Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Finally Changing Our Driving Habits

Over the past couple of years as gasoline prices inched upward from one past two to three dollars per gallon, I have wondered what it was going to take for people to change their wasteful driving habits, long roads trips etc. My family and I had long ago cut back on unneccesary driving. We had made an art of combining errands and doing them on the way home from work so that once we were home, that was it. We didn't go back out unless we absolutely had to. We long ago traded the pickups for small fuel-efficient cars. Well we seem to have found the answer. Gas prices heading four dollars per gallon is what it would take to get at least some people to make some changes, as I see in the following article.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/26/gas.driving/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

"At a time when gas prices are at an all-time high, Americans have curtailed their driving at a historic rate. Americans are not driving as much as they did a year ago as gas prices skyrocket.

The Department of Transportation said figures from March show the steepest decrease in driving ever recorded. Compared with March a year earlier, Americans drove an estimated 4.3 percent less -- that's 11 billion fewer miles, the DOT's Federal Highway Administration said Monday, calling it "the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history." Records have been kept since 1942.

According to AAA, for the first time since 2002, Americans said they were planning to drive less over the Memorial Day weekend than they did the year before...."

It's about time!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So Sayeth The Shack

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How To Spend Your Rebate

I received the folloing via e-mail. Not sure of the source but thought I would pass it on....

IRS rebate, and just who it finally Helps !

The federal government is sending each and everyone of us a $600 rebate.

If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China .

If we spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs.

If we purchase a computer it will go to India ..

If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico , Honduras , and Guatemala ..

If we purchase a good car it will go to Japan .

If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan ....and>none of it will help the American economy.

The only way to keep that money here at home is to buy prostitutes, weed, beer, and tattoos, sincethese are the only products still produced in the USA .

Thank you for your help & please support the USA......

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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Fifty Buck Car Wash

Wow there's a new car wash in town where for fifty-some dollars A MONTH you can get your car hand washed, dried, polished, etc inside and out as often as you want. Holy crap! I don't know very many people who, given the current economic situation, are willing to dish out that kind of money for a clean car. We can barely even afford to drive our cars anymore, let alone pay that kind of money to keep them clean!

So Sayeth The Shack

Thursday, May 01, 2008

One God For All?

It really bugs me when I read or hear something like the following excerpt from a letter to the editor in the local newspaper written by Donal Heller: "In his recent letter, Ed Emel asked whether we let mankind or the will of God govern us. Whose god is he referring to?" (Click here to read the full letter)

What do people mean when they ask "whose god?" Do they think that there is a different god for each of us; a different set rules or commandments to live by for each person? No wonder this world is such a mess!

If there is a god, which, by the way, I am far from certain of, then is there not only one? Ancient peoples worshiped multiple gods, but for the past few thousand years, the major religions have been monotheistic. This means one god. The same god for you as for me as for everyone else. And even though there are still many different religions, I believe that they all basically worship the same god, albeit in somewhat different ways. The existence of a god is not affected by our belief or lack thereof. We choose whether or not to believe but that does not affect the fact that a god either does or does not exist. We, at this point, can neither prove nor disprove the existence of god. But if there is one, I believe, as do the majority of others, that there is only one. So when someone asks "whose god?", the answer is "your god, my god, everyone's god", and his rules for you are the same as his rules for me and for everybody else. Each religion may have their own interpretation of things but that is because these interpretations have been altered by man down through the ages. So for those who believe, the question "whose god?" is meaningless.

So Sayeth The Shack