oil & water (or politics) don't mix.....

All is quiet on the work front today. A couple of follow ups, but after the long day yesterday, this was very relaxing and easy. Good thing too, because I was not too bright last night and played games until 1am. Again, with no nap. The alarm at 5:30am comes really quickly after those late nights. Will I ever learn?

I need to send out my summer email to clients, but I think I'll wait another week or so as most of my clients are in NC, and will be back from vacations next week because school starts. That way maybe somebody will read it, and not just delete it with their 150 other emails in their vacation inbox. :-)

I found it funny the other day when Cassie saw the prices at the local Shell station and commented about the "cheap" gas at $3.99 a gallon. That is down from the $4.59 I paid (regular) only a few weeks ago, but when I thought about it, I just shook my head. Cassie, and our kids will think $4 and $5 a gallon gas as "low" when they are growing up and starting to drive. Going back, I can remember 89 cents a gallon, but not much less than that when I started driving.

I don't see it going down too much further (never less than $3 again), and I think it will steady for a while until next summer. I see the price of a barrel is hovering about $114 per, today. Down over $30 a barrel from a couple of week ago. While I don't like high gas prices, it did get people to think about driving routines and what they drive, but I fear that if it gets down in the low $3 range for a while, people will "forget" and go back to their old ways.

Of course the cry has been for more offshore drilling, and I think we should have more drilling, and not just to get more oil. I hate the fact that there is an untapped resource that could be helping Americans with jobs and would keep the money in the USA, but instead we are purchasing that amount from foreign sources. I believe that even if we only reduced our foreign dependence by 3%, that it is 300 times better then sending our money overseas.

***(Warning! Political rant!)*** Of course this has turned political, as John McCain wants offshore drilling now while exploring alternatives, including nuclear power, while Barack Obama is opposed to it, although he said recently that he could be persuaded, but in actuality has been opposed to any drilling and would rather give people tax rebate incentives to change their ways. To make matters worse, the Congress, knowing that a majority of people are for off shore drilling, but because it would help McCain's campaign, decided not to even vote on the issue. The Democrats would have voted down the bill to allow of shore drilling, but they don't want to have the public actually see them voting against the drilling, so Nancy Pelosi said, "no vote". Congress then closed down for "summer vacation", and that is that. They didn't want to actually have to explain to their voters why they don't want a part of the program. Instead, the Democrats can just say that they didn't vote against it, because there was no vote of record. Ugh!

Of course, part of this changed Monday when SOH Pelosi was questioned on Larry King Live (how does he still have a show?). She now says she is willing to have a vote if it is part of a bigger package that includes release of fuel from the strategic reserves, extension of energy saving credits that have or will due to expire, and although not said, I would bet some sort of "tax" on oil company profits.

Extension of the energy credits, I am all for, as I think a large part of the population's problem in converting to fuel/energy efficient devices is the cost. Morgan and I were seeing this as we tried to make the new house as "green" as possible.

As for the "tax" if there is one passed, well that would be a disaster. Economics 101 says that if you raise the price on a business to do business, they will pass along that cost to the consumer. Oil companies and its shareholders like $10 billion profits, and they will do all necessary to keep them.

The other part about releasing from the strategic reserves is just plain stupid. These are reserves for a national emergency, not an inconvenience of our wallets. An attack on our soil, a terrorist attack on Middle East oil production, or a large scale natural disaster (larger Katrina, "The Big One" in California) might be a reason to release some of the reserve, but not for trying to take a dime a gallon off the price of gasoline. ***(End of rant)***

I am not saying all gas powered cars need to be gone, but I do think $4 and $5 a gallon gas started the ball rolling on producing other ideas for automobiles. Lower prices might stall (no pun intended) that process, and not make it such an emergency in people's minds until oil starts spiking again. Then the public will start their normal crying routines about alternatives, but only because their wallets hurt, and not because finding alternatives is the right thing to do.

I'm not trying to come off as some "green machine", but I think whether you believe in global warming or not, that we are a smart enough society, as a whole, that we should be coming up with more ideas to make better use of the resources, and not put so much "waste" back into atmosphere. I also think that after 100 years of gas powered vehicles, there should be more automobile alternatives then just a few hybrid or a couple of natural gas models.

We got people from the earth to the moon almost 40 years ago, and that process was started almost 50 years ago. In these days of technology, we can certainly find better ways to get us from "here to there", then the same old ways that have worked since Henry Ford and the Model T.

- More newspaper job cuts. Does anybody read one today?
- Used to be you could only buy Apple products from Apple.
- Cammi makes the US Hockey Hall of Fame.

Until the next time.....