What, you couldn’t tune in even for a minute to make it a nice, even 70 mil?

Final: 69,989,000 viewers — Palin-Biden the most-watched vp debate ever

Slackers.

Oil continues its fall. It’s under $94 a barrel right now, and holding steady. Gas is down to $3.19 in the Richmond area, and sinking. (Gasbuddy.com is a good place to find the cheapest gas prices in your area. It’s where your local news stations get their prices.)

Best of all, oil is under $100. When it’s below $100, Iran can’t sustain its current antagonism, according to some.

What this all could mean is that if oil prices fall to $70 per barrel or below, Ahmadinejad may find it difficult to maintain the same level of belligerence against the West. Things could get much worse for him if Obama is elected. His pledge to invest $150 billion in renewable energy could very well burst more bubbles around oil prices, thus pulling them to more unbearable lows for right-wingers in Iran — so low that the words “suspension of uranium enrichment” may turn from blasphemy into a realistic option.

I hope he’s right. But even if he’s wrong, Iran loses $2.4 million dollars per day for every dollar oil sinks. So think of the tens of millions of dollars that are not flowing into the pockets of the Iranian mullahs, and have at least a small smile over that.

Some people got their knickers bunched because of this part of the transcript (allegedly said by Joe Biden):

When we kicked - along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, “Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.”

CNN apologizes for the accidental inclusion from the Biden’s 2012 speech during inauguration of a new hospital wing in Wichita KS. The correct text should read:

When we kicked - along with Philippines, we kicked Chinese bases off the Moon, I said and Barack said, “Move Micronesian forces in there. Fill the Moon’s vacuum, because if you don’t know - if you don’t, Chinese will control it.” Er… the vacuum, I mean.

CNN was unavailable for further comments on the mistake.

Hat tip: Dick Stanley.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

CNN reports:

The United States and Syria held a series of meetings this week, signaling a possible thaw between the two countries as the former seeks to peel the latter from its close ties with Iran.

No further meetings are planned between the two sides, said several senior State Department officials, who downplayed the expectations of a major breakthrough.

“You can’t tell yet,” one of the officials said. “It gave us a chance to raise our concerns directly, but the results will depend on what we see on the ground.”

What’s “on the ground?”

Why Syrian’s flexing its muscles and threatening Lebanon.

And as far as peeling Syria away from Iran. Good luck with that.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Israel is planning to buy up to 75 American fighter planes:

The Defense Department formally notified Congress that it wants to sell Israel as many as 75 of the latest-model fighter jet, which is being developed under a contract led by Lockheed Martin Corp.

A sale could be worth as much as $15 billion. It would mark the first order from outside the original team of countries working on the jet, the F-35 Lightning II, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter.

Israel also is looking to outfit a number of the jets with its own technology.

The technology issue was discussed last week between the IAF and a team of US military officers from the JSF Program who were in Israel. It also was at the focus of talks Defense Ministry Director-General Pinhas Buchris held in Washington earlier this month.

Israeli demands include installing an advanced radar and conformal fuel tank design for long-range missions made by Israel Aerospace Industries, as well as other electronic and weapons systems that could require changes to the configuration of the aircraft.

“We have unique needs and need to retain our superiority in the region,” a senior defense official explained. “To meet these needs we must to be able to install our own systems.”

Some of the jets may have an ability to take off and land vertically - like a helicopter.

If Israel exercises the vertical option, it would be the first time that the IAF obtains this capability, needed out of fear that Israeli airfields would be paralyzed by enemy missiles in a future conflict and planes would have difficulty taking off in a conventional fashion.

The reason for that option is sobering.

UPDATE: Much, much more at the Hashmonean. Given his knowledge of military hardware, I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I shall never stop envying people educated and gainfully employed in one of the modern vaguely defined “sciences”. Like the case of learned Dr Lentin here:

Dr Ronit Lentin was born in Haifa prior to the establishment of the State of Israel and has lived in Ireland since 1969. She is a political sociologist and a writer of fiction and non-fiction books and is the director of the MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Department of Sociology and coordinator of the Global Networks project, Institute for International Integration Studies (IIIS), Trinity College, Dublin. Ronit has published extensively on racism in Ireland, Israel and Palestine, gender and genocide, and gender and the Holocaust.

Political sociologist in Ethnic and Racial Studies - this must be a golden mine for anyone strong in scientifically-sounding terminology only a few selected peers could understand and share. Still, some of it spills to the media sometimes and then we have pearls like this:

Launching her latest book on Thinking Palestine on Wednesday evening, she said Israel was a racial regime but was not based upon colour nor ethnicity.

Now try to figure it out: a racial (sic!) regime that is not based upon color nor ethnicity. No worries, here is the answer:

It was based on military force, security and intelligence, the author told an audience of academics and journalists at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

I think I can translate it for the laymen in a simple Leninist format:

Military force + security + intelligence = racial regime.

If you don’t get it, you must be taken to the Sociology dept. of Trinity College for re-education.

Anyhow, thanks deity for journalists, otherwise it would have been much more difficult. Still, even in this, relatively simple wording, these two quotes may cause you some mental turmoil. Let’s get to a simple and straightforward part:

Lentin defended the actions taken by the Palestinian people in their struggle to regain their homeland, saying that resistance is legal and even suicide bombings against Israeli military targets could be justified.

Cool. Now everything is clear. Another AssaJew. Move on, nothing more to see here.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Go ahead. You know you want to talk about it.

I thought she did just fine, and it makes me feel a bit better about her after those horrible interviews. Now what I’d like to see is more of that Sarah Palin and less of the one who gives nothing but bullshit answers to the media. Sorry, Sarah, but you don’t get a bye for using the “Bad ol’ MSM!” routine in the debate tonight.

Like Kathleen Parker, I was seriously wondering if Palin wasn’t a really bad choice after all. Unlike Parker, I didn’t write a column about it.