It's tragic that, in light of the oil crisis of
the 70s, these car companies in Detroit simply threw ugly, poorly
engineered econoboxes at us, and there was no real move to cut the
leash to these reprehensible Saudis and the rest...those who'd
still be a bunch of goatherds without plumbing, warring amongst
themselves, but for our need for their black gold

Let's be fair. Fuel
efficient vehicles have been available all along. Toyota and Honda
make several, and have been for quite some time. And while they were
available, we went out and bought full sized SUVs and 4x4 pickup
trucks that never saw a quarter mile of dirt. It's kind of like
complaining that we're a nation of fatsos because of all the fast
food, while ignoring the fresh vegetable aisle right over there.

Who's "we," white girl?

(Sorry, my boyfriend says that to me when I say "we" have to do something about something on my site -- when my role in the deal is just to call him to see how he's coming on it...26 hours later.)

Anyway, it isn't how much gas these vehicles use, but the fact that they use gas at all.

And for the record, as soon as I could afford a new car, I bought a hybrid Honda Insight. I wish I could also brag that I don't take private jets, and instead fly coach. I mean, I do fly coach -- but it's not like I'm leaving the Lear Jet in the hanger and hopping United instead.

And no, I haven't stopped flying and I don't ride my bike when I need to do research at the downtown library. Our society is set up a certain way and it's harder to restructure it than it is to put money and time into coming up with alt fuels instead of waiting for the Saudis to bend us over further and shove improvised explosives up our asses, and charge us big for the privilege.

We could just bomb the fuck out of them and TAKE the oil. But that wouldn't be sporting.

Oh! I know! We could uncap all the wells we capped in the US after the last time the Saudis manipulated the oil markets!

What? Nancy doesn't wanna get her porch dirty? Oh. I'll just walk then, shall I?

Uncapping wells doesn't change the endfact that oil is a finite resource, that there will never be more, and that at some point we need alternatives in place. Sooner is better than at the 13th hour when we are all panicking. And yes, we are all idiots (98% of us) who bought more vehicle than we ever, ever needed, and didn't care about it's mileage. And bought houses in the suburbs where it's drive or starve. So yes, we can blame detroit for making those cars and selling them, but they were really just giving us what we wanted. It's going to take a long time to manage the paradigm shift, and go back to walkable cities and neighborhoods and smaller less common vehicles. And in the meantime, it's going to hurt some.

Who's "we," white girl?

<Pulls out waistband,
peeks . . . > Uh . . .

(Sorry, my boyfriend says that to me when I say
"we" have to do something about something on my site --
when my role in the deal is just to call him to see how he's coming
on it...26 hours later.)

Anyway, it isn't how much gas these vehicles use,
but the fact that they use gas at all.

I don't like them either.
I hate that I can't see around them in traffic, that I'm placing my
paint and bodywork at the mercy of some ten year old when I have to
park next to one of them (my current exercise routine is to park
very far away from the store so others will not be tempted to park
next to me.), and I really hate the way most of them get driven as
if they were the only vehicles on the road.

Their sales have fallen
off of a cliff, and I'm very happy about that.

But I don't blame Detroit
for building them, I blame Americans for buying them. The
automakers saw a market and filled it. It was such a good market
that Porsche and Mercedes Benz entered it, along with Honda,
Toyota, Mitsubishi, etc. If someone gets falling down drunk every
night, loses his family, job, and health because of it, would you
blame Seagram?

And if all it took was a
rise in gas prices to get them off the road, it looks like a good
thing to me. I also hear that teenagers are not finding it
affordable to drive their (parents) cars around in circles on
weekend nights, and are now actually sitting around in coffee shops
and the like, talking to each other. The use of public
transportation is way up, to the point where cities are finding it
necessary to increase capacity. Heard a rumor about a high speed
train to run between LA and San Francisco.

I don't blame Detroit for
the way the right hand of the House of Saud is slowly squeezing the
scrotum of the American consumer. I blame the American consumer.

momof3:

Uncapping wells doesn't change the endfact that oil is a finite resource, that there will never be more, and that at some point we need alternatives in place. Sooner is better than at the 13th hour when we are all panicking.

momof3:

And yes, we are all idiots (98% of us) who bought more vehicle than we ever, ever needed, and didn't care about it's mileage. And bought houses in the suburbs where it's drive or starve. So yes, we can blame detroit for making those cars and selling them, but they were really just giving us what we wanted.

Speak for yourself, sister. I bought a vehicle that meets 95% of my needs, and I borrow a larger one for the other 5%. And I live in the suburbs because I don't want to be packed in like a fucking sardine in a can full of fucking idiots. My only regret about the house I have is that it's still too crowded here. My ideal house is in a place where I don't have a neighbor for at least 1500 feet on any side.

momof3:

It's going to take a long time to manage the paradigm shift, and go back to walkable cities and neighborhoods and smaller less common vehicles. And in the meantime, it's going to hurt some.

Bullshit. Going back to "walkable cities" is going to require one of two things - either people are going to have to tolerate a massive increase in personal crime, or there are going to have to be far fewer people. Since you have three little people that you helped create, I'm going to guess you aren't in favor of the latter.

There is no reason why we ought to "hurt some" when it is completely unnecessary. We ought to exploit our own energy sources and tell the Saudis to go fuck pigs.

You did notice the massive drop in oil futures when Bush (symbolically) did away with Executive-branch restrictions on domestic drilling, right?

"Since you have three little people that you helped create, I'm going to guess you aren't in favor of the latter."

I firmly believe in many people NOT reproducing. Let's do a liscensing test before allowing people to breed, and permanently sterilize welfare users (male and female). And when doing an abortion, go ahead and sterilize that woman too, save her the trouble of having another. I believe you were the one who thinks being gay is a choice, right? I'm pretty sure that's not your only idiotic belief. So, yes, I think I should breed lots of polite, smart, fun little kids, and people like you should have none. Please do move where you have no neighbors. Siberia, perhaps? No gays there. And uh, you what, think we should just expand the 'burbs indefinately? No need for open space if there can be little tract houses in it, right? Why build UP, which is smart use of space, when you can build OUT. Walkable cities are doable, most of Europe has them. We have a few here in the US. And how much oil do you think we have under our own soil? Enough for 50 more years, maybe, the way our own demand has risen? Then what? Oh wait, you'll be dead then, so it doesn't matter to you? Push it off for the next generation? That's always a good idea! So keep 'em coming!

Re "walkable cities": The real enemy of "walkable cities" is zoning laws. It's against the law to create the kinds of cities that people would naturally want to create and that would be more fuel-friendly.

A better option to walking is cycling.

Back to the topic of Muslims vs Jews and Christians ... it's clear that Jews and Christians have a common enemy in Muslims. I wonder if the anti-Jewish "conspiracy theories" aren't propagated and fomented by Muslims ... dividing the Jews and Christians against one another to weaken our societies while they quietly stage what amounts to an invasion.

I suppose once the invasion is complete the trees and rocks will call out.

momof3:

So, yes, I think I should breed lots of polite, smart, fun little kids, and people like you should have none.

Yeah, because people with IQ's in excess of 160 really oughtn't reproduce. Let's leave that to the room-temperature IQ crowd.

momof3:

Why build UP, which is smart use of space, when you can build OUT. Walkable cities are doable, most of Europe has them. We have a few here in the US.

And how's that working out for them. Oh, yeah - the birth rate among native-born Europeans is so far below replacement that they might all be gone in 100 years. And that one-child policy is China's own little demographic time-bomb.

"Walkable cities" -- like Philadelphia and London? Thank you, no. I'll take my little suburb where I can walk my dog without getting mugged or shot.

momof3:

And how much oil do you think we have under our own soil? Enough for 50 more years, maybe, the way our own demand has risen? Then what? Oh wait, you'll be dead then, so it doesn't matter to you?

Way to build a strawman. You have the same limited mental capacity as most people I argue about energy with. You assume that since I support getting more of the resources we presently have the tech to use now, that I don't believe in doing any research into new energy sources, or worse yet that I'm somehow pro-pollution.

Surprise! You're wrong. We have oil. We can either PAY OURSELVES to use our own oil, or we can keep shipping gigantic chunks of GDP overseas every year to buy the shit. Either way, we need the energy. Even if we were to go with all this pie-in-the-sky shit that you propose, it's not gonna happen overnight. So get the oil out of the ground here, and use it.

If you believe that we are going to somehow conserve enough energy by moving into sardine cans to continue to have the most dynamic economy that Humanity has ever seen, you've got more thinking to do.

David J:

Re "walkable cities": The real enemy of "walkable cities" is zoning laws. It's against the law to create the kinds of cities that people would naturally want to create and that would be more fuel-friendly.

Has it occurred to you that the zoning laws are put in place by the elected officials in the towns where they are written? Has it occurred to you that maybe the suburbs are so popular because people don't want to live in dense urban environments?

The market has spoken. Cities are for the people who cannot afford to live more than walking distance to work.

David J:

A better option to walking is cycling.

If you believe in Greenhouse theory (which I do not), then cycling is an order of magnitude worse than walking, and both are worse than driving. At least in terms of carbon dioxide output.

A better option is building a shitload of nuclear power plants, improving the electrical grid, and getting electric cars ready for prime time. Battery technology probably won't get significantly better, but hell, I wouldn't need more than a 300 mile range if I could recharge the thing at home overnight for 95-99% of my driving. But if we were to go with a large quantity of electric cars now, rolling blackouts would be the way of things for the entire country, and not just a few counties in California.

It's amazing to see that Cars are far important to most of the commentators than being ridiculed as pigs and apes. Well, let's call then the Saudis Donkeys -- they really are!

Timar -

The muslims have been insulting the Jews for 1300 years. It's old news. And they'd call them "sons of monkeys and pigs" even if there was no such thing as petroleum.

There's really nothing you can call the Saudis that I would find objectionable. Personally, I go for either "Oil Tick" or "Camel Fucker".

Brian, I wasn't suggesting 'dense urban' environments as a replacement for suburbia, that's absurd. Honestly, just calm down and slowly listen to the actual argument instead of giving a knee-jerk response to what you incorrectly ASSUMED I was saying.

And the idea that cycling is worse than cars is preposterous, on what do you base that? The food you need to produce the energy to cycle? I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life.

And claiming that the "market" can speak through government is ridiculous, it's practically wrong by definition.

Timar, yes, I agree with you, it is ludicrous, telling, and sad.

Brian, if people "want to" live in the current structures, why are laws required to force them to develop that way? Wouldn't people naturally live the way they want to live?

I don't know where you got the strawman of 'densely packed' urban areas, but I actually have in mind only relatively minor changes to the current suburban structures - something similar to modern suburbia, but allowing slightly more localised centers of trade and community gathering spots. Honestly, you sound like you think I'm trying to take away your precious suburbia. That's laughable.

David - when someone says "city" they mean urban center. High-density residential, etc. That's certainly what momof3 was on about when she was lamenting the lack of "walkable cities" (the whole building up thing was a dead giveaway).

The only thing that Zoning boards are doing that's really contrary to what SOME people want is placing a lower limit on building size, which they are doing for revenue reasons. It's never a good idea for the zoning board to be a profit center. But most of the zoning laws are meant to prevent overcrowding.

But if people didn't want to live in McMansions with no trees, they wouldn't buy them, would they?