Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Take a Good Look

Take a good look

I bought a Toyota Prius. ($25K at zero percent interest.) Yes, it’s a Yuppie car but after running the numbers I decided, ”What the Heck!”

I live way out in farm country and its twenty miles to the nearest town. If I want to visit an Urban Center its seventy-five miles and Madison is One hundred and twenty-five miles distant.

Anyway there were a number of newer models in the price range but only one that got fifty miles to a gallon. Considering that I put twenty-thirty thousand miles a year on my “local” wheels, gas mileage was a definite consideration. If gas goes to $5 a gallon it will be even more important. Up ‘till now if I got twenty-five miles to a gallon I thought that was pretty good. So when I crunch the numbers it comes out that I save about S2000 a year on gasoline. Since I usually keep a car ten to fifteen years you can see it will pay for itself in fuel avoidance costs in the time I own it. What other set of wheels out there can make that claim?

I hear talk that they are going to build a pick-up that will run on natural gas. I'll be watching that development closely. Not that I would buy one right off. Like the Chevy Volt, they will be too expensive to start with and full of bugs. However, if they can launch and get some momentum, the price will come down, the gigs will get worked out and the public will begin to take them seriously. Imagine a small natural gas diesel type engine running a generator or bank of batteries.

I am surprised the President doesn’t point out that in the past, following an energy crisis, there was a lot of investor interest in alternative vehicles…. Then the cost of gas would plummet and those investors would get wiped out. Just like a garden needs to be watered to begin with… new energy initiatives need to be protected from being left high and dry in their infancy. While I consider myself somewhat conservative I understand an argument for $5.00 a gallon fuel “IF” it will get us energy independent from the Middle East. Importing all that fuel is a huge drain on the economy, but what happens after an energy crisis? Prices drop and emerging technologies dry up, leaving us with the same oh... same oh. I know this isn’t the whole story but it’s what I have seen repeated several times in my lifetime.

I’m surprised the Liberals aren’t playing that card more to justify the policies they are fostering. We are never going to be energy independent if we don’t wean ourselves off the Arabs.

I watched the President today tap dance with the Israelis. After the fiasco with the Catholics he is trying to avoid a repetition with the Jews. All these interest groups are carrying a lot of baggage if you ask me. The Catholics, the Jews, the Blacks, the Mexican’s… The Unions… This country has been a blessing to so many and what do we get for it. A bad rap is what we get… Most of these special groups need to ask themselves why they get the mean spirited treatment they do….Invariable the answer is…at least in part….”Because they bring it on themselves!” Nobody wants to look into the mirror and admit that they are responsible for why others have such an axe to grind. I won’t go into specific examples but ask yourself how each of the above named groups has acted over time to earn the enmity of others?