Thursday -- October 29, 2014; What Some Of Us Will Be Talking About Later Today

From Rigzone: Mideast gas field up for grabs ... again.

Islamic State militants in Syria killed at least 30 pro-government fighters in an assault on a gas field that has witnessed some of the bloodiest confrontations between the two sides.

Islamic State seized the Sha'ar gas field in July, killing some 350 government troops, allied militiamen, guards and staff.

Government forces recaptured the field, east of the central city of Homs, later that month. In a new round of fighting on Tuesday, Islamic State seized three wells and killed at least 30 government and pro-government fighters.

The Wall Street Journal

The Fed is so happy with low unemployment, it has ended quantitative easing. After $1.6 trillion.  That source failed to mention the total spent. From a more reliable source, I guess, wiki:

On 18 September 2013, the Fed decided to hold off on scaling back its bond-buying protram. Purchases were halted on October 29, 2014, after accumulating $4.5 trillion in assets.

North American energy boom can withstand steeper oil-price drop. It sure seems like there is a lot of angst over the price of oil. One would think we should be celebrating cheap oil. And talk of "Peak Oil" is going the way of talk about "global warming." Or whatever Algore calls it now.

It never quits, does it? The US Air Force says it is running short of jet mechanics because of the war on ISIL. If "we" can't handle Al-Qaeda's "junior varsity" how in the world could we have taken on the USSR, or even Al-Qaeda's varsity team? This is quite mind-boggling. "Officials say campaign against ISIS is exacerbating its shortage of plane-maintenance experts." Really? It's hard to imagine that SecDef Hagel could have cut the USAF personnel that fast, that quickly. That's why he was hired by POTUS, to cut the military, but Air Force jet mechanics? [Update: I posted that October 29, 2014, around midnight. Today, October 30, 2014, about noon, less than 12 hours later, CNN is hinting that Chuck Hagel is about to be thrown under the bus. Timing is everything. It's amazing how much one can learn from this blog. LOL.]

Amnesty rules for people in the US who don't have government-issued photo IDs.

Largest active sunspot in 24 years has launched six major flares toward Earth so far, intermittently disrupting navigation systems and radio communciations. I wonder if this can be blamed on George W. Bush?

This is what happens when POTUS lets others decide: chaos. President Obama, on Wednesday, made a broad appeal for US leadership (who would that be?) to stem an Ebola outbreak in West Africa and expressed frustration with policies that may discourage health-care workers from volunteering on the front lines. Memo to POTUS: your US Army is mandating a 21-day quarantine for all troops who spend any time whatsoever in west Africa.

Meanwhile, that nurse who arrived back from Ebolaland with a fever now in an undisclosed location in Maine says she will "resist" quarantine. The fever, she says, was bogus. She tested negative for Ebola on two occasions.

And there it is, the third in a series of three stories on Ebola: SecDef approves mandatory 21-day quarantine for any and all military personnel returning from Ebolaland.

Sanctions are seen to be hurting Moscow. And Italy. And Germany. And the Ukraine.

ISIS executes at least 40 tribal and Iraqi government fighters.

It appears President Obama has made another executive decision; along with choosing the Capitol Christmas Tree, I now count two executive decisions he's made this week. The second: US to lift sanctions on Fiji.

Sanctions, what sanctions? Apple looks to sell iPhone in Iran.

Small firms drop health plans -- citing ObamaCare. More here.

Regular readers are aware of the "payments system" challenging Apple Pay: CurrentC. It just got hacked: hackers stole e-mail addresses of some people participating in the pilot project.

Arctic shipping volume rises as ice melts: northern sea route primarily carries oil, much of the cargo involving Russia. All that oil over the pristine Arctic. 

The opening up of the Arctic for commercial cargo offers a faster route for some shipments between Europe and Asia, and holds the promise of increased trade for once icebound ports in the High North of Arctic countries such as Russia, Norway and Canada.

However, much of the new traffic through the Northern Sea Route is one-way shipments of fossil fuels from Northern Europe to Asia or is between Russian ports, according to a report to be released Friday by the Arctic Institute, a Washington think tank.

The institute said 71 ships carried 1.35 million tons of goods through the route last year. That was up from 46 vessels with 1.26 million tons of cargo the previous year. The majority of ships originated in Russia and many were from one Russian port to another in the country. Only 41 vessels traveled the full length of the Arctic shipping lane, and of those, 30 ships carried cargo, the report said.

[From elsewhere: video of the Arctic ice pack.]

Samsung in free-fall? But not because of Apple. It's really quite a story with several story lines. Not enough time to discuss. Gotta move along.