Finding Justice:

The New York Times "Book Section" reports on conservative authors resorting—of all things—to suing their own right wing publisher, Eagle Publishing, over royalties. It seems the right wing's propagandists are suffering at the hands of those who practice the very form of monetary religion they themselves proselytize. Sooner or later, folks, a tape worm kills its host. In this case it appears one form of parasite has been living off another and is now complaining about the deal it's made.


Yes, Dear, It Is All About Oil:

Today's Washington Post reports on the greatest shift in wealth in world history: According to The Post,

Oil consumers are paying $4 billion to $5 billion more for crude oil every day than they did just five years ago, pumping more than $2 trillion into the coffers of oil companies and oil-producing nations this year alone.

So who's benefitting? Read The Post article for a clearer idea. Among those who benefit outside the U.S. are Iran, which may be able to ignore any imposed sanctions for its nuclear activities; Venezuela, which is spreading its influence in Latin America; and Russia:

with Putin nearing the end of his second and final term as president, that sum now looks like peanuts. Russia's gold and foreign-currency reserves have risen by more than that amount just since July. The soaring price of oil has helped Russia increase the federal budget tenfold since 1999 while paying off its foreign debt and building the third-largest gold and hard-currency reserves in the world, about $425 billion.

While increased consumption world wide accounts for some of the increase in oil prices, the Iraq war has been the chief culprit, creating massive instability in the Mid-East has pushed the oil speculators to bid the price of oil higher than ever. The fact that Americans, the largest consumer group of oil, refuse to do much of anything to cut back on their use of it further adds to the problem.