Gas prices are over $4.00 a gallon. We're stuck in a war in Iraq that is directly related to our need for foreign oil to support high American demand, even at $4 a gallon. Our economy is in the crapper, partly due to the high cost of energy. And burning oil and gas has a horrendous effect on the environment, contributing to global warming that is ruining our climate at this very moment and will make weather conditions a lot worse within the next couple decades, not just in the Arctic, but here in the United States. These are all facts. Well, a few fools might deny that global warming is occurring, but for those of us actually using our brains as functioning pieces of our anatomy, those are all facts. And those are all serious, major problems that seem difficult, or almost impossible to solve.
Republicans say the solution is to drill more, in Alaska or off-shore -- give more money and profits to the oil companies while not making a dent in the gas prices for at least 30 years (that's how long it would take for new drilling to be productive enough to make any difference) and actually adding an environmental crisis to the global warming issue. The upside? I'm not real sure, but it's polling decently, and McCain and Bush have latched onto it because the only thing it really "hurts" is the environment and who cares if we kill some wildlife if gas prices lower. Again, gas prices won't actually lower, because the supply and demand issues won't be solved if the U.S. doubled or tripled or even quadrupled its production over the next 30 years (none of which offshore drilling will accomplish), but hey - it's working better as a campaign ploy than "Um... yeah, we really fucked up these last 8 years, but Obama's a Muslim" so that's really the only thing Republicans care about. Oh, and they all make more money from Big Oil.
For the Democrats, their solutions are less simple, but involve alternative energy sources, conservation measures, and windfall profit taxes on Big Oil companies. These efforts would actually achieve the environmental goals of less oil usage, as well as providing some gas price relief if the taxes were distributed to drivers, but they don't really have any comprehensive solution, at least not all of them as a group, not any I've seen. But you know what, the solution is so easy that I don't know why every politician and every American wouldn't get behind it and have everything solved within 10 years. Yes, it's that easy. And yes, it can be that quick. Al Gore has proposed it, or most of it, and if we don't listen now, with our economy in shambles and gas prices rocketing and neverending wars, I wonder if we ever will.
What's the answer? Click through to find out.
I found some interesting stats on beer sales recently, and although the site I stole them from didn't date their post, I think the lists below are fairly recent and accurate. The first two lists are of mainstream beers, which I don't generally drink. But after the jump, I found stats on microbreweries from another website, and that lists includes a couple of the brewers of my favorite current beers (Magic Hat's "Circus Boy" and Samuel Adams "Summer Ale"). The imports list below also has some beers I like (a Corona on a hot summer day is not a bad thing, and although I hate Heineken and Beck's, I don't mind an Amstel or Bass). I wouldn't drink a single beer on the Top 10 of the mainstream American beer list unless that were the only beer actually available. But oh well. Variety is a good thing.
