With gas prices stuck around $4 a gallon, we're hearing the usual message from the opportunists: If we drill everything, drill everywhere and drill now, then prices will drop below $1 and we'll all have magic ponies.

Reality is a little different. Putting every last oil field into production might provide some temporary relief, but in a few years the wells will start to dry up and we'll be right back where we are now.

Petroleum is an amazing substance; we're not likely to find another energy source that's both concentrated and easy to transport. The drawback is that there's only so much to go around. That gallon (or two or three) of gasoline you used to get to work and back is that much the world won't have tomorrow.

Some time in the next few years, we'll have to get by with using less gasoline and diesel fuel, not because of a hurricane or a political issue but because there just isn't enough of it to go around anymore. If we have enough sense to start weaning ourselves off fossil fuels before we "have" to, we can do it with much less pain.

Larry Kollar
Dawsonville

City schools headed in wrong direction
Gainesville's school system is headed in the same direction as Clayton County's school system was. I think I remember seeing Steven Ballowe quoted that he didn't worry about the budget; that is what he hired somebody else to do. And we wonder why public education is in trouble!

Fire Ballowe, because he needs to be fired, and the school board for hiring him and not making him accountable.

Elbert and Lou Durden
Gainesville