Seeing the Light at the End of the Tunnel

I was going to write about the Royal Wedding and why we Americans should or should not care, but something more American has happened.

The announcement was made last night by President Obama that our military has succeeded in killing and capturing the body of Osama bin Laden. Our efforts are nearly over, but they are far from done.

Our military still needs to keep control in the countries that we are in, because I am sure that there will be retaliation. And his forces are far from being lead by one single individual, they are spread out in cells and divided. It's like killing the hydra, cut off the main head, and you still have to cut off the others. But it is certainly glad news that we have taken down the main leader and the driving force of all the terrorist actions in the world.

It disheartens me though that the President that wanted to end the war was the one that made the announcement of our victory. But I digress, as it doesn't matter who made the announcement, but that it was made. For now our troops are certainly that much closer to finally coming home.

And I'm sure our economy will see a rebound from this, for the fear of death around every corner is lifted slightly to let some light shine through.

I congratulate the military personnel involved in this mission, and am glad that none of them were harmed in this action.

Finally, a little light to brighten the darkness, hopefully this will help the entire world to see how much more we should band together to solve all of our problems and differences, rather than fight them out. Because in war, we all lose. For God is on neither side in any war. But he is for the soldiers and he loves them all with all of his heart. And he prays for them to see the error in their fighting, that they should not be at war.

Today America breathes a sigh of relief. And we look forward to tomorrow with hope and prayer.

God Bless our Troops.
God Bless America.
And may God Bless the World.

All the best,
Will

Soldiers, Oil and Money.

In case you live under a rock and haven't noticed, gas prices are extremely high these days. Locally it's around $3.89 per gallon, but at least that's been holding steady for about a week. In my Explorer however, that's around $50 to fill my tank almost once a week. I happen to be one of THOSE people, who burn gas without caring about the ozone or the pandas in Guatemala or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I CARE about our planet, but my gas usage is not single-handedly destroying entire rain forests.  And Al Gore is not my savior.But that's another topic for later, let's get back to gas and oil.

Oil prices are extremely high, which cause gas prices at the pump to be high. President Obama has said that he will release some barrels from our reserve to lighten the burden on our wallets, but we'll see if that really happens or not. Speaking of Presidents, didn't George W. Bush supposedly start the war because of oil? If he did, where are the lower gas prices. One would think that a war started years ago to gain territory so that we could get cheaper oil would have paid off by now. And since Obama has continued that war for even longer than he said he was going to, shouldn't we have seen something by now! Surely there must be a gas rebate check in the mail to me from the Iraq and Saudi governments.

But we can't just blame the Presidents past and present, the auto companies must shoulder some of the blame. The giant boom of SUVs years ago is certainly part of the problem. But now my current focus has turned to these new Hybrid cars. they run on part gasoline and part electricity. Sounds great! So where are they? My problem with these cars is the cost to savings ratio. I would need to save enough on gas to balance out the cost of the car. And if they are so great, and save us so much money on fuel, and are SO wonderful for the environment...why are there not more of them? One or two per manufacturer seems to be about the average. Why don't they just make most of them hybrids? Have one regular gas guzzler, and then five or six different gas sipping electric cars in their lineup. Seems to me, that would be an easy way to make them cheaper, and to sell more of them. And what about the SUVs? I would like an Explorer that gets 60 mpg in the city. Now that would make my day! And I wouldn't care if it ran half on electric, on water, or even on Pixy Sticks.

And what about Natural Gas? I'm sure some of you are saying, what about it? Well, many public transportation systems have been using it for years. It's cheaper and it's cleaner. Take that hippies! But it's not used as much or as readily available in the US. And natural gas is much easier to find here in the US and would require little or no dependence on foreign oil. Here in Pennsylvania you could toss a lawn dart and find a spot to drill a gas well, well almost. I even thought about converting, but I would have to put my own filling station in the garage, because I have no idea where else to get it.

So here are my thoughts for the auto makers:
Make more hybrids, even if the electric only kicks in on Tuesdays on the highway at 50mph, we would still save money.
Make more vehicles that run on natural gas, it's much more gentle on the internal parts and oiled spots (maybe that's the problem, not as much maintenance after purchase)
Why are they so expensive? (that's not a suggestion, just wondering, I have not yet bought a new car that was less than 5 years old)

Well, that's all I've got for now.

All the best,
Will