Citizens of Utah... WAKE THE HELL UP!!

Have you bought motor oil at Wal-Mart lately? Have you been asked to bend over at the register, while the cashier scanned your Quaker State, Havoline, or Mobil oil purchase? Or, perhaps you were bent over by the cashier without noticing it? Look at your receipt! Here's the deal...

Title 40 (40-6-14) of the Utah Code establishes a "Fee on oil and gas", and it reads:

"(1) (a) There is levied a fee as provided in Subsection (1)(b) for oil and gas:

(i) produced; and
(ii) (A) saved;
(B) sold; or
(C) transported from the field in Utah where the oil or gas is produced.

(b) The fee imposed under this Subsection (1) is equal to the product of:

(i) .002; and

(ii) the value of the oil or gas determined in accordance with Section 59-5-103.1."

(2) (a) The State Tax Commission shall administer the collection of the fee, including any penalties and interest.
(b) The money collected shall be deposited in the Oil and Gas Conservation Account created in Section 40-6-14.5.
(c) Time periods for the State Tax Commission to allow a refund or assess the fee shall be determined in accordance with Section 59-5-114.
(3) (a) Each person having an ownership interest in oil or gas at the time of production shall be liable for a proportionate share of the fee equivalent to that person's ownership interest.

So, what does all that crap mean? It means that there is a "fee" imposed upon "Each person having an ownership interest in oil or gas at the time of production" equal to 2/10 of a penny. (Section 59-5-103.1 is simply the statutory authority establishing the Utah State sales tax, and explains how much and for what goods and service sales tax will be chaged.)

Nowhere in the statute does it charge this "fee" to the retail seller, nor does it allow the retail seller to pass the fee along to the end user. Further, according to the statute, the "fee" is only placed upon oil and gas that is produced; and saved; sold; or transported from the field in Utah where the oil or gas is produced. However, Wal-Mart (and possibly other retail sellers of oil in Utah) charges a 4¢ ($0.04) "oil use fee" on one quart of motor oil. If the sales unit is a U.S. quart, then the fee charged by Wal-Mart is 20 times what the State of Utah authorized. This raises four questions in my mind:

1. Was that quart of Quaker State motor oil produced; and saved, sold or transported from the field in Utah where the oil was produced?

2. Under what statutory authority does Wal-Mart collect the "oil use fee" from the end user (purchaser) when the fee is imposed upon - and supposedly paid by - the oil producer?

3. Why hasn't the State either (a) stopped this practice of passing the fee along to the customer, or (b) amended the Utah Code, Title 40, to permit the practice of passing the fee along to the customer, but at no more than the prescribed rate of .002 per unit.

4. Who's bending us over further, Wal-Mart with its illegal practice, or the State of Utah for permitting it to continue?

It's not just a few pennies we're talking about here. Well, okay, it is just a few pennies for each of us individually, but Wal-Mart is probably raking in several thousands of dollars per day in illicit profits. And, they're doing it 4¢ at a time in their Utah stores!

And, the State of Utah can call it a "fee" all they want... it's just another TAX... in fees clothing! Somebody has apparently determined that we have too much disposable-by-choice income left after paying bills and all the other taxes with which we've been burdened by your government...

I'm Gil (and you're not), and I approved this blog!

Government Control Is Not Needed Where Obama Wants It!!

Your government wants to stick it's bureaucratic nose into everything that affects average, working-class people. Everything except those areas it should be investigating and regulating more strictly! For example...

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. reported quarterly earnings Thursday that easily beat analysts' expectations on higher crude prices.

The world's largest public energy company reported net income of $7.56 billion, or $1.60 a share, in the second quarter, up 91% from $3.95 billion, or 81 cents a share, in the same period in 2009.

Earnings for the first half of 2010, excluding special items, were $13.9 billion, up 60% over the first half of 2009." (Emphases added)

Yes, my friends, that is Billion with a capital "B". The concept of a million of anything is difficult for most of us to envision, and the term billion just boggles the mind. Maybe this will help get it into perspective - a billion minutes ago, Christ was alive. Here's a picture showing the relationship between one thousand, one million and one billion -

There is a 6" difference between the million point and the billion point on this line. (A trillion [a figure our government loves to throw at us] would be marked 500 feet to the right of the billion mark.) Now, think of that number in terms of dollars - the dollars you spend at the gas pump, the dollars you spend for groceries, the dollars you spend for clothing... and your tax dollars!

Diesel fuel, the least refined and least expensive to produce, currently hovers at around $4 per gallon. More than premium gasoline! Do you still wonder why the cost of "goods and services" is skyrocketing upward? Understand that goods do not magically appear in Wal-Mart at the beginning of each business day, nor do groceries breed on the shelves of your local Kroger or Safeway grocery stores when the lights go out. These items are transported to every retail store in our country by diesel-fueled delivery vehicles, whether they be 18-wheelers, railroad trains, or a combination. The oil companies have taken our nation hostage! And your government has not done - or even said - a thing about it. It's areas like this that we need government mandated price caps! The workers of this nation need gasoline to get to and from their place of employment in order to earn a living so they can afford to buy those goods and services. Gasoline now costs between $3.25 and $3.65 per gallon and the price is increasing almost daily! The excuses used by big oil are "There's unrest in Saudi Arabia", "The middle east crisis is driving our costs up", and "It's the Yemeni problem". What's wrong with this picture? The problem is Big Oil's corporate GREED! Individually, or even collectively, We The People can do next to nothing about it directly. Government intervention mandating price caps is the only solution.

How do we get that done? Write, email, or telephone your elected Congressional Representatives - including Senators - and tell them that We The People need relief from the price gouging oil corporations economy-crushing GREED!

(Because our national economy is "in the dumper", China is campaigning at the U.N. to have the U.S. dollar replaced by the Chinese yuan as the "reserve currency". For those of you who may not know exactly what the "reserve currency" is, it is the global currency of international trade. If China is successful in their bid, it will further diminish the U.S. in the eyes of "the global community".)

I'm Gil, and I approved this blog!

The Great "Can't Afford It Giveaway" of the Obama Administration

The Palestinian Prime Minister is seeking $2.8 BILLION to rebuild Palestine after Israel retaliated for continued shelling of Israeli settlements from Palestine. In what parallel universe does this make sense? Rewarding the aggressor for creating an unwinnable situation for themselves makes absolutely no sense at any level, yet - according to Time Magazine - the cash-strapped U.S. is expected to provide approximately $900,000,000 (roughly 1/3) of that money. Where are the oil-rich Arab nations, who have gouged the entire world for years on the price of oil? Why are they not providing ALL the money to repair the damage done to Palestine?

I have no sympathy whatsoever for those who provoke a confrontation of any kind, and then come out on the short end. They, by their direct actions, have earned whatever fate befalls them, be it victory or defeat. Had Palestine been victorious, and crushed Israel, there would be rejoicing and celebrations throughout the Muslim world. As things stand, the Palestinians have just provided one more embarrassment to the Arab nations since the Six-Day War of 1967. In that war tiny Israel defeated the armies of the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, even with the nations of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria contributing troops and arms to the other Arab forces. At the war's end, Israel had gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The results of that war still affect the geopolitics of the region to this day, although Israel has released control of most of those lands.

There is no reward for "Second Place" in a war. There are only victors and the vanquished. The U.S. has been among the recipients of victory in most conflicts/confrontations in which it participated, with two notable exceptions - North Korea, which was more or less called a "draw", and Vietnam, where American politicians lack of support lost the war for us.

Until this year, there had been no incident in the history of the world, where those captured in combat were given civil trials, provided with civilian attorneys, and allowed all the Constitutional rights of a citizen. The Military Tribunal has always tried captured enemy forces (as military if in uniform, and as spies if not in uniform). Spies have always been the recipients of swifter and more severe (i.e. - firing squad) punishment, perhaps just for lacking the courage to don a uniform.

"Assassins" go back to the beginning of recorded history, although the classification of a crime intentionally resulting in the loss of one human life as an "assassination" has, until recently, been restricted to political leaders. John Lennon wasn't "assassinated" - he was murdered. Assassins generally work alone and have only one particular target to deal with at a time. Julius Caesar was assassinated - oddly enough by multiple assassins.

Obama has chosen to disuse the term "enemy combatant" also - perhaps he plans to replace it with "misdirected ally" or "misunderstood friend". Euphemisms change nothing! A spade is still a spade, a shovel is a shovel, and one whom you engage in combat is still an ENEMY COMBATANT!

It follows that the next terms to become politically incorrect are "terrorist" and "terrorism". Granted, one mans' terrorist is another mans' freedom fighter, but when you are on the receiving end of an attack by one or more persons dressed to blend in with the local population, and wearing explosive underwear, parking a bomb-laden vehicle, or firing full-automatic weapons, you often fail to see the "freedom fighter". If commandeering airplanes and flying them into heavily-populated buildings, or setting off bombs in crowded civilian areas, or beheading other human beings are not designed to induce terror within a specific population, by definition becoming terrorism, and making those who comited those acts de facto terrorists, then I do not understand the term at all!

Have I digressed from my topic? No - not really. Palestine has a relatively high concentration of non-uniformed spies, paramilitary combatants, and civilian sympathizers/supporters. Why is our government providing them with $900 million - which we can ill-afford, and which could very easily be redirected from "humanitarian aid" to "insurgent support"? Where does our money come from? Primarily we borrow it from CHINA of all places! So we're borrowing money, to give away to people who at the very least dislike us (and who, if given the opportunity, would probably kill us all as we slept in our beds). Why does an idea like this seem so intellectually foreign to me?

I could be wrong about this ... and the Supreme Leader of Iran , Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khamenei, could be a closet Catholic ... but I seriously doubt it!