Re: E-85

rexim and FMD - Both of you have cause and effect turned around, though in quite different ways.

rexim said: "Our government built the roads that created the demand for gasoline in the first place and over which the petroleum products are transported to that market."

Not quite. The demand for gasoline existed before Otto and Diesel invented their petroleum-powered engines, which in turn enabled practical automobiles and airplanes, which increased and expanded the demand. The roads were built in response first to an intense campaign by the predecessor of the American Automobile Association demanding a nationwide road system and better roads for the increasing number of private automobiles (roads at the turn of the 19th-20th Centuries were frequently mudholes that cars could hardly get through), with the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System being built post-WWII (championed by Eisenhower for national defense) basically as a copy of the Hitler autobahns, which Hitler promoted as a means of rapid transport for the Wehrmacht and blitzkreig. "Easy" commuting in the privacy of your own car allowed the spread of suburbs, which increased the demand for extended roads and freeways, which fed back to more suburbs, and so on in a still-continuing infinite loop (an amazing number of people in my part of the world commute daily from the Central Valley into San Francisco and Silicon Valley, 2 hours and 60-100 miles each way). To repeat, the roads were built in response to the demand and perceived need for "better" roads, which enabled the suburbs, which allowed the increased use of cars (and resulting increase in fossil fuel consumption), which further increased the demand for an expanded road system, which allows more use of cars, and so on and so on and ... To say the "the roads that created the demand for gasoline in the first place" is quite inaccurate.

Which talks to FMD's comment about "Without a car, how are ya going to get to work" - at this point in history, yeah, many people are stuck without a car. Although, there are daily bus service commutes from places like Stockton and Merced into San Jose and Cupertino, plus a train service. Despite the availability of the mass transport, the majority choose to drive one person per car. Still, when I was still working, a large fraction of the people working in the Stanford Research Park part of Palo Alto (where among others, HP's corporate headquarters is located) walked, bicycled, or rode the bus or CalTrain to work. Both Barb and I bicycled almost every day (on the day of the Loma Prieta earthquake, we were able to get home in the usual time of 15 minutes, while those who drove took hours to go the same distance or even less). So the answer to your comment "Without a car, how are ya going to get to work" is bicycle or walk if it is within a couple miles, or carpool or use public transportation. Around here, much of the public transportation is private companies (yeah, capitalism), with some government support (but the government-supported systems like BART and the light rail have to show a profit that goes to pay off the construction bonds bought by mutual funds and pension funds and to pay for extensions of the lines - which again is capitalism).

FMD said "Very Ironic Bill. POGO is also the Project On Goverment Oversight. "

That comment indicates that FMD was probably born after 1970, hence does not know who and what Pogo was. Pogo was the lead character in a long-running comic strip by the late Walt Kelly, a possum who lived in a swamp with other characters who often made ascerbic comments on the world. Pogo inspired such later cartoons as Doonesbury, Dilbert, and others. And for your edification, the name of the Project on Government Oversight was created from using Pogo's name as the acronym and then figuring out the words to make the name. Ya gots cause and effect turned around again - "POGO" the project was named for Pogo, the swamp creature who commented on such things, after Pogo, the comic strip had been around for years.

Sigh! As a certain philosopher several centuries ago said "those who forget history are condemned to repeat it." So we continue down the path followed by so many civilizations before, with the priests and kings failing to recognize that they are repeating the same mistakes again and again.