Animals, gas panic…. , rant

It is incredible how quickly New Orleans has unwound into a lawless society. The stories coming out of there are despicable. It’s amazing how people can quickly turn into animals given the opportunity. I don’t recall any reports of looting and lawlessness after the tsunami wiped out 200,000 plus yet here, in supposedly the most civilized of countries in the world we have people running wild in an urban area. Sad.

Katrina’s impact started spreading throughout the country in force yesterday. Gas panic drove lemmings to the pumps. People driving down the road see the gas station overrun and suddenly think they need to jump in the line as well for fear of being gasless. Prices here jumped to around 3 bucks a gallon yesterday. This entire situation put a huge glaring spotlight on how fragile our gas supply lines are. Isn’t it reassuring to know that a storm can send the nation into a gas starved panic? Of course the scarcity is a a carefully engineered product of oil companies. I read there have been no new refineries built in the US in the last 20 years even though the demand has increased steadily over that time period due to population explosion. Now they are walking such a fine line that the smallest ripple causes a huge wave to the consumer in gas prices. Of course the oil companies have pulled in record setting profits in the last year so Bush is happy, his family’s huge investment in oil must be paying off like the lottery. Never mind the impact on the country, expensive gas affects almost every aspect of the economy. The situation is total bullshit. I am just disgusted with it all.

My email rant must have been read because the delay at the first light was halved from 41 minutes to 20 minutes today. On our way home last night, after hitting backed up traffic after 7pm in the evening and after ranting about the lemmings at the gas pumps, I was ranting to Ali about the incompetence of the county traffic control department, the road construction workers and just about anything else to do with getting from point A to point B.

For labor day weekend we aren’t going anywhere. I want to stay at my house, away from people.