Zion Oil strikes it rich

Or so says Hal Lindsey.

Hal's really worried about Hugo Chavez, who, if you haven't heard, is apparently something of a dick. But more important than anything Chavez does to his own people is his potential to hurt us:

Chavez is assuming the role of America's new Castro, but Venezuela is no Cuba. Cuba cost America some banana and sugar plantations and the very rich had to find someplace else to gamble, but by and large, Castro hurt Cuba a lot more than he hurt the United States.

Chavez is what Castro would have been if he had been sitting on one of the richest oil fields in the world: an enemy too dangerous to live with, and too expensive for us to live without.

Venezuela is America's fifth largest supplier of oil. And Chavez owns (or will soon own) all the oil companies.

I know, let's kill him! Oops, sorry, wrong psycho-vangelist. My bad. But you know what IS cool? Hal's bizarre eschatology. Check it out:

Venezuela is buddies with Iran. Iran is allied with Russia (I mean, so are we, in theory, but... hey, shut up, the rev's talking!)

So three fairly powerful countries are allied against the U.S. Ok, so what?

The prophet Ezekiel predicted the development of a vast alliance that would include Russia, Persia (Iran) "and many people with thee" in the last days that would launch a surprise invasion of Israel.

Wow, I didn't know Ezekiel mentioned "Russia" in his prophecy!

...Wait, really? Oh, not so much. Nice try though, Hal. And "many people with thee"? Why surely that must refer to Venezuela! As opposed to say, Carthaginians or Hittites. You know, people Ezekiel might have actually heard of.

So the Alliance of the Schmucks is the army of Gog and Magog. Fine. Now what, Hal? Well, apparently Israel's got a new weapon in its arsenal- it can play the oil card, too. Or so says Hal.

A Texas oil company, Genco, recently announced the discovery of a large oil field near the Dead Sea. Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer called the strike "just the beginning."

British Natural Gas announced the discovery of a vast natural gas deposit 20 miles offshore of Tel Aviv. Initial estimates suggest some 3.5 trillion cubic feet in proved reserves.

Zion Oil has sunk eight exploratory wells, all of which have shown signs of oil and gas. Zion founder John Brown believes the amount of oil reserves hidden beneath Israel could rival that of Saudi Arabia.

Well, kind of. Genco's official was quoted in July saying "the amount of oil could reach commercial levels". They can estimate all they want (between four and six million barrels, worth an estimated 300 million dollars), but it doesn't mean much until they get it out of the ground. So far there's nothing on the web confirming the British Natural Gas story, and Zion Oil, while having an IPO in January, seems to still be quite a ways away from making any headway.

And if you knew more about John Brown and the guys he hangs out with, you might be inclined to take what he says with a bit of salt. Say, a few pounds.

By the way, Hal, if you and your buddies are such supposed "literalists", what's with interpreting Magog as "Russia"? And since when is Armageddon supposed to involve oil price wars? Are some of my pages stuck together? Help me out here.