Is H5N1 On the Way?

While the U.S. dwells on the unprecedented failure of financialization of its economy another specter, a possible panademic seems to be looming. While largely ignored in American media reports out of Asia suggest that H5N1 influenza is showing signs of living up to its potential as a human to human communicable disease transmitted by asymptomatic bird populations. This disease, which has a reported mortality rate of 50-60%, has been seen in Chinese cases in which the vector seems to have been asymptomatic birds carrying the clade 7 version of the virus for which there is no current vaccine. As per recombinomics:

"The sequencing comments above are from the OIE report on the H5N1 from the Jiangsu outbreaks last month, and are followed by the most recent confirmed human case in China (see updated map), who died yesterday. The “virus variant” is clade 7, as seen in phylogenetic analysis of A/chicken Shanxi/02/2006 in the latest WHO on vaccine targets. On the same branch is A/Beijing/01/2003, which was isolated from the first H5N1 confirmed case in mainland China.

It is likely that the latest case was also infected by clade 7 H5N1, which is vaccine resistant, because most vaccines target clade 1 or 2, which are significantly different than clade 7.

The details of the Jiangsu outbreaks are unclear. Some local media reports suggested the outbreak was large, and involved dead poultry that was shipped to market. Other reports acknowledged the H5N1 infection, but noted that the infected birds were asymptomatic and identified through routine screening.

However, if the latest case was fatally infected by clade 7 from an asymptomatic duck, then the potential for additional cases is high, because the virus can travel and disperse undetected. Moreover, since clade 7 is resistant to the most common vaccines, it could be widespread.

Clade 7 was also reported in Vietnam in August, and a clade 7 target was recently identified by the WHO. There currently is no clade 7 pandemic vaccine, and the selected target is only proposed as a target, as indicated in the most recent WHO vaccine update. The earlier presence of clade 7 in Vietnam may be related to the recent confirmed human case in northern Vietnam, which was announced today."

The potential for for a larger epidemic will take some time to manifest itself but given the recent Chinese New Year holidays and travel one could expect more widespread diffuse outbreaks in the very near future.If this happens the Pandemic Information News offers a chilling scenario for the U.S. which, quite frankly, is in no position to deal with even a minor league catastrophe:

"The world is celebrating Barack Obama as President of the United States � while a new threat appears on the horizon: There are severe signs that the long expected pandemic avian influenza could be on its way to conquer the world. First deaths in Asia concern little children, which from virological point of view is a rather new aspect, and could be the evidence for a new spread. While scientists expect this pandemic to happen in the near future, the new President should also stay alert: A coming influenza pandemic would deteriorate the global economy even without financial crisis or recession......

"However, the situation in the United States is more alerting, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A new University of Colorado at Boulder study showed the resistance of the avian flu virus to a major class of antiviral drugs "is increasing through positive evolutionary selection, with researchers documenting the trend in more than 30 percent of the samples tested", as the scientists report. Even if the expected influenza pandemic did not start yet, there is no doubt about the comeback of the lethal virus: The first Pandemic Influenza occurred in three waves in the United States - exactly 90 years ago, between 1918 and 1919."

Who is Hamas? Who is Israel?

Who was and is being subjected to genocidal attacks in their modern history? Why do those of us who have no connection to the area's history outside of colonialism and Biblical nonesense put up with this bullshit? It's time to wake up.

Rogues Reality and Shame

The Angry Arab, As'ad Abukhalil makes the following observation regarding what defines a rogue nation:

"This brief review of Israel's record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism - the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel's real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination."

Meanwhile the U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a motion supporting Israeli aggresion. This inspite of the fact that the normally pro-Israeli American public is itself quite divided over the issue. As reported by the Rasmussen poll:

"Americans, while far more sympathetic to Israel than the Palestinians, are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip.

Forty-four percent (44%) say Israel should have taken military action against the Palestinians, but 41% say it should have tried to find a diplomatic solution to the problems there, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided."

America is being dragged into complicity in genocide and evil and it's political leaders being so compromised by the likes of AIPAC and the pro-Zionist media can't even represent the opinions of it's own people and the country's real interests.

Gaza: What's An American to Do?

I for one have watched the developments in Gaza with a horrible sick feeling that my tax dollars are being used in a cynical episode of murder and ethnic genocide. It's time to turn off the tap. It's time to put the Israeli nation on notice that we regard them with the same loathing as Aparthied South Africa, China in Tibet, the Burmese military and numerous other international scum.
As a start it's time to use and fund The Real News, and Electronic Intifada for untainted news.

Another worthwhile group is The Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, donate, it's the very least we can do to counteract the evil being done in our name.

If you have Israeli business, professional, or educational links it's time to rethink the moral reprecussions. Sure there are enlightened Israelis but it's time to tell them that the deal is off until land theft, genocide, and racism is expunged from their land.

Hamas Israel and History

Amid the carnage unleashed upon Gaza for making the mistake of democratically electcing a government that neither Israel or the U.S. wanted are a few uncomfortable facts. Among these are the genesis of Hamas as a group initially supported by Israel to upset the PLO movement.
Justin Raimondo gives a comprehensive history:

"Begin and his successor, Yitzhak Shamir, launched an effort to undercut the PLO, creating the so-called Village Leagues, composed of local councils of handpicked Palestinians who were willing to collaborate with Israel – and, in return, were put on the Israeli payroll. Sheik Yassin and his followers soon became a force within the Village Leagues. This tactical alliance between Yassin and the Israelis was based on a shared antipathy to the militantly secular and leftist PLO: the Israelis allowed Yassin's group to publish a newspaper and set up an extensive network of charitable organizations, which collected funds not only from the Israelis but also from Arab states opposed to Arafat.

Ami Isseroff, writing on MideastWeb, shows how the Israelis deliberately promoted the Islamists of the future Hamas by helping them turn the Islamic University of Gaza into a base from which the group recruited activists – and the suicide bombers of tomorrow. As the only higher-education facility in the Gaza strip, and the only such institution open to Palestinians since Anwar Sadat closed Egyptian colleges to them, IUG contained within its grounds the seeds of the future Palestinian state. When a conflict arose over religious issues, however, the Israeli authorities sided with the Islamists against the secularists of the Fatah-PLO mainstream. As Isseroff relates, the Islamists

"Encouraged Israeli authorities to dismiss their opponents in the committee in February of 1981, resulting in subsequent Islamisation of IUG policy and staff (including the obligation on women to wear the hijab and thobe and separate entrances for men and women), and enforced by violence and ostracization of dissenters. Tacit complicity from both university and Israeli authorities allowed Mujama to keep a weapons cache to use against secularists. By the mid 1980s, it was the largest university in occupied territories with 4,500 students, and student elections were won handily by Mujama."

Again, the motive was to offset Arafat's influence and divide the Palestinians. In the short term, this may have worked to some extent; in the longer term, however, it backfired badly – as demonstrated by the results of the recent Palestinian election.

The Hamas infrastructure of mosques, clinics, kindergartens, and other educational institutions flourished not only because they were lavishly funded, but also due to being efficiently run. Sheik Yassin and the future leaders of Hamas acquired a reputation for "clean" governance and good administrative practices, which would greatly aid them – especially in comparison to the PLO, which was widely perceived as corrupt. Indeed, "clean government" – and not the necessity of armed struggle – was the main theme of their successful election campaign."

Americans of course don't distinguish much between Sunnis (Hamas) and Shiites (Hezbollah), and thus we see Americans and Israelis trying to make the case that the problem is provoked by Iran which makes no sense at all. Israel of course is more than happy to take advantage of this and we suffer and the world suffers.As an American taxpayer I am tired of funding this travesty and as we face American financial meltdown hopefully we understand why now is the time to get with reality.

Georgia-Russia The Truth Emerges

At last some sembalance of the truth begins to emerge regarding the Georgian-Russian dispute. Mark Ames gives a coherent account of media deception especially coming out of the NY Times.His account is well worth reading and taking into consideration as the U.S. supposedly transitions to better relations with the rest of the world:

"From the moment Georgia launched its invasion against the breakaway region of South Ossetia this past August, sparking a wider war with neighboring Russia, the New York Times's news coverage depicted Georgia as an innocent victim of Russia's neo-imperialist evil. In doing so, the Times engaged in the sort of media malpractice that it promised its readers wouldn't happen again after its disastrous coverage of the lead-up to the Iraq War."

Please read on.

Lithuania Leaves Iraq

The coalition of the "willing" gets smaller every day. Quite frankly I wasn't even aware of the Lithuanian contribution to George Bush's tilting at middle-eastern windmills.God knows we will miss all 53 of them.Perhaps there's work in Georgia. As per the UPI :

"The remaining 53 members of the Lithuanian armed forces serving in Iraq concluded their mission there in a ceremony in Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

Lithuania had deployed around 100 military personnel to aid in the international effort in Iraq. Lithuanian officials in 2005 cut that deployment in half in the wake of the Dec. 15 general elections in Iraq.

Lithuanian forces provided training to Iraqi troops in combat triage, driver's training and how to identify improvised explosive devices, the U.S. military in Iraq said in a statement.

"To Iraq's benefit and through the Republic of Lithuania's efforts, you have helped to ensure a higher quality of life for all the people of Iraq," said U.S. commander Brig. Gen. Michael Ferriter.

The departure follows similar actions by scores of other coalition forces concluding their missions in Iraq as the U.N. mandate for international force expires at the end of December."

Russia to Support NATO Supply Lines in Afghanistan

This week saw further deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan via Pakistan with the destruction of hundreds of transport vehicles outside of Peshawar. While American and NATO officials attempt to downplay the signifigance of the attacks it remains that 70% of supplies for NATO come through Pakistan.
The only viable option for NATO and the U.S. is the Northern one through Russia and its CIS associates. As noted in the TimesOnline:

"Nato plans to open a new supply route to Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia in the next eight weeks following a spate of attacks on its main lifeline through Pakistan this year, Nato and Russian sources have told The Times.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the former Soviet Central Asian states that lie between Russia and Afghanistan, have agreed in principle to the railway route and are working out the small print with Nato, the sources said.

“It'll be weeks rather than months,” said one Nato official. “Two months max.”

The “Northern Corridor” is expected to be discussed at an informal meeting next week between Dmitri Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to Nato, and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato's Secretary-General.
The breakthrough reflects Nato and US commanders' growing concern about the attacks on their main supply line, which runs from the Pakistani port of Karachi via the Khyber Pass to Kabul and brings in 70 per cent of their supplies. The rest is either driven from Karachi via the border town of Chaman to southern Afghanistan - the Taleban's heartland - or flown in at enormous expense in transport planes that are in short supply.

“We're all increasingly concerned,” Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on Wednesday. “But in that concern, we've worked pretty hard to develop options.”

The opening of the Northern Corridor also mirrors a gradual thaw in relations between Moscow and Nato, which plunged to their lowest level since the end of the Cold War after Russia's brief war with Georgia in August.

However, Nato and the United States are simultaneously in talks on opening a third supply route through the secretive Central Asian state of Turkmenistan to prevent Russia from gaining a stranglehold on supplies to Afghanistan, the sources said. Non-lethal supplies, including fuel, would be shipped across the Black Sea to Georgia, driven to neighbouring Azerbaijan, shipped across the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan and then driven to the Afghan border.

The week-long journey along this “central route” would be longer and more expensive than those through Pakistan or Russia and would leave supplies vulnerable to political volatility in the Caucasus and Turkmenistan.

The US and Nato are, though, exploring as many alternatives as possible as America prepares to deploy 20,000 more troops - three quarters of them by the summer - to add to the 67,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan. Turkmenistan represents the only realistic alternative that bypasses Russia. A route through Iran is out of the question because Washington does not have diplomatic relations with Tehran. Afghanistan's border with China is too remote to be used.

An agreement with Georgia has already been signed and negotiations with Azerbaijan are “ongoing”, a Nato official said.

Nato began exploring alternative supply routes in response to political instability in Pakistan last year and reached an informal agreement with Russia on the Northern Corridor at a Nato summit in Bucharest in April. At the same meeting President Berdymukhammedov of Turkmenistan offered to allow Nato to take supplies across its territory and to establish logistics bases there, according to Nato sources.

Negotiations stalled after the Georgian crisis, as Nato suspended high-level contacts with Moscow and Central Asian countries grew wary of angering the former Soviet master.

They have since shown their independence by refusing to back Moscow's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

Russia, meanwhile, has been offering preferential treatment to Nato members that it considers “friendly”, such as France and Germany, the only Nato members allowed to fly supplies to Afghanistan through Russian airspace. In November Germany also became the first Nato member allowed to bring supplies for Afghanistan through Russia by railway.

Russian officials say that Moscow is ready to open the Northern Corridor to all Nato members as soon as the alliance finalises its agreements with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The agreements cover non-military supplies such as fuel, food and clothing, and some non-lethal military equipment.

“All Nato countries will be able to use the Northern Corridor,” one Russian official familiar with the negotiations told The Times. “As far as we understand, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have agreed to it and sent the relevant papers to Brussels. We're just waiting for Nato to sign the agreements. We've done our part.”

BORDER WOES

A spate of attacks by Pakistani militants on supply convoys to Nato and US forces has caused backlogs and border closures (Jeremy Page writes). More than 1,000 trucks are stalled on the Afghan border and haulage costs are up by almost 70 per cent.Pakistani authorities have closed the border at Torkham, near the Khyber Pass, after militants set fire to at least 260 vehicles, including American Humvees, last weekend and attacked two cargo terminals in Peshawar on Thursday."

In the long run I think its safe to say that Georgia, the Baltic states, and others who benefited from American strategic myopia had best forget their delusions and adjust to the new reality.

Russian Collapse....Again

Global collapse continues to make itself felt in places thought to be impervious. The Russian economy is one such place:

"On 9 December, Russia’s State Statistics Service revealed the GDP growth figures for the third quarter. And – lo and behold – they are “surprisingly bad”, “much worse than expected”, “below market expectations”, etc. (Read the reports in The Moscow Times, Bloomberg and Reuters).

You might think that by now economists would no longer be surprised by the stream of dire economic news. For anyone who has been closely following what has been happening in Russia’s economy over recent weeks, it’s increasingly obvious that it has essentially stepped off a cliff. As Danske Bank economist Lars T. Rasmussen writes in a research note: “The question is whether there will be any economic growth at all in Russia next year.”

“But surely 6.2% growth in the third quarter isn’t so bad?” I hear you say. Think again. That figure is the year-on-year change, not the quarterly change. In other words, it includes the rapid growth that took place in the first half of this year and the fourth quarter of 2007, when Russia’s GDP was still growing by 8%. The month-on-month trends show that output is already contracting. Russia’s GDP fell by 0.4% in October, according to government officials.

Now, the signs are that production in Russia is not simply stagnating: It is in fact plummeting like a stone. Industrial output, generally an early indicator of GDP trends, has been falling for months – by a cumulative 5% between July and October. And the output decline appears to have accelerated dramatically in November and December. According to the latest government figures, cited in the Moscow Times article, manufacturing production will have plummeted by an additional 10% by the end of the year."

This puts the Kremlin in a precarious and perhaps more agreeable position than it has been regarding international relations but of course this remains to be seen. Energy concerns of course contintue to drop:

"With Russia’s reserves the third biggest after China’s and Japan’s, fiscal stimulus is a “feasible option” for authorities to counter the slowdown, though with revenue from oil eroded, a spending boost “faces constraints,” wrote Vogel. Russia’s reserves may be tied up in supporting banks through the lending drought, he said.

“Lower oil-price risk scenarios imply greater-than-expected defaults in the private sector, failures among smaller banks, continuing high interest rates and banking system problems,” Vogel wrote. Commodities-based companies will cut back capital investment by 20 percent to 30 percent, he added.

Urals crude, Russia’s main export blend, was at $39.81 today, plunging almost 60 percent in the past three months. Oil prices of $70-a-barrel average are required to balance Russia’s budget.

Safety Cushion

Russia’s reserves, including oil funds that exclusively act as a safety cushion for the budget, stood at $454.9 billion in the week ended Nov. 28. The government has pledged more than $200 billion of tax cuts, loans and other measures to support economic growth.

Russia has also drained about a quarter of its foreign-cash reserves to prop up the ruble since July, which it is now allowing to gradually depreciate. Vogel expects another 15 percent decline in the ruble’s value by the middle of next year against the central bank’s basket of dollars and euros.

The currency was at 27.9128 per dollar by 4:38 p.m. in Moscow, from 27.9279 yesterday. Against the euro, the ruble traded at 36.1476, from 36.1014. The ruble was little changed at 31.6153 versus the basket.

Barcalys lowered its forecast for Russian growth next year from a 4.6 percent prediction in June. "

Ford Fails In Russia

In case you wondered how the extra-continental experiences of the Big Three were going here's an answer:

"Hopes dimmed Monday that Russia and other emerging markets could help tide over the automotive industry in the U.S. and European markets as Ford Motor followed Volkswagen and Renault in suspending production at Russian assembly lines.

Although Ford's fortunes were less than glittering elsewhere, the company has over the past decade anticipated a huge surge in demand for cars in Russia. As sales fell in the United States, Russia had remained an engine of growth for imports and the domestically assembled sedans. Ford chose Moscow as the site for its largest dealership in Europe.

In fact, the Ford Focus was the best-selling brand in Russia in recent years, easily outpacing its Japanese and European competition and proving that Ford could make profits by efficiently building a compact family car.

Demand exploded so quickly that the company at one point had a six-month backlog of orders for the Focus, which is built at a plant near St. Petersburg.

The company, citing poor sales, said Monday that it would idle that plant from Dec. 24 until Jan. 21 for an extended New Year's holiday. Focus sales in October were down 30 percent from a year earlier, the news agency Interfax reported."

"When it opened in 2002, the Ford plant became the first fully owned foreign automobile assembly line in Russia. Factories for Nissan, Toyota and parts makers followed. The district around St. Petersburg now has so many such plants that it has come to be known as Russia's Detroit.

The Russian car boom seems over now. Volkswagen and Renault have also idled Russian plants for an extended winter holiday."

Umm... let me see.... unemployed Americans,... unemployed Russians, tons of nukes, WTF is next?

Vlad, Boris, and Sarah

A bunch of retards are gloatng over Saxby Chambliss's victory in Georgia as a sign of the potential of Sarah Palin. I believe News Hounds has it right as do Vlad and Boris (thanks to the Mississippifarian).

The Hiatus

A little explanation is in order, the past month has been a whirlwind in every way. The U.S. election was of course the culmination of local effort by Mrs.WINston Smith and to a lesser degree myself. Two days later, as according to plan, we fled to southern Chile and spent an unforgetable 10 days or so amongst the lakes, volcanoes, and wine bottles. Now it's back home and the truly challenging reality of contemporary America.

Endorsments Wanted and Not

So what's new about this?

"Desperate to downplay the seeming Al Qaeda endorsement, Team McCain quickly convened a conference call to insist that Al Qaeda's statements of support for McCain constitute reverse psychology intended to damage his prospects. McCain ally and former CIA Director Jim Woolsey claimed Al Qaeda's man was "not speaking from his heart."

Of course, when the topic was Hamas and Barack Obama, not so much.

Svetlana Bakhmina

С Днём Рождения, Светлана Бахмина! from dmitryhorse on Vimeo.

Svetlana Bakhmina is a lawyer who's main crime is defending an out of favor oligarch, Mikhail Khodorovski as well as being held on trumped up embezzlement charges.The interesting thing here is the existence of a "normal" Russian Society. Mikhail Gorbachev, who is the Russian equivalent of Jimmy Carter, is also behind this:

"Gorbachev Seeks Yukos Lawyer's Release
17 October 2008Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Thursday called on President Dmitry Medvedev to pardon jailed Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina, who was denied early release last month despite having served half her sentence and being seven months pregnant.

In an interview published Thursday on the web site Izbrannoe.ru, Gorbachev said Bakhmina should be pardoned because she has already served most of her sentence and because she is pregnant and has two young children to care for.

"Why keep her behind bars?" Gorbachev told the web site. "I think Russian President Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev in this case can make use of his right to pardon. I would welcome that."

An online petition asking Medvedev to pardon Bakhmina on the web site Bakhmina.ru had gathered more than 33,000 signatures as of Thursday evening.

Seven members of the Public Chamber on Wednesday signed a letter addressed to Medvedev calling for Bakhmina's release.

"We ask you to carry out an act of mercy and pardon Svetlana Bakhmina," they said in the letter, which was published on the chamber's web site.

"She has already served half her sentence (four years), and that means she has the right to be paroled."

The letter was signed by television journalist Nikolai Svanidze, lawyer Genri Reznik and pediatrician Leonid Roshal, among others. The Public Chamber has 126 members.

Bakhmina's supporters held a protest Monday and gathered signatures for the petition to Medvedev near Chistiye Prudy metro station in central Moscow.

Bakhmina is serving a 6 1/2-year sentence in Mordovia for embezzlement and tax evasion.

She was refused parole in September on the grounds that she had not reformed and had violated prison rules four times early in her sentence."

My point is that Russia is not your Commie Empire anymore. More like France or England pursuing it's own interests.

"I Feel Strongly About This Particular Point Because Of A Picture I Saw In A Magazine"

Not a big fan of Colin Powell, nonetheless, who can't be moved.

Collision of Religion for McCain

This video suggests that the McCain-Palin supporters are a conflicted, quite frankly fucked -up bunch.They deserve our pity if anything, though I admit the collision of fundamentalist faiths with so much in common as they try to grapple with their mutual exclusivity is very interesting.

Cuba Has Oil? Invasion Imminent

This article points out the uncertainty of petroleum estimates however the implications are quite obvious, if you got hydrocarbons U.S. Marines may be visiting soon.The meat of the news:

"From BBC News- Cuba's oil estimates have doubled following the inclusion of offshore fields ripe for drilling. Cubapetroleo's exploration manager Rafael Tenreyro Perez said that drilling would start in the middle of 2009.

Cubapetroleo's estimates are derived from the data extracted from geographically similar oil reserves found off the coasts of the US and Mexico.

According to the company, Cuba's undersea geology is "very similar" to the vast Mexican Cantarell and Poza Rica oil fields.

Recent estimates by the US Geological Survey indicate that only 9 billion barrels of oil lie within Cuba's portion of the Gulf of Mexico.

Tenreyro, however, believes his company has a better knowledge of Cuba's offshore geology.

At a news conference in the capital Havana, he said: "I'm almost certain that if [USGS officials] ask for all the data we have, their estimate is going to grow considerably."

If the estimates prove true, Cuban oil reserves will rival that of the US (with 21 billion barrels) and will be double that of Mexico's 11.7 billion barrels.

Cuba currently produces 60,000 barrels of oil a day."

As if the U.S. needs another simplistic excuse to deal with it's energy crisis.

Alaska, Gazprom, and Palin

As reported here last June, Gazprom has been showing interest in developing Alaskan energy projects. Further proof continues to emerge with the report of Gazprom executives reported to be in talks with Alaskan officials as well as other multinationals with interests in the area. The International Herald Tribune reports that even while Sarah Palin continues her ill-informed ramblings about Russia and Putin talks are going on:

"MOSCOW: Gazprom, the biggest Russian energy company, offered to help Alaska increase natural gas supplies to the U.S. mainland, even after Governor Sarah Palin warned against Russian resurgence while campaigning for vice president.

The Russian state-run natural gas company sent eight senior executives to Anchorage for talks Monday with officials from the state Department of Natural Resources and with the ConocoPhillips chief executive, Jim Mulva, state and company officials said.

Gazprom, which supplies a quarter of the natural gas used by Europe, is seeking to increase its reach with projects around the world, including in North America. The courtship of Alaska comes less than a month after Palin criticized Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for "rearing his head" regarding the Russian maritime border with her state.

"The timing is as interesting as the visit itself," said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at UralSib Financial in Moscow. "Gazprom's entire senior management goes into Sarah Palin's backyard during a contentious election. There's a message there."

The Gazprom chief executive, Aleksei Miller, was accompanied by his deputies Valery Golubev, who served alongside Putin in the KGB, and Alexander Medvedev, who oversees Russian exports of natural gas. Gazprom said its executives had held a working breakfast with Walter Hickel, a former governor of Alaska and a supporter of Palin....Miller said in June that Gazprom had approached ConocoPhillips and BP on joining their Denali pipeline project, designed to deliver Alaskan natural gas to the Continental United States. At the same time, Gazprom expressed interest in a rival pipeline project backed by TransCanada.

Gazprom did not specifically discuss pipeline projects during the meeting with Alaskan officials, said Marty Rutherford, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Natural Resources.

"They were talking very generically," she said. "They would love to partner with us and other firms."

Talks with Conoco, which is based in Houston, focused on "broad-based business opportunities," a company spokesman, Charlie Rowton, said."

The fact that this may actually be serious is supported by the involvement of Eni, an Italian energy firm with close connections to Gazprom as evidenced by developments reported in the Petroleum News and other places:

"Eni and Gazprom have agreed to sign a new binding document by the end of October 2008 relating to the development of the Artic Gas assets that Eni acquired in 2007.

In particular the agreement will relate to the development plan as well as the offtake and transportation of the gas from Artic Gas.

The agreement to be signed will enable Gazprom to enter the Libian upstream. Eni and Gazprom also reviewed the progress made on South Stream."

"Eni Petroleum recently secured its first drilling permits for the Nikaitchuq offshore unit in the Beaufort Sea. The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission issued permits for a development well and service well, both located at Oliktok Point.

The Italian major sanctioned the $1.45 billion project this past January, laying out a plan for drilling around 80 wells from a combination of onshore and offshore pads. The company also plans to build independent processing facilities to support the unit."

You do have to wonder if Govenor Palin even has a clue about any of these goings ons even as she's touted as an energy expert.Suspect the truth may lie a little closer to these observations made at MSNBC:

"The Alaska governor, whom McCain cited as probably knowing more about energy than anyone in this country, "seemed to have problems Thursday explaining whether the government bans oil exports -- especially from her state's North Slope fields…. No Alaska oil has been exported since 2004, and little if any since 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Research Service. And Congress has never imposed outright bans on oil exports. Congress prohibited exports of Alaska oil in 1973 when the Alaska oil pipeline was built. But that ban was lifted in 1996 when there were large volumes of Alaska oil coming down from the North Slope and U.S. demand was soft. The Alaska ban has never been reinstated."

The Washington Post delves into Palin's calendar as governor for the last two years, and it finds that this last 12 months, she was a lot busier boosting her own PR than in the first 12 months. "During her first months in office, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin kept a relatively light schedule on her workdays in Juneau, making ceremonial appearances at sports events and funerals, meeting with state lawmakers, and conducting interviews with Alaska magazines, radio stations and newspapers.”

“But this spring, Palin's official calendar chronicles an extraordinary rise to national prominence. A fresh face in Republican politics, she was discovered by the national news media at least in part because of a determined effort by a state agency to position her as an oil and gas expert who could tout Alaska's determined effort to construct a natural gas pipeline. An outside public relations expert hired under a $31,000 contract with the state Department of Natural Resources pitched the ‘upstart governor’ as a crusader against Big Oil, a story line that Palin has adopted in her campaign as Sen. John McCain's running mate. The contract was the only time the Palin administration hired an outside consultant to set up media interviews, a function performed in many states by government employees."

Out of touch and out of the loop and in a worst case scenario our next President?

Icelandic-Russian Bailout

You may not have noticed but Iceland, a NATO member, had it's economic system collapse last week. Iceland has a population of approximately 350,000 and a per capita income of $35,000 (U.S. 41,000). It is now looking at a 5.4 billion dollar rescue from Russia.The implications are interesting to say the least. Jim Kunstler in Clusterfuck Nation sums it up nicely:

"Iceland is the poster-child du jour for this. The little island nation of about 320,000 souls (roughly half of Vermont's population) lately grew a banking sector that thrived on something-for-nothing finance. In little more than a month, its banks have imploded like mini death stars, leaving Iceland with a pariah currency. Since it has to import just about everything, and it suddenly finds itself unable to pay for imports, the people are stripping the grocery markets of whatever remains there now. You wonder what they will do in two weeks. Ten years from now there may be 32,000 of them left, subsisting on blubber sandwiches."

While the Russian stock market has taken even bigger hits than the U.S. the damage has been relatively contained as opposed to the melt down of the Russian economy under Yeltsin in 1998. The other aspects of new found Russian wealth are explored inthe "Moscow Times":

"The government is sitting on a giant pile of cash that it plans to invest in foreign assets. It began to flex its economic muscle this week, when the prime minister of Iceland announced that Russia may lend it 4 billion euros ($5.4 billion) to shore up its teetering financial system. Who would have thought that, given the chaotic Russia of the 1990s, a mere 10 years later it would be in the position to bail out a developed country and NATO member? Even more surprising is the fact that this helping hand for Iceland comes at a time when the domestic stock market is in a free fall and trading on the Moscow stock exchange is routinely halted.

The Kremlin thinks that now is the time to buy assets cheaply, using the current financial crisis to emerge as a powerful global economic player. As Prime Minister Vladimir Putin remarked at a recent meeting with the CEO of state-owned bank VTB, "Perhaps we should buy something [abroad]? Something that is up for grabs?" According to Arkady Dvorkovich, an economic aide to President Dmitry Medvedev, the government will support -- both diplomatically and financially -- the expansion of Russian companies abroad.

Following the Russian-Georgian war, the West is scared that the Kremlin will use its cash not just for economic purposes, but as an aggressive foreign policy tool as well. Should the West really consider blocking Russian investments abroad as a way to influence Russia?

Trying to erect an Iron Curtain around Russian funds and businesses will prove counterproductive. Indeed, a large-scale "invasion" of Russian business would be a positive development, because it would foster economic interdependence. This is true even if the economic expansion is led by state-owned companies and by Russian wealth funds. By investing in U.S. and European assets, Russia's government and business elites are buying a stake in the global economy. This should bring better mutual understanding and a more rational and accountable foreign policy.

Paradoxically, despite recent hits to the country's stock market, Russia remains awash in cash. The government just rolled out a $130 billion bailout plan for the country's ailing banking system. As a percentage of gross domestic product, this would be equivalent to about $1.3 trillion in the United States -- almost double the plan designed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Yet, even this package has not significantly eaten into Russia's wealth funds and the world's third-largest currency reserves.

The government's Reserve Fund, created to cushion the economy from a fall in oil prices, stands at $140 billion, and the National Welfare Fund, intended to invest in high-return vehicles, holds another $30 billion. Although the National Welfare Fund is not officially a "sovereign wealth fund," it is already among the 10 largest such funds, rivaling the Brunei Investment Agency.

The Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund combined rival Singapore's Temasek Holdings, currently sixth in the world, and lag just behind the China Investment Corporation. By design, this money is intended to be invested outside Russia. As today's financial crisis has made many Western assets cheap, they are now within reach of the country's government and leading companies.

Russian private and state-owned companies have already invested abroad extensively, often buying stakes in large foreign companies. Overall, the top 25 Russian companies hold $59 billion in foreign assets and are the third-largest investors in emerging economies, following Hong Kong and Brazil. Even though the financial crisis has wiped out the Russian stock market, some of the best-run companies have endured a softer blow than their Western counterparts and will therefore be shopping in the global market next year.

Russian corporations' foreign investments have already generated a heated debate in both the United States and Europe -- even when investment was made by a private company. The largest controversy surrounded a merger that Russian steel giant Severstal sought with Luxemburg-based Arcelor. Severstal was rejected in favor of Mittal Steel, with some commentators claiming that the decision was made on political grounds. But no investment by a private Russian company has, so far, been vetoed by Western governments."

If Russians were to buy the GM plant in Janesville WI I suspect the inhabitants would be glad to have an economic bailout of their locality. Unfortunately for them this will probably not happen.The question for many Americans is to look around at what is grown and eaten in your neighborhood and buy that up. It is what you will have in the long run.

Debatable Debates

While I am an Obama supporter by default I must admit that last night's so-called debate was enough to make me turn off the sound at one point and watch video on the laptop from the Real News.Between Brokaw's incessant interruptions about the time limits and McCain's pre-senile ramblings there really wasn't much happenning. After last week's much anticipated VP debate I guess I wasn't surprised at the lack of content.I will say that Sarah Palin's robotic performance was enough to produce psychic vomit dripping from the ceiling. My favorite commentary comes from Michelle Goldberg of the Guardian:

" Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.

By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said.

And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity.

It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.

In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and determine whether a candidate's responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan. The criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.

There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It's worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is how she responded to Biden's comments about how the middle class has been short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue Bush's policies:

Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate.

Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty. Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn't understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her "connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills?"

None of Palin's children, it should be noted, is heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq, and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described "fuckin' redneck". Palin is a woman who can't even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but a farce doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk."

Why is American political discourse so dissconnected from the realities of empire collapse and meglomanic militarism? Part of the problem resides in the duopoly of the two-party system which has been a bi-partisan effort to bring us to the abyss we are currently peering into.No one questions the 600 billion plus military budget that supports the empire of bases that has characterized the national security state that most Americans call protecting the "freeworld".
An intergral part is Commission on Presidential Debates which since 1985 has constricted political discourse in the U.S. As reported by Fairness and Accuracy In Media:

"The origins of the Commission on Presidential Debates can be traced to 1985 discussions between the national chairs of the Democratic and Republican parties, Paul Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf, which led to an agreement to cooperate in the production of "nationally televised joint appearances conducted between the presidential and vice-presidential nominees of the two major political parties…. It is our conclusion that future joint appearances should be principally and jointly sponsored and conducted by the Republican and Democratic Committees." (Joint Memorandum of Agreement on Presidential Candidate Joint Appearances, 11/26/85)

For an example of a real debate I would cite this recent exchange in the upcoming Canadian elections where there were actually five parties represented:

"Stephen Harper admitted Thursday that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was a mistake - one that Canadian troops would have been plunged into had he been prime minister in 2003.

The grudging admission came during the second televised leaders debate as the five leaders discussed the Canadian mission in Afghanistan.

Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe needled Harper about the embarrassing revelation that whole sections of a speech about the Iraq war, delivered by Harper as opposition leader in 2003, were lifted almost word for word from a speech delivered two days earlier by Australia's prime minister at the time, John Howard.

A Conservative speechwriter resigned Tuesday after taking the blame for plagiarizing Howard's speech.

Duceppe said the Afghan mission has proved longer and more dangerous than anticipated because U.S. President George W. Bush diverted American troops to Iraq.

"If the situation is so tough in Afghanistan, certainly a large part of that is because of the error made by George Bush by going in Iraq," he said to Harper.

"Do you realize today that you were making a huge error by supporting Bush and Australia ... and would you make the same decision today as you were proposing Canada to do in 2003?"

The prime minister initially tried to dodge the question.

"I've made it very clear Canada is not going to Iraq. Obviously you know the answer to that question," he said.

But Duceppe continued to badger him as Harper tried to steer the discussion back to Afghanistan: "This is not the question I asked. . . I want to hear it. Do you admit it was an error of George Bush and you made the same error?"

Harper finally answered: "It was absolutely an error. It's obviously clear the evaluation of weapons of mass destruction proved not to be correct. That's absolutely true and that's why we're not sending anybody to Iraq."

Green Leader Elizabeth May shot back: "We're only not sending anyone to Iraq because you weren't prime minister at the time."

Harper's admission was in stark contrast to the speech he gave in the House of Commons - much of it cribbed from Howard - on the first full day of the Iraq invasion in March 2003.

"Alliances are a two-way process," he said at the time.

"We should not leave it to the United States to do all the heavy lifting just because it is the world's only superpower."

Harper urged Canada to join Bush's "coalition of the willing" in Iraq, relying heavily on American assertions that Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction.

"As the possession of weapons of mass destruction spreads, the danger of such weapons coming into the hands of terrorist groups will multiply, particularly given in this case the shameless association of Iraq with rogue non-state organizations," he argued.

"That is the ultimate nightmare which the world must take decisive and effective steps to prevent. Possession of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by terrorists would constitute a direct, undeniable and lethal threat to the world, including to Canada and its people."

Harper was not so verbose on Thursday.

He had little to say beyond his admission that he and Bush were mistaken. Asked about it after the debate, Harper immediately changed the subject."

One can only imagine what a presidential debate including Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney might add to the real debate which is curiously missing in this campaign. I would encourage interested readers to Open Debates which addresses the Debate debate.