On 19 May 2004 08:50:12 -0700, (pacplyer) wrote:

Richard Lamb wrote in message ...
C J Campbell wrote:

"Bob Olds" wrote in message
m...
If everyone in the U.S. will NOT buy gasoline on MAY 19 , Then we
will hit the oil companies in the bottom line (Profit). It is
estimated that this would cost them in the millions.
I WON'T buy gas on May 19.

And this will cost the oil companies money how? The gas out will not
inconvenience them in the slightest. Now, if everyone just stopped buying
gas, period, that might mean something.


It's not about costing them money, guys.

As has been pointed out (to death) we will all burn just as much gas
as we would have, regardless of when it was purchased.

The point of civil disobeadence is to make a point.

To say something.

Usually to someone who is not listening.


Richard

Yes, Richard's point is the key. The point is to make politicians
squirm and sweat, to make Oil CEO's burn favors in resisting gov

A one day pause in purchasing gas sure isn't going to do it, not
unless that gas is never purchased. If you purchase it the day before
or the day after the one day means absolutely nothing and proves
nothing. Nor does it drive any point home, not even a pin.

pressure to build additional refineries. At the very least it will
disrupt daily tanker truck delivery schemes. If the merged media

It'll have about as much effect as me sneezing at the local mall.

ignores our disobedience, we could up the ante in a month and expand

Disobedience must have been redefined. Not buying gas on a particular
day, or for that matter, even the complete stopping of using it could
not be described as disobedience even with the wildest stretch of the
imagination.

However IF those same people, assuming there are enough participating
to count on more fingers and toes than I own, would instead, cut their
gas usage in half, or to only a quarter of what they have been using
it would make a difference.

the boycott for a week. Corporate America can't fire everybody.

And why would any one get fired for not using gas?


Then if that doesn't work, vote for Ralph Nader. He hates big
business. He speaks Arabic (I think he is a converted rag-head.) He
might be able to diffuse this world-wide holy/oil war and return us to
a more golden age of aviation.

It's not the politicians. It's the drivers. You! Me! the guy next to
you on the express way. American drivers just don't have the mind set
to substantially lower their use of gas, or change their driving
habits.

Don't blame the refineries. If they were making such a great profit my
stocks would be going up a lot more than they have. Don't blame the
politicians either. They are just excuses so we don't have to change
the way we do things.

US Reserves? Off shore reserves? Alaskan reserves? Sure we could use
them and that would gain us how many years. This stuff is not
limitless.

So we come to the hybrid cars which is a good start for commuting, but
not long haul. There are small cars that do better on long haul than
they hybrids, but in town they are great. Expensive, but great.

Fuel cells? Hydrogen power? Electric cars?
Fuel cells still require fuel, be it fossil or renewable. Of course
to get the Alcohol from corn takes about twice as much gas to produce
as we get out of it. Not a very good trade off. The fuels cells can
be made efficient, but so can *small* internal combustion engines. Of
course the fuel cells create far less pollution than the internal
combustion engines so that is another plus for the fuel cells and
there are some new ones that look very promising. Still, the cars
that will use fuel cells are going to be relatively small.

Hydrogen. Stuff is great. Metal sponges will soak it up making it
safe to use and it's the most plentiful element we have. Just one
problem. Nearly all of it is tied up with Oxygen to make water. IE it
has already been burned. To get the H2 back out of H2O takes energy.
Lots of energy. Use H2 in a fuel cell and it's clean with very
little pollution from the vehicle and virtually none from the
combustion. But...again we are back to small cars.

Electric? Now here's one that really gets pushed. No pollution?
Wellllll... The car it self doesn't generate pollution while running
except for tires and lubrication, BUT it takes banks of batteries
who's construction and disposal create heaps and bunches of pollution
and energy.

Efficiency? They are about on the bottom of the totem pole. Every
time there is a conversion there is a loss in efficiency. So... You
have to create the electricity in the first place. That takes a lot
of fuel. If all our cars were electric figure out how many KW hours
increase we would need in power generation. (any mathematicians out
there willing to tackle that and tell me how much coal or natural gas
we'd have to burn to create the electricity? So, you build large
electrical generation plants which burn fossil fuels, creating loads
of pollution and as a side effect get blamed for acid rain.
But we have a long ways to go. You have to transport the electricity
and there is some loss in the transmission. Then we have to charge
the batteries where there is still more loss and finally we take the
power from the batteries and turn it into motion in electric motors
which also lose energy in the conversion.

How much more fuel does it take to generate one HP with an electric
motor than to develop one HP with a good efficient gas or diesel
engine, or better yet compared to a good fuel cell.

In each and every case I've looked at it boils down to the end user,
using less energy by driving less, driving a smaller vehicle, or both
as being the only real alternative to expensive fuel. *All*
alternative fuels at present cost more than gasoline and most likely
will continue to do so.

Until the American drivers as a whole learn to conserve, through
scheduling, car pooling, driving smaller cars and developing a mind
set of "can do" instead of blaming some one or something else for
their woes we will remain stuck in a cycle of high to low and back
again prices as well as moving from feast to famine and back.

We are, with only a couple of exceptions, a country with the cheapest
gas in the world and here we are, complaining because our gas is now
up to almost half the cost of what they pay in the UK.

The highway fund, like the aviation trust fund contained a great deal
of money and was being robbed to make the general fund look good. It
was used to artificially help create the appearance of having a
balanced budget. We actually did have some budget surpluses and
instead of paying off our debts we wanted the money back and bowing to
popular, but misinformed demands the politicians voted for tax cuts
and rebates and now we are back to record deficit spending.
It of course is not quite this simple, but it's the general idea.


Of course they also voted for tax reform to prevent special interest
groups from having too much say (soft money). Unfortunately the laws
they passed are not as represented. Those same laws basically are gag
orders to prevent any association from direct rebuttal of any
incumbent's statements even if they are outright lies.
For example (and I use the two most controversial topics I can think
of), If you are pro choice, or pro life an organization may not
directly answer any statements made by an incumbent that disagrees
with their views whether they are based in fact or false hood.

Whether you are pro firearms, or an anti gunner you may not contradict
the incumbent's statements.

The law states these gag orders are for 60 days prior to a major
election such as senators, representatives, and president.
That is not the exact wording, but I think it's close.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
I was involved in three labor actions at my outfit. All significantly
improved the working lives of the guys comming behind us.

pacplyer