Cars. This is why we are at war. Not oil, but CARS.

We love our cars. A new cartoon movie called cars is the latest rage. The cars talk and act like people, we identify so closely with our cars that they've become our alter egos. We must have the newest model, every year, to drive a car over a year old is almost a sin. Millions of cars. Our whole society is built around cars.

We are at war over cars. Our cars run on gas and oil, although we could EASILY come up with cars that run on clean fuels, but our big oil company elected leaders, (cough cough) keep us at war. We will hunt down every last drop of black oil, rather than try a new way.

Imagine America without cars. You can't. I love cars too, but I KNOW we can make them run on something besides black poison that we're running out of.

We are now prepared to war with the whole fucking world because we just LOVE OUR CARS.

favorites list this morning?

Seriously though, their performance team is the coolest thing ever. In my opinion, Saabs are also the best cars ever. I love my Saab.

...the only company (AFAIK) with an ethanol-fueled hybrid in the production pipeline (no gas = no blood for oil). Still a couple of years off yet, though.

Their AeroX concept car is just about the coolest fucking thing ever though. http://www2.saabusa.com/aerox/US/en/index.asp

I still averaged a good 30mpg on my Saab, which isn't too bad for a 210hp turbo.

:evilgrin:

Used to have a 900 many years ago (kosher, pre-GM version :)). Ran like a dream, once you remembered how to find the ignition... :D

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x48057

Some brain food. :)

Yes, we love our cars, but if those same vehicles would have been produced powered by efficient biodiesel hybrids, fuel cell, electric, or some other non-Petroleum based technology, are you saying we wouldn't love them just as much?

It is OIL, pure and simple--in a so-called democracy that worships at the feet of Corporate America--particularly the OIL industry.

You are at war for money, greed and power. It is what all wars come down to.

But yes, I hear ya.

we love THAT too. I would probably personally go to war to protect my air conditioning.

After a while, your're taking about a whole life based on oil. And being in an air conditioned environment also fills the air with poison, just like the cars.

winters are quite cold and oil is the fuel that heats our apartments and many homes.

I do none of those things. But I live in Florida. Don't take my air conditioning!

Seriously, it is not just the heat. Heat I can deal with. But without AC down here (and I've lived without it) the mold is unbelievable. And the bugs. (They don't live long in the AC) We average about 95 in the summer with very high humidity.

Without AC I'd head back to NJ. I couldn't do it anymore.

You don't know what real heat and humidity is until you have lived in South Florida. I lived there most of my life until I wised up and moved to No. Georgia. Heat, humidity and bugs are bad here also, but only for about 3 months.

so we get pretty muggy. I think So. FL endures it a bit longer, but probably not much worse. Our awful season is June, July, August and most of September. Usually one day in October we go outside and it is only 65 and it feels so chilly!

But we get to garden all year. This summer I'm working on staying outside a bit more in the shade rather than holing up in the house.

I will say, however, that the hottest I have ever been in my life was in Miami. But that was before I moved to Talla, so maybe I just wasn't used to it. When you walk outside in the summer here, it is like walking into a huge brick wall of muck and muggy and heat.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13718.htm

I don't know that Timor and other Indonesian islands are "virgin" sources of oil, but apparently they are previously untapped petroleum-rich regions that Australia is "helping out" while having its eye on in what the author refers to as a reach for "empire" (based on oil) with assistance from the U.S.

No wonder Rupert Murdoch owns so much American media. He has helped control the news that the GOP wanted spread and squelched the news that would make the public rise up in outrage. And now, for thanks, the U.S. is helping Murdoch (oops, I mean Australia) gain control of these oil-laden islands.

Australia and America are engaging in government-changing activities in Timor and the region by swift-boating the current head of government (who was democratically elected) and trying to place an ameniable puppet in his place.

I live in Michigan.

The bushies see cars as machines to burn
their oil.

They protect energy companies.
They protect drug companies.
They protect military-related companies.

They are KILLING the car companies.
The auto industry is NOT being protected
by these goons.

If the big auto companies sink, the bushies
will have won their war on unions, collective
bargaining, and the middle class.

This blue state is being PUNISHED
by BushCo.

I don't know if Toyota is a union company, but I don't think
they are.

The automakers don't have the same
license to steal that the pharmas
and the energy companies have.

They are not allowed to write their
own legislation.

WE didn't go to war. BUSH went to war. WE were not prepared to go to war over cars. WE are not making the profits.

It was Bush. You know, that guy who comes from an oil company. The guy who helped kill the electric car. We could love our cars if they were electric. And that was starting to happen. But they've all been crushed now. And Bush helped do it.

There's a new documentary coming out called "Who killed the electric car?" Watch out for it. If oil companies are investing in new avenues of energy it's only so they can kill it or make sure they have a piece of the pie first.

Put the blame where it belongs.

It's nothing new. They've had actual super carburators for years too, but most think it's a myth.

More appropriately, we love engines, the bigger the better, they go vroom, vroom, and make our dicks hard and (we think) bigger.

We love flashing lights too.

We also are very fond of shiny objects, the way they glint in the sun.

Caw, Caw.

I thought it was all my fault...

The ads are constant. I watch TV only intermittently, and I'm always shocked to see the amount of car commercials -- and the recent bout of car commercials are about 'loving' your car. The one, I think it's a Lexus ad, where the automated robot system is carressing the car is almost sexual.

there's nothing wrong with cars- the problem is the internal combustion engine that powers so many of them.

(it really IS about the oil)

if you think that cars are ever going to go away- especially in this country, then you are definitely and sadly deluded.

I wish there was a trolleybus/tram system that would interconnect with all towns and cities. Rural areas od course are tricky.

now.

My son loved it too. Course, now my wife got him Cars shoes, Cars shirts etc... Damn marketing lol

It's industry brain washing to say we love our cars. Most people consider them a necessary evil. I hate them. If people really loved cars, they'd love other peoples' cars the way I love other peoples' bikes.

We have built a sick environment where cars are necessary. Millions of Americans live in densely populated places where it is impossible to walk or cycle anywhere and there is no public transportation.

But this did not happen by itself. It was a deliberate planning decision by urban planners who were in the pocket of the auto companies.

In cities with pedestrian-oriented layouts (foreign cities and most older U.S. cities) and good transit, a car can actually be more trouble than it is worth.

I'm in Tokyo right now, and it's early morning. Today I'll be visiting three clients in three separate parts of one of the largest, most sprawling cities in the world, and I'm going to do it all on a combination of subways and shoe leather.

The area where I'm staying has (within walking distance of the hotel) three subway lines, city buses, neighborhood circulator buses that fill in the gaps between the city bus lines, and a suburban/exurban rail line that is owned by a department store and terminates in their basement. I'm a couple of subway stops away from Ueno Station, one of Tokyo's four intercity stations. Taxis cruise in flocks.

The vehicles that exist are smaller than their American counterparts. Scooters are popular, as are bicycles.

Some people do drive. I have no idea why anyone does so in Tokyo, since parking is expensive ($2.00 per half hour), gasoline is $5 a gallon, the streets are crowded, and no one is allowed to license a car without proof of permanent off-street parking.

The other day I had to visit a client in a bit of suburban sprawl (Shin-Fuji) halfway between Nagoya and Tokyo. The area is accessible by Shinkansen bullet train, but once you get off, you're in a car-dependent suburban-sprawl hell, smoggy (much more so than the city) and ugly (much more so than the city).

But note, even that blight on the landscape has Shinkansen service to Tokyo and Osaka every thirty minutes, all day, every day.

Yeah, we Americans "love" our cars.

Would we "love" them so much if we had alternatives?

Would a diver "love" air tanks if he had to wear them on land?

P.S. I hate cars, too. Having to get a car was the biggest downside of moving from Portland to Minneapolis. If we could graft Portland's vision for transportation onto the Twin Cities, I'd be delighted.