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...

It seems scientists at Oregon Health & Science University have cloned monkey embryos to create embryonic stem cells. "Breakthrough or an ethical nightmare?" asks News-Medical.net Nov. 15. We say it is far worse than an "ethical nightmare," which implies some ambiguity. At risk of loaning legitimacy to the religious right (who we disagree with about almost everything, abortion first and foremost), we say it is a moral abombination—a further step towards elite technocratic colonization of of the very mechanisms of human evolution, and the ultimate abolition of humanity—a destiny that the sinister-wacky "trans-humanists" are hubristic (and warped) enough to welcome. So it is a comfort to find that right in the heart of New Delhi, troupes of monkeys not only remain intransigently outside human control—but are even actively resisting the human system. From Reuters, Nov. 14:

Predictably, a front-page Wall Street Journal story Oct. 25 bashes native plant advocate Richard Halsey of the California Chaparral Institute as a culprit behind the devastating Southern California fires that have left half a million displaced. The article also approvingly cites LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky blasting the California Coastal Commission for adopting Halsey's sentimental ideas. Writes the Journal: "In the 15 or so wildfires that have ravaged hundreds of square miles in Southern California in the past few days, chaparral has been the primary fuel. Whipped by strong winds, the fire has spread across this vegetation, consuming some 1,500 homes along the way."

Crude oil rose above $89 a barrel for the first time this week as the US dollar declined to a record low against the euro. Analysts say the market is reacting to concerns over Turkish military incursions into northern Iraq. On Oct. 15, prices passed the previous all-time inflation-adjusted record reached in 1981 when Iran cut oil exports. The cost of oil used by US refiners averaged $37.48 a barrel in March 1981, according to the Energy Department, or $84.73 in today's dollars. (Bloomberg, Oct. 18) Prices fell to about $87.30 a barrel after the government reported a larger than expected increase in overall crude and gasoline inventories—but shot back up to over $88 a barrel on Oct. 17, when an explosion halted operations at the ExxonMobil refinery in Lockwood, MT. (AP, Oct. 17) The fire continues to burn at the refinery outside Billings. The explosion created a fireball that shook surrounding homes and businesses—and, writes AP, "exacerbated growing concerns about the adequacy of crude oil supplies." (AP, Oct. 18)

None of the media accounts (e.g. London Times, Oct. 12) note the hysterical irony. We suppose Henry Kissinger's Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 was even more ironic, but at least his co-winner Le Duc Tho refused to accept the prize. Now if only Gore's co-winner, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), would show as much principle.

Here's a rather perverse irony. Amid all the war hysteria over Iran's nuclear ambitions, a US utility has ordered a new nuclear plant for the first time since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Of course this time they are promising that "innovations" will avoid the cost overruns that plagued the industry in its last big thrust of development in the '70s. (They are not even particularly talking about the health and safety concerns, alarmingly.) But note that this time it is a utility in New Jersey which wants to build the reactors in Texas—a fruit of the deregulation regime imposed in the last 20 years, which effectively bars utilities from generating electricity for local consumption. As we argued after the 2006 Queens blackout, this new regime exaggerates the dangers of the system by eroding public accountability. And with all the horrors in the headlines these days, this summer's radiation leak at a commercial reactor in Niigata, Japan, barely registered a blip—although reporter Matthew Wald does, to his credit, at least work in a parenthetical reference to the Niigata accident in this New York Times account, Sept. 25:

From the New York Times, Sept. 19:

World's Languages Dying Off Rapidly
Of the estimated 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, linguists say, nearly half are in danger of extinction and are likely to disappear in this century. In fact, they are now falling out of use at a rate of about one every two weeks.

Some endangered languages vanish in an instant, at the death of the sole surviving speaker. Others are lost gradually in bilingual cultures, as indigenous tongues are overwhelmed by the dominant language at school, in the marketplace and on television.

No comment. From Reuters, Sept. 17:

DUVANNY YAR, Russia — Sergei Zimov bends down, picks up a handful of treacly mud and holds it up to his nose. It smells like a cow pat, but he knows better. "It smells like mammoth dung," he says.