Iran rations gasoline!

It seems to me that Iran can't be much of a problem for the US - it doesn't have and can't get enough gasoline in order to fight a war or even supply its people!

The Iranian people have been miserably spoiled with virtually free gasoline at a mere 42 cents per gallon and less. Now, because the nation lacks refining capabilities and therefore can't afford to continue importing gasoline at world market prices, they've resorted to rationing - like 26 gallons per month for the average driver.

With a 17% inflation rate and these huge fuel subsidies, I can see where the average Iranian is unhappy with his government and on the verge of revolution. Thus the Iranian government has its own problems without having to take on the rest of the world or mess with Israel, its pet peeve.

Seems to me that if the U.S. could somehow revive its sense of diplomacy and re-establish a modicum of the international esteem lost by our present regressive administration, it could negotiate reasonable solutions to Iran's need for nuclear energy (they are running out of oil) and avoid that nation's need (and probable international right) to get into the nuclear weapons business along with France, China and Russia - which is certainly not a good idea.

I can see down the road that Iran has serious problems how the nation is going to support its population when it does run out of oil. After all, Tehran alone has 12 million citizens - they can't all revert to driving camels and selling rugs!

Reuter's article below.....

Iran fuel rations spark anger, pump stations burn
By Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Angry Iranians torched pump stations and hurled abuse at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government after the world's fourth-largest oil exporter said it was imposing fuel rationing on Wednesday.

One Iranian news agency, ISNA, quoted an official as saying 19 gasoline stations were set ablaze overnight in Tehran after the government's announcement late on Tuesday that rationing would start from midnight.

Police detained 80 people in the capital over the unrest, the Fars News Agency quoted a judge as saying. "We are swimming in oil and all they do is just put pressure on people," said taxi driver Hasan Mohammadi, 44. "I'm using my last drop of gasoline."

Despite its huge energy reserves, Iran lacks refining capacity and must import about 40 percent of its gasoline, a sensitive issue when world powers have threatened new U.N. sanctions in a row with Tehran over its nuclear program.

Concerns Iranian imports would decline pushed down European gasoline paper prices on Wednesday, international traders said.

Some drivers scuffled while waiting to fill up their tanks before rationing began. Others chanted anti-government slogans and openly criticized Ahmadinejad, who came to power two years ago vowing to share out Iran's oil wealth more fairly.

"Last night, in addition to setting fire to and stealing property of 19 fuel stations in Tehran, people threw stones and damaged others," Bijan Haj Mohammadreza, head of an association representing gasoline stations, told ISNA.

Seeking to rein in soaring consumption and costly imports, the government on May 22 raised the liter price by 25 percent to 1,000 rials (11 U.S. cents) [42 cents/gal] - the cheapest in the world - but rationing was delayed. Drivers rushed to pump stations after the Oil Ministry said the scheme would finally go ahead after weeks of confusion.

Private cars will get 100 liters [26 gal] of gasoline a month but less if they also burn compressed natural gas, state TV said. All drivers need electronic "smart" cards to buy fuel.

One fuel station in Pounak, a poorer area of the capital, was set alight while another in eastern Tehran was partially burnt, two of its pumps destroyed by fire, witnesses said. Windows at the one in Pounak were smashed, six pumps wrecked and walls blackened. State radio blamed "opportunistic elements." Police could not be reached for comment.

Judge Ali Namazi said 80 people were detained in Tehran and transferred to jail. "These people have destroyed public property," he told Fars News Agency.

INFLATION FEARS
Motorists still faced long lines on Wednesday in a country where many see abundant and cheap fuel as a national right. Short of public transport, people rely on cars or taxis to get around in the capital of 12 million. Some taxi drivers raised their fares by 20-80 percent on Wednesday, media said.

"Last night's riots were an expression of the anger of people with lower incomes," said government employee Saeed Sameti, although he said he in principle backed rationing.

Parliament had argued for offering fuel above the rationed amount at market prices, a step opposed by the government which fears this would stoke inflation, already at 17 percent. No announcement was made about whether drivers could buy extra fuel, but analysts said inflation would rise anyway.

"Either they are going to offer (extra fuel) at a high price or there is going to be black market at a high price," said Hatef Haeri, head of business consultancy ICG. Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, National Iranian Oil Company international affairs director, in New Delhi said Iran might review the amount allocated to drivers in two months. Haeri said Iran had no choice but to curb consumption because of the burden on state coffers. All fuel is sold at heavily subsidized prices, encouraging waste and smuggling.

The United States, which is leading efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear plans, has said Iran's gasoline imports are a point of "leverage." Washington accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Tehran and by Nidhi Verma in New Delhi)

Religious Bigotry????

Absolutely ridiculous! - "It's unfortunate that these attacks of religious bigotry were taking place, ....There is just no place for these types of attacks in America today." --- really??? Stop and think, cousins! Religious bigotry is not the same as racial bigotry. The biological color of one's skin is not the same as the rational orientation of a candidate's mind! In fact, it is the latter which is what IT is all about! Do you think a Muslim or Atheist (like me) could ever be elected president? So what is so sacrosanct about being a Mormon, Catholic or Southern Baptist? Isn't a candidate's thinking and beliefs the paramount consideration we must make in determining who we wish to have lead us? We certainly don't need a religious zealot such as our present leader to continue to destroy our nation because of the demands of a religious minority - that would be to perpetuate a lesson we have already learned....? So why shouldn't we delve into the nooks and crannies of those who wish to lead us - including their religions? After all, we may have a constitutional right to the religion of our choice, but that doesn't in any way indicate or guarantee that any particular religion is good and right for all of us - or even good for its own membership - consider Jonestown for example. What one believes and to the extent that he/she will implement her own beliefs is of paramount importance for any voter to understand before they render their vote for a candidate. I am very much interested in whether Romney is a Mormon in spirit or deed, or Obama is a member of an evangelical version of Presbyterianism, or Hillery is a Methodist - what George Bush used to be, or why Brownback changed from being a Methodist to being a socially conservative evangelical Catholic!... or Rudy Giuliani being a socially liberal Catholic but fiscal conservative... With this in mind, read on.... Brownback aide chided on anti-Mormon bid By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 17 WASHINGTON - An aide to GOP presidential candidate Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record) has been reprimanded for sending e-mail to Iowa Republican leaders in an apparent attempt to draw unfavorable scrutiny to rival Mitt Romney's Mormonism. Emma Nemecek, the southeastern Iowa field director for Brownback's presidential campaign and a former state representative candidate, violated campaign policy when she forwarded the June 6 e-mail from an interest group raising the questions, the Brownback campaign said Sunday. The e-mail requested help in fact-checking a series of statements about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Among the statements: "Theologically, the only thing Christianity and the LDS church has in common is the name of Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same Jesus of the Christian faith" and "The LDS church has never been accepted by the Christian Council of Churches." "Sen. Brownback completely disavows himself of this and any personal attacks on religion," said Brian Hart, a spokesman for the Kansas senator. Hart said the campaign apologized to Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, once they learned of the e-mail. "It was not originated by Ms. Nemecek and the purpose was to fact-check. But it was in violation of campaign policy and it won't happen again," he said. The controversy comes as Brownback and Romney are scrambling to attract socially conservative voters in advance of Iowa's Jan. 14, 2008, caucuses. Both candidates say they are ardently anti-abortion, although Brownback — a former Methodist who has become an evangelical Roman Catholic — has criticized Romney for supporting abortion rights as recently as two and a half years ago. A spokesman for Romney's Iowa campaign, Tim Albrecht, said the campaign accepted Brownback's apology but called the incident "unfortunate." "It's unfortunate that these attacks of religious bigotry were taking place," Albrecht said. "Sen. Brownback has apologized and we are glad he has worked to minimize these repugnant attacks in his campaign. There is just no place for these types of attacks in America today."

A Brief History of Disbelief

I realize that I'm writing to cousins who are Christians and truly believe there is a supreme being. In this country you are all part of the vast majority of citizens who actually find it hard to understand how anyone like me could believe otherwise. Every community has a plethora of churches which spread the word of the gospel, of Jesus or Mohamad or even Buddha - although the latter two have never been thought to be supernatural. There are many channels on TV which also give say to religious leaders from the Pope to the 700 Club to even Dr. Schuler, to say nothing of the international crusades of Billy Graham. And most certainly, I'm not attempting to change anyone's beliefs, but to share with you the personal wonderment of having a belief of mine which has at last been acknowledged by the mass media - not the mass-mass media, of course, but rather some select PBS stations across the country. Last night I was privileged to watch on our local (Flagstaff) PBS the show, "A Brief History of Disbelief" by Jonathan Miller. http://tinyurl.com/yq8rtn (when there, be sure and download the "press release" of the show to get a good perspective of how the topic is treated. The show itself was interesting, but to me it was much more important in that it was the first time in my 76 years that any form of the mass media ever presented my own religious beliefs to the public in a documentary/historical or any other form. It provided an authenticity to concepts I have which has been expressed only in books and written publications - or on the Internet. My own skepticism of God 'came to me' one beautiful summer Sunday after church while playing alone in the dirt with my toy cars and trucks. It was 1937, I was six. My paternal grandfather had died the year before in Wisconsin and we went from Montana by train to his funeral. That was my first view of human death. It was also the year my father decided after nine years, he didn't want to be married to my mother anymore and told her so after the funeral on the station platform as we were boarding to return to Montana - in my presence. My mother was blindsided and devastated! Our Presbyterian minister had sermonized against 'fallen' divorced women a few Sundays before my 'revelation'. His tirade not only angered me, but caused me to realize that neither he, my parents, nor anyone else I knew, except perhaps Grandpa, were to ever be believed without question - not because they were malicious, they weren't - they were simply ignorant! It was up to me to learn my own 'truths'. Perhaps I was too young to have been indoctrinated into having faith in a Faith, yet I was certainly old enough to learn through experience not to have faith in any human - sometimes, even myself... There has always been a large part of me wherein I have been an ‘island' in that I have always been on the outside looking in - not socially, but intellectually. But with the current contest between the separation of church and state - and now, with the PBS show, I feel the door opening to Dunne's view that: "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." http://tinyurl.com/39cfgr