By CLIFF MAY, Scripps Howard News Service

Perhaps money can't buy love, but it can certainly purchase power. So as oil prices have been rising, the major oil-producing nations have been gaining clout.

The folks over at OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, must think we're pretty stupid. The other day, Chakib Khelil, the current OPEC president, asserted that "the intrusion of bioethanol on the market" is responsible for 40 percent of recent increases in the price of oil.

The anniversary passed with scarcely a mention. Six years ago, on June 24th, 2002, President Bush turned American policy in the Middle East in a new direction. In a groundbreaking speech, he announced that the U.S. would support the creation of a Palestinian state.

Bud McFarlane served in the Marines and, years later, as President Reagan's national security adviser. So I listened up when, at a Foundation for Defense of Democracies workshop on energy security, he said of Saudi Arabia's oil facilities: "Any self-respecting suicide-bomber could take them out. Any artillery man could do it, too."

There's an anniversary this week we might do well to recall. On May 29, 1453 -- just 555 short years ago -- troops led by Mehmed II broke through the walls of the ancient Christian capital of Constantinople.

To celebrate July 4th, Americans shoot off fireworks -- a colorful reminder of the struggle for independence.

Is democracy on the march or is it in retreat?

It's become the conventional wisdom and William Tucker, writing in The Weekly Standard, expressed it most eloquently: "Right now, we're trying to run our cars on corn ethanol instead of gasoline. As a result, we suddenly find ourselves taking food out of the mouths of children in developing nations. That may sound harsh, but it also happens to be true."

There's an old joke about astronomers discovering a giant meteor heading toward the Earth, and the Washington Post running the headline: "World To End; Minorities and Poor To Suffer Most." Well, on Sunday the front page of the Post read: "The New Economics of Hunger." In the subhead: "The world's poor suffer most."

The next time Islamist terrorists attack us it could be with a nuclear weapon. By saying that, am I "fear mongering"?