On his “How the World Works” blog, Andrew Leonard connects the dots between Darfur, PetroChina and Warren Buffett:

So let’s put this all together. The price of oil hits a record high. A Chinese oil company may soon become the largest corporation on the planet. And violence directed against Chinese oil companies in Africa is on a steady rise.

There’s really no way this can’t get worse. At Econbrowser, U.C. San Diego economist James Hamilton takes a sober look at the current global supply and demand situation for oil.

His one-line summation: “The answer is pretty simple, really — demand keeps going up but supply doesn’t.” [Full text]