Oil has dropped below $114 a barrel thanks in part to a rising dollar:

Oil prices are “getting more and more pressure from dollar strength and it doesn’t seem reversible for now,” said Serge Laureau, commodities strategist at Saxo Bank in Copenhagen, quoted by Dow Jones Newswires.

The dollar struck a five-month high point against the euro on Friday on fading prospects of an interest rate rise by the European Central Bank, dealers said.

A strong dollar makes goods priced in the US unit more expensive for holders of weaker currencies.

This comes at the same time as an announced exploration resumption in Iraq, but that couldn’t possibly be a factor for the drop in oil since it’ll take, what, years for that to lead to gas in the pumps, right?

Over at Social Media Today, Matt Rhodes found a recent judgment that muddies the water on whether online defamation is slander or libel:

To date it has been thought that defamatory comments in online communities, bulletin boards and other chat on the internet are libel. They are published and a permanent record is kept. That’s why I was intrigued to read a report in OutLaw today of a recent judgement that took the opposing view.

Here’s the comments from Mr Justice Eady who tried the case:

“[Bulletin board posts] are rather like contributions to a casual conversation (the analogy sometimes being drawn with people chatting in a bar) which people simply note before moving on; they are often uninhibited, casual and ill thought out,” he said in his ruling. “Those who participate know this and expect a certain amount of repartee or ‘give and take’.”

“When considered in the context of defamation law, therefore, communications of this kind are much more akin to slanders (this cause of action being nowadays relatively rare) than to the usual, more permanent kind of communications found in libel actions,” said the ruling. “People do not often take a ‘thread’ and go through it as a whole like a newspaper article. They tend to read the remarks, make their own contributions if they feel inclined, and think no more about it.”

The facts of the case are complex and involve multiple parties, so I’d recommend reading the full background on OutLaw here.

Personally, I understand that the difference matters in a legal sense but many times someone accuse of slander counters with “it’s not slander online, it’s libel, so nyah!” and the proceeds to act as if they won the argument when the problem of defamation remains unsolved.  But it’s interesting to see a legal precedent and what that might mean for online conversations.

By way of Right Wing Liberal we find that Big Oil sure does like them some “hope” and “change”:

The Center for Responsive Politics took a look at the candidates campaign contributions from employees of Exxon-Mobil (companies themselves are barred from donating).  Here’s what they found (ABC via Jim Geragthy):

Through June, Exxon employees have given Obama $42,100 to McCain’s $35,166.

Given that the Obama campaign has been trying to paint McCain as in the pocket of the oil companies, this doesn’t bode well for the Audacity of Hype.

Interesting to see and probably better visualizes thing than my Oil Vs. Dollar graph.