IBM Releases “Commuter Pain” Survey Results

Forgot to add:

As to the not allowing drilling of our own oil... Kind of seems like we have the strategy of buy everyone else's first, then start using our own. Why use your own oil reserves when they're worth $2.00/gallon when you could sell them in 10 years to other nations @ $15/gallon? Kind of like an ace in the hole. No idea if that's how it works, but it's how I think about it sometimes. The end result is the consumers still gets screwed, but where is the money flowing at the end of the day.

It's a great idea (in essence), but the whole problem with it is:

By then, if things should actually GO "green" (which gets way too loosely tossed about IMO), then by logic, we'll (read as: 'the world') has no comparable such need for oil, thus negating any assumed "$15/gallon" as you put it.

If we were actually to do something *right* for this planet (and all of us on it), then we'd be using solar energy (in whatever form/iteration that manifests itself as an effective power source) in place of fossil fuels.

What I'd like to see happen is us (the U.S.A.) be able to use our own resources, during the transistion to that solar (or possibly even hydro-electric) implementation, thus negating our reliance on imported fossil fuels.

/OT: God I wish Ron Paul hadn't been shut out of this election. I think he's the only sane man that has even HALF a clue about so many points in getting our country back on track. *sigh*
 
Odd, I see no-one asking just why the fuck gas prices are as elevated as they are now. 5 years ago gas was 1/3 what it is now and oil was only half the cost per barrel. The oil companies claim that they need the extra cost increase for future exploration? Uh, yeah and that's why they're constantly turning in record profits, their execs are making more money than they can count (as the recent probe by a consumer advocacy group found out) and the sheople that make up our population just grin and bear it.

Until everyone gets together and boycotts the oil companies by not buying any fuel for a week or so and letting them know that we're getting fed up with the profiteering that's going on we're going to keep getting raped. Of course we've only got ourselves to blame, we voted in someone that has a personal stake in big oil as president.

QF-MF-T
 
lol, if we boycott, other countries will have no problem buying it.
 
What I'd like to see happen is us (the U.S.A.) be able to use our own resources, during the transistion to that solar (or possibly even hydro-electric) implementation, thus negating our reliance on imported fossil fuels.
hydro is already exhausted and has a stunning environmental impact, and solar is not going to power this country even if you had 100% efficient panels. Maybe some homes in areas that have constant sunlight, but for the majority, no.
 
Hydrogen FTW. Besides for the initial investment, it can be free fuel with solar electrolysis.
http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/

Nothing like stocking the entire world with immense amounts of highly-explosive compressed gasses!

Hydrogen fuel cells are awful. Aside from the fact that you're essentially turning every vehicle into a bomb, you're required to generate the electricity to split the water in the first place. You might as well just go electric and not waste 50%+ of the energy going from electricity to hydrogen and back.
 
- Batteries are heavier and more toxic, and you've still got charge time
- Hydrogen generation can be done with solar or plug-in electrolysis solutions (cheap after initial investment)
- Hydrogen vehicles would have a much longer lifespan than electric battery vehicles
- Hydrogen fuel stations can be setup similar to current gas stations for people taking extended trips
- Electric vehicle range is much more limited for longer road trips, thus you'd need longer stay periods for recharging, even with quick-charge technology

But I'd rather have the sturdy hydrogen tanks in my vehicle than 20 gallons of gasoline in a flimsy plastic tank. With the prototype hydrogen vehicles currently in testing, they mount the tanks in between the chassis and have them surrounded by removable metal plates. Highly unlikely to explode in a Hollywood style explosion. When gaeous tanks are breached, they usually just evaporate all their holdings within a second or two. Shoot some hydrogen or propane tanks with a rifle and you'll see what I'm talking about. It takes a flame or large spark to set off an explosion post breach assuming the air/fuel ratio is correct.
 
ohhhh...about 30X less square miles than the Exxon Valdez oil slick caused...

Someday, we'll stop suckling the teat of F-O-S-S-I-L fuel.

Ok. How thick was that 30X larger layer on top of the water? We're talking a layer of silicon, metal and then a metallic frame to hold it. Not to mention brackets for support, foundations, hundreds of miles of heavy duty wire, electronics and to to pit off...The amount of energy needed to make it.


As to the comments about going green and not NEEDING our oil in the future, I agree and disagree. Unless we basically figure out replicators from star trek, we're going to have to input into the system sometimes (assuming nearly 100% of oil based material can be recycled somehow). In the foreseeable future, I think we're going to need new input of oil for plastics, surgical, etc. Just my thoughts.

I tend to get annoyed when I hear hydrogen fanboys screaming it's praises. At least, I used to. The problem was people just said 'hydrogen' like it was gonna fall from the sky and power their car. To make hydrogen a viable replacement for gasoline, we also need to figure out how to power the manufacture of it. Going to burn coal, then what's the point? Nuclear seems like the best bet to me from where I sit, but hey, what do I know? The more I've heard about the portable hydrogen manufacturing plants, like gas stations, the more I am warming up to the concept. I still can't shake that annoying thought of 'uhh, wait...how were we gonna power them again?'
 
Shoot some hydrogen or propane tanks with a rifle and you'll see what I'm talking about. It takes a flame or large spark to set off an explosion post breach assuming the air/fuel ratio is correct.

Yeah, if you watched that James Bond Mythbuster episode, they showed that propane tanks don't blow up when you shoot bullets at them, even with tracer rounds.
 
I live in Israel and the price is $7.84 for gallon, but I don't really care due to my "nice" paycheck. :eek:

About the reason of why the prices are so high:
Few days ago I watched one hour long documentary about this. Basically they told that China and India are expanding and demanding more and more oil. Also the world's oil which is available for mining is almost run out. They sad that the world has 5-7 years to find and switch to alternative power or face a cataclysmic global recession

Does Israel also have a "green tax" on it's fuel sales? I was looking at population densities by country and I can see where, by a density by square kilometer, certain countries would require a tax to help offset the impact. The UK has over nine times the population density that the US has... We have 31 people per square kn whereas the UK has 246, 246?! Yeah I can see where there would be a need for funding for damage control.

I'd like someone to answer a question for me. Why is it that Mexico has fuel for ~$1.50 a gallon cheaper than the US? From what I understand their fuel taxes are pretty steep. If someone says it's because the demand isn't as high then why the hell is it that our demand is sharply down yet the prices continue to climb higher and higher? I'll be willing to bey dollars to donuts that the gas being sold over there is coming from here.
 
The world is not going to run out of oil, unless we simply stop drilling for it.

This bull about us using up all the oil if we overdo it is ludicrous. If we go after our own oil in the USA we would still have enough, being extremely conservative, to go generations before the ESTIMATES of the CURRENT known fields would be exausted.

You know what's going to destroy the planet? Forcing a world with a population of billions to stop using oil. That is going to kill us all, because sooner or later a REAL oil war will start and the big weapons will come out as the superpowers fight for the oil production that is available. THAT will kill us all. Not this global warming BS.

We can go ahead and use oil as fast as we want because sometime within the next 200 years we WILL have technology to reduce and eventually eliminate our current combustion engines. But today, and for the forseeable decades in the future, we absolutely do not. So let's stop being idiots and keep living, free, with oil and stop making up problems where they don't exist.

Drill now, build refineries NOW. If we started tomorrow morning, it would still be the better part of a decade before the current price crisis would diminish. It takes years to get refineries on line and almost as long to start a drilling operation from scratch.
 
Odd, I see no-one asking just why the fuck gas prices are as elevated as they are now. 5 years ago gas was 1/3 what it is now and oil was only half the cost per barrel. The oil companies claim that they need the extra cost increase for future exploration? Uh, yeah and that's why they're constantly turning in record profits, their execs are making more money than they can count (as the recent probe by a consumer advocacy group found out) and the sheople that make up our population just grin and bear it.

Until everyone gets together and boycotts the oil companies by not buying any fuel for a week or so and letting them know that we're getting fed up with the profiteering that's going on we're going to keep getting raped. Of course we've only got ourselves to blame, we voted in someone that has a personal stake in big oil as president.

"Until they are conscious of their own strength, they wount rebel, and only after they have rebelled they won't be concious. This is the problem"
Orwell, George. 1984. Excerpt from Winston diary.
 
Does Israel also have a "green tax" on it's fuel sales? I was looking at population densities by country and I can see where, by a density by square kilometer, certain countries would require a tax to help offset the impact. The UK has over nine times the population density that the US has... We have 31 people per square kn whereas the UK has 246, 246?! Yeah I can see where there would be a need for funding for damage control.

I'd like someone to answer a question for me. Why is it that Mexico has fuel for ~$1.50 a gallon cheaper than the US? From what I understand their fuel taxes are pretty steep. If someone says it's because the demand isn't as high then why the hell is it that our demand is sharply down yet the prices continue to climb higher and higher? I'll be willing to bey dollars to donuts that the gas being sold over there is coming from here.

Simple, your economy is richer, you can be ripped off easier.
 
- Batteries are heavier and more toxic, and you've still got charge time
- Hydrogen generation can be done with solar or plug-in electrolysis solutions (cheap after initial investment)
- Hydrogen vehicles would have a much longer lifespan than electric battery vehicles
- Hydrogen fuel stations can be setup similar to current gas stations for people taking extended trips
- Electric vehicle range is much more limited for longer road trips, thus you'd need longer stay periods for recharging, even with quick-charge technology

But I'd rather have the sturdy hydrogen tanks in my vehicle than 20 gallons of gasoline in a flimsy plastic tank. With the prototype hydrogen vehicles currently in testing, they mount the tanks in between the chassis and have them surrounded by removable metal plates. Highly unlikely to explode in a Hollywood style explosion. When gaeous tanks are breached, they usually just evaporate all their holdings within a second or two. Shoot some hydrogen or propane tanks with a rifle and you'll see what I'm talking about. It takes a flame or large spark to set off an explosion post breach assuming the air/fuel ratio is correct.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4
 
lulwut? ahaha no. That would be a huge waste, especially based on the fragility/longevity of the product. It wouldn't be nearly as dependable either, and it wouldn't power the entire US. :p Those are hippie dreams you're hearing, not real life solutions.

You have to diversity your energy portfolio as a country. There's over 150 years left of coal power just in the US resources to be energy independent, there's over 50 years of untapped reserves of oil by conservative scientific reviews in the US to be energy independent, there's enough uranium in the world to power the entire world for hundreds of years or even more if you reprocess the fuel, there's good places to setup solar/wind/geo where it is appropriate, etc.


Uranium sucks, check this out:

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nuclear-12.17b.html

and those are old news.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/analysis/nucenviss2.html


http://dwb.adn.com/front/story/4214182p-4226215c.html

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nuclear-12.17b.html

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/physics/sobel/Nucphys/breed.html

http://nuclear.inl.gov/gen4/sfr.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_metal_cooled_reactor
 
Wait! spending crap tons of money on ethanol from corn is the answer LOL. Makes me want to leave for another country just knowing about that bullshit.
 
Wait! spending crap tons of money on ethanol from corn is the answer LOL. Makes me want to leave for another country just knowing about that bullshit.
That one does make me laugh too. Turning a FOOD crop into FUEL? Eh?!?! Price of food is already rocketing because of this. And there just ain't enough room to grow all the fuel you guys need in the US.

Maybe it's time to go back to the Saddle? I'd be very tempted by a horse and cart for the daily commute. Rush hour traffic is so slow that a horse can easily keep up. And it also means that I can have a quick sleep while the horse takes me home... :)
 
Yeah, there has never been a case of the Oil Industry blocking the attempts to cut it out of it's cartel like stranglehold over the American public.

The "Kool-Aid Kar"
(a Little-Known Lynchburg Attraction on Wheels)

Believe it or not, this car runs on Kool-Aid. Over twenty years ago, during the energy crisis in the late 1970's, local inventor Roy Calloway devised a carburetor that overcame evaporation problems with sugar-based fuels in gasoline engines.

Needing a soluble mixture for the sugar, his experimentation led him to the popular children's drink, Kool-Aid, which he discovered to have just the right properties. Eventually, Calloway perfected the fuel mix (80% Kool-Aid and 20% methanol or ethanol) which, together with his special carburetor, provided an alternative to gasoline in gasoline-based engines.

Calloway's attempt to secure a patent, however, was blocked by the major oil companies, who enlisted the help of the powerful Washington Crude Oil Lobby in eventually getting laws passed that have kept Calloway's invention from seeing the light of day...almost that is.

Calloway, in defiance of a little-known federal law that forbids the operation of any motor vehicle that burns a sugar-based fuel, can frequently be seen cruising around Lynchburg in his lime-green "Kool-Aid Kar."

Risking arrest each time he hits the road, Calloway has decked his car out with signs and decals that bring attention to the unfair treatment he has received at the hands of the big oil companies and the Federal Government.

In fact, from various convictions through the years, Calloway has spent a total of seven years in jail; but he refuses to be silenced.

According to Calloway, grape-flavored Kool-Aid provides the best mixture and results in the best mileage - 89 miles to the gallon.
 
Happily I live in an urban area with a decent/good pubtrans system. I stopped driving my car back in 2006, and finally sold my car last year after it sat unused in my driveway long enough to grow moss.

I have a 20 mile commute each way every day, that I used to spend an hour driving (traffic sucks here). Which I have replaced with the bus/train for less than what I was spending per week on gas 2 years ago.

My commute is about 20 minutes longer now, but I have time to read 3-4 books a week due to having about 2.5-3 hours of dead time each day, that I didn't have when driving (because I had to drive).

I am close to everything that I need, and not driving helped me lose about 10 extra pounds that I was unable to lose after the initial 50 that I dropped a couple of years ago.

P.s. w1r3tap, you wouldn't know what a real communist was even if they were beating you with a stick labeled communism. The only true communist society was during the Paris Commune in the 1860's. Please stop using the terms communist/socialist until you actually get a grasp of what they are/mean.
 
Wait! spending crap tons of money on ethanol from corn is the answer LOL. Makes me want to leave for another country just knowing about that bullshit.

Then You'll have even more food crysis and the vicious cricle goes around and around until WWIII explodes.

BTW don't consider Argentina if food is just what concerns you, they have they crysis too now.
 
That one does make me laugh too. Turning a FOOD crop into FUEL? Eh?!?! Price of food is already rocketing because of this. And there just ain't enough room to grow all the fuel you guys need in the US.

Maybe it's time to go back to the Saddle? I'd be very tempted by a horse and cart for the daily commute. Rush hour traffic is so slow that a horse can easily keep up. And it also means that I can have a quick sleep while the horse takes me home... :)

Who's gonna clean all the carp? eh. ehh ehhh!!!

I know we'll use an automatic system to deliver the crap to Diesel trucks to deliver the food and thus the food prices will drop.

There's one problem though, the horse feeding.
 
Yeah, there has never been a case of the Oil Industry blocking the attempts to cut it out of it's cartel like stranglehold over the American public.

The "Kool-Aid Kar"
(a Little-Known Lynchburg Attraction on Wheels)

Believe it or not, this car runs on Kool-Aid. Over twenty years ago, during the energy crisis in the late 1970's, local inventor Roy Calloway devised a carburetor that overcame evaporation problems with sugar-based fuels in gasoline engines.

Needing a soluble mixture for the sugar, his experimentation led him to the popular children's drink, Kool-Aid, which he discovered to have just the right properties. Eventually, Calloway perfected the fuel mix (80% Kool-Aid and 20% methanol or ethanol) which, together with his special carburetor, provided an alternative to gasoline in gasoline-based engines.

Calloway's attempt to secure a patent, however, was blocked by the major oil companies, who enlisted the help of the powerful Washington Crude Oil Lobby in eventually getting laws passed that have kept Calloway's invention from seeing the light of day...almost that is.

Calloway, in defiance of a little-known federal law that forbids the operation of any motor vehicle that burns a sugar-based fuel, can frequently be seen cruising around Lynchburg in his lime-green "Kool-Aid Kar."

Risking arrest each time he hits the road, Calloway has decked his car out with signs and decals that bring attention to the unfair treatment he has received at the hands of the big oil companies and the Federal Government.

In fact, from various convictions through the years, Calloway has spent a total of seven years in jail; but he refuses to be silenced.

According to Calloway, grape-flavored Kool-Aid provides the best mixture and results in the best mileage - 89 miles to the gallon.

Again I quote, 1984. They won't rebell until they are aware of the power they have, and they won't know until thety had rebelled.

There have been several solutions that literally oppose the Oil Industry since the times of Nicola Tesla, shrugh, look what happened to him.
 
Happily I live in an urban area with a decent/good pubtrans system. I stopped driving my car back in 2006, and finally sold my car last year after it sat unused in my driveway long enough to grow moss.

I have a 20 mile commute each way every day, that I used to spend an hour driving (traffic sucks here). Which I have replaced with the bus/train for less than what I was spending per week on gas 2 years ago.

My commute is about 20 minutes longer now, but I have time to read 3-4 books a week due to having about 2.5-3 hours of dead time each day, that I didn't have when driving (because I had to drive).

I am close to everything that I need, and not driving helped me lose about 10 extra pounds that I was unable to lose after the initial 50 that I dropped a couple of years ago.

P.s. w1r3tap, you wouldn't know what a real communist was even if they were beating you with a stick labeled communism. The only true communist society was during the Paris Commune in the 1860's. Please stop using the terms communist/socialist until you actually get a grasp of what they are/mean.


Sorry to interrupt, I do know what a communist is since I endured their doings for more than a decade and still the remnats strike at me each and every day, even though I flee, their supposed or observed dominion. A communist as you mention it is an asshole who lives in utopia and thinks his ideas can be realized, with no real experiences whatsoever if his ideas actually work and no comprehenssion on what makes humanity work and how we function. For Christ sake there's a russian joke with a learning end about the three types of comunists that exist. You are referring to the honest type which is never intelligent, nor smart, nor clever. So leave your nostalgia to someone else's. The fastests, not the only, but the fastest way to get to 1984 status is through comunism, and that has been proved over and over and over again. Comunism is simply antihuman because is antinatural. BTW please don't waste our time by replying to this. You are already convinced of the contrair to what I just said and I don't pretend to convince you otherwise. I just had to respond to your cocky comment out of decency.
 
P.s. w1r3tap, you wouldn't know what a real communist was even if they were beating you with a stick labeled communism. The only true communist society was during the Paris Commune in the 1860's. Please stop using the terms communist/socialist until you actually get a grasp of what they are/mean.
lulz

I've already passed my college classes on it.. and I was taught by self proclaimed commies. Don't even begin to lecture me.
lol.gif
 
Yeah, there has never been a case of the Oil Industry blocking the attempts to cut it out of it's cartel like stranglehold over the American public.

The "Kool-Aid Kar"
(a Little-Known Lynchburg Attraction on Wheels)

Believe it or not, this car runs on Kool-Aid. Over twenty years ago, during the energy crisis in the late 1970's, local inventor Roy Calloway devised a carburetor that overcame evaporation problems with sugar-based fuels in gasoline engines.

Needing a soluble mixture for the sugar, his experimentation led him to the popular children's drink, Kool-Aid, which he discovered to have just the right properties. Eventually, Calloway perfected the fuel mix (80% Kool-Aid and 20% methanol or ethanol) which, together with his special carburetor, provided an alternative to gasoline in gasoline-based engines.

Calloway's attempt to secure a patent, however, was blocked by the major oil companies, who enlisted the help of the powerful Washington Crude Oil Lobby in eventually getting laws passed that have kept Calloway's invention from seeing the light of day...almost that is.

Calloway, in defiance of a little-known federal law that forbids the operation of any motor vehicle that burns a sugar-based fuel, can frequently be seen cruising around Lynchburg in his lime-green "Kool-Aid Kar."

Risking arrest each time he hits the road, Calloway has decked his car out with signs and decals that bring attention to the unfair treatment he has received at the hands of the big oil companies and the Federal Government.

In fact, from various convictions through the years, Calloway has spent a total of seven years in jail; but he refuses to be silenced.

According to Calloway, grape-flavored Kool-Aid provides the best mixture and results in the best mileage - 89 miles to the gallon.


So in 20 years of beign a free man, including a decade of mass internet adoption, he has never managed to communicate thei information to any of the hundreds of millions of people that would care, nor governemnts of one of a dozen countries that would love such technology?

I think you need to stop drinking the kool-aid.
 
Thats rediculous, we all have to get to work. I seriously doubt most companies would seriously consider allowing telecommuting. I know mine wouldn't due to the amount of sensitive information that we can't be trusted to dispose of on our own. Also for professionalism reasons as well.

Also on a side note, I suggest checking out this Reuters article http://www.reuters.com/article/ousivMolt/idUSN2733475920080527?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

My favorite part:
"We saw a real change in the industry demand for pickup trucks and SUVs in the first two weeks of May," Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Chief Executive Alan Mulally said last week. "It seemed to us that we reached a tipping point where customers began shifting away from these vehicles at an accelerated rate."

Despite these conservation efforts, Americans should not expect prices at the pump to fall any time soon.

Though rising public transport use could put a dent in oil companies' refining profits, "the amount of volume of oil this actually results in when you compare it to the oil market in the world, it would actually be quite small," said Kevin Lindemer, managing director of Global Insight Energy Services.
 
Then You'll have even more food crysis and the vicious cricle goes around and around until WWIII explodes.

BTW don't consider Argentina if food is just what concerns you, they have they crysis too now.

Food Crysis? Is that the sequel by Crytek?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.:p
 
Ooooh... a place to stick my nose in. :eek::rolleyes::p

Chombo :D

I do have to agree, there have been NO communist countries, ever. Only military dictatorships operating under the guise of "oh, we are all commies comrade, now do what I say or I'll disappear you in a gulag.". But Tip of the Hat to the TAP, as his self proclaimed commie professors wouldn't know a commie if they were beaten with a stick either :cool:

We have so many solutions to all this crap it makes me sick.

Solution ONE was making CAFE stick and cranking the number up over the years. We'd be at 32 MPG today. And no exemption for trucks/piclups/suv's, what a fucking disaster that was. So fix THAT, make CAFE real again, give it teeth, no exceptions, and mean it. The only worthwhile advances that occured in the 80's-90's were due to a gun pointed at the car companies little pointy heads.

The "people" dont give a rats ass whats under the hood, they are the walking...er... riding dead and simply want the vehicle to do the things they need done. If you told them... in $multimillion ad campaigns... that Magical Golden Squirrels were under the hood, people would lap it up like all the other marketing BS drivel they fall for. HEMI... BLOW ME.

Every friggin PoS car out there now is a "hemi", Chrysler couldn't design there way out of a paper bag in the 60's and have only gone down hill since. Cough.

Solution TWO, the technology used to suck the oil out of the US for the first 50 years sucked SOOOO bad that half the oil is STILL THERE. So SUCK HARDER. :eek::rolleyes::p

Go back and use the latest tech to get out whats left in PA, OH, OK, etc.

Solution THREE, Time has come for the oilshale/tarsands to be exploited. Again, 99% is on US or Canadian PUBLIC LAND. It belongs to ME mutherfucker, so I better get my check for my share of the 350 BILLION BARRELS or I am gonna go Tony Soprano all over your fucking fishlips.

Solution FOUR, clean COAL. We have INFINITE coal reserves, 1,000+ YEARS worth at 100% of electrical supply. Design and build the clean ZERO emission power plant, retro fit or knock-down/replace the old plants to conform. There is no reason for smokestacks and no reason for Co2 output, etc from a coal plant. Plenty of useful ways to deal with it.

COAL is the new GREEN. And teach those fucking slanty eyed capitalists HOW before they go building 1,000 old style coal plants and smoke the entire world out.

Solution FIVE, implement Solar and Wind and Geothermal where ever possible. Use real tax credits/rebates and pay for it out of big oil and the filthy riches fucking hides. There is no reason most single family homes can't be solar/wind/geothermal retrofitted to vastly reduce our oil consumption for those purposes. The heat/cool of the earth is sufficent to meet the needs of most homes in most of the nation. Plenty enough sun to generate most of our electricity for the home, freeing up power plants to charge our ELECTRIC CARS eventually.

Solution SIX, All fleets, UPS/FEDX/USPS/Taxi's Buses need to all convert to battery. Standard battery pack, easily replacable, just come in for a swap and go, while the other packs are recharging on a constant basis. Why NYC hasn't mandated this YEARS AGO I'll never understand, the exhaust fumes make me fuking PUKE, what a waste of a nice city.... when the wind isn't blowing right.

I could go on for hours. The fact none of this shit gets tried or done is proof that the entrenched "vested" interests are keeping the status quo quo'd and we the people are letting them.

Well, they will keep it up until you stop them or go broke. Your choice. :eek::rolleyes::p
 
A more basic problem in this country is how it is setup. You HAVE to drive a car in most places. No bike trails, no sidewalks, grocery store 10 miles away. Don't forget how many people live in the suburbs, rural areas with no public trans. For people in the country, there is no choice. Yes, you can reduce your trips per week and don't run to the store for that tomato you forgot, but overall, not much you can do. Also, in places where there is public transportation, I doubt the system is robust enough to handle a massive influx of new riders.

I just moved to the seattle area (more like tacoma... close enough). It seems that unless you are in a downtown area of even somewhere like seattle, there is no such thing as public transportation aside from the occasional retirement home shuttle bus. For corns sakes, there arnt even sidewalks on many streets. Ive been to shopping areas where I *Have* to get into my truck and drive around for a few blocks just to cross the street.

And the horrible fuel economy of cars/trucks sold here doesnt make things any better. The US seems to have hit a ceiling of 30-40mpg for small compact cars, starting in the mid 1970s with honda/toyota/datsun. There were the occasional 50Mpg cars in the 1980s and 1990s, (Honda civic/geo metro). But, Here we are, 30 years later, and im still hearing "30mpg" mentioned by people, regular people I talk to every day... and of course avertising. Not just mentioned, but that phrase... repeated over and over, praised, touted... Almost as if it were a linguistic orgasm.

Sorry for rambling, but I couldnt miss this opportunity... anyways:

I remember about 10 years ago, gasoline was $1.10, diesel was $0.98. 10 years ago, I highly doubt I would have picked a geo-metro over a truck, or car with a big block V8. Now that fuel has gone up 5x in cost, things are different... but its still cheap.
 
Odd, I see no-one asking just why the fuck gas prices are as elevated as they are now. 5 years ago gas was 1/3 what it is now and oil was only half the cost per barrel. The oil companies claim that they need the extra cost increase for future exploration? Uh, yeah and that's why they're constantly turning in record profits, their execs are making more money than they can count (as the recent probe by a consumer advocacy group found out) and the sheople that make up our population just grin and bear it.

Until everyone gets together and boycotts the oil companies by not buying any fuel for a week or so and letting them know that we're getting fed up with the profiteering that's going on we're going to keep getting raped. Of course we've only got ourselves to blame, we voted in someone that has a personal stake in big oil as president.

Lulz I hope you realize that the millions of dollars the execs make wouldn't even drop the price of gas by 5 cents if it all went to lower the cost. We are talking about an industry so huge that a few hundred million is jack shit. Who cares what the execs make?
 
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