My Bad Day/ OPEC Warning

Did you ever have one of those days were you should have stayed in bed? Between everything that could go wrong going wrong at work, getting to my car and finding out my tire had picked up a nail and was flat, and a couple of problems at the house when I got there my day has been terrible. So I get everything taken care of, sit down at my computer and the first damn thing I see is this:

The head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries warned Thursday that oil prices would see an "unlimited" increase in the case of a military conflict involving Iran, because the group's members would be unable to make up the lost production.

"We really cannot replace Iran's production - it's not feasible to replace it," Abdalla Salem El-Badri, the OPEC secretary general, said during an interview.

Iran, the second-largest producing country in OPEC, after Saudi Arabia, produces about 4 million barrels of oil a day out of the daily worldwide production of close to 87 million barrels. The country has been locked in a lengthy dispute with Western countries over its nuclear ambitions.

This is a fine example of why you cannot depend only on countries (especially these countries) to supply you with a much needed product such as oil. It illustrates how our domestic policies intertwine with our foreign policy. We have let ourselves become dependent on some of the countries that hate us the most. You are saying Saudi Arabia is our friends. Right. They tolerate us because we have what they need ($$$/food), just as we tolerate them because they have what we need (oil/oil).

For thirty years we have been cutting the legs out from under American companies as it relates to our oil and other energy production. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.

On a better note, it seems like some of the dems are starting to rethink their positions on drilling OUR oil:

...They're searching the polls, not their souls, and they aren't happy with what they find juxtaposed with their present position on the matter. So, as is typical of the breed, they're easing toward the more popular position.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said Wednesday that Democratic and Republican leaders are negotiating a compromise on energy legislation. Kyl declined to say who's doing the negotiating or what results, if any, their discussions have yielded.

But Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), a longtime proponent of increased offshore drilling, said he was seeing "a big shift, a big shift in my direction," and it was hard to find Democrats who disagreed.