Monday Newsbreak: 11/5

--It looks as if the reprieve we've enjoyed this past summer in the way of gasoline prices has ended. Prices are currently shooting up sky-high. Who knows where it will end. I remember President Carter making a priority thirty years ago of conserving energy and developing alternative sources in order to become more energy independent. But he got very little cooperation in this. And what has been done since then? It appears that we're like the frog in the pot of water which is unaware that it is slowly being cooked as the water's temperature gradually rises.

--Storm Noel, which has gone through several transformations from hurricane to tropical storm to depression to extra-tropical storm, has caused more deaths than any other named Atlantic storm this hurricane season. Of the 142 deaths attributed so far to Noel, most are from the island of Hispaniola, which comprises Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

--Meanwhile, lakes in northern Georgia are now beginning to go completely dry. And a political tug-of-war for the scarce water supply is intensifying between the states with the greatest need and neighboring states. In particular, Georgia governor Sonny Perdue and Florida governor Charlie Christ are sparring with each other in the press over the degree to which Florida should send its water up north.

--Reports are surfacing about how Iraqis at-large are beginning to resume normal life after such a long time of being in fear of terrorists. I want very hard to believe the rosy news, but I know that this will take some time (after other optimistically inflated bubbles concerning Iraqi developments were burst in the past).

--I feel that the Kansas Jayhawks football team is being treated unfairly in the BCS poll. All they've done is go undefeated so far and in a tough conference at that (the Big 12). I want LSU to win it all, but why should they and Oregon, each with a loss already, be ranked ahead of Kansas? Hopefully, this incongruity will straighten itself out in the coming weeks, either by Kansas being given more respect in the polls if they keep winning, or by the Jayhawks finally losing a game (which many feel that they will, either to Missouri or to Oklahoma).

--The Seattle Supersonics NBA basketball franchise is apparently on its way to moving to Oklahoma City. Its new owner was angry because he couldn't get the local citizens in the Seattle area to agree to build (and fund) a new arena for the team to play its games in. I sincerely hope that they will change their nickname if they move. It's already asinine enough with some of the other franchises NOT changing names after moving: the Los Angeles Lakers (formerly of Minneapolis, in Minnesota, "Land of 10,000 Lakes"), the Utah Jazz (formerly of New Orleans), and the silliest, the Memphis Grizzlies (formerly of Vancouver). To give the Supersonics a new, apropos (to the current state of affairs in Oklahoma) nickname while keeping the general "s" sounds, I have a suggestion: why not call them the Oklahoma City Sillysenators (say that fast ten times)?