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These are all signs of a larger sickness that is affecting the world at large. Basically, everything is going to hell. And the ride isn’t going to be smooth and in a handbasket. It’s going to be rough, rocky, and we’re all going to be screaming on the way down.

Say hello to the inklings of the apocalypse. Overpopulation of human species + overuse of available resources by said species = extinction of said species.

The Democrats have no chance of retaking the house or the senate while there is no ability to verify election outcomes. If you want to talk about Rovian misdirection, this is the biggest one of all – while the Democrats get gleeful about polls, he sits back and gets ready to pick the next Supreme Court justices.

And when people do grumble about this in November, it will be way too late.

They do not need to rig every district. Just enough to make the small difference they need.

(Or do you think the Republican party can be trusted with the elections process?)

This is like back to the future. We went through this same thing in the seventies. Gas prices soared. Detroit was caught with their pants down, without any fuel efficient cars. That let Toyota, Honda and Datsun into the US car market for good. The exact same thing is happening again. How stupid. We didn’t learn anything. We placed most the responsibility on the government and almost none on ourselves. That worked pretty good, huh. Thirty years wasted.

As soon as we blame something else, like the governerment/oil companies, for our problems, then we render ourselves powerless to change our situation. I say baloney to that. Suck it up, take responsibility and rely more on yourself and less on the government.

I’m sorry. I was just having fun, not trying to be mean. Your ordeal sounds horrible and I hope they catch the perpetrator(s).

My PTSD (the result of a nighmarish lap-dance I received at Saznack, Topeka, KS circa 1992) is helped by a healthy regiment of Kolonipan. But late at night, the image of that Beast looming over the hotdog buffet with a cigarette dangling between her gums, jolts me out of bed in a cold sweet.

Oh shit, I’m crying….I’ve gotta go…pray for the dp.

I hope you aren’t making fun of me. I was recently bashed in the head with a hammer at my apartment (it’s a long story – well, maybe not that long, but the details are unimportant). Therefore, I am feeling a little skittish at the moment about being in confined spaces with anyone who is either: a) on drugs; b) drunk as hell; or c) crazy as a shit house rat. I would really like to help all of those people, and in fact, my biggest goal in life is to find a legal job where I can do just that, while still being able to at least pay my bills, but for the time being (at least until my PTSD subsides) I don’t want to sit next to them on the bus, unless my boss would be OK with me being pumped full of Valium all day long.

Maybe you would like a seperate busing system for yuppies — I would: clean, quiet, stimulating conversation, doesn’t smell like piss, but various fragrances sponsored by Bed, Bath & Beyond, lattes served at each stop, copies of the New Yorker to read behind every seat and, of course, head-sets for those of us who want to listen to NPR while we internally glow knowing that we are helping the environment. :)

You know, buses have to pay for gas too. Does anyone know if the cost per ticket on a metro bus has gone up since this little oil spike?

I don’t know if that would happen, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Well, actually big oil is gouging us. I don’t think we’re dumb to keep buying their product because we have to. I demand a true alternative, but I can’t boycott gas until that happens because I have to go to work everyday, and there is no feasible public transportation system for me to use – well, I guess I could take the bus, but where I live, the bus is full of dangerous people that I would rather not tangle with, so therefore, it’s not feasible.

With that said, I agree that we should not have any sort of tax break. It’s just not a good idea, for all the reasons mentioned above. However, I wholeheartedly agree with the part where we cut tax breaks for oil companies. In fact, as I have said before, we need to seriously investigate and overhaul the entire industry, including a rule whereby any lost profits come out of top oil executives’ salaries instead of being passed on to the consumers.

C’mon, like we’re seriously going to see money redirected into the Highway Trust Fund. It’s underfunded as it is and we don’t need to do anything to disrupt that funding, if for no other reason than it will further mask the subsidy that the government gives to the car. Why can’t we just cut out the subsidies to the oil companies without affecting the tax levels? I don’t think they need it right now.

Besides, I don’t think that the proper way to deal with high gas prices is to artifiically lower them. “Hey! Gas is expensive because demand exceeds supply! Let’s cut taxes so that demand will increase! Who gives a crap about conservation, alternative energy, funding a proper rail system, or overall lifestyle adjustments?” Then, in five years when gas is $5 a gallon and we long for those quaint days of $2.95, we can once again discuss temperary tax reprieves. Good times those will be.

After all, many states already went through this about five years ago when gas inched up to $2 a gallon. The sky was falling, gas was so expensive, so many states stopped collecting taxes for a few months. Gas tax reprieve have no long-term effect on the price of gas, but they do have an effect on the state of repair of roads.

Big oil isn’t gouging us. It’s that we’re dumb enough (myself included) to keep buying their product no matter the cost without demanding true alternatives.

Political grandstanding, absolutely. Why don’t they simply cut the gas tax and forget about the roads. We are a “roads” addicted society. We are “highway” addicted society. Stop feeding the monkey!! Eisenhower was an a-hole.

GAS POLICY: FIRST DO NO HARM — (congress read: do nothing)

I do agree we cut subsidies. And in a real market companies can’t simply magically pass the differences increases along. They must compete. Right now profit margins are huge for oil, only some “competitors” get the social welfare and we could use the money. It’s true to a large extent that oil is not a true market (which is why rightists love it because they believe in feudalism with protected niches) but if things worked according to capitalist practice a cut in this corporate welfare would mean that the companies who benefit would have to cut other costs (such as corporate compensation) to compete with those who currently produce without them or accept lower profit margins.

Contrary to the wishes of bushiteers such as the one above corporations are not allowed to simply set prices. I know this is the way that Cheney does it in Iraq but it’s not a free market. All the subsidies do is give the less efficient producers a chance to earn higher profits or to extract oil at higher costs than iit’s worth. There are other mechanisms. for doing this. In times of low oil prices (when these measures were created) there were arguments for mantaining inefficient wells just to keep domestic supply and to make sure some exloration and productive capacity was active, but this has changed. It is not economically justifiable right now.

If companies are following market priciples they will be using their own considerable money to find and develop every resource they can. They are not but we can’t jump stasrt this. If government money must ber spent it is best used in subsidize and help start alternatives that are not fully competitive (we’ve helped many industries this way) or to subsidze insulation or geothermal heating/cooling systems for solidly built bildings housing the lower incomes or a wide variety of other things.

Oil does not need subsidies at this time. If in fact the companies can pass on the loss of these subsidies then we do have oligiploial market which violates many laws which is not something to be applauded despite the wishes of the Bushiteers who seek to destroy capitalism and replace it with a propertied nobility, the socalled “ownership society.”

Political grandstanding.