An Unpopular Question

Friends,

Speaking of punishing gas prices, particularly in California where the average price is generally fifty cents more per gallon than the rest of the country (except alaska and hawaii. – ed), remind me why we’re not doing more domestic drilling. There are rich untapped deposits of oil right off our coasts, oil shale just sitting there in the upper Midwest, and **gasp!** the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Should we just get used to five and six dollars per gallon and hope for some neat magic battery technology for our new cars? Can you really tell me that public transportation is the answer? Remember that Riverside County canceled bus service to my little town in the ’80s due to lack of ridership. And that was the short bus.

Frankly, I’m inclined to slap that silly grin off of the pundits who think that high prices are good. They posit that we’re saving the planet by reducing our gasoline consumption, like it’s a merry choice happy citizens are freely making. We still live in a big country with vast spaces between where we are at the moment and where we need to be for the next appointment. And more often then not, the bus doesn’t go there.

– bob