Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Bad Dogs and Gasoline

People always tempt fate.  The owner of the pit bull dogs that killed a woman who went out for a walk this weekend was tempting fate by keeping those dogs.  I know pit bull owners will rail at this, but that is one breed of dog we can do with out.  They are just following their nature.  They were bred for aggressiveness and it is just what they will eventually practice.  Of course the owners ignore reality and don't educate themselves on these dangers.  Disaster is the result.

The same thing is going on now with the American public and gasoline prices.  They would vote against President Obama because prices are skyrocketing.  Once again people are not educating themselves about the true cost of gasoline.  Add the costs of wars, pollution, climate change and other health factors and that gallon of gas costs double what you think it does.  But, many will insist on keeping the price low while the rest of the world seeks alternative fuels.  Just like the owner of the pit bulls, disaster will strike us.

I wonder sometimes if we are less educated today than we were fifty years ago.  Probably not.  Overall many people are more educated than ever, but many don't seem to understand cause and effect.

"Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit;  Wisdom in not putting it in a fruit salad.".......unknown

6 comments:

Joby said...

You're so incredibly wrong about pitbulls. It's the owner, not the breed.

Like most fighting dogs, pitbulls are *actually* bred to be highly submissive to humans, because their handlers had to be able to control such powerful animals.

In the AKC's temperament test properly socialized pitbulls actually score slightly better than (also properly socialized) golden retrievers.

The dogs that are *actually* prone to aggression towards people are the ones that are traditionally guard dogs, like rottweilers, dobermans, mastiffs, german shepherds or terriers.

Ultimately though, any aggressive dog is the fault of its owner, not its genetics.

In our house we have three ex-strays with unknown histories: a huskie, a corgi/shepherd mix (weird, right?) and a pitbull/mastiff mix. Guess which one has problems with aggression? It's the corgi/shepherd mix. The pit doesn't have a mean bone in his body.

I'm extremely tired of this constant demonization of the breed, because it distracts from the real problem of animal abuse and neglect.

Abq Dude said...

Oil companies are gouging the American people - just look at their profits! Why educate ourselves about the true cost of gasoline? I know it costs me over $65 to fill up. Thus, unlike rich people who gloss over this issue, I can't afford it.If Obama can't deal with this and a myriad of other problems facing Americans, then maybe we need someone who can.

Anonymous said...

Oil and gasoline prices are now divorced from supply and demand -- there is actually a glut of gasoline right now -- and the current run-up owes to speculation on that commodity, by among others the Koch brothers, it is being widely reported. Koch Bros. are out of storage space and are leasing supertankers to store oil off the coast. Even Matt Drudge is reporting this.

So much for the mythic free hand of the market resulting in lower prices. More and more, Capitalism is just a rigged game controlled by those who control the levers of power.

Before the Republican takeover of the House, Democrats did manage to implement some modest reforms of Wall Street and commodity trading. They could have gone further, but you have those Blue Dog Democrats in there. But now implementation of much of the reforms is being held up because Republicans are blocking the funding.

So your solution is elect more Republicans?

Alternative fuels, as Jim says, is where we need to be going. If those were subsidized to the extent nuclear and even fossil fuels are, they would easily be affordable, right now, if you got a few of those Blue Dogs and a slew of Republicans out of there. There are several companies here in Albuquerque who do alternative and who would probably be employing about five times as many people as they do right now.


Capitalism is also the cause of aggression in pit bulls.

Jerusha said...

Mr. Muntzer, you are good writter and clearly a devout socialist/communist. Maybe you should move to North Korea and live there.

Anonymous said...

Well, I do enjoy irony. The real irony though, to me, behind the "America, love it or leave it" sentiment isn't that it's so un-American or that the founders were British subjects, who wrote a Declaration of Independence, a Constitution and a Bill of Rights in an attempt to try to explain why that sentiment is so ironic, but that the people who express it don't understand that it is, or why.

Anonymous said...

Jim and Bubba suggest alternative fuels is the answer to our energy crisis. It should have started 20 years ago! It doesn't provide any relief now with price gouging and we would have to wait 10 or 15 years to see any benefit at the pump - how much will gasoline be by then? Who you guys kidding? With $100's of billions in oil earnings, maybe we need price controls.