Blue Crab Boulevard

In a stinging move against (T)Hugo Chavez's attempt to steal nationalize the investments of foreign companies, Exxon Mobil has won court orders freezing $12 billion in Venezuelan assets pending the outcome of arbitration over the seizures.

 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) has won court orders freezing up to $12 billion in Venezuelan assets around the world as it fights for compensation for operations lost to President Hugo Chavez's nationalization drive.

The largest U.S. company sought the asset freeze to guarantee repayment should it win arbitration over the Cerro Negro heavy oil project.

The move is the boldest challenge yet by an international oil major against any of the governments around the world that have moved to increase their holds on natural resources as energy and commodity prices have soared.

"To me it sounds like a very aggressive tactic," said Stephen Zamora, professor of international law at the University of Houston Law Center.

"I can't really say that I'm aware this has been used in other investment disputes. They may be trying to get the government to settle."….

…. The news comes as a tough blow to Chavez, who suffered a stinging defeat in a December referendum that would have let him run indefinitely for reelection and enshrine socialism as the OPEC nation's economic system.

PDVSA is already facing growing debt and increasing operational problems that analysts attribute to underinvestment caused by the company's massive contributions to Chavez's social programs.

But the near-term effect of the Exxon legal maneuver on PDVSA's day-to-day operations was not immediately clear.

The South American nation has an extensive overseas refining network, including the Citgo refining and marketing branch in the United States.

Notice that one fact? PDVSA is having greater problems producing oil because they are not taking care of the infrastructure. This is why socialism simply does not work. The money is not simply there for the taking - it has to be produced from something. That requires investment. Instead, the socialist system attempts to grab all that lovely money but fails to recognize that part of that money must be reinvested. Here is a prediction for you. There is going to be a major - and I mean really major - catastrophic failure at a Venezuelan oil production facility. It will not be due to any outside factor, either. It is going to happen because they failed to do some routine maintenance. 

Exxon is smart to get those court orders.  

This is overdue. Tim Blair has started blogging again following his cancer surgery. In typical Blair style, he is cracking jokes about his experiences as he recovers.

• Overconfident, a few days ago I attempted to take a bath. Unable to haul myself out - no exit strategy - I was forced to call on the only other person in the house: my dear old mother. During an intensely awkward bath-extraction pas de deux, it was silently agreed that we must never speak of this again.

• The level of cancer with which I was diagnosed: T3. Not the worst.

• Weight before surgery: 82 kilograms (180 pounds). Present weight, after several days on solid food: 75 kilograms (165 pounds).

• I’m informally banned from driving lest sudden braking cause sudden breakage of slow-mending abdominal wounds and subsequent hilarious organ spillage. My mother - a former nurse - once saw this happen.

Hilarious organ spillage is a classic. Welcome back, Tim. Get well soon.  

Contrary to the views of Rowan Williams, Gordon Brown has slapped rather hard at the idea of Sharia law being installed in Britain. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury caused consternation yesterday by calling for Islamic law to be recognised in Britain.

He declared that sharia and Parliamentary law should be given equal legal status so the people could choose which governs their lives.

This raised the prospect of Islamic courts in Britain with full legal powers to approve polygamous marriages, grant easy divorce for men and prevent finance firms from charging interest.

His comments in a BBC interview and a lecture to lawyers were condemned at a time when government ministers are striving to encourage integration and stop the nation from "sleepwalking to segregation".

The Prime Minister rapidly distanced himself from Dr Williams's view. Gordon Brown's spokesman said: "Our general position is that sharia law cannot be used as a justification for committing breaches of English law, nor should the principles of sharia law be included in a civil court for resolving contractual disputes.

"The Prime Minister believes British law should apply in this country, based on British values."

Dr Williams's words opened a chasm over Islam between senior leaders of the Church of England, who are already trying to deal with an Anglican war over gay rights which broke out after he was appointed archbishop.

Williams, who I have referred to as the Archbishop of Culture Buried,  will be remembered as the most misguided person ever to have held the office. He appears to be determined to shatter the entire religious community he is supposedly leading. He appears to be succeeding. 

I'm not familiar with Anglican rules, but is the Queen, as head of the Church of England able to remove an Archbishop? Because this guy is a piece of work. But he is one cruddy Archbishop. 

Well, they're right out in the open now.

David Suzuki has called for political leaders to be thrown in jail for ignoring the science behind climate change.

At a Montreal conference last Thursday, the prominent scientist, broadcaster and Order of Canada recipient exhorted a packed house of 600 to hold politicians legally accountable for what he called an intergenerational crime. Though a spokesman said yesterday the call for imprisonment was not meant to be taken literally, Dr. Suzuki reportedly made similar remarks in an address at the University of Toronto last month.

The proposal has lit up many conservative blogs since it was first reported by the McGill Daily on Monday.

Addressing the McGill Business Conference on Sustainability, hosted by the Faculty of Management, Dr. Suzuki's wide-ranging speech warned against favouring the economy to the detriment of the ecology — the tarsands in Northern Alberta being his prime example.

"You have lived your entire lives in a completely unsustainable period," he told students and fans. "You all think growth and [climate] change is normal. It's not."

Toward the end of his speech, Dr. Suzuki said that "we can no longer tolerate what's going on in Ottawa and Edmonton" and then encouraged attendees to hold politicians to a greater green standard.

"What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there's a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they're doing is a criminal act," said Dr. Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

"It's an intergenerational crime in the face of all the knowledge and science from over 20 years."

Green jackboots are still jackboots. The current departure from normal snow cover for the entire northern hemisphere is here . Note the blue areas and how large they are. Here is the current southern hemisphere sea ice anomaly . Note that is is quite a lot higher than "average." Here is the current northern hemisphere ice. Here's a comparison of northern ice areas with historical records for February 6, 1980 and the same date this year. Pay particular attention to the west coast of Greenland. 

An Australian man has been sentenced to a year's probation for threatening to blow up Brisbane. With a television remote control.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A drunken man's threat to blow up half a city with his television remote control forced Australian police to declare a state of emergency at a luxury golf resort, a local court heard on Thursday.

Geoffrey Martin Fryatt, 57, a resident of the Fairways Golf and Lifestyle Retreat in Brisbane, was arrested by elite paramilitary police after terrifying neighbours with a knife and threatening to detonate a store of chemicals with the TV remote.

"One push of the button will blow up half of Brisbane," Fryatt shouted in the standoff last May before police in the Queensland state capital opened fire with rubber bullets.

Fryatt's lawyer told the Brisbane District Court that his client lost control after losing much of his life savings in a fraud carried out by his finance broker, local media said.

The judge was less than amused at Mr. Fryatt's threat. He also was unmoved by the defendant's complaint that probation might interfere with plans to do aid work in a third world country.

"Let's get you right before we send you off to a third world country," the judge said.

Apparently Fryatt's brightness control didn't work any better than his "detonate" button did. (Frankly, I'm surprised at the light sentence.)

STS-122 carrying the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory module has attained orbit. Despite earlier  concerns about the weather, Atlantis lifted off at 2:45 EST.

With Atlantis safely attaining orbit, NASA mission managers gave the command to proceed with main engine cutoff, or MECO, and the giant orange tank that provided fuel for the climb into space has been jettisoned. As the tank falls away and descends toward Earth, its onboard cameras record the process.

Atlantis' next stop: the International Space Station.

Cheers and shouts could be heard throughout the space center as Atlantis, carrying the STS-122 crew and Columbus Laboratory, roared off the launch pad into the mid-afternoon sky to begin the 24th mission to the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Steve Frick commands a crew of six, including Pilot Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stanley Love and the European Space Agency's Hans Schlegel and Leopold Eyharts. This is the first spaceflight for Poindexter, Love and Melvin.

Third time's the charm.

Real Clear Politics provides the published text of the Speech John McCain delivered to CPAC today.

Go read it, I won't try to excerpt it. I think it was pretty well done. (No video yet that I can find).

We find this a bit hard difficult to believe. But an Israeli newspaper is reporting that the Israeli Air Force may soon be giving its pilots Viagra to improve their performance. In the air, that is.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - It might harm their reputation, but Israel's air force is considering giving its combat pilots Viagra to improve their performance — in the air.

A recent study conducted by Israeli doctors among mountain climbers in Africa found a link between erectile dysfunction drugs and improved performance in high altitudes, the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot reported on Thursday.

The active ingredient in the drugs was found to make climbers perform better in an environment with less oxygen, which causes fatigue and dizziness.

This has led army doctors to consider giving jet fighter pilots — who can fly at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet (15,000 metres) — the same drug, the report said.

Gives a whole new meaning to "stiff resistance." Must resist stick joke. Must resist……. (Sometimes even I find the comment policy difficult to deal with……)

Mitt Romney live at CPAC right now:

I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating Al Qaeda and terror. If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.

This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters… many of you right here in this room… have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country.

Full remarks are here - he's delivering them really well. He's a bit higher up the page at this moment. I want to watch the reaction to the section I excerpted.

UPDATE: Hot Air has the video. 

Might be. The Corner:

We are beginning to see signs that Mitt Romney might be preparing to pull out of the Republican race.

Everyone is looking for tea leaves from the campaign, and we'll know more about the governor's state of mind when we hear from him at CPAC today. But in the last 24 hours, I have noticed a dramatic drop-off in the number of emails I have received from Team Romney. This is no small thing. Every reporter will tell you they receive reams of emails from the Romney campaign. But the last one I got was at 1:47 p.m. yesterday, advising me of Romney's campaign schedule in Maryland. Before that, I last received on at 8:37 a.m., advising me of Romney's CPAC speech.

Normally in that time period, I would have received lots of emails telling me, among other things, that John McCain's Straight Talk Express had taken a detour. For example, I would have expected to receive one about McCain's "calm down" remark. But nothing from the Romney camp. I wondered whether the campaign is dialing back its aggressiveness in preparation for a Romney withdrawal.

A few moments ago, I spoke to someone in the Romney camp. Would I be crazy to read that into the email traffic? "You would not be crazy to read that into it," he said. "There have been a lot of discussions going on about whether there is a path to victory, and not wanting to look destructive at what might be the end. You are reading the right thing into it."

Actually a classy move if he is dropping out.  

UPDATE: The Associated Press is reporting it as straight fact. Romney will either drop out or will at least suspend his campaign.