Let's talk about gas.

[GMichael]

Stop rubbin your wings together and come back here, I ain't done witcha yet I just want to bite that azz just one more time

What's this? One stinkin' week without your lady and you're already trying to bite Rich's azz?

[Feanor]

What's this? One stinkin' week without your lady and you're already trying to bite Rich's azz?

Too bad I don't give green chicklets for repartee because if I did, you'd get one that.

[GMichael]

Too bad I don't give green chicklets for repartee:

Then how will I ever earn one from you? Repartee is all I have.

[trollgirl]

Wow! I was beginning to think AR had devolved into a small group talking about old times, but this is the kind of free-wheeling discussion I remember!

However, in four pages of threads, I notice that no one has gotten to the crux of the matter. Of course I am speaking of [so called] peak oil. The whole scarcity myth and price structure illusion is propped up by the idea that petroleum is a non-renewable natural resource made from the decomposed bodies of living things which were buried aeons ago. Peak oil presupposes that "when it's gone, it's gone, so we have to charge oodles for it now."

What a bunch of crap! Our lap-dog media keeps us so ill/mis-informed here in the West, that very few are aware that the Russians proved DECADES ago that oil is abiotic and is being constantly produced deep in the earth. Far under depleted oil fields lie the really big deposits, mind-boggling deposits. The Russians simply have the technology to get down there, and have found oil in places where Americans said, "No oil here."

Oil is plentiful, and should be cheap. Greed and Corruption are the twin causes of high gas prices. Voting Democratic will not help, as they serve the same masters as the knuckle-dragging Republicans.

Laz

[bobsticks]

Oil is plentiful, and should be cheap. Greed and Corruption are the twin causes of high gas prices. Voting Democratic will not help, as they serve the same masters as the knuckle-dragging Republicans.

Laz

True so true, so it comes down to "Do I want to vote for a party that takes all my money away and gives it to people who don't want to work?" or "Do I want to vote for a Party that takes all my money away and gives it to the Military Industrial Complex?"

[GMichael]

True so true, so it comes down to "Do I want to vote for a party that takes all my money away and gives it to people who don't want to work?" or "Do I want to vote for a Party that takes all my money away and gives it to the Military Industrial Complex?"

Or do you want to vote for a person instead of a party? Not that you can get one without the other.

[bobsticks]

Or do you want to vote for a person instead of a party? Not that you can get one without the other.

No you can't and therein lies a big part of the problem because a single person can accomplish nothing in Washington. Back in the day that freakish, little American Kim ll Jung named Ross Perot talked a good game but everyone knew that each and every policy initiative he undertook would be undercut by both parties.

I'm a Republican mostly due to my tax bracket and most of the time it embarasses me. Can you imagine Cheney and the Haliburton Boys in a room with the scions of the American Far Right? That group of greedheads and bizoids with the equally disgusting rabble of fatass, Rotarian gassbags...

"I think we need to focus on family values and the negative effects of abortion"
"Uh, yeah, agree with domestic focus" (thinks "God, can we eliminate cap-gains on my stock options?")
"Well, it's not just domestic. We need to spread the good word of Jesus Christ throughout the whole wide world". (All republican women sound like Edie McLurg in my mind)
"Absolutely, ma'am. I'll call my college bud Nicky Chabraja. He can help spread the word in some of the areas with a more divergent ideological entrenchment." (picks up phone,calls stockbroker "Yeah, Stu, General Dynamics, BUY,BUY,BUY!!")


Throughout the Bush2 administration I have had this nagging feeling that I could be persuaded to vote for an emocrat if they would just find someone leaning at least a bit to the center of their platform. Sadly, I must report that the Democratic National Party is constituted of the dumbest individuals on the face of the earth. This election should have been so far in the bag for them at this point it's ridiculous. I have no doubt that at some point there ws an actual discussion about putting that walking nose Barbara Streisand on the ticket. Clueless.

If I hear one more attack ad about how the rich don't pay their fair share I swear I'll find some obscure monarchist party and vote for it becuase the Dems don't mean that, they mean the middle and upper-middle class. I was standing in line behind two ladies at the grocery store--one dressed to the nines and ebullient with her new hairdo and Gucci bag, the other in scrubs, tired, quiet and impatient. The first drags a heaping cart of ribs and steaks and shrimp and food clearly intended for a cookout or celebration of some sort. She prattle on while the items were laboriusly checked out and bagged and, at the end, turned and said something to Scrubs while handing the girl her Electronic Debit Card (state welfare). Scrub Lady's response was, "You know what, I'm a nurse and you eat better than I do. Shut up and get out of my way". I'd have added "So I can get some sleep and get up and go to work again to pay for your dinner" but basically she encapsulated it all. That's real.

So yeah, G, I'm not a big fan of the two-party system and all the polarizing, reactionary extremism that it entails. We need a third party who's platform is "You, the citizen, STFU and go to work. When you get home do what you want 'cause it's none of our business. Us? We're gonna build some roads and make sure the water is hot. See Ya.". It's that simple.


edit: As I read to edit this one thought strikes me, I went to the advance opening of CLUB 45 last night and, therefore, may just be cranky and hungover.

[Feanor]

...

Oil is plentiful, and should be cheap. Greed and Corruption are the twin causes of high gas prices. Voting Democratic will not help, as they serve the same masters as the knuckle-dragging Republicans.

Laz

What the United States needs is a genuine left-wing party. What they have is right-wing + conservative/populist party, the Republican, and centrist + quasi-"liberal" party, the Democratic.

I find it sad that the American myth that government programs can only help the shiftless and undeserving remains so persistent. It might change as the U.S.' position of leading economy erodes and American professionals and small-scale entrepreneurs find their livelihoods and imagined self-reliance shrinking along with those of the working people on whom they depend for their status.

The larger corporations and the super-rich, (both increasingly non-American), are bent on exporting good U.S. jobs as quickly as possible to foreign countries where labor costs, worker health & safely, and environmental safeguards are all minimal. The Republicans have had absolutely no response to the trend except to exacerbate it with deficit budgets to finance foreign wars that decreased national security rather than increased it, and their tried-and-futile "bribe the rich" taxation policies.

The American middle class really needs to take off it blinkers and see the world and their own precarious situation for what they really are.

[Rich-n-Texas]

What the United States needs is a genuine left-wing party. What they have is right-wing + conservative/populist party, the Republican, and centrist + quasi-"liberal" party, the Democratic.

I find it sad that the American myth that government programs can only help the shiftless and undeserving remains so persistent. It might change as the U.S.' position of leading economy erodes and American professionals and small-scale entrepreneurs find their livelihoods and imagined self-reliance shrinking along with those of the working people on whom they depend for their status.

The larger corporations and the super-rich, (both increasingly non-American), are bent on exporting good U.S. jobs as quickly as possible to foreign countries where labor costs, worker health & safely, and environmental safeguards are all minimal. The Republicans have had absolutely no response to the trend except to exacerbate it with deficit budgets to finance foreign wars that decreased national security rather than increased it, and their tried-and-futile "bribe the rich" taxation policies.

The American middle class really needs to take off it blinkers and see the world and their own precarious situation for what they really are.

Sunday is God's day. A day of rest.

Tomorrow's another day Rich.

[bobsticks]

Feanor,

I'm curious as to how you define a "genuine Left-wing party", what it's attributes would be, and why it would be good for America. I'm not baiting, I'm just interested in someone's perspective who's got a few years under his belt and isn't entrenched in the American experience on a daily basis.Clearly, your idea of leftwing is not in tune with the Left within our existing political structure.


sticks