The record has now been set; oil reached $100 per barrel today.

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices soared to $100 a barrel Wednesday for the first time ever, reaching that milestone amid an unshakeable view that global demand for oil and petroleum products will continue to outstrip supplies.

Violence in Nigeria helped give crude the final push over $100. Bands of armed men invaded Port Harcourt, the center of Nigeria’s oil industry Tuesday, attacking two police stations and raiding the lobby of a major hotel. Word that several Mexican oil export ports were closed due to rough weather added to the gains, as did a report that OPEC may not be able to meet its share of global oil demand by 2024.

Hmm. Maybe that new smart fortwo car is starting to look a little better, after all.

BZ

. . . turnabout is only fair play, is it not?

Let’s see how you like it for a while. From NewsMax.com:

Tuesday, January 1, is the scheduled date for the abolition of all tariffs on corn, beans, milk and sugar entering Mexico from the U.S. — and many fear that a flood of agricultural imports will drive Mexican farmers out of business.

Protests are planned in Mexican cities, including a “human wall” on the border.

Hey hermanos, boo-fucking-hoo, eh?

Oh, but wait; it’s not fair if the US floods you, is it?

Chinga tu madre, Mejico; obtenga más de él, que fueron conquistados por España y ahora en América.

First up, from Fort Worth, Tejas:

FORT WORTH (CBS 11 News) ― A passenger on a Fort Worth bus says the T. Bus Service discriminated against her religion.

Christine Lutz says she was reading her Bible to her children [out loud – BZ] when the bus driver asked her to stop or get off the bus.

Lutz, a Seventh Day Adventist, and her children were on their way to church.

I have to admit, with my current frame of mind, this story simply lit my afterburner. But there’s more:

Or was it a clear cut case of policy?

“Anyone who is loud will be asked to be quiet,” said representative Joan Hunter. “That is a standard policy across country in the transit industry.”

It doesn’t matter what is said, the T has a policy of no loud or abusive behavior.

Maybe I don’t know the whole story; obviously I wasn’t there. But this smacks to me of more people simply pulling out the Victim Card and, you know what? I am really, really getting tired of this crap. This isn’t about religion; this is about common courtesy or, more pointedly, the lack thereof.

Here’s the deal: if it was the policy of the transit district, then they did nothing more than their jobs. As I would expect them to do. And this sounds like nothing more than adherence to policy. At least they have a policy.

Here’s my thought on this and many other public matters:

When in public, I have a societal obligation to those persons around me. One of those obligations is to not be obnoxious or loud.

If she had been reading a Michelle Malkin book to her kids out loud I would have had the same reaction: try conducting your verbal reading sessions in the privacy of your very own home. I’m not riding a bus to listen to anyone read anything out loud; I’m riding the bus to get from Point A to Point B and nothing else. I don’t want to know about your life and, quite frankly, I couldn’t care less. I have a task to perform. Let me do it with the minimum of disturbances and I’ll reciprocate in kind.

And that is not to minimize my obligations to our society — our society being, of course, a cooperative. An incomplete list of my obligations would include (off the top of my head) some of the following:

I once again repeat: society is a cooperative.

Just this afternoon, for example, a carload of ignorant little white teens decided they owned the entire aisle in a parking lot when the driver was on the cell phone and no one was getting out or picked up. They were completely oblivious. Because I deigned to not wait for them and came within inches of their thrashed Honda to pass, I got the hairy eyeball and the finger-flip from them collectively.

Just this afternoon, when the wife and I went to go see “Water Horse” at a small local theatre, a mother brought her (estimated) 12-year-old daughter and an infant. The infant squalled and made noise throughout the first portion of the film until I said: “Do you mind? Everyone here paid money to hear the film, not your child.” How is it that an adult even remotely thinks an infant is going to sit still through an entire movie? Are people actually that stupid? And to stave off the next assumed counter-argument: NO. It is NOT my job to “accommodate” this mother in the theatre. Parents have been “doing without movies” when their children were infants for years prior to her showing up today. This was simply rude and endemic of societal self-centeredness.

As I’ve written before, when in public and particularly in venues when I have PAID FOR AN EXPERIENCE such as a movie, a restaurant, a museum, a play, I do not pay to listen to you blather away on your stupid cell phone; I don’t pay for your children or your infants to shriek at the tops of their lungs, throw food on the floor or run about the area; I don’t pay to listen to your loud, drunk proclamations over more glasses of beer; I don’t pay to listen to your loud voice carry throughout the venue whilst you regale your idiot friends over a bad shampoo. And OH so MUCH more!

Welcome to 2008, everyone; looks like it’ll be more of the same: ignorant people playing various Victim Cards thinking (due to parental training) that it’s all about them.

Those are just a very few of my Public Hot Buttons. What might yours be?

A lot happened this past year. And I think I finally figured out: it’s all about perspective. Attitude. And a thankfulness that the good Lord has deigned to keep me alive to this point.

My biggest blessing for 2007: I got married on Valentine’s Day to a woman who, well — I call marrying her the smartest thing I’ve yet done in my life.

My father is still alive; he being a member of The Greatest Generation and a WWII pilot. My brother is still alive. I’m still alive. We’ve all had cancer.

My wife lost her mother this year, to cancer.

But I still stand upright, I have a job, I bought a new car this year, a new car for my wife — who hadn’t had a new vehicle in 17 years.

I’ve gotten many more readers to my blog. And for each and every one of my devoted readers, and every one of my Usual Suspects, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

So, what to do for 2007?

Job One: lose weight. Diet. Exercise. Hang around one more year.

We’re on the cusp of a brand New Year. Who knows what will happen? But of one thing we can be assured: we won’t be able to see the bulk of it coming — that much I can guarantee you.

God bless each and every one of you (hell yes, my agnostic and atheist readers too!), and may you, your families, your loved ones, be safe and healthy in 2008.

And, oh yeah: go Packers!

I made a comment recently on Bushwack’s blog, “American & Proud,” and it got me to thinking, particularly considering the post I made just prior to this one:

Whose fault is all of this? Who shoulders the blame for America’s plight? Is it all the responsibility of our politicians?

I submit: it is not.

There are others equally responsible: it is us. The People. The Electorate.

I wrote on A&P:

Is there anyone here willing to be frank enough and realistic enough about our situation?

America GAVE AWAY THE STORE.

When we stopped making OUR OWN STEEL we diminished. When we refused to drill oil ON OUR OWN SOIL and OFF OUR OWN COASTS we diminished. When we drowned and throttled and chopped off the heads of CREATIVE PEOPLE and BUSINESSES and kicked those willing to TAKE RISKS squarely in the groin with all manner of makes and models of LAWSUITS, we diminished.

When we insisted that, collectively, our lives had to be coddled, had to be perfect, untainted by dissension or challenge or (heavens forbid!) COMPETITION, we diminished.

Think about it.

Government has only given Americans what they screamed (and VOTED) for: to be fed pablum and bullshit and to be ensconced in rap, hip-hop, lies, falsehoods, “Deal Or No Deal,” backwards BB caps, the bimbo cunt of the month (Brittany, her sister, Paris, Jessica Simpson, Rosie O’Donnell, et al), “Sicko,” Bill Maher, “The Real World,” and much, much more betrayal.

We’ve KILLED generations of black familes by PAYING black women to keep fathers OUT of the equation.

We’ve created universities that yield people who PRODUCE NOTHING. We’ve MINIMIZED the LABORER, minimized the TRADE WORKER, the mechanic, the repair and service and construction workers, we’ve SOLD OUR SOULS all because we wanted NO RISKS, NO THREATS, NO COMPETITION. We’ve wanted everything minimized, Pasteurized, homogenized, dumbed-down, lower than ANY Lowest Common Denominator.

Who’s to blame? I see only one segment: those who simply want to be catered-to, who want Socialism, who want “free,” who want their “entitlements.”

The government is only providing what the Masses have told them they want: FREE CHEESE.

And MORE OF IT.