"Gulag lite"

The New Yorker has an interesting article by David Remnick on the Khodorkovsky trial. Remnick asks whether president Medvedev would be able to pardon Khodorkovsky. Here is the last paragraph:

The Khodorkovsky affair long ago erased any notion in Russia of an independent judiciary; it made plain that the courts do the bidding of a corrupt hierarchy that will stop at little to enrich itself. Khodorkovsky and his lawyers call themselves “realists.” They understand that, although President Obama has raised the issue with Putin, the United States has other pressing business with Russia: nuclear-arms control, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran. But Russia undermines its pretense to modern statehood with such an appalling abuse of state power. Putin’s ruthlessness is apparent. President Dmitry Medvedev ostensibly has the power to pardon, and he has shown some small measure of independence from his patron, speaking of the “legal nihilism” that prevails in Russia today. Does he have the capacity, much less the courage, to release Mikhail Khodorkovsky?

PS
Short answer: Medvedev does not have tha capacity to release Khodorkovsky if Putin is against it - and he is.

Printing Money

Some lighter stuff for a change:
The other night the Daily Show took on thee Fed´s Ben Bernanke:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw2ClOJuQII

From Copenhagen to Cancún: The Emperor´s New Clothes

 

The Cancún "agreement" has been hailed a "historic" success by the warmists. But in reality nothing binding was agreed, as Australian columnist Jo Nova writes:

After the awful post-Climategate-and-Copenhagen year, more than anything else, the Big Scare Campaign needed a PR win. And in that sense Cancun was a major victory. Nobody agreed to anything legally binding, Kyoto was not extended, and all they achieved amounted to nothing more than an extension of the yearly junkets, and the promise that the gravy train is not dead yet. But the headlines will warm the hearts of all on Team-Scare-Us. The most important thing for the side that’s losing friends, faith and face, was to regain momentum. They’re trying to stop the death spiral.

No one has actually agreed to anything enforceable, but you’d have to read the subtext to know that.

PS
And the $100 billion promised to a Climate aid fund is not at all in the bag, despite empty promises made in Cancún. As I noted in a previous post, it is e.g. quite clear that the new US Congress is not going to put tax payer money into this.

US Congress will not accept Hillary Clinton´s climate change cash pledge

Climate change cash payments pledged by the Obama administration in Copenhagen a year ago - or now in Cancún - will not be heeded by the new Rebublican majority in the US House of Representatives:

Hillary Clinton opened up the United States' checkbook last December in ice cold Copenhagen and pledged to help poor countries deal with global warming.
But now, the well is running dry.

The secretary of state's offer to spend tens of billions of dollars over the next several decades is being met with strong resistance back in Washington.

Republicans wielding power next year will have no appetite to spend discretionary money on climate-related issues, especially when they doubt the underlying science. And the demise of comprehensive climate legislation leaves the administration without the long-term funding stream it had envisioned using to cover much of its pledge.
Obama administration officials insist they are full-steam ahead with their pledge to help create a $30 billion short-term fund to help developing countries keep their forests standing, gain access to low-carbon energy technologies and adapt to rising seas, extreme weather and new crop patterns.

"They can make all the promises they want; they may have to find somewhere else to pay for it other than the Appropriations Committee," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the spending subpanel that oversees the State Department's budget.
"They promised to pass a cap-and-trade bill and reminded us they wanted to give away $100 billion, and I said, 'From where?'" incoming House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told POLITICO.
Republican Sens. Jim Inhofe (Okla.), David Vitter (La.), John Barrasso (Wyo.) and George Voinovich (Ohio) urged Clinton last week to freeze all future spending requests related to international climate change finance programs and make no new commitments.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46222.html

This is China

The Chinese government show its true colours:

China today launched its most prolonged and severe crackdown on activists and dissidents in recent years ahead of tomorrow's Nobel peace prize ceremony honouring the jailed writer Liu Xiaobo.

Scores – perhaps hundreds – of people have been placed under house arrest or surveillance, had communications cut off and been forced to leave the capital or prevented from travelling abroad. While such tactics are common before important events such as political meetings, it is rare for pressure to last so long and be applied so extensively. Amnesty International said it believed more than 250 people are affected.
"The scale and intensity are unprecedented. It is an attempt to prevent any voice supporting this prize coming from China," Nicholas Bequelin, the Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/09/china-cracks-down-activists

Euro crisis hits the "heart of Europe"?

There are signs that Belgium could become the next country to suffer in the eurozone:

Jetzt wackelt auch noch das kleine Belgien

Hohes Pro-Kopf-Einkommen, solides Wachstum: Auf den ersten Blick geht es Belgien gut. Doch nun explodieren die Schulden – und die politischen Probleme sind riesig.

Es ist der dritthöchste Berg Europas – und steht ausgerechnet in Belgien. Das Land hat in der Finanzkrise viel Geld in sein Bankensystem gesteckt und dabei den dritthöchsten Schuldenberg in Europa aufgebaut. Und der macht die internationalen Investoren zunehmend nervös. So sehr, dass in der vergangenen Woche bereits das Gerücht die Runde machte, dass Belgien als nächstes Land um Hilfe aus dem EU-Rettungsschirm bitten könnte.

Here is some additional information on Belgium´s problems.

US - the new energy kingdom

The US is fast becoming the world´s new energy superpower :

With rising production from shale fields, the U.S. surpassed Russia last year to become the world’s largest supplier of natural gas. Shale now accounts for 10 per cent of the country’s natural gas production – up from 2 per cent in 1990. Chesapeake’s production from its next Texas project, expected by the end of 2012, will by itself supply the energy equivalent of 500,000 barrels of oil a day.

For new oil, the U.S. has the huge Green River play that overlaps Colorado and Utah, one of the largest shale oil fields in the world. The EIA reports that the country’s proven reserves of crude rose last year by 9 per cent to 22.3 billion barrels.

For natural gas, the U.S. has the four largest fields in the world: the Haynesville field in Louisiana (with production up by 77 per cent in 2009); the Fayetteville field in Arkansas and the Marcellus field in Pennsylvania (both with production up by 50 per cent); and the Barnett field in Texas and Oklahoma (with production up by double-digit increases). The EIA reports that proven U.S. reserves of natural gas increased last year by 11 per cent to 284 trillion cubic feet – the highest level since 1971.

Beyond shale oil and shale gas, there’s the awesome energy promise of methane hydrates, frozen crystals of water and gas that lie beneath the northern permafrost and beneath oceans floors around the world in quantities that boggle the imagination.

More on the US energy future here.

PS

With all these energy resources available there is no need for any heavily taxpayer subsidized wind and solar power parks in the US.