5 Year Old News

Wow...I'm glad that there are sound minds outside of the walls of Fox News. I'm still watching specials by Fox from 2006. This one is on "Iran and the Bomb". Apparently Iran was going to have a bomb in a year and would have bombed Isreal by now. Let this be a lesson to us--take all predictions with a grain of salt.

For instance, one of the ways we could have stopped Iran would be to block that straight (you know which one) and stopped them from making oil profits. Now we know that we'd end up crying over the price of gas shooting up when they chose to not sell to England and France and otherwise threatened to close that staight themselves.

Oil Prices

I'm really annoyed because the politicians keep saying that we need to allow for more drilling in order to lower gas prices. While A: this is a long term fix only, I also have to point out that there is a LOT of oil sources on land and easily accessed already owned by the oil and gas companies that they are choosing to keep in reserve. They spend a lot of money finding those new sources of oil and then they just want the first rights to get it which is what the government fights are about.

They've closed how many refineries in the past 2 years? Yes, they were closed because it was cheaper than fixing their environmental problems (like leaking noxious toxins into our water sources), so yes, I guess it is all the government's fault that we aren't able to refine as much oil as we used to thus raising gas prices (though as we're unable to un-tie gas prices from the rest of the world, there's no telling how much of our own actions had any effect).

By the way, on the fact that there is only the world market on gas, thus causing our prices to be high even when our domestic production is high, shouldn't we be pushing for a higher export tax on oil? This would keep our oil in the country, making us more independent. I'm not sure if Exxon would like that...how much of our oil is exported? Keystone would imply a lot, even if it does come from Canada.

By the way, again, apparently Putin made a lot of campaign promises this year that include raising government pensions to a level that exceeds their tax revenue, but that's okay. Everything he promised can be paid for if a barrel of oil raises to $150, since 50% of their tax revenue comes from oil and natural gas. Huh...it looks like there's more than just Exxon who will benefit if gas prices continue to increase.

I really liked Jon Stewart's analysis of the world's stage of problems from 2 weeks ago. Republicans are running for office, so you know that they're saying anything inflammatory in hopes of winning votes. It then makes sense that we can project this campaign strategy on Iran and Isreal since both of their top offices are up for election in the next year or two.