Gas Prices

[Babagounj]

I'm waiting for the day when we are all mandated to drive battery powered vehicles.
All trucking companies will be put out of business , like how much cargo will a semi be able to carry when the entire trailer is full of batteries ?

 

[Just_another_day_at_work]

You know in Europe they have vehicles that get 45mpg .
So why don't they sell them here ?
Oh, that's right , they fail to meet American standards , yet they are made by our Big 3 and all those Asian companies that already sell cars here.
It's nothing but a shell game .

Let's see that list: Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Smart, Mini etc.
They don't sell the rest just because the distances are not that long as here(commute), the engines are smaller and they have tough environmental standards unlike...
Try to bring an American car into the EU and find out who has what kind of standards

 

[menotyou]

I'm waiting for the day when we are all mandated to drive battery powered vehicles.
T. Boone has this figured out.

 

[Babagounj]

I like Brazil's idea.
100 % tax on every vehicle ; $25,000 car becomes a $50,000 car.

 

[menotyou]

I like Brazil's idea.
100 % tax on every vehicle ; $25,000 car becomes a $50,000 car.

friend that!!!! I got a great deal on my s80.

 

[av8torntn]

$3.71 and while out this morning saw a station lowering it's price for regular to $3.69 so appears the drop in prices will continue for the moment.

Sounds like you support speculation.

 

[soberups]

Sober say what you want... the country didn't attack ourselves on 9-11-01. We had to go to war. Again I didn't say anything about Iraq. We were thrown into war with terrorists and went to root them out of their holes where ever they were. Now maybe Obama would have apologized for offending the terrorist and sit back and do nothing but he wasn't the president at the time.

I have no problem with the idea of hunting down the terrorists who attacked us on 9-11. Problem is, none of them were in Iraq, and the unnecessary war in Iraq is one of the main reasons why our economy is in the toilet and our deficit is so huge. The terrorists themselves werent Iraqi, they were Saudi. Did we attack Saudi Arabia? No, we just kept buying oil from them.

 

[av8torntn]

I have no problem with the idea of hunting down the terrorists who attacked us on 9-11. Problem is, none of them were in Iraq, and the unnecessary war in Iraq is one of the main reasons why our economy is in the toilet and our deficit is so huge. The terrorists themselves werent Iraqi, they were Saudi. Did we attack Saudi Arabia? No, we just kept buying oil from them.

You are claiming no members of al queada were in Iraq or just that the actual people that were on the planes didn't make it to iraq?

I'm really not sure what you are trying to claim.

 

[BrownArmy]

You are claiming no members of al queada were in Iraq or just that the actual people that were on the planes didn't make it to iraq?

I'm really not sure what you are trying to claim.

He's trying to make the point that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks.

Were there members of al-Qaeda in Iraq at the time? Probably.

Relevant? Not at all.

Most of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudi nationals, with no ties to Iraq whatsoever.

Sooo...we attacked Iraq.

???

 

[Babagounj]

Let's see that list: Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Smart, Mini etc.
They don't sell the rest just because the distances are not that long as here(commute), the engines are smaller and they have tough environmental standards unlike...
Try to bring an American car into the EU and find out who has what kind of standards

Wasn't the new Cadillac engineered in Germany ?
They seem to be selling quite well here & abroad.

 

[Babagounj]

Saddam had out lived his usefulness .
It was time to install another puppet.

 

[Just_another_day_at_work]

Wasn't the new Cadillac engineered in Germany ?
They seem to be selling quite well here & abroad.

Np. I post it again.
Try to bring an American car into the EU and find out who has what kind of standard...

 

[BrownArmy]

Saddam had out lived his usefulness .
It was time to install another puppet.

How's that working out?

 

[av8torntn]

He's trying to make the point that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks.

Were there members of al-Qaeda in Iraq at the time? Probably.

Relevant? Not at all.

Most of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudi nationals, with no ties to Iraq whatsoever.

Sooo...we attacked Iraq.

???

What's the deal with the actual hijackers? Is your implication that they were the only ones involved? Is your implication that only the members of Al Queada that were on the aircraft be the ones held responsible? Are you claiming that Al Queada was not responsible for 9-11 or had nothing to do with 9-11? Why bring up Saudi Arabia since they hunted down people in their borders like animals and made us look saintly?

Even if you were to treat 9-11 as a criminal matter you'd be able to go after conspirators so I'm not seeing your point unless it is that Al Queada had nothing to do with it at all and I would disagree with that.

 

[wkmac]

Sober's point was well made. Even those who at the time in 2002' were making the argument that Iraq was linked to Al Qaeda admit now this is not the case. However, once we invaded, this opened the door and Al Qaeda took full advantage and then set up shop.

From the Council on Foreign Relations (Just, please leave the conspiracy hat for the moment) on "Al Qaeda in Iraq" a backgrounder brief we read the following,

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a jihadist group of predominantly Sunni fighters, rose to prominence in the ashes of the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein. The insurgency that followed provided the group with fertile ground on which to expand its power base and fight against foreign forces and their domestic supporters. AQI's ongoing campaign of terrorism, which peaked in 2006 and 2007, has diminished in recent years in the face of successful U.S. counterterrorism efforts and the Sunni tribal awakening.

continuing

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, also referred to as al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, is a Sunni Muslim extremist group that seeks to sow civil unrest in Iraq, with the aim of establishing a caliphate--a single, transnational Islamic state based on sharia law. Established by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an Arab of Jordanian descent, AQI rose to prominence after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Zarqawi, after being released from a Jordanian prison in 1999, commanded volunteers in Herat, Afghanistan, before fleeing to northern Iraq in 2001. There he joined with Ansar al-Islam (Partisans of Islam), a militant Kurdish separatist movement, where he led the group's Arab contingent. Many analysts say this group, not al-Qaeda, was the precursor of AQI.

and continuing

Ahead of the 2003 invasion, U.S. officials made a case before the UN Security Council linking AQI with Osama bin Laden. But a number of experts say it wasn't until October 2004, when Zarqawi officially vowed obedience to the al-Qaeda leader, that the groups became linked. "For al-Qaeda, attaching its name to Zarqawi's activities enabled it to maintain relevance even as its core forces were destroyed [in Afghanistan] or on the run," observed (PDF) Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism fellow at the New America Foundation.
Zarqawi had prepared carefully for the invasion, according to a 2011 CSIS report, developing a four-pronged strategy (PDF) to defeat the coalition: isolate U.S. forces by targeting its allies; discourage Iraqi collaboration by targeting government infrastructure and personnel; target reconstruction efforts through high-profile attacks on civilian contractors and aid workers; and draw the U.S. military into a Sunni-*****e civil war by targeting *****es.

The CFR backgrounder goes on to say there is growing concern that a current AQI presence may be growing again so that suggests watching but if one reads even the policy wonks and cheerleaders for Iraq invasion, they do now admit that prior to said invasion, AQI as we would know it did not exist and that the invasion was a seedbed from which terrorism activity would spring forth.

IMO the facts seem to vindicate Sober's points and his questions.

The BC sensor blocked the following word I'll spell vertically.

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[soberups]

Also - We live in America and can buy any car we want. If you want a bio diesel car - GOOD FOR YOU! But someone else may want to drive a gas guzzler. I am sure you would rather have BO regulate the type of car we drive also. That may happen if he gets another term. Then he can really become dictator in chief.

No...we cant. The subcompact, hyper-efficient, biodiesel-compatible cars like the VW Lupo that are common in Europe can not be imported here because of EPA emissions laws that are conveniently biased in favor of less efficient gasoline-engined cars.

I agree with you that here in America we should be free to choose for ourselves what sort of vehicles we want to buy. If you want to commute to work by yourself in a full sized SUV or truck that gets 10MPG, that should be your choice to make. However...you should also be required to pay the full, true cost of the fuel you buy at the pump. That means an additional tax on that fuel of, say, $2 a gallon that would be directly earmarked towards paying for the huge military presence in the Persian Gulf that protects our access to that fuel. Right now, we are passing the cost of that military presence off onto our great-grandchildren in the form of debt. That is morally wrong.

Basically, I am advocating a free market solution to our energy and debt problem. A tax on fossil fuels that supported our military, combined with eliminating restrictions on hyper-efficient biodiesel compatible cars, would result in more choices for the American consumer rather than less and it would create economic opportunities for American farmers and entrepenuers who would have a eager market for new, renewable fuel products. All the money that we are currently sending to the Persian Gulf nations for oil would instead stay in our country and stimulate our economy.

Full disclosure; I own a gas hog....its a '96 F250 4x4 that gets about 12 MPG. Guess what? I only drive it when I need to. The rest of the time, I drive my new Prius that gets 50MPG. Before that, I had a 2006 VW Jetta TDI that could get over 40MPG on the highway using biodiesel. Unfortunately, the new EPA regulations on diesels made since 2007 require these vehicles to have complicated emissions equipment that makes them incompatible with pure biodiesel. This needs to change if we want biofuels to be part of our future.

 

[bbsam]

I love my diesel pickup. But for a small commuter car, gasoline seems to be the way car companies are going. Even before the newest emission standards diesels were more expensive to build. VW does it a little bit. Ford chose Ecoboost. I'd like to see companies build a commuter pickup limiting power output while increasing realworld mpg in the low 30's. Afterall, a truck that makes 400hp is cool, but if I have to spin it at 6000 rpm...well, to me that's worthless power.

 

[Lue C Fur]

Im happy with my 2003 Dodge Cummins...i get 22mpg if i keep it under 65mph. If i add a few things i will get even better...

I thought i read somewhere that in some overseas countries, Diesel gas is cheaper because of Goverment subsidies.

 

[menotyou]

To Sober's point, I live an inch from Canada on the map. They come over here with cars that aren't available to us. I'd love a diesel Subaru or Volvo. We breath the same air, what the hell is the difference? I don't get it.

 

[Lue C Fur]

To Sober's point, I live an inch from Canada on the map. They come over here with cars that aren't available to us. I'd love a diesel Subaru or Volvo. We breath the same air, what the hell is the difference? I don't get it.

Its our govement and the over zealous EPA which has gotten way to powerful thanks to the Obama adminstration.