'm sorry, what's your point? We're able to import oil from unstable regions - we rely on it, in fact (and every western installation in these regions is, indeed, a big 'screw me' sign and yet I still managed to fill up my car this afternoon).

Algeria is a single country in Africa and you're applying a single incident as if it's some sort of coup de grace for the entire continent, and Africa is an unchanging, indeed unchangable, hotbed of millions - nay billions - of militants where we can never ever do business because they're all too scary. Crikey, lets not even imagine that billions of pounds of investment and mutual co-dependence might actually lead to an effort to fix these that problems, eh?

As for 'nail in the coffin'? boll##ks. If your argument was definitive, you wouldn't need to make faceticious statements. Nail in the coffin for you, I say. And I said so, therefore it is - ha! (seriously, what? That's like something Kazan would say, and he tended to be full of pish in my experience)

And, while I'm on my high horse, maybe I pointed out Oz RE: uranium precisely because I recognise that point... then again, since when was the problem with nuclear to do with who get it from?

Algeria is a single country in Africa and you're applying a single incident as if it's some sort of coup de grace for the entire continent, and Africa is an unchanging, indeed unchangable, hotbed of millions - nay billions - of militants where we can never ever do business because they're all too scary. Crikey, lets not even imagine that billions of pounds of investment and mutual co-dependence might actually lead to an effort to fix these that problems, eh?

Fallacy. Even so we already tried that with Saudi Arabia. Result: The funding of religious schools in many countries to push islamism, and 17 out of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from SA.

I'm sorry, what's your point? We're able to import oil from unstable regions - we rely on it, in fact (and every western installation in these regions is, indeed, a big 'screw me' sign and yet I still managed to fill up my car this afternoon).

Did you somehow miss how that has been connected to religious extremism and terrorism?

kosh wrote: Fallacy.

Oh, do f### off.

Did you somehow miss how that has been connected to religious extremism and terrorism?

Did you somehow miss how we manage to rely on it anyways?

Oh, do f### off.

Extending someone's argument to an extreme and the criticizing the result is a classic fallacy.

Did you somehow miss how we manage to rely on it anyways?

And the result:

I'm sorry*, but if you're going to apply ridiculous strawmen arguments without any sort of indication you even understand the context of what you're talking about, I'm not going to bother.

*well, not really

It's not a strawman, this is the truth. I'm sorry if it is inconvenient, but that is the reliality. Hundreds of thousands have already died in oil wars or islamic terrorism in the last 10 years alone, and yet this point goes totally unanswered. It's unfortunate that some people have fallen so far for environmentalist propaganda that they cant see the cost not only of their current actions but are more than happy to repeat the mistake elsewhere.

I can backup my statements

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia remains the world's leading source of money for Al Qaeda and other extremist networks and has failed to take key steps requested by U.S. officials to stem the flow, the Bush administration's top financial counter-terrorism official said Tuesday.

Stuart A. Levey, a Treasury undersecretary, told a Senate committee that the Saudi government had not taken important steps to go after those who finance terrorist organizations or to prevent wealthy donors from bankrolling extremism through charitable contributions, sometimes unwittingly.

"Saudi Arabia today remains the location where more money is going to terrorism, to Sunni terror groups and to the Taliban than any other place in the world," Levey said under questioning.

I think you missed my point in the first place, but c'est la vie.

Your point was that we do it now so why not continue to do it.


What I was trying to show was why we SHOULDN'T keep doing this. I'm not seeing why this is such a hard concept.

Nope, that wasn't it - sorry.

So what was it then?