Gallons

So there are calls to investigae the oil companies and to tax them for "windfall profits" because gasoline is so expensive.

Gas isn't real cheap in my area compared with others.

Right now, the 87 octane is $2.49 a gallon.

A good portion of that is taxes.

Not to mention distillation and transportation costs from perhaps halfway around the world.

Plus a fear premium as instability looms.

I went to the grocery store the other day.

How about water.

You know, what you need every day or you die.

I just bought a six-pack of 24-ounce Aquafina bottled water. That's a Pepsi product.

That's 144 ounces, or 9/8 of a gallon, for $3.99, or $3.55 per gallon.

It gets better.

Milk was $3.89 a gallon, and that's the store brand!

Name-brand milk goes as high as $4.89 a gallon.

Those price-gouging dairy farmers!

They probably get all sorts of government subsidies too.

No populist outrage over the price of milk though, is there?

How much profit is in a bottle of purified water?

Gasoline only seems expensive because people don't usually buy 20 gallons of milk at a time.

But you know what else?

If I just wanted a little bit of gasoline, it would still prorate at $2.49 a gallon, no matter how little I bought.

Try buying milk by the quart! In that size, it shoots up to $7.16 a gallon!

Gas is cheap, and should remain so -- cheap, abundant energy frees the human soul from the age-old constraints of drudgery, time, and space.