I seem to be rotating back to my interest in the Libyan mission, and the debate simmering between the White House and some lawmakers intersects nicely with a paper I'm working on at the moment. So perhaps a few thoughts on the current embroilment over the operation's legality are in order.

But not tonight. For now I'd just like to briefly correct a few friends of mine who somehow figure the US is once again out to snatch us some cheap oil by starting a war. Shikha Dalmia at Reason begrudgingly articulates why this is nonsense:

That we are after Libya’s oil is particularly untenable for the simple reason that Libya is only a bit player in the world oil market. It is not even among our top 15 crude oil suppliers. The U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels a day and Libya produces 1.7 million barrels for the whole globe. America lost 1 million barrels a day during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the U.S. economy barely hiccuped.

The bleating over oil greed is a tired anti-war trope that we have to hear every time the US spends—or in the opinion of people like Dalmia, wastes—money and time on striking at a rogue state in the Muslim world. Gaddafi is an even less plausible candidate for a Western oil-lunge than Saddam or the Taliban mullahs since he was perfectly compliable prior to our noisemaking over his corpse-making.

Allow me to finish some papers and we can revisit this.

In another fevered tirade on May 28 Louis Farrakhan splished and splashed his foam around a podium at the American Clergy Leadership Conference.

He calls Barack Obama an "assassin," for his decision to involve the US in NATO's campaign against the wrinkled and bloodthirsty Colonel.

And here's my brother, calling for the assassination of brother Moammar Qaddafi—what has he done? I can defend that man! You don't know that man!

Amid the list of things that the Brother Leader has done: In the mid-eighties Qaddafi gave the Nation of Islam, then under the full guardianship of Minister Farrakhan, $5 million to support the neo-fascist outfit based in Chicago. He was kind enough to receive the minister and his guest, Jeremiah Wright, at his al-Baida palace in 1984. In 1996 the colonel honored Farrakhan with the once laughably and now just disgustingly titled "Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights."

Farrakhan impels us to see that Gaddafi has been framed up: "Check the record," he says. Go to it, dear reader. A few months ago Sean Hannity worked out a genius theory that Obama would never attack the colonel because his old pastor Wright was such a dear friend of the man. Farrakhan only wishes that the President had such loyalties. "We voted for our brother," Farrakhan says. But I spy just another rhetorical flair; as early as last year, Farrakhan called Obama "the first Jewish president." I sense niether brotherhood nor unity here.

He spoke in Christian terms throughout, as it was a room full of clergymen. Luckily Farrakhan's brand is quite easy to filter through in any theological vernacular.

All in all, it was another great day for inter-faith dialogue.

According to his inner circle, Qaddafi has no intention of cutting a deal to leave the country. Airstrikes and starvation will continue. Nic Robertson believes this is one of the many propaganda volleys we'll be seeing during Libya's civil war.

Who's gonna tell Qaddafi he has to do this? No one's even sure who could do that; perhaps one of his sons—there seems some distance from this kind of thing...

So the government says these reports are utter nonsense:

That's the government position, that they'll continue with [the airstrikes], they'll retake many of the towns and cities in the east before they, in their terms, force some talks on the rebels. They'll do it from a position of strength when they feel the country's close to being unified.

Yeah—good luck with that, chums.

Might Qaddafi be losing his nerve? Some reports are surfacing that he's willing to slip away with some money and a get-out-of-jail free card. He's supposed to have made this offer to the "interim council" governing the rebel-controlled eastern provinces:

A source close to the council told Reuters he had heard that "one formula being proposed by the other side would see Gaddafi hand power to the head of parliament and leave the country with a certain guaranteed sum of money."

Al Bayan quoted a source close to Gaddafi's inner circle as saying the Libyan leader had begun looking for a safe haven outside Libya.

 There is no creature loves him.