Gas Prices
This is my first post. Anche funziona come una pira funeraria. You see, I hav'd an Italian blog for quite some time. The few souls who stumbled upon it writhing amidst the Myriad of properly phrased Italian opinions must have felt as though they had chanced a glance at a grammatical sacrifice. Possessing the knowledge, I'd've added rythmic beating of drums and fires that burn(ed) animatedly as gifs. It might well have worked. Because:

What one is currently viewing often supplants what they just viewed. The finiteness of the human brain makes exposure to new stimuli a necessarily destructive event. The mitigating factor is one's attention span, which assigns added significance to recent data that might otherwise be nondescript and as such tossed upon the heap of useless input (h.u.i. - heard, understood, ignored). Due to a gradual but longstanding attenuation of the average American's attention span, all kinds of illness can occur without consequences being properly assigned. The latest example, is this.

If you don't have enough time to read this, here is the crux of the matter. If succeed in having the time but fail in having the attention span, then piss off, you're causing tremendous problems with how our government functions.

"The American people have got to understand what happens elsewhere in the world affects the price of gasoline you pay here."

First of all "have got to" is just plain disgraceful. If Bush is speaking this way intentionally as a manner of making himself for intelligible (hah) to the average American, then it is a lame attempt at pandering. Go into Harlem and speak your Bushbonics... it would be the same damn thing only less insidious. On the other hand, if it is an honest mistake, then I'm sick of honesty* ... give me some grammatical competence. (I am eligible to mount my steep steed here (after Italian blog fiasco) because my Italian blog was not responsible for delivering messages from the leader of the country to its citizens). Now then, the recent rise gas prices is a direct consequence of the recent rise in oil prices, which themselves are direct consequences of concerns about IRAN's unwillingness to keep enabling the militaries (among MANY other things) of countries that might seek to invade them by selling oil. And just why might Iran have any sort of reason to be concerned about being invaded? Yah, somebody needs to tell the President that what happens elsewhere in the world is conversely affected by what happens in America. For better or whatnot.

2 things, quickly:
1) No I DO NOT think Iran should have nuclear weapons, under any circumstances. Pardon my wording if it suggests otherwise.
2) You can only play a good hand once, and a lot of the times it takes a while to get dealt one. We wasted our good hand on Iraq.
2a) 9/11 does not represent "a good hand" in this scenario

In summary: Americans have become increasingly concerned about how much things cost. Capitalism, yes, but all things in moderation. At least here. Or, more aptly, if you want to pay the cheapest price for something, you DAM WELL better know what other COSTS are attached to that price. If (my fellow) Americans, who only seem to pay attention when something costs more, do not associate the vacuous cavity in their walletts with its equivalent inside their president's head, then we are worse off than I thought.

I, PHiL

* This is one of an exiguous number of situations in which I will ever be sick of honesty