Zarqawi, Oil, Delay Out, and the World Cup

.... ah.... cape cod.....

Upon hearing of al-Zarqawi's death, from my semi-present housemate my first response was one of incredulous cynicism (surprise! although I'm well aware of what Stephen Colbert said about cynics, and I agree). I believe my exact quote was, "Well, he'll be replaced in about 10 minutes." Not that he wasn't a "bad man", not that the world might be a slightly shinier place now that he is gone, not that I in any way support terrorism... but....

With these loosely affiliated networks, as with other loosely affiliated networks (like LINUX or other open source programmers), the beauty of their system is that there is always a backup - always someone to step in an patch the software, or plan the bombing. It is, of course, another unintended side-effect of globalized techonological availability.

Of course upon hearing of the death of the leader of al-Qeida in Iraq oil prices dropped below $70 a barrell. (what is a barrell?) Which brings us to point #2, oil.

Energy policy = oil prices. Consider this from Molly Ivins:
"....Ken Lay gave $139,500 to Bush over the years. He chipped in $100,000 to the Bush Cheney Inaugural Fund in 2000 and $10K to the Bush-Cheney Recount Fund. Plus, Enron's PAC gave Bush $113,800 for his '94 and '98 political races and another $312,500 from its executives. Bush got 14 free rides on Enron's corporate jets during the 2000 campaign, including at least two during the recount. Until January 2004, Enron was Bush's top contributor.

And what did it get for its money? Ken Lay was on Bush's short list to be energy secretary. He not only almost certainly served on Cheney's energy task force, there is every indication that the task force's energy plan, the one we have been on for five years, is in fact the Enron plan. "

Oy vey. But in the good news category, after today the swindler Delay is out of the U.S. Congress.

Oh.... and for a very good examination of gay marriage, by Bill Bennett, and Jon Stewart....