This article regarding OPEC’s response to Bush’s “addicted to oil” comments in the SOTU makes one wonder just who is dependent on whom here. It does not seem to be just a one way street, where we are at the mercy of the oil producing countries in the Middle East. To the contrary, they are very dependent on outside money paying for oil.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Wednesday warned that President George W. Bush’s proposal to reduce US dependence on Middle Eastern oil could badly jeopardise needed investment in Gulf oil production and refining capacity.

So how much are we really dependent on the Arab countries for oil? This year we imported 59% of our oil consumption. Over 45% of our imported oil comes from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. Saudi Arabia makes up another 12%. Only 19.3% of our imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf region, which is a total of 11.4% of our oil consumption, unless my math is wrong.

So it seems to me that while we are obviously highly dependent on foreign oil, and reducing our dependency is a worth goal, the countries that supply us with oil are just as dependent on us for the money that we give them in exchange for their oil.

UPDATE 2/2: This article today indicates that we get 11% of our oil from overseas sources, not just from the Middle East. Given the information cited above from the DOE, I think the article may be mistaken.

These signs are nuts.

D bil cum arnd hre n wl vzit ur olds if ur messin bout

Du ur olds knw whr U r o wot ur doin coz D bil wl tel em

John Kerry claimed this morning on NBC Today that 53% of children do not graduate from high school.

In reality, the number according to the Census Bureau, is more like 87%.

UPDATE 2/2/2006: Michelle Malkin has posted the video.

Cindy Sheehan was arrested before the SOTU for demonstrating in the gallery and for defying the police officer who confronted her. According to her sister, she was there as a guest of Rep. Lynn Woolsey.

LaShawn is pretty unhappy with Bush’s speech. Her big thing is illegal immigration.

The speech is over. I’m bitterly disappointed with George Bush for vague and empty platitudes about illegal immigration. He didn’t address the social costs and national security issues surrounding the illegal scourge, nor did he mention anything about the incident that happened at the border last week or offer anything concrete to his pro-enforcement base. Just fluff, slogans, and hot air.

Captain Ed had the opposite reaction.

Wrapping up the speech: I think it was one of his better efforts, a cohesive and coherent theme of continuing forward engagement. He had explicit goals and policies to meet them, which the Democratic response lacked. Most importantly, he delivered it with resolve and confidence.

The Moderate Voice has a good roundup of the speech and reactions.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has picked up the story now, and her voice is a bit louder than ours, so it’s starting to get some attention. [Ed: by “picked up the story” I didn’t mean the arrest, but the fact that she was invited by Woolsey]

Jason, at Generation Why, points to a story where she indicates she went reluctantly. Hah!

Sister Toldjah looks at the law broken and excoriates MSNBC for a bad poll question.

The hype over this bogus ‘controversy’ is only heightened when you have MSM sites like MSNBC posting the following poll question: Do you agree with the decision by Capitol Police to remove activist Cindy Sheehan from the gallery at the president’s State of the Union speech because she was wearing a T-shirt with an antiwar slogan?

Shouldn’t that have been more like “do you agree with the law that bans demonstrating in the Capitol building?” I guess it was just too much to ask for MSNBC to do a little research on the issue before posting their poll question.

There’s an interesting story over at the CNET politics blog that we missed a couple of days ago, about alterations to Wikipedia entries that originated from IP address allocated to the Senate and House.

The latest episode appeared last week in the form of a report that aides to Rep. Marty Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat, deleted references to his broken term-limits pledge and massive campaign war chest on Wikipedia.

Then the trusty editors at Wikipedia got together and compiled a list of over 1,000 edits made by Internet addresses allocated to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The IP address subsequently was blocked and unblocked.

An extensive analysis reveals how juvenile official Washington secretly is, behind the mind-numbingly serious talk of public policy.

I actually laughed out loud when I received this email from the Howard Dean last night after the SOTU. Here is an excerpt, which followed a litany of things Bush didn’t talk about.

If Bush and the Republicans would bother to answer these questions, the answers would be simple. But they won’t answer.

That’s because the answer to each and every one is “Never.” Never as long as they control our government, never as long as they can execute the same incompetent, dishonest and destructive government without paying a price at the ballot box. The answer will be “never” until we grow the operation and build the infrastructure to beat them.

Part of that means telling people clearly and unambiguously what we stand for — and I’ll tell you right now:

Real security — we will protect Americans at home by getting serious about homeland security, and address the real threats abroad by capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and focusing on actual (not imagined) nuclear proliferation. We will be prepared for the threats of tomorrow, and we will always tell the truth to our troops and the American people.

That’s not just “heh” funny. It’s LOL funny.

UPDATE: Interestingly, the DNC’s “SOTU rapid response” page encourages Democrat sympathizers to manipulate online polls in order to “influence the way the county looks at the President’s preformance.”