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	<title>The Hammock &#187; Stupidity</title>
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		<title>Yet Another Reason Depending On Oil is Utterly Moronic.</title>
		<link>http://juanpatten.com/2008/yet-another-reason-depending-on-oil-is-utterly-moronic/</link>
		<comments>http://juanpatten.com/2008/yet-another-reason-depending-on-oil-is-utterly-moronic/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:00:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>JR Patten</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Oil]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stupidity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.runningskull.com/?p=40</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[First off, just go take a little peek at this graph. I&#8217;ll wait. Yep. That&#8217;s right. Gas prices now, even adjusted for inflation, are worse than the oil crisis of the 1970&#8242;s. Gasoline prices are getting absurd, and there&#8217;s nothing &#8230; <a href="http://juanpatten.com/2008/yet-another-reason-depending-on-oil-is-utterly-moronic/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.runningskull.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/gasoline1.jpg"><img class="alignright float-r size-medium wp-image-41" title="Gas is bad!" src="http://www.runningskull.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/gasoline1-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a>First off, just go take a little peek at <a href="http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html">this graph</a>.  I&#8217;ll wait.</p>
<p>Yep.  That&#8217;s right.  Gas prices now, even adjusted for inflation, are worse than the oil crisis of the 1970&#8242;s.  Gasoline prices are getting absurd, and there&#8217;s nothing we can do about it.  Why&#8217;s that?  Because we rely on a veritable <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opec">Gasoline Mafia</a>.  OPEC is a mob, a cartel.  They use thug tactics to manipulate us like little marionette puppets.</p>
<p>And we keep giving them <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E4DD1431F930A25752C0A9659C8B63">more and more power</a>!</p>
<p>Think I&#8217;m exaggerating?  Check out <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E4DD1431F930A25752C0A9659C8B63">this report</a> that came out today.</p>
<blockquote><p>OPEC has our arm behind our back and is twisting until we say &#8220;uncle&#8221;, and we are allowing them to manipulate us because of our foolish dependence on oil.</p></blockquote>
<p>Fighting them is not the answer.  We need to make them irrelevant.  It&#8217;s our own fault for being so all-out dependent on oil.  <strong>Even if they liked us</strong>, it&#8217;s just plain near-sighted and irresponsible to depend so heavily on a non-renewable resource.</p>
<p>And they don&#8217;t like us.</p>
<p>I fear that oil prices are going to be a very major issue in the upcoming election, but not in a good way.  Both sides will be trying to buy votes by promising to lower gas prices, because that&#8217;s what people want to hear.</p>
<p>But the issue shouldn&#8217;t be lowering gas prices.  Find me a candidate who is dedicated to the vision that, come the next election, gas prices won&#8217;t matter at all because gasoline usage is on its way out the door, and I&#8217;ll show you the guy I&#8217;m voting for, regardless of party.<br />
<strong><br />
It&#8217;s not about making oil cost less!</strong> It&#8217;s about realizing that we shouldn&#8217;t be using it.  We have grand visions for the future (well, I do anyway) but we will never realize any of them while we are still relying on gasoline as our major source of power.</p>
<p>There are many reasons using gasoline is such a terrible idea, but today&#8217;s article about OPEC just brought this particular one to the front of my mind.  So, in sum: It&#8217;s an amazingly stupid idea to put so much power in the hands of people who don&#8217;t like us.  We are letting OPEC push us around, or at the very least have given them a good reason to think they can, and that will only end badly for us.</p>
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