Postcards From Myself

A gas firm boss faced a heated backlash yesterday after telling families struggling with soaring fuel bills to ‘wear two jumpers’. You can read the full detail of this at The Daily Mail Online. This happened in England, but you can see it happening just as easily here in the US. Just as most of our political leaders are completely out of touch, big corporate executives just don’t care.

And to make matters worse, corporate executives don’t have to go up for public election every four or six years. So, they get to make statements such as the one above or the ones they made in front of congress not too long ago about how they and their companies are just as much victims of high oil prices as the American consumer. What? The oil companies are experiencing years of their highest profits ever. They are victims how? Oh yes, they are victims of foreign oil and so their friends in Washington are pressuring for off-shore drilling to be allowed. Funny how this whole thing comes right back around to giving the big oil guys something they have wanted for years.

If we really wanted to solve the long term energy crisis then we should be looking to alternative sources of power, not alternative ways to keep the big oil machine churning. But that depends on who is leading the search and where your heart and loyalties lie. If they lie with the people and the needs of those people, then you look at alternatives. If your loyalties lie with big money, big oil, and the big machine, then you tell people to put on another sweater while you drop an oil rig in their backyard.

The peasants have no bread? Then let them eat cake. The gas prices are too high at Shell? Then let them use Exxon.

Just a brief note that MoveOn.org is giving away free Obama ‘08 bumper stickers. You have to give them your address, obviously, and email but no donation is required. Of course they would love to have one though! You can get one sticker for free. Or for a donation of $5 or more, they wiill send you a pack of 10 stickers, and for a donation of $25 or more you can get pack of 100 stickers. They say the stickers may take 4-6 weeks to arrive.

So, to get your free Obama 2008 bumper sticker, just go to https://pol.moveon.org/obamastickers/?rc=homepage.

My daughter loves to tell her brother, “you should pick flowers, not fights.” In addition to that, she constantly gets on him about the video games he likes to play. In addition to the normal shoot-em-ups he plays on the PlayStation, he really enjoys military strategy games like Age of Empires on the PC. So, it really isn’t just the shooting and weapons that interest him, but the strategy and thought processes involved also.

Wouldn’t it be nice if he could put that brain power to use in a game that didn’t promote warfare? Well, enter Peacemaker. According to the game’s website, “PeaceMaker challenges you to succeed as a leader where others have failed. Experience the joy of bringing peace to the Middle East or the agony of plunging the region into disaster. PeaceMaker will test your skills, assumptions and prior knowledge. Play it and you will never read the news the same way again.”

This game is not only promoting peace, but it is fun and interesting. Yes, kids young and old really want to play it. Much like other simulation games, your really get into it and your decisions and actions make a difference. Do it wrong, and things go wrong. Do it right, and things go well - at least for a while. There is a downloadable demo and a trailer so you can try before you buy.

Oh yes, another great thing? It is also available for both Windows and the Mac! Now that is building a bridge. Give Peacemaker a look and let me know what you think.

Can’t we get this guy out of office any sooner? What has me ticked off now is his call for off shore oil drilling to be resumed. He has said that the prohibitions are outdated and counter productive. Sorry, not they aren’t, you are! With rising gas prices he said, “families across the country are looking to Washington for a response.” Agreed, they are. But this destroying our environment isn’t the response they want.

Beyond the environmental issue, I think this is the wrong move for two reasons. First, if oil drilling does resume it would not have any affect on oil prices for a very long time. How fast do you think they can get oil rigs in place, set up, and pumping to the refineries? Probably a year or more. Sorry Mr. Bush, you will be out of office by then.

Second, I firmly believe this has more to do with getting money to his Texas oil buddies than helping out any of us little folk who pay the bills. In fact, if I was a conspiracy theorist, I would say that this entire situation leading up to the high gas prices was created by the Bush Buddies specifically to increase profits and lead up to letting them drill off-shore and perhaps even in the Alaskan wilderness.

Why not, instead of using the money to drill, use that money to fund alternative energy sources and more efficient methods of transportation? Not only would this help the energy needs in the long term, but it would also help with global warming. Even if you are one of the flat-earth disbelievers, at least these alternative sources would decrease foreign oil dependency which is one of the main reasons Bush wants drilling allowed.

I will tell you why not, because Bush and his Buddies don’t stand to profit from it. Just like the fact that if they end the war, the defense contractors will make less money (Cheney Chaps) and unemployment will go up as all the soldiers and reservists head home. Can’t have any of that now can we?

Sorry, but the November elections can’t come soon enough. January 20th will be a very happy day for a lot of people.

This is my whiny post - the one where I go “oh poor pitiful me.” The subject of my whine? I am whining because sometimes I get tired of being odd, or as I would prefer to call it, “eccentric”.

Here are just a few examples: I don’t care most major sports and hate football. But I love soccer. I am from the Deep South, but do not like watermelon, iced tea, or collared greens. I really like trains, and would like to build a model railroad. But I like English trains. I keep looking and looking, but most newstands here in the US have stopped carrying British Railway Modelling and Railway Modeller. Could it be the exchange rate? Or the cost of gas to get them here? Even the magazines I can find about real (non-model) railways are about US ones, not English or European. I could go on about my love for strange British cars too, but I think you get the picture.

Oh, and lets not leave out the fact that I work in a very conservative office, in a very conservative industry, in a very conservative city, in a very conservative state. And I am very liberal. Sometimes the arguments are fun, but sometimes it makes me just want to give up and move.

So, do you ever feel like this? Other than those highschool years when you were sure that you were the only one who had ever felt the way you did, have you ever continually felt like odd man out? Or odd woman? What do you do about it? It would be very hard to switch, and more than a tad dishonest to yourself. So, as you keep plodding along on your own road, how to you keep your head up and keep a cheerful disposition?