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back to top79 Comments to “Whirled Views 5.22”
Sam Walton – who also said, “Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don’t become too predictable.”
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Had a beautiful drive up state highway 281 from San Antonio to Lampasas Tx yesterday. Its become my preferred route from San Antonio north. IH 35 is crowded and often festooned with billboards I’d rather not explain to 7 and 5 year old girls.
My 5 year old advanced last night from Mission Friend to GA!
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Those of you who missed it, go back and read Llama’ #65 on WV yesterday. I think he’s wrong on one thing though. He says the only thing that will cure it is for Bush to sell 100 million barrels from the reserve. I suspect a single hole in the tundra of Anwar would crash the speculative market. They may even start giving away glasses with each fillup.
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I see in today’s paper where the levee that broke during Katrina has started leaking again, even after $22million in repairs “because of the mushy ground on which New Orleans was built, raising serious questions about the reliability of the city’s flood defenses.”
George Bush can’t seem to get anything right, can he?
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Speaking of Katrina, does anyone remember the press jumping on that little misspeak by Barbara Bush during the frenzy to use the disaster to get Bush. Bush’s elderly mother is fair game, but Michelle Obama is off limits. I don’t think so.
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Ted Kennedy has decided on who he’d like to take his seat. And it’s (drum roll), his wife.
http://tinyurl.com/6jf9bs
And I got 5 bucks says she gets it. Any takers?
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That’s a good idea, Chas. Or what if we announced that we were going to more off-shore drilling or use new methods to take oil out of old wells — and then do it.
I recall GWB talking about switchgrass. Can someone explain to me why we are using corn rather than switchgrass?
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Chas: Why are conservatives (the root word of which is “conserve”) so eager to tear up our wilderness rather than invent or discover a renewable fuel that we won’t ever run out of?
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KBells, I just read your carrot comment from yesterday — my first reaction was to say he was playing you, but then I thought about it, and I suppose they don’t realize yet that push comes to shove at some point and they have to pay up, so to speak. I have to admit I’d have a little fun with him and cook the carrots to see what happens. (Of course, I smother them in butter, too.) My one niece used your son’s methods when she was little. As an infant, she refused all green vegetables, only ate carrots and squash so she turned a little orange, and then she “grazed” until first grade when she needed more energy to get through a full day of school. Not that that stopped her from throwing peas at her mother. (Bad things happened that day!)
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Samuel–You’ve earned yourself the digital coffee of the day! Enjoy!
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I am thinking about selling my vehicle and opting for a Horse and Buggy. My natural gas charge went from 11.00 per cubic foot to 27.00 per cubic foot in one month
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NJ. He will eat broccoli and fried okra sometimes, like on a Tuesdays, with a full moon, if he’s in the mood. But he is healthy and likes fruit and milk, so I’m not going to push it too much. Besides I hate cooked carrots and would not be a good role model.
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So, yesterday was Hagee and Hitler day. Today, I read/heard on the news about a Parsley tape. I understand where he’s coming from, but I have to disagree with him that one of the reasons the Founders created the US was to fight Islam. They were certainly aware of it, there was piracy which they dealt with, but I don’t think they were concerned that the Muslims would invade the US. Any thoughts?
(And I’m going to try that tempura things with some veggies. I had Thai food for the first time yesterday at lunch — something called “rendang,” but I really enjoyed a puff pastry with curried chicken. Delicious, though my throat lost a layer of something.
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Sawgunner- I love that drive as well. The TX Hill Country is gorgeous, and I bet the wildflowers were resplendent. Lucky you!
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KBells- I had one who refused to potty train until he was four. He got underwear for his fourth birthday, and he was good to his word!
My pediatrician agrees that if they’re eating fruits, don’t sweat the veggies. Keep introducing them since tastes change, but don’t make it a battle.
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KBells, that made me laugh. My niece was the same way, and the doctor said the same thing — she was healthy. He was right that in time she’d get it together, and she did. She’s pushing 30, runs in marathons and eats all sorts of veggies. Just keep offering!
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Sawgunner: Yes, IH 35 has become quite truck-infested as well.
Being home again, I’m sure the drive up US 281 must provide you with some neat times of reflection after what you experienced abroad.
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SteveG — Here’s this conservative’s take. We are all but out of oil. There is NOTHING on the horizon that offers any hope of an alternative in the short or even intermediate term. We are buying oil from people who want to kill us, while we sit on reserves which some say are larger than Saudi Arabia’s.
ANWR is “wilderness” in the same way the moon is. What’s more, the oil is underneath it. We’re not talking about strip mining here.
My (hypothetical) neighbor is a teacher. After taxes, she lives on about $2000 a month. If she needs 50 gallons of gas a month for her commute (there is no bus), she’s currently spending $200 a month or 10% of her income on gasoline. She used to spend $130 of that $200 on the other necessities of life, including savings. She won’t be able to afford a new car any time soon, so it doesn’t matter if Toyota or someone comes out with The Car Which Is The Answer.
How high does the price of gas get before she loses her house? How high does it have to get before the self-proclaimed Friends of the Poor decide it’s OK to do the one thing America can do immediately to reduce the cost of oil and improve our national security?
How high will the price have to get before we can go to the Alaskan Moon and suck out what’s there?
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Kbells,
I laughed out loud when I heard the Obama sound bites “Lay off my wife.” Let me predict that the Dems will go after Cindy McCain and Obama will say, “I can’t control what my enthusiastic followers do.”
If you are going to speak publicly then you open yourself up as fair game. I think Michelle Obama can be a big girl like Hillary.
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SteveG, we’ve been through this before. I am in favor of any solution that works. I would like to see cars run on water. StuBob has made the point. We need something that works now. If Clinton hadn’t nixed the effort ten years ago, we would have oil. Not plenty maybe, but we would have oil.
We need to do something now.
Maybe Congress could hold an investigation.
Maybe we could sue Hugo Chavez.
Maybe we could plead for the King of Saudi Arabia to produce more.
Maybe the Russians can drill in the frozen tundra.
Maybe the Chinese could drill off the coast of Cuba.
Any other suggestions?
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I’ve been following the “wait, don’t push the veggies” route, but at almost 9 our younger son still eats only a miniscule amount of vegetables. He likes raw carrots, but not every day. He’ll eat a tiny bit of lettuce in a taco. He tried peas once and claimed he liked them, but will usually only eat one or two. He tried a nibble of cucumber and gave it a thumbs up (though he made a face as he did so), but declined to eat more.
I finally persuaded him to try celery with peanut butter a few weeks ago, and he really likes it – enough to eat one three-inch piece once a day if I won’t give him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for a snack (which is his favorite food morning, noon, or night).
As a baby he was growing so slowly the doctor was concerned about his brain growth, and we decided to just let him eat food he liked as long as it was reasonably healthy. So he loves eggs, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, bananas (as well as the typical hot dogs and chicken nuggets). But over the years his tastes have expanded only a little. (I’m thrilled he will now eat tacos – he used to insist on getting the ground meat before I added the seasonings.)
He’s getting rather tubby, and with his poor physical coordination (most likely connected with his autism) it’s hard to find physical activities that he wants to do for any length of time. He told me this week he doesn’t want to get fat like Daddy, so I think I have his willingness to cooperate on my side. But he gags so easily (he threw up in the dentist’s office a few weeks ago), and certain textures (chewy candies and dried fruits as well as vegetables) trigger it.
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Go David Cook! (embarrassed grin)
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Adios: “If you are going to speak publicly then you open yourself up as fair game. I think Michelle Obama can be a big girl like Hillary.”
She’s another lawyer. Have no sympathy. She’s been trained, even if she does say stupid things.
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My husband refused to eat anything green when he was growing up. He lived on peanut butter and jelly and they would take it everywhere- even on family trips. The only way my mother-in-law could get him to eat vegetables was to cut them up very small and put them in homemade spaghetti sauce.
By the time I met him in college, he had progressed to eating salad while holding his nose.
When I serve vegetables to the family, he will still shovel some off on the plate of the nearest child, but he is much better than he used to be. Keep trying, but don’t expect miracles.
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The veggie problem is on the back burner. My son got mad at me for trying to get him to eat his breakfast and says he is leaving and going to either California or North Carolina. I packed him a bag, but told him to leave some clothes for the next kid, now he thinks when he gets back he is going to have a brother. When his favorite TV show came on he decided to postpone the trip until tomorrow.
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I’m hoping that things don’t get that bad with oil and gas but if they do; I’d imagine (again, realistic optimism) that we’ll find ways to adapt. We’ll consume less oil by driving less and driving far more fuel efficient cars. Expect to see much smaller cars, and many more of those smart cars that look like they are made of fiberglass. Also expect to see more motorcycle and scooter drivers. When I visited Rome in 2001 I was astonished by how many ordinary professional types drove motor scooters in the city.
You can’t really take a family on a motorcycle. But, if you are a one person driving to work in a car that holds 5…maybe one day we will see that as a waste of energy and insist that a one person automobile should drive something that holds…one person.
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Jon,
If most people did drive motorcycles and motor scooters it might work out well. (I lived in Spain for a year and saw how popular they were.) But with most people driving larger vehicles (pickups and SUVs are the norm here), it’s not very safe to be riding a motorcycle.
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KBELLS – You have an interesting little guy there. Quite often your stories remind of things my grandson says and does.
As far as the veggies – most likely both you and Pauline have tried the raw veggies with their favorite dip trick? My grandchildren (6 and 4 1/2) will eat lots of veggies this way.
Also I found baked sweet potatoes with some butter and brown sugar are enjoyed by kids!
There’s always V-8 juice, but then what kid is going to drink that, huh?
I’ve always supplemented their diets with a good multi-vitamin especially made for kids. Just for extra insurance!
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That’s true Pauline. But the point is, if it gets that bad, instead of modern life coming to an end (something some folks from the extreme left and right are now arguing and have been for some time, see for instance James Howard Kunstler’s “The End of the Binge”) people will in the long run adapt. If you can’t afford to drive your large car anymore, you’ll get rid of it; but instead of “not driving” will drive motorcycles or really really small cars. I’m hoping this is NOT the future. But as an optimist, if we did have to live with oil rationing and $10 a gallon gas, I think life could go on with most single drivers switching from large cars to more motorcycle like cars to get to work.
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Jon Rowe, you’re missing the point of my $2000/month neighbor. She isn’t going to buy a scooter. She commutes on I-465. She isn’t buying a new car ever. The weather here won’t allow reliable commuting by motorcycle. Indianapolis isn’t Rome.
We need to be planning the next phase, but the only thing that’ll help us today is more oil. It’s absolutely immoral that we’re sitting on so much of it.
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Your neighbor will INDEED buy a new car if she needs that kind to get to work. You are right that she won’t be on a motorcycle; but we can make cars that hold one maybe two people that aren’t much bigger than motorcycles; that you can comfortably sit in and that can be heated and air-conditioned.
But anyway I agree with you on your point about digging. We should start digging for oil in America right way and lift all environmental restrictions on it. The environment is only useful if it serves man’s needs period.
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VS,
My son won’t touch dip. He has finally started using ketchup, which is about the only “sauce”-type addition to food he will allow. No gravy. No dips for chips.
He will drink V-8 Fusion, which mixes vegetable and fruit juices. But he’ll only drink a little, so it’s hard to get him to finish even a small bottle. (I have to admit I don’t greatly care for the taste myself – I finished the last bottle for him. I prefer regular V-8, which I do like – although I dislike plain tomato juice.)
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Jon – we cannot afford a different vehicle, either, and if you cannot get rid of your big gas hog, then what? A story on the news last night says car lots are paying very little for trucks and SUVs right now, because they can’t sell them anymore. So, you are stuck with payments on a vehicle you cannot afford to drive, and cannot afford to sell – or can’t sell at all.
I drive to work by myself, but before that, I drop both my children at daycare. A scooter or even a smart car wouldn’t work for us. I cannot car pool, because I need my vehicle for work during the day. America simply isn’t set up for personal transportation like Europe is – we’re too big! Unless you live in a large city with mass transit, biking or walking options, you will soon not be able to afford to work.
And you are correct – we need to start drilling and we need to do it now. This is going to kill our middle class and economy, and there isn’t any reason we should be held hostage by people wanting to control our country from the Middle East. It’s disgraceful.
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It’s funny how kids are so different! Veggies is one thing I don’t have to argue with my kids about. They both enjoy broccoli – steamed – cooked and raw carrots, corn, potatoes, beans, peas, celery, salad – just about anything! And they each LOVE fruit of any type.
Pauline – my daughter will eat ketchup with a spoon. My son loves gravy on his potatoes and both like dips of nearly any kind.
I feel very lucky to have kids who are not picky eaters – now to get the youngest potty trained!
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This just in from the “Is-anyone-else-feeling-a-draft?” Department at Military.com: The all-volunteer military may be too expensive, so Sen. Daniel Inouye suggests stealing the labor of American men!
Now here’s a different twist: Rather than peddling conscription by appealing to “duty” or to “social inequity,” simply appeal to fiscal responsibility — you know, having to do more with less and all that.
“But nobody’s seriously considering a return to conscription!”
Nooooo …
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100 Explosions on the Moon
http://www.physorg.com/news130594576.html
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A loss on an SUV won’t kill you. I’m just saying that if we did face the day of 10 dollar a gallon gas and rationing; we could make life go on with adaptations like I described. You’ll find a way to get your kids to daycare without driving a big car to work. The following is a link to James Howard Kunstler’s article in The American Conservative arguing that life simply “won’t go on,” as I argue. Rather, Walmart is going to collapse, folks won’t be able to afford to drive more than 5 miles to work, and a whole slew of middle class folks are going to lose their jobs and start living like Little House on the Prarie.
http://www.amconmag.com/2005/2005_09_12/cover.html
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Amphipolis, a look at Lunar photography shows millions of craters. The moon is constantly hit by meteorites. The Earth would look worse than that if we didn’t have an atmosphere to burn most of them before impact.
Re: #20. Nancy Pelosi, (via Rush) added a couple of other good suggestions.
Create perpetual motion.
Reclaim personal methane.
And, I might add, don’t rule out cold fusion.
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I drive to work by myself, but before that, I drop both my children at daycare. A scooter or even a smart car wouldn’t work for us. I cannot car pool, because I need my vehicle for work during the day. America simply isn’t set up for personal transportation like Europe is – we’re too big! Unless you live in a large city with mass transit, biking or walking options, you will soon not be able to afford to work.
People will also eventually figure that we need to get setting ourselves up a little more like Europe for personal transportation. Start advocating for bus lines and rail lines to bring in people from outlying areas. People will once again value and begin moving inward to cities, rather than the exodus to suburbia and exurbia that we saw with the advocacy and subsidization of infrastructure and highways adapted to personal autombiles that took place post WW-II
Yes, it will take time, but for goodness sake, we need to start thinking long term, valuing and encouraging different choices. We didn’t get into this pickle accidentally, or overnight. It was designed this way, over a long period of time.
Start learning about movements like New Urbanism, designing communities for walkability, etc, and so-forth.
Since the problem didn’t happen quickly or accidentally, the solution won’t either.
It will take time, deliberate design, and political will to get there, but there EMPHATICALLY ARE alternatives.
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How about a post on the greatest media fabrication of our time?
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/05/22/french-court-rejects-al-dura-hoax/
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Chas -
I know, but the flashes are cool. I didn’t know that there were flashes.
The impact heats up rocks and soil on the lunar surface hot enough to glow like molten lava–hence the flash.
Awesome moon flashes are totally cool – or, hot.
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Amphipolis–
I found a city listed in Scripture called Amphipolis the other day. Is that were you get your login name from? (Sorry … just curious!)
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Hello all…My dad is going to the doctor this afternoon at 4. My stepmother is taking him and has packed a bag to stay overnight if the news is bad. He has been living off of Ensure. Please if you have a second say a prayer for Jimmy Black.
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European Court agrees to hear chimp’s plea for human rights
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I’m all for mass transit, but where is that money coming from? And many people are not for it, at all. The Mpls/St. Paul area is putting in a light rail system. You should hear all the hollering about what a waste of money it is, and we should be putting money into better roads, etc. Yes, we need long term solutions, but that doesn’t mean we cannot, in the meantime, alleviate our current issues by using the oil God put in OUR country.
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TL, the money has to come from the local people. It’s there is will do it. Too often our problem is poor planning that is inadequate to meet the need.
In Northern Virginia, I said long ago that the Metro system should have gone all the way out to Manassas and Dulles. They wouldn’t have to buy more land, just run it down the median.
1n 1962, they opened the Virginia section of I-495 (The Capital Beltway). They made it a 4-lane highway. Almost immediately, (well a few years) they had to enlarge it to eight.
Some, by my previous posts, presume that I’m against alternatives. I love sensible alternatives.
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You guys may want to read the T.A.C. article more carefully (TJ: I’m talking to you) are seriously consider whether you’d prefer what Mr. Kunstler to happen. There is a reason why this right wing magazine is printing the predictions of a left-wing thinker. The extreme left and right have a strong distaste for modern bourgeois society. The left thinks it’s distasteful and that’s what Mr. Kunstler does in his first job — talk about how ugly most of modern American architecture and aesthetics are.
The crunchy con, paleo-con right, following in the tradition of Russell Kirk, thinks modern society is simply bad for the Christian soul and things like automobiles, TV, Internet and easy comfort are a big part of the problem. They think it would be better for the soul to live like Little House on the Prarie.
This is 180% opposite of what I believe. But in long reading these threads, I would think that many of you would long to return to those days.
That’s one reason why I take these predictions with a grain of salt: These left and right forces seem to really want the collapse to occur.
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The blind and deaf politicians of San Diego County ram-rodded a light rail system down our throats. It just opened. Just in time for gas prices to hit $4 a gallon.
Oops, maybe they weren’t blind, but just could see past the end of their own noses. A rare trait in a politician. Those trains are already full of communters abandoning their SUVs.
Europe has a lot of things whacked about it, but their transportaion isn’t one of them.
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Oh, and now those visionaries are holding back on widening our freeways and are considering just was Chas suggests. They are imagineering monorails down the medians of existing freeways. Traffic has forced the issue in CA. We either or all move together or we don’t move at all;)
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Europe has a lot of things whacked about it, but their transportaion isn’t one of them.
Hmmm … their gas is over $8.00/gal, considering the price of the dollar and the liter/gallon equation. Wonder why they’re so smart?
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They can afford 8 dollar a gallon gas as their Euro is strong. Once their currency weakens, let’s see what happens though. Things have a way of balancing out; if the dollar becomes dominant, chances oil will NOT be anything near 100 dollars a barrel. I’m predicting after the oil bubble bursts, (and hopefully the Euro bubble will burst around the same time), oil retreats to around 60-70 dollars a barrel.
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“They wouldn’t have to buy more land, just run it down the median.”
Chas,
My dad used to always say that about the I-90 going across NY State. Coulda put in a high-speed rail connection to Albany, and thence on to Boston or down to NYC.
Almost all of the problems here in WNY are bad local planning, and lack of political will. We have a dead-end subway, that should have been extended in at least two different directions, one being to the SUNY @ Buffalo “Amherst” Campus, built on old swamp land in a suburb north-east of the city. Locals nixed it, but development kept pushing north-east towards the campus, and much of the town has horriffic traffic problems.
Another direction it should have extended was to a large mall built in the first-ring suburb just east of the city. But for quite a while, the mall wouldn’t even allow local busses onto its property, let alone provide a bus stop. It would make it too easy for “kids from the city” (which of course was a code word for.. well, you figure it out) to get to the mall.
The irony of course was that many of the shops and food stands in the mall relied on those “city kids” for workers. The no busses at the mall policy didn’t change, until one of the kids was killed crossing the street to get to her job at the mall.
What strikes me as supremely ironic now, is that our population (and hence our tax base) is shrinking in WNY, but traffic keeps on getting worse. And the only solution anyone ever comes up with, is, well, build another road. And of course, as soon as you do, up pops another series of strip malls, big box retailers, and even more traffic.
And even more ironic, in the city itself, we have the infrastructure to support a larger population. Probably half-again to twice what we have now. Affordable housing waiting to be rehabbed, commercial space available, walkable mixed-use neighborhoods.
So I can’t help but think, if gas continues to rise, city living will look better to more people, and the outflow will slow down or stop.
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From ABC News: The Third Court of Appeals in Austin, in response to motions from 41 sect mothers, ruled that Child Protective Services did not present enough evidence at a hearing last month that their children were at risk of abuse to justify keeping them in state custody.
Due Process seems to work.
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And Frank, it sounds like a mandatory military service or some equivalent is coming. Seems to me the liberals should be in favor of “equity” across the board, no?
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My daughter just IM’d me that Steven Curtis Champman’s little girl was hit by his son as he was backing out of the Driveway. The little girl died.
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Fruit/veggie issues: Have any of you tried fruits in a homemade smoothie with any success? A friend of mine had lap band surgery and resorted to drinking those for the first two weeks. Fresh/frozen fruit, milk, yogurt, whatever blended with or without ice.
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Joe B.,
That’s now our fifth-from-the-top thread.
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NJLawyer (52): The Third Court of Appeals in Austin, in response to motions from 41 sect mothers, ruled that Child Protective Services did not present enough evidence at a hearing last month that their children were at risk of abuse to justify keeping them in state custody [my italics - FiP].
Frank: From what I’ve read (so far — this is a breaking story), that should probably read “[The court] ruled that Child Protective Services did not present enough evidence at a hearing last month that their children were at risk of abuse to justify taking them into state custody.” Example:
NJLawyer (53): And Frank, it sounds like a mandatory military service or some equivalent is coming. Seems to me the liberals should be in favor of “equity” across the board, no?
Frank: One would think. Liberals aren’t particularly interested in adhering to God’s created order.
It is my understanding that at least one young man has unsuccessfully sued to avoid Selective Service registration on the grounds that women aren’t required to register.
If the draft does come back — and absent another 9/11-size attack, I simply don’t see it happening — I don’t expect N.O.W. to insist on the mandatory registration of females.
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Here is the article about Steven Curtis Champman: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,357046,00.html
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Kimberly,
They can afford $8 a gallon because they don’t rely on their cars as a main form of transportation.
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(Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) issued a subpoena to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for testimony about the politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ), including former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman’s case. Yesterday, Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, sent a letter to the Committee expressing that Rove would not agree to testify voluntarily, per the Committee’s previous requests.
“It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests,” Conyers said. “Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate. Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters.”
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A new indictment of a former top CIA official alleges that he received bribes in the form of “sexual companionship” from a friend seeking an edge in landing multimillion-dollar contracts from the agency.
Federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday obtained a superseding indictment against Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, who as executive director held the CIA’s No. 3 rank before leaving in 2006.
The indictment accuses Foggo of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in meals, vacations and other perks in exchange for helping friend Brent Wilkes obtain various contracts with the CIA.
The new indictment also includes an allegation that Foggo received sexual companionship and “enrichment of a mistress,” though the allegations are not detailed in the indictment.
Calls and an e-mail sent to Foggo’s lawyers were not immediately returned Tuesday.
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I have no idea whether or not Foggo is guilty. If so, he should be punished.
There’s an interesting discussion on p.185-187 of Shadow Warriors about how a couple of people (Timmerman names them.) tried to set him up with similar accusations. (”Unless you have something else you haven’t shown me, I see nothing in his personnel file that disqualifies him …
After a pause, the chief investigator cleared his throat. He, er, does have a reputation for being a womanizer. It’s his reputation in the hallway.”)
I presume thay have something else.
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Frank, you probably saw my phrase “some equivalent.” I remember the draft at the time of Vietnam, and it just wasn’t fair. Men who wouldn’t have but for the draft got married and had kids, others went to college and graduate school, and enough people remember that. I think there would be a real battle if those exemptions were allowed again. I don’t have a problem with women registering, but I don’t think Americans will vote for women in combat. There’s no reason, however, that they can’t serve in other capacities, and I would expect NOW to at least go along with that!
I was surprised to read your post — which really means that I was surprised that this was even being discussed by legislators. Please keep us informed in this regard.
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Frank, my post regarding the Texas case came from ABC news. Those are not my words. I haven’t read any opinions and I have no idea yet who or what is covered by the appellate opinion. All I’ve heard is that the state did not provide sufficient evidence at that first hearing. My only point was to show that the courts have been dealing with the case, and for an appellate opinion to come out as quickly as this one did, indicates to me that they are taking the whole matter very seriously and putting it on the front burner. This whole thing is not over — I’ll bet there will be an appeal to the State Supreme Court. Wouldn’t you agree that the courts are doing their job?
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NJL,
Yes, I would. And I sincerely hope that the parties behind the kidnapping pay the price for bearing false witness and/or acting without due process. This certainly isn’y just a case of, “Oops, just made us a little mistake! Turns out we simply got our search warrants mixed up! Here’s your kids back … have a nice day!”
And I suspected that those might have been ABC’s words, not yours. Thanks for clarifying for me.
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T. Boone Pickens says oil is going to $200/barrel and gas to $6/gallon in the US. He’s usually right.
The reality hasn’t really hit us yet, but it’s going to. At the moment, people are cutting back on other things to pay for gas. At some point that’s going to hit the sales of everything (clothing, electronics, even home buying). There’s only so much money to go around in the average family. And at some point there will be no more left to “cut back” on. I mean, people are cutting back a little bit, but not “whole hog” serious like the 1970’s when there was a gas shortage.
We Americans (including myself) are still in denial pretty much. We still drive as much as we always have. We don’t plan our trips out in a gas saving manner. We still drive to work by ourselves. We still think nothing of hopping in the car and driving down to the corner market to get a pint of ice cream or to Home Depot to get a rake that’s on sale. We think nothing of idling for 15 or 20 minutes at the drive-through at the bank. We still drive as fast as ever. We don’t really hunt for the lowest price on gas. If we need it, we buy it when we see the station.
To give a small example: I tell my friends I will meet them at the ball park downtown. Now we all live about 5 minutes away from each other, but instead of pooling it, we all drove separately.
As we’ve seen from people above, they say they “need” their SUV, that they can’t cut back, that they have to drive to school. By the way – who walks to school anymore? I drive by 3 public schools every day and I bet I’ve only seen 3 or 4 kids in 5 years walking. I know parents that drive their kids to school that’s only 2 block away.
I don’t know how much longer we’ll go on like this before we decide to get serious. We’ll probably do it when we don’t have any other choice left.
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Totally off every other topic here but…
Tim Horton’s was giving away a free Iced-Tea today and their Sweet Tea is much better than McDonald’s!
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It’s stories like the one on Stephen Curtis Chapman or the China Earthquake that make me doubt that a loving God exists. If He does, I certainly think the fault for such tragedy is NOT humanity or original sin and that such a God OWES human beings for their unJUST suffering.
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Anlir,
I think people are cutting back on their driving and being more conscious of gas. Just one example: I read just today that idling instead of turning off the engine really isn’t necessary with today’s fuel-injected cars, because they start quickly warm. (My previous car, that was a serious problem.) I got my emissions test today, and turned off my car in line twice. Everyone else was doing the same thing. Initially I kept hearing the engine behind me, but then I stopped hearing it too. The SUV to the left of me was turned off every time. (I was pulling up to the bumper of the car ahead of me before I turned it off, and then turning it back on when two cars had gone through, not just one. He was turning it on and off for each car.)
I’ve also walked sometimes when I might have driven a few months ago, chosen not to go to some events, and cut back on my out-of-state driving. Of course, my finances are tight and I’m Scottish, but I do think that people are cutting back, and that it’s not just me.
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“Senator John McCain is set to release 400 pages of medical records, including documents related to his melanoma surgery in August 2000, to a tightly controlled group of reporters on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend.”
This isn’t a good sign.
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Jon,
I think when a sinner meets God, mercy and not justice is what the person should ask for–and moreover, what the person WILL ask for. No one will ever stand before God with demands. No one will ever stand before Him at all when seeing Him for the first time.
And mercy has been shown at the Cross. Listen to Chapman address these issues over the next few months. Hard as this experience is for his family, I’m guessing he will speak of God’s love and grace during this time.
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“No one will ever stand before God with demands.”
Tell that to Abraham, who most certainly did make demands on God: See the story of Sodom & Gomorrah.
If any believer in good conscience came face2face with God, they would demand that not one human soul be consigned to Hell for eternity, in the same way that Abraham demanded that God not destroy the righteous with the wicked in Sodom & Gomorrah.
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Abraham did not demand anything of God. If you read the account, he was quite respectful and careful of how he asked God for mercy for others. Moses did the same thing. It is one thing to go before God and speak his promises back to him and be honest before him. It is another to demand of him. Thankfully, he is merciful and loving.
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Chas and StuBob: Sorry for the delay in replying, this thread got very very long in a short time.
I agree we need short term solutions, though I would agree with despoiling the wilderness only as a last resort, but ok, let’s do what we need to do for short term relief.
But let’s also recognize that it’s only temporary relief, and let’s spend the money NOW to develop the alternative that, as Chas points out, doesn’t exist today … so that when the time comes that our temporary relief runs out and there is no more chance for a respite, we do have options.
Had we started doing that in 1980, we very possibly would not need oil at all any more, or at least much less of it.
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Kimberly 42 -
Yeah, that’s me. But it is more than that, see my blurb in Meet the Regulars. And this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amphipolis
Socrates fought at Amphipolis. My gravatar is from the Lion of Amphipolis.
Your name is from the famous siege in the Boer War, right?
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The Department of Energy yesterday released a long awaited report. It reports if drilling in ANWR were approved this year it would 10 years before oil begins flowing in the pipeline, and it would reduce crude prices by $0.75 a barrell. With crude prices over $130 a barrel, that is a pretty tiny benefit.
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Godlumps,
Sounds like they want to give a negative report. I don’t believe it, however, and I’m looking for a citizen demand to begin. I’ll join it.
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