USA Today: Lower crude prices challenge Keystone pipeline
Diplomat: Jack Detsch: Bangladesh: Asia’s New Energy Superpower?
Guardian: Patrick Wintour: Putin says Russia prepared for oil price collapse as more sanctions threatened
Hmm… To think there was a time when some might’ve wondered just how quickly this energy revolution would dash across North America. Now, as the Islamic Thirty Years’ War spills and erupts wherever it can, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Federal Security and Foreign Intelligence Services, and the International Eurasian Movement’s doorstep, the pipeline in question seems almost quaint. Intermediate oil in the western part of my home state currently sits below $75 per barrel, right in between the optimal range federal analysts say is necessary for Canada’s oil companies to remain “economically feasible”. For their part, certain members of Congress want to race to get this pipeline moving, perhaps holding a vote as early as next week. Incredibly, crude prices as low as $33 did nothing to deter customers from calling to get the thing built, and the rest of Indo-Pacific Asia looks set to forge ahead, perhaps starting with Bangladesh, which apparently won the rights to 20,000 square kilometers of waters rich in natural gas from India mere days before those special operators blew that Malaysia Airlines jet out of the sky near Donetsk. An energy magnate might not think of Bangladesh as an investment hotspot, citing the pervasive poverty and constant subsidization. However, with PetroBangla putting up several new oil and natural gas areas for sale and few companies biting – assuming that energy proves recoverable – the first company to strike a deal should have quite a field day. That said, the Bangladeshis have yet to find any trained oceanographers or pass apt laws safeguarding the sites from spills, and the drilling process risks environmental damage, with imported talent another necessity to “prevent methane leaks”. PetroBangla and international oil companies have yet to make nice, and said poverty might make pricing reform less palatable than we’d prefer. Then, of course, we have Bangladesh’s corrupt government sectors, which could prevent much of the energy and ensuing cash from flowing onto the poorest citizens, thereby prolonging painful energy shortages and causing yet more damage. Then again, with India and China eyeing that new watery field, the concessions could start pouring in, as demonstrated via airport construction, as part of a grander encirclement strategy. The Eurasianists’ style of messianism and nihilism can only accelerate their own country’s implosion, with us monitoring some Russian warships sailing near the northern coast on time for this Brisbane summit. I’m not holding my breath for Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s lament about any attractiveness for that society, which should speak volumes for its intended vassals.:
Daily Beast: Ben Jacobs: McCain Helps a Business Partner of Iran
Fox News Channel: North Korea’s ‘Charm Offensive’ Can’t Hide Human Rights Atrocities, Say Experts
Fox News Channel: ISIS Leader Orders Group to Start Mining Coins for Its Own Currency
*Fund, fund, fund, fund, fund Iran. Fund, fund, fund, fund, fund Iran…*? We should have some questions handy for Rio Tinto, which is cooperating with the Iranians over a uranium mine in Namibia and now has a subsidiary looking to mine copper from a forest in Arizona, willing to exchange 5,300 acres with the federal government to “facilitate this land swap”. Rio Tinto hasn’t addressed a provision within the current sanctions against Iran involving that mine, left over from the days before Ruhollah Khomeini launched that wave of terror 35 years ago, although its officials stress regular contact with relevant government officials to keep them updated about the sanctions’ progress. One suspects that it won’t be the profits so much as the message to Ali Khamenei. Other environmentalists point out that the project itself would mean digging a cave “7,000 feet below the surface of the earth, where robots will work to extract the copper at temperatures as high as 175 degrees Fahrenheit”. The Korean People’s Army might salivate if any similar opportunities reached it, although if the human rights accusations are any indication, there won’t be too many chances. Enslavement, extermination, and starvation were enough to get the attention of the United Nations, which might well have prompted the release of some American prisoners, even if Kim Jong-Un refuses to give up those nukes he might still have. His country just doubled its facility’s size for uranium enrichment and doubtlessly initiated more and more missile development programs to enhance its targeting capabilities. The apparatus there, such as it was, commissioned a group of artists to portray their land in an exhibit exploring the greatness delivered in the name of Juche, supposedly the name for the socialistically ideological fusion still dotting the landscape. Whether North Korea collapses in six months, three decades, or a matter of days, according to the analyst(s) from the Eurasia Group, the lesson to take away is that the regime must and can be called to account for its atrocities, whatever monetary initiatives it chose to undertake. We can leave the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant to its current scheme as Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi started demanding, after declaring us corrupters and destroyers of his society, as usual. The coins will require sizable amounts gold, silver, and copper, engraved with “Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya”, which means “Islamic State”, a suggestion simple enough, but as of yet, these Sharia terrorists have yet to attain any supplies of said metals. One silver coin portrays a minaret representing Damascus, a probable clue to the significance of any infighting likely to erupt should we and the Eurasianists find ourselves on the same side. I can’t imagine the Persian Gulf Sharia sheikhdoms will be enthused to have tracked President Barack Obama’s agenda of spite and retribution, but those financial advisors for that Al-Qaeda franchise won’t need any more directness against pretty much this entire planet. If they even got the idea to insert several viruses to disable certain websites in this country, well, there you go.:
Fox News Channel: ObamaCare Signups Return with Improved Website but More Challenges to Health Care Law
The insurers must’ve found themselves stuck with the sputtering centralization, and new Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell intends to counter Congress, predictably enough. The online application process looks simplified enough, with 16 computer screens in total and “window shopping” available immediately. The coverage renewal is automatic if those who’ve already signed up do nothing, if at the risk of “outdated and possibly incorrect subsidies”. Community-based counselors appear to see trouble with demand for appointments with insured people, and as recommendations for streamlined health care programs surface, Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz might have a few pointers in mind for this peculiarly monstrous – or monstrously peculiar – initiative. If disinformation networks can erupt from within this country, as well, then the true instability awaiting the Anglosphere and the rest of humankind will reveal itself without any remorse.