Anagram:Death Magnetic/It Changed Meat

          News from the financial front first.  Oil prices are going up due to the Conflict in the Gaza Strip.  The fear seems to be not that tanks are on the Gaza border read to pounce on Hamas, or that Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak says this will be a war to the death with Hamas, but that, quoting a bloomberg report on the subject, “Any Iranian escalation or more visible Iranian involvement would push the price higher.” 

      

       The report does also say that China has a hand in the increase as well.  China is backing up its emergency stockpile of oil while prices are low, and that helped push prices up with the increase in demand by the worlds #2 oil consumer.  These two things apparently more than made up for the drop in demand from the U.S.,  as American Fuel consumption dropped by 4.2 % in the 4 weeks leading up to the week before Christmas.

     Still, oil prices are only up to around $40 a barrel, up from $37.  It was up as high as $42 a barrel before futures prices went back down.  Even with a decrease in global and American demand, I am expecting with the increase in hostilities in the Gaza strip with Iranian backed Hamas fighters to last a while and for prices to move up a few more dollars in the next week or so.  Nothing dramatic, $147 a barrel oil is nowhere in sight.  I don’t think we’d hit that number anytime soon even if Iran declared war on Saudi Arabia. 

   That’s the end of the line for that story….kinda.  Next up.

        More fun with Hamas and Israel.  According to a story in the Jerusalem post, some 1,000 Hamas “reservists” have been called up to fight against Israel. There have also been thousands of volunteers asking to join the fight against Israel and the  Israeli defense force (IDF).  The story does seem to say that most casualties seem to have been policemen who had no connection to hamas whatsoever, and that the Izaddin Kassam, the armed wing of Hamas, has been little affected, and in fact has a ground force of around 15,000 in the strip ready to repel the IDF. 

    For their part, the IDF has confirmed that Hamas’ military wing is by and large intact and is capable of carrying out  “substantial operations” in the near future.  The IDF also says that Operation “Cast lead”  is preparing it’s next phase, actual ground operations.  Tanks and other heavy machinery are already in place for the ground assault.   Not being fools they are also watching the west bank and southern Lebanon, should trouble come from those areas in support of the Izaddin Kassam.Their have been several minor incidents in the west bank, and nothing at all from the Lebanese to the north. 

      There’s no stopping this from happening.  Israel wants it.  Don’t think they would build a military operation like this without expecting it to become a full blown war. They are ready to fight.  Hamas wants it. They are desperate to hold onto what is theirs and will defend to the death what they have, and the movement of tons of military and other supplies from Egypt over the last few months through their underground network of tunnels proves that.  They are ready to fight.   It’s going to happen and all the begging and pleading and cajoling from world leaders and everyone else will not stop the latest conflict from escalating. 

     If I were a betting man I would say ground forces will move into the strip to exterminate Izaddin Kassan before Friday rolls around. And exterminate is the right word there i think. 

   We’ll see. 

   That’s it for the News.  A video, a few quotes, and I am done.

     Words before music.   I have been listening to a lot of Metallica lately, having gotten the new Metallica album “Death Magnetic” for Christmas.  Now I was gonna play the new stuff for you, but I decided against that, if only for today. I’ll do that soon, but not yet.  I thought Id toss the old stuff out, the stuff that made me a fan.  The video that follows is just some compilation thing some guy put together,war movie clips and live metallica video clips interspersed. 

      Oh, BTW, the new stuff?  It is, hands down, the best album Metallica has put out since Master of Puppets.  It’s that good.  Their best album in 20 years.  Ripping good from front to back.  If you are a Metallica fan and you haven’t picked it up or downloaded it or whatever, GET IT.  Now, enjoy “For whom the bell tolls”.  That’s an order.  

    

  That’s it for me.  Later!

Today’s Nuggets, Via Wikiquote: Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.   Dwight D. Eisenhower

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out…and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel … and in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for “the universal brotherhood of man” — with his mouth.   Mark Twain