Gas Prices

You can buy your own cow, or drink water. Gasoline on the other hand is a necessity. Could buy barrels of crude I suppose, but neighbors might not like the distillation equipment in backyard. Until we wean off imported oil and harvest our own, (environmental activists be (expletive)), and develope hydrogen or other alternatives, we'll always be at the mercy of the import.

Or cook up your own ethanol like Brazilians.

I wish we could get some of that Brazilian ethanol, but Archer Daniels Midland got congress to pass a $.54 per gallon tarrif against imported ethanol.

Move to Venezuela. Gas is .22 per gallon per NBC Nightly News.

seems like we could get that for buck a gallon shipped, paint and sealer must be really cheap down there.

http://www.michigan.gov/som/0,1607,7-192--141415--,00.html Sign Now to Lower Gas Prices! Michigan drivers are again facing the reality of $3-per-gallon gas - it’s time for President Bush and leaders in Washington to stop watching and start protecting us from the skyrocketing cost of gasoline! It's just not right that big oil companies should be allowed to hold customers hostage to outrageously expensive gas; they rake in billions in record-setting profits while consumers are left with no option but to pay ever-increasing prices. Consider these facts: The average price for unleaded gasoline is 64 cents higher than the same time last year. ExxonMobil reported a $36.1 billion in profit, making it the largest corporation in the world and larger than the next four companies on the Forbes 500 list combined. Oil prices have increased 240 percent since George Bush’s inauguration in January 2001.

Gas prices are lower, adjusted for inflation, than during the Carter era. Back then families spent 10% of income on energy. Now it's about 6%.

"Back then families spent 10% of income on energy. Now it's about 6%." Since the last increases yesterday? Feels more like half.

Quoting \\\STRIPES///, April 27, 2006 (that post is not in this thread):

Since yesterday? WHAT?? STRIPES - sometimes I worry about you

ooooooooooooooohhh I see what it is you're tryn to say now!

Is Evelyn Woods speed reading class still out there somewhere?

A point of interest. Today on NPR... they were talking about how the damage to the off shore rigs (primarily pipelines) was much worse than originally thought. Thats right! Er, or should I say left.... NPR!

Quoting Gauxt, May 04, 2006 (that post is not in this thread):

I think I saw a diehard lefty liberal Kerry supporter in there. Easy to spot, they sound alike. You couldn’t be talking about me, I’m so far right that I might fall off the edge. Lot, paint fumes do kill brain cells, that’s why us old liners keep having brain farts. Don, I never said these mergers were necessarily good, but it’s also not worrisome, most of them will fall apart in time, just look at AOL and Time, Viocam and Blockbuster, Coke and Columbia (although it took Coke 40 years to figure out that it didn’t work), Pepsi and the Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut. Truth is that there is no such thing as “Synergy”, every part has to be ran as a separate business or it will never work and these corporate giants can never see that till it starts to fall apart, then the spin offs start and every thing works it’s self out. The only time massive mergers have worked is with GE, and it has only worked because they developed a business model for it before ever starting with the mergers and have stayed with that model. And for the record, I don’t get my news for the idiot box. There are plenty of sources other then the big four, f people can get off their butts and put some work into it. Lazy always equals stupid. The levies can’t be fixed because of bureaucracy , plenty of money but a lot more excuses. We can fix Iraq because the military is in charge of it and they don’t play the “it’s mine” game the way the bureaucrats in charge of the levies do. Quote As an example here we have a little burg outside D/FW proper and this week-end voters will be asked for the third time for 10 million in bonds just for a new football stadium (looks as good as the artists renditions of the Cowboy's new joint) and this time they will probably get it. They pulled that same crape in Midlothian last year, can’t even fill the stadium they now have, yet they need a new one. They also held the bond election with only two days notice. Trying to pull the same crape here in Venus (pop 1400 at best and only one stop light). Quote So we have free speech, who is here to disseminate it? How can anybody know the real facts about this 10 million dollar football field? How can they argue the pros & cons (whichever side they are on) where the public might hear it and choose after THINKING which position they agree with? Lack of dissent and people listening to a wide variety of views before making up their own minds is the downfall and antithesis of democracy. Both in my little corner of the world...and with the big national issues. From you and other like minded folk. They can’t stop you, but they can try to pull some stink. You just have to get on the soap box and make some noise. Remember it took sixty years for people to find the courage to stand up to the British, it may take that long to find the courage to stand up to Washington.

\\\STRIPES/// wrote on May 4, 2006:Go to #32

A point of interest. Today on NPR... they were talking about how the damage to the off shore rigs (primarily pipelines) was much worse than originally thought. Thats right! Er, or should I say left.... NPR!

Ken, the damage could be called extensive considering where the pips are, but could have been fixed quickly if the EPA would allow it, but this is an industry where when some tree hugger in Washington, that has never seen a real tree, says stop, all work stops. It’s a proven fact that you can’t win an argument with an idiot, and 99% of the idiots are in Washington, that other 1% are the ones blocking traffic on the freeway. I say we bomb Washington and start over, king George wasn’t this bad. Bande, about those taxes, I haven’t even mentioned what commercial cargo carriers have to pay for those big rigs, I haven’t finished the fifty pound instruction book for it yet, so far I do know that you have to pay a mileage tax for every state you drive through, I’m only to page 170 or so and so far I don’t think that even God could understand it. And the rules for the drives are just as bad, every time one farts it has to be wrote in the log book.

Thomas, I was only expressing surprise that left wing "public" radio was siding with petro suppliers. I found it curiously interesting.

Hey SL, I'm one of the few here that knows right where Venus (and the one stop light) is, used to have some friends that lived down that way many years ago. This might interest you since I think you said you have some native American ancestry somewhere. The ANWAR area is the home to the only remaining native American (Indians to the rest of you) tribes that still live by their "old ways", migrating, hunting, fishing, smoking meats in huts & drying fish on racks to last the winter & living in total harmony with nature and the environment (I and they admit they have a few snowmobiles, some "store bought" clothes, outboard motors, & "white man's" medicines, but that is to be expected. And they mentioned they wouldn't have bought all that but they started getting that Alaska subsidy money all the citizens of Alaska get so they spend it) Their way of life will vanish with drilling in ANWAR because it will disrupt the particular type caribou herds movement their people follow like the plains Indians did the buffalo. (This variety of caribou are found nowhere else) But I digress... one wise old fellow said by his observations of the current oil fields, the pipelines, etc, he had decided it wasn't the oil companies who wanted to drill there because it cost them way too much compared to the returns etc. etc. His observation was it was the oilfield service companies that made the really big $$ because they must often fly to remote locations or get there in all kinds of bad weather to service the wells, the pipes, all the other related machinery (all of which including the big Alaska pipeline have to be heated or the crude won't flow) and so those companies (and their workers) make many times what they do for similar services in more "normal" climates and there work goes on & on, long after the drilling etc. because they have to keep everything working, unclogged, etc. (I live in oil country, we have about 4 big ...including Haliburton..."service" companies with locations here and I see the convoys of those service trucks rolling every day) Just an interesting observation from someone who has no big education except a heritage of closely watching what is happening around him (kept his people eating for these hundreds or thousands of years) and no political agenda except being part of the last tribe that wants to be able to stay where the USA promised they could and continue their native lifestyle...as one woman mentioned, the oil company jobs pay really great... a few months of the year, but the caribou have fed and clothed our people since time began. I dunno maybe we ought to do right by at least one native American tribe we promised could stay on their land and live their way. But it happened to all the others, we let them stay until "civilized" people found something of value to them on that land...then told them to join the "modern world, move to town, get a job...

Well , I'm not going to disagree, but I know there are lots of drunken Indians there and they come and go as they want in the oil field area and eat at the Phillip's and Bp camps when it is steak night or when they feel like it. If they drill in anwar they are going to transport the oil back to Prudhoe anyway. As far as the caribou and fish go they still do there normal from what I seen. We built a bridge to the salt water treatment plant when I was there so the fish didn't have to go all the way around because of tree huggers, after millions spent and piles drove bridge erected the fish went around anyway. same with the caribou every so many feet they make a ramp for the caribou and they don't always use those ramps either. I'm not saying it is OK t odrill anwar, because it won't help us anyway, all the oil in Alaska goes over seas. they have lots of booze.

Land disturbed by drilling Anwar would be less than one percent. Back when I was working for an electric utility, the tree huggers were complaining about the hot water being discharged into the lakes BUILT BY THE POWER COMPANY! They claimed it would adversely affect the fish. Guess where a worlds record bass was caught?!?!?! Guess where all the fishermen still go in the winter? (the discharge channel). Some of "them" had incorrect info. Others did not have best intentions for what was good for the country. If you want to bring a country down, attack the energy supply.

Well the Indians I am talking about live hundreds of miles from the current oil facilities so I don't imagine they "drop in" often. But at any rate the problem is where the 1% is. It happens to be in the very place this particular breed of caribou go to calve every year because of the brief timing of the abundant food supply & grazing in that area. They migrate across a vast distance but like "natural" salmon that's where they always return to have their young. Yep, right where they think the oil is. And of course you can't buy a "real" salmon anymore, there are too few because of the dams across the rivers they used to spawn in...and those millions of dollars of "stairs" they built don't do the trick. If you ever see how the genetically engineered farm raised salmon are produced you (like me) would never eat one again. They actually have a color chart (like paint) to adjust their feed because without the added red the meat is naturally a dull gray color & they have to sample & adjust the color additives they feed them to get that nice red color for your supermarket...and the genetics make them grow to market size in months instead of years...pretty sickening if you ever see one of the operations (most of which are in south America because of they year-round water temperature and dollar day labor (and lack of pesky regulators). But ANWAR won't solve the energy problems, just delay the inevitable while making the rich richer. Go ahead and trash the place and those people, it's a band aid on a shotgun wound (no Dick Cheney jokes please...) Here's a radical fact for you, the USA is the only country in the world that prohibits the growing or import of industrial hemp (yes like marijuana but with no THC) which makes a far superior plastic compared to petroleum, and we use more oil making plastic than we do for our cars (and the hemp plastic will biodegrade over time, the petroleum stuff won't) so US farmers could make a fortune (cause the stuff grows like a weed, little need for fertilizers or pesticides like other crops) and we could solve a big part of the "energy crisis" with "made in the USA" supplies keeping money at home instead of in other countries...but I'll let you guess who keeps killing that idea (the feds have had a proposal from the industrial hemp association, a group of farmers, for a limited controlled project to prove the efficiency and viability and the fact nobody will get high off the stuff, gathering dust on their desk for 2 years waiting on an answer...bet you can't guess what lobby is keeping it sitting there). And as for Ken's comments about the energy supply bringing down a country it will! I fully agree. So why are we "attacking" everything but oil? Why won't they run lines to the wind farms or give us in Texas any breaks on solar? One existing wind farm has over a million dollars a year in potential income sitting there from unused windmills because the electric companies won't add any more transmission lines to buy from them (and they could add far more but they can't use all they have). There is enough wind power alone available on the caprock in West Texas and in the Davis mountain area to replace either our natural gas fired plans or nuclear, but Texas doesn't want it (too many big natural gas producers here). And I would LOVE to install some solar & a small windmill to cut my electric bill, but no breaks here in TX and I can't afford the cost "up front" (My on-line estimates would pay for themselves at full-price in 8-12 years at the current rates but I just don't have the investment "up front") Face it folks, one fact is clear. Every scientist agrees if we drill everywhere we know of on the planet and keep burning fossil fuel at the current rates it will all be gone in my children's lifetimes, ANWAR, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq Russia...all of them will be pumped dry, the only disagreement is since nobody can predict growth rates whether it will be 25 years or 50 years, but most agree the "top-end" is 50-60 years if we start conserving. We have the technology, we have the ability, but as long as the majority of people are happily pumping gas into their SUV at while just griping about the cost nothing will change. It's like the budget deficits, demise of social security & Medicare, "science" messing with the genetic makeup of life, nuclear waste, etc. all problems we find it easier not to think about...let our children or grandchildren worry about it. The enemy isn't the tree huggers, or even Iraq, it's Wall Street, Globalization...the "new world economy", the IMF, World Bank, etc. the corporate control of virtually all media, and those guys in Washington lining their own pockets instead of representing the people. Term limits would be a good place to start cleaning up politics, but that ain't going to happen...

WOW! Term limits - what a great idea! But...how do you get someebody on the gravy train to kick themselves off? IMHO the president should be elected for a single 6yr term - then he wouldnt spend the 1st 4yr term running for re-election. Something might get accomplished for a change if the senators and congressmen were limited to 2(?) terms and the pres for 1. What ever happened to the "Citizen Statesman"?

Don wrote on May 5, 2006:Go to #35

Hey SL, I'm one of the few here that knows right where Venus (and the one stop light) is, used to have some friends that lived down that way many years ago.

It hasn't changed any.

Don wrote on May 5, 2006:Go to #35

This might interest you since I think you said you have some native American ancestry somewhere. The ANWAR area is the home to the only remaining native American (Indians to the rest of you) tribes that still live by their "old ways",

That would be the Inuit, a long ways from Cherokee/ Comanche, by the way, avoid Winstare in Oklahoma, my kin folks are a little crooked. Don’t believe most of the BS coming from the Inuit, they are nothing like the Amish, most are on welfare, don’t work and hunting is too much like work, and live nothing like the old ways. The ones that do live more like the old days live on the island chain in the straight. The drilling site is In an uninhabitable area in the far north, nothing lives there, not even caribou.

Don wrote on May 5, 2006:Go to #35

I dunno maybe we ought to do right by at least one native American tribe we promised could stay on their land and live their way.

Perhaps we should keep our casinos on our reservations and stop stealing people homes so the tribal politicos can get rich off of the gamblers.

Don wrote on May 5, 2006:Go to #35

move to town, get a job...

Not a bad idea.

Don wrote on May 5, 2006:Go to #38

And of course you can't buy a "real" salmon anymore,

I get all my fish Fedexed to me by my uncle, he works on one of the big boats out of Cali. Don’t buy that crap in the store, no telling how long it’s been dead or where it came from.

Don wrote on May 5, 2006:Go to #38

But ANWAR won't solve the energy problems, just delay the inevitable

A delay is good, it will give Honda and Toyota more time to work on some of the newer power systems they have going.

Don wrote on May 5, 2006:Go to #38

Why won't they run lines to the wind farms or give us in Texas any breaks on solar? One existing wind farm has over a million dollars a year in potential income sitting there from unused windmills because the electric companies won't add any more transmission lines to buy from them

It’s not the electric producers, it’s the distribution companies, they don’t want to put out the bucks for lines and equipment but if the equipment is close enough the wend farm can run it’s own lines. Ken may know more on how that works.

Don wrote on May 5, 2006:Go to #38

(too many big natural gas producers here).

Hey now, I’m sitting on one of the biggest dinosaur farts in the world, XTO starts drilling in three months.

Don wrote on May 5, 2006:Go to #38

we have the ability, but as long as the majority of people are happily pumping gas into their SUV at while just griping about the cost nothing will change.

Our biggest problem is that we have too many people that never look beyond today and think the government will take care of everything. Some of my people can attest to how well the government can take care of things, it keep us poor and backward and hungry.