$3.99/gal.

Regular unleaded hit $3.99 a gallon up on the corner today.

For that I have to thank the politicians and politically active who stand against drilling oil, against refineries in their backyards, against nuclear energy, against coal, and for this ethanol idiocy. Personally I don't hold it against Big Oil: their profit margins are less than half the margins that Apple makes selling its I-phone.

I do also thank, tho, an education system that does not do a proper job teaching basic economics to it's citizenry or its presidential candidates. To blame also is an electorate that elects folks who are more interested in raising money to be re-elected than they are in doing what's right.

Why is it that we can't seem to act in our own self-interest?

If something had been done about this all along, we wouldn't be in Iraq and we wouldn't be overloading our local food banks. And it's so many of the same people who are most upset about Iraq and about the hungry who are also against nuclear and coal and drilling off the coast.

It will get much worse before this gets better.