Several British companies are poised to begin offshore exploration in waters around the Falkand Islands—sparking a diplomatic row with Argentina, which claims the archipelago that it calls the Malvinas. Britain's Desire petroleum, which has just put a rig in place, has licensed six areas where it predicts 3.5 billion barrels of oil and nine trillion cubic feet of gas. Last week, Buenos Aires said it would require all ships from the islands to obtain permits to dock in Argentina in retribution for the move. The press in both the UK and Argentina are raising the specter of renewed conflict over the islands, the scene of a two-month war in 1982.

Before flying his single-engine Piper PA-28 into the IRS headquarters in Austin, killing one (excluding himself) and wounding several the morning of Feb. 19, Joe Stack evidently posted a screed on the Internet railing against "big brother," the Catholic Church, the "unthinkable atrocities" committed by big business, and the government bailouts. He took particular aim at the IRS, telling them to "take my pound of flesh and sleep well." He said that "violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer." He signed off "Joe Stack (1956-2010)" (CBS, Feb. 19) So this was, by any definition, an act of terrorism—a politically motivated deadly surprise attack on a civilian target. And yet...

Citing budgetary constraints, President Barack Obama has cancelled the US project designed to take humans back to the Moon. The Constellation program envisaged a new crew ship called Orion to put astronauts on the lunar surface by 2020. But in his 2011 budget request issued Feb. 1, Obama said the project is too costly, "behind schedule, and lacking in innovation." The president said he plans to turn to the private sector for launch services. "While we're cancelling Constellation, we're not cancelling our ambitions," said Jim Kohlenberger, chief of staff at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). (BBC News, Feb. 1)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has now admitted that it made a mistake in asserting that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 in its last report, and the climate change deniers have been having the predictable feeding frenzy. But as IPCC chair Dr. Rajendra Pachauri told the BBC News Jan. 25, "Let me emphasize that this does not in any way detract from the fact that the glaciers are melting, and this is a problem we need to be deeply concerned about."

From the World Jewish Congress, Jan. 25:

Anti-Semitism has reached its highest level since the end of World War II, the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) has concluded in its latest report released in Jerusalem on Sunday.

The leaders of one of the largest Pashtun tribes in the Taliban stronghold of eastern Afghanistan announced Jan. 27 that they had agreed to support the US-backed government, battle insurgents, and burn down the home of anyone who harbored insurgents. Elders from the Shinwari tribe, which represents about 400,000 people, also pledged to send at least one military-age male in each family to the Afghan army or the police in the event of a Taliban attack. In exchange for their support, US commanders agreed to channel $1 million in development projects directly to the tribal leaders and bypass the local Afghan government, widely viewed as corrupt. (NYT, Jan. 27)

Ethan Bronner in the New York Times took note Jan. 21 of the controversy surrounding Israel's high-profile rescue mission to Haiti in a story entitled "For Israelis, Mixed Feelings on Aid Effort." But the statements quoted are pretty tame compared to much of what is buzzing around the blogosphere. There is certainly something fundamentally perverse about the Israeli Defense Forces establishing a field hospital in Port-au-Prince as their blockade of the Gaza Strip is actively creating an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Commentators within Israel have made the point repeatedly. "Israel's compassion in Haiti can't hide our ugly face in Gaza," wrote Akiva Eldar in Haaretz Jan. 18. Paul Woodward on the War in Context website Jan. 23 notes a piece in the Israeli daily Maariv entitled "The painful truth: Haiti's disaster is good for the Jews." Blogger Richard Silverstein Jan. 19 noted a piece in Israel's Yediot by Yoel Donchin, a doctor who is himself a veteran of Israeli international disaster response teams—who accuses Israel of "Public Relations instead of saving lives." Donchin actually blasts the IDF field hospital as a scam, saying that "sending portable toilets to Haiti would have been a better option, but this does not provide good photo opportunities."

The Rag Blog on Jan. 11 was among those to take note in alarmist terms ("Got Fascism?") of a suggestion by Cass Sunstein—President Obama's Harvard Law School friend and recently appointed administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs—for "cognitive infiltration" by government agents to combat the growing popularity of conspiracy theory. In a piece entitled "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures" in the August issue of the Journal of Political Philosophy, Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule write: