Not exactly a fix

The president says if Congress doesn't open up the continental shelf for drilling next week, it'll all be their fault: "If congressional leaders leave for the Fourth of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act."

But, of course, (a) it will take at least seven years, maybe ten - best estimate, many think twenty! - for any oil to come from off-shore drilling okayed this summer (b) there's plenty of oil out there for demand now (c) the $4 for a gallon and $130 for a barrel is not because the oil companies are strapped - they're making money hand over fist (d) speculation in the market is primarily to blame and (f) if there really is so much oil there (or (d) isn't true), the OPEC countries will just scale back to keep world prices high. So off-shore drilling won't solve a damn thing, except how to make Bush & Cheney's oil buddies even richer than they are now, allowing them to lock up drilling rights to any place that might have a drop of oil under it - they have 33 million acres now they aren't developing - and damn the environmental consequences. (Hey, if you think the Rapture's right around the corner, who cares about the environment. "God," as one man said, "will be mad at us for not using the Earth up.")

We need to do something. That's obvious. But why sink more money and years into making the oil companies richer? Let's take that decade and that money and do something to break our dependence on petroleum.