Car wars
A sanctimonious liberal (redundancy alert!) blogger excoriates various conservatives who all presumably own massive, gas-guzzling vehicles like the Ford F-150:
As the American economy falls to pieces, oil is hovering in the $100 per barrel range and gas prices are a few days away from shattering all-time high records. Forecasters are predicting that gas will surpass $3.22 per gallon by next week. Mad Money’s Jim Cramer told Chris Matthews last week that gas prices might top $4 per gallon within the next six weeks.
Even with this brutal economic news to serve as an incentive, will Michelle Malkin, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk sacrifice for the war effort by purchasing less Islamofascist gasoline for their Ford F-150 Microphalluses? No way. Too moonbatty. Devising new and hilariously clever agitprop words like “Defeatocrats” is clearly more patriotic than actually addressing the principle source of global and domestic instability: oil and gasoline.
The blogger, one Bob Cesca, published his post at the Huffington Post, founded by the Queen of gas-guzzling Gulfstream Liberals, Arianna Huffington. Yes, the same Arianna Huffington who was caught driving this Chevy Suburban beauty to get to the Sierra Club’s national summit in San Francisco a few years ago:
The HuffMobile
Time and again, the Left paints a bogus caricature of conservatives destroying the environment with awful SUVs while they tool around in…awful SUVs.
I drive a minivan and a Subaru wagon.
The government-subsidized, Bush-bashing Frost family drives:
a Volvo SUV…
a GMC Suburban…
and a nice, big Ford F250 Pickup work truck…
Tell you what, Bob Cesca. When Arianna swears off all private jet travel and the Frosts cram their kids into a Prius, I’ll buy a scooter.
Until then, take your eco-sanctimony and drive it off a Malibu cliff.
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Categories: Enviro-nitwits, Huffpo
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We were at a museum on Saturday and saw a sign telling us that the museum was trying to reduce its carbon footprint and that we should too. while we were in line I made the comment that I wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about my carbon footprint. My daughter responded that she was pretty sure it was a lot smaller than Al Gore’s, so I’ve got room to spare if I need it.
So right. I drive a Saturn Vue 10 miles to work and 10 miles back. Unless I bike to work, which I sometimes do. And I make no apologies for either mode of transportation.
Yes, and no, dakine.
Unfortunately, there is a huge tax bomb about to be dropped at state, local, and federal levels to fund the “management” of green initiatives.
The savings and money to be made is on the wealth creation side. Check out companies like GE and HP for huge examples of how it has been going for them as they reinvented their supply chains.
Without government regulation or treaty signing, the US is the only country to exceed the standards set at Kyoto. None of the other signatories did.
So in typical socialist fashion, the Left has organized a cabal of “non-governmental” agencies at state, national, and local levels to “incubate” green initiatives.
Of course these will be funded by various taxes to pull money out of private hands to put into public programs “designed” with the “spirit” of Kyoto in mind.
What that means here in Berkeley is that every private resident will be ‘required’ to comply with “standards” set in the “spirit of Kyoto”. Or be taxed.
It doesn’t matter that we are going to renovate our home, add a second story, go off the grid entirely using our own money. We will have to prove to the City that our design is in compliance with a treaty the US never signed. Or be taxed.
Something smells.
Also, about the CFL bulbs- check carefully to see where these are manufactured. These are one of the leading knock-offs being made in China. They are being sold for the full whack, which is quite pricey. But they don’t last nearly as long as the real deal.
Also, the mercury hazard is real if they are dropped and broken. If you are feeling like adding mercury as one of your domestic hazmats, have at it.
And those “cheese wedges” the Moon Loons like to drive, the Prius? Investigate the carbon produced shipping the nickel cadmium back and forth from Canada to Japan twice before it can be formulated for car assembly purposes.
Them batteries, and their adaptor mechanisms are kinda pesky as a disposal issue too. What does that cost?
And by last count, a Prius required 50 pounds of copper for its power system. What’s the cost of that? And how much of the copper rich Prius power system has been needing replacement at the tune of over 3500 bucks a whack?
There are some very cool aspects to green and lean manufacturing and supply chains.
But there is alot of hoo-hah out there that the market is going to sort out, along with Al Gore, with a whole lot of pain.
Right now it is a boom. But then again, the price of oil is at 100 bucks.
That price won’t last. Nor will the mythologies around “climate change” that are driving the boom.
When fuel gets cheap again, and it will, real cheap, the folks who overinvested in green will see their little charts point downward- screechingly so.
I urge caution.
Bear 101 wins the apple pie.
Al’s Lexus hybrid - $100,000.00 22mpg highway
My 02 Town Car - paid $22,9900 in 03, don’t know the sticker. 18.4 City, 26.7 Highway.
How about all those trucks coming into the US from Mexico.
Wonder about those emissions - left winged creatures?
Thanks for pointing out the problems with the Prius, Bear. Driven like a badge of honor in Santa Fe, too bad they’re overall worse for the environment than my Saturn.
hoo-hah, always did like that.
I’m really torn. I ride my bicycle back and forth to work each day that it’s not raining - (just ‘cuz it’s good exercise and I like doing it). But I’m told that while riding a bike, a person exhales more CO2 than a car driving the same distance. So which is more important - reducing carbon dioxide emissions or reducing petrochemical usage? Hmmmm.
Disclaimer: Although I’m an engineer, I’ve not personally verified the claim of relative amounts of CO2 emissions but it does make sense as a human is not a particularly efficient energy conversion device.
aj … I know that location on I-10 very well … want to meet at the Morengo Casino? …
…
was not being specific to CA on the wind farm comment … but rather the lack of all the things I listed across the nation … there are many areas where there is plenty of wind available and no one is developing it as an energy source …
my main CA comment was the fact that it has been 72 years since they built a new refinery in CA despite all the growth of population and automobile usage … and since the 60s that lack of building has mainly been because of the enviro-whackos stopping everything thorugh the courts …
I’d drive a prius if someone gave me one. can golf clubs fit in the trunk?
Bear … thanks for reminding folks about the hazardous substance problems with those CFL bulbs … these bulbs also pose a problem for disposal as a result of the materials in them …
We need to take foreign oil dependency out of our vocabulary. We have plenty here, but the environutsos don’t want to encroach upon the white tailed, two horned, three toed caribou (or whatever it is these days) to drill in Alaska or offshore…or anywhere. To quote George Karlan (one of their favorites) “Not in my ________ backyard”.
Down in Texas, the gov actually pays them to stop oil productions from time to time (my sister lives in a town full of oil-riggers). There is PLENTY over here. Truth is, these green peeps would have no argument under there belts if we all knew we didn’t HAVE to be dependant. And that we DO have enough oil here.
The use of the word dependency for this issue is a misnomer. We have made certain decisions (not to use nuclear power, not to drill for oil domestically, etc) that force us to buy from Central America and the Middle East.
Personally, I hate waste. I don’t waste a thing (drive the man nuts by saving cottage cheese and butter tub containers to use as give away doggy bags for our guests), I recycle EVERYTHING, I hardly have trash any more. No food goes to waste if i can help it. I even have a little compost deal in my backyard. Makes my garden BEAUTIFUL and makes for yummy tomatoes.
But here’s the deal. If someone wants to drive an SUV because it fits their lifestyle, hey, have at it. It IS, in fact, their right to do so and not worry about being brow butted by these eviro-natzi’s.
These green party people have made their bed, as far as I’m concerned, now they can lie in it. They live in a little microcosm which prevents them from seeing 2 inches in front of their own noses. They just complain, complain, complain. When they actually do come up with a solution to the problem they created…its so fitting, it is not what everyone can do to compromise its– “let us now take away your toys”.
My next car, will be an SUV…
hi bear. how was SF?
Sidewalks and bike paths would help immensely. Public transportation is not suited to most people’s purposes where I live, but people are clearly willing to walk and bike-typically on the shoulder of a narrow street or in the street itself. They’re practically a public hazard.
1976
Conservative: “Actually nuclear power is pretty safe and clean.”
Liberal: “You war-mongering nazis are in bed with the energy companies and are causing ‘global-cooling’.”
2007
Conservative: “The French use nuclear power.”
Liberals: “The French - well we should too.”
I’ve ranted about being passed by SUV’s carrying one person, on a cell phone, coffee in the other hand - looking in the rearview mirror checking out makeup/hair doing 80 mph - and tailgating every other vehicle on the road….with some goofy greeny bumper sticker. How they flashed their lights for the car in front of them to move over is beyond me?
24k you just described half the drivers in California, ok I took a cal dig, i’m allowed , sue me.
Yeah, sorry about that, but if I don’t get where I going in a hurry there won’t be any spotted owls left for me to club.
They drive me nuts.
That’s conservative number there, AJ. I’d say 75% of the drivers.
hmmmmmm, i think your right john.
I don’t pretend to be “green” at all. I drive an Armada and my husband has an F-150. Why? We have our reasons. First, we live in a smaller town and don’t really drive that much. We’ve had the F-150 for 7 years and it is a paid off vehicle. I’m not about to trade it in for something that gets better mileage and start making another pricey car payment again. We’ll drive that truck into the ground!
As for our Armada, well we are a family of 5 and I wanted 3 rows of seats and yes, something big. I won’t apologize for that. We can afford it and can easily fill up the seats when we carpool with other families to and from school or when my parents fly in for a visit.
OK, just two cents from a person who actually drives a big annoying SUV.
Clinton, Obama, or Edwards? They still have Mondale bumper stickers in Santa Fe!
WALTER MONDALE!!! LOL….
What about Dukakas!!!!! (intentionally spelled incorrectly)
lmao
Good stuff bear…hard to disagree with you. It’s like anything really. You gotta be smart, do you homework and realize that there are always pros and cons. I do know, however, that efficiency, sustainability, renewability (not sure if that’s a word), conservation, etc. are always going to make sense. Just seems to me that conservatives ought not cede the environmental issue to the left by default.
That’s MR. BEAR TO YOU!!!! HA!
I drive a 2000 VW Jetta that is almost faster than a speeding ticket in Tennessee
Even fully loaded with my school books, bowling gear and the like, I still get around 28 miles to the gallon on the hwy and 25 in the city.
GSP
Like a prairie dog, when these liberal crapweasels pop up out of their holes to bark their sanctimonious blather, you’ve got to take the shot.
Definitely a “red mist” posting, Michelle!
AJ #114, and half or more of the drivers in any large city. I’m not kidding, Dallas and surrounding Metroplex, is beyond awful. Denver, on the other hand, has many more transplanted Californians (or what they perceive as CA drivers) and can turn your hair white.
As far as the lightbulb issue, the house we bought last year has had every single bulb changed out. I haven’t a clue how to dispose of one when it does burn out? Are the dumps setting up any kind of turn-in center? Aww, mercury poisoning, what a gift we hadn’t counted on.
and what is wrong with white hair?
lol,
I like the way you think.Wanna go p’dog shootin’ sometime?
Heh. This reminds me of a discussion I had last week with a moonbat friend over the “SmartCar.” She kept gushing about how wonderful it was to save money and the planet, but when I asked her about MPG rating of the wheelchair-accessible van that will haul her to physical therapy three times a week after she’s paralyzed when her “SmartCar” is T-boned by so much as a Ford Focus, she got confused.
Guess its good I’m not the King, first thing I’d do is put a long row of one mega watt windmills a half mile from the beach…right in front of the Kennedy compound.
Heather #133, I don’t think liberals really concentrate on the “What if’s”. Good point though.
I drive a 4-cyl 2000 Nissan Altima, which gets 33 MPG by my own calculations. I drive it a few miles each day back and forth to a suburban metro station…during which many much larger vehicles with anti-Bush stickers pass me on their way into driving all the way into the city.
Michelle how dissapointing telling Bob Cesca to Drive his Eco-Sanctimony off a Malibu cliff. Is that the new Chrysler? and how many miles to the gallon does it get? Did it do well in crash test’s?
Bob Cesca is an Idiot.
My wife works at a Conoco convienience store and you get to know the regular customer’s and their political affiliation’s from what they say, things like: I’m sure your boss is making a killing off the gas, If it wasn’t for Bush and the Republican’s the prices would’nt be this high etc…
My reply was tell me how Bush and the Republican’s control’s gas prices? are’nt gas prices controlled through the Stock Market?
It’s funny how they don’t have an answer to any of these question’s.
Now I say so who’s fault is it now? the Dim’s run Congress. no answer.
For the record the retail end of Gas makes anywhere from -$0.05 cents to +$0.10 cents per gallon dependent on what the competive pricing is.
Can you say Hypocrite’s
You’ll have to exuse me I have to go charter a 767 for a one passenger trip to Olympia to call the Police.
(Refer to post on the story about vandalistic protesters)
Wednesday Evening Greetings Mrs. Malkin and loyal community. Appreciate the sentiment expressed often above that some of the loudest voices disapproving an energy-wasting lifestyle are themselves major “culprits”. Evidently an elites versus the masses question. Transportation needs do vary by circumstances, hence much of the variety to be seen on the road. One argument that does not hold water, though, is that a truck-based SUV is required to obtain three rows of seats. The Toyota Sienna, Honda Odyssey and a raft of similar vehicles all accommodate passengers in three rows of seats, and do so quite adequately powered by 6-cylinder engines. The fixation on the truck-based SUV, and indeed a fair part of the gentleman’s pick-up truck market, would seem to have to do with visions of the Marlboro Man and then multiplied by the herd mentality. Very well, but let vast sums that would otherwise go to unfriendly entities overseas through the pump instead go to vitiate the federal budget deficit through greatly increased gasoline taxes. Then we shall see how necessary some people find the trucks and truck-based SUVs.
I drive a four cylinder Ford Fusion and it gets about 29-32 MPG and I do favor that the USA would consume less and not depend on foreign oil and I am as conservative as the next guy. But what bugs me is that the usual liberal crowd who favors open amnesty and open borders don’t realize that these new citizens will also consume more and more resources including oil. Do they want the population to be similar to India or China? If we had those numbers can you imagine what Oil and other resources would cost? The Green folks and eviornmentals should think of those things before letting the 3rd world hoards come into our nation.
Pretty close save for Saudia Arabia. And, since someone brought it up, I should probably mention ANWR is a red herring.
From wiki:
So, regardless of your feelings towards ANWR, that solution is temporary. Conservation will always be part of the global conversation.
I looked at several different websites and got some of those same numbers you got Rusty, but I also got some very different ones as well. The estimates for 10.3 billion barrels in ANWR (which wasn’t even the largest guestimate I found) could supplement 25 years or more. No, that’s not 100% of course, but I haven’t read anywhere that it was promised to fulfill all of our oil consumption.
Living in a state where many people, including our Governor, don’t want to drill offshore (even though China is pretty close to doing this), I think it says a lot that a majority of Alaskans, support the drilling of 0.01% of ANWR.
Lol, that’s hilarious because Subaru wagons are the classic hippy liberal car. Believe me, I’m in Vermont, and they’re EVERYWHERE… usually with a lesbian behind the wheel, and she makes sure you know it with her rainbow sticker on the back window, sometimes with a fading (Howard) “Dean for America” sticker close by.
#142 - I didn’t want to be the one to say it…but it would seem your observation would hold true here in cali as well….(giggles from the peanut gallery).
Rusty, never short on opinions on how we can all be more liberal….
I don’t think we do. The Left are the Johnny come lately crowd to conservation with their high powered Sierra Club version.
The Left doesn’t innovate. Innovation has been the mother of most technological advances based on economic necessity.
Here’s an example.
From 1978 through 1990 I farmed and worked a full time job in Southern Illinois. There were plenty of moon loon forestry grads around- but then there were the rest of us, using the land to grow food and families. And making it last.
I had the pleasure in 1978 of meeting George McKibbens, the inventor of no-till agriculture (1962. The thin clay soils of southern Illinois required innovation to conserve them. Good ol George built a rig and figured out how to reduce tillage to zero- and today it is still a staple of modern farming methodologies in the field.
George just did it. And then he built a curriculum around it to train other farmers and it has now become an institution that has benefitted agribusiness for over 40 years.
No preaching of ethics and all the usual Leftist bloviating. He didn’t turn it into a religion. George saw a need to protect the land and keep it productive for future generations.
Out of George’s innovation, hundreds of inventions for soil conservation were built by conservative farmers all around the USA.
It might appear that the Left dominates the issue of conservation and environmentalism.
However, the innovations and business infrastructure to aid adaption and diffusion of the changes brought about, are not driven by Gore-esque bloviating and Dhimmicratic legislative largesse and deception.
There is the socialist ecology of the Left. It is soft and about big government, computer models, and fear-based politics to sell legislative controls to elected officials and push centrally managed environmental bureaucracy.
However, the “hard green” vision of President Theodore Roosevelt is practiced by hundreds of thousands of rural landowners around the US.
We/they don’t need Al Gore or the unelected Natural Resources Defense Countil to tell us how to protect and conserve what is ours.
We own the land and we are its stewards.
We love the animals and we like to shoot them for the meat and materials they provide.
The Left still fails to see the sustainability of that simple innovation- while trying to market TOFU PUPS and rancid meat substitutes (textured vegetable protein anyone? don’t forget to buy some BEANO to reduce your gas!)using some bizarre moral argument on the “goodness” of it all versus basic human functions.
“Here! Eat these. They taste just like (insert the evil food you eat here).”
What is little known is the vegans and vegetarians ingest more stool softeners, laxatives, and fiber supplements per capita than any other social cohort in the USA. Don’t take my word for it. Look it up.
The Left doesn’t innovate- they mandate.
Conservatives follow a different way.
I think the perception that the Left are on top with regard to the environmental issue will be proven as a myth during the next world war that is emerging. The USA will have to open the womb of the Earth upon which it resides, the true sleeping giant. And the soft environmentalism of the Left will be swept aside.
Heh heh….I drive an Acura MDX and boy-howdy, she’s a big drinker! My leftie friends and neighbors here in Santa Cruz were, of course, offended and vocal about it. Truth be told, I was getting tired of the $200/month gas bill anyway, so I bought a cutie-patootie little red Mazda Miata that I tool around town in. Hey! I live at the beach, after all! Now my leftie friends and neighbors are angry that I have money enough for two cars. I’m not just politically incorrect; I’m a capitalist pig, too!
Gee Whiz…there’s just no pleasing the whiney weenies sometimes!
Gawd. Vermont. Home of the “domestic partnership” movement. My admin assistant was one of the founders of that movement and held their meetings in our office complex at the unamed University I worked for at the time.
The lesbian Lefties were instrumental in getting my head hung on a stake in the town square up in B-town.
Weird weird scene.
Little Austria. Sends chills up my spine just thinkin about it. 9 long years of my life spent there.
Senator Leahy brings in some serious pork for a state of under 700,000 people. Incredible factoid about “green” Vermont-
The last leg of the Appalachian Trail rolls through Vermont.
They have to import trail workers from other states (like Virginia where my Pa keeps up a good chunk of the trail in the Blue Ridge)to maintain the Vermont leg.
Bizarro place. Never made sense to me.
Howard Dean, from Manhattan, becomes the national mythical populist hero of the 2004 elections- former governor of Vermont. Called for a “national dialogue on race”- i don’t think he spoke to three Black people in all of his terms as governor.
Vermont ambles along with its ethos. Must be all them Subarus.
ROTFLMAO
Dumb Dumb Donkee.
My hope is that they will grow ears like the boys in Pinnochio.
Dunderheads one and all.
Nice work!
So, did I miss something? Are we, as Conservatives all supposed to buy a Ford F-150? Or are you, Rush, Bill and your “Ilk” in some sort of special club?
And how does he know you all drive one? Is he stalking all of you?
Last I checked, people were still allowed to drive whatever the hell they wanted. Did I miss the memo where it says people are not permitted to drive whatever they wanted?
Also, does he know what reason people have trucks and SUV’s for? Again, last I checked, I was not able to fit full sheets of plywood, tools, plants etc. into a trunk of one of their hippymobiles.
I think when the day comes that the Federal Law is passed forcing us all to drive one of those little pregnant skateboards, that will be the time I will have to become an ex-patriot, seeking out a less oppressive country that no longer stomps on people’s freedoms.
It should be funny, though it is not, that Liberals spend countless hours claiming that Conservatives and Bush et al are removing and stomping all of American’s rights and freedoms, yet the only ones actually doing so are Liberals. Can’t smoke, can’t drive whatever and where ever you want, can’t eat what you want or where you want, can’t use your fire place, can’t use your air conditioner, can’t use light bulbs, can’t use lights, can’t live in the size house you want, can’t have or water a lawn, can’t have kids, can’t be married, can’t build, can’t drill for oil and my personal favorite, can’t make all the money you are able to and keep it for yourself without some Liberal trying to tax you to death and then take what is left and “redistribute” it to the rest of the people too damn lazy to make something of themselves “for the good of all”.
The list goes on from here. That is merely the tip of the iceburg of Liberal oppression. I don’t want to go off on a rant or take up the whole page.
Let me think again…just what rights and freedomshave been taken away or infringed on by Conservatives?
I guess there is a reason that their symbol is that of a jackass.
RetFireman- once again: BINGO!
I’ll really only miss two things when this country takes a hard turn to the left: tax free internet (and of course the electricity to turn on my computer), and my Suburban 2500. I don’t drive my truck as much lately because it cost me about $90 to fill the tank for that 8 mpg, but it’s one of the best made vehicles I have ever driven. And I know when I need to tow something, it won’t even break a sweat. I’m trying to imagine what it would feel like to try to pull a 10-12,000lb trailer with a Jeep Liberty or some hybrid mini van that is being marketed as an SUV. As long as I am paying for my fuel (or opting not to take the vehicle out for frivolous long road trips), why should anyone else care what I drive… how is it anyone else’s business?
Otherwise, I am all ready to go “Grizzly Adams” in my daily life. Let’s see how many of these ’save the planet’ squeaky wheels are truly able to do the same. I suspect when there is no more Starbucks, TV for American Idol, and means to jet-set across the country at will, most on the left will curl up into a little ball and wait for the government to come take care of them or die, whichever comes first (and all one has to do is look at how the government manages everything it gets its hands on to know what that outcome will be). So bring on the new stone age— maybe a little more self-reliance and survival of the fittest is what we need to finally get our freedom back.
Someone should invent a Moonbat Doll to put on the dash board of my SUV.
Does my 1986 Ford Lariat count if I also have a mini van and a convertible sebring too?
I will refuse to give up that truck as well. Many stories in that thing, and my eldest daughter will be driving it when she gets her lisence in December because I know she will live if she gets in a wreck. Not my fault if the other car is some liittle pregnant skateboard that can’t handle a 35 mile an hour fender bender. IGM
It is ironic that should anything happen, the first ones not to survive would be the hippy earth mommas and their eunich men. It will be the rednecks and others of that nature that all the liberals will be coming to for survival. It will be the gun owners, the hunters, etc. that will be able to survive, while the little whiners in their pony-tails and birkenstocks that will be begging for help. How fast things will turn should Islam get what they seek. The last thing people will want to hear from will be someone crying about the environment of killing Bambi.
And they are just too blind and stupid to even realize it.
I am one of the newbies and haven’t figured out how to extract from previous posts but I want to comment on a couple of posts.
#112, I have been in the oil business in Texas for over fifty years and I believe there is a missunderstanding about being paid for not producing oil.
Many (30-40) years ago, when there was a glut of oil, the Texas RR Commission would restrict the number of days a well could produce monthly, depending a number of factors: demand, well capability, field damage, etc., but we were not paid for not producing. This was also the practice in other oil producing states.
Some (most) leases contain “shut in clauses” that provide for royalty owners, usually the land owners, to be paid specific amounts in lieu of production royalty to preserve leases beyond the primary term which were HBP (held by production). That may be what your sister was referring to.
As to having sufficient available domestic reserves to meet current US consumption, that is simply no longer true.
#96. You are correct that we could lessen our dependency on imports if allowed to drill and refine but eliminating imports completely is not realistic. Unrealistic environmental restriction have placed potential drill sites off limits and made construction of new refineries economically not viable.
#136, I share you and your wife’s frustration at the sniping by uniformed customers who do not understand the basic concept of commodity pricing and are determined to blame President Bush for everything, including the condition of the restrooms. Retail gasoline prices, in most markets, are mandated by law to be marked up a minimum percentage above wholesale price, which is dependent on price at the refinery, which is dependent on the price of crude stock, which is dependent on the commodity market, which is dependent on supply and demand, which is dependent on a myriad of factors, including the international situation, hurricanes, refinery fire, pipeline, transportation,( wind, war and weather, fire, flood and famine.)
#139, #140. You are correct that ANWR oil reserves are estimated to be sufficient for only a few years of US requirements but no one knows the ultimate potential. Granted, they are not infinite but learned experts have been underestimating reserves for as long as there has been an oil business. The only way to find out is to drill.
There is no rational reason not to explore ANWR.
I was in Alaska when Prudhoe Bay was discovered and the environmental furor was and is a lot of b.s., particularly now with improved drilling techniques, and the affected area is miniscule. The Trans-Alaska pipeline is as insignificant to Alaska as a thread across a bed sheet. It did not keep the caribou from migrating or mating. It does not affect the native population and the overwhelming majority of Alaskans favor exploration.
I drove a Camry Hybrid while we lived in HI and honestly, I wasn’t crazy about it or it’s gas mileage. I didn’t think it was worth the added cost but then again driving on Oahu is city traffic through and through even on the “H-1 Interstate”. We have a Volvo XC 90 now and I think it does better. BTW my former Company Commander had a Highlander Hybrid while she and her husband lived there and they had nothing but problems with that car. It was in and out of the shop all the time.
Yes, when the celebs give up their limos, private jets, and homes over 8,000 feet, then I’ll reconsider a Hybrid.
One theme I see popping up here that I don’t understand is “Two Cars=Environmental Evil.” If you have a need for an SUV (as far as I’m concerned, anyone with more than two children has a need for an SUV), wouldn’t it make perfect environmental sense to have a second car with better miles per gallon for trips where you don’t, if you can afford it? Does using the SUV on the family vacation mean you have to use it for every single solo trip to work? I don’t know much about cars, but even I understand that if it’s sitting there in the driveway, it’s not using gas.
Incidentally, doesn’t a carpooling van use less gas than all the individual cars that would otherwise be on the road? So why should environmentalists demonize everyone who owns a van?
lonewolf, I definitely think we should drill in ANWR. Depending on what website or source you look at, the estimates went from 5.7 billion barrels all the way to 16 billion barrels. Even if this only lasted 25 years (some estimates said up to 60 years) that’s just more oil we don’t have to import from some of our less friendly countries. I really don’t see why these enviromentalists want to hold on so tightly to the frozen tundra where drilling would take place.
Rusty #139 Since you brought it up. Red Herriing - ANWAR won’t last forever. Let me apply that same logic elsewhere. How about your paycheck. Since your next paycheck won’t pay all your bills for say the next year, may I conclude that it’s going to run out? Since it’s going to run out, there is no point in your employer paying you any more. You’ll just have to conserve.
Please think before you post nonsense.
RetFireman-
One of my fond memories from my childhood was riding around in the back of pick-up truck. Now largly prohibited by the safety-fascists. I could think of dozens similiar things that were just part of growing up that have all been eliminated in the name of “safety.” I’m starting to believe we are all frogs in slowly boiling water.
Prior to my 4Runner I owed a Hyundai Elantra. This car got pretty good gas mileage. However, when the hubby and I would pack up this vehicle with suitcases and our yellow lab to visit his parents in VA, I felt claustrophobic and it didn’t make for a pleasant trip, what with us feeling like we were stuffed in a clown car.
Not to mention how vulnerable I felt driving that little car on I-81 with nothing but tractor trailers and huge trucks.
I couldn’t take it anymore and said we need a bigger vehicle. We are also trying to start a family. So the decision was made that I would trade in my car that was paid off for a SUV with a payment. Trading in the Elantra for a Prius would not have made much difference in the grand scheme of things.
Why liberals think they know better about my situation than I do is beyond me.
How they can think at all with their heads up their rumps is beyond me.
Seriously.
Silver - oh come on now - you know Hillary is the smartest person alive (all ‘cept she thinks it takes a village to raise a child and as far as I know - my parents did just fine with just the two of them).
/sarc off
It might be a gas-guzzeler, but I love my Silverado. It’s big and roomy. Lot’s of cargo capacity. And, it can actually pull a trailer. My wife drives a Blazer. It was hit in the rear by a small car once, and just had a scratch on the paint, while the small car’s front was all smashed in. So, I’ll keep my big gas-guzzelers.
When I want to save gas and money, then I ride my Harley-Davidson Sportster 883. It not only saves gas, it’s a real kick to ride.
I drive an 05 Chevy Monte Carlo, which I love, and my wife drives an 06 Chevy Equinox which she loves.
Let the eco-nuts like Cesca try to take either one of them.
Nonsense? Yeah, if I get fired, laid off, have to quit, whatever…I WILL HAVE A SAVINGS ACCOUNT TO FALL BACK ON. I CONSERVE MY SALARY.
Do you think savings accounts are nonsense?
And this is my favorite part:
That conclusion is incredibly stupid. My paycheck, assuming it keeps coming, will indeed pay all my bills. It’s not like my salary is something that we all know will run out in the short term future.
As I said before, conservation and alternate energy sources are very much going to be part of the American dialogue, Alaskan drilling or not. It’s inevitable.
Conserv,
Hillary said it, so it must be true!
I think you’ve forgotten about the village. Shame on you.
Personally, the only place I want to see Hillary is on the back of a milk carton.
They can have my 2000 Jeep Cherokee Sport
when they prey it from my cold, dead steering fingers and right foot, them commie basters!
I drive a sport bike that gets ~50mpg as my primary commuter vehicle. I drive it every day, rain or shine (except on days like today . . .the battery is dead). I’d like to see what the author drives that beats that kind of gas mileage.
My alternate, a Subaru Outback Sport, gets ~28mpg, and sports an “Osama Loves Your SUV” bumper sticker (hey, it’s California. . I think it’s required to have eco-stickers on Subarus here).
To all posters. As a final note, read Tom Sowells “Basic Economics”. This and so many other things are not zero-sum items. When oil, gold etc. is priced higher, more is discovered or utilized. Fact. We know how to horizontal drill, Austin chalk(Texas).
Three Trillion Barrels oil in Wyoming. Oil Shale. Deep water drilling. Someone once said it cost 600,000.00 per day to drill. Oil that wasn’t found,measured or produced at $10.00/bl will now be at 100.00/bl. Now, if we can just get the busybodies off the backs of producers long enough to get it.
On Bob Cesca’s blog, he recently wrote that he remembered when “America was an awesome country”. I guess that means he thinks the United States is no longer “an awesome country”. Bob, Jimmy Carter is coming out with a new book next month. With each copy, you get a free popsicle. Watch for it!
I will never surrender to the enviro-fascists. I currently drive a 1991 GMC Sierra regular cab, long bed, 2wd. It’s got a EFI 350cu.in. V-8, with some modifications it’s putting out around 315 horsepower. Nice big 3-in. dual exhaust. Sounds real good leaving red lights. I also have a 1995 Mercury Cougar X-R7, 4.6 liter V-8 (Bush-Cheney ‘04 sticker in the rear window). As you might guess, I love the American V-8 in all it’s forms, and that isn’t going to change.
Does anyone know that Chevrolet has produced a new engine that is pretty light on gas mileage for it’s output? The greens ought to be celebrating this, but they won’t.
Here’s the low-down from Chevrolet.com:
Get that? 505hp, lighter weight all aluminum block (as opposed to traditional cast-iron). I LOVE this car!
All I need to go with the ‘Vette is a 2008 Chevy Tahoe SS. I don’t think it’s been made yet, but I’ve already designed it in my mind. Take that LS-7 engine and drop it in a street-styled Tahoe with ‘Vette wheels and quad bucket seats. I’ll be safe, stylin’, and real fast!
I have no use for a chicklet with wheels that couldn’t survive a head on crash with my lawn mower. Someday they might make nice planters.
Long live the V-8, and God Bless America!
No Rusty - the implication with your choice of words (calling it a red herring) regarding ANWAR was “Why waste time drilling there”. I only was drawing logical conclusions based on your choice of words and then demonstrating how that “red herring” logic is flawed.
I wasn’t commenting on the notion of being more efficient.
Also - it’s not like we all know we’ll run out of oil in the near term either. I sure don’t know it. I’ve only been alive 46 years…but in my lifetime, I’ve heard a virtual continuous droning on about how we’ll run out of oil in 20 years. So if I heard that when I was 16 and fully aware of the implications (I could drive at that age in Michigan), that was 30 years ago. Last I checked, we didn’t run out 10 years ago, and the current droning on is still 20 years out. Guess what - “THEY” are wrong.
That was not my implication. The discussion was about conservation. I said that regardless of one’s opinion on drilling at ANWR, we should still be conserving. And conservation is a great form of patriotism.
So is buying an American made SUV and taking vacations in it to lots of places in America that depend on tourism for their living.
Don’t forget the “Support the Troops” ribbon on the rear of that Tahoe SS, because that’s all you will see of me, my tailights receding in the distance:)
AJ #130 Hair? What hair? The shining light of liberty reflects off the MTNEER’s uncluttered cranium!
Changjin #189 Wrong my friend. Truck based SUVs exist because Congress established the CAFE standard. Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards apply to automobiles, not trucks. That’s why the venerable station wagon dissapeared from the road.
Brian72, I love Chevy Tahoes got to drive one when I put my car in the shop a couple of years ago. It was a rental. I kept it for an extra week I loved it so much. The insurance wouldn’t pay for the extra week but it was worth it.
My hubby and I were looking to buy American but didn’t want to gamble and end up with a lemon. Couldn’t afford the Tahoe. The blazer just doesn’t have the same reliability. So we bought a 4Runner the reliability was a huge factor. No regrets. Just sayin’
Sorry meant #137. I’m mathmatically challenged some days.
Rusty - I believe you began your discussion of ANWAR with “red herring”. Sorry I mis-understood your use of that term and it’s implications.
All cars and trucks are equally built, I’ll take an American one thanks.
There are no busses, trains or subways that go near my house.
That being said I will drive what pleases me if I’m the one paying for it.
‘88 GMC Sierra 4×4 with a 5.7L 350ci (for rain, snow and general work)
‘05 GTO LS2 6.0L 364ci 400 hp 400 lbtq (sunny day fun) Gets better mpg
at 90 mph than at 50 mph. I had to pay a gas guzzler tax of $1300 for
the privilege of that fun, thanks to the liberals. So I will drive it and pay
for the premium fuel when it suits me. There is plenty of oil if we just drill
for it and refine it.
And would all you people please stop heating your houses?
Maybe Gore would like to buy my heating-oil credits - we don’t even own a furnace. (Sorry to rub it in…)
#183, Gooch, I concur on buying American cars. I have not had a lemon in sixty years of buying a driving US made automobiles.
I do question your statement that “there is plenty of oil if we just drill for it and refine it”. I have been in the oil business for over fifty years and it is not that simple. It is increasingly difficult to identify new commercially viable exploration areas, even if we eliminate the NIBY factor. The most recent refinery in the US was constructed thirty year ago and environmental discourage building new ones.
If you know where these infinite oil reserves are, you and I can become fabously wealthy.
When I walk past office buildings in Manhattan that have NYP (New York Press) parking in front (reserved for members of the working press) I usually see big, honking, vehicles parked there. When CNN and the New York Times requires their employees to drive hybreds I’ll start taking their climate change stories seriously.
This pantload, Bob Cesca, paints this as a conservative blight…after Hannity exposed the Gorebot on video taking private jet flights after bragging about flying commercial?
Does Bob also think liberals don’t eat meat, don’t b-b-q, and don’t exhale too?
Huff Po is an insane asylum.
The only good thing about it is that we know who they are and can keep and eye on them.
Anyone concerned about global
coolingI meanwarmingsorry I really meant temperature change, should not be driving an gas guzzler like an SUV period.That being said…
I ride in a somewhat eco friendly thunderbolt.
My car (rated for 30+ miles highway)
…is lucky to get 24+ MPG because I actually drive it (instead of using cruise control).
When I set the cruise control I get about 31 MPG on the highway but that makes driving boring.
“It seems to be doing quite well except on Planet Liberal. I wonder where he bases his belief that “our economy is falling to pieces.”
There is no basis. It is wishful thinking by libs who wake up every morning hoping and praying (oooops, scratch the praying part) that the economy will fail, or we will again be attecked, or the “evil” government will fall, and they will be put in charge to guide and lead us with their superior ideas and plans.
This link alone says it all to me…
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp
Gore and the libs need to get a clue instead of telling me how to live. When they change their lifestyle habits, I will change mine.