Obama

With every presidential election change. A chance for America to essentially 'start over' with our outlook on the nation. With President-Elect Barack Obama we have finally been offered the chance to be freed from the hardships President Bush has put us in. I was very surprised that Obama did as well as he did. I think this campaign and election has showed not only Us, but the world that we are ready for change. From Senator Clinton to Senator Obama, there are things that many thought they would never see in their lifetime. Change has come, and it will hopefully continue to flourish under The 44th president of the United States.

Wind out of my sails.

Funny how fast things changed between my first post and this one. Gas has almost been cut in half.
Thank the Lord.

The Rise of Black Gold

Remember Jed shooting a hole in the ground at the beginning of every episode of Beverly Hillbillies? I bet we all wish that was us now.

With gas prices very heavily influenced by politics, who knows what gas prices will do? There is a very prominent chance that it will never get below three dollars a gallon again. Some have accepted this fact, and can still be seen driving around their gas-hogging, environmentally unfriendly, largely unnecessary, toned down version of a monster truck. Most others on the other hand are looking for ways to get the best gas mileage for cheap: selling possessions for gas money, driving across town for an extra 4 or 5 cents on the gallon, car pooling, or not even going places, buying cars with higher miles per gallon ratings, and so on.

While corn ethanol should have absorbed a big hit on gas prices, they haven't really helped, and if anything made things worse. Farmers are switching crops to make extra money, and then all of the corn is going to ethanol. This creates a shortage off vast amounts of different crops and hurts the economy even more.

In my proud Democratic ways, I'd like to blame Bush for the travesties that have happened to our country over the past 8 years. One has to wonder if it's all Bush's fault, or a culmination of events that could not be prevented. Gas prices were long over due to accounting for inflation, but the rapid speed at which it has done so has caused many problems for everyone. Car companies are hit, grocery stores, insurance companies, banks, etc. When one of the main commodities is effected, it's near impossible for the others to hold themselves up alone.

It will be interesting to see if we can pull ourselves out of this gas crisis as well as we as Americans did in the 70s. It was much worse then, but one has to wonder if we're out of the woods, or if it will get much worse now. Also, we have to account for the will of the people to fix things, because the government is trying to avoid the problem, instead of attacking it head on.

Regardless, this has changed the face of our world as we've seen it, and it will effect us for the rest of our lives.