Fill up your gas tank today ... Ike headed for Texas!

That has been the prevailing wisdom, but it didn't hold for the season of Katrina/Rita etc. The water is routinely so much hotter than in the past that these things can repeatedly gin up to levels that were unusual before. The energy level is higher to begin with (the trough is fuller), so a single storm doesn't deplete it below levels where particularly strong storms can form. Other surrounding weather patterns seem more important than anticipated energy depletion. I was looking at a plot of sea surface temps following Katrina and noticed that the temps were recovering in only a few days. Gustav wasn't as monstrously powerful as some of the others in recent Gulf history so I question it's ability to depress subsequent storms.

There was discussion of adding a Cat 6 or even 7 for the new higher power storms. My understanding is that it was not seriously entertained because the wind damage from a Cat 5 is so high that higher indications were deemed overkill for planning purposes.

 

Bin Laden gets much of his funding from Saudi Arabia, but he's no pal of the ruling family, because he wants to overthrow them and restore the Caliphate. There's no democracy in Saudi Arabia, which is how the U.S. government likes it, because free and fair elections would likely put Islamic fundamentalists in power. Thus when you ask the above question you have to be more specific: If by "the Saudis" you mean the Saudi government, the answer would be no. But if you mean individual Saudis and powerful interests outside the government, then the answer is probably yes.

 

Daniel, most of your post is spot on, but I cannot imagine anyone outside of Al-Qaeda's inner circle having a good handle on the who contributes how much.

It may also be misleading to think that the organization is dependent on others. Osama Bin-Laden is a very successful business man who parlayed his family's connections into a far flung financial empire. I think of him as a mixture of the mafia and the CIA in terms of hard to trace funds.

 

So even though you will NOT have any problem finding gasoline, gas prices will go up due to "reduced oil production"??