We wish we were joking. From Canada's The Tyee, Nov. 21:

Earth's Eighth Continent
It swirls. It grows. It's a massive, floating "garbage patch."
Located in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii and measuring in at roughly twice the size of Texas, this elusive mass is home to hundreds of species of marine life and is constantly expanding. It has tripled in size since the middle of the 1990s and could grow tenfold in the next decade.

From Newsday, Nov. 29:

Truck spills 3,000 gallons of diesel in Queens
A tanker-truck cartwheeled Thursday afternoon in Queens just after exiting the Whitestone Expressway, injuring the driver and sending at least 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel streaming across the roadway, New York police said.

Children exposed to World Trade Center dust are at much higher risk for respiratory problems, according to a New York City Health Department survey. The survey of the 3,100 children who are enrolled in the city's World Trade Center Health Registry found that being caught in the dust cloud in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 was the single biggest risk factor in developing respiratory problems. Half of all children enrolled in the registry developed a new or worsening breathing problem. But those who were caught in the massive dust plume were diagnosed with asthma at double the rate of those who were not. (Newsday, Nov. 29)

From the International Federation of Journalists, Nov. 23, via AllAfrica:

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today urged President Mamadou Tandja of Niger to take strong action for the release of two journalists accused of criminal offences following their coverage of the Tuareg rebellion in Niger.

The entire population of northern Niger's remote desert town of Iferouane has fled, a local official told BBC last week. Deputy mayor Mohammed Oumma said 5,000 residents were displaced following army reprisals in operations against Tuareg guerillas. The government in Niamey denies that Iferouane, home to several uranium mines, has become a ghost town. (BBC, Nov. 19) President Mamadou Tandja Nov. 23 prolonged an emergency zone in Niger's desert north region of Agadez, extending for a further three months the "state of alert" declared in August. (Reuters, Nov. 23)

Continuing to demonstrate hyper-priapism, oil inches unsteadily but seemingly inexorably towards the symbolic watershed of $100 per barrel despite high output. Prices briefly rose to over $95 a barrel before dropping back to just over $92 Nov. 29 as an Enbridge Inc. crude pipeline linking Canada to the US exploded in Minnesota. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi helped the price level off by reiterating OPEC's stance that crude supply is healthy, saying "there is no relationship between the fundamentals today and the price... We believe that the world market is well supplied and petroleum inventories are comfortable." (Thomson Financial, Nov. 29) This is precisely what is so scary. OPEC is already pumping it out like crazy, with Saudi Arabia the only member with real available spare capacity to bring to the market...

Australia's Labor Party prime minister-elect Kevin Rudd said Nov. 30 he will pull the country's 550 combat troops out of Iraq by the middle of 2008. Rudd was elected in a landslide Nov. 24, ousting veteran conservative prime minister John Howard, a supporter of the US-led war in Iraq. (AFP, Nov. 30) In the latest in the growing string of US atrocities in Iraq, soldiers opened fire on a car that tried to run a road block during a supposed operation against al-Qaeda in Baiji, 140 miles north of Baghdad, Nov. 27. A wounded child was found inside the vehicle, and was transferred to a military medical facility where he died. "We regret that civilians are hurt or killed while coalition forces work diligently to rid this country of the terrorist networks that threaten the security of Iraq and our forces," said US military spokesman Commander Ed Buclatin. (AFP, Nov. 27)

A nuclear war between Israel and Iran would be mutually devastating, but Israel might survive as a state, according to a new study by Anthony Cordesman of the DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. According to "Iran, Israel and Nuclear War," the superiority of Israel's presumed nuclear arsenal would offset the disadvantages of the country's tiny territory. Iran's nuclear strikes would likely target the Tel Aviv area and Haifa, killing 200,000 to 800,000 outright—but recovery would be "theoretically possible in population and economic terms." By contrast, Israeli nuclear attacks on Iran would kill between 16 million and 28 million, making recovery "not possible in the normal sense of the term." (Washington Jewish Week, Nov. 29)