Well…I promised I’d get back to take on the placeholders from last night..the first one is the repubs going into full attack mode on the proposed release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to bring down oil prices…and, of course, the repubs don’t want to hear it, trying to tar this attempt to relieve prices for the middle class “just politics” and vowing to fight it….but, I have a different take on the whole thing…first, what’s wrong with spanking the speculators that are driving up the price? Every analyst says there is plenty of supply and the Saudi’s have said that there isn’t anyplace to put any increased output….so, the only reason that oil prices are soaring is the speculators are betting there will be a rise in prices which fuels the rise in prices…pretty neat for the speculators, huh? Second…why not sell of oil that was purchased at 20-70 dollars a barrel for 128 dollars? It wouldn’t hurt to sell off 10 million of the 177 million barrels in the reserve and even using the top price of 70 dollars, that would make a profit of almost 500 million dollars that could be used to reduce the deficit….I threw that last part in kind of tongue in cheek…500 million would be smaller than a drop in the bucket against the deficit but I wanted to say it before some politician. The only reason the repubs don’t want this release is that their oil company masters love it when prices soar…just more profits for the oil companies and campaign contributions for the repubs…geez…