Glad you're back, Yak!

I never heard anything aobut the US selling weapons.

Castro tried to send all his criminals over to the US. And we have a base there in Cuba. We're hardly invading. We have soldiers that LIVE there.

What needs to happen is we need to find a way to make all oil in the world go away... then everyone would be FORCED to find alternatives, and then everyone would stop fighting under false pretenses when its ALL REALLY ABOUT OIL!

DOWN WITH OIL!!!!

In the end, people like me are getting screwed daily. I am up to 50% of my wages going into the tank of my vehicles. Think about that a while guys whenever you pull up to the gas pump. Try to imagine half of everything you earn going into that tank.

I am not talking net here, this is gross income. It cost me 430 bucks worth of diesel and 100 dollars in gas to make a 1,000 mile run last week. Thats not a typical week, but it is indicative of them. The run paid $820.00.

After I got home and tallied it up I made about 250 bucks. Food on the road is essential too.

If fuels do not get back down to around 2 bucks a gallon, I will fold.

My point wasn't that its worse or better than anywhere else on the globe. My point is, putting 1/2 of your total income into a fuel tank.

I am aware that fuel is higher in places. I am also aware that I am not living there so the people who live there will have to complain for themselves.

What makes me cry is driving across this country and seeing millions of acres of fallow ground. A country as advanced as ours shouldn't have an Achilles heel like fossil fuels. We can grow enough fuel crops to supply the whole globe and we don't.

Many have argued that growing fuel isn't profitable right now. Well thats prolly true, especially if the fossil fuel industry has its way of making it so. The only way we are going to get profitable is by having a reason to do so.

At 70 bucks a barrel, I see no reason to invest into a science that will decrease that barrels worth.

f**k, if I had a cash cow like that, I prolly would milk it for all its worth too.

Sadly, America's mindset won't allow for alternatives to be created. When you see that SUV's out number economy cars by prolly well over 3 to 1, why bother? Most, prolly 90% of those SUV's are driven by single occupancies too. It gets old seeing this gigantic monster being driven by some of the most incapable drivers in the world but, as far as seeing it end any time soon, I doubt it. America will cry but as long as the mindset remains "I worked for it, I deserve it" no amount of idealism will ever change.

SUV's are the #1 reason for the consumer level problem and until they figure out a way of either making them more efficient, OR making them less desirable to own, that monster is here to stay.

My opinion is, if you want that gas guzzler, thats fine, but don't make me pay for its fuel consumption. All gas prices should be set by the cars efficiency rating. If a car gets 50 MPG, you pay less than a car that gets 15 MPG.

In this way when mister SUV pulls up to the pump and pays 3 bucks, and I am beside him paying 1.25 he'll get the picture.

SnarkSephiroth: cool. I sure hope so.

Andrei: Who decides what conflicts "might extend over the years?" Who decides what conflicts the US should get involved in? Well, the US does. Any country who can, should or will get involved in conflicts like taht should decide for themselves which ones they enter. Any country that does, needs to make sure there are some advantages to it. The USA cannot support the rest of the world in any way. We're already losing money in just about every way possible. I just wish that we'd go Isolationist again. For many reasons. Among them, I want to see how the rest of the world handles stuff without the US, and I just want things to be good here again. Everything is so expensive and nobody has any money...