Profitable Oil Companies Are Bad At Business

I recently watched the documentary "GasHole" and I was amazed at some of the ideas it brought it up. For those who haven't seen it, the film starts off with an older gentleman talking about being at a race track in the late 1940s and the man he met that had a modified carburetor that allowed his vehicle to get nearly 100 miles per gallon. He sold the patent for his invention to Shell Oil, became a millionaire and never made another one. Next was a young man in the 1970s who altered the engine of his car and drove 205 miles on two gallons of gas. He was later found dead of a supposed suicide from a drug overdose. When another man tried to imitate his idea, he had his life threatened.


Realistically, I shouldn't be too surprised that big business has always been run like the mafia. They strong arm people to get what they want and if that doesn't work, the problem people just disappear. Why is our government giving this industry subsidies? With record profits being made, why are we handing them money to line their pockets with? I know that collectively we don't have the money to be just handing back to the rich.


The part of the film I found most interesting had to do with the bio-fuels. It baffles me that oil companies are putting a higher priority on making money from a resource that will be exhausted in the foreseeable future. Think of the damage we are doing to the planet by drilling for oil. And before you call me a tree hugging hippy, I'm looking at it from a layman-ishly scientific way. We live on a ball that is made up of layers, and as we systemically tunnel through and remove some of those layers, we are also destroying the layer we live on with the pollution. How long can it go on before the planet, in one way or another, collapses in on itself? 


Okay, maybe the world disintegrating is a bit of an extreme view of what we are doing to this planet. But it cannot be denied that sooner or later the oil reserves will run out. Then what?


If oil companies want to continue to be profitable, they need to start investing in bio-fuels. No matter how you look at, alternative energy sources are the future. Why are oil companies not cornering this market? Why are they dragging their feet like spoiled little children that want to get their way? It seems to me that if we have the technology to put a man on the moon (from forty years ago at that), we should have the technology to get better gas mileage in our vehicles. We should have the technology to create cleaner burning fuels and reverse some of the damage done by older technologies.


I may not run a multi-billion dollar business, but even I can see that discrediting something new just because it will decrease your profits down the road is not smart. Companies remain profitable by innovation. They create the future through inventions that better the lives of the consumers and make the world just a little bit better place to be. My advice to oil companies: quit worrying about taking out the little guy, and focus on what will be necessary in the future. Create and perfect the bio-fuel engines, invest in crops and renewable resources. If you don't, the effects of your actions today will eventually kill the people whose money you are after.

Family Pet

One thing I will never understand is how people can bring a living creature into a home and then abuse and neglect it. Dogs, cats and other furry critters can't speak for themselves. I volunteer at my local animal shelter and have seen dogs come in hurt, scared, hungry and still craving love. A perfect example would be a sweetheart of a pit bull momma with four puppies that were mere hours old. The reason they were brought in? The family was behind on their rent so they moved, leaving the pregnant dog tied up in a shed. 


My opinion has always been that owning a pet is just like having a child. A dog needs rules, boundaries, discipline, positive reinforcement and lots of love. Treat a dog right, train them, give them a sense of love and duty and you will have a friend and companion that will always be there for you.


All of my animals have been rescues and they have all been wonderful pets. I have a Australian Stub-Tailed Cattle dog (a blue heeler) who is quite literally the perfect dog. She is a happy, energetic dog when she's outside, running circles around our older dog. When she's inside, she is calm and quiet, often choosing to hang out quietly in her kennel. She's smart and generally doesn't need a leash. In fact, she is doing her part to train our Norwegian Elkhound puppy. My heeler has done a better job house training the elkhound than I have.


The elkhound herself is a rescue after her and her litter mates were dumped at a house in a rural area. They were only about eight weeks old. And to help do my part prevent over-population, she will be getting spayed in a couple of weeks.


Most people love the idea of having that cute fuzzy face to come home to. But sooner or later, the extent of responsibility sinks in and unfortunately many people just can't handle it. Where I take issue is the people that can not take the necessary responsibility for their decisions. It's ok if you decide you can't handle the animal you took in. It takes a lot to care for a pet and it's not for everyone. What's not ok is neglecting the animal, not feeding it or not giving it the medical attention that it needs. It's not ok to just dump the animal and figure they will be ok.


If you can't care for an animal, surrender it to a rescue group or the Humane Society. Give the animal a chance to find a home that can provide for it. If your local shelter charges to surrender a pet, it would be better to lie and say the animal was a stray to surrender it for free than to dump it to fend for itself. Pets are like toddlers - they depend on us to help them get through this world, to learn their place in it and to love them the way they deserve.

Welcome To My Life

So this is my little corner of the web to rant about and contemplate whatever random thoughts come into my wacky little head. And I will talk about pretty much anything - news, random events from history that strike me as interesting, or the general idiocy I see in the world around me.

I don't promise anything particularly important or informative, but hopefully it will be mildly entertaining. This blog is my personal Op-Ed outlet, but I wouldn't mind hearing what other people think. I completely respect other people's opinions, even those that disagree with mine. I believe that discussion is the best way to learn about the world around us and if all people did was agree with each there really wouldn't be that much to learn.

I may not be consistent on my postings, but I will try to keep the site from being boring. Mostly, these are my thoughts and opinions. I don't claim them to be perfect, right, or, at times, all that logical. But they are mine. I think for myself and encourage others to do the same. Agree with me or not, at least you're exploring a new school of thought.

All that being said, have fun and life will always be interesting...