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Highway Robbery indoors
Posted: March 10th, 2007, 10:07 pm
by Doreen Peri
and outdoors, too
Gas prices are ridiculous and people talk about how much $ it takes to fill up their gas tanks in their cars all the time...
But I just got a heating bill for $320...
for one month
Jesus.
And this is a little cottage. I mean, geez... it's a small place.
They might as well come in my house with a stocking over their faces and hold a gun to my head.
No competition, of course. It's a friggin monopoly. Washington Gas or no gas.
***
If I were Sylvia Plath
I know how I could save my life
and some money, too.
I wouldn't pay the gas bill.
That's what I'd do.
Posted: March 11th, 2007, 4:19 am
by Anonymous-one
Doreen wrote:Gas prices are ridiculous and people talk about how much $ it takes to fill up their gas tanks in their cars all the time...
Here's a solution to your Gas problems :
TWIKE
Posted: March 11th, 2007, 5:52 am
by stilltrucking
Inflation is under control. I hear that a lot. And then they say something like the consumer price index is steady, adjusted for the price of energy and food. So everything is cool. But it seems that all I spend my money on is energy and food. And food prices are going up day after day, a nickle and a dime. Well at least the corn farmers are doing well. Record prices for corn. I wonder if the ethanol craze is the reason..
I think she would have found another way Doreen.
One more thing that jacks my jaws
This week, NOW talks to director Chris Paine about his upcoming documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" The film looks at the hopeful birth and untimely death of the electric car, an environmentally-friendly, cost-saving salvation to some, but a profit barrier to others.
In a film that has all the elements of a murder mystery, Paine points the finger at car companies, the oil industry, bad ad campaigns, consumer wariness, and a lack of commitment from the U.S. government.
"[The film] is about why the only kind of cars that we can drive run on oil. And for a while there was a terrific alternative, a pure electric car," Paine said.
In 1996, General Motors (G.M.) launched the first modern-day commercially available electric car, the EV1. The car required no fuel and could be plugged in for recharging at home and at a number of so-called battery parks.
Many of the people who leased the car, including a number of celebrities, said the car drove like a dream.
"...the EV1 was a high performer. It could do a U-turn on a dime; it was incredibly quiet and smooth. And it was fast. I could beat any Porsche off the line at a stoplight. I loved it," Actress, Alexandra Paul told NOW.
After California regulators saw G.M.s electric car in the late 1980s, they launched a zero-emissions vehicle program in 1990 to clean up the state's smoggy skies.
Under the program, two percent of all new cars sold had to be electric by 1998 and 10 percent by 2003.
But it was not to be. A little over 1,000 EV1s were produced by G.M. before the company pulled the plug on the project in 2002 due to insufficient demand. Other major car makers also ceased production of their electric vehicles.
In the wake of a legal challenge from G.M. and DaimlerChrysler, California amended its regulations and abandoned its goals. Shortly thereafter, automakers began reclaiming and dismantling their electrics as they came off lease.
Some suggest that G.M. -- which says it invested some $1 billion in the EV1 -- never really wanted the cars to take off. They say G.M. intentionally sabotaged their own marketing efforts because they feared the car would cannibalize its existing business. G.M. disputes these claims.
Take a trip with us this week as we find out more about why the electric car slipped off the road. Next time on NOW.
"Who Killed the Electric Car" appears in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on June 28th and in other theaters throughout the country sometime this summer.
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/index.html
Posted: March 11th, 2007, 10:28 am
by Arcadia
don´t worry, your government will buy cheap corn from Brazil soon in order to make more ethanol... so maybe they will estabilizar the prize... or not.
I like the tricicle car (is tres ruedas, no?!!!) maybe I´ll learn to drive one of them in thirty years!!!
Posted: March 11th, 2007, 11:14 am
by Doreen Peri
arcadia.... corn? ya think? i donno. Do you think buying corn to create ethanol will eliminate the need for all these wars we're fighting to control the real estate for the oil?
sighhh
A-One... wish they had a furnace like that.
Posted: March 11th, 2007, 4:35 pm
by Lightning Rod
A-O
I'll bet that Twike would look great stuck like a bug to the windshield of a Hummer
Arcadia,
I think we have the corn here and Brazil has cane, which is better for making moonshine gasoline
Speak of which, it looks like the Bush got a brazillian on his visit south
doreen
that lump of coal that I found in my christmas stocking this year might come in handy after all
Posted: March 11th, 2007, 5:42 pm
by Arcadia
shining path: yes, you´re right. Brazilian corn is a great metaphor but talking literally what happens ( it seems) is that Brazil will increase 30% the plantation superficie of sugar cane in order to produce more etanol to export to USA. I wonder about the jungle...
doreen: you´re also right, your country will need each year more combustibles . And you´ve been acostumbrados to a cheap price for that -in comparison to other world´s countries-.And sure USA will continue also "searching" in the middle east and other parts of the world and buying to Venezuela. Until the solar-electric-whatever revolution come.
Posted: March 12th, 2007, 11:12 pm
by mtmynd
TWIKE - starting at 26,000 U.S. dollars. nah... one could buy a damn nice used toyota made in the u.s and keep it filled for 4 years for that.