Glenn Reynolds says there’s good news on oil shale, and points to an article that says the Feds have given three oil companies the go-ahead to work on shale.

They should have talked to this Israeli company instead:

HAIFA, Israel, Nov. 7 (UPI) — The Israeli process for producing energy from oil shale will cut its oil imports by one-third, and will serve as a guide for other countries with oil shale deposits, according to one company.

A.F.S.K. Hom Tov presented its oil shale processing method on Tuesday, outside Haifa and just down the street from one of the country’s two oil refinery facilities.

“Because the patents for this process belong to (the company), Israel is the most advanced in the world in the effort to create energy from oil shale,” Moshe Shahal, a Hom Tov legal representative and a former Israeli energy minister, told United Press International.

How much is this all going to cost?

$17 a barrel.

It would cost about $17 to produce a barrel of synthetic oil at the Hom Tov facility, meaning giant profit margins in a world of $45 to $60 per barrel crude. Yearly earnings are forecasted to be between $159 million and $350 million, Shahal said.

Of course, the sweetest part in all of this is that if the Israeli-patented process goes global, the Arab nations lose a significant part of the oil threat. Canada and the U.S. have large, untapped oil shale reserves.

Score another one for Jewish scientists.

Update: Unrelated to the above, but good news nonetheless: Oil prices are nearing a 17-month low, and have dipped below $55 a barrel. It’s weather-related and stockpile-related, but it’s good news.

I knew I should have waited ’til the weekend to fill up.

Let’s see, how long before the world jumps on this peace plan?

GERONA, Spain Nov 16, 2006 (AP)— Spain, France and Italy unveiled a five-point Middle East peace initiative Thursday, calling Israeli-Palestinian violence intolerable and saying that Europe must take a lead role in ending the conflict.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced the plan at a summit with President Jacques Chirac of France. Italy is also on board, he said, and Spain hopes to win the endorsement of Britain and Germany and the broader European Union ahead of a December summit in Brussels.

The plan has five components: an immediate cease-fire; formation of a national unity government by the Palestinians that can gain international recognition; a prisoner exchange including the Israeli soldiers whose kidnapping sparked the war in Lebanon and fighting in Gaza this summer; talks between Israel’s prime minister; and the Palestinian president and an international mission in Gaza to monitor a cease-fire.

So, what isn’t discussed? Let’s take a look at some of those points again:

an immediate cease-fire

This does not call for an end to the weapons and arms smuggling going on right now, nor does it call for tighter restrictions on the Gaza crossings and Syria and Lebanon borders to prevent Israel’s enemy from re-arming themselves. As for the rocket fire from Gaza, well, the world never mentions that, even when it kills Israelis.

formation of a national unity government by the Palestinians that can gain international recognition

Why is this? To stop the killing? No. To give the palestinians more money. There is no mention, mind you, of requiring the palestinian government to recognize Israel. No mention of calling off Hamas’ rejectionist attitude towards the Jewish state. Nope. Status quo, let’s throw more money at the terrorists and wonder why they won’t stop killing Israelis.

a prisoner exchange including the Israeli soldiers whose kidnapping sparked the war in Lebanon and fighting in Gaza this summer

Yeah, because that’s working so well so far. And because it’s not like the UN passed a resolution requiring the release of the Israel captives in Lebanon or anything. Oh, wait. They did.

talks between Israel’s prime minister; and the Palestinian president

Been there, done that. Abbas lies, makes promises he won’t keep, and then says that he will settle for nothing less than total Israeli capitulation to palestinian demands. Because they’ve totally proven they deserve them. It’s not like they’re trying to kill Israelis every day or anything like that.

And last, but certainly not least:

an international mission in Gaza to monitor a cease-fire.

In other words, the Europeans are so happy with the useless UNIFIL monitors in Lebanon, they’d like to ring Israel completely with them and tie her hands completely. Nasrallah brags that he has more rockets now than he had at the start of the war, UNIFIL forces report that they’re not allowed to patrol, and under the closed eyes of the UN, Hezbullah has re-armed itself with more and better rockets. Mark my words: More Israelis will die in the next round. Many more.

But the French are threatening to shoot down IAF planes. They can’t seem to find arms smugglers in Lebanon, but they think they have the right to shoot at Israeli Air Force jets.

This “peace plan” is not a peace plan. It is another tool with which to advance the palestinian and Arab and Muslim agenda to destroy Israel. Europe is once again becoming a partner to the destruction of Jews. Only this time, they’re blaming the Jews for it.

Spare us from any more “peace” plans from Europe. None of them are worth the paper they’re printed on.

So I went out last night and got the soundtrack to Requiem for a Dream, which has the music on which the music from the LOTR video was based. It seems that a bunch of musicians remixed Lux Aeterna and turned it into “Requiem for a Tower,” which is not available in its entirety anywhere.

You can get movements 2, 3, and 4 on a CD, but I don’t see the point in not having the first movement.

Okay. Time to capture the music off the YouTube video.

What’s missing from this story?

JERUSALEM Nov 15, 2006 (AP)— Israel promised a punishing response to a deadly Palestinian rocket attack Wednesday near the home of the country’s defense minister.

The rocket one of at least eight that struck Israel during the day killed a 57-year-old woman walking to the grocery store in the Israeli town of Sderot near the Gaza border and raised the specter of a large-scale offensive against militant rocket squads.

There are still no names of the victims. The Jerusalem Post has them.

At 7:18 a.m. on Wednesday morning, six Kassam rockets slammed into Sderot, killing Fatima Slutsker, 57, and seriously wounding Maor Peretz, 24, a security guard for Defense Minister Amir Peretz.

But the names of Israeli victims are almost never published by the AP or Reuters. Israeli victims are not named. They are rarely given ages, and when Israelis do die, the AP minimizes their deaths—like this:

Although the homemade projectiles are primitive and rarely cause casualties, they have killed eight other people since 2001. Last March a father and son were killed by a rocket blast at Nahal Oz, a village just outside Gaza.

The father and son have no names, of course. Because they’re not palestinian victims of Israel.

Except this time, the Muslims got another of their own:

Slutsker was a Muslim woman who came from the Caucasus Mountains in the Former Soviet Union just three years ago with her Jewish husband.

I doubt you’ll hear Hamas calling her a “martyr,” though. She committed a capital crime: She married a Jew.

Here’s something else you won’t read in the AP or Reuters reports, or any of the big newspapers or mainstream media:

Avichai Yosef and Benny Libranti from Zaka, the rescue organization that rushes to the scene after terrorist attacks, described the bloody scene as looking like a suicide bombing on a bus.

They said it took hours to gather body parts, which were scattered in a 50-meter, and bones and legs were found on the top of the trees and on car windshields.

But you’ll see plenty of pictures of palestinians standing in front of puddles of blood in Beit Hanoun.

Israeli victims don’t bleed. They don’t have names. And their wounds and deaths are minimized.

Because they’re not palestinian victims of Israel. They don’t fit the profile.

When Israelis die, you see, they brought it on themselves. For not giving the palestinians a state. For the settlements. For existing.

The world does not like the Jews.