For whom the barrel tolls

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

"Oil prices have dropped to $90 a barrel - Crimea is ours! Now it's down to 80 - we'll build a super-bridge to the peninsula! It's down to 70 now - fine, let's make it just an ordinary bridge. $60 - it'll rather be a ferry. 50 - cabin lift, then? What, $40 a barrel? We could always use the shallows... Oh my, $30... Fine, then, Crimea is yours. What the... $20!? Take it! Take it! We'll give you our Krasnodar region as well if you would just take Crimea!"

This anecdote is from earlier this year, and it illustrates how Putin's plans, and those of a number of world leaders, whose countries are highly dependent on the exports of energy resources, have suddenly found themselves in the middle of a flood of excessive oil that no one on the market really needs.

( Examples abound )

Between this and the Lavon Affair:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-spy-net-on-israel-snares-congress-1451425210

There is one basic aspect of Israeli spying and attempts to manipulate the USA in reality as some of the nutty fringe claim it does because it's always a first resort of those people to find some dastardly Jewish influence most especially where there is none. Namely, it's poorly done, clumsy, and tends to horrendously backfire on Israel. The Lavon Affair hardly helped them present Arabs as mindless bloodthirsty ogres, and this didn't exactly ensure the attempt to torpedo an Iran deal to forestall Netanyahu's inevitable in five years since 1993 Iranian atomic bomb succeeded either. Worth noting is that the NSA kept spying on Turkey, France, and Germany, too, even after official promises to do nothing of the sort.

Now granted, countries bitching about espionage like this is like a hyena critiquing the predatory technique of an African Wild Dog, but that never stops anyone. As far as the Presidency spying on the Legislative branch, Congressional whining about Executive abuse of power might be slightly more convincing if Congress took fewer breaks and did more passing of actual legislation with teeth designed to curtail that abuse. But that, of course, would mean actually making hard decisions that might lead voters to hold the ones who do accountable, which is precisely why it ain't happening.