snackler wrote on July 07, 2008 11:44 PM: The price of oil is set on the trading exchanges by traders, not by how many dollars the FED prints. Many pension funds and speculators are buying oil contracts, and running up the price, as a hedge against the falling dollar. Others are "friends" of ours who are helping to run up the price to stick it to the USA. We do not have a shortage of oil, we have a shortage of oil contracts which allows traders to crank the price. As long as the Wall Street middlemen are in control of the commodities markets, pricing will never reflect the fundamentals of supply and demand.

douglas wrote on July 07, 2008 08:37 PM: better "overrun" might be the "major" tv networks which pump out blatantly leftist propaganda. the spin in some segments is amazing. amazing in that the talking heads can maintain a straight face when "reporting".

the similarity between those "news" reports and those on al jazeera plus a few mainland chinese [read, gubmit filtered/spun/written] "news reports" is notable.

Fair and Balanced wrote on July 07, 2008 08:01 PM: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream.

So do I:

My dream is that non-partisans will overrun the offices of the various R-J editorialists, take over the presses, and demand non-partisanship. Vin, Sherman and Thomas (of course) will squeal, even before we use upon them their favored Bush technique of water-boarding (remember, it's not torture) in a VERY effective way of obtaining reliable information, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk).

Remember: the R-J and the Fox "News" Channel are both "Fair and Balanced."

Dammit.

Did I say they were "Fair and Balanced?"

Brian Kominsky wrote on July 07, 2008 07:13 PM: Ayn - The price of oil has very little to do with the free market. It is exactly the opposite. The Federal Reserve has been printing lots of money and putting it into circulation at an incredible rate. This is the preferred method to pay for wars and domestic programs without raising taxes.

Oil is denominated in dollars. So, as the value of the dollar goes down (i.e. when more are printed) the dollar cost of oil goes up.

So, since Democrats and Republicans all love the Federal Reserve, what is free market about a private, poorly regulated bank printing money any time they feel like it?

dave404 wrote on July 07, 2008 05:33 PM: wayne allen (root?),

I'm going to assume that you are not aware that the Republican Party controlled the Executive and Legislative branches of government from 2001 until January 2007. As such let me tell you that oil exploration and lease access is available all over the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The law allowing leases, the amount and size of leases is established by the Secretary of the Interior (A Republican from 2001 till this very afternoon), has been in effect since 1953 (man, that's a long time ago), so if not enough leases have been let, it is the Secretary and the President's fault (law allows president to set annual production limits on the OCS).

George the I signed the law that created the moratorium on Atlantic and Pacific Coast OCS development.

Oil companies had leases on the OCS off South Carolina in the early 1980's and didn't do much wiht them so the 1990 moratorium took the leases back and compensated the oil companies.

Today, the federal agency in charge of the OCS is the Mineral Management Services. MMS says there is 1 billion barrels in the whole of the Atlantic Coast. Peak oil says you get "easy" access to 1/2 that, so that would be 500m barrels and at a consumption rate of 23 million barrels a day, that is 14 days of oil....how many billions of dollars to drill how many deep water drills?

MMS reports that the US has 21 billion nbarrles of recoverable oil. Again, 1/2 of that is 10.5 billion barrels and at an annual US consumption rate of 9.1 billion barrels, it would be gone in a year!

So, where would we be today if we had consumed our oil yetserday?

douglas wrote on July 07, 2008 05:15 PM: lost on some posters is that politicians who are dishonest, who make promises they cannot keep, who have a pedigree of anti-american words and deeds... these like roaches in the basement must have the light shown on them. that is the responsibility of news media. if the preponderance of dishonest politicians belong to such a "progressive" party, that's their choice isn't it ?

instead, many reporting venues obviously spin facts. few are truly objective.

if the readers were to go beyond the "major" tv "news" programs they might notice common text, common slants between these "alphabet" channels and their sources... china news, china daily, al jazeera are fair examples.

Gibbons Hearts Desai wrote on July 07, 2008 03:48 PM: Boom! Boom! Boom!...What's that sound, that steady, hypnotic, propagandic drum beat?

Surprise!!! Why it's the RJ's rightwing editors who now are in full election year mode, bashing Obama, bashing Reid,...well, bashing any and all Democrats.

My how wonderful!!!

Of course, RJ's rightwing editors LOVE ALL REPUBLICANS, those same republicans who have lead America into a deep, deep ditch!

Silly rightwingers...

douglas wrote on July 07, 2008 01:27 PM: anyone who aids and abets, conceals ["sanctuary cities"], law "enforcement" employees who wink at ["we don't have enough time to enforce"], or politicians, that illegal activity deserve incarceration themselves.

the spin now is apparently since others speed, you are innocent.

as to condemning other politicians, guess i've sent my share of emails to the white house, usually they included "cowardice" in the text. so far, emails for position statements from the nevada gaming control board and the nevada resort association have been unanswered. better, emails to the local "investigative" reporters have been mostly unanswered. one was responded to by a columnist from the las vegas sun. they said that they were unfettered with editorial restrictions on investigating illegal activities. for some reason, they haven't pursued this most egregious, bleeding wound of illegal infiltrators.

that hapless harry reid spins the illegal infiltrators to his newspeak term "pre-citisens", is obvious proof of his dishonesty.

that intentional deception and his spare no taxpayer funds to demand greater reliance on imported energy, makes him less than worthless.

CJJames wrote on July 07, 2008 12:17 PM: Democrats are trying to address the problem, however, obstructionist Republicans and their thirst for drilling are keeping us all from moving forward. Our country has 2% of the world's oil (including ANWR) yet we have 25% of the demand; we CANNOT drill ourselves out of this problem. And since we will have to move off fossil fuels anyway when they run out, why not start moving efforts and funds to types of renewable, clean energy now? Wouldn't that be fiscally responsible and classically conservative? Republicans are procrastinating on this issue because of their love for the money that either they personally or their party generally gets from companies that process these fossil fuels-but the American people need to be smarter than those who benefit from such greed and act for the future of our country and our children.

wayne allen wrote on July 07, 2008 12:05 PM: When Obama says and the democratic party say drilling for oil won't help if they had done this ten years ago we would not be in this mess today with the average american family having to decide whether to spend money on high coasting food, or pay for the high coast of gas to get to work. Both parties should be able to work together to solve what is hurting the American family and not what is lining their pockets.Gread is what seems to drive them. Either do what we voted for or get out of office or we American will vote you out. Demomocrats stop with the defeated attitude of "we can't" Americans can do anything we set our minds to do. We trusted you to do what is best and your letting us down.

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