Do you know that the U.S. is now the world's largest oil producer this year, surpassing Saudi Arabia and pumping around 11 million barrels a day? The average U.S. gas price is $3.17 a gallon this week, down around 15 percent since June, according to GasBuddy.com.  Here is an article that helps us to understand the situation: As oil prices fall, who wins and who loses? The upside of low gas price: The U.S. will feel less dependent on foreign crude and enforce pressure on oil producers such as Iran and Russia. But the downside is that the low demand for oil reflects a fragile global economy that's vulnerable to additional shocks, like falling stock markets around the world. So whenever oil prices move sharply in either direction, they unleash ripples around the globe that are both economic and political. The oil prices down around 25 percent since hitting $112 a barrel in June. What should we expect after a long economic recess? The link leads you to a roundup of the impact worldwide. And you will see how the oil price changes in political game.    

Rulings have allowed a protest at a soldier's funeral and struck down buffer zones around abortion clinics, but the plaza outside the court seems to be a different matter. (NYT)

U.S. shale producers are cramming more wells into the juiciest spots of their oilfields in a move that may help keep the drilling boom going as prices plunge. (Bloomberg)

Political dissident Noam Chomsky, who recently spoke in the hall of the U.N. General Assembly at an event sponsored by the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. "The pattern that was set in January 1976 continues to the present," said Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (DN)