Oil!

I just heard that Al Qaeda wants to have all its members and supporters work at cutting off oil to the USA. Wow, what a plan! I wonder if anyone has thought about this before? Can you imagine, oil prices 4 or 5 times what they are now? It would be tough on lots of families. What if we didn't get any supplies of oil at all? My first question is pretty easy. How did we get here in the first place? I have a few thoughts.

I am old enough to remember the first gas crises in the 70's. I remember paying the outrageous price of $1.00 or more per gallon. Gone were the days of 50 cent fill-ups for my motorcycle. We later had billboards with a fuel gauge, almost to "E", superimposed over the earth (shot from space) that said, "What Then?" and the word "Then" was crossed out and written in red, "NOW." What NOW? Hasn't anyone thought about this before last Monday? Who held up the progress from producing gas guzzlers to gas misers? Was it big business? Big government? Who?

Before we assign blame, I have a conspiracy theory or two that I have heard regarding oil supplies. I asked an ex-Marine why we don't just drill in the US? He looked at me and said, "we're going to use all their oil (Middle East) first!" So I stood there with the "cow at a new gate" look; mouth hanging open... whoa... I guess I hadn't given it much thought either. I also met a man that worked for a carburetor company in the early 80's. He told me of patents for carburetors that would give much better fuel performance; maybe 60 miles per gallon or more. They were designed and tested. The problem he said, "they were bought by the gas companies."

If you watch the markets, crude oil is one of the "futures" that is traded. Bill O'Reilly of Fox news doesn't believe that those really control the price. Maybe he is right. He is also against big profits in a time of war. I am not against making money by hard work and honesty. No one was upset when Beanie Babies went from $4.99 to $6.99 during the craze a few years ago. The guy had a good idea, great marketing, worked supply and demand to a "t", produced an enjoyable product and now he has loads of cash. Welcome to America; who can be against that? Microsoft continues to be a very profitable company on the verge of monopoly everyday. No one is calling for impeachment over that. The truth is, it doesn't matter what the oil companies do, or the futures, we are a nation dependant on oil! That is the fault of everyone that drives a car and doesn't vote. There was a line in the movie "Left Behind." "Just follow the money." I am sure that is part of it.

Maybe it will take $5.00 per gallon gas prices to get us to change. What bothers me is that someone must have thought about this. Where are they? Where is their voice? It is probably wrapped into some left-wing, pro-life, anti-Christian, anti-War, global warming rhetoric. Left or right-wing, I think we need to take a serious look at this issue. In the 60's we used to say, "if you can put a man on the moon, you can __________." Well, we did that in 1968, you'd think we could come up with a few ways to use less oil. And speaking of futures, do you know where you'll be spending eternity?