If I ruled the world, we'd be drilling both in ANWR and off Florida's Gulf coast, researching alternative energy sources, new forms of transportation, and developing a vaccine for children so they wouldn't grow up to be liberals.
But I'm not. So, here we sit with OPEC (and China and India) in a demand-driven oil-price war that is straining the pocketbooks of most every family in the country and threatens to put our economy into a nosedive. Plus, that 50¢ package of rice is now $2.00. That's not as bad as other parts of the world because the U.S. produces 80% of the rice it consumes. Try living in Vietnam right now. They live on rice and the price of the little white grains has gone up some 1200% in the past year or two.
Corn? Well, I don't have to tell you about corn; do I? The idiots on Capitol Hill don't have much sense so they actually listened to the environmental wackos who have been screaming that we've got to create ethanol from corn so we can replace the foreign oil on which we're so dependent. Trouble is, robbing from the food chain to feed the fuel chain turns out to be a net negative strategy. Everybody loses. Will someone please wake up Congress and tell them we won't be able to afford to eat soon?
I drive a car that used to get somewhat decent gas mileage -- 22 mpg/city. At $2-2.50/gallon, that's still not bad. But we're approaching $4 for a freakin' gallon o' gas and 22 mpg just doesn't cut it. That's almost 2 dimes for every mile I drive.
I'm lucky; I work at home. No hour-long commute twice a day in stop-and-go traffic out to the 'burbs. I suppose I could live in Frisco, a suburb 25 miles north of downtown Dallas, as the mockingbird flies. And drive a Hummer.
I read a story yesterday about people trying to dump their gas-guzzling SUVs in favor of less thirsty transportation. Unfortunately, no one's buying. As Lucy would say, "Eeeeuuuwwww."
I may end up buying a smaller car myself. With talk of SEVEN dollar gas in the news (if oil hits $200/bbl) I may just have to settle for a bicycle. Or a trike. With a basket on the back and little horn and. . . and. . . a flag! Oooh, yeah, that's me. Oh, well, it may just be if we can't find a solution to this foreign oil dependency.
Hey! I just had an idea. Man, this is gonna make me MILLIONS! Let's track down all the environmentalists who were screaming about corn-based ethanol and put 'em in a big pot and render the fat from them and use that to run our bio-diesel cars!
Oh, wait. . . Damn! They're all vegetarians and don't have but about 3% body fat. Another net-negative energy strategy.
Okay. . . then the only thing left is to bomb Ahmadinejad back to the Stone Age and take his oil. We can strap Cindy Sheehan to the first nuclear-tipped Tomahawk missile.
Oh, this is gettin' goooood.
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