Telegraph:

The Arab states of the Gulf region have agreed to launch a single currency modelled on the euro, hoping to blaze a trail towards a pan-Arab monetary union swelling to the ancient borders of the Ummayad Caliphate.

“The Gulf monetary union pact has come into effect,” said Kuwait’s finance minister, Mustafa al-Shamali, speaking at a Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) summit in Kuwait.

I know other people have written on the Interior Department scandal, but so far I have yet to see anyone, anywhere, use the one word which is correct. Gregory W. Smith didn't just engage in "sex" with a subordinate, he's accused of behavior by one that is rape.

There's got to be a metaphor in here someplace, really, for the the Republican way of life, rape everything. The people, the environment, the constitution, the treasury. Every thing. Let me pull out the relevant paragraphs from the here, in the government report on all of this.

Bipartisanship, perhaps an oxymoron already, brings us an apparent oxymoron: "Drilling for Clean Energy" from Representatives Jim Marshall and Roscoe Bartlett, writing in the WaPo:

...a strategic plan to use the remaining value of our federally owned oil and natural gas reserves to fund a clean, affordable and independent energy future for America, a goal worthy of short-term environmental concessions and risks.

Their idea is to open up ANWR and offshore for drilling, but under changed financial terms that would capture more of the revenues for the federal government, and ensure that the money goes to develop solar, wind, nuclear, and "better" biofuels.

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

What happens when a small island African country discovers oil in its territorial waters? (Via Der Spiegel) In a perfect world, it should be the way out of poverty and to development and higher living standards for all. But this is not a perfect world. And this is not a hypothetical situation. It is the story of what happened to Sao Tome and Principe (See the BBC country profile for Sao Tome and Principe for general background information on this country.).

And it is a textbook example of how power differentials and resource curse combine to create a situation where a few will benefit tremendously and the many will be left in the same abject poverty as they were before and where transnational corporations and richer and more powerful countries can throw their weight around with the help of corrupt officials.

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Make the Switch, Repower America

Al Gore has a new commercial on energy.

Pelosi firm: No vote on offshore drilling

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday ruled out a vote on new offshore oil drilling even as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he might be open to a compromise that included it.

This is a major major victory. Al Gore has told us that we have 10 years to change from carbon based fuels to renewable energy. Pelosi seems to have taken him seriously. She is our firewall between influence peddlers and the destruction of our planet. Could we say thank you?

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

It is a story that has made headlines in the UK because it involves some high-level British players, via The Guardian:

"The British mercenary Simon Mann was today sentenced to 34 years in prison for plotting to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.

The Eton-educated former SAS officer was sentenced after a trial last month during which it was claimed that a number of western governments knew about the coup plans. The court heard that Sir Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British prime minister, was a committed member of the group.

Mann was arrested in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2004 with dozens of mercenaries when their private plane landed. He acknowledged knowingly taking part in the attempt to topple the government, but his lawyer argued Mann was a secondary player.

The sentence is longer than expected."

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In Its Annual Meeting, Exxon Crushes Shareholder Upsurge: Tillerson Remains Chairman and CEO, Quieting Demands for Alt–Energy Venture

So busy. And so bitchy! That's me. I'm an evil bitch; trust me it's true. And thus you shouldn't ever listen to me. Still, something woke me up this morning faster than the coffee.

I'm not going to make the claim that I know this graphic to be absolutely true. But it rings true, to my mind. Via the comments in this post. Which you need to read, all the way thru. SN is spot on in this point:

Powerful forces want to keep society in its current shape. For good reason, there is not only physical capital, but the doctrine of incorporation to contend with: we become physically the shapes and habits that they live.
Moses never reached the promised land, and there is a desert to cross to take this generation out of the desert and into the land of milk and honey. Either we will face a reactionary century, or a new, progressive century, there is no third choice.

I guess that's really been my problem with HRC and BHO supporters all along. And I'll even admit that my guy would've hardly been better, perhaps a little, perhaps not.   Read more…

First some surprsing facts, for example, did you know that Stuttgart is the capitol of Africa?

Resistance? Insurgents?

Probably nothing wrong with tweaking bacteria genes into producing petroleum products. It's not like a release of these solar-converting bacteria spread across the world's oceans would be a problem (I mean look at how well the Valdez spill cleaned up).

At the very least, it looks like they require a great deal of carbon input (CO2) which makes me wonder how much energy we'd have to put into the system to generate CO2 which ends up as oil. But if the little buggers are using solar to re-bond petroleum chains then it might be semi-efficient.

Could all be talk and PR for VCs, but Venter does have quite the track record. (From EcoGeek)

Greg Palast provides his own version of Season's Greetings with a Tiny-Tim-size message of hope.

Good and Evil at the Center of the Earth:
A Quechua Christmas Carol
by Greg Palast
December 24th, 2007

...
I know this is an incredibly simple story. Indians in white hats with their dead kids and oil millionaires in black hats laughing at kiddy cancer and playing musical chairs with oil assets.

But maybe it’s just that simple. Maybe in this world there really is Good and Evil.

Fortune Magazine describes the next likely oil disaster: pipeline leaks and breaks along the Gulf Coast.

Full disclosure: I remember Ixtoc I, the exploratory well off the Mexican coast owned in part by then-Governor Bill Clements.
This thing spewed ten to thirty THOUSAND barrels of crude a day into the Gulf, and

Forget dead troops. Forget a trillion dollars missing from the treasury. The war is about making money, and when you factor in the upward direction of oil prices due to speculation and neoliberalism, this data makes a lot of sense. If you're an oil exec taking advantage of the new Iraqi "constitution" which gives away oil revenues to Western interests, that is:

Iraq is sitting on potential reserves of 100 billion barrels, nearly twice as much as currently estimated, according to a study by energy analysts IHS.

If these reserves were exploited, it said, Iraq could overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer.

As we all know, Henry Kissinger has, "Jeff Gannon" style, been discreetly slipping into the Bush Bunker White House to give Inerrant Boy advice. So, it's interesting that Henry the K just published an Op-Ed in the the United Arab Emirates Khaleej Times Online, and not in Pravda on the Potomac or Izvestia on the Hudson. (Readers? I'm Googling on this article, and can't find it anywhere else.) I imagine that's because Kissinger imagines that, when he makes a case for continuous war without end, the autocrats of the oil states in the Gulf are a more appropriate audience than the people who do the dying, the voting, and the paying: The American people. After all, Our Henry's an Aristocrat like the rest of the Beltway Wienie Chompers. That said, Henry always has been a fine writer:

In response to CD's question, I thought I dig up an oldie but goodie:

I wonder what will happen now that the election is secured and the conservatives have won? The economy won’t be able to withstand the Iranian oil bourse coupled with an exit from the dollar by China. If/when, that happens, this will be the beginning of an incredibly painful correction in the American way of life.

There are days when I sincerely wonder how anyone could still be a supporter of the war. For countless reasons, the best that can be said about Iraq today is that the sand is getting plenty of liquid red fertilizer. Not that this will surprise you, but it looks like puppet boy doesn't want to be seen as a puppet anymore.

Privately, however, Maliki criticized what he called the patronizing U.S. tone toward the Iraqi government and warned U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to respect Iraq's sovereignty, two of the prime minister's advisors said.

"I'm a friend to the United States, but not America's man in Iraq," Maliki told Khalilzad, according to Hassan Senaid, one of the prime minister's closest advisors.

I know next to nothing about Russian/Georgian relations. I do know energy resources are at the heart of how they deal with each other. This can't be good:

MOSCOW, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Russia cannot rule out military action in dealing with mounting tensions with neighboring Georgia, the daily Kommersant reported on Monday.

"All diplomatic steps that are usually taken in such strained relations have been exhausted ... The next action could be the breaking of diplomatic relations and a military operation," the report warned, quoting an unnamed source with Russia's Defense Ministry.

Relations between Moscow and Tbilisi have been increasingly strained since Georgian authorities arrested four Russian officers last week, charging them with spying activities.

Russia has recalled its ambassador in Tbilisi and evacuated itscitizens.

LOL!

But if I were Robert Palmer, I'd be pissed. Ruining a classic video like that is almost a crime. Almost.

Quote of the day, or at least for me, from the ever impressive Nur AC:

Concerning the "Kill them all" thread below, the US is doomed to "cut and run" for the following reason: The Arab world has only 25% of the oil.

I'm sure some of our NSA/DoD readers think I'm some kind of left wing wacko who spits on troops and burns flags, but that's not really true. In that spirit, let's forget about the war for a second and talk about this. I'm posting the whole thing, but if you go to the site you'll find that many live links are embedded in the page. Good job, soldiers!

Not that long ago, the idea of the Sierra Club and the Army Corps of Engineers working on the same side of an issue might've seemed silly. But these days, the Army sees dependence on foreign oil as a major national security risk. And so the engineers are calling on DC to make a bunch of changes straight out of the environmentalists' playbook -- like mandating better gas mileage and giving out tax credits for green energy. (Although the bit about "open[ing] up Federal lands for oil and natural gas" might not exactly be met with huzzahs at Sierra HQ.)

I honestly believe that most of Bush's Iranwar chatter is hot air. I just don't see the Chinese, to whom we owe something like a trillion dollars and without whom our entire economy would collapse, letting him get in the way of their oil. Exhibit A:

Twenty-two Arab nations have agreed to boost energy cooperation and increase trade with China at the end of a two-day meeting in Beijing.

Analysts see the meeting as part of Beijing's strategy of pushing for stability in the Middle East in order to secure future oil supplies.

Middle East nations already provide China with about 44 percent of its oil imports and with its economy showing no signs of slowing down, Beijing wants to get more oil from the region. For that to happen, China's leaders say, there first needs to be peace in the Middle East and the key to that is the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.