Fox News has produced a piece about energy consumption, specifically referring to US attempts to exploit oil and gas reserves in places like Alaska. It is worth reading if only for its unique use of the word 'environmentalist' to mean 'global terrorist intent on destroying our economy at all costs':

Environmentalists are doing everything in their power to ensure that whatever energy is available will be more expensive ... In a Dec. 15 column, columnist George Will recently commented that "environmentalism is collectivism in drag." The primary purpose of environmentalism is to create and use scarcity to "enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives," he observed.

[source: Fox News - 'Energy, a potent political weapon']

Oh yes. Because in America, the greatest danger of government supervision of your life comes from people trying to protect an Alaskan nature reserve. And not from your president, who happily authorises spying on US citizens without bothering to let anyone else know. This part was quite good as well:

Ready access to affordable energy is the lifeblood of modern economies. Vladimir Putin understands this principle quite well, although his application of it was quite rudimentary. Environmentalists have much more experience wielding energy as a weapon than Putin.

Meanwhile there may be no gas trouble in Britain, but the foul smell of decay is starting to waft around Charles Kennedy's nose. The leading articles this morning were many and varied in tone. For example, The Mirror was entirely unforgiving:

Alcoholics often refuse to accept they have a problem but that does not excuse Charles Kennedy's months of denials. He is not just another person who drinks too much. He is the leader of the country's third political party. Time after time, he was asked if there was a problem and on each occasion he lied. Only telling the truth when he was about to be exposed on television. Now he insists he will stand in a leadership election. If he cares about his party, he should not.

[source: The Mirror - 'On the rocks']

The Mail mixed sympathy with suspicion, labelling his statement an 'exercise in damage limitation':

It certainly takes courage for anybody - never mind a political leader - to bare his soul in public, as Charles Kennedy did last night. It takes steely determination to confront a drink problem and seriously seek professional help. And the instinctive human response to his statement must, of course, be one of sympathy. Yet this extraordinary moment in politics isn't just about Mr Kennedy. It affects the future of the Liberal Democrats too. And while his dignity under pressure must be acknowledged, it has to be asked whether his candour and openness are quite what they seem. After all, for two years, he denied he had any problem with alcohol - even though senior colleagues confronted him when he failed to show up for the Budget debate in 2004. In short, he has lied to the public, the media and party members.

[source: The Mail - 'A last, desperate throw of the dice']

It concludes that Kennedy could still 'go with dignity, his head held high'. The Guardian largely agrees, but suggests that the open rebellion occurring in the Lib Dem ranks is 'a product not of his past drinking but his own wider failings as a leader'. It also isn't so sure any dignity remains:

He has challenged his party to suppress its desire to change leader not in defence of any great cause but because departing would be an embarrassment to him. His only strength is not that his colleagues want him to stay but that they cannot unite behind one person to challenge him.

[source: The Guardian - 'Drink is not the real problem']

I think, for once in his life, that my Dad had the worthiest insight into this. He simply made the point that we live in a society that will not elect an outed alcoholic, reformed or otherwise, as Prime Minister. And despite the Lib Dems' third party status, their leader has to be PM material for them to be taken seriously, something Charles Kennedy didn't look like before or after yesterday's revelations.

Very finally for this supersized post, two interesting things from the Oxford University Press weblog. Steve Rivkin's written about the 'Six Deadly Sins' of naming a business, and Ben Keene's penned a Geographical Review of 2005. In it he discusses all the changes that have had to be made to maps throughout the last year, from the renaming of Pretoria to the effects of the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.