"We only went into Iraq because of oil, you know." "We only appease Saudi Arabia because of oil, you know." To hear people talk sometimes, you'd think they never used oil. - David Mitchell on hypocrisy and politics, and how we blame our leaders for making decisions based on what we want, not on what we say.
posted by Artw on Oct 19, 2009 - 74 comments

Cuba's Undersea Oil Could Help Thaw Trade With U.S. [WAPO bugmenot] - Deep in the Gulf of Mexico, an end to the 1962 U.S. trade embargo against Cuba may be lying untapped, buried under layers of rock, seawater and bitter relations. [more inside]
posted by Burhanistan on May 16, 2009 - 29 comments

In 2009, a remarkably gifted politician, confronting a remarkably difficult set of challenges, will have to learn to say "No we can't", Guantánamo will prove a moral minefield, economic recovery will be invisible to the naked eye, governments must prepare for the day they stop financial guarantees, we will judge our commitment to sustainability, scientists should research the causes of religion, we will all be potential online paparazzi, English will have more words than any other language (but it's meaningless), Afghanistan will see a surge of Western (read: American) troops, Iran will continue its nuclear quest while diplomacy lies in shambles, the sea floor is the new frontier, we should rethink aging, (non-)voters will continue to thwart the European project -- but cheap travel will continue to buoy it -- though it has some unfinished business to attend to, and a Nordic defence bond will blossom.

The Economist: The World in 2009. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 27, 2008 - 31 comments

Jane Meyer of The New Yorker explains how John McCain came to pick Sarah Palin [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Oct 20, 2008 - 189 comments

"Fog of War" cited by United States Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad. He was speaking to journalists to clarify reports concerning his unauthorised contacts with foreign government officials, among them Asif Ali Zardari; a then contender to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan. Earlier this year he was being touted as a possible successor to Hamid Karzai as President of Afghanistan as seen in these two articles. So who is Zalmay Khalilzad? Neo con and oil businessman. [more inside]
posted by adamvasco on Sep 10, 2008 - 8 comments

Persia: Ancient Soul of Iran. "A glorious past inspires a conflicted nation."
posted by homunculus on Aug 4, 2008 - 35 comments

Andy Grove on Our Electric Future - "Energy independence [viz.] is the wrong goal. Here is a plan Americans can stick to." Perhaps some infrastructure spending^1,2 is in order? [etc., &c., cf.] [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Jul 15, 2008 - 14 comments

Bush had Karl Rove. But the original wiretapping President needed brains too. Introducing Kevin Phillips. He predicted the prolonged Republican dominance of Washington 1970-present and advised the Ford and Reagan presidencies. He predicted a more liberal 1990s and when the Bushies killed his party he became uttery disgusted. Recently he spoke about the influence of the christian right, our addiction to oil, and America's debt (public and private) at the University of California Santa Barbara. [more inside]
posted by Parallax.Error on Jun 28, 2008 - 57 comments

PM John Howard denies Iraq-oil link
posted by andihazelwood on Jul 5, 2007 - 37 comments

Last Chance. "It took the Mississippi River 6,000 years to build the Louisiana coast. It took man (and natural disasters) 75 years to destroy it. Experts agree we have 10 years to act before the problem is too big to solve." [Via First Draft.]
posted by homunculus on Mar 5, 2007 - 19 comments

the new urban jungle . . . is a growing movement led by cities like San Francisco, New York, and Leiden to restore active and vibrant natural systems in urban areas. Far from the eden-like depictions of nature of yesteryear, i.e. the garden of earthly delights (nonetheless, still attracting some dynamic new christian converts), the movement has morphed into today's backyard and grassroots environmental movement which is more and more a picture of hybridity, compromise, mixed-use, and ultimately, taking nature out of the walled islands of zoos, aquaria, national parks and other thick-walled institutions and offering a different kind of everyday "unmediated" community experience with the new urban wilderness. VIDEO LINK
posted by huckhound on Jul 6, 2006 - 1 comment

The Paradigm is the Enemy: A sobering but cogent account of the state of Peak Oil, what it's already led to (reported and ignored), and what is in store for us in the near future. The worst part is the political impossibility of addressing the problem constructively: that would require acknowledging the problem.
posted by LeisureGuy on Apr 29, 2006 - 99 comments

All Your Oil Are Belong To Us. Coming off of a recordbreaking profitable quarter, the good chaps at ExxonMobil laugh at your puny attempts to get off of oil.
posted by owillis on Feb 7, 2006 - 82 comments

15 of 19 were Saudis. And now, continuing a trend from the Kingdom, most of the suicide bombers in Iraq are known to be Saudi Arabian.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket on May 17, 2005 - 42 comments

In the first sweeping review of US Ocean management in 35 years the Presidential appointed U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy has released a report recommending creation of the Ocean Policy Trust Fund to be funded by off-shore oil companies in exchange for drilling rights to the tune of $5 billion a year. Initial reactions are mixed. All praise the reports acknowledgement of serious Ocean mismanagement problems, but some think the report has no teeth, or there is a hidden oil industry agenda. Whatever happens with this amount of money it will be big, the last report in 1969 led to the creation NOAA.
posted by stbalbach on Apr 20, 2004 - 5 comments

crunch time for ANWR [nytimes link] the administration wants to push through drilling despite what the residents think, a couple of senators in minnesota, oregon, and arkansas will cast the deciding votes... is the issue worth a call to you senator?
posted by specialk420 on Mar 14, 2003 - 22 comments

U.S. admin using future shares of Iraqi oil to build anti-Iraq coalition. Nation building just doesn't get any better than this.
posted by magullo on Feb 5, 2003 - 53 comments

Molly Ivins wraps it up nicely and ties a bow on top. When Dick Cheney was CEO of the oilfield supply firm Halliburton, the company did $23.8 million in business with Saddam Hussein, the evildoer "prepared to share his weapons of mass destruction with terrorists."
posted by pejamo on Sep 4, 2002 - 22 comments

Russia to Sign Oil Deal with Iraq. We saw this coming (right?) But is the timing significant?
posted by Shane on Aug 30, 2002 - 9 comments

What bin Laden and Bush Don't Talk About: The Politics of Oil , an article on alternet.org. The title is better than the article, but it's food for thought anyway.
posted by geir on Nov 10, 2001 - 6 comments

Why am I and a few others the only ones interested in this angle of the war story. I have been doing research about our disappearing VP and have found lots more than I can link here. No implied conspiracy theory, just more of those things that make you say Hmmmm. See if you can connect the dots!
posted by bas67 on Oct 15, 2001 - 27 comments

Grand Old Petroleum. GOP. Get it? The DNC really cracks me up sometimes. This is, however, an interesting development in politics. Is every issue going to have its own clever webpage in the future? The mind boggles.
posted by CRS on May 17, 2001 - 17 comments

A new bugaboo will have to be found: The Bush Administration has decided not to attempt to drill for oil in the ANWR.
posted by aaron on Apr 22, 2001 - 26 comments

"You don't have to burn books now," says Thomas. "You just press the delete key." Two unabashedly partisan reports of the Bush administration's clandestine campaign to "tighten up" anything from online government sources dealing with the development of Alaskan mineral resources. We've done the debate on Alaska, but what about the ability to amend online records? The old administration's sites are meant to be preserved by law, but plenty appears to have been deleted in the name of "polishing": "We changed value-laden words like 'destroy' to 'impact.'" Newspeak in action? Should government-run sites be required to carry a Changelog?
posted by holgate on Apr 14, 2001 - 7 comments

Iraq improves its oil reserves This piece belongs with the other post I recently posted on oil and world political and military strategies. I guess that since filling my gas tank this evening I have narrowed my focus a bit, for which, apologies.
posted by Postroad on Mar 21, 2001 - 0 comments

Nader Responds to Accusations of Hypocrisy “I will fight for the U’wa and investor accountability by backing a shareholder resolution at the next Annual General Meeting of Fidelity Investments–one of the largest shareholders in Occidental Petroleum and I urge social and environmental screens as a filter for all holdings."
posted by snakey on Nov 3, 2000 - 13 comments

Gore's Connection to Occidental Petroleum goes much deeper than an investment in a mutual fund. From the article: "...the Clinton Administration has been quietly helping the company--a generous donor to the Democrats in recent years--to win support in Colombia for its drilling plans."
posted by snakey on Oct 28, 2000 - 34 comments

"The vice president says he would rather protect this refuge than gain the energy, but this is a false choice ..."
~G.W. Bush (on Gore's plan to keep the protected status of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while Bush plans to open up parts of the protected land to oil prospecters.)
posted by tamim on Sep 30, 2000 - 25 comments