London's Dirty Secret

A nice video soundtrack to go with this post: Atomic by Blondie



Charlie Stross muses on the recent assassination of a former Russian FSB colonel in London. If you havent' heard about this, Charlie has all the pertinent facts plus the dirty question that is sitting like an elephant in the room.

Astute readers of the daily fishwraps will have no doubt been aware of the Litvinenko poisoning. (Synopsis for aliens: a former FSB colonel, resident in London and noted for making serious accusations of terrorism at the Russian government, fell ill a month ago and died last week. The cause of death is now believed to be poisoning with radioactive Polonium 210, and police are treating the death as "suspicious" — legalese for "we think he was probably murdered but we don't have any evidence pointing to a specific third party so it's not technically a murder investigation, yet.")

Polonium 210 is interesting stuff. As noted in a variety of places on the web, it is entirely artificial — it doesn't occur naturally, but has to be created by irradiating bismuth in a nuclear reactor or particle accelerator — and it has a half life of 138 days, decaying via alpha emission. To do any damage, it needs to be up close and personal, inside the victim, because alpha particles are absorbed very rapidly: but the biological damage they cause is much more severe than gamma radiation, neutrons, or beta radiation, precisely because all their energy gets dumped into bodily tissues promptly, rather than most of it zipping right through the victim and dissipating harmlessly in mid-air.

And the Wikipedia section on Polonium toxicity makes for sobering reading. ("250 billion times as toxic as hydrogen cyanide" is not a typo!)

Anyway, I digress.

The point is, someone with access to fresh Polonium 210 (read: less than a year old, hot from the reactor) decided to use it to bump off an enemy.

And the terrorism alert status hasn't risen a notch? Pull the other one.

Anyway, to the point: this wasn't simply an assassination. There are any number of poisons out there that would do the job painfully well but much more rapidly, and without the same scope for a diplomatic incident. Likewise, a bullet to the back of the head would have worked just as well (as witness the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya).

What this is, is a warning: "we have the capability to detonate a dirty bomb in central London any time we feel like it, so don't fuck with us". (Just take Polonium and add a little TNT.)

Who the warning is from, and who the intended recipient is, are another question entirely. I don't think it's any accident that the COBRA committee was convened the day after Litvinenko's death (on a Saturday, no less). And I don't think it's any accident that the British press have been very carefully pretending the phrase "dirty bomb" is not part of their vocabulary for the past week.

We're actually facing a national security nightmare: someone has demonstrated the capability to use radiological weapons on the streets of London and we don't know who they are. (Although we can make a couple of guesses.)

Given that Litvinenko was promoting a book that asserted FSB agents blew up two apartment buildings in Moscow and pointed the finger at Chechen rebels in order to justify Putin's subsequent war on Chechnya, one possibility that must be considered is that elements of the FSB may be responsible — and willing to use radiological terrorism as a tool of foreign affairs. It may well not have been ordered by the Kremlin: all it takes is for Vladimir Putin to mutter "will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?" over his breakfast one morning, and Shit Happens in a foreign capital thousands of kilometres away. (Or it may be entirely deliberate, merely "plausibly deniable", to use the charming CIA-surplus weasel words for "we did it but you can't prove it".)

But we don't know that. It's just a guess. It might be wrong.

And what disturbs me most is that all the other possibilities I've been able to think of are worse ...

Also, see the Arms Control Wonk's Jane on Assasination By Polonium

The Gathering Storm: Peak Oil

The dark predictions of Jim Knustler are a frequent part of my reading. I generally try to take his Cassandra-like musings with a grain of salt. But lately I've found it harder and harder to brush them off.

I'm working on some alternative energy and gas tax research for the upcoming legislative session. I'm confronted daily by complete denial of the situation we are in. The current thinking on the gas tax is to raise revenue in order to... build more roads.

Anyway, here is Kunstler's latest musing with comments and footnotes. The Storm Perfected

Last week, I had one of those clarifying moments when the enormity of the American fiasco stirred my livers and lights again. I was riding in a car at sundown between St. Cloud and Minneapolis on I-94 through a fifty-mile-plus corridor of bargain shopping infrastructure on each side of the highway. The largest automobile dealerships I have ever seen lay across the edge of the prairie like so many UFO landing strips, with eerie forests of sodium-vapor lamps shining down on the inventory. The brightly colored signs of the national chain fried food parlors vied for supremacy of the horizon with the big box logos. The opposite lane was a blinding river of light as the cars plied north from the Twin Cities to these distant suburbs in the pre-Thanksgiving rush hour.

All that tragic stuff deployed out on the prairie was but the visible part of the storm now being perfected for us. On the radio, Iraq was coming completely apart and with it the illusion of America being able to control a larger set of global events -- with dire implications for all the glowing plastic crap along the interstates, and the real-live people behind the headlights in those rivers of cars.

The main fresh impression I had amidst all this is how over it is. The glowing smear of auto-oriented commerce along I-94 (visible from space, no doubt) had the look of being finished twenty minutes ago. Beyond the glowing logos lay the brand new residential subdivisions full of houses that now may never be sold, put up by a home-building industry in such awful trouble that it may soon cease to exist. If suburbia was the Great Work of the American ethos, then our work is done. We perfected it, we completed it, and, like a brand new car five minutes after delivery, it has already lost much of its value.

I had essentially the same feeling drving home on I=88 last Saturday passing the North Aurora mega-retail corridor.

The chief failure in American politics lately has been the inability to appreciate the relationship between how we live here and how other people in other lands support us with their resources -- oil from the Middle East, human labor and money saved from the fruits of human labor from the Far East. The oil obviously runs all the cars and the money from China and Japan supports our debt (and incidentally pays for building ever more big box stores and fried food emporia). The Middle East is now so close to exploding that we may not get so much oil from them in the years ahead. China and Japan have stepped back from buying American debt in the form of US Treasury certificates.

The dollar has been taking a beating against other currencies for months and reached a 20-month low against the Euro yesterday. The Chinese are leading the rush away from dollars. Washington Post and Gold Seek on this.

Even if there were no exogenous forces operating, the proverbial Man-From-Mars casual observer would have to conclude that America has built all the shopping venues it will ever need (and far beyond), and certainly more single-family housing subdivisions useful only in a happy motoring meta-system. But the exogenous events are out there and they are going to assert their power to make us uncomfortable and to alienate us from the very stuff that we have poured all of our wealth and spirit into.

The New York Times headlined yesterday that the US government might try to start negotiations with Iran and Syria over the fate of Iraq -- an idea so preposterous that it might have been a wire-story from The Onion. Iran and Syria have no interest in the matter whatsoever except in the failure of America to control events, and the humiliation entailed by that failure, which is happening on its own. So the story is a clear signal of our desperation that we are even pretending to make overtures.

See my earlier post that references John Robb on the increasing inability of the US to continue to control events there.

For the US military this is a tragedy of classical Greek dimensions, a playing out of implacable forces despite its heroism or even good intentions. But for the American public, back home, enjoying the bright lights of the WalMarts and the steaming heaps of baby back ribs, and the comfort of the ride home with the latte plugged into the cup holder and Jay-Z's inspirational thoughts playing on the car stereo -- it's really the end of the road.

I've been saying for a long time that as our illusions dropped away, the US economy would fall on its face. I think the process is underway, especially with last week's movement of the dollar against the Euro. All the elements are now set for a full-throttle depression in which currency loses value while credit dries up and incomes are lost. You get a fire-sale of assets that behaves like a deflation while the dollar itself inflates. The Federal reserve can't possibly drop interest rates if foreigners will not buy our bonds.

Losing your house to the re-po man is a major illusion-breaker. The housing bubble has popped and entered a downward self-reinforcing feedback loop that will be understood as a death-spiral of valuation. Even if nominal house prices stayed close to where they are, dollar inflation would signify a real drop in value. The jobs associated with the bubble -- everything from the legions of house-framers to the realtors to the creative mortgage hawkers to the Crate-and-Barrel furniture elves -- will drop into a black hole. Mortgage obligations will not be met, credit card payments will stop, house refinancings will no longer be possible as equity dissolves, the WalMart associates will get their pink slips, the vacancy signs will go up in the strip malls, and a mighty sob will be heard above the prairie wind.

Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture went off last week on the fudged numbers of the National Association of Realtors and reality behind the situation of the housing market. Here and here.

This is really a tight spot. Wider war in the Middle East is hardly out of the question, with Iran and a broad array of jihadistas emboldened by America's flounderings in Iraq. A year from now, perhaps, or less, we will lose our access to a substantial portion of the imported oil that we run all our stuff on. The sodium vapor lamps will flicker out. The last taco will be served. The US public will have to start paying attention and making other arrangements. I believe what Garrison Keilor says about the people in Minnesota. Scratch below the surface, you'll find a thoughtful, practical mentality. I believe that when they can't do anymore of what they're doing now, they'll turn around and do something else.

The problem that I see with Kunstler's Keillor-based silver-lining is that in order for people to make adjustments they have some sort of notion of the changes in the offing in order for that "thoughtful, practical mentality" to make useful plans. But I don't see anyone in a prominent public policy position really laying the facts out for the American people. And that includes the Democratic party by the way.

The problem, as Kunstler has often stated, is that the American people have a deep, DEEP psychological investment in the current auto-oil-suburban way of life. When and if the means to continue to feed that way of life are suddenly brought up short, thay are going to be very ill-prepared to change. The weight of popular support will go to those who promise -- whatever the cost in wealth or liberty -- to maintain the status quo.

Assigned Reading: Leadership Institute Media Session 12.13.

The below is required reading for the members of the 2006-07 Clinton Chamber Leadership Institute Class in preparation for the session on Disintermediation that I will be facilitating on 12.13.206.

This reading is required only in the sense that these concepts are driving some of the most important economic innovations happening in the world right now. Hundreds of billions of dollars and the future shape of our society depend on how we understand and make use of these concepts.

• Read the Wikipedia article on, disintermediation.


• Short post by me on Internet video disintermediation.

Also, examine the concept of the Long Tail.

• Wikipedia Entry


• Video explaining the Long Tail


• The Long Tail website for the book of the same name.

Lastly, I'd like for you to read the following two newspaper articles. Although these are political articles, and this is a (sometimes very) political blog, the politics isn't what I want you to look at. Please read the articles as attempts to convey information to you the reader. If you don't take an interest in state politics, pretend for a moment that you do.

Quad City Times: Senate Republicans elect leaders while conservatives walk out

By Todd Dorman – Saturday, November 11, 2006

DES MOINES — Defeated and divided Republicans in the Iowa Senate chose their leaders Friday, but only after a walkout by a disgruntled group of conservatives.
The Senate GOP lost five seats in Tuesday’s election, which gave Democrats a 30-20 majority in the chamber.

GOP members re-elected Sen. Mary Lundby of Marion as their top leader during a closed-door meeting at the Statehouse. But before the vote, eight Republican senators walked out of the session.

“We took an unusual beating in this last election and we must change direction,” said Sen. Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, who led the walkout. “We believe we must get back to the principles that brought Republicans to the forefront 20 years ago when Ronald Reagan ran.”

McKinley was joined by veteran Sens. Mark Zieman of Postville, Steve Kettering of Lake View, Brad Zaun of Urbandale, Nancy Boettger of Harlan, Jerry Behn of Boone, Jim Hahn of Muscatine and incoming freshman Senator-elect David Hartsuch of Bettendorf.
“It’s about getting back to our base,” Zieman said.

He contends the split occurred when conservatives were not allowed to discuss issues before the vote.

The Republicans who remained chose Lundby unanimously. Senator-elect Larry Noble of Ankeny was absent.
“There are a lot of Republicans who are unhappy. I was sorry that there’s been a division at this time,” Lundby said. “We’ll be waiting for them to come back.”
Lundby said she is confident Republicans will put up a unified front.

“We’re good, hard-working, strong Iowans. We all have strong opinions,” she added. “That doesn’t make me a bit nervous.”

Along with Lundby, Republicans elected four assistant minority leaders, including Sens. Ron Wieck of Sioux City, David Johnson of Ocheyedan, Larry McKibben of Marshalltown and Jeff Angelo of Creston.

Leadership elections likely will be more tranquil for victorious Democrats.
Democrats are expected to re-elect Sen. Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs as their leader and Jack Kibbie of Emmetsburg as Senate president.
>
Todd Dorman can be contacted at (515) 243-0138 or todd.dorman@lee.net


DES MOINES REGISTER: Lundby elected to lead Iowa Senate GOP
Eight conservative Republicans walk out of Statehouse meeting

By JONATHAN ROOS, REGISTER STAFF WRITER, November 10, 2006

Mary Lundby of Marion will continue to lead Iowa Senate Republicans, overcoming the protests of a group of conservatives who walked out of a closed-door leadership selection meeting today at the Statehouse.

Sen. Paul McKinley of Chariton led the walkout by eight GOP members. They were calling for change in the party’s direction in light of Tuesday’s election that left Democrats in control of the Legislature and cast Republicans in the role of the minority.

The 11 Senate Republicans who stayed for the rest of today’s meeting gave Lundby a vote of confidence, said Sen. Pat Ward of West Des Moines. Newcomer Larry Noble of Ankeny was unable to attend.

“My hope is we can bring ’em back together and we’ll work for the good of Iowa,” Ward said.

Senate Republicans went into the election tied with Democrats, 25-25. They emerged with just 20 seats.

Democrats also seized control of the House, winning 54 of 100 seats.

Lundby, considered a party moderate, replaced Stewart Iverson of Clarion as Senate Republican leader in a Statehouse shakeup that occurred late in the 2006 session.

Senate Democrats and Republicans shared power during the 2005 and 2006 sessions because of the 25-25 tie. Now, Lundby becomes the minority leader. Sen. John Putney of Gladbrook was chosen today to serve as the party whip. Assistant party leaders will be Sens. David Johnson of Ocheyedan, Jeff Angelo of Creston, Ron Wieck of Sioux City and Larry McKibben of Marshalltown.
>
The 2007 session starts Monday, Jan. 8. Members of the new Senate Democratic majority meet Sunday and are expected to keep the party’s leadership team intact with Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs assuming the title of Senate majority leader and Jack Kibbie of Emmetsburg serving as Senate president

;

Now, answer the following questions for yourself: What specific issues divide the GOP senators? What specifically led to the walkout? What sort of "change in direction" do the dissident senators seek? What do I know now about the state of the Iowa Republican party that I did not know before reading these articles?

Now, read the following article from the very partisan but also very plugged in blogger, Krusty Konservative.

Lundby Elected Minority Leader after Konservatives walk out

After receiving 11 votes from here Republican colleagues, Mary Lundby was elected Senate Minority Leader. However there is major rift in the Republican Kaucus in the Senate.

Before the vote was taken, Senators, McKinley Zieman, Boettger, Zahn, Hahn, Kettering, Behn and Senator-elect Hartsuch walked out of the meeting after their request that the leadership elections be postponed until Senators have a chance to regroup after the election and so that all Republican Senators could be present.

Senator Paul McKinley (District 36, Chariton) said, "Business as usual is over. Senate Republicans have to start representing the interests of Iowans by providing Republican solutions to Iowa problems. It used to be that social conservatives could work side by side with social moderates, because we all agreed on the principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility.

We have to start dealing with the issues--- taxation, letting people keep more of their own money, protecting safety and fighting crime, charting the course for alternative energy, revitalizing our rural communities and staying true to our family values."

Senator Mark Zieman (District 8, Postville) said, "I view this as a battle of Republican values. By not allowing a discussion of the last election before a leadership vote, it tells me the leadership didn't want the majority to know the facts!”

Senator Nancy Boettger (District 29, Harlan) said, "If you want to build unity in the party, you have to have open discussion."
Senator Brad Zaun (District 32, Urbandale) said, "Bottom line is-- that with such a close election for leadership we needed all members present to vote in this very important election."

Senator Jim Hahn (District 40, Muscatine) said, "This is the same scenario that they ran past us last spring, I didn't get any information before they had this vote-this is the same thing that happened now. They won't let us talk about what happened in the 2006 elections, what went wrong, how money was spent. I think we need to have an opportunity to discuss that and find out what went wrong and what we need to do to correct it.”

Senator Steve Kettering (District 26, Lakeview) said, "Clearly Democrats out organized us, out fundraised us, developed better ads and in general ran a much better campaign in this last election than Senate Republicans. It is vital that as we select leadership for the future that we have an informed discussion of what occurred in what was a disastrous election for Republicans. They didn't allow that today.”

Senator Jerry Behn (District 24, Boone) said, "Without all 20 of us there, it is not a true representation of the full caucus. There is no reason not to postpone the vote. We need to have an open and free discussion of our Republican principles and who would be the best face of those principles to Iowa.”


Dr. David Hartsuch (Senator-elect, District 41, Bettendorf) said, "Before we could consider any leadership votes, we needed to consider the significance of the Democrat tsunami so that we can determine the best course of action which reflects the will of the people. Unfortunately that didn't happen."

Can you better answer the above questions after reading the blog post? Again, pretending for the moment that you actually care for the nuances of state politics, does the fact that you know that the blogger in question is very partisan affect whether or not the article is informative? After reading it would you be more or less likely to find out additional information on this story or this topic? How much does the known (or unknownd) political position of the writer affect your decision?

Definitely be prepared to discuss in class. Feel free to start the discussion here in the comments.

Category Labels and Blogger Beta

Apparently, blogs published via FTP such as mine -- because I host my own domain and blog -- do not support the new, super-easy, drag-and-drop editing that will enable publishing of a list of all labels and keywords. This is a known bug. Hopefully, it will be fixed soon.

In the meantime, clicking on any of the labels will take you to the posts in that category. I'm just lacking the utility to (easily) list all available categories.

Also, apparently the RSS feed is broken for FTP published blogs as well.

Iraq: Beginning of Endgame?

I'm sure many have noticed my absence. Coming to grips with the new job.

Took a nice trip into Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with Laura's family there. I intentionally shied away from news but couldn't escape the images on the TV. Now, after a bit of catch-up upon arriving back home it seems time to provide some hardcore analysis.

I think that this may be the beginning of the great unravelling of our little experiment in bringing democracy to the Arab peoples. It will unfold slowly and in fits and starts but I think this is the beginning of the slow slide down into disaster. In February of this year, I wrote that the bombing of the Shiite Shrine of the Imam Hasan Al Askari would be the historical bookmark that signaled the end of any hope for a unified Iraq. I think that the events of this Thanksgiving similarly signal the effective end of American control over events and the beginning of the end for the current Iraqi governement.

John Robb breaks down the Social Disruption In Sadr City

While the governments of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the US engage in the motions of legacy power politics, Iraq's global guerrillas are decisively rending the social fabric of Iraq and potentially the Middle East. November 23, 2006 provided a solid example of an inflection point in this type disruption (like the attack on Samarra earlier this year), with a triple car bomb in Baghdad's Sadr city (200 dead and 250 wounded) and an attempted overrun of Iraq's health ministry (run by Sadr's party).

First, this attack eliminates the remaining legitimacy of the current government. It is also a deep blow to the legitimacy of Sadr's movement (despite attempts to shift blame to the US Army for the failure) since it couldn't even provide basic security in both of its showcase properties. Second, to regain legitimacy and exact revenge, the Mehdi army will certainly go onto the offensive (in contrast to inactivity the government). This offensive will likely force them to move beyond abductions and into large scale assaults in order to replicate the level of this attack. By doing so, it will achieve a goal of the attackers: it will put these militias in direct confrontation with the US army and the few functional Iraqi army units as they range beyond the borders of Sadr city.

They key question that should be in the minds of all Americans now is: What's the best way to get our men and women out of there? Because we will have to get out. It is just a matter of how bloody a trail leave behind.

Blogger Beta Upgrade

I've upgraded to the Beta Version of Blogger. Nothing you'll notice right away except that posts can now have labels, or tags by subject matter. As time allows, I'll be going back and tagging selected posts.

Hard to believe I have 140-odd posts.

Just For Fun: Kiwi!

Stumbled across this at You Tube today. Very nice animated short. I'm just love what the Internet can do for short film. The format is perfect for the medium and the bandwidth available for most users in the United States. Even a dial-up user can download an animated short film in a few minutes.

Gas Prices and the Midterm Elections

I promised to get back to energy and economics..

In the last few months in the runup to the election a number of people have approached me complaining of a "conspiracy" among republicans to lower gas prices until the elections are over. Repeatedly, I heaped scorn on them. "Don't you know anything about economics? You can't fix the price of gas in the short term without it being completely transparent to everyone that you are.

Well, as a matter of fact you can fix the price of gas in the short term and it is opaque to almost everyone except your fellow playas.

This is pretty complex, so pour yourself a cup of coffee, turn on the asnwering machine and dig Barry Ritholtz :The Big Picture: Fiends in High Places

Life is always much more fun when there's a good conspiracy theory to kick around. When the New York Times starts kicking it around too, then it can really be enjoyable.

Such is the case with the recent plunge in the price paid for gasoline by formerly dour consumers leading up to an election where the party in power is clearly having difficulty wooing the electorate. It just so happens that the newly appointed Treasury Secretary used to run the investment bank that controls the world's most important commodity index, which seven weeks ago cut the weighting of unleaded gasoline by nearly 75 percent, causing all commodity investments based on this index to sell their unleaded gasoline futures.

For the same number of buyers, a glut of sellers means lower prices, and voila! Prices at the pump drop precipitously, consumer confidence rebounds, and the electorate develops a new spring in their step.

Or at least, that's what some would have you believe. . .

A recent poll revealed that 42 percent of the respondents thought the White House had somehow manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections. They were only slightly outnumbered by the 53 percent who believed there to be no trickery involved.

Still, there are a few too many events that have lined up so precisely over the last few months that it's hard not to take notice. A recent New York Times story observed the changes made to the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index back on August 9th, particularly its fortuitous timing. Heather Timmons writes:

Wholesale prices for New York Harbor unleaded gasoline, the major gasoline contract traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, dropped 18 cents a gallon on Aug. 10, to $1.9889 a gallon, a decline of more than 8 percent, and they have dropped further since then. In New York on Friday, gasoline futures for October delivery rose 4.81 cents, or 3.2 percent, to $1.5492 a gallon. Prices have fallen 9.4 percent this year.

The August announcement by Goldman Sachs caught some traders by surprise. The firm said in early June that it planned to roll its positions in the harbor contract into another futures contract, the reformulated gasoline blendstock, which is replacing the harbor contract at the end of the year because of changes to laws about gasoline additives.

Later in June, Goldman said it had rolled a third of its gasoline holdings into the reformulated contracts but would make further announcements as to whether the remainder would be rolled over. Then in August, the bank said it would not roll over any more positions into gasoline and would redistribute the weighting into other petroleum products.

Not surprisingly, Goldman Sachs had no comment on the recent change.

Having looked at this commodity index some time ago as part of the work done for the Iacono Research website, the weightings from late June were already available in spreadsheet form. A comparison between the composition from a few months ago to the most recent data available at the GSCI page of Goldman's website shows the following changes.


The Times article states that the adjustment prompted the sell-off of some $6 billion in unleaded gasoline futures contracts, some of these being replaced by Reformulated Gasoline Blendstock for Oxygen Blending ("RBOB") futures and, as shown in the chart above, the rest being distributed to other commodities. Note that there was a hefty decline in the natural gas weighting as well.

There have been many other factors at work contributing to plunging energy prices over the last two months - the calming of tensions in the Middle East, a mild hurricane season, and improving energy production around the world - but the August 9th date serves as the peak for nearly all energy products.

So, indulging some conspiratorial inklings just a bit further, a reasonable question to ask is whether there might be a relationship between falling gasoline prices and other energy prices. Were plunging gasoline prices just part of a broad energy price deline or did it serve as a catalyst?

The price of heating oil, for example is often affected by the price of crude oil, and gasoline prices can impact how much traders will pay for other commodities.

As it turns out, the end of the first week in August marks a peak for almost all energy commodities - crude oil, heating oil, gasoline, and more. But one look at the chart below and it becomes clear which energy commodity led the others down.
The plunge of unleaded gasoline prices around this time is clear in the chart below.



With the exception of a brief exchange with always-volatile natural gas shortly after August 9th, other energy prices appear to have been led down by the falling price of unleaded gasoline. It looks like a contagion in the graphic above, spread by unleaded gasoline and picked up by other energy commodities that were unable to fight off its effects.

Not until ten days before Aramanth Advisors fessed up to their bad energy bets on the weekend of September 17th and 18th did the plunge in natural gas prices surpass that of unleaded gas. Of course, owning near ten percent of all natural gas contracts just prior to that fateful weekend, the actions of Aramanth traders leading up to their confessional likely exacerbated this decline.

So, as far as conspiracy theories go, this is quite a good one. The motivation for the commodity index change and the impact on other energy prices will likely never be confirmed or corroborated, but it makes for an interesting story.

Make a little change that causes $6 billion in unleaded gasoline futures to be dumped onto the NYMEX, then watch prices tumble. Stand clear, watching for traders like Aramanth to implode, and get ready to mop up any other messes that arise during the process - all to relieve a little pain at the pump, prior to the polls opening.

Some at the White House may be patting themselves on the back figuring that the best thing they've done in years was to get Hank Paulson to take the job at Treasury.

It's good to have friends in high places.

Nice little scam, eh? Too bad it availed them nothing. Price of unleaded gas now? Well I'm sure everyone has noticed the price is up in the low two-and-teens. After hitting a low of $1.45/gallon in late October, it has begun moving back up and was $1.53 yesterday.

Hit It!

My favorite ad of the cycle. What are you going to tell your children? One way or another, back to energy and economics later in the week. But not tomorrow. No, tomorrow is hangover day. One way or another.

Pre-Election Roundup

From The Union Thug, the masterful Bill Maher. Always be closing!


So much for my prognostication powers. The Des Moines Register has Braley 21 points over Whalen! Twenty-one! Dang! The same poll is all over the map in a four day period on the Culver-Nussle race but shows Culver holding a nine point lead. I'm going to stick to my dead heat prediction. Maybe 50,000 votes separate the two.

Don't even get me started on Rev. Ted Haggard. "I am a deciever and a liar." That pretty much sums up the leaders of most organized religions in my book. No, that's mean. Hate the sin, love the sinner. On second thought, screw the sinner. Oops! Someone already did.

How bad are things for the Republican Party nationally? The man running to replace the President's brother won't appear with the President. Florida gubernatorial candidate, Charlie Crist, skipped an appearance with President Bush in order to scramble around the state trying to save what was a fifteen point lead three weeks ago.

The American Conservative magazine pens an editorial urging Americans to turn out the Republican majority and humble the president.

Meanwhile, America’s image in the world, its capacity to persuade others that its interests are common interests, is lower than it has been in memory. All over the world people look at Bush and yearn for this country—which once symbolized hope and justice—to be humbled. The professionals in the Bush administration (and there are some) realize the damage his presidency has done to American prestige and diplomacy. But there is not much they can do.

There may be little Americans can do to atone for this presidency, which will stain our country’s reputation for a long time. But the process of recovering our good name must begin somewhere, and the logical place is in the voting booth this Nov. 7. If we are fortunate, we can produce a result that is seen—in Washington, in Peoria, and in world capitals from Prague to Kuala Lumpur—as a repudiation of George W. Bush and the war of aggression he launched against Iraq.

And lastly the tale of the new Elephant Graveyard in Ohio. From the Columbus Dispatch comes the news that fully one third of all voters are expecting to vote the straight Democratic ticket on Tuesday, finally erasing the Buckeye state's shame of 2004.

Witness the Awesome Might of The Internet

From a personal muse and hero of this blog, Bruce Sterling comes this photo. Probably taken in Serbia where Sterling currently resides. As Sterling says, "Just look at it swaggering over those crumbly Tito-era structures."

Does anyone in Clinton even know or remember who Josip Broz Tito was?

Most of you readers grew up in a world riven by the Cold War and the underlying struggle between market democracy and state capital. Difficult to believe now as we watch the works of the Last Stage of History crumble into dust a mere seventeen years after 1989. Rising triumphantly from the ashes is what is certainly the Next Stage of History - The Internet Age.

Keep in mind that the Internet too will fall into dust. And probably in less than the seventy-two years (1917 - 1989) that it took Communism.

Election Predictions

Time to put down my prognostication markers. For anyone interested, for the first time in a long time I will not be taking the day off on Election Day. But I will work the phones, walk precincts or what ever from 5 p.m. until Cocktail Time (8 p.m.).

Governor: Culver in a squeaker. Less than 20,000 vote margin.
IA-01: Braley 53 - 47 Whalen
IA-02: Leach 51 - 49 Loesback
IA-03: Boswell 53 - 47 Lamberti
Sec of Ag: Northerly 55 - 45 O'Brien. Odd allegations of animal cruelty will probably scupper Denise O'Brien.

State Senate-13: Stewart 60 - 40 Wynn. Lametta will get bupkus in Jackson and Dubuque counties and is not nearly as popular in Clinton as a senate candidate as she is as a mayor.
State Rep-26: Bukta 59 - 41 Shields.
Sate Rep-83 Olson 52 - 48 Kauffman.

Nationally I'm thinking a 25 seat pickup for the Democrats in the House, more than enough to seat Ms. Pelosi (or someone else?) as Speaker.


The Senate is a good deal murkier. There are a lot of races that are dead heats. It will all come down to turnout. I think that at the end of the day, the Democratic and Independent bases are more motivated to vote for change than the GOP base is to defend the increasingly indefensible. I think Lieberman will beat Lamont and the Senate will end up 50-48-2 (Bernie Sanders wins in Vermont). If Leiberman caucuses with the Democrats then that means that Mister Vice President is going to be spending a lot if time in the Senate for the next two years.