For all of you my friends who aren't news junkies, and don't want to hear about politics, here's a daily update:- Nancy Pelosi from San Fansisco (right) is the Democrat leader of the House of Representatives in DC. She dismissed the House for a 5 week vacation on 7/31/08 so she could go market her new book.
Meanwhile, House Republicans stayed in DC to protest the vacation and demand Pelosi return the House from vacation to vote on the comprehensive energy bill which allows for offshore drilling so we can drill for oil in our ocean-spaces.
Pelosi, as the Speaker of the House, ordered the lights turned off, the microphones disconnected, and CSPAN and all other video cameras off, but they're still there, refusing to leave until the energy bill gets voted on. - Barak Obama went on his world tour and was even scheduled to visit wounded American soldiers in a Hospital in Germany. He cancelled that stop when he was told he wouldn't be able to have the film crews take video footage for campaign commercials.
- John McCain has come out with a strong condemnation of Russia's attack on Georgia (the country, not the southern state). So strong of a condemnation, that he upstaged the Bush administration in addition to the vacationing Obama. Yes, Obama is on a week-long vacation in Hawaii
- Gas prices are down. Oil prices are decided by speculators, who buy and sell future estimates on oil prices (just think of it as a stock market on "futures," future estimates of things). When it looks like there will be higher supply or lower demand in the future, prices drop. When it looks like there will be lower supply or higher demand, prices rise. Reasons for the price drop:
- At $4/gallon some of us drive less, and the poorest of us now can't drive at all to go to work or buy groceries, so we use less gas
- With oil prices so high, it became worth it to start exploring and drilling for oil in parts of the world where it had previously been too expensive.
- Bush removed the presidential ban on US offshore drilling.
- The House Republicans are fighting to remove the parallel congressional ban. If that gets lifted, oil futures will drop immediately on the prospect of adding new oil resources to the market.
- McCain and Obama are virtually tied in the polls. Obama has had a 3-point average lead, but there's reasons that this may be a false lead that I'll get into another day.
I'd actually read about oil prices dropping. Aren't you proud? Thanks for sharing the rest, though. I'm definitely one of the folks who tries to ignore the political articles.
I love what's going on surrounding that energy bill. That rocks!
Thanks for the comment. Hopefully these will be a good short resource without all of the hysteria that is usually surrounding the news.
And yes, I'm very proud that you knew about the oil prices dropping.
If, however, there is no repeal of the congressional ban on offshore drilling, prices will rise on speculation of not having the additional oil.