Oil prices - Bush Iraq invasion to blame

Britain's Sunday Independent notes here that the US led invasion of Iraq has tripled the price of oil, according to a leading expert, costing the world a staggering $6 trillion in higher energy prices.
Oil economist Dr Mamdouh Salameh, who advises both the World Bank, told The Independent on Sunday that the price of oil would now be no more than $40 a barrel, less than a third of the record $135 a barrel reached last week, had it not been for the Iraq war.
Goldman Sachs predicted last week that the price could rise to an unprecedented $200 a barrel over the next year, and the world is coming to terms with the idea that the age of cheap oil has ended, with far-reaching repercussions on their activities.

Harper Chief of Staff Brodie offed in advance of NAFTAgate report

Well it appears that Mr. Brodie's big mouth and intemperate comments about Barack Obama may be costing him his job as chief of staff to PM Steve.

How will high inflation impact the Ukrainian economy?

An EBRD conference in Kyiv says that growth predictions are being revised downward accross eastern Europe here.

Given a choice between a greenback and public service...

The McCain campaign lost its fifth senior staffer in a week. They are bleeding to thye lobbying indsutry badly.

Biden Calls Bullshit on Bush's Appeasement comments

On the same day that 2 Jewish American superdelegates endorsed Barack Obama, Senator Biden summed up my feelings and the feelings of many on the bush comments:

“This is bullshit, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset ... and make this kind of ridiculous statement.”- Senator Joe Biden (Dem-Delaware)

Conservatives gyp Ukrainian Canadians

In the category of too little, even later, comes a report from the Toronto Star, that the Canadian government is backfilling a previous agreement signed between the Liberal Federal Government and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress in 2005 for $12.5 million and replacing it with a smaller agreement to be divvied up among other offended ethnic groups!

According to the Toronto Star the feds announced, "$10 million grant to recognize how Eastern European immigrants were interned in Canadian work camps during World War I."
The money goes to an endowment fund that will allow the community to better educate Canadians about the forced labour camps. The 1914-20 internment affected almost one hundred thousand Ukrainians who were stripped of their possessions and forced into work camps, while thousands more were labelled "enemy aliens" and required to report regularly to police.

The most shocking thing about this announcement is that the Ukrainian community can call getting less than 50 cents on the dollar of what they had under the Liberal agreements a victory. And this one will be shared with all aggrieved Eastern European communities.

Boomer is found!!!

So the Lion cub who escaped the other day has been found and while in a Jail cell at present, will be turned over to the Granby zoo in Quebec. See story here.