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March 12, 2008
The story goes that in Stalinist Russia the family of an executed prisoner was billed for the bullet used to kill their loved one.
When I first heard that story, the price of the bullet was 38¢. A bullet weighs about an ounce when you add the weight of the brass casing and gunpowder to the weight of the actual slug.
Interestingly enough, a gallon of gas weighs 8.344 pounds; that equals 133.504 dry ounces. The price of gas where I live jumped from $3.19 per gallon to $3.46 per gallon…OVERNIGHT. That means that this morning an ounce of gas costs just over 38¢…cue the Twilight Zone music.
People ask me what I will buy with my $600 tax rebate from Dubya and the kids in Congress. I could buy 173 gallons of gas with $600. That equals 11.5 tanks of gas at $52 a tank. That’s if gas doesn’t get higher, and we all know it will.
The monarchs that control oil production have us paying for the “bullets” that are killing our economy. We are riding shotgun on the Saudi stage coach and paying more than full price for a ticket.
That would be like Kristen giving Governor Spitzer $5000.
Why are we both at the economic mercy of the Saudi oil Princes and expending the lives of our countrymen and the economic futures of our children to protect the Saudi oil Princes? Our willingness to leave an army in Iraq makes the Saudi royal family feel very secure.
What do we get out of this relationship? We get dead people and a recession.
What do the Saudi oil Princes get out of this relationship? They get richer.
We discussed this two weeks ago, I know, but my personal well being and the well being of my loved ones are in more danger from OPEC than from islamofascism.
We have no real plan for developing practical alternatives to oil. Dubya has been against requiring car manufacturers to up the gas mileage on automobiles. Congress has made the world safe from Roger Clemens’ ass, but they are letting us drown in oil.
Vice President Dick is going to Saudi Arabia to complain about the price of oil and to ask the Saudi oil Princes to reconsider their proposed freeze on oil production. Great, they’ll pat him on the head like the old bald guy on the Benny Hill Show and send him home with a gold sword just like they did Dubya.
This is like the Agony Column in Cosmo.
Dear Agony Column,
I have been dating a wonderful guy for quite some time. Over the last 70 years or so he has developed some troubling behaviors. He makes me pay him for being his girlfriend and for everything he does. I work two jobs to support his lifestyle. When I complain, he cuts me off until I agree to pay again; then he raises the price for being his girlfriend.
A few years ago, he made me pay for a security system in his house and 24/7 security guards outside. Once I did that, he doubled my girlfriend fee.
My friends say I should leave this guy, but there are no other guys where I live. He’s the only guy in town.
What should I do? I love him, but he’s draining me dry.
Yours truly,
Addicted to Love
Ask a recovering addict what they were willing to do to get the money for their drug of choice. You’ll hear stories that will curl your hair. We are addicted to oil, and we are willing to do some dastardly things to get the stuff. In all fairness, we did it to ourselves.
Back in the 1970s, there was an oil boycott and we damn near came to knees. We had to ration gas. You had to wait in lines miles long to buy gas. Back then, we had a choice. We could have vowed to get ourselves off the stuff or vowed to do whatever we had to do to keep the stuff flowing.
We became Scarlett O’Hara; “With God as our witness, we would never run out of oil again.” The awful truth of it is we have to get off the oil. It is a matter of national economic survival.
Imagine the day when we can tell Saudi Arabia that we are leaving them. The Saudi royal family will grab us by the sleeve and tell us they love us. We will stare back at them and say, “Frankly my dear oil Princes, we don’t give a damn.”
Imagine what America would be like today if 30 years ago we had stayed serious about finding alternatives to oil.
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Posted by Gene_Clark on 2008-03-12 14:34:29 | Rating: | Views: 53
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