N.A.O.T.
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Awesome news oil users! According to the Canadian Press, Iraq increases oil exports in 2007, expects higher production in 2008. “Iraq’s oil exports shot up in the last quarter of 2007… the exports, about 1.6 million barrels a day… had grossed a total of US$4.94 billion in November, which made up more than 90 per cent of Iraq’s revenues.” The New York Times notes Oil hits $100 a barrel for the first time. “Oil prices reached the symbolic level of $100 a barrel for the first time… Oil prices… have quadrupled since 2003.” Mission Accomplished!
Meanwhile, the NY Times also reports that 30 people are dead in Baghdad’s worst attack in months. “A suicide bomber strode into a gathering of mourners at a home in eastern Baghdad and detonated an explosives-packed vest… The force of the blast scattered severed arms and legs about the site of the attack, a house where scores of friends and relatives had gathered to pay tribute to a man killed three days earlier by a car bomb in Tayaran Square in central Baghdad.” And another attack is reported on by the NY Times, Female bomber attacks pro-American Iraqis. “For the second time in three days, a woman detonated an explosive vest on Wednesday amid a group of armed Sunni tribesmen… killing at least seven people, including a tribal chief known as Abu Sajad, a leader of the local Awakening Council, and injuring 22 others.”
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Well at least there’s Iowa. According to the Los Angeles Times, Republican base scatters to rival camps. “The long-standing coalition of social, economic and national security conservatives that elevated the Republican Party to political dominance has become so splintered by the presidential primary campaign that some party leaders fear a protracted nomination fight that could hobble the eventual nominee… That instability has fueled fears that if a winner does not quickly emerge in a primary calendar loaded with contests in January and early February, a prolonged primary fight could delay the GOP’s focus on election day in a campaign in which Democratic voters already have contributed more money and, according to several polls, expressed greater satisfaction with their choice of presidential contenders.” And what could help the Republicans? “Republicans argue that in the end, Clinton may prove the great unifier of the GOP. If she wins the Democratic nomination, they say, Republicans of all stripes will rally in their shared loathing of her.”
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The good people of St. Paul and Minneapolis are already taking to the streets to protest the Republican National Convention, according to the Associated Press. “A few dozen anti-war protesters marched Wednesday from the state Capitol to the Xcel Energy Center, hoping it will guarantee them to chance to hold a demonstration along the same route during the Republican National Convention in September… They contend a St. Paul ordinance allows permits for recurring events to be considered and granted outside the six-month permit window used to assess single demonstrations. But the lead St. Paul police official warned that it’s not so clear cut… St. Paul police authorized the January event, but only conditionally approved the marches through July.”
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Lastly, a big hello to the NSA and all the other government agencies that could be sniffing this post. The Associated Press reports United States near bottom of global privacy index.
Individual privacy is under threat around the world as governments continue introducing surveillance and information-gathering measures, according to an international rights group.
“The general trend is that privacy is being extinguished in country after country,” said Simon Davies, director of London-based Privacy International, which released a study on the issue Saturday. “Even those countries where we expected ongoing strong privacy protection, like Germany and Canada, are sinking into the mire.” …
Malaysia, Russia and China ranked worst, but Great Britain and the United States also fell into the lowest-performing group of “endemic surveillance societies.” …
U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration has come under fire for monitoring – without warrants – international phone calls and e-mails involving people suspected of having terrorist links. Davies said little had changed since Democrats took control of Congress a year ago.
Here is the 2007 International Privacy Ranking. Hat tip Turkana @ The Left Coast… I hope you post that essay more widely.