maybe GBBob and Sniper can just mail me gas cards :D :p then I dont have to steal.

It's more directed at all the lazy asses in my neighborhood who drive their kids 5 blocks to school every day, sit and idle waiting to drop them off and then do it all over again each afternoon. 180 school days a year..and no, they aren't on their way to work or anything...just drive back home.

i agree with you on this (except during winter up there I'd rather drive and idle)... though a year ago I did live a 7 minute walk from work and drove there... BUT.. I just couldnt justify waking up 5 minutes earlier than I already have to, and being sweaty and smelly after just taking a shower. mostly is was the waking up 5 minutes early thing though.

I'm not narrow minded enough to say that a blanket approach works for everyone, but in areas like Chicago land, where there are trains, buses, cabs etc going everywhere, it's incredible how little they are utilized compared to...and I'll say it..other countries. American's Love THEIR automobiles..There is no denying that.

I'm sure there are other areas of Chicago that properly utlilize public transportation quite effectively. Like Roseland, Englewood, North Lawndale, etc.

I havent been to every city out there but you are right except for NYC.. they know how to use the subway alright. Joey (ateam) is a grown man and never had driven anything until the golf cart two years ago LOL!!

I lived in Limerick, Ireland and a lot of us used the bus to get to town from campus but it is college. I never had a car the 4 years i was at the U of A (which probably saved me from becoming a beached whale... I already have way too many extra pounds but the amount i drank in college I'd probably have weighted 300 if it wasnt for walking 3 miles every day).

Outside of college town, everyone in Ireland seemed to have/use a car, but its so different there population wise compared to here (& nobody drives much when their ass is parked on a bar stool all day and night - er, well till "half twelve" when all the bars close) & I didnt spend enough time in Dublin and other large cities to really be able to answer this.

I lived in Christchurch, NZ (big city there - but nothing like US cities) & they had a GREAT bus system... but I only knew one person who used it LOL... everyone has and uses there car their and there are as many car dealerships in Christchurch as there are pubs in Ireland..

I lived in Mongolia once and used Yaks for transportation but they have since killed all of them because they were shooting too much Carbon dioxide out of their "tail pipes". The Mongolians are very concerned about global warming.

I heard that the hole in the O-zone is above new zealand because of all the damn sheep that fart/poo. LOL

If we figured out how to contain our rear-ends and all the animal's rear-ends out there, we may solve global warming!

all well and good where it's available.


also, we won't pump more of our own oil-setting up to pump our own is a huge expense, and the oil co's don't exactly see a reason to put out that kind of money when so many are pushing alternative fuels-they'd never recoup their investment.

as far as opec cutting their price-yeah, right. it's the one commodity in the middle east-without oil, they're nothing and they're broke.

Here we have hundreds of homes (new subdivisions) within a half mile of the brand new middle and elementary schools. But there are no sidewalks or safe crossings with police or crossing guards. The kids literally can't walk the two blocks to school. Yup - car after car sitting idling, twice a day ... It's sad.

Government is government either way .

I respectfully agree. 1000% right on.

We are all old. they do have a class on this stuff. It is called "personal finance" or some derivation of that.

cud chewing animals fart methane, not carbon dioxide.

both act as heat traps in the atmosphere and we're all used to sloppy science from the right but you don't really want to top off lame jokes with factual inaccuracies as punch lines.

I thought it was junior high school math :D

Sorry for the humor elitist. Naturally you having family members that chew cud and resemble Yaks makes you far more knowledgable about them than I.

I think a large problem with the deficit was fighting multi-multi billion dollar wars across the planet while trying to pay for it by cutting taxes massively for the wealthiest Americans. There is a bit of a disconnect with logic there. Of course these wars were also never included in the budget of the previous administration, so it was all very magical. Somehow the ultra-conservatives never have discovered that the combination of mega-expensive military excursions across the globe and massive tax cuts for the rich is actually deficit spending to the extreme...and creating deficits to the extreme...and also extremely un-patriotic. If this war on terror was so brilliantly important, all Americans should be taking part in it...not just the military. The last administration, did not think this however. Again, they felt the best way to pay for the war on terror was gigantic tax cuts for the wealthy. Yes, it all makes perfect sense??? Of course, the current administration is no better, but I'm unclear as to how the conservatives all of a sudden magically care about deficit spending. That is after all...their clear calling card...deficit spending as a cure to everything until they are no longer in charge...then it magically becomes very bad.

(ummm...like it or not,tax cuts are deficit spending.)

We're screwed regardless of who is running things. they're idiots...the entire lot of them.

so they're trying to ram this 1.5+ trillion bill, and they plan on destroying the business class in this country by taxing the wealthy and gaining 500bill in 10yrs! What is wrong with this picture???

The national debt went from about $5.8 Trillion to $10+ trillion in the Bush years (GW - I won't even go into the Reagan/Bush(GHW) years)).. and that's when the economy was in relatively good shape. Obama was handed a ****-storm by the outgoing White House admin.

What's the reason for the massive spending deficit under G-W?