I'm In Love With My Car

I am in love with my car. In this case it is a Ford Escape Hybrid. I will point out that I was in love with my car long before gas prices, in my area, hit around $4.19 a gallon. When I got the Escape it was not to save money. With the amount of driving I do and the price of gas at the time, it would have taken 10+ years to make back the extra cost. The reason I bought it was due to not wanting to send any more money to other parts of the world if I don't have to. The less oil imported the better. Reduce carbon footprint was a distant second. On a side note, due to several reasons I could not get a smaller hybrid. The Escape was the best alternative that fit my needs.

Why are gas prices so high? It is really not a true supply and demand. Enough oil reaches the market to satisfy need. World capacity for producing oil is adequate. I do admit that if demand declined the price would most likely go down, but today's price has a huge "political" premium.

One example of why It is not a supply and demand issues is the refinery shut down of previous years. Oil needs to be refined to be used. When a hurricane hit and damaged US refineries the supply and demand model would have the price of oil go down while the price of refined products, like gasoline, would go up. That did not happen. Oil went up while refined product prices barely moved.

Now to contradict myself. Demand is affecting price in that oil is not a renewable resource. The countries, and companies, that produce oil see an end to their cash cow. These entities have figured out how to squeeze every last cent of profits from their ever reducing oil supply. So why is this happening now? Simply, the US is no longer the only thing that support the world economy. At one time, if the US economy slumped, the world economy slumped. As this current downturn has shown, the rest of the world can survive an economic slump in the US. So when will prices stop rising? Only when the market can not bare the cost.

There is good in all this. At a certain point the high cost of oil makes it more economically viable to invest in other sources of energy. As the largest economy and a capitalist society, we need this to drive the innovation that must occur. Doing it now, when we still have a decade before real supply issues occur, will help protect our economy and subsequently our way of life.

So am I saying that we should on conserve since it won't really help? No, we should for both economic and ecological reasons. The longer we can put off the real shortage of oil will give us more time to have converted over our oil needs to something else.

So what are my plans, besides driving a hybrid. Mostly the typical stuff; Drive less, buy local products, buy product that have less plastic (which is made from oil), reuse items when possible, etc. In the long run I plan to get solar power for my house and my next car will probably be an electric car. The car won't car if the power came from my solar power, a nuclear power plant, a "clean" coal power plant, or a current oil based plant.

Jesus is just Alright

The other night my wife and I had some long time friends over for dinner. The conversation hit religion and the talk of evolution came up. I will have to admit that my ignorance of the Catholic religion quickly came to light. Particularly concerning evolution I was way off base. I have always assumed that Catholics did not believe in evolution. I was quickly corrected and informed that not only do they believe in evolution, they are "pro" science.

Okay, so now I am confused. Catholics believe that when they take, if that is the right term, it is (or becomes) the actual body of Christ, but they are good with science for everything else. More or less I am told. So, the baptist don't believe that it is the body of Christ, but do believe that there is no such thing as evolution. Yes, I am told again. I bring this up only to point out that I assumed to many things about Catholicism, which I did not even realize

I want to point out that I have a four year degree in Bio-chemistry from a academically sound college and believe in evolution. I also believe that science has not killed god. With everything it proves, it does not disprove god.

Back to our conversation. We continue that Catholicism does not really require that you believe everything anyway and that the Catholic Church is not as rigid as I thought it was. Wow, I like that since it is similar to my reform Judism.

To the point of this post, just because you don't agree, understand, like, or whatever about a particular stance of one religion or another does not mean you can make sweeping generalizations. I guess I knew that about my religion, since I grew up with it, I just did not put in the effort with other religions. At least up until now.

We are the Champions

We are the Champions my friends, that is what I hear from the democratic candidates and I agree with them. Two landmark candidates are STILL vying for the democratic nomination for President and each is a champion. I have mentioned before that I am a Hillary supporter and think that, for many reasons, she would make a better President right now. That does not mean that I don't think Barack Obama would make as good of a President several years from now. With that said, I think it is time for Hillary to write her concession speech to have it ready. If Hillary can not show a major win that starts narrowing the gap between her and Barack she needs to start thinking about the party.

I believe that Hillary knows that she would be an exceptional President at a time when it needs one. The problem is risk assessment. Unless she can make it a legitimate contest, where it is almost neck and neck, she has to start thinking about the damage to the party, and Barack. It is not that I think that any negative that the Clinton campaign brings up about Barack is a bad thing. Actually I would rather have it out now so there are no surprises later. It is that the campaign needs to start focusing on McCain. Every week and every dollar is important.

Back to why I like Hillary over Barack. One reason is that even with the "bad blood" between them if Hillary won I, and most political analysts, would be surprised if Hillary did not ask Barack to be her running mate. Most people would agree that if it was the other way around we would be surprised if Barack ask Hillary. I wish it would happen for the good of the party and the good of the nation.