Oh No You Fucking Don't!!!

[The Littlest Ubermensch]

It's already too late to do anything about it. Our entire culture is based on cheap fuel. It's how we have goods and services available at comparable prices from coast to coast. It's why our cities are 50 miles wide. It's our way of life. With gas about to hit $5/gallon there's absolutely no way around the fact that the next 10 years will see a dramatic, forceful, possibly violent reorganization of American culture.

What pisses me off though is not the high gas prices as much as it is the idiocy of people who think that allocating more land for oil production will actually fix something.

This. The suburban, sprawling layout of the US is going to die a horrible death. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of the suburbs become ghost towns (or about as close as anyone can get in this day and age) in the coming 20 years.

[LMNO]

You know what that means....


CHEAP LAND!


The next decade is gonna ROCK.





LMNO
-already has blueprints for the "compound".

[P3nT4gR4m]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Dwindling oil reserves have nothing to do with cars not being able to move and everything to do with not being able to make the car in the first place. Everything you touch, wear, use or eat depends on oil from the styrofoam packaging to the additives in the chicken feed.

Lack of oil will be a massive lulzfest, with people fighting, dying and eating each other left right and center.

Imagine present day then multiply the funnay by about 100

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Dwindling oil reserves have nothing to do with cars not being able to move and everything to do with not being able to make the car in the first place. Everything you touch, wear, use or eat depends on oil from the styrofoam packaging to the additives in the chicken feed.

Lack of oil will be a massive lulzfest, with people fighting, dying and eating each other left right and center.
Imagine present day then multiply the funnay by about 100

I'll bring the BBQ sauce!

[Dr. Paes]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Dwindling oil reserves have nothing to do with cars not being able to move and everything to do with not being able to make the car in the first place. Everything you touch, wear, use or eat depends on oil from the styrofoam packaging to the additives in the chicken feed.

Lies.
It'll all be ok, because "they" will discover a practical way to power my car with biofuels... and "they'll" harvest the plants needed to power all of these cars with vehicles which also run on biofuels, which "they" will make and transport using machinery which also runs on biofuels, and EVERYTHING WILL TURN OUT OK!
[/stupid fucking monkey]

[Jenne]

  I'm cynical enough to think that the oil companies have hired think tanks who already came up with solutions but are suppressing them until the monkeys are burning the cities down after all the poo has been flung.

[TheLastLump]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Dwindling oil reserves have nothing to do with cars not being able to move and everything to do with not being able to make the car in the first place. Everything you touch, wear, use or eat depends on oil from the styrofoam packaging to the additives in the chicken feed.

Lies.
It'll all be ok, because "they" will discover a practical way to power my car with biofuels... and "they'll" harvest the plants needed to power all of these cars with vehicles which also run on biofuels, which "they" will make and transport using machinery which also runs on biofuels, and EVERYTHING WILL TURN OUT OK!
[/stupid fucking monkey]

I see you appreciate the irony of the situation.

Why don't we just fix what we CAN fix in a day, and start planting Hemp? Industrial non-drug hemp creates lots more oxygen per acre than an acre of trees. Something something something, hole in ozone layer = fixed.

There. I've done my good deed for the day.

[The Littlest Ubermensch]

:patiently awaits another hemp + LastLump inspired shitstorm:

[BootyBay]

Listen up skippy!  And listen to me good!

You probably saw the same thing I saw driving into work today.  Yep, the gas price has inched down a nickel or so in the past few days.  It might go down a little more over the coming days and weeks, but it's sure to still be a hefty sum to fill up even your little VW Golf.

And now I'm pissed! 

"Huh?  What?  Why?"

Because I know there are some of you idiots out there who at least thought, if not voiced, the following. 

"Cool.  It's going down!  Things are going to get better."

This is exactly what THEY want you to think.  They are banking on this little scrap they are throwing to you, to put you back into the same fucking complacency that got us here in the first place.  The sad truth is that we ARE getting sodomized by the energy companies.  Big Oil laughs because they know that they ARE Big Oil.  It becomes so cliche that they become insulated from any actual action.  Because it becomes instutionalized and accepted that, "Well, that's just the way it is."  FUCK THAT NOISE!!!  YOU NEED TO GET OFF YOUR FAT ASS AND GET MAD!!!!

How can you be happy with $4.00/gal?  How can you be happy with $3.80/gal?  How can you be happy with $3.00/gal?  But it's not just the Big Oil goons.  They are just the dog-and-pony smokescreen show to keep your attention away from these fucking pinhead speculators who sit behind their computers and hedge bets on the future supplies and create scarcity that doesn't even exist yet.  I mean HOLY HELL.  How can we trust anyone who's occupation is called Speculation?  That's like trusting a surgeon who has a "Hunt and Peck" approach.  There is absolutely squat keeping these impotent pinheads in check.  And Congress, your so-called Representatives, and the President are perfectly content with this scenario.  They won't do jack shit because you sit there, idling in the 5:00 rush hour traffic jam, and you take it. 

"Gosh darn the gas prices are high." 

That gets nothing accomplished.  But it gets worse when you are pleased when it inches down as it is now. 

Now, I've got a thing or two to say to you blind-bat bastards who are mad, but wanting to make the problem even worse.  Your President has just suggested we start drilling off-shore again.  Also, your fucktard President's ultimate goal of creating an Oil Colony in Iraq has come to fruition.  BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron are now getting access to the Iraq Oil Fields.  You idiots talk a great game about decreasing dependency on foreign oil, so it seems your solution is to just take the foreign oil, slap an american flag on it, and voila, it isn't foreign anymore.  God Forbid we actually put some real effort into getting off this dead-end energy source that is fossil fuel and get onto the next thing.  I mean, do you get a heroin junkie off of heroin by giving him MORE HEROIN???!!!!??? 

It's time for people to grow some stones and some brains.  Perspectives are completely fucked in this country right now.  We get mad about some guy's whacky goofball pastor, but we don't bat an eye at our government bending us over and calling us Sally as it reams us in the ass while rifling through our walletts. 

"Here, take my money please!  Here, take my livelihood, please!  But please don't let the smudgy guy in." 

WISE UP IDIOTS!!!  You government is going to go along with what has been, at best, sub-par governance, or at worse, sheer indifferent regression, until YOU get mad about it.  Not upset, not mildly irritated, not concerned, but MAD, MAD, MAD!!!!  America used to be good at getting mad and telling the oppressive Government to get bent.  Well, now we've got THIS George fucking shit up, or looking the other way as others fuck it up.  It's time to tell him, and those that are tacitly or willingly going along with this oil/gasoline shell game to get bent and suck on a tailpipe. 

Otherwise, we're ALL going to be running on fumes. 

Niiiice.  I like this one a lot.  I've been saying the same thing for hours now. 
What ever happened to all those Anti-Trust Laws everyone brags about huh? HUH? *loads shotgun*

[AFK]

Complacency is Cartoonish

[Random Probability]

Excuse me, but... am I the only one who noticed that the increase in prices coincided with what's going on in Iraq.  Seems Iraq wanted to increase their production but the oil consultants (aka Big Oil) wanted a share of the oil instead of a flat consultancy fee.  So Iraq told them to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut on a gravel driveway.  Then the prices started to go up...

[AFK]

The situation in Iraq undoubtedly has some affect on rising prices, however, I believe the speculators have had much much more impact on the high prices.  They are manufacturing scarcity to line their pockets. 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I'm with RWHN. This current mess with Oil directly relates to a lack of confidence in the dollar. Causes include the assholes who conned people into building houses that they couldn't afford, the assholes that lied to the realtors about what they could afford, the assholes that intentionally ripped off banks based on fake real estate purchases, the asshole banks that thought bundling and reselling loans would be a great idea and finally in this list of assholes, you have our favorite National Asshole with his favorite National Pastime (Iraq, not baseball) which is being paid for by the trillion dollars or so that we've borrowed from the Chinese and Japanese.

All of those causes had the effect of investors not being able to trust the dollar. This caused them to pull their money out of the stock market (causing further instability in the dollar) and putting their money in safe stuff... like Oil. If everyone wants a product then the product becomes more expensive, ergo $4.00 gas at the pump. Drilling in ANWAR or the Continental shelf is not gonna fix this, because we're not dealing with a shortage, we're dealing with a runup based on speculators and investors fears.

Now, certianly China's fast paced growth is sucking up some oil supplies and crazy bastards in the Middle East aren't helping matters... and Bush is a moron. But, at its core, this is a mess with lots of causes and effects. Not only do I think that this isn't a secret Government control ploy, but I also don't think that the government is in a position to do much about it... except maybe drop the gas tax for a bit (states too). Even then, though, that's only a little help since the federal gas tax is about $0.18 and (in Ohio) the state gas tax is $0.26, so in total, it might save me about $0.44 per gallon, making gas still somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.50 (optimistically) or more. In some states the tax is much lower than Ohio and the 'help' would be even less useful. However, since the government is currently running on borrowed money, telling them to take in less taxes may be a recipe for yet more disaster. The government could try a cap on the oil speculation, but then that may simply make investors even more scared... leading to even less faith in the dollar and gas prices would go up because the dollar would be even more worthless.

At least, thats how things appear to be, if you look at them in that manner. 

[AFK]

Speaking of ANWAR...

Sean Hannity and Karl Rove were talking about that one night on Fox Noise.

They were suggesting that having pipelines in ANWAR will actually be good for the Caribou who live there.  Because it will create extra warmth and will be a place they can come and hang out.   

Oh, and to the speculators, I heard someone testifying before Congress about this issue.  I think he was an economist/professor.  Anyway, he said that basically if we don't fix what's going on with speculators, who are allowed to run amok due to the Enron loophole, they'll do the exact same thing with alternative energy sources.  So it isn't the actual supply of energy that's causing us problems, it's the stuffed suits who manipulate the futures market to create scarcity that will most likely never exist. 

[Random Probability]

Speaking of ANWAR...

So it isn't the actual supply of energy that's causing us problems, it's the stuffed suits who manipulate the futures market to create scarcity that will most likely never exist. 

That was pretty much my point.  Oh, and Iran just test fired a medium range missile.  And the price of oil magically went up with it...