Dreams.... Dreams... Dreams

The recent restart of school and work and everything else that dominates the life no longer mine has left me delirious and sleepy in the hours I can claim to rest. This has made me ever more susceptible to those deep dreams that you remember for days. I think they have significance and some of them are rather chilling, but I will leave that up to you to interpret beyond what I think.

First, I have been playing soccer 2 or 3 times a week. For hours. I get tired, I run around, I try really really hard and am playing well but it seems lost because my Spanish team isn't winning. We also can't communicate and they won't play me where I will be most effective. So one night when I stumbled in at like 2 in the morning I dreamt that I was in St. Johns and that I had a game and I had arrived late. I ran onto the field took a pass and scored. The announcer said, "Blake Gray is now the all time leading scorer for St. Johns High School!" I was so excited and happy and I felt vindicated for all the hard work I had put in. I raised my arms above my head and looked into the stands and saw..... no body. It was weird when I woke because I ran my hands over my head and thought, there are some things that I do that honestly don't matter. It hit me hard. It made me think.

I also got called to be the Ward Mission Leader, if I get anything accomplished there it is a testament to the power of God to make weak people workable. After a long day of ward and stake meeting I went to a "Sunday party" to play board games and did nothing but talk about the gospel. When I got home I sank into my bead and dreamt about the ward mission and about the ward missionaries and how many haven't experienced the "Declaring of the Gospel" and are so excited and green. In my dream I walked into a room where one of the new ward missionaries was teaching and I sat there and admired how she taught point after point so well and clearly. One of the students raised his/her hand and asked some rude question about some misconception coming from some pastor. The girl was flustered and soon the classroom swirled into uncontrolled contention and she lost control of the lesson. I got so mad. I was screaming and throwing things and challenging them to answer doctrine to which that had no answer. I was screaming, "In the beginning was God, who was before God? If no one or thing was before God who created Satan?" I just kept screaming that over and over again, "Who created Satan!" It was weird, I lost control and even when the students quited I still kept railing them and proving to them that they had so much to learn. I assume these students were not members. When I woke I was a little stressed about the prospect of setting up a booth at ASU and putting ourselves out there to be destroyed and conversed with by those around us, who have so much to learn. I was worried for those who were about to teach and those who get teased. Then I logged on to realclearpolitics.com and read some articles about Mitt Romney as a possible VP pick and when I read the comments at the bottom my heart dropped. Comment after comment was more of the same 'ole Anti-Mormon closed sentiment that they would never vote for him. What Bigotry was displayed. I started to honestly feel afraid that he would be chosen and me as a green inexperienced WML would face the brunt of this influx of attention toward the church as politics delved into religion.

Side note to current topic of dreams and stuff, this year has been ugly for politics. We have seen Feminism and Ant-feminism, The Race card, the White guilt card, and the reverse racism card played, we have seen Religion being thrust in the face of voters and tempers flared over items that were never meant to be part of the political system of the United States of America. As the campaign continues on, I wonder more and more if the individuals and families of this country will make the difference, because if it is BH Obama or McCain running the country it really comes down to how we run our lives and our families.... to much attention is put on things that don't matter ...... which goes back to dream # 1

Who's to blame for record profits for the oil companies?

Much has been made of the recent profits that oil companies have made at a time when gas prices are making headaches for Americans. Democrats lead by BH Obama have proposed a windfall profit tax to tax oil companies for their "excessive profits". While such a strategy is sure to make oil prices increase by adding additional costs to oil companies, I never saw that oil companies were really making extreme profits as many posted only a 3% profit margin. This last week though the top 5 oil companies all posted record profits and incredible profit growth over the last year. It actually started to bother me. For once maybe I saw some reason in the unreasonable. So I started to delve into the major question, who is to blame? Oil speculators? Greedy oil profiteers? Democrats? Wait, wait, wait, could it really be the Democrats... weren't they the ones against big oil?

Yes, but once again in their quest through unreasonable means they have caused the opposite of what they want to happen to happen. By reducing the areas that oil companies can drill in legislation has effectively limited the supply of oil and the ability of oil companies to increase that supply. Combine the limited supply on the WORLD market for emerging market's (like China) desire to secure future energy shares for their growing production need you have the rights (futures) of future oil shares being bought up for ever increasing prices. Some have blamed speculator for driving up prices, and/or US oil companies for driving up production but the US isn't the number one producer of oil and speculators' purchases of oil pale in comparison to the aggregate world purchases of oil for actual use. The DEMOCRATS proposals of punishing speculators and oil producers have one fatal familiar flaw; they can only punish AMERICAN producers and speculators leaving foreign producers free to carve a larger share of the oil market out for themselves and making us MORE DEPENDENT ON FOREIGN OIL. Reduced profits for American companies also mean more induced hardships for American citizens.

All of these has produced a higher-per-barrel price for companies. Unlike many companies, oil producers have had no control over the price of barrels. Once on the world market, competition for oil shares decides the price. Basic economics, when competition for a product increases and supply remains stagnant, prices increase. This has played to the advantage of oil companies as no additional costs of production were incurred. So as prices increase and costs remain stable, all the additional rise in oil price is PROFIT. This is why Exxon was able to post record profits of $11.68 billion. So when prices were pushed from $100 a barrel to $120 a barrel that equated to nearly $20 a barrel PROFIT. So who is to blame for increasing oil prices? Legislation on regulation. AKA, the Democrats. This blew my mind when I realized that these profits were directly links to the Democrats. Of course then when they propose to punish oil companies for these profits.... I shake my head. More control, more power, please.... no more Democrat moves like these.