I saw a bumper sticker on a leviathanic Mercedes SUV the other day that carefully explained to the driver following behind: “drill here, drill now, lower gas prices,” which is what the drone-bot that has been cleverly substituted for John McCain by his presidential campaign is programmed to say repeatedly.
Russia has the eighth largest oil reserves which, according to learned oil wonks, dwarfs the native US supply. We have 3% of the world’s oil – but we use 30% – So the McCain bumper sticker energy policy is ignoring the math. But who’s counting. There’s an election to be finagled. Never mind new oil wells, what the McCain camp is really interested in tapping is your emotions.

Anyway, that’s a roundabout way of saying that unfortunately Russia has more oil than any of the NATO countries, (and waaaay more gas and coal) so sadly, they have the financial wherewithal to invade neighboring countries. Sort of like Saddam Hussein did, back in his glory days. We have learned in recent history that there is a distinct correlation between large oil reserves and badly behaved leaders (though there are a few notable exceptions…)
Just think. Knowing that we don’t have enough oil here to get the job done, the sooner we figure out how to reduce our oil consumption, the quicker we advance the cause of representational democracy by putting the dictators and tin pot leaders out of business.
That Mercedes SUV driver can get started right away by procuring a Mini Cooper to paste her “drill here, drill now, lower gas prices” bumper sticker on.