http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/us...YiW0U/apTNm6OA

Above is a link to a recent NYT's article "States Get In on the Calls for a Gas Tax Holiday"
and below are a few excerpts. The reason I didn't put this in the news thread is because I would like to discuss apparent symptoms taking place here in America, of which the subject of the article is merely listed.

I submit we are witnessing the tip of the iceberg in the ensuing demise of a great nation.
Running amok with wild ideas here and proposed legislation there.
I further submit we are the subjugated fools of a bunch of desert dwellers who had to have our technology and our human assistance to understand what oil was not too many years ago.
War on terror?
You can throw a flag over it if it makes you feel better,
but let's tell it like it is, folks.
We have got ourselves dependent on a substance which is not under our control any longer-if it truly ever was.
How would you like to own a product that every man, woman and child needed to survive from cradle to grave?
Well, you'd fight to keep it, I can tell you that alright! And if you swear you wouldn't, I'll swear you're a liar.
Now you can conserve energy and that's great, but you're not going to make any headway on that or alternative fuel unless and until we run slam out. And that is a fact of modern society that we get comfortable at a higher and higher level of technology until we erase all but the artificial nostalgia contrived by our decorative art.
We the people need oil just as the Romans needed the forges of the Celts.
We the people need oil in the way the old west needed water.
Why did those warriors of old fight so fiercely? Because their world was at stake. Notice I didn't say "way of life"- I said world. For it was conquer
or be conquered. It was have that stone or that mettle or that plot of land, or have naught. Be nothing. Be not a people, not a nation, maybe not even a family as sons were sold into slavery into the Roman army every day and Indians and cowboys captured each other's women and children since they first encountered one another.
There is a clear battle for supremacy going on today. You may say it is not real; modern countries do not sink to the level of our warring ancestors.
And you would be dead wrong.
It's all about the Dough-Rae-Me, boys and girls. It's always been about the dough-Rae-Me.

__________________
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__________________
Jesus Was A Liberal

If a certain course of action makes the mouth-breathers furious, then that’s a good policy. – The Practical Environmentalist

Alaska is an arctic desert.

I hate to burst your bubble, Tex:

Although the U.S. had only 1.8% of the world's oil at year-end 2004, it was the biggest oil consumer. China, Russia, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil were also among the world's top oil consumers.
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As of Jan. 1, 2006, Saudi Arabia still controlled the largest percentage (20.6%) of the world's oil reserves.World Oil Reserves and Consumption (The World Almanac)
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The rising price of oil is producing what Pentagon contractor LMI calls a "fiscal disconnect" between the military's long-range objectives and the realities of the energy marketplace.
Sixteen gallons of oil. That's how much the average American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes on a daily basis -- either directly, through the use of Humvees, tanks, trucks, and helicopters, or indirectly, by calling in air strikes.The Pentagon v. Peak Oil
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The U.S. with 4.5% of the world's population, uses 26% of the world's oil.
In 2001, the U.S imported 54% of the oil it needed, importing 11-12 million barrels a day and producing about 8-9 million a day to provide the 20 million barrels a day the U.S. consumes daily.
Of those imports, 48% came from the Western Hemisphere and 30% came from the Persian Gulf region, with the rest coming from Africa and Europe.Oil watch
****
Although the U.S. imports only 11.4 % of its oil from the Persian Gulf region, that area contains 590 billion barrels of known reserves. Add Iran, Libya and Algeria and you have another 130 billion barrels. The enormous pool of oil stretching form Algeria to Iran is estimated at 720 billion barrels. The reserves expected from the Caspian Sea in Central Asia will be added to this total in a few years.

"The poor countries will bear most of the burden [of high oil prices]. But the United States will be in serious difficulties. There is, I fear, a strong danger of some ill-considered military intervention to try to secure oil."
-- Colin Campbell, petrologist,
Association for the Study of Peak Oil, December 2000ASPO International | The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas
Ill considered?

__________________
Frugal tip: To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.

How to Fold a Shirt

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I know we don't have enough oil to sustain our addiction. I was referring to the evil American bastidges who got filthy rich off of American oil and now don't want us to give up our addiction because they are still getting their cut of the profits.

Now you went and made me explain it, it isn't so funny.

__________________
Jesus Was A Liberal

If a certain course of action makes the mouth-breathers furious, then that’s a good policy. – The Practical Environmentalist

We are addicted to oil as we once were addicted to the mule and plow. We couldn't go back to agriculture with a stick.
We have to regain (by treaty, war or whatever), and keep as much control over the commodity as is humanly (even super-humanly) possible.
In short , no matter our political adherence, the war (wars) for oil are as important to us as-not diamonds, as some see it as a luxury-but rather, that very life giving liquid, water.

__________________
Frugal tip: To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.

How to Fold a Shirt

Salty's Blog

__________________
Jesus Was A Liberal

If a certain course of action makes the mouth-breathers furious, then that’s a good policy. – The Practical Environmentalist

In the mean time we need to deal with the prblem as it is not as we would like it to be.

__________________
Frugal tip: To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.

How to Fold a Shirt

Salty's Blog