GAS PRICES!

You want to know why gas prices are so high? Take the time to read this article! Where is it most expensive? Anywhere that has ridiculous environmental policies, and anywhere that charges even more extraneous taxes than elsewhere in the country. I have highlighted a couple of the most important concepts.

Most Expensive Places to Buy Gas in the U.S.
by Matt WoolseySaturday, December 1, 2007provided by
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Drivers in San Francisco enjoy views of the Golden Gate Bridge, with scenic stretches of the Pacific Coast Highway to the south and the rural shoreline to the north. And they pay for it at the pump. There, the average cost of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline reached $3.546 Wednesday, up from $2.524 a year ago.
Things don't look much better in other parts of the state. San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento and Los Angeles posted the country's next-highest per-gallon prices, respectively, according to Gasbuddy.com, a Web site that tracks gas prices nationwide.
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Such high prices are not confined to California. Among the country's 40 largest metros, New York City, Buffalo, Seattle, Miami and Chicago rounded out the top 10 priciest places to buy gas.
The surge at the pump is the result of rising crude oil prices, which have grown significantly since 2004, when a barrel sold for $26. On Wednesday, a barrel went for $93.
Golden State GuzzlersStill, west coast drivers are hit hardest. Those in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles pay more at the pump than those in Houston or Dallas, where the average price per gallon Wednesday was $2.90 and $2.923, respectively, due to such factors as fuel taxes, environmental standards and costs of business like regulatory burdens and taxes.
Ten Most Expensive Places to Buy Gas
Rank; City
1 San Francisco
2 San Jose
3 San Diego
4 Sacramento
5 Los Angeles
6 New York City
7 Buffalo
8 Seattle
9 Miami
10 Chicago
What's more, the difference between, say, San Francisco and Houston is more pronounced this time of year since California requires cleaner fuel year round. Texas, like many Southern and Midwestern states, eases up on such requirements during the winter months when consumption slows. California's higher environmental standard increases refining costs, which get passed along to the consumer.
Why So Steep?Crude oil's output is heavily influenced by the 12-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, each of whose yield makes oil such a volatile commodity. For example, earlier this month crude oil approached $100 per barrel due in large part to Mexico cutting a fifth of its crude-oil production. Also affecting prices? The weak U.S. dollar. Because oil is traded internationally in dollars, much of the per barrel price increase over the last few years also has to do with the slipping greenback.
Last week crude hovered around $93 a barrel, and crude futures are starting to dip below $90, as OPEC is expected to increase output, which in turn will lower prices. OPEC restricts output to keep prices high, but it isn't in its interest for prices to skyrocket because this would dent consumption.
Some hope rising oil prices might increase acceptance of corn-based ethanol as an alternative, green energy source, but the ethanol market has its own problems.
This year, $7 billion was spend in federal biofuel subsidies, resulting in a 20% increase in acres of corn planted. Investors, looking for a fast buck, have in turn produced far more corn for ethanol production than there is blending capacity or consumer demand.
A flooded market has made it more cost effective for ethanol producers to hold on to their supply than to sell it. Some factories in North America and Australia have shut down completely as a result. It's a market in disarray.
"Initially, [the subsidies] looked like a pure handout, but now it looks like its suckered investors into losing a lot of money," says Michael Liebreich, CEO of New Energy Finance, a London-based analyst firm. "Right now oil could be at $120 [per barrel] and it wouldn't make any difference...the speed that the private equity industry poured money into the industry is beyond its profitability."
The national price average for for E-85 -- an ethanol gasoline mix -- is $2.478 a gallon, according to the American Automotive Association, but when that figure is adjusted for energy generated by volume, E-85 costs $3.261 per gallon. Based on figures from the Energy Information Administration, E-85 generates about 25% fewer BTUs (energy unit) than does gasoline and, at its adjusted price, costs about 16 cents more per gallon.
There are, at present, about 4.4 million flex-fuel cars on American roadways and less than 1% of American service stations offer E-85.
A Better BetUnless huge oil fields are discovered in America, the solution to lower gas costs, experts say, lies in efficiency of consumption. From a city planning perspective, step one is reducing congestion. In its 2007 "Urban Mobility Study," the Texas Transportation Institute estimates that drivers in the nation's 437 urban areas wasted 2.9 billion gallons of fuel last year due to traffic delays.
Expanding roadways and building better transit systems relieves congestion, but both are costly. Some say improving traffic efficiency can be a much cheaper way to lessen congestion. Two ways to do this: systems such as service patrols, which comb heavily trafficked areas and help stranded motorists and ramp monitoring systems, which involves the installation of traffic lights on entrance ramps that regulate the frequency with which cars enter a freeway or highway.
"There's room for us to expand upon our management of the system," says David Schrank, co-author of the TTI study. "We can make our operations much more efficient through things like service patrols or ramp metering...very few areas that are managing 100% of their system, and there's room to improve on their management by going beyond the freeway to the arterial streets."
Copyrighted, Forbes.com. All rights reserved.

Prosperity

When are people going to stop resenting the rich, and realize that the richer they get, the more opportunities everyone else will have to make money. Once again, sports provide a wonderful example: athletes actually complain about being 'used' by the owners to make money. Hmm, let us think about this one. Without the owners, athletes would have zero opportunity to make the multi-millions they rake in every year. The great thing about capitalism, is that the owners benefit too! Everybody wins, except when people start resenting the rich, believing instead that they should have to be taxed higher. All this will do is cause them to have to pay their employees less - this hurts everyone! Stop resenting rich people! Be thankful that we live in a country that (so far) provides opportunities for people to get rich!

Expertise

The following is a list of fields of study, and the person(s) who is considered the expert.

Aquatic life: Marine biologists
Architecture: Architects
Animals: Zoologist, Veteranarians
History: Historians
Taxes: Accountants
Law: Judges, Lawyers
Computers: Technicians
Automobiles: Mechanics
Business: CEOs
Bible: Theologians
Space Travel: Astronauts
Plane Flying: Airplane Captains
Plumbing: Plumbers
Wars: Generals
Medicine: Doctors

Church Music: THE CONGREGATION

Capitalism - Evil?

When did people ever get the idea that it is wrong for someone to make a ton of money? The answer seems quite obvious to me: the person who is opposed either has little money in comparison, or has arbitrarily decided that he or she is more deserving of their money.

One of the most important and founding principles of our country is the right to private property. The wonderful thing about capitalism, is that it has an inherent system of checks and balances. Let me give an example I once heard:

A man owned a landscaping business in Texas. One of his rules was that he would never perform his services for a homosexual. OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!! Perhaps. As would be expected, there was in fact an outrage over this issue. Many wanted to sue him, put him in jail, take away his business license - you get the idea. Here is where capitalism enters the picture. There is absolutely no need for the government to stick its fat face into the situation, because supply and demand takes care of everything on its own.

A petition was started in order to convince customers to go elsewhere with their business from then on. This is perfectly within the limits of the law. I do not actually know what happened to the business after that; whether he changed his policy, went out of business, or just kept on going because he had enough other business is outside my scope of information.

Honestly, I think it is silly to deny business to someone because of sexual orientation. First of all, you are losing customers. Secondly, if he was coming from a religious perspective, he seems to be destroying his witness by not showing this person true love and compassion. Therefore, I see no benefit in doing what this man did. However, it is perfectly within his rights to act foolishly. As it is within the scope of the law, he is punished accordingly - he will make less money. An attempt to make some sort of law forcing a business to extend services to someone against his will is extraneous and a corruption of power. If the society as a whole believes what he is doing is wrong, he will be NATURALLY forced to either serve the individual or give up his business as he will no longer have customers.

Another example (this one from John Stossel's Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity): An individual bought an ATM machine and set it up on a tropical island. She charged her customers $4 to extract their money from this ATM. RIDICULOUS!!!! Right?

Let's analyze the situation. The ATM - and therefore the service - did not exist prior to the individual making it available. Now, she has given tourists much more convenient access to their money than they ever had before. She then charges $4 per transaction to supply this service which would otherwise be of no interest to her.

Guess what happened! Tourists were outraged by the ridiculous cost of the machine and actually convinced the government to step in and bring the price down. Hmmmm..... Can you think of what happened next? The individual began to lose money just by running the machine, and had to close it down altogether. Yippee! Victory for the little guy! Oh wait, now tourists no longer have that convenient access to their money. Oops.

Another example, and my personal favorite: Sports. I hear people complain about the prices of food at stadiums all the time. I have actually heard people call the price 'extortion' because you are not allowed to bring food into the stadium, and you MUST purchase their food. How ridiculous is that! If fans were better with their money and did not buy the food in the first place, prices would go down. No one is forced to buy stadium food (this goes for movie theaters as well). Supply and demand people!

The other thing is the price of tickets. I heard on a sports talk station someone complaining about the price of postseason baseball tickets. This person pointed out the difference between salaries for athletes as opposed to public school teachers. Their main complaint was that a poor teacher who truly likes baseball cannot go to a postseason game after enjoying them for the whole year. Awwwwwwww. Let me explain something to you, Mr. Complainer: Your salary is paid by people who have absolutely no choice in paying for it. Anyone who goes to a sporting event has made the choice to attend out of his or her own volition. Furthermore, if it were not for high salary Americans - like these athletes - who are forced to pay your salary, your beloved public school position would be defunct. No one forced you to become a teacher - you could have done something else.

Is this cold-hearted and uncompassionate? Most people on the left would say so. However, most people were given a public school education as well - no coincidence here. I went to public school from kindergarten through 12th grade, and all I ever heard from everyone was how underpaid teachers are - I even went along with it. Now that I am nine years removed from my systematic brainwashing, I am able to think for myself and have realized what propaganda this was.

If parents were given a choice as to which public school their children could attend, schools that did not produce would eventually fold up. Good teachers would actually be paid more because of their importance to the school. Bad teachers would be paid less and even fired - as they should be. And what do we call this? CAPITALISM! What a concept. Supply and demand boosts efficiency and quality. Stop complaining about your low salary teachers, and do something else. How about leaving the union which actually causes these aforementioned negative consequences; how about voting for politicians who will be in favor of individual choice instead of forcing the hand of parents.

Alas! I know this will never happen. Why? Because most public school teachers - and yes I do say 'most' - just want to be fat and happy. Too harsh? Maybe for the teachers who are not part of the 'most' group, but not for the others. Being fat and happy is all about having tenure and a union that will support you no matter how pathetic a 'teacher' you are. The sad thing is that there are many teachers who are actually quite good, but have been brainwashed into thinking that the union is good for them.

Now for the issue as to why unions want what they want. The union as a whole has no desire to have teachers who support thought and good education, except in the rare cases when it somwhow propogates their agenda for power and money. Their chief desire is to have power and control over the fragile little minds that are public school students (and teachers for that matter). More people believing in their 'economy' means more votes, means staying in power. If people were taught to think for themselves and therefore realized the evil that is the Teacher's Union, the Union's politicians would be voted out of office in the very next election.

Now liberals actually want preschool to become a necessary part of public education! What does this mean, but more pliable minds to be brainwashed earlier and more excuses for higher taxes from the "need for teachers, space and resources"? What do higher taxes mean except for more control? What does all this mean except worse education and dumber Americans?

The unfortunate thing is that so many Americans are voting for Socialism without even realizing it. Many politicians believe that it is the government's job to hold each citizen's hand from childbirth to the grave. This is elitism: the idea that only a few people have a clue as to how to run their own lives, and they must therefore run everyone else's as well. These ideas are masked with lies that describe Capitalism - though they would never use the term - as evil because it steps on the little guy. There probably are rare occasions when 'little guys' are stepped on. However, even 'little guys' have a much better chance in a society that forces you to fend for yourself than in a society that punishes you for producing.

All this entails one of the biggest occurances of irony I have ever encountered. Policitians' jobs are paid for by the very people they teach middle and lower income citizens to hate. The fact of the matter is, when individuals make gobs of money, it is good for the economy. They pay more taxes, create more jobs that would otherwise not exist, and buy high priced things that pay other Americans' incomes - the positive cycle continues from there. I have to ask then, Is it evil to make gobs of money, or to take from them and give to those who claim to deserve it?

I therefore plead with the citizens of the country in which I was born to think about the truth about Capitalism and what the real effects of a society based on Socialism would be.

Advertisement

I have decided that from now on, the Canadian pronunciation of this word is better. So if you hear me pronounce it, "ad-VER-tiz-ment," do not be alarmed. It just works.

Innocent Until...Well, You Never Really Know, Right?

There are lots of great movies based around the theme of an individual who has been accused of a crime he or she has not committed: Shawshank Redemption, In the Name of the Father, The Fugitive, The Negotiator just to name a few. The fact of the matter is, when done well, this theme makes for a really good, entertaining movie.

For one thing, the character is someone for whom the audience immediately and inherently has deep and sympathetic feelings. In each of the movies I named, there is someone whose whole life is in the balance, as the accused may never see the outside of a prison again. All freedom (another foundational theme for many great movies) for that individual may be lost.

A few months ago, as Lauren and I were watching Daniel Day-Lewis give a stellar performance in In the Name of the Father, it occurred to me that there is an exorbitant amount of movies with this familiar theme. As I considered this fact further, I suddenly felt as though I understood America's obsession with NOT convicting people of crimes. Sure, we always scream for justice, but that only really refers to justice for the accused.

The truth of the matter is, I agree that it is worse for an innocent person to be found guilty than for a guilty person to be found innocent. After giving this much thought however, I have to wonder if I, too, have been brainwashed by our overly sensitive society - namely Hollywood.

Here though, I must give Hollywood a pass. I do not blame them. As I have already said, this theme both sells well and just plain makes a good movie. Unfortunately, I believe it is quite possible that Hollywood has inadvertantly brainwashed itself and its audience into thinking that virtually no one is guilty unless caught on tape (even then, they may have been forced to commit the crime by their childhood or something else equally ridiculous).

I have heard that our prisons are overfull. Who then is affected by this societal worldview? People in the spotlight. Sure, many people are convicted of and sentenced for crimes everyday. Once an incident is captured by the media however, the mob tries to and far too often succeeds in taking over. Just take a look at how many professional athletes and actors are allegedly caught with DUIs, doing or selling drugs, assaulting people in bars and, well, you get the idea. How many of these individuals end up in prison for more than just an overnight stay?

I admit that I do not have the numbers, but I have observed how excited everyone seems to be when Robert Downey Jr. gets his 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th......... chance; or how quick the media is to point out that the steroid allegations in Major League Baseball have rarely been proven as of yet. If I was caught taking steroids or driving under the influence, a police officer and then court of law would be more than happy to put me in jail for the time allotted for such offenses. I must here make it clear though, that my complaint is not that the authorities are willing to convict me, but that they are so reluctant elsewhere.

I have had arguments with people about the effect of movies, sitcoms, advertisements, etc. on the everyday viewer. I will stick to my beliefs on this one: Rarely does a person come away saying, "Hmm, I have decided to think this now instead of my previous opinion," but the viewer's mindset is always affected by the message unless a conscious thought is made that the show was entertaining, but probably should not be the norm - just watch Everybody Loves Raymond. I completely understand that many households have come to accept life as seen on such sitcoms as normal, but I firmly believe that these disfunctional situations have become more readily accepted as OK by society because of these types of Media. This is why I view Reality TV and sitcoms as evil when taken in by the non-discerning mind.

Should we abandon the outlet movies allow us? Perhaps - though I probably never fully will, and this is not realistic for most of us. What I think EVERYONE needs to do, is to view a movie with the understanding that this is quite possibly a very skewed perspective on the real world - EVEN IF THE MOVIE IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY! Furthermore, even if the movie portrays a given topic in a fair and reasonable manner, the reality for the two or three main characters is the reality for two or three people out of six billion that exist on earth. Just because Dr. Kimball in The Fugitive did not kill his wife, does not mean that even twenty percent of accused murderers are innocent. Again, I do not know the numbers, but it is no coincidence that neither you nor I have ever been accused of such a crime.

All I ask, is that while enjoying your next entertainment venue, that you keep a discerning mind; that you filter out the slants and accidental propaganda (and of course the purposeful propaganda); that if you encounter the same situation Raymond Barone-Romano encounters in a given episode, remember that you have your own conscience and do not have to act similarly; that you appreciate movies for what they are - one individual's viewpoint on a singular situation out of billions, perhaps trillions over the duration of life here on earth.

Happy Birthday!

As I was just looking over the brief blog I wrote a moment ago, I saw the date written at the top, and it read, "May 24th." What do you know? That is the day of Kirk Nathaniel Shockey's 24th birthday! Shows how well prepared I am for every given situation.

Nathaniel, I hope you have a wonderful day. Please know that Lauren and I are always thinking of and praying for you. More than a wonderful day, I hope you have a satisfying and even enjoyable week. Talk to you soon...