Saturday, August 8, 2015

The Katie Ledecky Page

The big race is tonight (results here).


In the meantime, enjoy this story from 538 Sports: Somebody Get Katie Ledecky A Time Machine.

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The Arctic Black Gold Rush

The big story this past week is Putin's gambit to take the Arctic. I've talked about the Arctic Black Gold Rush at length (I track it here) and how the Obama administration has chosen not to participate. Fox News is reporting but you can find the story everywhere if you don't trust fair and balanced:

Republican lawmakers slammed the Obama administration this week after Russia announced it had submitted a bid to the United Nations for huge areas of the Arctic that could contain vast quantities of oil and gas, with one lawmaker describing the application as evidence of a “strategic blunder” on the part of the administration's foreign policy.

Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement Tuesday that Moscow was claiming over 463,000 square miles of Arctic sea shelf, extending more than 350 nautical miles from the shore.

The Arctic is believed to hold up to 25 percent of the planet’s untapped oil and gas supplies. Russia, the U.S. and Canada are among those trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the region. 

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, told FoxNews.com he isn’t surprised by what he called Russia's “latest attempt to grab territory in the Arctic” and noted that the move comes after Vladimir Putin has been amassing forces in the region.

“Meanwhile, in the face of this Russian military buildup, we are significantly reducing Army forces in our nation’s only Arctic state, Alaska. This is a strategic blunder by the Obama administration,” Sullivan said.

The Obama doctrine is not to show force, but to rely on his stellar negotiating skills. Those are his words (paraphrased, not mine) based on his "Iran deal."

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Venezuela Is In A World Of Pain

PanamPost is reporting that things are out of control in Venezuela:

It’s the law of the jungle in Venezuela, as shopping for groceries becomes an increasingly dangerous activity. As the shortage crisis worsens, more and more angry mobs are raiding the nation’s supermarkets, looting whatever basic goods they can find.
During the first half of 2015, the Venezuelan Observatory for Social Conflict registered no fewer than 132 incidents of looting or attempted looting at various stores throughout the country. In addition, Venezuelan consumers staged over 500 protests that condemned the lack of available products at state-run grocery stores, markets, and pharmacies.

With an average of 14 protests per day, the unrest has Venezuela “trapped in a spiral of social and political conflicts that grow over the months, and which could become more acute due to the forthcoming parliamentary elections,” the observatory notes in its report.

High inflation and the drastic decline in the value of the bolívar on the black market has hit wages hard. Venezuelans currently earn the lowest incomes on the continent, with a minimum wage of US$10.87 per month, based on the unofficial exchange rate.

See also this post from November 25, 2014.