ZOMG ALL OUR BUILDINGS ARE BELONG TO THEM:

The latest Big Apple trophy being coveted by oil-rich sovereign wealth funds is the landmark Chrysler Building. Sources say the super-rich Abu Dhabi Investment Council is negotiating an $800 million deal for a 75 percent stake in the Art Deco treasure that has defined the Midtown skyline since 1930.

This follows closely on the heels of the recent purchase by a partnerneship including Dubai-based Meraas Capital of another New York landmark, the General Motors Building:

Boston Properties said its partners in the $2.8 billion purchase of New York’s General Motors Building include Dubai private equity firm Meraas Capital, newswire Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
The involvement of Meraas Capital reflects the increased interest by oil rich Middle Eastern funds in US property, especially New York real estate, an analyst told the newswire.

Of course, the crown jewel in the Arab Real Estate portfolio is an out-of-the-way single-family-home, on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington DC. They bought that shit about 8 years ago. But rumors on the internet say it might be for sale again. Just a matter of who has enough cash to pay the asking price.

With today’s news that the unemployment rate saw it’s biggest increase in over a decade, while oil hit a new record price of $139 a barrel, its become obvious that those $600 checks aren’t cutting it. America needs a federal program along the lines of Roosevelt’s CCC to get shit really going. But since our leaders are basically all lopdicks, its up to those in the private sector to come up with some innovative ideas this time around. So here’s mine. Replace cars with rickshaws. Gives people jobs, and eliminates the need for gas. Done and done. And I’m not even the first person to think of this idea. Michael Richards may hate black people, but he might go down in history as the visionary behind the Federal Rickshaw Transportation Act of 2009.

Sinkhole: a hole formed in soluble rock by the action of water, serving to conduct surface water to an underground passage.

So one of those is now 600 yards wide and 200 feet deep, and has swallowed up the tractor and cab of an 18-wheel farm vehicle. This whole scene is unfolding in the small community of Daisetta, TX, and has everything to do with the local oil production. The powers that be are monitoring the situation and will do what they can to keep the sinkhole from swallowing up any homes. Weird.

On the heels of Russia’s claiming the North Pole a few months back, many others nations are rushing to stake a claim to millions of miles of seabed under the new UN Law of the Sea Convention:

The 21st century land rush is likely to be the last big shift in land ownership in centuries and reflects the necessity to claim new seams of the Earth’s resources. In total, as much as 2.7m square miles - an area similar in size to Australia - is believed to be at stake.

As usual, it’s about oil:

Britain is preparing territorial claims on tens of thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean floor around the Falklands, Ascension Island and Rockall in the hope of annexing potentially lucrative gas, mineral and oil fields

And, uh, oil:

With a high degree of likelihood, Russia will be able to increase its continental shelf by 1.2 million square kilometers [460,000 square miles] with potential hydrocarbon reserves of not less than 9,000 to 10,000 billion tonnes of conventional fuel beyond the 200-mile [322 kilometer] economic zone in the Arctic Ocean