by El Zorro Viejo (aka; Jim)

There are two Gulf stations here in town. They are about 2 miles apart with one in the center of town and the other out on the highway. The difference in price for Regular gas is 16-cents. The station in town is charging $1.99 and the one out on the highway is charging $2.15. I was aghast. I have always been a proponent of higher gas prices to curtail unnecessary or wasteful driving, but, when the reality stared me in the eye, I must admit to a certain amount of angst. So, now I am practicing conservation oriented driving. No more pedal-to-the-metal starts; the tach doesn't get over 3000rpm and everything is done slowly and smoothly. This is an imposition because I dearly love speed...in cars...or other moving vehicles. Going fast in a car is, for me, as good as any drug. So, this conservation mode of driving is going to be...hard, but I'll do it.

Now, what annoys me is that this is not the result of public policy, and the cost of gasoline is not being used to fund alternative energy sources. No. All that money is going to line the pockets of the oil industry...from our own, locally grown oil industry to the Swiss bank accounts of all those Arabs who lucked into living on top of an ocean of oil. Now, I know that ocean will not last forever, but the cost of oil flowing from the Middle East is not reflecting that reality, it is reflecting the reality that we are actually at war with that culture. All George Bush's Arab buddies in the Oil Patch are, basically, screwing us to show their disapproval of what George has done in Iraq.

It won't make much difference now, who is in office because the war is on. However, I think we should retire Mr. Bush just to show him that 1)we aren't as stupid as he seems to think we are, and 2)because this is not the only bad thing he has done with the Presidency. Yep, we truly do need to fire his ass!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. ©El Zorro Viejo 2002-2005