OT: Gasoline Cost in Europe

Well, hell, if the sky is falling, and there's nothing we can do about it short of slapping every person on the planet into shackles, and we're all going to die, it definitely sounds like party time!

Cheers! Rich

--
Nope.  They wander in whether you\'re aware of it or not, and your
body kills \'em if it doesn\'t like \'em.

As soon as you demonstrate that the immune system has a consciousness capable of 'liking' or not 'liking' anything and able to comprehend ethics and morality you might have a point.

Since most of this "alternate fuel" stuff is driven by the environmental cult I think it is a valid question.

Nope, there were two refineries involved in a gas war, and they were both close to the base.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

If you are talking about that kind of thing, you could have got some gas for 99 cents a gallon here last week as part of a radio station promotion

be

3 miles is easy for me. But I wasn't suggesting anyone, but John do the walking. He was the one that was dictating what was and was not a proper car for others to own. The hypocrisy was that he can afford to drive what ever he wants, irrespective of the cost of gas... and he intends to do just that.

-Chuck

would be

I'm dictating nothing. I just expressed my opinion that SUVs and monster trucks are stupid, hideous, and dangerous, and some day soon won't be affordable to many people, which is fine with me.

I drive a 1993 Golf, and by paying cash for small cars, and keeping them for lots of years each, I've saved so much money on cars, gas, and insurance that I can survive $10 gas for the rest of my life. People with $70K worth of loans on a couple of 3-ton uglies that gobble $1000/month in gas won't be as fortunate.

John

Theory and reality are usually two entirely different things and those numbers, shocking as they may be, are only one little piece of the equation.

For one, they say nothing about how much energy it would *cost* to cultivate, harvest, and transport the crop to what, considering the vast area involved, would likely need to be thousands of processing facilities and even if you got past the NIMBY crowd a few thousand times over to build them you'll soon discover the "taking food from the mouths of babies" group.

Be a real bummer to discover it took twice as much fuel to make what you ended up with.

This went on for several months, and was still that price when I was transferred to Alaska where it was almost $2 a gallon. Talk about sticker shock! I was glad I flew to Alaska, rather than drive there in my '66 GTO. I only drove a couple times the year that I was there, and only in military vehicles.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

You're driving a VW Rabbit, and you're telling SUV drivers that their cars are unsafe! WOW!

I'm beginning to understand your ranting against SUV's. Like rabbits everywhere, VW Rabbits are prey. The Rabbit is one of the few cars I have ever driven that had to worry about survivability in a bicycle, or motorcycle crash ;-)

-Chuck

OBTW, I always pay cash for cars, except when credit is cheaper than cash. I typically keep a car for more than 20 years.

--- The immune system is entirely capable of self-destructing, and sometimes does, taking its "owner" with it. Most of the time it doesn't, though, and fends off organisms that would tend to make its owner sick by killing them.

To me that indicates that the system can at least differentiate between that which won't hurt its owner (and itself) and that which will. By knowing the difference between the innocuous and the threatening organisms and killing the threatening organism I'd have to say that the system had the capability of being able to differentiate the two and a consciousness capable of liking one and not the other, since it kills the one it doesn't like. The ethics and morality of the issue are that it kills what's bad and leaves what's good alone. Or even helps it along.

-- John Fields Professional Circuit Designer

It's really not that simple, sometimes the immune system attacks "self" as with autoimmune disease and then you have problems. Autoimmunity has a myriad of causes and itself occurs in various degrees of severity. It can be caused by artificial external stimulus as suspected with breast implants, some kinds of chemicals, and known vaccine adjuvants as implicated in that sabotaged anthrax vaccine from first Gulf War ( squalene). More common, but lesser known, it can be initiated by bacterial infections. Chlamydia has been implicated in inducing antibody and lymphocyte response that coincidentally attacks heart valve tissue causing permanent and eventually fatal damage. It is known that the body is continually producing progenitor immune defense blood cells in large amounts that must be processed by the thymus before release into general circulation, and this process although not well-known is extremely inefficient in that the thymus kills an estimated 98% of these cells because they will attack "self." It is quite possible to genetically engineer viable pathogens that will induce autoimmune death quickly and finally.

If my car is hit by an SUV, I'm more likely to be injured or killed than if it were hit by a passenger car, partly because of the mass difference but more because of the SUV's bumper height. The occupant of the SUV that hits me is no safer than if he were driving a car, because of the huge rollover risk; quadraplegia isn't much fun, I hear. So SUV drivers increase the likelihood of killing others without any real benefit to themselves. Let's hope for $15 gas.

It's not a Rabbit, it's a 2-liter Golf. And I don't allow SUVs to hit it, even though they try. It's quick, it's tight, it goes where I point it, and it's fun to slam around and nicely controllable with the brakes locked, or in a slide. It shifts and steers like the German thing it is and it won't roll unless you drive it off a cliff. The great majority of SUVs are cheap pickup frames with an extra ton or so of tacky metal and plastic-fake-walnut-burl hung on *way* above the roll center.

I didn't learn how to drive in a Chevy.

OBTW, I always let my company pay for my cars, their gas, and their maintenance. I could drive a grotesque pimpmo-barge if I wanted to.

John

If the SUV driver is wearing a seatbelt the "rollover risk" is no greater than on a carnival ride. I have been on that "ride" myself

It wasn't even particularly exciting. The worst part was all the dirt on the floor was raining down on me and I was dodging the cargo.

Wow, the seatbelts keep the SUV upright? How do they do that?

If it wasn't an SUV, it would be a truck, or a bus, or a bridge. Because you choose to drive in a little roller skate, you are putting yourself at risk. Stop blaming those around you for your decision.

The occupant

That is just crapola! If the occupant is wearing his belts, he is very safe. The added mass, and increased body circumference slows down the rotary motions that are possible in a rollover. In your rabbit, your worst nightmare is the Jersey barriers that are put along the roads to "protect" you. I have seen sleepy drivers flip those little buggers over 5 and 6 times when they dozed off, and ran up the barrier at 65MPH. You ain't seen nuttin' until you have seen how fast they will flip when they do that!

quadraplegia isn't much fun, I

$15 gas will throw the US economy directly into a depression. That is quite a thing to wish for.

Sure it is! VW got rid of the Rabbit name towards the end of the '80s, and christened the car the Golf. But it is still the Rabbit. I heard that they are planning to change the Golf name back to Rabbit... but I cannot imagine why they would do that.

And I don't allow SUVs to hit

Ah yes, the BMW mentality. You still think that your fate entirely hinges on your ability to out think/drive/maneuver the other guy. But that is true only a small part of the time. Most of the time it is the luck of not being at the wrong place at the wrong time. A dozen people died just the other day when a gasoline tanker truck crashed on an over- head bridge, and dropped itself, and its flaming contents onto the innocent victims on the road below. The tanker was believed to be dodging a little bitty car that cut him off and drove away.

I missed "buying it" by less than a second when I passed through a very green light, just seconds before a speeding dump truck ran the opposing red light. Because of the way the intersection was constructed, he wasn't visible to me. I could feel the rear of my car buffet from the wake of his passing. The light was still green when I had cleared the intersection. There is no car in the world that would have saved me from that fate.

The

You are mistaking GVWR for empty weight. The SUV's have high GVWR's because they have truck frames, and truck axles. But their empty weights are generally 1/2, or less, the GVWR.

So?

I used to do the same, but I found that any benefit my company got in taxes was overshadowed by what the state charged it in personal property tax. It is a bunch cheaper for me and my company if I buy my own stuff.

-Chuck

Cool experience, as long as you weren't hurt. What were you driving? How'd it happen? I'd bet a paint can or two might smart some.

The only thing I've ever rolled was motorcycles. But lots of times.

John

So you may as well drive something that handles.

John