So gas is now $2.19 a gallon for regular. A week's commute in a mid-sized sedan will run about $50.

The NYMEX web site, which updates the running price on a barrell of crude, is becoming more popular than Drudge.

Most news accounts, like this one, point the blame finger at the Russians.

They didn't want U.S. oil companies to buy Yukos, because Yukos was one of their biggest oil companies. So they did what Russians do: They arrested Yukos' chairman and threw the company into a shambles. Now Russian oil can't get to China, the Chinese are getting it from OPEC and OPEC doesn't have what the U.S. needs.

So, on Long Island, it's $2.19 a gallon for regular.

This isn't the 1970s, when an Arab oil embargo caused a 300 percent jump in prices in the span of a year. There aren't any gas lines. Fist fights aren't breaking out at the pumps. Nobody has hung any "No Gas" signs.

But, suddenly, John Kerry's "I'll Get Tough With the Arabs" rhetoric has stopped because the Arabs don't lock up their oil executives and dismantle their pipeline operations. And saving a few thousand shaggy musk oxen in Alaska, at some point, won't be a good enough reason to keep the pumps and oil extraction equipment out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Eventually, someone will come in and take Yukos' place and get the oil to China. Oil will drop back down under $40 a barrell. Commuting will be a little cheaper again.

But if you're a wild musk ox, get ready to pack your bags, Pappi. We need that real estate.

NYMEX is nowhere near as interesting as Drudge.