While there are those of us who are old enough to remember when gas was only a buck a gallon, you know us mid-twenty year olds, it might be time to savor these 3.69 prices we have now.  Its been reported over the last six months that OPEC has no intention of producing more oil because the price is not caused by a supply problem.  We could not even use the extra oil anyway because our refining capacity is already maxed out.  Later in other reports (mostly BBC) it quotes OPEC heads as viewing oil as a "strategic resource" and not simply a market commodity.  There stated aim at the time was 200 dollars a barrel by the end of next year.  Now I can not claim to be an expert on oil prices and there exact relationship with gas prices but I am assuming that with oil rising gas will as well.  So Hilary and McCain both propose to suspend the gas tax and pay for that by increasing taxes on oil companies.  The oil companies are targets because they make money finding the oil, supplying the oil, and refining the oil and make good money doing so.  How dare they make money of people's needs, who do they think they are, hopsitals?  What do they think this is, capitalism?  Come on people these shortsided ideas wont mean beans when gas another two dollars more a gallon next year.  What needs to happen,  (I read this from Thomas Friedman), is that we need to start setting aside large amounts of money for a Manhattan Project on a renewable reliable energy resource.  Our government spends so much money on items that hurt more than help in the long run (see tax rebate) that they could once not pander to the ignorant and do somethin for the benefit of every American rich and poor.  When we move beyond oil we move beyond the pollution, the fluxation in energy prices, and a dependency upon a region we have been antogonizing for the last sixty years for their oil.  If you want to hurt Iran or Syria don't spend money we borrow and print to fight wars with them, simply withdraw their oil income.  Those countries have nothing else comparable and would collapse from within.  This is an eventuality but we should speed this up by finding an alternative renewable resource for everything from fuel to plastics.  The more money we fund into this project (and I'm sure we can find some in a 2.8 trillion dollar budget) the quicker this gets done, and you can even involve the oil companies in this so that sector of the economy is simply transfered as opposed to destroyed.  Besides the oil companies are the ones with the supply infrastructure already in place.  Remember we have been spoiled the last twenty five years with cheap gas and that party is over- for good.  Its time we find solutions before the problem gets worse, which is inevitable, for there is no getting better from here.

Recently I posted a blog on here about Ted Kennedy and his murdering of a young woman while driving intoxicated.  I was informed, correctly, that it would actually be vehicualr manslaughter, which is correct as well.  However that thought process has led to this blog about drunk driving itself.  Just as a background I graduated from a local high school here at the begining of this decade.  By the time I walked the stage to graduate I personally had known six people (two to whom I was real close) who had been killed while drunk driving or as victims of a drunk driver.  I would venture to say that the highest cause of death amongst people my age in the area.  Now because of this I have a biased view on drunk driving so know this when you understand my harsh perspective.  Drunk driving is attempted murder, and I believe it should be charged as so.  When you drive intoxicated you are behind a machine that can kill a person with ease and being intoxicated increases those oddds if I am not mistaken.  There should be no if's or but's about this we should devote some of the patrolmen to sit outside of bars as cars leave and pull them over at the slightest hint of drunkeness.  People speak of gun control and of drug abuse and I understand these are dangerous as well, but they do not kill with the prevelancy of drunk driving.  So while it might be "vehicular manslaughter" if you do something knowing that it might kill some one, it makes you culpable, just as if I fire a gun into a crowd not meaning to aim at anyone or hit anyone, I should be culpable.  At some point we have to decide that saving thse lives is more important than bar patrons having a good time.

So in reading the outpouring of support Seator Ted Kennedy has recieved after his stroke one must wonder.  This man killed a woman.  Its not even disputable except that no case was brought (wonder why) after he plowed his car into a ditch while intoxicated and killed a woman.  Then I read Senator Harry Reid speak of how he is the epitome of what America stands for?  What a joke.  The Governer of New York is forced out for using the oldest proffession in the book, and a President was impeached because of marital impropriety while serving and yet this guy has gone right on serving.  Shoot we have a President now who lied to start a war (no w.m.d.s no Islamic terrorists until after our arrival and no oil to pay for the war which now annually costs us over 100 billion dollars!!  Wonder how many medical bills or college educations that 100 billion a year coupld pay for.  At what point do the sheep who inhabit this country decide that not only are our politicians terrible (from both sides of the aisle) but that the voters are just as ignorant.  Wake up and lets not vote on people because we are team players of a particualr political party, or because one guy doesn't wear some stupid lapel, or even because of one's age.  Lets vote on...now wait for it...issues!  If that had been happening for the last fifteen years then we wouldn't have Republicans who can't spell fiscal conservative and Democrats who can't avoid becoming some populist canidate who tries to please everyone and pleases no one.  Come on America expect better of yourselves.  Lets elect people who don't use the Constitution as toilet paper, which by the way is what every American soldier swears to protect.

As one watches the government hand out money to people left and right like its printing it (ooops it is) and devaluing our dollar on a daily basis, it makes one wonder what you have to do to qualify for handouts.  First everyone gets a piece of the rebate checks well unless you make too much money and thats good since we will all suffer the ensuing inflation of money from thin air.  Second, you might qualify for the government to help pay your house off if you were irresponsible enough to take a loan you could not afford, and do not tell us you were duped by these companies.  Interest rates were as low as they could possibly go and people took out variable rates and thats a good decision?  Maybe instead of a straight cash handout you would like free medical care or free college.  Well have a child out of wedlock as a teenager gurantees you for both, or if thats not the route for you try commiting a felony.  You could leave jail in two to three years with a degree and have any health issues you had dealt with all with no cost to you!  What if your a company wondering the same thing?  Well just ask Bear Stearns, where you can run your company so poorly they will pay you to stop and have some one else (JP Morgan) run it for you.  After the payouts from Bear Stearns its only the middle class which will sufffer anyway because the execs just got paid big.  I asked my own boss if I did my job poorly enough if they would pay me a severance package like they do these execs that run their companies into the ground and I got a funny look?  I'm confused I thought thats how it works?  Anyway the point is if you look at how our government is spending the money its borrowing and printing its a double tak on the middle class, and in almost every case rewarding pooor decison making.  What happened to suffering the consequences of ones actions, of accepting personal responsibility?  Why is that a joke to so many people?  The middle class sees no benefit (outside of the puny rebate check) and yet foots a good chunk of the bill, and on top of that they suffer the inflation that these short-sided policies ensure.  The best part about all of this is that each political party keeps throwing up such junk for canidates that these failed short term policies are almost guranteed to continue.  Economists would make bad lawyers and even worse doctors, but can not the inverse be said when the elected officials (who are a majority of either doctors or lawyers) try to get involved in economics.  Where is the track record to prove I might be wrong?