The Price of Gas

A few thoughts on this last week:

The price of gas - "Revolutions begin with enthusiasm and end in tears." The attention span of the American lame-stream media is on display again as Charlie Sheen's public mental breakdown gets more news coverage than the ongoing "freedom" revolutions in the middle east. Libyan dictator Ghadaffi is mass murdering his own citizens in his attempts to crush the rebellion against his cult of himself. And fears of disruption of Libyan oil production is sending the price of gas in the US up and up and up. Wall Street oil speculators are making tons of money on the "futures" market, further driving up the price of gas. The those self-same Middle East authoritarian governments that people are rising up against are making $$$ billions more each month as the price of gasoline climbs. So the price of gas this week is Libya's freedom. Talk about a vicious circle.

Politics and budgets -- several polls now show that sizable majorities of Americans favor cutting military spending, rolling back the tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, increasing corporate taxes, and INCREASING social spending for education, job training, child health, etc., etc., etc., and not cutting Social Security, Medicare, and social spending. The Republicans campaigned on Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, but I thought they meant create them not eliminate them. Their budget proposals are projected to cost the US economy about a million jobs. And Republicans and the Koch Brothers, instead of creating jobs, are continuing their attacks on Mexicans, Gays, Planned Parenthood, women's reproductive rights, Teachers, Unions, public sector employees, the Middle Class, Muslims, PBS, children's health programs, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, job training, unemployment insurance, , etc., etc., etc., all the while protecting various tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations, and, of course, their own personal earmarks, now called "letter marks" for their Congressional districts.

Sarah Palin's new campaign slogan? - "I'm not as ignorant as McCain's campaign staff thought --- elect me President." For reasons known only to herself, Sarah Palin has resurrected the charges made by the campaign staff of McCain/Palin for President and VP and reported on FOX News of all places that she didn't know whether Africa was a country or a continent. Raising the question of just how ignorant she really is doesn't seem to help her much. And even if the charges by McCain for President campaign staff weren't true, it doesn't set a very high bar. "I do too know where Africa is -- elect me President" doesn't have much of a ring to it.

And, God forbid, should Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann both be Republican candidates in the Iowa caucuses, any debates between those two should be interesting. One or the other trying to "outsmart" the other is a frightening thought. Linguistic experts will be sorting through the transcripts of their statements for months, if not years, trying to figure out what they said and what they meant.

It's really all quite depressing. Maybe I'll go paint a flower or something.


Later,
Bud