Grin, officially I am hiding out for a couple of weeks on vacation, so my input is not going to be that profound, but I did read the Asian Times article that Reed posted, and I think it is worth taking the time to look at it in a little detail. It deals with the Chinese installation of pipelines and their connection out to the Caspian Sea.

I was particularly struck by the paragraphs

This has major strategic implications for the future of the Washington-backed BTC oil pipeline. That pipeline was built by the Caspian Oil Consortium headed by British Petroleum, and was backed by both Clinton and George W Bush, despite the fact that it was the most costly and least viable oil route out of the Caspian.

Former US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had been the chief Washington lobbyist advocating the BTC route to circumvent Russia. Its construction was undertaken on the assumption that it would carry not only Baku oil, but also a major share of Kazakh oil from Tengiz and offshore Kashagan oil fields. Oops!

. Following recent Chinese activity a lot of that oil will be heading East not West. The production through the pipeline had been delayed, but this is obviously reason for even greater concern, something we have written about before.

And, apropos the views of experts, I am up in Maine, where we were told it was going to be an extra-cold winter, only to find that it is the other way around.  So now they tell me, just after I bought that heavy duty parka.