As a former gas station owner, I can tell you that the raise in price yesterday was a rip off. What the owners had in the ground yesterday was purchased at a lower price. When they run out and have to refill, then the raise in price MIGHT be justified.

Is it time to FINALLY start buying smaller cars as in Europe?

Is it time to shrug off the tree huggers and start drilling for oil in this country?

Every week when my little neighborhood station gets its shipment, the price changes. (Mostly up lately, unfortunately). It doesn't make sense that the stations changed their prices within no time at all after this crisis occurred in NOLA. Did they all get a shipment at exactly the same time? Wiseguy is so right on this one.

$4.99 a gallon in High Point, NC at noon today.
The Attorney General (wishing to be governor) announced that citizens should report any price gouging. "That's illegal" he cried as the cameras ran. Wait, does he have a spare minute to tell us how to recognize gouging as opposed to normal profiteering? Any teams investigating? Has he bothered to read the statute and see the one to which he refers only applies if the Governor has declared a state of emergency Just venting, folks.

wiseguy:
"Is it time to FINALLY start buying smaller cars as in Europe?

Is it time to shrug off the tree huggers and start drilling for oil in this country?"

Yes to both. Hmmm... does that make me a moderate?

I think this is a good wake up call for a gas reliant nation. Today walking down the street I saw a man leave his new Buick idling as he stood on a porch to converse with someone for 10 minutes and let's not even start talking about the fuel-ishly inefficent SUV's, Hummers etc....I'm all for Smart Cars like they have in Europe but right now am afraid of being creamed by some cellphone talking mom with a Starbucks coffee in the other hand and a screaming child in the back seat.

I think if we had listened to the tree huggers, we wouldn't be looking at this gas crisis. Bush reduced funding for the levees, since he thought a Cat 4 or 5 storm was unlikely in that region.

Environmentalists and scientists said that because of global warming, they are much more likely. He shrugged off the scientists an said global warming does not exist. So the levees weren't reinforced, they failed, and now we're short of gas.

By the way, the money saved was used for Iraq.

"...Pay for what you value and Value what you pay for..."
Medical care may be next.

Much of MX may be 2nd or 3rd World, but "none" of the Central Mexicanos (including the drug dealers and corrupt politicians) would behave, in the face of a regional catastrophe, like the Barbarian hoards in the SE US we are seeing on international Sat/Cable TV.
Fifth world? Maybe. Check the prison populations. They are there for a VG reason.
Hope y'all bought some energy stocks on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Vayan con Dios, mis amigos.
M

If you think you're being gouged save your gas receipts (that paying with cash stuff is nonsense!). The governor of Michigan is encouraging people to do this so the gougers can be prosecuted when things settle down.

allovereurope: I would like to see your source for that comment about Bush and the levies and his reasoning. I think you are full of it, but give me a reliable source and I'll apologize.

There is absolutely no way for us to know if the current warming trend is meaningful in any way. The time we have been measuring temps is a drop in the ocean compared to the history of the earth. It's hilarious that people have begun to take the global warming theories as fact. Maybe humans are causing the earth to warm, and maybe we're not. Too soon to tell.

Should we rein in our over-comsumption? Sure. I'm certainly sick of seeing huge gas guzzling SUVs with Sierra Club stickers on them. Should we run around blaming global warming for everything from hurricanes to asthma and talk about how wind and solar power could run the world if not for evil politicians? No, that would just make us look like fatuous, head-in-the-sand morons.

It was on Salon.com go to the site, get a free sitepass, it's all there. Granted, they do love to rip up Bush on that site. But its considered reputable, as far as I know.

Whoops---here is the link.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blument...ion/index.html

I don't post information on these forums unless I've either been to a place or read or researched something myself. I'm not full of it.

Thanks for the site, all over europe. For months, my husband has been telling me what a great site it is. It has some wonderful information, not just the rants and raves of so many.

Also from salon

The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.

Allovereurope - I would hardly call Sidney Blumenthal a reputable source. His anti-Bush agenda is as obvious as Ann Coulter's anti-Clinton bias. I'm skeptical of ANY left or right wing organization that claims to know the truth.

New Orleans has been a disaster waiting to happen for decades. A scientist with the National Hurricane Center was on television a few days ago and said that Katrina was just part of the normal hurricane cycle. According to him, hurricanes cycles fluctuate year to year. I'm much more willing to consider a scientific opinion than commentary by someone trying to push a political agenda.

I think the most important agenda at the moment is to pitch in - donate money, cut back on gas consumption, volunteer - do something productive rather than point fingers and blame.

Delerious -- great name! Read the rules -- no posting copyrighted material. What a load of drivel anyway.

Ironically, in the Sept. 11, 2001 edition of POPULAR MECHANICS, a man named Jim Wilson authored an article which explained what might happen to New Orleans if hit by a hurricane of Katrina's strength. Of course, the article was swept away by the sensational events of that day and forgotten- until now.

Oops sorry! I'm delirous so I can't be held responsible!!!!!!

I apologize in advance. But I have nowhere to vent!!! I just saw on tv a big navy ship leaving Va. to help the hurricane victims. It'll take 5 or 6 days to get there...Why on earth is everything taking so long???

On Sunday, while watching CNN, I said to my husband, why on earth aren't there buses and cargo planes in there evacuating people now? Am I the only one who thought that?

Where is our government????

I read someones earlier post about the gas being $4.99 a gallon in High Point, NC. That's just too much. Sounds like our gas is going to be elevated like the European gas prices.

How about this person's qualifications (as quoted in the New York Times, which I believe is considered a reputable source):

In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Waiting for my apology....