I grew up in the country and on mountains. I miss the simple living and raw nature. I sometimes feel we have traded a stable and meaningful way of life for slightly longer life and cool gadgets. If it were not for the pollution and trees getting cut down, I would gladly go back to wood stove and fireplace.

I wish I didn't need oil to heat my home, but I do keep the thermostat on 65 in the Winter & the A/C on 78 in the Summer ( I was born in England & can't stand the heat & humidity). My home is only 980 sq ft so I don't use much. It would be nice if I was able to afford solar & wind power, but even if I could, I don't think it would be allowed in my community. The community does use well water & has it's own sewerage treatment plant. I only use my car about 3 times a month & I do compost & recycle as much as possible in this rural area.

When I was raising 4 children I now know I was using way too much energy, but that was before I became educated about the energy problem.

My Mother raised 3 children in England all born between 1943 & 1958 minus the following items: Central heating; A/C; a car; refrigerator; freezer; washing machine; clothes dryer; telephone; television (I was born in '43 & we got TV when I was 10 or 11).

We did not suffer, we had a good life without these amenities, but I'm sure that our Moms had to work harder at home. In order to have a good life today Moms have to go to work to supplement the income & therefore do not have the time or the energy to perform these monumental tasks. Technology has become our Masters instead of our aids. In order to afford the latest Technology the family unit has died.

As a person that was born in 1943 I always said that our children thought they deserved to gain upon adulthood those luxuries that we worked years to obtain, but I'm afraid that our Grandchildren are even worse. As children they expect to be gifted with the latest technological gadgets. There is no mention of having to work to obtain what they desire. This is a disturbing trend which can only lead to disaster.

How can we be assured that our future leaders will have the will to do the work necessary to bring about Peace if they have never been made to really work for anything they wanted. I am saddened by the thought of the future.

Buying American can never be subversive... unless it is to leaders of a global economy. Economics is actually quite simple and very old. It is the dividing up of the spoils of war to get as much as you can that crates the complexity. :)

But weaning ourselves off addiction to leadership is where we probably need to start.

TRH, damn the spies. I am too old to worry about that crap. I just know that one oil supplier in PA has had the balls to only purchase oil from the US & am trying to find out if they deliver in my area. If this is considered subversive, so be it.
Although, how can "buying American" be subversive?????

ahh, but darkforrest, members of our governments are reading this, but we would call them spies, for they are not the members of our government we wish to be reading this. Don't worry though, the lower the approval rating, they more likely they will actually start reading this stuff.

Wouldn't it be nice if members of Governments were actually reading what we have to say. It is hard to say where our voices may be heard, but, hopefully, they will reach some people & in time we may make a difference.

One can't even say that the Corporations are plunderers who share their LOT with the PEOPLE en masse! LOL!
They LOOT the FOREIGN resources,LOOT our US Nations economy to foot the bill.
THEN,they scoop up the profits and HIDE IT IN PERSONAL(CORPORATE)FOREIGN TAX-FREE HAVENS where NONE of the BOOTY even filters through to the OTHER eighty five per cent of the American people who are struggling to stay AFLOAT.
They are not even PHILANTHROPIC LOOTERS!
Even Robin Hood stole from the few CROOKED rich to feed the masses of poor people.
These Corporate CEO crook-creatures STEAL FROM THE MASSES OF POOR PEOPLE and keep it OFF-SHORE in secret banks,for the minority rich!
The biggest problem with the USA is that now these Corporate CROOKS and LOOTERS are actually RUNNING our Government.
It's just a CORPORATE Government serving private corporations WANTS,not needs.
They serve NO USELESS purpose in the Governance of the USA,except to destroy it.
But as long as OUR DESIRE FOR CHEAP foreign gas is greater than the love for our children and neighbours children(troops),the OIL-PUSHEERS have us dangling like cretins.
I WILL HAPPILY PAY MORE for non-fossil fuel,IF IT KEEPS OUR US CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN ALIVE,AND STOPS MURDERING MILLIONS OF FOREIGNERS WHO HAVE DONE NOTHING TO US,except have the natural resources we do NOT!!!
Foreign OIL for ANY INNOCENT BLOOD is not a legal,ethical,moral,spiritual option.
We may as well be filling our gas tanks with BLOOD!

My thoughts are that the American Auto Industry "Giants" have brought about their own demise due to their dependancy on foreign oil. We have oil coming from the Alaska pipeline that is being shipped overseas. How dumb is that!!! Oil from shale is devestating the environment.

Our dependance on foreign petrolium oil, palm oil & other products that are raping the planet is astounding.

As a Country we need to take notice of what the Corporations are doing. I agree that the big Corporations are now much more powerful than most governments because they have the money, but they have less morals.

It is in the best interest of all countries that they curtail the activities of the corporations in order to preserve their natural resources. Quick money usually leads to a quick death for the local society & the downfall of the country.

We all know that there are areas in the World where people are having a really hard time even making a substistance living. They may of been poor before, but they have been reduced to absolute poverty by the incursion of the money grabbing corporations.

Governments have the wherewithal to curtail the activities of these corporations. Both the US Government & those of the European Union should address this problem immediately. Our World is at stake.

To all the THINKING folks out there who cogitate over issues of the "Powers of the Presidency" --- what they are, should be, or should NOT be --- I submit that you are wasting your time and energy dithering over abstract trivia. This nation faces REAL economic problems --- that are NOT going to be dealt with successfully merely by diddling with arcane political “issues” and "policies". Keep on endlessly rearranging THOSE sorts of deck chairs, and eventually THEY WILL ALL JUST SIMPLY FLOAT AWAY!

Too much "Socialism"?? Don’t like “Government” meddling in “Business”?? The fact of the matter, folks, is that it has, after all, been the excesses and shortcomings of the so-called "PRIVATE sector" (which in reality is largely comprised of COLLECTIVE institutions --- which are actually QUITE "socialistic" (and some of which are fully as big as many "governments" in the world) --- that has led to the mess we now witness! I don't delude myself that "government" can somehow "fix" everything, but on balance the really HUGE failures have actually been "CORPORATE"!

Probably the GREATEST foolishness committed by "our" marvelous MIS"management" (BOTH “political” and also “corporate”) in "modern" times has been the failure to actually react intelligently to fundamental, evolving TECHNOLOGICAL realities of the era --- and most notably, the steady, ongoing EXHAUSTION of "our OWN" PETROLEUM resources. The MIS"leaders" of not only “Government” but also "Big OIL" and "Big AUTOS" (and all their many thralls), instead of seriously pursuing the sorts of alternatives that could (and SHOULD!) have been phased in gradually over the course of the last quarter of a century or so now already in order to OPTIMIZE THE CHARACTER AND QUALITY OF "OUR" PRODUCTS, have preferred instead to merely MAXIMIZE "THEIR" MONEY!

The immutable fact of the matter is that "we" could LONG AGO now already have easily FLAT-OUT ELIMINATED about THREE-FOURTHS of all that importation of oil to refine into gasoline to fuel our automotive vehicular fleet --- had "we" but had the wisdom and wit to have done so --- and "we" would have thereby AVOIDED all the waste of AN ENTIRE WAR that has long been (and actually even STILL IS!) being fought over the stuff!

Now however OUTRAGEOUS and OUTLANDISH such an assertion may sound to many, make no mistake about it: PRECISELY THAT genuinely, absolutely IS the inescapable implication of the “new” ELECTRIC / I.C.E. “chimera” automotive architectural concept --- exemplified by the (hopefully) soon-to-be forthcoming (but really much BELATED!) Chevy VOLT --- or if not THAT, then by its now even-slightly-farther-advanced EUROPEAN counterpart (jovially dubbed the AMPERE), and/or undoubtedly very soon OTHER “entries” into the “development derby” coming from ASIA. The basic idea involves BATTERY POWER carrying the car a substantial distance (in the case of the VOLT, FORTY miles), with an internal combustion engine then kicking in if (and only if) the battery runs down.

But FULLY THREE-FOURTHS of all personal auto usage “fits” within a forty-mile power budget! You go to the store, bank, doctor, etc. and you come back home AND PLUG THE CAR BACK INTO THE WALL. MOST OF THE TIME THE GASOLINE ENGINE NEVER OPERATES! And even when it DOES (e.g. on long trips), the overall fuel efficiency is ACTUALLY GREATER than the wasteful-anachronism architecture to which people have for so long been inured. The GENERAL operating cost is SIGNIFICANTLY LESS: about 80 cents worth of “grid” power “fills the tank”; eight such charges, coming to $6.40, yield 320 miles --- about the same distance as a tank of gasoline THAT COSTS ABOUT FOUR TIMES AS MUCH! Moreover, YOU COMPLETELY ELIMINATE THE ELABORATE, TROUBLESOME, EXPENSIVE TRANSMISSION --- which ought to itself greatly reduce the initial cost of BUILDING autos --- completely ASIDE from the lower cost of their OPERATION!

But note that there really is NO(!) "new, exotic" technology involved --- BOTH components of the “chimera” are VERY OLD technologies! ELECTRIC cars have been around since the EARLIEST days of the automobile. (And by the way, the speed record for ELECTRIC cars out at the Bonneville Salt Flats these days stands in excess of FOUR HUNDRED MILES PER HOUR. Now how’s THAT for speed and power?) And the I.C.E “fallback” component, involving a petroleum-powered engine coupled NOT to a TRANSMISSION / DRIVE TRAIN but, rather, merely to a GENERATOR that supplies the ELECTRIC drive motors (the same ones powered by the BATTERY until it ran down) is a paradigm implemented LONG AGO on a much LARGER scale on the RAILROADS (anybody ever hear of the DIESEL-ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE??) and also in the BIGGEST SHIPS on the high seas! Really BIG-MUSCLE machines have LONG relied on relatively simple, UNbreakable MAGNETIC-FORCE drive elements rather than on complex, fallible mechanical ones --- because “we” simply couldn’t BEGIN to engineer a viable CLUTCH for coupling internal combustion engines (which by their fundamental nature CAN'T OPERATE DOWN TO ZERO RPM as ELECTRIC motors can) to really HEAVY loads!

Moreover, “we” should ALSO now get busy converting “our” large trucks and other heavy vehicles over to (“our” OWN!) NATURAL GAS (in the form of LNG) --- which “we” have in abundance (for quite a while longer, until HYDROGEN alternatives are ultimately developed) --- per the proposals now even being advanced by famed “oil”man T. Boone (“T-Bone”?) Pickens. And THAT TOO could (and SHOULD!) have been done long ago now already! (Expensive? No doubt. But not NEARLY as expensive as all the economic DEVASTATION we now witness as a consequence of NOT having acted responsibly in a timely fashion!)

I wonder just how such technological / economic realizations must now weigh on all the foolish folks who long SPONSORED and BANKROLLED the likes of a Saddam Hussein by buying so much of what he “had to sell” --- and who (or whose kids and grandkids) have then subsequently been lured off into fighting a dirty little “OIL war” over in Iraq in which about a MILLION Iraqis have now perished, and millions more have been made refugees --- making “us” lots of enemies the world over and in many cases even coming back dead or permanently damaged “our”selves --- and/or on those who may have lost loved ones or friends therein? It is surely an UGLY, HATEFUL reality to which to have to face up. But would it somehow be “better” for people to now instead just meekly try to erect a “psychological defensive barrier of DENIAL” --- letting what SHOULD be their RIGHTFUL wrath and ire be “harmlessly” diverted over to and dissipated on mere practitioners of artificial hocus-pocus involving our “financial system”??! Would THAT not actually merely COMPOUND the REAL fraud that has been foisted off on the REALLY aggrieved victims??!

To all the THINKING folks out there who cogitate over issues of the "Powers of the Presidency" --- what they are, should be, or should NOT be --- I submit that you are wasting your time and energy dithering over abstract trivia. This nation faces REAL economic problems --- that are NOT going to be dealt with successfully merely by diddling with arcane political “issues” and "policies". Keep on endlessly rearranging THOSE sorts of deck chairs, and eventually THEY WILL ALL JUST SIMPLY FLOAT AWAY!

Too much "Socialism"?? Don’t like “Government” meddling in “Business”?? The fact of the matter, folks, is that it has, after all, been the excesses and shortcomings of the so-called "PRIVATE sector" (which in reality is largely comprised of COLLECTIVE institutions --- which are actually QUITE "socialistic" (and some of which are fully as big as many "governments" in the world) --- that has led to the mess we now witness! I don't delude myself that "government" can somehow "fix" everything, but on balance the really HUGE failures have actually been "CORPORATE"!

Probably the GREATEST foolishness committed by "our" marvelous MIS"management" (BOTH “political” and also “corporate”) in "modern" times has been the failure to actually react intelligently to fundamental, evolving TECHNOLOGICAL realities of the era --- and most notably, the steady, ongoing EXHAUSTION of "our OWN" PETROLEUM resources. The MIS"leaders" of not only “Government” but also "Big OIL" and "Big AUTOS" (and all their many thralls), instead of seriously pursuing the sorts of alternatives that could (and SHOULD!) have been phased in gradually over the course of the last quarter of a century or so now already in order to OPTIMIZE THE CHARACTER AND QUALITY OF "OUR" PRODUCTS, have preferred instead to merely MAXIMIZE "THEIR" MONEY!

The immutable fact of the matter is that "we" could LONG AGO now already have easily FLAT-OUT ELIMINATED about THREE-FOURTHS of all that importation of oil to refine into gasoline to fuel our automotive vehicular fleet --- had "we" but had the wisdom and wit to have done so --- and "we" would have thereby AVOIDED all the waste of AN ENTIRE WAR that has long been (and actually even STILL IS!) being fought over the stuff!

Now however OUTRAGEOUS and OUTLANDISH such an assertion may sound to many, make no mistake about it: PRECISELY THAT genuinely, absolutely IS the inescapable implication of the “new” ELECTRIC / I.C.E. “chimera” automotive architectural concept --- exemplified by the (hopefully) soon-to-be forthcoming (but really much BELATED!) Chevy VOLT --- or if not THAT, then by its now even-slightly-farther-advanced EUROPEAN counterpart (jovially dubbed the AMPERE), and/or undoubtedly very soon OTHER “entries” into the “development derby” coming from ASIA. The basic idea involves BATTERY POWER carrying the car a substantial distance (in the case of the VOLT, FORTY miles), with an internal combustion engine then kicking in if (and only if) the battery runs down.

But FULLY THREE-FOURTHS of all personal auto usage “fits” within a forty-mile power budget! You go to the store, bank, doctor, etc. and you come back home AND PLUG THE CAR BACK INTO THE WALL. MOST OF THE TIME THE GASOLINE ENGINE NEVER OPERATES! And even when it DOES (e.g. on long trips), the overall fuel efficiency is ACTUALLY GREATER than the wasteful-anachronism architecture to which people have for so long been inured. The GENERAL operating cost is SIGNIFICANTLY LESS: about 80 cents worth of “grid” power “fills the tank”; eight such charges, coming to $6.40, yield 320 miles --- about the same distance as a tank of gasoline THAT COSTS ABOUT FOUR TIMES AS MUCH! Moreover, YOU COMPLETELY ELIMINATE THE ELABORATE, TROUBLESOME, EXPENSIVE TRANSMISSION --- which ought to itself greatly reduce the initial cost of BUILDING autos --- completely ASIDE from the lower cost of their OPERATION!

But note that there really is NO(!) "new, exotic" technology involved --- BOTH components of the “chimera” are VERY OLD technologies! ELECTRIC cars have been around since the EARLIEST days of the automobile. (And by the way, the speed record for ELECTRIC cars out at the Bonneville Salt Flats these days stands in excess of FOUR HUNDRED MILES PER HOUR. Now how’s THAT for speed and power?) And the I.C.E “fallback” component, involving a petroleum-powered engine coupled NOT to a TRANSMISSION / DRIVE TRAIN but, rather, merely to a GENERATOR that supplies the ELECTRIC drive motors (the same ones powered by the BATTERY until it ran down) is a paradigm implemented LONG AGO on a much LARGER scale on the RAILROADS (anybody ever hear of the DIESEL-ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE??) and also in the BIGGEST SHIPS on the high seas! Really BIG-MUSCLE machines have LONG relied on relatively simple, UNbreakable MAGNETIC-FORCE drive elements rather than on complex, fallible mechanical ones --- because “we” simply couldn’t BEGIN to engineer a viable CLUTCH for coupling internal combustion engines (which by their fundamental nature CAN'T OPERATE DOWN TO ZERO RPM as ELECTRIC motors can) to really HEAVY loads!

Moreover, “we” should ALSO now get busy converting “our” large trucks and other heavy vehicles over to (“our” OWN!) NATURAL GAS (in the form of LNG) --- which “we” have in abundance (for quite a while longer, until HYDROGEN alternatives are ultimately developed) --- per the proposals now even being advanced by famed “oil”man T. Boone (“T-Bone”?) Pickens. And THAT TOO could (and SHOULD!) have been done long ago now already! (Expensive? No doubt. But not NEARLY as expensive as all the economic DEVASTATION we now witness as a consequence of NOT having acted responsibly in a timely fashion!)

I wonder just how such technological / economic realizations must now weigh on all the foolish folks who long SPONSORED and BANKROLLED the likes of a Saddam Hussein by buying so much of what he “had to sell” --- and who (or whose kids and grandkids) have then subsequently been lured off into fighting a dirty little “OIL war” over in Iraq in which about a MILLION Iraqis have now perished, and millions more have been made refugees --- making “us” lots of enemies the world over and in many cases even coming back dead or permanently damaged “our”selves --- and/or on those who may have lost loved ones or friends therein? It is surely an UGLY, HATEFUL reality to which to have to face up. But would it somehow be “better” for people to now instead just meekly try to erect a “psychological defensive barrier of DENIAL” --- letting what SHOULD be their RIGHTFUL wrath and ire be “harmlessly” diverted over to and dissipated on mere practitioners of artificial hocus-pocus involving our “financial system”??! Would THAT not actually merely COMPOUND the REAL fraud that has been foisted off on the REALLY aggrieved victims??!