KaskadskyjKozak

Maybe she's just trying to inspire women to try things they would otherwise not even consider?

Hmm, I guess you disagree with cj001f and the link he posted. My car gets 24 m/gal on the freeway AND it is paid off. I am not going to sell it to buy a new car (new debt that I can not afford) or a used car, whose history I know nothing about (I'm the only owner and I've performed all the recommended maintenance). I also have no access to reasonable public transport (i.e. that doesn't take much longer with about the same expense). I can't afford to move closer to work, and I can't find a job closer to home. If the government chooses to raise gas taxes, I will have to reallocate other parts of my budget to cover it. Many people find themselves in similar circumstances.

It could be, if the US chose to go that way. IMO, that is the case in Europe. I was more arguing against using gas taxes for this purpose, than stating that they are used this way in the US today. In the US, state and local governments raise gas taxes more to increase revenues than control people's behavior. And they do this incrementally over time, always increasing them. Since gas taxes are just one more tax, they tend to get swallowed up in the overall picture (aggregate total of taxes), and people fail to realize that they are being "nickel and dimed" to death. What makes gas taxes insidious is that people can rarely avoid them. Indeed, many choose not to. It's been a while since I took economics but there is a name for items that government can raise taxes on without affecting people's behavior much (e.g. tobacco, alcohol). These are freebies for them - raise taxes, comsumption will not drop, revenues increase. On the other hand, I think our state and local governments in Seattle ARE attempting to socially engineer behaviour by refusing to solve problems with traffic and congestion in our state. They refuse to improve the freeway system, and, despite hundreds of millions that have been pumped into voter-approved mass transit initiatives, we have little to show for our money. One wonders exactly what the gas tax money is spent on, yet alone the voter approved taxes. One really wonders, when you see an on-ramp being worked on by a work crew for 9 months (no kidding) before it is actually completed. They must be paid by the hour...

Nah, just the gas will be enough. Nope, you are still getting out - proof that the gas taxes are not working. Climbing gear is a luxury item, like boats, it needs to be taxed as such. The best way to cut the excessive waste of climbers going into the mountains is to tax them out of this habit. Ditto for skiiers, snowmobilers, and all outdoor enthusiasts who use the roads to get to their destination of choice.

Never heard of speck... I'll have to double-check with a native speaker. Russians wash down everything with vodka...

Yep, and we should start by cutting all trips to the mountains. Climbing causes pollution to the environment, and we impact nature just be entering it. Leave no Trace, right. Don't go in the first place. I propose we tax all climbing gear with a 500% luxury tax. That would be a good start.

That does not refute my point; a lot of unflattering stuff was left in.

Americans typically do not save enough, or manage their finances responsible. In terms of gasoline usage/prices they don't change their habits, but still suffer the costs. Gas is more expensive in other countries because they add ridiculous taxes to the price. In WA we pay something like $.28 per gallon, in Europe they pay as much as 3-4 times what we pay in total - because of the taxation. I reject the notion that social engineers have a right to change my life in such a drastic way by applying draconian taxes to fuel - something which I can not live without. Perhaps government should tax drinking water at $2-3 per gallon, or raise electricity taxes by ten-fold as well? After all, the (over)use of water and electricity affect the environment in huge ways. Gee, how would that affect the lives of ordinary people? The social engineers don't care.

I think the average this year was more like $1.90, not $1.80. So make that $300 a year. Multiply that by two for a typical two-car household. Maybe $600 doesn't mean squat to you, but for people making tough day to day decisions about their budget and savings, $600 a year is significant.

One thing that has always has impressed me about the Bible is how it shows the good and the bad, no pulling punches. Just think how easy it would have been to edit-out these less-than-flattering stories. Consider the story of Exodus where the freed slaves continually gripe and moan about how life was better as slaves, fall back into idolatory, and so on.

The best container for hydrogen is an enormous dirigible, decorated with large swastikas.

You mean "salo" - the Ukrainian snicker's bar (imagine a chunk of bacon - just the white part).

This is an internet forum not a review board for an academic journal or doctoral thesis. Where do we get these trends? Well, from what we read, or hear about from news reports, documentaries, and so on. Where do you get your information? Europe has a deep-dependency on nuclear energy. As I recall, France is the most dependent. As JayB suggests, a simple Google search will get you specific statistics. You'll find that many countries' dependency far exceeds the paltry 20% found in the US. In recent years, several European countries have moved towards eliminating most (or all) dependency on nuclear energy within the next 10-20 years. Now, however, as the day of implementation nears, and questions arise of the economic impact as well as the effects on increasing pollution and green-house gas emissions, many are questioning these decisions.

It seems to me that most people who are secularist, atheist, or anti-religious define Christianity and other religions to be whatever allows them to most conveniently attack it. What a joke. So if you are NOT a Chrisitian, you are more moral, more ethical, and more consistent in your implementation. I will not claim that Christians are intrinsically better people than anybody else - that would be ridiculuous. Just as is your claim. And again I point out how easy it is to succeed with lower standards, and how easy it is to overlook the faults of your "friend" (he who agrees with your philosophical and moral worldview) as opposed to your "enemy" (he who does not). You utterly misunderstand and misrepresent the conservative viewpoint. Conservatives believe that it is not the ROLE of government to be in the business of providing social services to the populace. Fiscal conservatives and libertarians further argue that said services are often inefficient, wasteful, corrupt (with little accountability and oversight), and have a sole purpose of buying votes and shoring up POWER in a big government. All Americans are in general very generous people - whether they are Christian or not, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. A primary differentiation between the latter are that conservatives prefer to donate to private charities and churches, liberals prefer to implement charities through the public coffers of government.

We have a long way to go before gas prices are "ridiculously low". I've seen local prices between $1.80 / gal up to over $2.00 / gal. I think a drop to an average of around $1.60 would have a reasonable impact on people's pocketbooks without causing exorbitant (over)usage ("inefficiencies"). I am *for* regularly raising cafe standards on fuel efficiency. Definitely a good thing, because it puts a pressure to innovate where it is needed. Adding tax breaks or other economic incentives is worthwhile as well.

To add to the irony, the same people that continually harp on how we need to look to the "enlightened" industrialized nations of Europe (like France) for answers on how to live better, conveniently ignore from where these countries derive the majority of their energy...

Rising oil prices is a very bad thing. People who have to commute with little option otherwise suffer because of it. Alternative energy sources are a good thing, and a cohesive, proactive energy policy that encourages and rewards R&D in this realm would be even better (including tax breaks and other forms of corporate welfare if that is what it takes). I am optimistic about hybrid cars. The ones out there seem to be decent with little negatives, and I see the technology as only getting better.

"Payback is a bitch!"

That's been tried before, Adolf. And lest one still question which side of this debate is truly *evil*...

How many 'yahoos' here do you think will actually catch your reference to "A Modest Proposal"??

funny I thought the lefties loved to eat babies... err embryos.

conveniently applying a few empirical anecdotes to broadbrush stroke 'the right' with such a disgusting comment is demonization

OK, I can respect that then. I take back my previous post.

when all else fails: demonize sorry, no dice