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Diesel makes the world go around

Diesel prices are skyrocketing as we head into the midterms. Trump’s elective war in the Middle East has slowed oil production and refining. While Trump tries to shift blame to Ukraine’s bombing of Russian diesel refineries, that is dwarfed by the consequences of blocking the Strait of Hormuz and the recent bombing of a Saudi pipeline that had been used to bypass the strait. “ Priyanka Shankar   at Al Jazeera reminds us that there is yet another driver of inflation in all this. Refineries produce gasoline, diesel and distillates, and sell the heavy fuel oil (HFO) left over, “bunker fuel,” to shipping companies. But there is a shortage of bunker fuel. Not only has the Netanyahu-Trump war on Iran taken several million barrels of crude oil off the market daily, but the high price of diesel means that refineries are now making another pass at the HFO and turning it into diesel rather than selling it at a lower price for ships. Less supply and stable demand equals higher prices, and the...
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Quote of the day

I think these ‘culture war’ kind of issues are necessary to keep their base in marching formation with a party that has always primarily sought to enrich the wealthiest Americans. You’ve always kind of needed the bigotry to keep these camps together. ~Kate Riga
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Higher ed ROI

I graduated from a state university with a BA and from a different state university with a PhD. After that, I did a postdoc at an elite private university and served as faculty for 37 years at a different private university. My daughter got her BA from a public university and her JD from an elite private university. So I’ve seen both public and private higher ed from the inside. My impression, both from personal experience and from reading the data is that the tuition premium charged by private colleges and universities is not repaid in post-graduation earnings. Today, the reputational branding of elite colleges and universities is being questioned. “ Regardless of whether one sees these developments as an overdue correction or as a scramble to minimize the damage being wrought by the Trump administration, this much is clearly true: The proclamations of a handful of wealthy, hyperselective universities tell us almost nothing about the state of American higher education writ large. ...
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Quote of the day

  It needs to be understood that--as Reich points out--Fascism is not a 20th Century invention. With the institution of slavery, the glorification of conquest and the subjugation of women, the Fascist or Dominator State already appears in history. All the early agricultural/monarchist systems contained the full body of Fascist theory and practice; Hitler and Mussolini merely revived this system after it had appeared to be in eclipse due to industrialism and democracy.   ~Robert Anton Wilson
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Bin Laden is winning

The point of terrorism isn’t military victory or conquest. It’s fear. And bin Laden certainly achieved his goal on 9/11. The US invasion and military occupation of Iraq and the current US war against Iran are the direct consequences of 9/11, as are DHS, ICE and the mass deportations. Indeed, the Trump GOP has embraced bin Laden objective and uses fear as its primary tool. A true patriot would reject al Qaida terrorism and seek to unite Americans around the things that have historically strengthened our country—democracy, diversity and tolerance. Otherwise, bin Laden continues to win.
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Quote of the day

So the choice we face in the next generation is not capitalism versus communism, or the end of history versus the return of history, but the politics of social cohesion based around collective purposes versus the erosion of society by the politics of fear.   ~Tony Judt  
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First bit of good news in Trump's second term

"In offices across the military and in the intelligence community, there have been recent quiet discussions about cutting the number of people and facilities typically stationed in the Middle East if the Trump administration succeeds in ending the Iran conflict, six sources say.     "If those cuts happen, it would mark another shift in how the US national security apparatus treats a region that successive presidents have sought to leave behind." "If" is doing all the work in that sentence. I'll bet on a TACO. <a href=" h  https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/08/politics/us-military-intelligence-bases-troops-middle-east " >US to pull troops out of the ME? </a>
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