Eyes wide twitching...

God help us…. CNN’s Glenn Beck has volunteered to start plugging those petro-fascist ANWR caribou between the eyes. Now if Beck would go mano-a-hoof in a cage match on SPIKE, I might actually email my Congressman saying, Okay -- suck ANWR dry.

Meanwhile, in more grown-up parts of the world, China and Japan have reached “a landmark agreement to jointly develop gas fields in the East China Sea, ending a five-year dispute.” And India and Iran are working on a deal to build a 2,600-kilometer pipeline that would carry natural gas from Iran’s South Pars Fields in the Persian Gulf to Pakistan's major cities of Karachi and Multan and then farther on to New Delhi, India.

As is evident from the whining tone of the Voice of America article, the United States is not amused that sovereign nations go about tending to their national interests and (sound of stomping feet) don’t listen to us.

Great finger-wagging and human rights-respecting empire that we are, the US has now fine-tuned its sanctions against Belarus for human rights abuses. Curiously, in the midst of an international energy freakout, the US has decided to direct the sanctions against a major petrochemical firm and its subsidiaries and is nagging the EU to sign on as well. Good luck with that.

Is there a country on the planet we haven’t sanctioned at some point since WWII?

Responding to Obama’s Flint speech (prepared remarks here), rightwingers are predictably squawking that Obama’s really a socialist. If only.

I was not overly impressed with Obama‘s presentation, possibly because, as some commenters have pointed out to me recently, I am twisted, misguided, and in need of professional counseling. Or possibly because some of it sounded like the usual wand-waving of a presidential candidate (and this I promise to magically do for you -- at least until the inauguration). Or possibly because some of the dollar numbers offered seemed outright stingy: $10 billion to “guarantee access to quality, affordable, early childhood education for every child in America” and $60 billion over 10 years for a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank?

For our Iraq endeavors, those amounts are treated as loose change.

What’s more, Obama now is rethinking some of his previously stated positions on NAFTA, globalization, and the endless glories of the free market.

Somehow, someway, NAFTA, globalization, and ritual sacrifices at the altar of the free market don’t seem as bad to Obama as they did when he was battling with Hillary Clinton.

Go figure.