Drilling and Pumping...In Our Own Backyard!

These solutions are the kind of things that seem so practical and obvious that it is no wonder the powers-that-be take years to notice them.

Read this story in the Christian Science Monitor about the rebirth of the American oil industry in the West.

Seems to me that when the problem of "where do we get cheaper oil" crops up, the first reaction should be "let's see what we have sitting around" and not "let's deal with corrupt and repressive governments and pay out the nose." During the great Texas oil boom of the last century, the reason that it all ended was not that supplies ran out. It was because prices fell off sharply and it became a joke to invest in the petroleum industry.

It seems as plain as day that in these days of unstable geopolitics in oil producing regions and rising prices that these old operations would be reexamined.

I realize that we do actually get most of our crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico. There are also huge untapped oil reserves in the north of Canada. Why don't we look more into these issues? This feeds the possibility that we don't actually fight wars over oil. That is just a red herring. There are other reasons...scarier than any oil deal could ever be.

In any event, I don't own a car. The funniest side effect to all of this is those people who bought huge SUV's with their profits from trading Enron and WorldCom.

Ahh, for the good old times of 1999!