What is going on with the gas prices?!??!?
So oil is at more than $65 a barrel?!? Experts are saying that the prices will continue to march upward toward $80 a barrel. Not good! My guess is that at $80 a barrel the gas at the pump here in Chicago for Regular will hit approximately $4 a gallon! That means it will cost about $60 for me to fill up my gas tank. So much for driving!
The big problem is that the higher oil prices affect EVERYTHING... cost to manufacture and ship goods, air travel, public transportation, heating and cooling costs. Expect the higher oil prices to dull the economy in the fourth quarter.
I wish Bush would put some pressure on his Saudi friends right about now to get the prices back in line. Come on folks, write in and call your representatives to act! Journalists, start making noise for all our sakes.
"No Timetable" Doesn't Hold Water
Just read that as Bush mourned the loss of more valiant Marines, he stated that there would be "no timetable" for early withdrawal of troops because that would mean the insurgents would then adjust their tactics to wait us out. This just doesn't make sense.
No timetable means no objective. Without that end date, what success bar are we measuring our current strategies and tactics against? If I wanted to get out of Iraq by Christmas, then wouldn't I want milestones from now until then that would ensure I would reach my objective? My milestones would need to be based on insurgent activity, rooting them out and eliminating their ability to do harm while training the Iraqi security forces. Once that was achieved the US could leave. No timetable means that we are working on an indefinite length of stay, and an ambiguous goal, which to me creates an environment of unending violence and an unjust mandate to stay until we say when.
If we set a milestone on when we want to leave, a proactive strategy to meet that date would be implied. Without that milestone, there is nothing but a military that is reactive to insurgent actions.
Enough about that... next post will be about CARS!!
