And That's The Way It Is, Friday, February 6, 2015

Bully Oil Field has been updated. 

Beaver Lodge Oil Field -- the oldest oil field in North Dakota -- has been updated.

Updates

March 22, 2016: ISIS attack on Brussels in light of the original post.  

Original Post 

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Fathomless Ignorance

In a nutshell: first from The Wall Street Journal:

Every president gets things wrong. What sets Obama apart is his ideological rigidity and fathomless ignorance....

Now turn to Yemen. In 2012, after the Arab Spring, the president singled out Yemen as a model for a prospective political transition in Syria. Mr. Obama was at it again just two weeks ago, citing the fight against al Qaeda in Yemen as the model for the war he intends to wage against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Whoops. "Over the weekend," noted McClatchy's Adam Baron on Monday, "the growing gap between administration rhetoric and reality came to a head, as the acerbically anti-American Houthi rebels—who American diplomats allege have close financial and military ties with Iran—took control of many areas of the capital, Sanaa, with minimal resistance from the U.S.-supplied Yemeni armed forces."

Keep going around the world. He declared victory over al Qaeda and dismissed groups such as ISIS as "the jayvee team" at the very moment that al Qaeda was roaring back. He mocked the notion of Russia being our enemy—remember the line about the 1980s wanting "its foreign policy back"?—just as Russia was again becoming our enemy.

That was back on September 22, 2014. Read that part about Yemen again. Now this from today, from Al Arabiya:

Houthi rebels on Friday seized power in Yemen and dissolved the country’s parliament as they announced a series of constitutional decrees drafted by the powerful shiite militia,.

The rebels, backed by Iran and influential members of the former regime of President Abdullah Saleh, have also set a two-year period in which the transition of power would be complete.

It just got a bit more tense for Saudi Arabia today. 

And that's the way it is, Friday, February 6, 2015. Only 713 more days (dynamic link).

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Fathomless Ignorance