Political News of the Week

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Bush Now Produces His Own Ready-to-Broadcast Propaganda — just in case Faux News and the other media outlets don’t get his spin quite right. Now your station doesn’t need any reporters or any news budget whatever. Just roll the prepackaged government productions. And if you’re smart, you can even get kickbacks from the government for doing so — it’s all the rage these days.

Bush the Small Animal Torturer — an interesting editorial by David Podvin suggests the real George Bush has a life-long record of cruel and psychopathic behaviour. A little over the top, though there is evidence that torture of small animals as a child is a hallmark of future criminal and psychopathic behaviour, and there’s also a long history of psychopaths striving for and achieving leadership positions.

Salon Weighs In on the End of Oil — Robert Bryce provides a balanced accounting of what oil reserves actually are. Most compelling: Increasing evidence that OPEC, whose share of global remaining reserves will soar past 50% in the next few years, is pushing its production capacity to the limit, and, as Algeria’s energy minister, Chakib Khelil, said, “OPEC does not have the production capacity to increase its quotas.” Historically, these kind of supply/demand tipping points precede huge price shifts. The US Energy Board has raised its annual estimate of average wellhead prices for 2005 oil from $29 (last year’s estimate) to $50. Like all commodities these days, expect prices to yo-yo, but inflation, here we come.

Wolfy’s Plan to Topple OPEC — In related oil news, Greg Palast reports for the BBC and Harper’s that new reports obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show Wolfowitz, Chalabi, Bush & Co planned long before 9/11 to topple Saddam, seize Iraqi oil and sell it off to private oil interests. The more pragmatic corporate oil oligopoly balked at the last part of the neocon plan, saying that destabilizing OPEC was in no one’s best interests, and preferring instead a state-owned oil company that the US would effectively control. On the losing end, Wolfy has now been banished to the World Bank, a place better suited to his megalomaniac tendencies.

US Predicts Likely Terrorist Attack Areas — Another document that Bush was trying to keep under wraps, but was inadvertently posted on the Hawaii State Government site, lists urban nuclear devices, biotoxins in office complexes and bombs in sports arenas as the greatest threats, and says there are too may possible targets in each category to list. Blowing up chemical plants, bioattacks in airports, and infecting food animals with diseases or poisons are next on the list, which also includes three natural disasters (earthquakes, influenza epidemics and hurricanes), but has taken plane hijackings off the list because they’re presumably no longer possible thanks to those brave and brilliant Homeland Security guys. Planning calls for about 1500 different, coordinated actions in the case of any of these incidents, regardless of where in the US they occurred. Bin Laden must be rolling on the ground laughing. Hey, does duct tape work when it gets wet?

Former Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Writes to Condi — A savage op-ed by Lloyd Axworthy (whose campaign I worked on many centuries ago) explains to Condi Rice why Canada chose not to sign on to the US Missile Defence system. You tell ’em Lloyd.

Help a Fellow Blogger — Blogger Darren Barefoot is fasting for 30 hours as part of a WorldVision project to raise money to defeat world hunger. I’ve pledged some money to help, and would encourage you to do so as well.