I'll bet this is what Rome felt like when Nero and Caligula were partying down.

One of the many catastrophic side effects of a delusional US government with an obsessive-compulsive streak is that things that really, really matter fall through the cracks. Bhradrakumar's analysis today is an excellent case in point:

From the details coming out of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan and Moscow over the weekend, it is apparent that the great game over Caspian energy has taken a dramatic turn. In the geopolitics of energy security, nothing like this has happened before. The United States has suffered a huge defeat in the race for Caspian gas. The question now is how much longer Washington could afford to keep Iran out of the energy market.

Won't somebody tell me
Answer if you can
Won't somebody tell me
Tell me what is the soul of a man?

   -Blind Willie Johnson

The New York Times confirms today what we already knew - the torture archipelago that stretches from Diego Garcia to Guantanamo was inspired by Chinese torture techniques used on Americans in the Korean War and...Vietnam:

Josh Marshall made an excellent catch today on McCain's website. McCain has, once again, nailed his demographic. Check out the fourth tab (of four) on the official campaign homepage:





What's one of the four most important things John McCain wants to talk about this week? Golf gear.

But oh, it gets better. Check it out:

The descent into hell continues...

Trying to stem the infiltration of militia fighters, American forces have begun to build a massive concrete wall that will partition Sadr City, the densely populated Shiite neighborhood in the Iraqi capital.

The construction, which began Tuesday night, is intended to turn the southern quarter of Sadr City near the international Green Zone into a protected enclave, secured by Iraqi and American forces, where the Iraqi government can undertake reconstruction efforts.

As if we needed another reminder...

Juan Cole catches this little gem:

The dollar's plunge has made the eurozone the world's biggest economy by one measure and has underscored shifts that are reorienting the 15-nation bloc towards Asia, Russia and oil-rich Gulf states, analysts say.

"With the euro now trading around 1.56 against the dollar, the size of its annual output (at market value) has exceeded that of the United States," US investment bank Goldman Sachs estimated last week.

Thanks, George!

You can't make this stuff up:

Advisers to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton say they have concluded that Bill Clinton’s aggressive politicking against Senator Barack Obama is resonating with voters, and they intend to keep him on the campaign trail in a major role after the South Carolina primary.

The benefits of having Mr. Clinton challenge Mr. Obama so forcefully, over Iraq and Mr. Obama’s record and statements, they say, are worth the trade-offs of potentially overshadowing Mrs. Clinton at times, undermining his reputation as a statesman and raising the question among voters about whether they are putting him in the White House as much as her.

So the US delegation is at the Bali climate summit led by our favorite Republican, a man determined to take a wide stance to prevent any effective movement towards doing anything that matters. As our esteemed colleague Meteor Blades wades into the oncoming wreckage of the Bali climate summit, it behooves us to start paying attention to what's happening on the climate front here at home.

Pretty much all of the big-box national environmental groups are positively giddy about the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which made it out of committee and onto the Senate floor last week. As the first of a half dozen serious proposals on the table for starting to actually do something about climate change, Lieberman-Warner has been designated most likely to succeed, and therefore most worthy of jubilant support.

There's just one problem: Lieberman-Warner is a flat-out scam.

Sic en toto:

   Washington, DC November 17, 2007

   Statement by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte in Islamabad, Pakistan

   The following is the text of remarks by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte upon his departure from Islamabad, Pakistan:

   Good morning. I would like to make a brief statement before taking a few questions and departing for Washington.

Read it and weep:

Democratic leaders in Congress are quietly preparing to give President Bush essentially everything he wants to keep the Iraq war going for at least another six months without forcing any change in course.

Swept into power on the votes of war-weary Americans last year, Congressional Democrats have so far failed in all their attempts to curtail Bush's war efforts. As they consider the president's latest request for $200 billion in supplementary war funding party leaders have pledged not to hand over another "blank check."

But, as Roll Call reports, a "blank check" is exactly what appears headed for the Pentagon.

"Democratic leaders continue to fear GOP attacks that cutting off or slowing funds would hurt the troops, despite anger among the Democratic base over the party’s failure to use Congress’ power of the purse to end the war," reports the Capitol Hill newspaper's Steven T. Dennis.

It's no longer clear to me why Bush even bothers to bait Democrats in Congress, except maybe just for fun.

Anything that I can say pales in comparison to our favorite Iraqi expatriate blogger.

By the time we had reentered the Syrian border and were headed back to the cab ready to take us into Kameshli, I had resigned myself to the fact that we were refugees. I read about refugees on the Internet daily... in the newspapers... hear about them on TV. I hear about the estimated 1.5 million plus Iraqi refugees in Syria and shake my head, never really considering myself or my family as one of them. After all, refugees are people who sleep in tents and have no potable water or plumbing, right? Refugees carry their belongings in bags instead of suitcases and they don’t have cell phones or Internet access, right? Grasping my passport in my hand like my life depended on it, with two extra months in Syria stamped inside, it hit me how wrong I was. We were all refugees. I was suddenly a number. No matter how wealthy or educated or comfortable, a refugee is a refugee. A refugee is someone who isn’t really welcome in any country- including their own... especially their own.

As we head into what looks to be an... ummm... exciting news week, it seems like a short review of last weeks frantic attempt to salvage US financial markets is in order.

First up:

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, which had more than $100bn (€70bn) of buyout financing pending this summer, was theoretically the private equity firm most at risk from a debt market collapse.

But while most firms waited for the debt markets to regain their strength after the credit crunch, KKR pushed through financing for UK chemist group Alliance Boots and US commercial payments processor First Data. Next week, it is scheduled to complete on US power generator TXU.

KKR, which manages more than $53bn in funds, is hardly out of the woods, a reality it has acknowledged by talking to US bank Citigroup about creating a holding company to buy orphaned leveraged loans.

The bank has been one of KKR’s largest arrangers of leveraged finance and, at one point this summer, had underwritten $50bn of debt that had yet to be syndicated.

Uh oh.

The race to retire BushWeasel^TM Gordon Smith from the US Senate next year just got much, much more interesting.

With the collapse of Bush's popularity in the Pacific Northwest, Smith has found himself in the excruciating position of straddling the yawning divide between an electorate wondering why Smith continues to support a deeply unpopular President, and a state Republican party that is second to none when it comes to vengeful wingnut politics. Smith's Senate seat is a top-tier Democratic victory next year, if the state Democrats can nominate a credible candidate. But amazingly, that hasn't been easy.

And here's where it gets wild.

From BBC:

Mugabe approves surveillance law

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has approved a new law allowing the security services to intercept postal, internet and telephone communications.

The law also establishes a state-run communications monitoring centre.

Officials say the new law is meant to provide security and prevent crime but critics say it is aimed at stifling opposition to Mr Mugabe.

Well, so much for that quiet conversation over cookies in Kennebunkport:

Russia issues new missile threat

Russia has raised the idea of basing new missile forces in Kaliningrad, close to Poland and Lithuania.

First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov linked the possible move to US plans for a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Russia has already threatened to hit back by targeting missiles at Europe.

Mr Ivanov said there would be no need to move extra forces to Kaliningrad if the US agreed to use Russian facilities instead of the Polish and Czech bases.

Russia says the US plans for a limited missile defence shield, including bases close to Russia's borders, represent a threat to its security.

It has proposed that the US should use a radar facility in Azerbaijan, and another installation currently being built in southern Russia.

She's back!

Our favorite enabler of emergent fascism in America, world traveler and clueless millionaire Kathy Harris has decided the time is right for her triumphal return to the politcal scene, following a humiliating run for the Florida Senate in 2006 that saw her own party refusing to support her. And after all she did for them too.

New Jersey has taken the next step on reducing greenhouse gas emissions:

The New Jersey Legislature passed a bill yesterday that set ambitious goals for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from power plants, refineries, motor vehicles and other sources that contribute to global warming.

Business leaders expressed concerns about the bill’s effect on energy costs and the state’s competitiveness, but environmental advocates hailed it as pathbreaking, and Gov. Jon S. Corzine said he was ready to sign it into law.

Under the new law, greenhouse gas emissions generated by every aspect of the state’s economy, not just electricity-generating stations, will have to drop about 13 percent, to 1990 levels, by 2020. The bill further requires that emissions be capped at 80 percent of 2006’s levels by 2050.

A few other states have set emissions reduction goals, but none go as far into the future as New Jersey’s. California, which passed a similar law earlier this year that was widely considered the toughest in the country, extends only to 2020.

Have you noticed how the right-hand, above the fold spot on the front page of the Wall Street Journal has suddenly become monopolized by puff pieces about Rupert Murdoch? Today's  ode to the new master describes him thusly: