This is a classic example of the Jon Stewart titles.

http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=5808

"Why you should Worry(!)?"

"Stop complaining about Bush?"

"Give more money to Cheney's special interest?"

Fox probably creamed itself when they found someone "on the other side" who fit their agenda. In my book, this backfired. The interviewer asked, "Just to be clear, you would be open to exploration in this country."

Mmmm hmmm...me smell "AGENDA!"

What is unfortunately not discussed are the families who are living on the line. Minimum wage is still $5.15 per hour. Lower transportation costs mean more opportunities for the working poor in this country.

We are not like other countries, where living areas emerged over time based on how far citizens can travel. We have the spread. The damage is done. This is what we get for turning our noses up at supporting good public transportation.

I'm looking at you, Atlanta.

Good sift. Made me think a lot about what the upper echelon is trying to spin with this downward turn in prices.

LOL. I was gonna refer to http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=11103

And what are you doing up so late? Or is it early?

lol...I hadn't seen that one, Fletch. Awesome.

It's early here. So the question is - What are YOU doing up so late?

7:00am here. Almost time for bed.

The greenpeace guy has a point, although his environmentalist approach is pretty shallow. He wants us to pay more so we'd be more conscious about conservation and buy fewer and/or more efficient cars.

Yes, we do need to get off our dependence of foreign oil, but once again I don't hear any viable solutions. But there is however a plan in action to ease our dependence.

Allowrnme to set up the situation...over the last few months there has been increasing tensions in the Middle East and as a result of those tensions oil speculators and OPEC raised the price of oil slowly but considerably, remember the oil companies (Mobil/Exxon, BP et al.) have no control over the price of oil. Meanwhile there was the usual political posturing as a result, calling for hearings on earnings, windfall tax proposals, and the like. There was also some talk about finding ways to get out of oil completely, but the CEO of Jet Blue and a few other high profile businessmen along with GE have sent a bill into Congress about constructing new refineries to convert coal to oil (a technology perfected in the 40's) and we could become energy independent in about 10 years. Now this technology is only profitable when the price of oil is around 30-35 dollars a barrel, any less and they lose money, the project itself will cost an estimated 50 billion dollars so these companies are trying to get the government to underwrite the insurance on this project. Because if this bill goes through and we get underway towards becoming an energy independent nation, OPEC loses one of its biggest customers and they take a huge hit in their profits. The only way OPEC could compete with this kind ofrna plan is if they collapse the oil market and drive the price of oil down to a level where it no longer becomes profitable to become energy independent. Therein lies the problem.

Now is this latest drop in the price of oil a result of this legislation? I really don't know. Is this plan of real concern to OPEC? I would think so.

So the real question is, would you pay for oil at 35 dollars a barrel if it came from America, or would you pay for oil at 15 dollars a barrel if it came from overseas?

I hate to sound naive here, but is there any chance in hell we'll actually move to some other renuable energy source other than fossil fuels?

Why won't anyone take my Soylent Green idea seriously?

;-)

Won't have a choice. (referring to swampgirl's post)

The rate at which the limited reserves are being used up increases every month. As long as India and China economies continue to explode, their thirst for oil increases too. I did a paper in college (about 12 years ago) on the amount of oil left in the world and about how long it would last at the current rates of consumption. Back then, the estimates ranged from 65-100 years or so. Unfortunately, the rate of consumption has not remained constant and the latest estimates I've read about range from 30-50 years. We pretty much know where all the oil is (most of the major fields, anyway). The bad thing is that we have already recovered most of the "easy" oil. The rate at which we discover new reserves hasn't been keeping up with the rate at which we deplete the known reserves for years now. On top of that, the new discoveries tend to be of the more-difficult-to-get-at variety. It's going to get way worse, IMHO, and may never get better, at least until we make a HUGE shift to another (or several different) energy source(s). Also, don't believe the "We have enough coal to last a thousand years" bullshit either.

BTW, as far as the price of oil nowadays... I read "somewhere" that about 30% of the price of a barrel of oil is "fear". When you consider the record profits oil companies are reaping nowadays, (and I don't begrudge them profits; merely noting it to make a point), and the speed at which gas prices rise when the wind blows too hard in Nigeria or a "terrorist plot" is uncovered in Saudi Arabia, it's easy to see that (for me, anyway). Hell, ask most people what percentage of oil comes from Saudi Arabia, and most give rediculously high answers. In fact, most of the oil we import comes from Canada (~16%), then Mexico (~13%), THEN Saudi Arabia at around 12%. Twelve percent. That is not an insignificant number, but it just seems to me that events in the Middle East should not have such a huge, and instant, effect on the price we pay at the pump.

Ok, got rambling there. Just wanted to say what I believe differentiates the price of oil the price of gas here in the US. Oil prices are determined largely by world demand, and production is barely keeping up with that demand, so prices go up. Gas prices also follow demand here, but we are also being gouged with a huge "fear" premium, and oil companies here are reaping the benefits of that.

Ok, just reread what I wrote and I'm confused, so sorry if you read this far.

Time for bed...

couple linkies...

http://api-ec.api.org/statistics/upload/June_2006_imports.xls

http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501041025-725174,00.html

daphne, good suggestion.

I was also in a class that was tasked with writing a paper on the world's overpopulation problem. We were to solve it. There are only two ways to do so... reduce the birth rate or increase the death rate. We were told to ignore any moral or ethical constraints we might place upon ourselves and come up with a solution that was economically and technologically viable. Many people, including me, came up with a variation of some sort on the Soylent Green scenario combined with a Logan's Run-ish lottery system. Not only an abundant food source, but paid for itself through the sale of "product" as fertilizer, and money raised by allowing those who could afford it the opportunity to buy out of the lottery, or they could spend less by hiring someone else to take their chances in the lottery for them, so there was some trickle-down, of a sort. Anyway, tired and rambling... must sleep now.

Hilarious. You can smell Cavuto's disdain for his guest right when he introduces him.
I'm not defending Greenpeace, who can be just as ideological as FOX News, but this is another example of FOX setting up a straw man and passing him/her off as how all liberals think.

I totally agree. I have a suspicious feeling that the reason we are seeing a dip in price is because the mid-term elections are coming up. "See? We lowered gas prices with this administration!"

Of course, they avoid the fact that it was during their watch that prices skyrocketed.

Balance is so important. We see what happens when one side or the other has complete power. That's why the party system should work...no complete power on one side or the other. Checks and balances.

Unfortunately, most people feel like elections are a football game..."us against them" mentality.

Oops. Sorry for the hijack. It's kinda referring to this sift, though. ;-)

What was the topic?

"I'm not defending Greenpeace, who can be just as ideological as FOX News, but this is another example of FOX setting up a straw man and passing him/her off as how all liberals think."

So are you calling this a case of shooting the messenger and not the message?

You people obviously don't know that the electric car was produced and refined years ago. The auotmotive industry killed it off because it's far more profitable to sell fossil fuel based cars.

There's a whole documentary about this.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

Stop making friggin' SUVs.

Better yet, stop buying friggin' SUV's

farhad2000

Wrong. Battery technology still sucks and we'd just be more dependent on powerplants. On top of all this, we don't have the power grid for something like a fully electric car to work for everyone.

That movie is full of shit.

Not really ultimateforce, I mean the whole point of that movie was that research and development in electrical cars was supperessed by the motor industry because fossil fuel cars means larger business for the petrochemical industry and the car industry through the law of compliments.

Lol, you know if gas followed inflation the way everyother product had we would being paying roughly 5 dollars a gallon and there hasn't been a new oil refinery in the last twenty years, and yes that is thanks to the environmental groups. Oh as far as prices dipping were between now, the summer season and winter there is usually a dip this time of year it'll go back up before election. Minimum wage definitely needs to be increased although most states enacte a wage that is higher than the federal anyways unlike mine. Fletch said it about China and India with their insatiable hunger for oil creates competition for America, something we have never had. America is cheap, hence the expression the most bang for your buck. It's not that all the car companys won't make electric cars, no one will pay for an eletric car if another company makes gasolines that are still twice as cheap and go twice as far. Electric cars are still very gutless and can't match the mileage of gasoline engines. They are working on it though thankfully.

Zeth you seem to have a lack of understand towards how the oil market operates, oil prices and consequentially gas prices are controlled by OPEC, via augmentation of oil supply.

*dead

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