The OPEC oil cartel – and Putin’s Russia – are waking up to an unpleasant surprise. Shale output from the Permian Basin in Texas is expanding faster than the world thought humanly possible.

The scale threatens to neutralize output cuts agreed by Saudi Arabia and a Russian-led bloc last November, and ultimately threatens break their strategic lockhold on the global crude market for a generation.

"People just don't seem to realize how big the Permian is. It will eventually pass the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia, and that is the biggest in the world," said Scott Sheffield, founder of Pioneer Natural Resources and acclaimed 'King of the Permian'.

Fresh science broadly confirms the once-outlandish claims of Mr. Sheffield and the veteran wildcatters. Consultants IHS have tripled their estimate of ultimate recoverable resources in the Permian to 104bn barrels – recoverable now due to astonishingly rapid advances in American fracking technology.

Scientists at the Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, said last week that they had edited the genomes of pigs, rendering them immune to a dangerous virus. The announcement is extraordinary precisely because it sounds almost routine these days.

Gene editing is already starting to save the lives of human cancer patients and generate healthier crops. Yet the battle to ensure it gains favor with public opinion must be urgently addressed. The usual suspects are already trying to blacken its name.

With the new gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9, the Roslin scientists sliced out a short section from this gene in the fertilized egg of a pig. They then grew pigs from these eggs that turned out healthy and entirely normal in every way, including the functioning of the gene, but which denied the virus entry to the cell.

Cue an outbreak of horror about the risks of (cliché alert) designer babies. One newspaper has been blathering about “Frankenstein pigs.”  But a similar technique is already being used to treat leukemia in children: are they Frankenstein kids?

What will be the public reaction to the release of gene-edited animals or plants? Bring it on and cure us, or how dare you try to poison us? We have been here before, twice.

HA HA HA. Let’s be honest, the greatest Oscars fiasco in history couldn’t have happened to a bunch of smugger, more deserving people.

All night on Sunday (02/26), the theme of the Academy Awards had been one of truth and facts.  Forgive me if I laugh again?

For truth and facts have never been Hollywood’s strong point. Time and again, movies abuse and bastardize historical events to suit its slathering need to drive box office cash.  I don’t object to that practice, because frankly, I just want to be entertained when I go to the movies.

But I do object when Hollywood pretends to stand for “The Truth.”  Just as I object when the New York Times pretends to be an impartial newspaper.  It’s not.

The Times is the media version of the Academy and its membership: an elite, preening organization stuffed full of liberals that absolutely loathe all things Republican, and especially loathe Donald Trump.

I do not write these words lightly, and there is not an ounce of mockery or, God forbid, hatred in my heart when I say that Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner is a man wearing a dress. I am simply speaking the plain and obvious truth, as politically incorrect as that truth might be right now.

But with transgender issues dominating the news these days, and in light of Tucker Carlson’s epic takedown of Democratic leader Zac Petkanas on national TV last week (02/23) specifically discussing gender-related questions, it appears that now is as good a time as ever to state some things clearly.

So then, to avoid all ambiguity:

*No, you do not get to choose your gender;

*No, gender is not determined by the level of your personal enlightenment (as Petkanas alleged);

*No, your gender does not change simply because you announce that it has changed;

*No, it is not good science to allow people to change their sexual identity on their birth certificates. In fact, there is nothing scientific about that at all.

This being said, my goal is neither to belittle nor disparage.  As loudly and clearly as I can, I proclaim God’s love for all of you who identify as transgender, reminding each one that Jesus died for you just as He died for me and that God has a good and godly purpose for each of your lives.

There are more Iraqis living in the United States than there are in some major cities in Iraq. 156,000 Iraqi refugees have entered this country in just the last decade. 30,000 of those have ended up in California.

71% of Iraqi refugees are receiving cash assistance. 82% are on Medicaid and 87% are on food stamps. Compare those atrocious numbers to only 17% of Cubans on cash assistance and 16% on Medicaid.

Notable Iraqi refugees include “Bowling Green terrorists”  Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi.

Alwan and Hammadi were thoroughly vetted before they were resettled in Nevada and Kentucky. The only omission in their thorough vetting was an unfortunate failure to note that the refugees were terrorists who had spent years trying to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

Below are many more examples.  Do we need more of this?

"In a free state, tongues too should be free,” wrote Erasmus 501 years ago.  That said, the law has always rightly forbidden incitement to violence.

Yet the Speaker of the British House of Commons, John Bercow, plans to prevent President Trump from addressing Parliament – based on no claim whatever that he might incite violence.  Similar to the bans on controversial speakers that are routine at universities in Britain and America today.

They are about the giving and taking of offence. An example is Julie Bindel, a radical feminist, banned from speaking at Sheffield University because she was not “LGBT friendly.”

The habit of curbing free speech is being imported into Britain from America, where universities have become increasingly intolerant of anything that departs from a narrow orthodoxy. A howling mob surrounded the Yale professor Nicholas Christakis in 2015 after his wife Erika had expressed little sympathy with those who wanted Halloween costumes outlawed.

What is causing this intolerance? Why are so many students so keen to outlaw rather than answer opinions they disagree with?

The short-lived recovery of world oil prices is already in danger as OPEC and Russia fail to deliver on agreed output cuts and America’s shale industry roars back to life.

“All hell is going to break loose if they don’t extend the deal beyond June,” says Tamas Varga from brokers PVM Oil Associates.

Resurgent shale output in the US leaves OPEC and Russia facing a Sisyphean task. America’s frackers have cranked up output faster than OPEC thought possible, and on a large enough scale to alter the global balance of supply and demand.

Rising US crude stocks are a cautionary warning at a time when funds are betting heavily on a fresh oil boom, with ‘long’ contracts running at 812,000 lots. This is higher than at any time in the last five years and is approaching record levels, raising the risk of “liquidation” by investors.