Links for the day

Here are today's links for ya:

• I keep coming across information about this new "Jack 2" oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. There is talk about how this could increase the US oil reserves, and keep the price of oil down for a long time. People who have poo-pooed peak oil think it's evidence that there is no such phenomenon. There's a great article in a new blog I found called "The Oil Drum" about the realities of this new discovery.
• The New York Times has an interesting series about the water crisis in India.
• Transition Culture has a great article about the potential dangers of any biofuels (yeah, including biodeisel.) It is primarily around the fact that biofuels depend on industrial agriculture, and industrial agriculture is probably one of the most environmentally damaging practices that exist.
• Juan Cole has an interesting analysis about that National Intelligence Estimate document that got partially declassified and leaked. He says, among many other things:

The NIE clearly says that the Iraq War is now the main generator of terrorism against the US and its allies. It certainly caused the Madrid train bombings of March, 2004 and the London subway bombings of July 2005. The reaction against the US attack on and occupation of a major Arab Muslim country like Iraq has been anger throughout the Muslim world.

There is another take by Michael Scheuer, who was the former head of the Bin Laden desk at the CIA (yes, the Bin Laden desk!)

• Lots and lots of feathers are flying in Washington. Glad I'm not there.
• I hadn't realized that Bush was a Methodist. Garrison Keillor says:

The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure that none of them will be snatched off the streets, flown to Guantanamo, stripped naked, forced to stand for 48 hours in a freezing room with deafening noise, so why should they worry? It's only the Jews who are in danger, and the homosexuals and gypsies. The Christians are doing just fine. If you can't trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?

Ouch.