What Caught My Eye Today

Myanmar - Thinks are worse than first reported...much worse. Myanmar's military government raised its death toll from Cyclone Nargis on Tuesday to nearly 22,500 with another 41,000 missing, almost all from a massive storm surge that swept into the Irrawaddy delta. Yesterday, I reported that the upper limit was around 13,000. Of the dead, only 671 were in the capitol city of Yangon and its outlying districts, state radio said. The rest were in the vast swamplands of the delta, which was hit by 120 mph winds and an enormous storm surge. As many as 10,000 people died in one coastal town alone. Here's the part that doesn't make much sense. Despite the magnitude of the disaster -- the most devastating cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in Bangladesh -- France said the ruling generals in Myanmar were still placing too many conditions on aid. Come again? President George W. Bush made a rare personal appeal to the junta to accept U.S. disaster experts who have so far been kept out. The disaster drew a rare acceptance of a trickle of outside help from the diplomatically isolated generals, who spurned such approaches after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. So maybe this is a case of just being selective in terms of whose help to accept. Under ordinary circumstances, I could appreciate this sort of posturing. However, at the risk of stating the obvious, these aren't ordinary circumstances. 22,000 people are dead. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Take the aid, you morons.

2008 Presidential Race - Democratic front-runner Barack Obama swept to victory in the North Carolina presidential primary tonight and lengthened his lead in the delegate race. Obama was winning 60% of the vote in North Carolina, a triumph that mirrored earlier wins in Southern states with large black populations. He won at least 40 delegates, and Clinton at least 31, with 116 still to be awarded in the state. In Indiana, returns from 85 percent of the precincts showed Clinton with 52 percent of the vote to 48 percent for Obama. The economy was the top issue by far in both states, according to interviews with voters as they left their polling places. And voters in both states fell along racial patterns long since established in a marathon race between the nation's strongest-ever black presidential candidate and its most formidable female challenger for the White House. Obama has long led Clinton among delegates won in the primaries and caucuses, and has increasingly narrowed his deficit among superdelegates who will attend the convention by virtue of their stats as party leaders. An Associated Press tally showed Clinton with 269.5 superdelegates, and Obama with 255. Honestly, I don't have much to add. This thing has been going on for so long, at this point, there isn't much new to learn. The race is close, Clinton cannot statistically win the delegate count with the remaining primaries, and no one is going to quit until after the primaries have been concluded. Like I said, nothing new.

Capital Punishment - Georgia executed a convicted murderer, the first person to be put to death in the United States since the Supreme Court ended a de facto moratorium on capital punishment last month. Well that didn't take long. William Earl Lynd died by lethal injection at a prison in Jackson, central Georgia, at 7:51 p.m. He was convicted of shooting his girlfriend to death in December 1988. Lynd's execution is the first since the same court on April 16 rejected a challenge to the cocktail of three drugs used in most U.S. executions, which opponents had argued inflicted unnecessary pain. A nationwide pause in executions had been in effect since shortly after the court said last September it would hear an appeal by two death row inmates in Kentucky against the use of the lethal drugs. Last year, 42 people were put to death in the United States, the lowest number since the 31 executions in 1994. But the 2007 number was artificially low because of the Supreme Court case. Several states have scheduled executions since the moratorium ended, including Virginia and Texas, which carries out more executions than any other state. Lynd is the 1,100th person put to death since the Supreme Court lifted a temporary ban on capital punishment in 1976. Since then, Texas has had 405 executions, followed by Virginia with 98. I'm all for justice being carried out, but I still cannot get past the fact that the United States, a pillar of freedom and human rights, continues to give legal standing to capital punishment. Here is the distinguished list of countries that we share this distinction with (at least in 2007): Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Botswana, China, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Kuwait, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Vietnam and Yemen. High praise indeed.

Oil - Oil futures blasted to a new record near $123 a barrel, gaining momentum as investors bought on a forecast of much higher prices and on any news hinting at supply shortages. Retail gas prices edged lower, but appear poised to rise to new records of their own in coming weeks. A new Goldman Sachs prediction that oil prices could rise to $150 to $200 within two years seemed to motivate much of today's buying. Oil prices have nearly doubled from about $62 a barrel a year ago, which Goldman sees as a sign that the world is in the midst of a "super spike" in oil prices. Note to self: Send telegram to Goldman Sachs... To whom it may concern...stop...Keep your opinions to yourselves...stop...We doesn't need anymore reasons to oil to cost any more than it already does...stop...P.S....You guys suck.