06/13/08 Lesson to learn

Every conversation, magazine, newspaper or radio show turns to the high price of fuel. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be right back with a lesson to be learned. First of all I believe the high price of oil is a supply and demand problem. Foreign countries have a supply of oil they are happy to sell at high demand prices. The U.S. has potential supplies that are kept off limits to development by radical environmental groups using protests, scare tactics, and lawsuits to control politicians and American citizens without the common sense or intestinal fortitude to stand up to them. There, that should get me in plenty of trouble. Now, a lesson needs to be learned from the oil situation we find ourselves in. I hear some grumbling about higher food prices. Yes, they are higher but nothing like oil prices. I have to believe this is because the United States is the most efficient producer of food in the world. What if a foreign country controlled our food supply? Improbable you say, but it is possible. Former vice president Al Gore told students at a national Future Farmers of America convention basically to find another occupation because the U.S. could be importing its food in the future. Environmental groups want more and more land for parks and preservation; land that needs to be used. If we do not supply the major portion of our food supply we are at the mercy of any nation that controls that supply. Learn the lesson and don't be fooled by these wolves in save-the-earth clothing. The earth can be used and still not abused. I'm Jeff Keane.