Connecting fracking and sand pits and Keystone XL, explaining why Keystone XL oil is intended to go overseas and to make us actually pay more at the pump, and finishing up with a light flourish.

The Middle East’s two key exports these days seem terribly at odds with each other: oil, the lifeblood of the global economic order, and political unrest, in the form of protest movements rolling across the region. Occasionally, though, oil and dissent can mix, and workers may be channeling a bit of the Arab Spring into the petrol empires of Iraq and Iran.

The story is basically this. Oil production is static, if not falling, and emerging markets are increasing and broadening their wealth, leading more and more Chinese and Indians and Indonesians and Brazilians to desire a higher standard of living. Invariably this means oil demand goes up. Therefore, when global GDP growth increases, demand for oil and then the price of oil increases.

And around the world, but especially in a country like ours that’s extremely dependent on oil, this creates a price shock and a reduction in growth. The political cartoon of this would be a man named “economic growth” jumping to the ceiling and consistently hitting his head on “the oil supply.” So we’re in a constant cycle of low growth and stable oil prices, followed by higher growth and oil shocks, which knocks the economy back to lower growth.

Climate change skeptics have been after Dr. Monnett since Al Gore used information about his research in the movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Judging from the attacks launched since the last week of July on his 2005 paper and how environmentalists used that information to heighten awareness of rapid changes in the polar ice cap, the investigation of the scientist will continue to be misrepresented by the anti-science community, even as he goes back to work.

Throughout the Libya war, there has been quite a bit of skepticism about who the rebels being armed were exactly and whether they could govern Libya after Gaddafi was defeated. A political body to represent the rebels, the National Transitional Council (NTC), began to solidify early in the conflict. Its leader, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, has been chairman of the NTC since February. Jalil was Libya’s justice minister, who was sent to deal with the uprising in Benghazi when it began. Jalil “quit in protest” after witnessing the “excessive use of violence against unarmed protesters.”

International Executive Director of Greenpeace, Kumi Naidoo, is being deported from Greenland after four days in jail for scaling a Cairn Energy rig off the coast of Greenland and demanding that Cairn immediately halt drilling operations and leave the Arctic.

Saudi Arabia’s efforts to get OPEC to raise production has foundered on opposition, mostly from those on the other side of the fight for hegemony of the Middle East and the world, starting with Iran. The vote came down to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and UAE against Iran, Iraq (!), Libya, Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, and Venezuela.

Sanders went so far as to accuse Gensler of breaking the law for not implementing the Dodd-Frank regulation on position limits. He cited the now well-worn quote by Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, that the price of oil under regular market conditions should be $60-$70 a barrel (it’s currently trading at around $100). Sanders also cited the recent lawsuits from the CFTC against Parnon Energy, Arcadia Petroleum and Arcadia Energy for driving up prices during the spike of 2008, and stated that the same conditions exist today.

It took the Obama Administration years to build a case against a few financial firms for their role in the 2008 oil spike, but at least they’ve gotten around to it. The people most equipped to know the existence of the problem were screaming to the government at the time that speculation, not supply and demand, was driving prices.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged one trading house and two individuals for illegally manipulating oil prices during the price spike of 2008, when oil reached $147 a barrel, by creating the appearance of a shortage to drive up the benchmark for crude. While the action covers oil trading in 2008, the connection to today, where speculation is seen as a primary cause for higher gas prices, is unmistakable.