Look, I’m all for democracy and everything, but given the state of the economy right now how wise is it, exactly, for the Bush administration to promise $1 billion in aid to Georgia, half of it in the next five months?
Notes the LRC blog:
In addition, Dick Cheney is visiting the region to stir up even […]

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Hm. Via Atrios, a story of how Massachusetts teenagers are losing their licenses faster than ever before because of a 2007 state law that suspended teens’ licenses for 90 days after a single speeding ticket; teens must also pay a $500 fee to have the license reinstated.
Draconian? Teens - and their parents - think so:
They complain […]

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And even the Lorax is laughing.

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Not ours. Theirs:

Between Russia and Iran, in the lower Caucasus, sits a small wedge of independent soil — namely, the soil of Azerbaijan and Georgia combined. Through those two countries runs the immensely important Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which delivers precious oil circuitously from Azerbaijan to Turkey and out to the world. This is important not just […]

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Hm.
Oil prices jumped more than $4 a barrel Wednesday, halting a three-day slide after the government reported a bigger-than-expected drop in U.S. gasoline supplies. But more signs of dwindling U.S. demand cast doubt on the rally’s longevity.
I love that line - “cast doubt on the rally’s longevity.” As if anyone has any idea whatsoever what […]

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And the headline tells you everything you need to know:
After Returning From Four Days At The Olympics, Bush Criticizes Congress’s ‘Vacation’

Who knew being the Leader of the Free World could be so darned relaxing?

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Been going back and forth via e-mail with a conservative correspondent who wanted to argue about last week’s piece re: the big bad oil companies, and the money they make.
While the screed might have seemed anticapitalist, it wasn’t intended that way. But then, big oil, like ExxonMobil, has sort of perverted the whole notion of capitalism, […]

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Oil down again today, briefly in the neighborhood of $117 per barrel, now just up over $118.
This, despite the fact that several refineries either remain shut down or have been operating at reduced rates due to Tropical Storm Eduoard; this, despite the Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz if attacked.
A month ago, these […]

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As illustrated, today, in the Wall Street Journal by Holmes W. Jenkins Jr., who rips into T. Boone Pickens’ energy plan.
Some of the points are valid: Pickens’ claim that we should power cars with natural gas, however great that might sound, fails to mention that we lack a “practical theory of how to get there” - meaning the […]

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Time Magazine:
But who’s really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated […]

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John McCain advocates offshore drilling, John McCain gets “surge” of donations from oil companies.
And don’t miss the bit about the Hess office manager who, with her Amtrak foreman husband, each gave $28,500 to McCain and the Republican National Committee.

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Brad at Sadly! No outlines how it all works:
The concept is simple: the McCain campaign knows that it will never get the GOP base excited about their candidate because they hate him. Thus, the only way to inspire Winger Nation to flock to the polls in November is to conduct a Three-Month Hate against Obama […]

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Up by nearly $3 per barrel so far today. Could reverse by the end of the day, of course, but the up-and-down nature of the market this week generates its own set of questions. Does a decline from the high of $147 per barrel to roughly $20 less constitute the bursting of a bubble? Or […]

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This is just completely typical, isn’t it?
While the U.S. oil industry want access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, American-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries.
A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four […]

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Daniel Larison, posting over at Sullivan’s place (but more and more becoming a daily read in his own right, at Eunomia), riffs on a recent Limbaugh comment endorsing Chinese fuel subsidies - and what that says about this particular type of “conservatism”:
Limbaugh offers here the absurd spectacle of “conservatism” as the embrace of endless consumption […]

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Wow. Numbers significantly worse than expected; and now the company will retool and refocus on smaller vehicles:
Ford also announced that it will bring six European small car models to North America by the end of 2012 as it deals with a market shift from trucks to cars brought on by high gasoline prices.
When I drive […]

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More signs that the oil bubble is bursting: Oil down $4 per barrel already today on news that Tropical Storm Dolly probably won’t cause supply disruptions.

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Odd that the oil price fall isn’t the major item being featured at Yahoo News or Drudge; Drudge, in fact, more or less ignored the continued decline yesterday, focusing instead on Barack Obama’s workout routine.
Oil is the biggest story of the past week, isn’t it?
Been a strange week. So far oil up by 36 cents […]

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While we ponder the continuing oil sell-off (as noted in the update below, down another $4 plus change today, briefly dipped below $130 per barrel), it’s worth wondering what has triggered this.
Right-wingers are attributing it to Bush’s “drill, drill, drill” comment the other day. But we might point to something else: the fact that the […]

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Oil was up today by more than $1.30, but has since trended downward, 98 cents as of this writing.
If I was heavily invested in oil (if only), I would probably have sold, or sold some, over the course of the past few days. Particularly with demand dampening, you’ve got to take your profits. At the […]

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