Iraq

Submitted by Tom Kool via OilPrice.com,

Iraq has been one of the key contributors to the uptick in OPEC oil production over the past year and a half. Despite the fact that the country’s crude oil output has continuously been plagued by security concerns and faltering payments to international oil companies from both the Kurdish regional government (KRG) and Baghdad and an ongoing row over oil export rights, it has still managed to ramp up production to record levels.

One of the charms of the future is its powerful element of unpredictability, its ability to ambush us in lovely ways or bite us unexpectedly in the ass. Most of the futures I imagined as a boy have, for instance, come up deeply short, or else I would now be flying my individual jet pack through the spired cityscape of New York and vacationing on the moon. And who, honestly, could have imagined the Internet, no less social media and cyberspace (unless, of course, you had read William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer 30 years ago)?

National Review’s barrage against Donald Trump won’t make much difference in the race, but clarifies nonetheless. In an editorial and 22 signed contributions, the magazine urges conservatives to reject Trump. Ninety percent of those likely to be influenced by National Review (a small, but not negligible number in a GOP primary) would have come to that conclusion without any help: Trump is not and never has been an establishment conservative, and other perfectly capable candidates are filling that niche.

Submitted by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

• An estimated 40,000 cars are burned in France every year - a destruction often attributed to rival Muslim gangs. Every day, more than 80 cars are burned.

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter is a man who knows that actions speak far louder than words.

That’s why when Washington’s feud with China over the latter’s land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea reached a boiling point last year, Carter made a trip to the Pacific and had someone snap this picture of him riding in a helicopter with an aircraft carrier visible in the background.