Gas Price Check...

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Its $3.65 here which is about 30 cents cheaper than it was a month ago.

[EricMM 0]

909, people have been being assholish to each other in CE for years.

 

Come on.

[alfdogg 0]

If you guys want to argue the point, can you do it in CS or something and let the rest of us talk about gas and stuff? Pretty please?

 

Anyway, I filled up for I think $3.58 on Tuesday, and tonight it was all the way back up to $3.79.

[snuffbox 0]

Talk to Mom the Mod about that one.

 

Anyway, $3.79 here, too. Problem solved.

[Timmy8271 0]

I filled up Friday at $3.73. It was about $3.84 the last time I filled up last month.

[EricMM 0]

Fuck yeah.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/opinion/...amp;oref=slogin

 

Flush With Energy

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

 

The Arctic Hotel in Ilulissat, Greenland, is a charming little place on the West Coast, but no one would ever confuse it for a Four Seasons — maybe a One Seasons. But when my wife and I walked back to our room after dinner the other night and turned down our dim hallway, the hall light went on. It was triggered by an energy-saving motion detector. Our toilet even had two different flushing powers depending on — how do I say this delicately — what exactly you’re flushing. A two-gear toilet! I’ve never found any of this at an American hotel. Oh, if only we could be as energy efficient as Greenland!

 

A day later, I flew back to Denmark. After appointments here in Copenhagen, I was riding in a car back to my hotel at the 6 p.m. rush hour. And boy, you knew it was rush hour because 50 percent of the traffic in every intersection was bicycles. That is roughly the percentage of Danes who use two-wheelers to go to and from work or school every day here. If I lived in a city that had dedicated bike lanes everywhere, including one to the airport, I’d go to work that way, too. It means less traffic, less pollution and less obesity.

 

What was most impressive about this day, though, was that it was raining. No matter. The Danes simply donned rain jackets and pants for biking. If only we could be as energy smart as Denmark!

 

Unlike America, Denmark, which was so badly hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it banned all Sunday driving for a while, responded to that crisis in such a sustained, focused and systematic way that today it is energy independent. (And it didn’t happen by Danish politicians making their people stupid by telling them the solution was simply more offshore drilling.)

 

What was the trick? To be sure, Denmark is much smaller than us and was lucky to discover some oil in the North Sea. But despite that, Danes imposed on themselves a set of gasoline taxes, CO2 taxes and building-and-appliance efficiency standards that allowed them to grow their economy — while barely growing their energy consumption — and gave birth to a Danish clean-power industry that is one of the most competitive in the world today. Denmark today gets nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind. America? About 1 percent.

 

And did Danes suffer from their government shaping the market with energy taxes to stimulate innovations in clean power? In one word, said Connie Hedegaard, Denmark’s minister of climate and energy: “No.” It just forced them to innovate more — like the way Danes recycle waste heat from their coal-fired power plants and use it for home heating and hot water, or the way they incinerate their trash in central stations to provide home heating. (There are virtually no landfills here.)

 

There is little whining here about Denmark having $10-a-gallon gasoline because of high energy taxes. The shaping of the market with high energy standards and taxes on fossil fuels by the Danish government has actually had “a positive impact on job creation,” added Hedegaard. “For example, the wind industry — it was nothing in the 1970s. Today, one-third of all terrestrial wind turbines in the world come from Denmark.” In the last 10 years, Denmark’s exports of energy efficiency products have tripled. Energy technology exports rose 8 percent in 2007 to more than $10.5 billion in 2006, compared with a 2 percent rise in 2007 for Danish exports as a whole.

 

“It is one of our fastest-growing export areas,” said Hedegaard. It is one reason that unemployment in Denmark today is 1.6 percent. In 1973, said Hedegaard, “we got 99 percent of our energy from the Middle East. Today it is zero.”

 

Frankly, when you compare how America has responded to the 1973 oil shock and how Denmark has responded, we look pathetic.

 

“I have observed that in all other countries, including in America, people are complaining about how prices of [gasoline] are going up,” Denmark’s prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told me. “The cure is not to reduce the price, but, on the contrary, to raise it even higher to break our addiction to oil. We are going to introduce a new tax reform in the direction of even higher taxation on energy and the revenue generated on that will be used to cut taxes on personal income — so we will improve incentives to work and improve incentives to save energy and develop renewable energy.”

 

Because it was smart taxes and incentives that spurred Danish energy companies to innovate, Ditlev Engel, the president of Vestas — Denmark’s and the world’s biggest wind turbine company — told me that he simply can’t understand how the U.S. Congress could have just failed to extend the production tax credits for wind development in America.

 

Why should you care?

 

“We’ve had 35 new competitors coming out of China in the last 18 months,” said Engel, “and not one out of the U.S.”

[Guest]

Talk to Mom the Mod about that one.

Oh fuck, you totally got me.

 

 

[snuffbox 0]

I'm not sure sarcasm really works when you've already, repeatedly, made a dumbass of yourself with the e-hall monitoring routine.

[Guest]

Because I've warned people or changed their posts in here, right? Yeah, I've monitored this thing like a fucking slave.

 

How does my ass taste? You're always close behind whenever I've got something to say, regardless of what it is. I'll make sure to wipe better next time.

[bob_barron 0]

I didn't mean to start some pissing contest with snuffbox and 909.

 

Lay off of him snuffbox, 909 is generally doing a good job in here.

[Guest]

I don't even talk to snuffy...this whole arguing thing is fucking stupid anyway. I'm done.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Personally I'm a bit disappointed to see the price of gas going down again. It was finally starting to get high enough that a large number of Americans were actually making behavioral changes that would be beneficial over the long term, rather than just bitching about the price of gas and the government, and going about business as usual.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Fuck yeah.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/opinion/...amp;oref=slogin

 

Unlike America, Denmark, which was so badly hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it banned all Sunday driving for a while, responded to that crisis in such a sustained, focused and systematic way that today it is energy independent. (And it didn’t happen by Danish politicians making their people stupid by telling them the solution was simply more offshore drilling.)

 

What was the trick? To be sure, Denmark is much smaller than us and was lucky to discover some oil in the North Sea. But despite that, Danes imposed on themselves a set of gasoline taxes, CO2 taxes and building-and-appliance efficiency standards that allowed them to grow their economy — while barely growing their energy consumption — and gave birth to a Danish clean-power industry that is one of the most competitive in the world today. Denmark today gets nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind. America? About 1 percent.

 

The two bolded statements conflict each a bit. Offshore drilling wasnt important, but it still helped out! Well gee, what the hell do you think it will do here?

 

Again with the "what works for Europe will work for America" bs.

[snuffbox 0]

If, as the the oil-puppets want, we put all of our eggs in the offshore basket, what will be the consequences when the next hurricane causes havoc? $5+ gas? More taxes to cover the clean-up efforts? More tax subsidies to, yet again, bail out the multi-billion dollar indudstry?

[Perfxion 0]

Yes, we need to have others ways of travel.

No, it will not happen over night/year/decade/century.

 

Yes, off shore drilling can help drop the price of crude and help get the strain off the bottom 40% of this country.

No, its not the only solution to the problem.

 

Yes, our current demand rates need more crude.

Yes, our current demand rates could be aided by coal, natural gas, hybrids, biofuels, "reinvention of the wheel" in terms of energy usage.

No, oil is not stitches to the problem, just a band-aid on a bullet wound.

 

Yes, oil prices reflect somewhat of a global oil demand.

No, price gauging, lack of refining, catering to OPEC and Tree huggers has but an artificial bubble in the cost of crude.

 

Yes, Europe does show ways to get around with less oil usage.

No, Europe ideas do not work nation wide, we are MUCH bigger and MUCH younger so space is NOT been a problem before. Thus traveling further makes things more difficult. As a nation built on the automobile and expansion, it would take a large effort to change 200 years of American thinking and planning.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

If, as the the oil-puppets want, we put all of our eggs in the offshore basket, what will be the consequences when the next hurricane causes havoc? $5+ gas? More taxes to cover the clean-up efforts? More tax subsidies to, yet again, bail out the multi-billion dollar indudstry?

 

Hurricanes dont hit California or any of the west coast. They rarely hit further up north than NC on the east coast. The only prime drilling places not being touched now are in the line of hurricane fire are off Florida. I think they'll be wise enough to spend a little extra money to build them to withstand a hurricane like the ones in the path of Katrina did. If theres a hurricane that comes through stronger than a Category 4/5 then we have bigger problems to worry about than the oil rigs off the coast.

 

California already has the equipment in place to begin drilling and producing oil within 12 to 18 months by the way..it wont take them 10 years.

[snuffbox 0]

Is there some kind of natural disaster concern in California besides hurricanes?

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

snuffbox don't you realize that off shore drilling is a magical panacea that will solve all our energy problems forever and is totally immune to trivial externalities??? Open your eyes and see the truth.

[EricMM 0]

They should probably imply that removing oil would relieve pressure on the fault linese and prevent quakes.

 

Just as likely as it bringign down the cost of gas...

[snuffbox 0]

And a bunch of talk radio/tv fans will believe every word of it.

[EricMM 0]

Yes, we need to have others ways of travel.

No, it will not happen over night/year/decade/century.

You sound like you believe we've had the Car in America since America's inception.......

 

Yes, off shore drilling can help drop the price of crude and help get the strain off the bottom 40% of this country.

No, its not the only solution to the problem.

It is no kind of solution. You, maker of such claims, need to show me any kind of proof that drilling for oil would in any way lower the global cost of oil in any substantial way, in any way that would not be offset by tensions in oil rich parts of the world in ways we cannot control. It is definitely NOT a solution to the problem, because it in no way addresses the problem! The problem is not expensive oil, the problem is oil dependance!

 

Yes, our current demand rates need more crude.

Yes, our current demand rates could be aided by coal, natural gas, hybrids, biofuels, "reinvention of the wheel" in terms of energy usage.

No, oil is not stitches to the problem, just a band-aid on a bullet wound.

I'm not sure what youre "No" line was saying here. But switching to coal would actually make our situation worse. You think CTL tech is being ignored just because? Or even because of environmentalists? More importantly you absolutely need to realize that "our" demand for crude is becoming less and less relevent every day as the worlds demand for crude increases at an even greater rate. Its an absolute fact that America cannot drill its own oil. We have to buy it. Furthermore, its not as if Exxon would drill for oil in America and hand it directly to America, Exxon is going to sell it on the world market as well. Look at it this way. Saudi Arabia can influence the cost of oil because it produces so much oil that it can lower the output to increase cost without seriously hurting itself. It produces way more oil than it needs. We do not. America's production will NOT influence in any sizable way, the world oil market.

 

Yes, oil prices reflect somewhat of a global oil demand.

No, price gauging, lack of refining, catering to OPEC and Tree huggers has but an artificial bubble in the cost of crude.

SOMEWHAT!? Please, my good internet buddy, respectfully, please get your head out of the sand!! (okay 909?) Who on earth do you accuse of price gouging? Catering to OPEC? Do you know who is catering to OPEC here? It is the poster who INSISTS on NOT doing ANYTHING to sizable reduce America's dependance of what OPEN sells! The people at OPEC know full well that we will never be fossil fuel independant. So us spending all our time focusing on drilling is playing DIRECTLY into their hands as it is not time spent focusing on getting off OIL! I already addressed the lack of refining. And Treehuggers!? Treehuggers, all they've done is try to reduce the demand for oil in this country. All they've done is keep America's demand lower than it would have been without them. You think that they've caused us to avoid drilling for oil so much that it dramatically increased the price? How long do you think America's reserves would last if they were drilled at a steady rate, and used by America? Here's a hint: not bloody long. Imagine, if you will, the day when countries stop exporting oil. Would you rather have some oil left to sip in this country, or would you rather we had sucked it all up during the 90's and 00's?

 

Yes, Europe does show ways to get around with less oil usage.

No, Europe ideas do not work nation wide, we are MUCH bigger and MUCH younger so space is NOT been a problem before. Thus traveling further makes things more difficult. As a nation built on the automobile and expansion, it would take a large effort to change 200 years of American thinking and planning.

Again with the "what works for Europe will work for America" bs.

Again you people with your "Europe can do it but we can't!" is so sickening. And, and as if that wasn't enough, "200 years of thinking and planning" did not get us where we are today. The American Highway system was created in 1956. So that's like fifty years. I mean, the car didn't really blow up in America until WWII, you know that as well as I do. I don't see, even, why this is a reasonable excuse, and I've said this before. The world is changing. Obviouslyly, as I posted, some European nations are changing along with it. You would argue, somehow, that the United States is INCAPABLE of changing in this respect. That we, by dint of our size, MUST wallow in the expensive past. Let our gas bills rise and rise, even as our gas tax income shrinks and shrinks. You know as well as I do what that will do to the American economy. "A large effort" may frighten you, but it's *going* to happen due to peak oil whether you like it or not. Estimates say that it will take 20 years easily, 10 years difficultly, and anything shorter than that would be dramatically painful. Guess how long I've been railing about this. 7 years at this site. We had a wakeup call in 1970, and ever since Reagan we've regressed as a country when it comes to initiative that could wean us off oil.

 

[Perfxion 0]

You sound like you believe we've had the Car in America since America's inception.......

 

Well duh, seeing as automobiles are only 120 to 130 years old, its hard for them to be around from the beginning. I am just saying it will take a LONG ASS time to happen all over the country. Places can not afford the cost of building mass transit. Some places don't need mass transit. So I was more meaning how long it will take.

 

It is no kind of solution. You, maker of such claims, need to show me any kind of proof that drilling for oil would in any way lower the global cost of oil in any substantial way, in any way that would not be offset by tensions in oil rich parts of the world in ways we cannot control. It is definitely NOT a solution to the problem, because it in no way addresses the problem! The problem is not expensive oil, the problem is oil dependance!

 

So you link to an article that talks about off shore helping a country. Then we know that there is ALOT of oil around this country(Texas, Alaska, Off Cali coast, off Texas coast, ect.) and you expect us to just ignore that this country can solve its own problem? How dumb can you be to think that a country with the resources of us can not do some drilling to deflate a baloon of fake inflation of oil prices? Yes we have an oil dependance problem as much as we have an air dependance problem. But currently there are not a lot of options that would really WORK to solve that problem. So what are we to do in the mean time? Just hold ands and pray as a mode of travel?

 

 

SOMEWHAT!? Please, my good internet buddy, respectfully, please get your head out of the sand!! (okay 909?) Who on earth do you accuse of price gouging? Catering to OPEC? Do you know who is catering to OPEC here? It is the poster who INSISTS on NOT doing ANYTHING to sizable reduce America's dependance of what OPEN sells! The people at OPEC know full well that we will never be fossil fuel independant. So us spending all our time focusing on drilling is playing DIRECTLY into their hands as it is not time spent focusing on getting off OIL! I already addressed the lack of refining. And Treehuggers!? Treehuggers, all they've done is try to reduce the demand for oil in this country. All they've done is keep America's demand lower than it would have been without them. You think that they've caused us to avoid drilling for oil so much that it dramatically increased the price? How long do you think America's reserves would last if they were drilled at a steady rate, and used by America? Here's a hint: not bloody long. Imagine, if you will, the day when countries stop exporting oil. Would you rather have some oil left to sip in this country, or would you rather we had sucked it all up during the 90's and 00's?

 

If my head is in the sand, please tell me how the price went up 200% this year with NO real change in the demand or supply? There is no gauging going on? Really, you are saying 100% that the price of oil is 1000% correct at current usage? It just goes up 75% over a month just because of magic? Really who's head is in the sand?

 

OPEC has been full of nations that hate us. We as a country can get more of an indepence from OPEC if we used other fossil fuels as well as crude. It is not a shock to think that international terrorist harboring nations would be hurt long term more of US not giving them money. So again, whos head is in the sand. The 70s fake scare was just that, fake. If there was really an oil problem why wasn't there in the 80s and 90s? Simple, there is alot more oil in this world and the bullshit is being swallowed up by jackasses who believe that OIL=EVIL!

 

If we need to buy international oil, hell look at Russia. They could be the second or third largest oil producing country with the estimated ammounts in Siberia. We don't need OPEC if we are buying on a world market. We have other means of getting crude. Hell, we can turn all diesel fuel from recycle products(engine oil, transmission oil, cooking oil, gear oil, ect) and futher take less oil from OPEC.

 

As for "Enviormentalist", yes some have done some good. But NIMBY and Teehugging has made it tough for many other fuel and energy sources from being used? When was the last refinery built? When was the last Nuke Plant built? When was the last add on the gas and oil pipelines done? Plenty of ways to make short and intermendite changes to our problems denied and held up in protest and enviromental law suits.

 

BTW: IF(real big if here), the price is purely by demand, and since people nation wide have been driving less for months with price further raising. Why did prices only seem to drop after bush says that he is going to repeal off shore drilling ban to see oil prices drop 30 bucks a barrel?

 

Again with the "what works for Europe will work for America" bs.

 

Again you people with your "Europe can do it but we can't!" is so sickening. And, and as if that wasn't enough, "200 years of thinking and planning" did not get us where we are today. The American Highway system was created in 1956. So that's like fifty years. I mean, the car didn't really blow up in America until WWII, you know that as well as I do. I don't see, even, why this is a reasonable excuse, and I've said this before. The world is changing. Obviouslyly, as I posted, some European nations are changing along with it. You would argue, somehow, that the United States is INCAPABLE of changing in this respect. That we, by dint of our size, MUST wallow in the expensive past. Let our gas bills rise and rise, even as our gas tax income shrinks and shrinks. You know as well as I do what that will do to the American economy. "A large effort" may frighten you, but it's *going* to happen due to peak oil whether you like it or not. Estimates say that it will take 20 years easily, 10 years difficultly, and anything shorter than that would be dramatically painful. Guess how long I've been railing about this. 7 years at this site. We had a wakeup call in 1970, and ever since Reagan we've regressed as a country when it comes to initiative that could wean us off oil.

 

Again, you really don't know how big our country is. What can work in some European countries is great for them. Not us. What works around NYC with the trains and subway would not fly around Houston. Walking is not an option when you have to go 6 miles in 98 degrees with a heat index of 108 plus 85% humidity. Bike riding is not an option when you have to go 12 miles and cross 4 major intersections with lanes of 6 lanes total traffic. El-trains are not an option when you have to spread out all 360degrees to hit all ICS lands. Plus Europe being SO MUCH OLDER means alot of people live on top of each other. It again makes things much easier. This is again why on NYC has this super subway system and LA. Travel is easy when everyone is going right next to each other a total of 10 blocks. Travel is more difficult when everyone is going different ways. For example, the only area of Houston that could work with usage of mass transit is within the 610 loop. Park and rides, plus turning HOV lanes into rail lines could help. But everything outside of that just becomes too difficult and too much of a budget strain to become a reality.

 

The United States has to look at alternate energy. Everyone will agree with you, but you fail to listen that suddenly dropping oil is not going to work. Yes, for 7 years you been on your soap box preaching about how we have too much oil dependence. But you have not listen others who been saying that the prices are not showing the true picture and that there are other ways to make gas. The prices dropping in the 80s was from the real demand than with a lot artificial inflation. Alternate energy research has been slow because gov contracts were to open ended without anything saying we need to see proof of work being done.

[EricMM 0]

So you link to an article that talks about off shore helping a country. Then we know that there is ALOT of oil around this country(Texas, Alaska, Off Cali coast, off Texas coast, ect.) and you expect us to just ignore that this country can solve its own problem? How dumb can you be to think that a country with the resources of us can not do some drilling to deflate a baloon of fake inflation of oil prices? Yes we have an oil dependance problem as much as we have an air dependance problem. But currently there are not a lot of options that would really WORK to solve that problem. So what are we to do in the mean time? Just hold ands and pray as a mode of travel?

Be more precise in "a lot" We'd use America's supply of oil up in a few years. Then it would be gone. An "air dependance problem" Wow. WOW. You know, its actually possible to live without oil. There are other means of moving. Jesus... Work to solve the inflation of oil prices? How about USE LESS OIL!?

 

In case you try to drag out that "demand hasn't gone up much" it really has. The Chinese car fleet is coming on-line. Ditto the Indian one. Do you realize how many Chinese people there are!? Drilling for oil would provide less oil than properly inflating our tires, as the government recently pointed out. So what does that tell you? We can obviously save more oil than we produce.

 

If my head is in the sand, please tell me how the price went up 200% this year with NO real change in the demand or supply? There is no gauging going on? Really, you are saying 100% that the price of oil is 1000% correct at current usage? It just goes up 75% over a month just because of magic? Really who's head is in the sand?

For one thing the declining value of the American Dollar has had a HUGE impact on the price of oil. Recognize that. "NO real change?" Obviously you don't understand that speculation is people attributing future value to something. The speculators believe that oil demand is going to go up, and the value of the dollar is going to go down, so the price of oil goes up. Then when the dollar starts stregthening and the US uses less oil than they did the year before, it goes back down. Which accounts for the recent decrease. If anything, this should show you how absolutely volitile a resource oil is, and how uncontrollable. Why do you YEARN to put your faith and trust in a substance that we cannot control, and is generally controlled by people who don't like us?

 

OPEC has been full of nations that hate us. We as a country can get more of an indepence from OPEC if we used other fossil fuels as well as crude. It is not a shock to think that international terrorist harboring nations would be hurt long term more of US not giving them money. So again, whos head is in the sand. The 70s fake scare was just that, fake. If there was really an oil problem why wasn't there in the 80s and 90s? Simple, there is alot more oil in this world and the bullshit is being swallowed up by jackasses who believe that OIL=EVIL!

If we need to buy international oil, hell look at Russia. They could be the second or third largest oil producing country with the estimated ammounts in Siberia. We don't need OPEC if we are buying on a world market. We have other means of getting crude. Hell, we can turn all diesel fuel from recycle products(engine oil, transmission oil, cooking oil, gear oil, ect) and futher take less oil from OPEC.

As for "Enviormentalist", yes some have done some good. But NIMBY and Teehugging has made it tough for many other fuel and energy sources from being used? When was the last refinery built? When was the last Nuke Plant built? When was the last add on the gas and oil pipelines done? Plenty of ways to make short and intermendite changes to our problems denied and held up in protest and enviromental law suits.

BTW: IF(real big if here), the price is purely by demand, and since people nation wide have been driving less for months with price further raising. Why did prices only seem to drop after bush says that he is going to repeal off shore drilling ban to see oil prices drop 30 bucks a barrel?

You want to use other fossil fuels as a transportation method? Cars powered by natural gas? CTL? There's a reason we don't do that now. It's expensive and we don't have the infrastructure in place for it. The only people who desire CTL and LNG is people who already produce coal and natural gas, and their proxies. Do you know why Germany was doing CTL work? Becuase they had NO OIL. And they had a war to fight. It is not an easy swap. Why not swap to something that will progress this nation, instead of regress it? Electric cars. Renewable fuels. Do you REALLY want to be giving all our money to the Russians? Instead of producing energy here at home? And Nuke plants? Nuclear power has NOTHING to do with transportation costs. Absolutely nothing. I already addressed the refining, it's not the left's fault on that. It just isn't. And OPEC directly influences the global cost of oil because its a WORLD MARKET, as you said. That means whether you get your oil from OPEC or Mexico, it gets sold the same way, for the same cost. If we stop buying oil from OPEC, China buys from OPEC instead (because we're taking all hte Venezualan oil) Like it or not, the Middle East has most of the worlds oil, it will always control the price of the stuff.

 

Again, you really don't know how big our country is. What can work in some European countries is great for them. Not us. What works around NYC with the trains and subway would not fly around Houston. Walking is not an option when you have to go 6 miles in 98 degrees with a heat index of 108 plus 85% humidity.

Where did I say you had to walk six miles to get to a bus-stop? Oh, and that shit is just going to get hotter thanks to global warming, guy.

Bike riding is not an option when you have to go 12 miles and cross 4 major intersections with lanes of 6 lanes total traffic.

Great! We agree on something! Intersections get in the way! If you're not up to biking 12 miles, and you have to go 12 miles everyday, take the bus. There should be a bus. Or, bike to the bus stop, bus, and then bike to your location. But seriously, if you can't get anything without going 12 miles, you live too far away.

El-trains are not an option when you have to spread out all 360degrees to hit all ICS lands.

Ok I don't know what you mean by ICS, but whats the problem with the Washington D.C. subway. Shit, that goes underground and they got that built. If you think D.C. is too packed tightly, then what you're talking about isn't much of a city. It's a mess, and busses are probably a better idea except for the major commute paths, when a L-line of some sort would be a good idea!

 

Plus Europe being SO MUCH OLDER means alot of people live on top of each other. It again makes things much easier. This is again why on NYC has this super subway system and LA. Travel is easy when everyone is going right next to each other a total of 10 blocks. Travel is more difficult when everyone is going different ways. For example, the only area of Houston that could work with usage of mass transit is within the 610 loop. Park and rides, plus turning HOV lanes into rail lines could help. But everything outside of that just becomes too difficult and too much of a budget strain to become a reality.

So what you're expressing is the fact that areas of the United States built up after the invention of the car is too sprawled out, I agree with you. But you act like this will continue nicely without my kind fucking it all up. And it's not. If you're saying the entire Metropolitan area of Houston is layed out POORLY, I agree with you. It's car-centric and stupid and wrong and needs to change. There's a reason its one of the fattest cities in the country, and most of the fattest cities are from TX, or areas where people can only ever drive.

 

Everyone will agree with you, but you fail to listen that suddenly dropping oil is not going to work.

You say it's not going to work, and I say it's going to HAPPEN. So which of us is planning ahead and which of us has their head in the sand??

 

Oil is not just artificially inflated in cost. Yes, the 70's oil shock was the arabs not selling us oil. But it was an indication of how weak this country is when it comes to its oil fix. Someday even the middle east is going to run out of cheap oil. Yes, there will always be oil, but eventually production is not going to be able to keep up with demand, at all, and the price is going to spike. Once the idea of oil as a finite resource begins to spread across the globe and everyone starts hoarding it, the price might easily go up 10x or more. Once the production cannot keep pace with demand, thats the tipping point. That's the peak in peak oil. When that happened to America, we started buying from other parts of the world. When that happens to the world, what the fuck are we going to do then!?

[Guest Cal Moriarty]

Where did I say you had to walk six miles to get to a bus-stop? Oh, and that shit is just going to get hotter thanks to global warming, guy.

Whoa, it's like Eric From Concentrate here.

 

What works around NYC with the trains and subway would not fly around Houston. Walking is not an option when you have to go 6 miles in 98 degrees with a heat index of 108 plus 85% humidity.

Solution: stop populating Houston.

 

[Guest Smues]

$4.37 OMG PRICE DROP.

 

I actually have another theory about the slow price drop up here. It could very well just be no decrease in demand so no drop, but also during the summer is when all the villages that aren't on the road system (like 99.9% of them) order their fuel for the year. They order it all at once, or in a few large barge loads over the summer, and then that's it until next year. So the oil companies would want to keep prices high for those massive orders. I could be way off the mark, but it makes sense to me.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I feel good about this, sort of:

 

Consumer Reports Best Fuel Economy

 

To get this list, we divided the as-tested price (including options and destination charge) for each vehicle we've recently tested by the car's overall mpg (including city and highway) in our fuel-economy tests. This tells you the price you'll pay for each mpg.

 

The lowest price per mpg in our analysis came from the Toyota Yaris and Hyundai Accent with manual transmissions ($370 and $425, respectively). But because they scored too low in our tests to be recommended, they didn't make the cut.

 

Fuck their tests. The Yaris is awesome.

[EricMM 0]

Whoa, it's like Eric From Concentrate here.

More bang for your buck.

[Canadian Brandon 0]

$3.37 here in West Tennessee.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

$3.49 today, down 50 cents in about 5 weeks or so.

 

The price seems to be dropping faster than it went up. At this rate by next month we could be back in the high $2 range. Everybody run back to your SUVs!

 

 

[Red Baron 0]

$1.399 a litre in Fort McMurray.

 

Hasn't changed in two months.