Obama, Why Is Gas So Expensive?!

It's been growing more and more clear that the Republican party is drowning for this election, and they've been reaching out for any straw that they can possibly find.

I say that because the new rhetoric I've been hearing often is how gas prices are so high.  Newt Gingrich jumped on this train by announcing that under his Presidency, gas would be $2.50 a gallon.  The morning show Fox and Friends spent a fair amount of time lambasting the President for the gas prices.

As I watch and listen to these attacks on Obama, I couldn't help but think to myself: "Wait... the President is responsible for gas prices?"

And as I researched what dictates gas prices, I found my answer: not really, and certainly not nearly to the extent that the Conservatives have been saying.

So let's go into this.  First of all, what we have here is an economics lesson in supply and demand.  When Obama first came into office, gas was around $1.81 a gallon.  Now the national average sits somewhere in the upper $3 dollar range (one article from Time where I got a lot of my information says $3.53).

It's no coincidence that the low price of gas fell during the deepest part of the recession that Obama inherited. When people don't have a lot of money, or are worried about the economy, they drive less.  When the demand for a product goes down, so too does the price.  (That same article I mentioned earlier states that "If future President Gingrich were to somehow be able to deliver $2.50-a-gallon gas, it would probably mean the economy had tanked again" which was an interesting concept to think about.)

One other factor that people claim Obama has a lot of control over, in reference to gas prices, is domestic oil production.  But that's not necessarily true either.  In fact, under the Obama Presidency, domestic oil production has actually increased.  This is because new oil reserves had been found, but, no matter who's in the White House, those would have been tapped.

Also under consideration is the pipeline that was proposed, known as the Keystone XL pipeline.  This pipeline would transport 800,000 barrels of crude oil per day into the southern region of the United States.  But saying this would have affected CURRENT gas prices holds no basis in fact, since it would take years to build and have any effect on our oil reserves.

Even so, domestic oil doesn't matter as much as people seem to think it does, since oil is a global commodity, and functions within a global market.

According to this Gather Business article, oil prices are determined by two variables: the price of crude (which has a 55% effect on gas prices), and the cost of transport, taxes, and refining the crude (the other 45%).

The only effect an American President could have on oil prices is with his/her international diplomacy policy.  But even that's a shaky correlation at best.  Acts of war that cause exports to stop coming out of Iran, for example, would be detrimental to the oil imports of some countries, but most have reserves. Gas prices would increase, but not by much.  The recent Iranian threats of closing the Strait or Hormuz affected the gas prices by only about six percent (If gas was $3.00 in your area, and it suddenly cost $3.18, now you know why).

The real lesson we can use here is that the Republican party in America seems to be uneducated in the ways of global economics... so why would I want them running a country?

Actually, the more realistic lesson to be learned here is not that they don't know how the oil markets work, but, even worse, are willing to lie and deceive to win the hearts and minds of the American people.

Which is way, way worse.

God: Please Go Away.

I worked and worked to find a way to begin this blog post that would entice readers in, while parrying and feigning away, and towards, the topic that I'm going to be discussing tonight.  But in the end, the only way to do this is, really, just to say it.

Keep your religion out of my government.

There are really no words to describe just how horrified I've been recently over the increasing amount of people crawling out of the woodwork demanding American values to be synonymous with Christian values.  Abortion, healthcare, homosexual marriage, the ten commandments, and don't even get me started on this fantasy-world "War on Christmas."

Let's be very clear about one thing right now: I do not mind religions.  What I DO mind is that, even with the establishment clause of the First Amendment, somehow people have gotten it into their heads that since this nation is, I will concede, mostly Christian, our government should mirror those Christian values.

We, as American people, should not stand for this.  There is a reason for the establishment clause, and it is valid and important.

As our government moves more and more towards the world of secularism, we start to be more accepting, as people.  The First Amendment guarantees that a person of ANY religion can be considered an American.  And America should never try to make anyone feel LESS American because they praise Allah, or Kali, or Zeus, or whichever Deity they choose.

I will say it once, just as many people have said before me: America is NOT a Christian nation, nor have we ever been, nor should we aspire to be.  We all know what happens when the government and religion of a country are one.  If that happens...

We have Rome, during the 1300s (give or take), when scientists were trying to make huge discoveries, but were silenced by the Catholic Church.

We have Spain, during the 14 and 1500s, murdering and causing mass terror in the name of the Church.

We have the Ottomans of the 1400s, conquering, murdering, pillaging, declaring jihads in the name of Islam.

There's a reason for the separation of church and state, and it should never be removed.  Because then, America looks a lot less like the home of the free, and begins to look like this:

Picture from Occupythegame.com

It's 2012; Why Is This OK?

When I first started thinking about writing this blog, I decided that my first post was going to be about the woman's health issues that have been making the news recently.  Contraception and birth control being covered by insurance, personhood being redefined, the fact that EIGHT men and TWO women were used as witnesses in a women's health debate, whether or not  aspirin is a valid contraceptive, the list was virtually endless.  Yet, one topic of this whole universe of recent news brought itself to the forefront recently.

Last week, the Virginia state Legislature passed a bill titled "Abortion; informed consent."  This bill states that "...as a component of informed consent to an abortion, to determine gestation age, every pregnant female shall undergo ultrasound imaging and be given an opportunity to view the ultrasound image of her fetus prior to the abortion."

Let's just pause right there.


Can anyone please enlighten me: why is this necessary?  The backers of the bill, specifically the Governor, Bob McDonnell, would like to believe that they are just giving more information, and, hey, who wouldn't want that?

But that's the problem: if a woman wants more information before her abortion, she should be allowed to have it.  But who is to tell her that she needs it?  Governor McDonnell?  ANY Legislator in Virginia?  No.  None of them.

But the deeper, more sinister goal of this bill is--and I believe this firmly--to put a woman through even more hell about the procedure she has decided to undergo.  No one is uninformed as to what an abortion is; and I've yet to meet a woman who would make such a decision lightly.  Tracy Weitz, an assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California-San Francisco, published a study to that effect, reporting that "[w]omen do not have abortions because the believe the fetus is not a human or because they don't know the truth."

But I have a very hard time imagining that seeing an ultrasound of the fetus that a woman is currently carrying does not place undo emotional strain upon a person who is already probably making a decision that will forever change her life.  It's cruel, and it's unnecessary.

That being said, most abortions occur before 12 weeks.  That means that the only way to have the required ultrasound would be an "invasive transvaginal probe."

I am a man (or, at least, a guy).  I have no idea what this procedure would feel like, but I have no delusions that it would be a pleasant ordeal, especially under these circumstances.  The article where I've gotten a lot of my information for this post is subtitled "Under the new legislation, women who want an abortion will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason.  Where's the outrage?"

"Forcibly penetrated for no medical reason."

It's 2012.  This is not OK.  It is no longer OK to make women feel like second-class citizens about the decision of their own health.  It is no longer OK to think that the government has any place to tell a woman what to do with her body.  And it is certainly not OK that any type of legislation would demand an "invasive transvaginal probe" that yields no medical information before a woman makes quite possibly the biggest decision of her life.

Really, it never has been.