Fascism

Marconius wrote:No Dennis, I ain't saying your dumb, not by a long shot. It just seems like you have your mind made up even though I replied to your posts, you still seem to think there is a surplus. I want to know where. There is no surplus. Not here in tUSA, not aywhere. OPEC nations cut production at times to manipulate the market, but trust me, companies with shareholders never hold back and pull as much outta the ground as they can and there still isn't a surplus. China will buy any and all oil you wanna sell them right now.

Of course I asked what the price at the pump has to do with oil companies and I never did get an answer. Yeah, that might be a Chevron station you get your gas at, but do you honestly think it is gas from Chevron??? Do you honestly think Chevron owns that station??? No to both. The station is franchised and Chevron only gets a monthly franchise fee and the gas comes from whomever is supplying it(over here it is usually Dupre who buys the gas from several refineries in the Gulf South).

Now once again Dennis, what does the price at the pump have to do with the oil companies???

Ok. let me rephrase this then.

What I meant was "IF" what O'Reilley and Dobbs say is true, then any surplus we might have had is being sold off to asia. This, then, would (in theory) create an artifical shortage here in the USA and that would cause the price at the pump to rise.

What is probably going on is that the oil companies, who wish to make money for their investors, are selling all the oil we have left over to asia. In this way, there can be no real surplus, so your statement is technically correct. But that by itself proves that more drilling will not lower prices at the pump, (which is what the drill, drill, drill folks want us to believe).

Drilling most likely wont lower prices at the pmp. And refining more gas (which is what Bush claimed we should have done) wont help. It wont help Americans who are struggling to pay for gas. because the oil companies will sell off eveything we dont absolutely have to have.

Dennis324 wrote:

Marconius wrote:No Dennis, I ain't saying your dumb, not by a long shot. It just seems like you have your mind made up even though I replied to your posts, you still seem to think there is a surplus. I want to know where. There is no surplus. Not here in tUSA, not aywhere. OPEC nations cut production at times to manipulate the market, but trust me, companies with shareholders never hold back and pull as much outta the ground as they can and there still isn't a surplus. China will buy any and all oil you wanna sell them right now.

Of course I asked what the price at the pump has to do with oil companies and I never did get an answer. Yeah, that might be a Chevron station you get your gas at, but do you honestly think it is gas from Chevron??? Do you honestly think Chevron owns that station??? No to both. The station is franchised and Chevron only gets a monthly franchise fee and the gas comes from whomever is supplying it(over here it is usually Dupre who buys the gas from several refineries in the Gulf South).

Now once again Dennis, what does the price at the pump have to do with the oil companies???

Ok. let me rephrase this then.

What I meant was "IF" what O'Reilley and Dobbs say is true, then any surplus we might have had is being sold off to asia. This, then, would (in theory) create an artifical shortage here in the USA and that would cause the price at the pump to rise.

What is probably going on is that the oil companies, who wish to make money for their investors, are selling all the oil we have left over to asia. In this way, there can be no real surplus, so your statement is technically correct. But that by itself proves that more drilling will not lower prices at the pump, (which is what the drill, drill, drill folks want us to believe).

Drilling most likely wont lower prices at the pmp. And refining more gas (which is what Bush claimed we should have done) wont help. It wont help Americans who are struggling to pay for gas. because the oil companies will sell off eveything we dont absolutely have to have.

Thats basically the story with all commodities. If Australia pumps up Fe export the global price of iron and steel might drop a bit, however change in the local price would probably simply be parallel to the global price. If we can produce more petroleum in the US it will drop oil prices because it would help increase the global supply, however I wouldn't expect it would reduce our prices much more than it would anyone else's. Politicians who cry 'drill baby drill' do so because the oil companies pay them to do so, not because that will solve our energy problems. That said, there are some economic benefits to domestic production (like employing people in Marconious's, my, and many other fields often at very competitive wages).

Bryant wrote:

Dennis324 wrote:

Marconius wrote:No Dennis, I ain't saying your dumb, not by a long shot. It just seems like you have your mind made up even though I replied to your posts, you still seem to think there is a surplus. I want to know where. There is no surplus. Not here in tUSA, not aywhere. OPEC nations cut production at times to manipulate the market, but trust me, companies with shareholders never hold back and pull as much outta the ground as they can and there still isn't a surplus. China will buy any and all oil you wanna sell them right now.

Of course I asked what the price at the pump has to do with oil companies and I never did get an answer. Yeah, that might be a Chevron station you get your gas at, but do you honestly think it is gas from Chevron??? Do you honestly think Chevron owns that station??? No to both. The station is franchised and Chevron only gets a monthly franchise fee and the gas comes from whomever is supplying it(over here it is usually Dupre who buys the gas from several refineries in the Gulf South).

Now once again Dennis, what does the price at the pump have to do with the oil companies???

Ok. let me rephrase this then.

What I meant was "IF" what O'Reilley and Dobbs say is true, then any surplus we might have had is being sold off to asia. This, then, would (in theory) create an artifical shortage here in the USA and that would cause the price at the pump to rise.

What is probably going on is that the oil companies, who wish to make money for their investors, are selling all the oil we have left over to asia. In this way, there can be no real surplus, so your statement is technically correct. But that by itself proves that more drilling will not lower prices at the pump, (which is what the drill, drill, drill folks want us to believe).

Drilling most likely wont lower prices at the pmp. And refining more gas (which is what Bush claimed we should have done) wont help. It wont help Americans who are struggling to pay for gas. because the oil companies will sell off eveything we dont absolutely have to have.

Thats basically the story with all commodities. If Australia pumps up Fe export the global price of iron and steel might drop a bit, however change in the local price would probably simply be parallel to the global price. If we can produce more petroleum in the US it will drop oil prices because it would help increase the global supply, however I wouldn't expect it would reduce our prices much more than it would anyone else's. Politicians who cry 'drill baby drill' do so because the oil companies pay them to do so, not because that will solve our energy problems. That said, there are some economic benefits to domestic production (like employing people in Marconious's, my, and many other fields often at very competitive wages).

Bryant is exactly right. It is a global market. Companies no longer can be considered an American (or any other nationality) they are global and have global interests. Drill baby drill isn't about energy independence anyway. It never was. We screamed drill baby drill during the moritorium not for energy independence but for personal independence. We wanted work and a paycheck....nothing more and nothing less. I really don't know who started pushing oil for energy independence. It is funny to think that people think a globally traded commodity can make a single nation energy independent. Unless we give up Capitalism, you prolly won't see energy independence. Even if we go green, we are in a global market. Unforseen things happen. We will still get energy from abroad.

I think you guys are right about Drill baby drill. But I dnt think I'm the only one who thought (hoped) that more oil production would equate to lower prices at the pump. So you can imagine how betrayed I feel when I hear Dobbs and Oreilly expose this lie to the light of the truth.

What, then, can be done to help consmers at the pump? ARe we just doomed to pay $5 to $8 per gallon prices? Do we need to go back to riding mules?

Dennis324 wrote:I think you guys are right about Drill baby drill. But I dnt think I'm the only one who thought (hoped) that more oil production would equate to lower prices at the pump. So you can imagine how betrayed I feel when I hear Dobbs and Oreilly expose this lie to the light of the truth.

What, then, can be done to help consmers at the pump? ARe we just doomed to pay $5 to $8 per gallon prices? Do we need to go back to riding mules?

Find an alternative for automotive power. Something renewable yet promising in outlook, like algae, should be our final goal. Of course realizing that when we do consider supply and demand, then tUSA should have some of the highest prices found.

As a start, for now, we should abolish the "blends". With modern emission technology there is no reason why one blend can be sold on one side of a county or city while another blend is required on the other side. Considering that the EPA requires over 100 gasoline blends in tUSA, that is a large cost to the consumer. Now this may only add up to a 50 cent decline in prices, if that, it is a start. There is no one thing that will lower prices. It takes several solutions since there are numerous causes.

Marconius wrote:

Dennis324 wrote:I think you guys are right about Drill baby drill. But I dnt think I'm the only one who thought (hoped) that more oil production would equate to lower prices at the pump. So you can imagine how betrayed I feel when I hear Dobbs and Oreilly expose this lie to the light of the truth.

What, then, can be done to help consmers at the pump? ARe we just doomed to pay $5 to $8 per gallon prices? Do we need to go back to riding mules?

Find an alternative for automotive power. Something renewable yet promising in outlook, like algae, should be our final goal. Of course realizing that when we do consider supply and demand, then tUSA should have some of the highest prices found.

As a start, for now, we should abolish the "blends". With modern emission technology there is no reason why one blend can be sold on one side of a county or city while another blend is required on the other side. Considering that the EPA requires over 100 gasoline blends in tUSA, that is a large cost to the consumer. Now this may only add up to a 50 cent decline in prices, if that, it is a start. There is no one thing that will lower prices. It takes several solutions since there are numerous causes.

Try telling that to CARB! CA has some of (if the not?) strictest emissions laws, yet we also have some of the worst air quality (ie LA and the southern San Joaquin Valley). The problem is culture, infrastructure, and equipment, not fuel blends.

Bryant wrote:

Marconius wrote:

Dennis324 wrote:I think you guys are right about Drill baby drill. But I dnt think I'm the only one who thought (hoped) that more oil production would equate to lower prices at the pump. So you can imagine how betrayed I feel when I hear Dobbs and Oreilly expose this lie to the light of the truth.

What, then, can be done to help consmers at the pump? ARe we just doomed to pay $5 to $8 per gallon prices? Do we need to go back to riding mules?

Find an alternative for automotive power. Something renewable yet promising in outlook, like algae, should be our final goal. Of course realizing that when we do consider supply and demand, then tUSA should have some of the highest prices found.

As a start, for now, we should abolish the "blends". With modern emission technology there is no reason why one blend can be sold on one side of a county or city while another blend is required on the other side. Considering that the EPA requires over 100 gasoline blends in tUSA, that is a large cost to the consumer. Now this may only add up to a 50 cent decline in prices, if that, it is a start. There is no one thing that will lower prices. It takes several solutions since there are numerous causes.

Try telling that to CARB! CA has some of (if the not?) strictest emissions laws, yet we also have some of the worst air quality (ie LA and the southern San Joaquin Valley). The problem is culture, infrastructure, and equipment, not fuel blends.

Well when you have 16+ million people crammed into a relatively small area, problems crop up no matter what. It won't matter what we do, waste and pollution from overpopulated areas will always be an issue.

My point still stands however. Find the blend with the most favorable emissions and stick with it. Do not force refineries to retool the stream trains for different areas. Even if we just stuck with the most expensive blends we would see a cost savings from lack of retooling.

Marconius wrote:
As a start, for now, we should abolish the "blends". With modern emission technology there is no reason why one blend can be sold on one side of a county or city while another blend is required on the other side. Considering that the EPA requires over 100 gasoline blends in tUSA, that is a large cost to the consumer. Now this may only add up to a 50 cent decline in prices, if that, it is a start. There is no one thing that will lower prices. It takes several solutions since there are numerous causes.

What the hell is this "blends" thing? Sounds like you're trying to power your cars with coffee :-P

Miles1 wrote:

Marconius wrote:
As a start, for now, we should abolish the "blends". With modern emission technology there is no reason why one blend can be sold on one side of a county or city while another blend is required on the other side. Considering that the EPA requires over 100 gasoline blends in tUSA, that is a large cost to the consumer. Now this may only add up to a 50 cent decline in prices, if that, it is a start. There is no one thing that will lower prices. It takes several solutions since there are numerous causes.

What the hell is this "blends" thing? Sounds like you're trying to power your cars with coffee :-P

God no man, don't even joke about that! Do you have any clue what that would do to the price of coffee!?

Bryant wrote:

Miles1 wrote:

Marconius wrote:
As a start, for now, we should abolish the "blends". With modern emission technology there is no reason why one blend can be sold on one side of a county or city while another blend is required on the other side. Considering that the EPA requires over 100 gasoline blends in tUSA, that is a large cost to the consumer. Now this may only add up to a 50 cent decline in prices, if that, it is a start. There is no one thing that will lower prices. It takes several solutions since there are numerous causes.

What the hell is this "blends" thing? Sounds like you're trying to power your cars with coffee :-P

God no man, don't even joke about that! Do you have any clue what that would do to the price of coffee!?

I agree. Coffee is wwwaaaayyyyy more important than gasoline!!!

Yet one more thing that I was a surprise for me out west. Cali not only has good beer but fairly good coffee as well. Not as good as Louisiana's Community, but close enough to keep me from biting people's heads off every morning. If you guys think I am an asshole on a regular basis, you should see me in the morning before I have my standard pot or so of coffee.

Marconius wrote:

Bryant wrote:

Miles1 wrote:

Marconius wrote:
As a start, for now, we should abolish the "blends". With modern emission technology there is no reason why one blend can be sold on one side of a county or city while another blend is required on the other side. Considering that the EPA requires over 100 gasoline blends in tUSA, that is a large cost to the consumer. Now this may only add up to a 50 cent decline in prices, if that, it is a start. There is no one thing that will lower prices. It takes several solutions since there are numerous causes.

What the hell is this "blends" thing? Sounds like you're trying to power your cars with coffee :-P

God no man, don't even joke about that! Do you have any clue what that would do to the price of coffee!?

I agree. Coffee is wwwaaaayyyyy more important than gasoline!!!

Yet one more thing that I was a surprise for me out west. Cali not only has good beer but fairly good coffee as well. Not as good as Louisiana's Community, but close enough to keep me from biting people's heads off every morning. If you guys think I am an asshole on a regular basis, you should see me in the morning before I have my standard pot or so of coffee.

Do you guys have Peet's near where you're stationed? I like their coffee, strong enough to put hair on a mans chest! Unfortunatly they don't have a cafe anywhere near Fresno so I have to settle for buying their beans from the grocery store.

Bryant wrote:

Marconius wrote:

I agree. Coffee is wwwaaaayyyyy more important than gasoline!!!

Yet one more thing that I was a surprise for me out west. Cali not only has good beer but fairly good coffee as well. Not as good as Louisiana's Community, but close enough to keep me from biting people's heads off every morning. If you guys think I am an asshole on a regular basis, you should see me in the morning before I have my standard pot or so of coffee.

Do you guys have Peet's near where you're stationed? I like their coffee, strong enough to put hair on a mans chest! Unfortunatly they don't have a cafe anywhere near Fresno so I have to settle for buying their beans from the grocery store.

Haven't seen one in the Santa Maria/Lompoc area. I might need to google it. I stop by a mom and pop coffee place every morning when I am working on land. It is called simply Coffee Time (on Betteravia St at the corner of Broadway if you ever in the area). I forgot what brand they use, but it is Californian from what they told me. Nice and strong, but more acidic than my beloved Community. I have made numerous converts to Community over there. If you love coffee as much as I do, go to Community's website. Cafe Special is the blend you get at the restaurants/hotels in NOLA. We drink regular Dark Roast and that is my standby. I have the platforms out there stocking it now. They also stock a very good Costa Rican coffee that is grown on the side of a volcano. Now that stuff not only will put hair on you tongue, but take it off all in the same swig (I love it that way), but once again the acidity is high and heartburn follows after a few cups. Community dark roast is the only good full bodied coffee I have found that is low in acid. You can drink it all day and never get heartburn. It is Ethiopian (help I got no spell check)beans grown on the banks of the Mississippi river just outta NOLA.

Glad to read your review! Ive been trying to find Community coffee but it is sold nowhere in my town. I'm going to tuscaloosa tomorrow though. Maybe they'll have it there.

Dennis324 wrote:Glad to read your review! Ive been trying to find Community coffee but it is sold nowhere in my town. I'm going to tuscaloosa tomorrow though. Maybe they'll have it there.

You know those people in Tuscaloosa hate anything and everything that has to do with Louisiana and LSU!!!(j/k)

Go to the website and order it from there. That is what my Cali buddies are doing.

Lemme know how you like it!!!

Marconius wrote:

Bryant wrote:

Marconius wrote:

I agree. Coffee is wwwaaaayyyyy more important than gasoline!!!

Yet one more thing that I was a surprise for me out west. Cali not only has good beer but fairly good coffee as well. Not as good as Louisiana's Community, but close enough to keep me from biting people's heads off every morning. If you guys think I am an asshole on a regular basis, you should see me in the morning before I have my standard pot or so of coffee.

Do you guys have Peet's near where you're stationed? I like their coffee, strong enough to put hair on a mans chest! Unfortunatly they don't have a cafe anywhere near Fresno so I have to settle for buying their beans from the grocery store.

Haven't seen one in the Santa Maria/Lompoc area. I might need to google it. I stop by a mom and pop coffee place every morning when I am working on land. It is called simply Coffee Time (on Betteravia St at the corner of Broadway if you ever in the area). I forgot what brand they use, but it is Californian from what they told me. Nice and strong, but more acidic than my beloved Community. I have made numerous converts to Community over there. If you love coffee as much as I do, go to Community's website. Cafe Special is the blend you get at the restaurants/hotels in NOLA. We drink regular Dark Roast and that is my standby. I have the platforms out there stocking it now. They also stock a very good Costa Rican coffee that is grown on the side of a volcano. Now that stuff not only will put hair on you tongue, but take it off all in the same swig (I love it that way), but once again the acidity is high and heartburn follows after a few cups. Community dark roast is the only good full bodied coffee I have found that is low in acid. You can drink it all day and never get heartburn. It is Ethiopian (help I got no spell check)beans grown on the banks of the Mississippi river just outta NOLA.

I sent Community an email asking if they sell through any grocery stores in California. Unfortunately their response was negative, however they said they'll send me some beans to sample. Looking at their website, their prices are much better than Peet's (~$12-$16/lb). I'm intrigued by the fact that Community uses some domestically grown beans, I didn't know anyone grew coffee in the USA (heck, we don't even grow that in the Central Valley).

As for the place you're going to, there are several roasters in California. The largest that I know of is Peet's, however I know there are several small ones scattered all over the place (there is a small one on CA-49 between Mariposa and Oakhurst and then a presumably larger one in Visalia).

Lemme know what you think about the coffee Bryant. The thing that sold my buddies in Cali was the smell of it. It is a very pleasant aroma and not the usual bitter or sour aroma many coffees today have.

Marconius wrote:
All of this still doesn't help our needs for transportation. With our reliance on interstate trucking of goods and materials, how is electric motors gonna help. With the power requirements needed, you'd either have one hell of an electric motor or you would burn it up very quick. Then you gotta realize what the infrastructure is set up for and realize just what it would take to jump to another source.

Heard a good interview with a guy from the car industry yesterday, saying how electric cars probably aren't going to take off for another 10 years maybe. he used he analogy of the mobile phone industry: when mobile phones came out first they were bricks and the size was mostly the battery, as battery technology wasn't far along enough to produce something small and long-lasting. 20 years on, we have phones small enough that you can put them in your pocket and forget about, that will last a few days on one charge. So when electric car batteries get to the point where you can plug them into your domestic wall socket overnight (or something close to it) and run as long as a tank of petrol lasts in a car, then the cars will take off.

People by and large do not like those souless electric cars anyway. We love what an internal combustion engine does for us. Why else are these high power gas guzzlers so popular even today with high gas prices. We need a better, more sustainable cumbustable fuel that people will accept.

Well, this is all about appearance and image/branding really. You'll never convert the real petrolheads who like rebuilding/tweaking their car's engines for fun, but you can make the cars more appealing to the average joe with a bit of "trickery". Is like Apple did a few years ago when they brought out their new wireless mouse: it was completely silent and seamless, you couldn't tell where the buttons were on it and you couldn't tell that you'd pressed the button - and most people didn't like it as they were used to clicking a mouse button, feeling the button move and hearing the click. So, it didn't take off half as well as they thought. In the next model, they added a bit of feedback (the button "gave" a little when you pressed it) and added a little speaker that played a clicking sound when the button was pressed - and people loved it. So, what you need in the electric cars is a big-ass speaker with a subwoofer under the bonnet which plays the sound of a V-8 engine, and maybe one of those vibrating motors (like you have on your phone for silent mode) attached to the seat/gas pedal. So when ppl step on the gas in the electric car, it sounds and feels like they have a petrol-powered monster under the hood :-p

(hey, maybe I should patent that idea.....)

Miles1 wrote:

Marconius wrote:
All of this still doesn't help our needs for transportation. With our reliance on interstate trucking of goods and materials, how is electric motors gonna help. With the power requirements needed, you'd either have one hell of an electric motor or you would burn it up very quick. Then you gotta realize what the infrastructure is set up for and realize just what it would take to jump to another source.

Heard a good interview with a guy from the car industry yesterday, saying how electric cars probably aren't going to take off for another 10 years maybe. he used he analogy of the mobile phone industry: when mobile phones came out first they were bricks and the size was mostly the battery, as battery technology wasn't far along enough to produce something small and long-lasting. 20 years on, we have phones small enough that you can put them in your pocket and forget about, that will last a few days on one charge. So when electric car batteries get to the point where you can plug them into your domestic wall socket overnight (or something close to it) and run as long as a tank of petrol lasts in a car, then the cars will take off.

People by and large do not like those souless electric cars anyway. We love what an internal combustion engine does for us. Why else are these high power gas guzzlers so popular even today with high gas prices. We need a better, more sustainable cumbustable fuel that people will accept.

Well, this is all about appearance and image/branding really. You'll never convert the real petrolheads who like rebuilding/tweaking their car's engines for fun, but you can make the cars more appealing to the average joe with a bit of "trickery". Is like Apple did a few years ago when they brought out their new wireless mouse: it was completely silent and seamless, you couldn't tell where the buttons were on it and you couldn't tell that you'd pressed the button - and most people didn't like it as they were used to clicking a mouse button, feeling the button move and hearing the click. So, it didn't take off half as well as they thought. In the next model, they added a bit of feedback (the button "gave" a little when you pressed it) and added a little speaker that played a clicking sound when the button was pressed - and people loved it. So, what you need in the electric cars is a big-ass speaker with a subwoofer under the bonnet which plays the sound of a V-8 engine, and maybe one of those vibrating motors (like you have on your phone for silent mode) attached to the seat/gas pedal. So when ppl step on the gas in the electric car, it sounds and feels like they have a petrol-powered monster under the hood :-p

(hey, maybe I should patent that idea.....)

I tried, I really did, but I can't come up with anything to counter this post except for:

Better beat me to that patent!!!!!!