Please do not miss my article Why Tom Friedman is wrong on Russia: Wrong on Energy. It has been a while since I have been this satisfied with something I wrote. It enabled me to express some ideas with which I have been toying for a while, most especially about the affinity between those who were willing to put up with evil slavery for the sake of cotton then and those who are willing to put up with Islamism and autocracy for the sake of oil today.