Regardless.

Absolutely love the top story tonight on NBC News regarding the outrageous, insane, ridiculous, criminal prices us Americans are paying for gasoline. Four whole dollars per gallon? Someone should be hanged.

Indeed, Sadam Hussein did get hanged, in part due to our Elk Grovian desire to drive everywhere for everything. So now we're looking for someone else to hang: today the news reported that it's speculators who are causing the increase in prices, so apparently they're next up on the dais.

Perhaps speculation has something to do with the run-up. I don't disagree; however, I question the NBC reporting that fails to argue that other causes may indeed be a falling dollar due to bailing out top financial firms and an insatiable lust for oil that far, far exceeds our domestic capacity to produce. Instead, Obama wants to crack down on speculators! Crack Down On Waste! Crack Down On Fraud! Crack Down On Abuse!

How about cracking down on 260 lb. Minnesota snow cows commuting 68 miles a day to their jobs in an oversized vehicle burning foreign oil driving on asphalt roads built on foreign oil subsidized by taxpayers? Both you and I know that would be politically incorrect, and that's why I know that we will never address our profligate internal energy usage until the day we run into a true resource shortage.

I'm looking forward to that day. I am waiting for another 1973, or 1979. Another "shortage," real or imagined, would be good for this nation in my opinion. We'd focus our energies on things other than what we are supposed to power our cars with. The Elk Grove City Council, wondering why developers won't build mile after mile of tract homes along the banks of the Cosumnes River, might finally adopt transit-oriented developments (TOD) instead of the energy-intensive madness of continued suburban sprawl.

But...I'm pretty sure we're not headed there. Not with Obama lambasting oil speculators in his speech today in Reno. Have you been to Reno lately? Do you have any idea how much energy people there use to commute from their homes on the 13th and 15th tees on the Arrow Creek Country Club to their jobs in the city proper in their 12-mpg diesel powered F250s?

Doesn't matter. These owners will drive regardless, as that's what they're conditioned for. That's what they've come to expect as citizens of the most energy intensive nation on earth. That's why they chose to live in remote areas. They didn't work their entire lives in the financial/insurance services sector to take a fucking bus to work. They deserve more, and they're going to consume oil regardless of price. Regardless. They know that if they didn't burn that petroleum themselves, those damn Indians or Chinese or Brazilians will do it for them...

This is America, goddamn it. We're going to exploit the world's petroleum whether they want us to or not. If they choose not to sell it, well, that's what the U.S. Navy is for. If they choose to ask for a few more dollars for it as it's priced in dollars and the dollar has fallen, well, then our leaders will scapegoat speculators, abusers, traders, and oil companies and their wicked Arab co-conspirators.

Everyone but the end user.