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Archived Issue
Sunday, February 26, 2012
ISSUE #696
Will diagnoses oil situation, Afghans and B&W movies

Did you know we produce 10 Million barrels of oil a day in this country? Only problem is we use 20 Million. I heard a former governor today say that even if we doubled production, the price of gasoline would go down only 3 cents a gallon. I guess by the same logic if we plugged all our oil wells, it would go up 3 cents.

Sen. Schumer gave up on the President allowing more oil production, and asked Saudi Arabia to ship more to us. That’s the best solution to our oil shortage I ever heard from a politician.

The more Washington complains about gasoline prices, the higher they go. Instead of complaining, maybe the President could ask the oil companies a question: “What would you like me to do to help lower your cost of producing gasoline and diesel from crude oil?” Now, some of their answers would be downright hilarious, but they might offer a valuable nugget or two.

Speaking of gasoline, Ford and the other car companies are selling at a rapid pace. In fact General Motors sold so many vehicles their profit last year was $9 Billion.  Considering GM still owes us $80 Billion, that money would be a nice boost to deficit reduction. But no, GM is instead doling out bonuses to their workers.  Remember back when the “old” GM went into bankruptcy, the UAW folks kept their wages, but the stockholders (including millions of small investors, mutual funds and retirement funds) got zero. Maybe those folks deserve a piece of the profit, too.

In Afghanistan, after ten years, Billions of dollars and many lives lost, the situation continues to go haywire. What are we doing in a region where the punishment for accidently  burning a Koran is death? If the radical Islamists would spend their time reading the Koran instead of shooting Americans and other Afghan people, maybe we could get out peacefully.  But really the blame belongs to the Muslim leaders who are riling up their ignorant masses.

The Russians tried to control ‘em for ten years and gave up. We’ve been there ten more years and we only learned one thing: you cannot re-habilitate men that never were habilitated in the first place.

The Artist won Academy Awards for best movie, best actor, best director and a bunch of others. Looks like the old silent B&W’s are making a comeback.  Forget about talkies. You can drag an of old movie camera out of an MGM storage closet, round up Tom Mix and Clara Bow and a few Model T Fords, and make a top ranked movie for less than half a million.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“Did you read young John D. Rockefeller’s plea to the oil men? He implored them to tell the truth, or tell something, whether it was the truth or not, but to please not just sit there, as that made the whole industry not only look dumb, but guilty.” DT #481, Feb. 9, 1928

 “No business in the United States is as cockeyed as the oil business.” DT #2115, May 15, 1933

 “They drill an oil well down straight for quite a little ways, then they got a gadget that turns it off to one side and they head it out towards where they know some oil is.” DT #2220, Sept. 14, 1933

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