August 25, 2003

There were 4 posts published on August 25, 2003 (this is page 1 of 1).

Mars

On my way back from Chapel Hill tonight I was in awe of that shining bright red orb in the sky known as Mars. Through all the construction lights blazing along I-40, through the stadium lights at Carter-Finley, that mysterious world could be seen, floating above it all.

I’m kicking myself for not taking advantage of Morehead Planetarium’s free observation sessions this week. A lucky few will get to see Mars through a 24-inch telescope. There will be smaller telescopes outside the observatory, so maybe there’s still reason to visit Chapel Hill.

You owe it to yourselves to take a look at Mars. You’ll never see it quite this way again.

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Gasoline Price Gouging

I’ve never seen gas prices as high as they’ve been this week. According to Reuters and the Lundberg Survey, an oil research group, these sky-high gas prices are due to the Northeast power outage.

Bah! This is nothing but price gouging. You can’t tell me that just because power was out for 12 hours around New York that the entire U.S. gas supply took a huge hit. The article vaguely mentions some refineries being offline. Doesn’t New Jersey (which never lost power) have more refineries than New York? Come on, Manhattan has no room for refineries. You can’t tell me that this was the problem.

This is nothing but simple price gouging, taking advantage to raise prices before Labor Day. Sure, Arizona has a pipeline problem, but that’s refined gas on the way to retail stations and it affects only the Phoenix area. There’s no reason that should be affecting the rest of us.

Man, oil companies are scum.

American Troops Using Borrowed AK-47s

This is pretty embarassing. U.S. Troops in Iraq are stuck having to borrow AK-47s because they jam less and ammo is more readily available for them.

“We just do not have enough rifles to equip all of our soldiers. So in certain circumstances we allow soldiers to have an AK-47. They have to demonstrate some proficiency with the weapon … demonstrate an ability to use it,” said Lt. Col. Mark Young, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.

Now, if our Commander In Chief spent less time in carrier-landing photo ops and more time equipping the troops to do their jobs, we may actually get OUT of Iraq some day.
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We The Sheeple

This N&O article says that college kids these days are more optimistic, selfless and tolerant than ever before. Sounds like they’re sheep to me. There’s “Generation X,” and after that comes “Generation Rx:” kids too doped up on happy pills to notice the cracks in the thing we call a country.

I’m hoping they’re not too blind to put that optimism and selflessness to good use. In other words, I hope they’re not as jaded and cynical as I am. If you can’t be good, be a bad example. 🙂