Oil and Water...

According to Yahoo! news latest, Britney's got a new floppy video out, the juiced up Marion Jones returned her Olympic medals, and neo-Nazis started a riot in Kosovo. Meanwhile, the Arctic icecaps are getting a bit smaller, and this in turn is exposing oil fields at the top of the world. Ice-breakers from several counties have been symbolically re-asserting territorial claims, and Putin planted a flag on the ocean floor, just below St. Nick's toy factory.

Tomorrow I'll be one in a group of archaeological subcontractors to identify the cultural resources so a 30" diameter pipeline can ultimately be routed through the Dakotas, run from the Alberta, Canada oil fields down to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma. The pipeline is going to run through eastern Dakota, entering from the Canadian border around Walhalla, in northeastern North Dakota, and exiting into Nebraska in southeastern South Dakota, right through the eastern half of the old Territorial capital of Yankton.

Meanwhile, Fargo's mayor is protesting the Canadian pipeline, because the Canadians often protest and impede anything that happens with the Red River of the North -- it ultimately flows into Lake Winnipeg, and then the Hudson Bay. And last night, while at a local sports tavern, with my anthropological lenses on, I watched a near fight break out between Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears football fans. They had a tinge of English Hooligan in them, but their hearts just wouldn't carry them through. True fans would be getting out of the drunk tank and county lock-up this evening.

Is that about what it looks like from your respective angles, fellahs? This doesn't even account for the crazy in Tehran, and something about hugs in Hong Kong.