Oil prices scare me — and few people seem to much care. To illustrate, Hugh Hewitt is breast-beating about The Vagina Monologues being hosted at Notre Dame. Excuse me, that’s just entirely immaterial at this point. Even Hewitt doesn’t “get it.”

The price of oil isn’t far from $110 the barrel.

Oil came close to breaching $110 a barrel, boosted by signs that demand in China remained robust and investors were seeking protection against further weakness in the US dollar. The rise in oil prices came after the International Energy Agency, the western countries’ energy watchdog, said that global oil demand growth in 2008 was relatively robust in spite of record prices and an economic slowdown in the US.

Articles of Note:
Oil price fails to spark merger activity – Mar-11
Independents wrestle with shift in power – Mar-11
Central Asian gas prices set to rise in 2009 – Mar-11
Cleaner fuel is now a global commodity – Mar-07
Gas is key to future growth of oil groups – Mar-02
Vacuuming up small assets in south-east Asia – Feb-26

The IEA said world oil demand would grow this year by 1.7m barrels a day, up from 0.9m b/d in 2007. It said demand would hit an average of 87.5m b/d, down 80,000 b/d from its previous estimate.

Some people believe the falling dollar is to blame:

Analysts believe oil’s underlying supply and demand fundamentals do not support such high prices, and argue that crude’s rise in recent months is mostly due to the falling dollar. Crude futures offer a hedge against a falling dollar, and oil futures bought and sold in dollars are more attractive to foreign investors when the dollar is weak.

The Energy Department and IEA, an energy consultant to western, industrialized nations, raised more concerns about the economic slowdown’s impact on oil consumption Tuesday when both forecasters cut U.S. demand growth forecasts, but said strong demand overseas will keep prices elevated this year.

Further, of little notice was President Bush’s recent trip to Africa late in February. He toured Tanzania and other countries regarding US support for AIDS and other humanitarian issues. The Journal of Turkish Weekly said, though, that those weren’t the bullet points Bush sought. Instead, Bush was trying to locate AFRICOM permanent US bases on the continent ahead of China, because Africa is one of the last untapped oil resources on the planet.

My thoughts? Screw China. Locate the bases. Tap away. Keep the oil flowing. We should be there to exploit the oil. If we don’t source

However, it turned out that Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana refused the offer. And Kunle Somorin of Nigeria’s Leadership said that, with the decision, Africans cut off their own noses to spite their faces, resulting in the loss of numerous new jobs and an infusion of foreign currency into desperate nations. AFRICOM, it turns out, will be located in Stuttgart, Germany.

The Africans were stupid, and President Bush was stupid to let it go at that.

We’ll see $4.00 gas in a month, and $5.00 gas by August or September. That’d be $80.00 to fill my 16-gallon tank.

You want to completely kill this economy and the nation?

Keep it up. The Demorats are doing their level best to keep it up. And the Republicans are remaining conspicuously absent like the limp-wristed pussies they are.

A bit of necessary background:

The Left has historically ruled the media on most every level.

It was only when the history-making Rush Limbaugh forged forward with his conservative radio program in the 80’s (I met him briefly when we both worked for KFBK in Sacramento, very early in his career, very late in mine) that the Right seemed to have found its voice. Say what you will about Limbaugh, his were the formative and very important first steps on the Right.

From that point on, conservatives ruled talk radio. That rule translated to our voices being heard on the internet, into networks via Fox News and, at the same time, the instigated diminishing of the Left’s importance in print media.

Is it, then, no coincidence that the Left became LOUDER and more STRIDENT and more LEFT as they perceived a greater challenge to their former AUTHORITY and DOMINANCE over all forms of the media? Is it, then, no coincidence that they clawed their bloody and demented talons more firmly into EDUCATION on all its levels, and into recognition that control of two very salient aspects of American life would ensure their competition and success, to wit:

Read, then, and please try to understand the implications thereof, from The Smirking Chimp:

President Bush on Saturday further cemented his legacy of fighting for strong executive powers, using his veto to shut down a Congressional effort to limit the Central Intelligence Agency’s latitude to subject terrorism suspects to harsh interrogation techniques. New York Times, 3/9/08

President Bush vetoed a bill that would have outlawed torture.

Ten words. Ten straightforward words as opposed to the thirty-eight in the above opening sentence to the New York Times story. There’s a reason why the Times uses triple the verbiage required. Journalists today are doing their best to edge around a truth too ugly for our media to confront directly. The writing must instead be carefully unfocussed so that it’s not about torture but about Bush’s “legacy,” about “strong executive power,” nice, bloodless terms that help stretch the sentence out and further dilute its actual meaning.

As far as the current Left are concerned, the New York Times is a Conservative Mouthpiece for the Right.

Did you get that? The New York Times is a Conservative Mouthpiece for the Right.

It isn’t just a slight fringe believing this anymore; it’s the bulk of the party.

Wrap your mind around that concept.

Today, people like Scoop Jackson, Jack Kennedy, Zell Miller — they wouldn’t even get into the Demorat party. And why Joe Lieberman had to leave.

After the second Lebanon War, the Olmert Party is barely holding together a country. Olmert is doing nothing for his nation and nothing in Gaza.

Condoleezza Rice isn’t helping either. Our state position on Israel isn’t helping. Pressure from Washington isn’t keeping Israelis secure in their beds at night.

It isn’t poverty, it isn’t settlements, it isn’t a country, it’s simply about the state of Israel being allowed to exist. Acknowledging its presence and its future. And Arabic interests are doing their best to ensure Israel dies. I repeat: it isn’t about “Palestinian” “poverty” or “no power” or “no water” or “the wall” — it’s simply about the total and complete elimination of Israel. Anything less is unacceptable and damn the casualties — on both sides.

Yassar Arafat set the precedent: whilst filling his own personal coffers with briefcases full of cash sent to offshore accounts, Parisian housing, he portrayed himself as a fighter for, in truth, those sufficiently stupid and gullible to buy his “common man” act. And an act it was; he refused to accept, under President Clinton, lands offered by Israel for “Palestine”; he wasn’t satisfied. He wanted all of Israel offered up on platter. Anything less was insufficient.

Arafat couldn’t have cared less for the average “Palestinian” and neither does Hamas, the force behind the recent Israel school slayings. The young “Palestinian” assassin was a driver for the school and, as a “trusted” employee he managed to bring his AK-47 there. A Hamas flag flies over the assassin’s mother’s house. This is called a “clue.” Hamas has already claimed responsibility.

But what is being done? The Israeli government said:

Mark Regev, spokesman for Olmert, said that “tonight’s massacre in Jerusalem is a defining moment.” He said that “the same warped and extremist ideology behind tonight’s massacre is also behind the daily rocket barrages in the south.”

A defining moment. This attack occurred on Thursday night; I write this late Friday for a Saturday publishing. And nothing is yet done. “Defining moment” indeed.

I can only ask: how long will Israel continue to exist when it has not the collective will to actively defend itself? And how long will the populace continue to allow itself to be undefended?

A True Defender of Israel, Yoni Tidi (at Yoni The Blogger) writes:

Jews are murdered but the peace talks must move on.

It makes about as much sense to me as if someone during the Holocaust indicated that the only thing they spoke out against was the environmental impact caused by all the smoke.

Shame on Bush, Rice and Olmert for standing by whilst innocent blood, both the blood shed yesterday and that which will be shed in the future, is shed on the altar of the Idol called Peace.

We are in a recession. Its definition simply indicates so with two contiguous quarters. This economy has to be allowed to run its course. And until credit and capital starts to move, we won’t be climbing out. Even Toyota is down. Popular car sales are softer.

In a positive (as I wrote last week) we can already see signs that homes are darned near at the bottom. Spring will bring about national upwards movement.

However, in Fornicalia, proposed Demorat tax increases will kill the state. Arnold doesn’t have it in him to VETO. The Fornicalia economy is definitely in a recession. It could actually go into a full fledged depression.

There need to be SPENDING LIMITS — an external DISCIPLINE which allows politicians to point to a particular bill and “gets them off the hook”.

President Bush says we need to get off the petroleum nipple. But what does he do? It doesn’t matter what you say; it matters what you do.

ANY indication that we are even remotely attempting to become the slightest bit independent?

Oil is at $104+ the barrel.

I paid $3.63 for gas at my local Sierra Nevada station two days ago.

Diesel fuel is more expensive than gasoline now, impacting railroads, trucking, farmers, fire departments.

Gasoline already costs $7.50 per gallon in Germany today.

U.S. CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) regulations indicate that Amercan vehicles must achieve 35 mpg by the year 2020. Get over it right now: the only way to achieve this is to create an entirely new wave of microcars, none of which can weigh over 2,000 pounds. Your SUV is gone. Your station wagon is gone. Your Accord-like vehicle is gone. Your pickup truck is gone. Get used to the smartForTwo prototype vehicle.

We are competing with India, China, Europe and Russia for fuel.

I predict $5.00 per gallon fuel by this time next year. For my 2007 4WD Toyota RAV-4, which is much larger, much faster (0-60 in 5.9 seconds, 280 hp) and gets better mileage (my best is 31 mpg, average of 23) than my former dinky 2003 Subaru Outback Sport AWD (best mpg of 24, average of 19 to 20), this would cost me $85 per fill due to my 17-gallon tank.

This will simply kill our economy. If it goes that way I’ll forward my retirement and sit back, observe. I have a 69 mile commute per day because I REFUSE to live cheek-to-jowl with illegal Mexicans, black gangbangers, Vietnamese with their chicken shacks, continuous rooster howls, people who refuse (and whose lesser languages are accommodated by my government) to speak English. Call me a racist, sexist, generationist, futurist, I couldn’t care less. I want to be with people who look like me and speak like me in my dotage. Imagine that.

And still we’ll beat our breasts when we have the answers at our very fingertips — killed by our own stupidity.

To quote Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007): “and so it goes.”