Okay, it's time for a little political talk. Today, our friend and savior, Barack Obama was campaigning in Florida and revealed that he has flipped, justifiably so, on the issue of increasing domestic oil drilling.

I applaud the Obama campaign for starting to "get it" on the issue of energy. Most Americans, even those on the right, support the development of new alternative, forms of energy. But, in the meantime, there's a lot we can do to keep the price of petroleum-based fuel from continuing to climb.

Next, Obama delivered a precious disclaimer he's used before:

"It's also important to recognize if you start drilling now you won't see a drop of oil for ten years, which means its not going to have a significant impact on short-term prices. Every expert agrees on that."

(This quote from an article at http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/state/epaper/2008/08/01/0801obama1.html.)

This is fear mongering, plain and simple and it's a classic maneuver straight out of Al Gore's playbook. "All the experts agree!" Yeah, right. Show them to me!

If we do no drilling and merely "hope for change" via Obama's promise of new technology delivering us out of our energy slump, it will be at least ten years before things start to improve.

And that's not all. This ten-year delay makes no sense. Obama's claim may be based on the time it would take for America to increase refining capability. It's true that it takes 4-10 years (depending on how much red tape the local and federal government throw up in their path) for an oil company to build and begin operating a new oil refinery. But, for drilling and then pumping crude oil out of the ground, we're talking about a matter of weeks or months before product is available on the market, not years.

If domestic supplies are harnessed, we can lower our oil imports and supplant it with domestic oil supplies. It's a no-brainer that oil prices in the U.S. will fall or at least become less tied to the world market price levels.

Crude oil futures dropped about $20 right after President Bush lifted the presidential ban on offshore oil drilling. Oil production didn't change! The market just responded to the possibility of increased domestic production. The market will respond even moreas soon as roadblocks to increased domestic supply are removed.

We may never see $1.50/gallon gasoline for a long, long time, but we could see $3.00 or $2.50/gallon gasoline despite increased demand from India and China.