Sarah Palin in Demand

Sarah Palin is a big star now. [caption id="attachment_27761" align="alignright" width="212" caption="In this Nov. 4, 2008 file photo, Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, acknowledges the crowd during an election night rally in Phoenix. Oprah wants her, and so do Letterman and Leno. Fresh from her political defeat, Sarah Palin is juggling offers to write books, appear in films and sit on dozens ...

More on the Threat of Piracy to the Oil Trade

There are a couple of interesting snippets this morning in the coverage of the seizing of a Saudi oil tanker by Somali pirates I commented on yesterday. First, the Financial Times echoes my observations about the potential impact of this on the oil trade: While most other seizures have been of vessels heading into or out of the Suez Canal, ...

The Future of Piracy (Updated)

We're beginning to see the future of piracy unfold in the seas south of the Horn of Africa. Somali pirates have captured an oil tanker belonging to Saudi ARAMCO: JIDDA, Saudi Arabia: Pirates captured a Saudi-owned supertanker loaded with more than $100 million worth of crude oil off the coast of Kenya, seizing the largest ship ever hijacked, United States ...

Obama’s Acceptance Speech: The More Things CHANGE, The More They Remain the Same

I wrote a quick post before bed last night giving my off-the-cuff reaction to Barack Obama's nomination acceptance speech, arguing that, despite all the talk of "change," it was basically a speech that Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry could have given. The NYT has a six-page transcript of the speech as delivered.  Let's ...

McCain ‘Broken’ ‘Family’

The McCain campaign has launched two new ad videos in consecutive days under the titles "Broken" and "Family." I find the juxtaposition amusing.  The spots themselves strike me as weak but, as I keep reminding myself, I'm not the target audience. "Broken" Washington's broken. John McCain knows it. We're worse off than we were four years ago. Only McCain has taken on big ...

McCain’s Oil Money

The latest campaign kerfuffle is the shocking fact that John McCain is receiving significant donations from the oil industry.  A new Obama ad says the amount is $2.1 million; FactCheck.org says it's a mere $1.33 million.  Either way, it's about triple what the industry is giving to Obama. More damning, critics say, is that there has been an uptick in oil ...

In Case You Were Wondering…

Via Reuters: World's oldest joke traced back to 1900 BC. And let me tell you, they have unearthed some hy-larious stuff! The shocker of the day: the study "suggests that toilet humor was as popular with the ancients as it is today." The world's oldest recorded joke has been traced back to 1900 BC and suggests that toilet humor was as popular ...

At Least 53 Dead in Suicide Bombing Attacks in Iraq

Via the BBC: Iraq suicide blasts cause carnageSuicide bombers have killed at least 53 people and wounded about 240 in attacks on crowds in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk. Three blasts in Baghdad killed at least 28 Shia Muslim pilgrims heading for the city's Kadhimiya shrine. [...] In Kirkuk, a suicide bomber targeted a crowd of Kurdish ...

Back to Batman Foreign Policy

Two things to follow up on my post on The Dark Knight and foreign/security policy. First, in thinking more about the movie, I will say that there are two scenes/actions by Batman that could be seen to mirror part of the GWoT debate (and I will be vague so as not to spoil anything). There is an interrogation scene and ...

More on Oil

There's an article from the August issue of Forbes which paraphrases some comments from energy consultant Vinod Dar that had a quote that caught my eye: To judge by actions, not words, the carbon-warming view hasn't come close to persuading a political majority even in nations considered far more environmentally enlightened than China and India. Europe's coal consumption is rising, not ...