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Doing My Part

Last week I started taking my bicycle to work. It’s about 7.5 miles as the crow flies, and my shortest (and most difficult) route is about 8.5 miles… the longest (and easiest) route is 13 miles.  Downtown Des Moines is at a slightly lower elevation than the suburb of West Des Moines where I live, so mornings aren’t too bad, just a one tough hill, and afternoons, when taking the longer route, is okay except for one really big hill.

I realize that this is not a big deal… the point is NOT that I’m doing anything that great.

But I am saving about a gallon of gasoline each day I do this. That’s about $3.50 a day.  At least that covers my coffee money.

And if you know anything about my weight and health, you’ll recognize that 2 or 3 days a week of this is going to have a very positive impact on those areas.

Frankly, the majority of my motivation is health related, but the pont I really want to make is, I’m doing my part to help reduce our dependence on foriegn oil, now when is Nancy Pelosi going to do hers???

When is Leonard Boswell (my US House Representative) going to do his part???

When is Tom Harkin, the Democratic Senator from Iowa going to do his part???

My other Senator, Chuck Grassley, has been supporting the move to drill.  As are more Republicans.  And I know there are Democrats that want to but are too fearful of party reprisal to stand up and act.

We pay these folks far too much money to let them thumb their noses and ignore the will of the people, the need of the people, the need of our country to depart from the putrid dependence on foreign oil.  Now is the time to act!  Congress must act NOW or get the majority party voted out for holding us, the people they work for, hostage!

I hope that Obama doesn’t get the idea to push bike riding as the big solution.  I can see it now: “You know, if every American would ride their bicycle to work every day, we’d reduce our consumption of gasoline by ten billion gallons a year… “.  Of course, the math would be wrong, just like the tire inflation savings was itself inflated by bad math.

I’m pretty sure that everyone in Alaska cares so much about ANWR that they all bike to work anyway.

* * *

So today ends two full weeks of the GOP Protest against Democrats laziness [1].  Not only are Republican leaders NOT slowing down, there is more and more media attention turning to this historic event.  This link [1]to John Boehner’s web site includes links to various media web sites, including (at the top!) our very own Des Moines Register [2].

I’ve heard about some people that have contacted their representatives multiple times since this began.  That’s a good idea!  I’m going to check in with mine again as well!

And lastly, the price of oil went up and down a bit this week, but still ended the week down 1%.  We keep this up, we won’t need to worry about our tire inflations any more, will we?