Celebrate This!

I was driving into work this morning and I heard something on the radio that really pissed me off. Someone had given some sort of speech that was being reported on and there was a phrase they used that has been really annoying me lately. 'Celebrate diversity' - I'm sorry, I'm not going to celebrate diversity. Particularly on this day. I'm going to celebrate the fact that if you are a citizen of this country, then you are an American. Nothing short. I'm of Irish/German descent, but I'm an American. I appreciate the fact that people have come to this country from all over the world, but the 'celebrate diversity' types seem to want to remind us that we're all different people. No, we're not different. We might have come from different places, speak different languages, like different things, but dammit, we're still freakin AMERICANS. So when you're watching the fireworks or at the family picnic on the 4th of July, take a moment and remember what we're celebrating here. As for diversity, always remember, the more you deal with it in a society and make special rules for this group and that group, diverse it gets. Get it? I'm going to go get the truck loaded up with beer and stuff now, put the gun in the rack with a fresh box of ammo, load up on the smokes in the glove compartment and use them all before I get home. Why? Because I can. I'm going to appreciate the fact that others sacrificed alot, much more than I ever can imagine, to allow us to do whatever it is in life we are doing.

On another little rant, with oil prices spiraling out of control and people grumbling about how it's just too expensive to do anything, take a moment and google Gull Island. Do a bit or reseach on ANWR. It's looking more and more like the oil markets are becoming much like the diamond markets in the world. Why is the oil so expensive? Because they want it that way. We could be running around with gas that costs about a buck a gallon, even with the increased demand and not be dealing with shortages. As for global warming and the increase in 'greenhouse gasses' from cars, well, do the math. How much extra gas do we have to burn in order to be able to match the original gas when you take into account for the catalytic converter and the reformulated gas. It all comes to about a wash on that account, but forces us to spend an additional $1000 or more per car for the converter, then buying the extra gas for it and the reformulated fuel. We're burning about 10-15% more fuel to get the same result and we also get to have the platinum oxide in the air now too! Give me a car with properly operating Oxygen sensors, and I'll show you a car that will emit the same level or less pollutants than the one with the catalytic converter. The increased gas usage also provides the state and federal government with the additional tax revenues which in PA account for about 51 cents a gallon. Hmmm, I think there are a few million cars in PA that use on average a couple gallons of gas a day. So if we are burning about 5 million gallons(I think we're burning more than this amount though) of gas a day in the state, we are pulling down $2.5Mil a day in taxes. Times 365 and that comes to $912.5Mil a year in taxes. If you drop consumption by 10-15% of that, that's a nice hefty chunk out of State and Fed budgets. Do that over the 50 states, and someone will be bitching when their pork project gets the ax. In the end, it does all end up being about control. Governments used to pass laws about how their people moved about the countries. In this country, laws like that would go over like the proverbial 'fart in church'. So subtlety is required. I'm looking at this as kind of a modern method of saying 'stay in your village, peasant'. I could be paranoid though. I better check and make sure the tin foil hat is properly fastened.