I am fine with that, although oil requires a realistic view of what is going on and sometimes that clashes with ones political views.

Here's the current rub in oil: Conventional wisdom says one should invest in drilling stocks. Example (by the way, I've heard good things about McDermet):

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/tools/industry/focus.asp?bcind_ind=oie&bcind_sid=980704

but what if there is no more oil to be found?

In oil circles, Iraq is the key. There has been so much unrest there for so long, nobody really knows how much oil is there. But it is for sure a hell of a lot. But the question an investor has to ask is will our intervention improve or make that situation worse? Current bets are, short term worse, long term better.

The next question is China. It is obvious they represent a huge new demand for oil, and they represent a huge new pool of dollars to buy it, that will be ever increasing. The oil industry is betting the Russians will supply it, and become the Arabia of the Chinese economy. But again, political unrest has clouded it, and you get the same picture - short term bad, long term maybe ok.

The last question is the American economy. Bush has built a house of cards, and the main card holding it all up is deficit spending on an unheard of scale. Our "recovery" may be a pipedream, like I said, it is the recovery of the guy in hock up to his ass who gets a new credit card in the mail. Take the politics out for a minute and look at the charts I posted. That is what they are saying - we are starting to become a credit risk for the guys on this planet who control vast sums of money. The result is a decling value of the dollar. This becomes another variable in the equation. If the economy goes in the tank, will oil prices fall or will unrest keep restricting supplies, causing them to rise as we go into recession, meaning a deeper and longer recession?
Can our economy go up any further - even if there is not a recession? Big questions lots of variables. I am betting oil goes to 55 before year end, and the economy will go in the tank, but after that, who knows.