Oil wells that ends well

Iraq has opened six major oil fields to oil firms for development. The Iraqi oil ministry has opened the fields for bids by 41 foreign companies. It's a big deal because most Middle Eastern oil development is nationally run. However, any firm that wants a piece of the action first has to open an office in Baghdad. It seems, though, that five companies from the U.S. and the U.K. -- Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total and Chevron -- got no-bid contracts to work in those fields. The U.S. State Department claims it only provided advisors to an understaffed ministry. And, of course, no one believes them. Just like no believes it when Team Bush claims it's not preparing for a war with Iran.

Looking for love on eBay

One wonders what Voltaire's Candide would have made of the Internet age, for surely many would argue that we currently live in "the best of all possible worlds." Then he would have come across what would seem like just another one of those "only in South Florida" stories. A 42-year-old single mother of two, trying to unload her home and find true love at the same time. Followed by that of a man in Australia, following a divorce, who has put his entire life on the auction block. Love for sale, conditions eerily predicted by David Byrne in his movie True Stories. But the need to feel loved and important in the Internet age is turning out to have grave consequences. On the one hand, the need to feel loved is promoting prostitution at ever younger ages. On the other hand, those who want to feel important are following in the footsteps of Paris Hilton because they think they'll get the same notoriety. Others have expounded on the consequences of technology and social isolation. But it seems that despite the existence of the most powerful communications tool in human history -- and the proliferation of singles sites offering the possibilities of true love that it provides -- we, as a people, may be lonelier and more desperate for connection than we've ever been. Candide would, alas, still find himself asking "is this really the best of all possible worlds?"

Sex and the Schism

Orthodoxy creates delightful conniptions, especially among the 51 flavors of Christianity. In this case, it's overreaction by conservative Anglicans to modernity. The newest splinter group is the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans which has taken umbrage with the U.S. and Canadian churches for preaching a "false gospel" and promises to regress to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. This comes even as American congregations grapple with the "be fruitful and multiply" clauses of holy writ. American groups are ramping up the whoopee in their churches that includes a 30-Day Sex Challenge. It's probably just as well, with these kind of schisms, they'll have to fill the pews somehow.

Doing Obama's numbers

While the rich may have won their day in court, their days may be numbered. Obama’s economic plans begin to emerge and it’s a repudiation of the Team Bush approach. Families with a combined annual income of $250,000 or higher, or single filers with an income of $200,000 or higher will feel it in the pocketbook. The top two tax brackets would go back up from 33 and 35 percent under Team Bush to 36 and 39 percent. Obama is also making the suggestion that the way we pay for Social Security may be made more equitable with a more progressive taxing scale. That’s probably how he’s realistically going to pay for his spending proposals of $10 billion on childhood education, $150 billion over 10 years on alternative energy and $60 billion over 10 years on infrastructure. One thing is clear, with the passing of Team Bush, the salad days for the wealthy may soon be over.

With friends like these ...

Even as his wife and Blogette daughter tour Asia, the Gentleman from Arizona was busy in California trying to reboot his Team Bush-esque energy policy. He's proposing a $300 million competition to build a better battery to power electric cars. Along the way, he received a very bizarre endorsement. In an interview with the BBC, Tran Trong Duyet, McCain's captor during the Vietnam war said "I wish him success in the presidential election ... I consider John McCain my friend." Umm, this coming from the man who denied torturing him during his stay in the Hanoi Hilton. In the meantime, McCain needs to close the fundraising gap between himself and Barack Obama. And while he's shown an ability to repeatedly return from the dead, the Gentleman from Arizona is indeed in need of some more friends.

A requiem for a man of Seven Dirty Words

Cultural satirist George Carlin passed away over the weekend at St. John's Health Center in in Santa Monica, Calif., a victim of heart failure. Carlin, a recent recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, began his career in the 1950s. His exploration of language and the human condition included an arrest and a Supreme Court fight over his content. He was the first host of Saturday Night Live in 1975, and his movie credits include the Bill and Ted movies and Dogma. He was 71.

On a wing and a prayer

The English strike a blow for plain english: CNN

Chicken soup for the scientist's soul: BBC

Just like in the movies: Reuters

The Birds II -- The Chicago Way: ChiTrib

May the Farce of the Colbert Nation be with you

Whose idea was it to have the Gentleman from Arizona stand in front of a green screen? How do you get a job where you can make a colossal mistake like that? Or was it a mistake? It got McCain the kind of television screen time that you simply cannot buy. The Colbert Nation stepped to Colbert's challenge of making McCain interesting and he offered up some of the latest entries. That clip from his program doesn't seem to be available on the Comedy Central Website. The two best were the Emperor McCain and the Pulp Fiction McCain clips.

Clearing the brush out of the orchards

Like Bush trying to clear out brush on his Crawford ranch, NATO has finally started about the business of clearing the Taliban out of the towns it seized earlier this week. CNN keeps reminding us that their offensive follows the "daring and well-executed jailbreak," as if the Taliban militant operation was worthy of a made-for-TV movie. The operation began Wednesday and consisted of more than 2,000 troops, 800 of which apparently were Afghans. Afghan and Canadian soldiers seem to have been at the pointy end of this particular spear and, as one might expect, the casualty figures vary widely. So while NATO claims to have cleared the Taliban out, the Taliban succeeded in clearing out more that 5,000 families in their offensive. And that's a lousy balance in this seemingly neverending brushfire war.

Afghanistan's orchard war

What happens when you cross Larry the Cable Guy with Islamic militants? You get this account from the Associated Press on the sudden advance of the Taliban in Afghanistan:

"About 400 to 500 Taliban militants were seen streaming into the Arghandab district of the Kandahar province late Sunday night on motor bikes and pickup trucks, said Haji Aka Jan, a tribal elder in the district."

Talk about a "Git-R-Done" done attitude. NATO and Afghan forces had not yet arrived on the scene to settle matters. Al Jazeera, oddly enough, was much more illuminating. It seems the Taliban is holed up in orchard country and that fighters are taking up positions in the area, possibly targeting Kandahar itself. Following, as it does, the recent jail break from an Afghan prison, this new Taliban advance is anything but amusing.

Plugging in the alternatives

In the run-up to the Saudi OPEC summit, with oil prices continuing to climb, it's left to the the auto industry to get our feet off the gas pedal. As usual, the Japanese remain out in front. Honda is leasing out 200 fuel cell vehicles for the California market. The lack of fuel stations are the main impediment to wider deployment at this point. As usual, the rich and famous (i.e. movie star Jamie Lee Curtis) are the first adopters. In the meantime, GM is still struggling to get its electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, into showrooms by 2010. Chrysler is tinkering with the golf-cart-esque GEM. With Team Bush investing only $30 million in plugin hybrids, they are effectively ceding development to the market, thus ceding it to the Japanese. So while the Saudis go about the business of increasing production by a mere 200,000 barrels of oil a day, the U.S. will be looking to Japan to end it's reliance on foreign oil.

There and back again, and again

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is not a happy camper. The Taliban have been using the Pakistani tribal regions to attack Afghanistan. The reasons the Taliban gets away with this are varied, but mostly because of Pakistan's inability (and some charge unwillingness) to root them out. Well Karzai's had enough. He's threatening to send his own troops into Pakistan to settle the matter. This came in the wake of a Taliban-orchestrated jailbreak that resulted in the escape of 350 Taliban members. He's also calling out Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, whose crib is in South Waziristan, Pakistan, declaring "we will go after him now and hit him in his house." Mehsud is believed to be linked to the death of Benazir Bhutto. Pakistan, while making peace with Mahsud, has declared that Afghan strikes into Pakistan would be a bad idea, emphasizing it's desire for "friendly" ties with its neighbor. With a friend like Pakistan, no wonder Karzai's not a happy camper.

Mind the gap

And while we're on the subject of Pakistan, it seems that Abdul Qadeer Khan's underground nuclear technology ring is peddling an advanced design for a nuclear device. It's not known who, aside from a bunch of Swiss businessmen, has access to the blueprints found on a recently discovered laptop. Khan is considered a hero to Pakistanis because he fathered its nuke program. He may also have fathered a new wave of international instability but that doesn't seem to bother a nation that's already harboring border crossing militants. Of course, it's entirely possible that the Khan network got its blueprints from the most unlikely of sources. As widespread as the Khan network is, they may very well have picked up new nuke specs while taking the London Underground to Waterloo Station.

Devil Dogs yank Corp's chain

Apparently the medications being deployed to the U.S. Army haven't found their way into the ranks of the Marine Corps. It seems a pair of Devil Dogs were involved in the tossing of a puppy over a cliff. The Corps didn't take too kindly to that and one of the marines in question has been shown the door. The other has probably gotten 45/45, 350 for 2, and a reduction in rate, or some version thereof. It goes without saying that Iraq is a high stress environment. With prolonged deployments and less time back in the states, this is a visible sign of how great a toll the war is taking on our troops. Links have been shown between animal abuse and worse crimes. God forbid that this stressed behavior among our marines should be found to be only the tip of the iceberg. More needs to be done for the emotional and psychological support of our troops in theater, lest we discover that worse things than puppies have been thrown over a cliff.

There was blood

Pakistani soldiers got blown to bits when they got caught in the crossfire between U.S. / NATO forces and Taliban fighters. The latest spat took place in the Afghan province of Kunar, at the Pakistan-Afghan border at the Chopara check post in the Mohmand Agency. The Taliban attacked, the U.S. dropped about a dozen 500 pound bombs, and somehow 11 Pakistanis of the Mohmand Rifles, a paramilitary detachment of the Frontier Corps got killed. The Pentagon defended the strike as "legitimate" while the Pakistani military's statement declaring the airstrikes as "unprovoked and cowardly" got wide repetition. Of course this doesn't help already strained relations between the "allies." Pakistan's new government is whipsawed between being seen as at least tacitly supporting the Taliban on the one hand, and needing America's largess to prop up its economy on the other. With the U.S. set to pump another $10 billion into the failing Afghan government, this latest dustup may result in our already dysfunctional relationship with Pakistan being blown to bits.

Is it hot in here, or is it just global warming?

Sex and the stacks: CNN

Because the nights are long and the air gets cold: Reuters

Their Freudian slip was showing: BBC

A case of husband husbandry: Miami Herald

Mr. Dollar Bill ... Oh, noooo!

It seems apropos that the 80s icon for disaster is returning for a series of MasterCard commercials, because the market is of the opinion that things are going to get worse. Crude oil imports pushed up the U.S. trade deficit to it highest level in 13 months. The market is jittery over the implication that the Fed is preparing for an interest rate hike to combat inflation. Consumers are jittery over the possibility of gas rationing. At least the oil companies will get off the Senate's hook, thanks the GOP. Apparently voter outrage wasn't enough to break a Republican filibuster or get an alternative energy tax break extension passed. And the candidates have started slugging it out over how to fix the broken economy. So as Economic Cloverfield continues to spool out, expect that Americans will continue to shout 'Oh Nooo!' at gas pumps and checkout counters until Congress actually gets something of substance done.

As if.

Riyadh, we have a problem

It's getting ugly out there following the surge of oil to $139 a barrel. It seems that the Saudis may be beginning to perceive that there's a problem in the world oil market. Saudi Arabia is calling for a summit to discuss the matter. Fuel strikes have erupted in Spain, and fishermen suspending work in France. And the effect it is having on U.S. households is striking, especially in places like Wilcox County, Ala., where the cost of gasoline is eating up 16 percent of household income. Some economists are now beginning to worry about it's effects on the wider economy. A little late in the game there guys. And while the oil market is a tangled and complicated skein, expect things to get uglier before they get bad or even any good.

Did the camera have a red eye?

If the adage that stupid criminals are the only ones that get caught remains true, then it seems to also be the case that modern criminals have to be smarter than the technology they're stealing. Case in point, an Eye-Fi digital camera turned out to be smarter than either the owner or the thieves when it phoned home after being stolen during a trip to Florida. Charges weren't pressed but the pair who took the camera was fired from the restaurant where the camera was left behind. So the next time you get an itch to take that tech toy that someone thoughtlessly left behind, be careful. It may be smarter than you are.

Because you just never know

Burning down the governor's house: KXAN

It's not known if the body was Steve Trevor's: CNN

At least the dragon wasn't Smaug the Golden: U.S. News

A place in Heaven cost her $37,500: Reuters

Facts and science fictions

"Vir. Intelligence has nothing to do with politics." -- Babylon 5

J. Michael Straczynski spoke a truth that can be taken in so many ways. The way that the Senate intelligence committee has taken it was that Team Bush's politics bent the intelligence like a pretzel and that they "repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even non-existent." This report, part of a series, has been a source of partisan bickering. And when Team Bush wasn't cherry picking the intel for public consumption to support it's war effort, the Senate also found that the Pentagon was keeping intel on Iran from the CIA, an act driven by mistrust between Rummy and Lord Cheney. What a shame that Team Bush's politics had to lend so much truth a science fiction television show's insight.

Two of a kind

Ukraine and Turkey share something in common: they're both moving towards Europe, if in fits and spurts. The latest eruption between past and present in Ukraine occurred over a BBC program, Great Ukrainians. It seems that a sudden, 11th hour voting spurt changed the outcome of the program. That has created an uproar in Ukraine with 77 Members of Parliament protesting the results. This battle was a Russian-leaning past vs a European-leaning present. In Turkey, the Constitutional Court has blocked the government's easing of the headscarf ban, saying it violates the constitutional principle of a secular state. It's a move that may sound the death kneel of the AK party. While the enforcement of the ban may help Turkey's sputtering EU accession process, Turkey's intelligence sharing arrangement with Iran over strikes against the Kurdistan Workers' Party in Iraq won't.

It's not over even when it's clearly over

With the primaries over, we now shift to two related problems: who should be Obama's vice-president and what to do about Hillary. In the words of John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner, the position of vp is "not worth a pitcher of warm piss." Obama has named a three-person panel to find someone willing to drink from that pitcher. They probably won't be holding a barbecue to field the leading contenders. Former president Jimmy Carter told the The Guardian that a unity ticket "would be the worst mistake that could be made." Easy to say that when you're in London. Obama continues to work on uniting the Democrats even as Camp Clinton continues to work on dividing the Democrats. And just as their mistakes in the primary cost Hillary Clinton the nomination, people like Camp Clinton's Terry McAuliffle may yet help the Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of a victory they had handed to them only months ago. Maybe Hillary is winning the general election today, but until the voters actually cast their ballots in November, it's not over, even though, for Camp Clinton, it really is right now.

Singing the blues for the Red Planet

In his book "Pathfinders" Felipe Fernandez-Armesto notes that one of the historical consequences of climate change has been the migration of populations. One has to wonder if global climate change will drive humans to make the leap from an increasingly less hospitable Earth to an even worse locale like Mars? And who would be crazy enough to do such a thing? Well, oddly enough, Walter Sipes, a NASA psychologist at Johnson Space Center in Houston gets it right. To answer that question we have to look to history.

What history suggests is that the risk takers go first, followed by the homesteaders. What history also suggests is that the poor, prisoners and never-do-wells, and those with more conservative values lead the pioneer pack. Later, they in turn are followed by the developers and speculators, especially if you find something valuable like gold, spices or oil. But those expeditions with government or corporate backing usually have personnel with a mix of abilities, and they get sent with everything their backers think they'll need with the expectation that the rest will be provided by the new land.

Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct has the feel of Capt. Christopher Newport's Jamestown expedition. Of course, Newports' mission control was the Virginia Company of London and they were looking over his shoulder from the beginning seeking monetary rewards to make back their investment. They didn't want another Cortez on their hands. The ancient Greeks were much more hands off with their colonial expeditions by comparison. And while those pioneers didn't know what the expect, they could still count on being able to breathe the air, drink the water and till the land. None of these things will be immediately possible on Mars. And while the journey to their new world took weeks, the journey to our new world would take months. But when one looks at the Mars Direct conceptual modules, one can't help but think of the relatively tiny caravels Columbus used to cross the Atlantic.

In 2000, I wrote a review / think piece on Gregory Benford's "The Mars Race" for the Post-Tribune. Benford was heavily influenced by Zubrin's "The Case For Mars." I had ended that article with a hope that humans might one day turn Mars green and that unlike the pyramids, which are monumental marvels to the dead, Mars might become a monument to the living. Sadly, it was only later I would discover that with Mars being essentially geologically dead, it was only the most wishful of thinking. Still, the history of human colonization on Earth is a good guide to the likely future of Martian colonization. And while we've not yet discovered Martian natives, as such, the past provides as much cause for concern as it does for optimism.

Coffee grounded

So much for that Mi-8 dolce latte. Telegraph

Maybe Roswell was just a marriage proposal gone wrong. Spiegel

Let there be light. Please? Times of India

She's come out of the closet. Reuters

It's like a whole 'nuther country

The good news for Hillary: She'll win in Puerto Rico. The bad news: the turnout was low because Puerto Ricans don't bother to turn out for federal primaries because -- and this is the important part -- they can't vote in the General Election. Camp Clinton has been using New Math to show how she has a higher popular vote count, if you don't count the caucuses, and you count Michigan where she was the only candidate on the ballot, and if it rained on a Super Tuesday state. All of that despite the results of the Saturday Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting. Their ruling split up the Michigan and Florida delegates between Camps Clinton and Obama, which puts Barack Obama at 2,052, just 66 delegates short of the 2,118 needed to clinch the nomination. At the Saturday meeting, several Clinton supporters declared their intention to swing their support to the Gentleman from Arizona if she doesn't get the nomination. That would be unfortunate. Nobody likes sore losers, but don't be surprised of Camp Clinton goes Bull Moose after the DNC convention.