War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
Iran not unplugged: Oil prices on Friday briefly spiked to the highest level in three weeks following a report that Iranian oil exports dropped significantly this month. … Benchmark U.S. crude rose by $1.52 to finish at $106.87 per barrel in New York. Earlier, prices jumped by $2.95 per barrel in 13 minutes to $108.25,…
Doc: I don’t give a shit if he’s from Johannesburg. I don’t want to hear dune koon or sand nigger from him or anybody. Vig: Captain uses those terms. Troy: The point is, Conrad, ‘towel head’ and ‘camel jockey’ are perfectly good substitutes. — Three Kings US Army Sgt. Bob Bales is to be charged…
There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past. –Â George Carlin On occasion there’s just too much going on to actually get a hold on some subject for a morning’s blog post, which happened today — plus I didn’t sleep too well and crawled out feeling a bit of the WTF. This…
“I mean, with the other guys, you can dig into their past and find at least some shred of rational thinking, even if they’re cynically downplaying it now,” Gallardo continued. “But I get the sense Santorum is speaking nothing but his completely unfiltered thoughts. I know it’s weird to say this about a politician, but…
Raining like a mad dog up here on California’s northern coast, and in the pre-dawn hours, cold as shit. And on this first day of spring, weather is screwed. And so is the world — the French are hunting for a crazed killer, Mexicans are seeking more killers of police investigating headless bodies, Iraqis are…
Although the name of the supposedly “lone service member” who killed 16 Afghan civilians a week ago has finally emerged — Sgt. Bob Bales — the names of the victims of the rampage haven’t seen the light of day. As Paul Woodward wrote at War In Context, the reason: Because they are not Americans. These…
Another under-reckoning. From Nature: Recent studies have focused on the short-term contribution of the Greenland ice sheet to sea-level rise, yet little is known about its long-term stability. … Here, using a fully coupled model, we show that this criterion systematically overestimates the temperature threshold and that the Greenland ice sheet is more sensitive to…
Some joy from the Arctic Methane Emergency Group: We declare there now exists an extremely high international security risk* from abrupt and runaway global warming being triggered by the end-summer collapse of Arctic sea ice towards a fraction of the current record and release of huge quantities of methane gas from the seabed. Such global…
Sweet, Tiny Tim Geithner waxed philosophical last night, turning a gothic-literary phrase in explaining high US gas prices: Oil moves around in a “dangerous and uncertain world.†No shit nit-twit sherlock. And bravely battling this uncertain danger, yesterday I put another $20 worth of gas in my just-back-from-the mechanic Jeep Comanche, pulling the handle at…
Flowers blooming early — spring ain’t til next Tuesday: “My nightmare now is this weather,†Japanese ambassador to the U.S. Ichiro Fujisaki said at press briefing today at the National Press Building. “What are we going to do if all the cherry blossoms bloom before we start [the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival]?,†he said.…