Concurrent with increasing gasoline and fuel prices at the pump, increasingly more people believe more exploration and drilling for fossil crude oil should be permitted offshore and in the nation’s refuges, forests and protected areas. People believe more drilling and pumping automatically translates into lower prices and less dependency on foreign oil.

Well, here is one fool who is foolish enough to recall only too well how the development of Alaskan North Slope fossil oil was to make the nation independent of foreign crude oil during the 1970s. It never happened.

Does anyone really understand how global free-market capitalism and enterprise really works? The last I understood, fossil crude oil was still being bartered, bought and sold on global free-market commodity exchanges, and the free market was still determining the price. And, the last I understood, those who lease and own the rights to drill, pump and sell the oil were still bargaining to maximize their profits and returns on investments. Therefore, by what twisted logic does drilling more holes in the ground automatically result in reducing prices at the pump?

Not only are the oil companies under no compelling obligation to sell the oil into the U.S. market, but the steadily increasing international demand may just as likely result in the oil being sold at a price in the world market that only increases the price at the U.S. pumps.

And what do we have but more holes in the ground and even less money in the pocket, and the potential for even greater messes to clean up?

The recent escalating prices for fossil crude oil and fuels have resulted in one of the larger collusions between those in the federal government and the oil industry majors to again mislead an economically frustrated people to abandon all cautions in the mistaken belief that we can have it again as good as we had it before.

But oil is still a non-renewable resource, and any amount burned only results in less being available to burn. It has an end point! Perhaps $5 gas would cause us to behave more prudently.

Stu Luttich, Geneva

How about soda diversity?

It was interesting to read in the Aug. 5 Journal Star about the progress being made in increasing the diversity of the University of Nebraska faculty — and then in the same paper to read that the University of Nebraska-Lincoln only has one kind of soda on campus. Thumbs up to faculty diversity! Thumbs down to no diversity in choice of soda!

Lynn Baker, Lincoln

Leave NASCAR alone

Regarding the letter concerned about NASCAR going in circles and wasting gas (LJS, Aug. 1):

First, the NASCAR cars don’t even use the same gas we do, and Indy cars have gone strictly ethanol this year.

Second, every safety feature we have on our personal cars has been tested on a racetrack first. Every time an accident does not produce a fatality, we have NASCAR to thank for making our cars safer to drive. From shocks, suspension, tract bars to tires, the list is long.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln developed the SAFER barrier walls NASCAR now uses at its tracks. That put some jingle in Nebraska’s pocket.

So enough already! Let the circle burners have their fun — in the long run they’re saving lives.

Linda L. Wilson, Lincoln