Day: June 15, 2022

They Go Up And Seldom Come Down

WE all get sticker shock when we fill our cars with gas…..the prices just keep rising and we keep feeding the problem that is causing this situation…..with out some relief this will be a major issue in the elections…..

The average gas price in the US hit an eye-watering $5 a gallon Saturday, and analysts say the record-breaking price is a massive problem for President Biden and his admnistration ahead of the midterm elections—especially since relief could be a long time away. Recent polls show that an overwhelming majority of voters consider inflation a very serious problem and almost half of them say Biden has “a lot” of responsibilty for it, the Hill reports. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently said that with “such a demand and supply mismatch on the global market for oil,” it could be fall or winter before prices return to $4 a gallon or less.

Analysts say inflation has played a major role in lowering Biden’s approval rating, which now stands at just 38%, according to a Marist poll released Thursday. Matt Bennett at the Third Way think tank tells the Hill that part of the problem is that many Americans don’t realize how little control the president has over day-to-day gas prices. “I think he needs to get caught trying to do everything possible,” Bennett says. “Haul the CEOs of the oil companies in to the White House and demand that they tell him exactly what they need to get production up in the short term.”

Biden toured the port of Los Angeles Friday and promised that his admnistration will continue to do “everything we can to lower the prices for the American people,” the AP reports. He blamed corporate profits for surging inflation and said ExxonMobil in particular should focus on boosting production instead of maximizing profits. “Exxon made more money than God this year,” he said.

Now the question remains to be asked….just who sets the gas prices?

If you haven’t been paying attention, gas prices are up. This has happened before, to the great detriment of every corner of the economy but gas prices, and it will happen again. Why, exactly, does this keep happening?

As YouTube analyst Climate Town explains, the answer is complicated. So complicated, in fact, that there is no single person you can point to, throwing a lever and setting prices absolutely. Quite the contrary. There is a cartel that throws a big lever to set gas prices, but even they face factors out of their control. Gas prices correlate most directly to the price of crude oil, so the biggest factor in that price is instead fluctuations in the geopolitical landscape and world economy that have an effect on both supply and demand.

That does not mean nobody has any direct hand in the price of oil, though. While the world’s general reliance on oil for just about everything mean that demand is almost entirely hard wired to the state of the world, supply is certainly open to manipulation. That leaves room for the people actually getting that oil out of the ground, both multi-national oil companies and the OPEC+ cartel that directly manipulates supply out of nations with nationalized oil reserves, to keep prices artificially high in order to maximize profit along that curve. OPEC should be familiar to any car audience. It was OPEC cutting off America from its supply of oil that triggered the gas crisis of 1973. OPEC+ now includes Russia as well, but it’s not like Russia has been doing anything big in the world of politics, war, or the control of oil lately!

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a40243822/so-who-actually-sets-gas-prices/

We are the culprits.  Our gas guzzlers are the problem.  If you will not change your habits then I say suck it up.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

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What’s It Like? (The Gun Debate)

I have stated that I think that actual photos of what these bullets do to the human body would wake the American people up to the horror of the actions taken by some…..

This is part of the conversation that most want to avoid…..and then there are people that want you to know the consequences of the violence.

I made my opinion on this recently…..

Viewing The Dead

NPR has taken a look into the aftermath of a shooting…..

A wave of mass shootings has plagued the country in recent weeks, including in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Philadelphia.

There have been more than 240 mass shootings this year, a grim statistic that follows gun violence being at its highest point in more than 20 years in 2020, according to CDC data.

It’s a pattern some doctors have noticed even without the numbers in front of them.

Bullets from weapons such as handguns typically pierce straight through a target, medical experts say. By comparison, weapons such as the AR-15s used in many mass shootings, can liquefy organs because of their much higher projectile speeds.

“Assault weapons … cause a condition called cavitation, meaning that as the projectile passes through tissue, it creates a large cavity,” said Dr. Ian Brown, a trauma surgeon at UC Davis Health in Sacramento, California. “And that does a ton of of tissue damage, both initially at the impact, and then even further as that tissue begins to necrose, or die off.”

The damage is much greater in children, as the surface area of their organs and arteries are smaller, said Dr. Joseph Sakran, the director of emergency general surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Where the projectile lands is critical, added Dr. Eric Savitsky, an emergency medicine specialist at UCLA Medical Center.

“From a survivability and morbidity perspective, what the bullets hit, whether (bullets are) small caliber or large calibers, is the primary determinant of patient outcomes,” he said.

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/06/1103177032/gun-violence-mass-shootings-assault-weapons-victims

I have seen first hand what the rounds from an M-16 and AK-47 do to the human body and it is images that I wish I could cleanse from my mind….but they will stay with me until I take that dirt nap.

I truly think that the people should see what these weapons are capable of doing.

But instead we debate semantics and throw deflection into the conversation….all this is doing no one any good.

How many more children need to die before the bullshit is set aside and a real conversation is had?

Thoughts?

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”