Oil traders said that even if the chances of military conflict with Iran were small, the huge run-up in oil prices that would result encourages some speculators and investment funds to bid up the price of oil, adding a premium of $3 to $15 a barrel.

"It will be chaos. . . . I can't really see it," said Abdulsamad al-Awadi, an oil trading consultant and former executive at Kuwait Petroleum.

"Having been in the marketplace for almost 30 years, I can't see a scenario for it, or precautionary measures" that oil companies could take. "There are no precautionary measures."

"If war breaks out, anticipate that all hell will break loose in the oil markets," said Robin West, chairman of PFC Energy, a District oil consulting firm.   more »

Just days after the shocking news was revealed, President George W. Bush told the nation that he would seek a ban on fictitious gay weddings.

In a nationally televised address last night, Mr. Bush said that he devote the rest of his term in office to obtaining a constitutional amendment banning marriage between fictitious gay characters.

"In order to protect the sanctity of marriage in the real world, we must first protect the sanctity of marriage in fiction," Mr. Bush said. "This is the most pressing goal of my Administration - even more important than bombing Iran."

While the president's address was for the most part consistent with his earlier statements on gay marriage, it was uncharacteristic in that it demonstrated an awareness of books.   more »

Unlike the Democrats, Republicans have mastered the art of throwing hissy fits [temper tantrums] as a political tool to control political dialogue. You must have noticed their successful use of phony sanctimony and false moral outrage?

It's an excellent technique and one they employ with great success, most recently with the entirely fake Move-On and Pete Stark "controversies."

The Democrats try their own versions but rarely achieve the kind of full blown hissy fit the Republicans can conjure with a mere blast fax to Drudge and their talk radio minions.

But it's about more than simple political distraction or savvy public relations. It's actually a very well developed form of social control called Ritual Defamation (or Ritual Humiliation).   more »

After Sept. 11, when the Bush administration launched its global “war on terror,” the United States enjoyed some clear assets in fighting the al-Qaida terrorist network.

In the Middle East, the United States had the support of secular Turkey, a NATO member.

The long relationship of the powerful Pakistani military with that of the United States enabled Bush to turn the military dictator Musharraf against the Taliban, which Pakistan had earlier sponsored.

Shiite Iran announced that it would provide help to the United States in its war on the hyper-Sunni Taliban regime. Baathist Syria and Iraq, secular Arab nationalist regimes, were potential bulwarks against Sunni radicalism in the Levant.

Like a drunken millionaire gambling away a fortune at a Las Vegas casino, the Bush administration squandered all the assets it began with by invading Iraq and unleashing chaos in the Gulf.   more »

The power of the Israel lobby in America is legendary. It demonstrates its influence at many levels. Campus Watch is a network that monitors alleged anti-Israel activity in US academic institutions.

The difficulties of promotion in the US for scholars deemed anti-Israeli are notorious. The notable Palestinian academic, Edward Said, was subjected to an unrelenting campaign by pro-Israel groups at Columbia University with threats on his life.

Former president Jimmy Carter's book, Palestine: peace not apartheid, has earned him the label of "Jew-hater" and Nazi sympathiser.

The British publisher, Pluto Press, is likely to be dropped by its American distributors, the University of Michigan Press, because pro-Israel groups accuse it of including "anti-Semitic".   more »