I thought I'd take the opportunity to list the news items that seemed significant to me but may not have been getting much play in the conventional media. I don't know, I've sort of been avoiding the newspapers and TV. Many of this week's interesting items were found at Publius Pundit.

• Ukranian Government Sacked over Gas Deal. I haven't seen much more than that, It is important, however, that while everyone else is concerned about the US "doing things because of oil," whether it is or not, other oil producing countries are using their resources for political leverage as well as income. Another example of this. also from A.M. Mora y Leon, but at Babalu Blog:
• Something Suspicious. In short, Venezuela allegedly won't be sending as much oil to Cuba as before; various reasons are discussed. Finally, regarding other strategic fluids, there's also this post from Publius Pundit:
• Caracas Coffee Chaos. I thought the standoff with Polar (another producer of strategic resources in Venezuela) was bad enough; now attempted price controls on both the raw bean and the finished product are basically putting producers out of business. This brings to mind the daunting image of massive numbers of coffee-deprived Venezuelans flooding into the US, but personally, I think once they find out how bad Starbucks is they'll probably leave again. Of course, this isn't the only bad economic news there (and, therefore, here): there's also the bit about the viaduct. Why a Duck, you ask?
• I'll tell you why a duck: Caracas Chronicles explains why a bridge failure between Caracas and La Guaira will probably negatively impact the economy there. Which probably means that the cost of goods we buy from Venezuela, like oil, will be increacing. I think this is part of the reason prices have gone up this past week, and when the impact really hits home, they'll probably go up more.
• The Devil's Excrement has some decent pictures of the situation, and has also formulated a couple of backup plans.
• Finally, Kim Jong Il has gone missing. There's discussion at Rantburg here and here, and there's a Guardian article on the situation here.

The more I read items like this, the more temporally disconnected I become. Remember all those Ripley's Believe It Or Not newsreels from the thirties and forties, about the quaint little customs of the quaint little tribes of headhunters on the margin of the British Empire, barely kept in check by the efforts of the local governor? Well, the Empire's gone, but the headhunters are still there, and they're reading about centrifugal separation of isotopes. (I may have said this before, but it seemed like a good time to repeat it).

Until next week... next month... next year? Who knows. OK, with any luck, the planet will still be here next week, and I'll try to post then. If the Raymond Scott afficiandos of Central Asia haven't set off their EMP device.