Drilling for oil

I was reading an article on the Sierra Club’s website about offshore drilling. The article I was reading was discussing how on Monday President Bush lifted the moratorium on offshore oil drilling. This moratorium was imposed 18 years ago by his father when HE was President. Up until this point there were two moratoriums against offshore drilling, one by the President, and one by Congress.

Congress is expected to maintain its moratorium against the drilling, so offshore drilling is not expected to take place. Congress is expected to maintain its moratorium because they have been advised that offshore drilling will NOT bring the short term relief to the skyrocketing cost of gasoline. According to the article I was reading, oil companies already have a lot of unexplored resources that they can access and don’t need to drill for oil offshore. The article did not detail what those unexplored resources are, so I was a little disappointed in that; I’d like to know what those resources are!

Afghan villagers kill two Taliban

I was surprised to read on the Time website that some Afghan villagers actually stood up to the Taliban and killed a few of them.  According to the story, the villagers had invited some aid workers to come to their village to dig a well.  While the aid workers were in the process of digging the well, some Taliban militants came along and tried to abduct the aid workers.  According to the culture of the people, you cannot invite guests to your village to help you with something and then allow the Taliban to come along and abduct and behead them, so the villagers defended the workers. 

The skirmish resulted in two of the Taliban being killed and the rest of the militants ran off into the countryside.  The government has sent additional security forces to the village to protect the village from retaliation from the Taliban.  I wonder how long those security forces will be there.  Seems to me that they’ll have to be there forever and a day because as soon as they leave, the Taliban will be right there slaughtering the entire village! 

Happy Independence Day

Well, Happy Independence Day y’all!  As I’m sure you realize, farming is a 24/7 job, so I have to squeeze in my celebrations where I can.  I’ve been invited to a neighbors for a cook-out this evening and to watch fireworks, so after I’m done with my daily chores I’ll be heading over.  My neighbor says he’s got some pretty good fireworks and I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s got!  I really enjoy fireworks, I think it’s a shame that so many people are stupid about using them and get hurt.  Their stupidity costs us smart ones the chance to buy really good fireworks.  Oh well, we will deal with what we’ve got and enjoy them while we can still get them. 

There’s been talk about the state outlawing ALL fireworks of ALL kinds, even those stupid little sparklers.  I couldn’t give a rat’s behind about the sparklers; I think they are lame anyway and parents give them to their kids and then the kids get burnt – stupid -stupid – stupid.  But I do hope that they don’t outlaw fireworks completely.  Maybe they should make everyone take some kind of intelligence test before they let them buy them!  Go down to the DMV, take the test, get a license to buy, and then they have to present their license at the fireworks stand!