At This Specific Point:

• Iraq doesn't scare me;
• Terrorism doesn't scare me;
• The housing market doesn't scare me;
• Iran doesn't scare me;
  

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.

BZ