What's the over/under on the date he calls out the Army to ensure his continuance in office?

He is still better then Bush any day. I would let him run the USA for as long as he wants.

Meg is also a Sean Penn fan.

Greg C

Mucha mierda grande!!

He is still better then Bush any day. I would let him run the USA for as long as he wants.

Another product of modern education.

Hugo, Putin and the Iran character are all toast once oil hits a cyclical downturn, which historically it does every 10 to 15 years. Heck their oil production is already faltering under their social regimes. In fact, a CNN video today reported how Iranian women are slaving making carpets using old methods while their husbands increasingly are unemployed for lack of work. The faster the developed world can turn its auto fleet over to more efficient vehicles the sooner oil prices hit a cyclical downturn. Maybe Iraq starts exporting significant more oil as well.

The U.S could have had Anwar pumping out oil by now and the Prudhoe Bay natural gas flowing to the Lower 48. It doesn't take a whole lot of new supply to bring off oil prices. This additional production would lessen the temptation to be in the Middle East militarily. But no. Some perceived threat to Caribou, very few of us will ever see anyways, is more important than reducing the temptation of U.S leaders to send troops to the Middle East.

There. How's that for angst?

Yes, it's all the caribou's fault. Never mind that chimp in the White House.

One thing higher oil prices are good for, is spurring research into both alternative fuels and more efficient engines. This has the added benefit of denying money to truly evil theocracies such as Iran, and budding dictatorships like the one ran by that Communist buffoon in South America. Yeah, I don't like Dubya one bit, either. We can dislike both types of tyranny, no ?

Wait 'till all those Diesel engines made for the European market become a hit in America in the coming few years, now that our emissions standards are even more strict than Europe's, with the ULSD these new engines require mandated by law. The engineers are talking about family-size Diesel cars now that get 50mpg on the highway, and very heavy-duty SUVs and trucks capable of 30 or more. No nasty, expensive Hybrid battery clean-up and replacement to deal with, plenty of torque to pull with, and 300,000-500,000 mile engine life, too.

There would have been little incentive to bring these to the American market and further refine them with $1.00 a gallon gasoline on tap.

Forget about biodiesel. Just buy a new Range Rover. The suits at Range Rover are so concerned about global warming, they are planting 50,000 miles worth of rainforest trees for every SUV they sell.

They must really care about saving the planet.

Hugo Chavez, Putin, and Musharraf are all cut from the same cloth: dictators for life, democrats when necessary, and soldiers/KGB to the core.

Bush is a piker compared to these autocrats.

Mr T, biodiesel or it's synthetic equivalent is essential for prolonging the life of Stanadyne rotary injection pumps...you know, the ones the HMMWV and CUCV/M1008 series of trucks use in Iraq, or the ones in many of our huge fleets of civilian buses and delivery vans.

These pumps have been reported to fail within months of straight ULSD use...it's either that, or pour vegetable oil or 2-stroke in the tank. Hey, in 10 years, maybe I can get a 4bt for under $1000, but until then the milsurp Detroit Diesel will dominate the surplus market.

As far as resources go, the US has literally hundreds of years worth of coal that can also be made into clean diesel with a Nobel Prize winning refinement of the Fischer-Tropsch process.

I have to ask at this point, though we may agree about failed Socialist ideology and dictatorships to a (groan) tee, what personal experience do you have with diesel engines ?

When I was driving a 30Mpg vehicle to Tacoma yesterday, I read the vanity plate of a Hummer going down the road in front of me proudly proclaiming 7 MPG

Cabbie,

My dad bought the first Oldsmobile ever offered with a diesel engine (a cutlass supreme wagon!), which was nothing more than a converted gas engine (V-6, if memory serves correct). That was in 1977, and we lived 10 miles from the Mexican Border, where petro-socialism held the price of diesel fuel at 32 cents a gallon. He had an extra fuel tank installed where the spare tire used to be, and he could go 2-3 weeks between fillups in ol' Mexico. Mexican diesel was poor quality, and he installed a water separator, which was of great benefit. HE HATED THAT CAR. He managed to blow it up about two weeks before the warranty expired, after much effort.

My only subsequent experience has been behind the bio-diesel Tri-Met buses, which smell (to me) like portable toilets (post consumer french fries?). And they still belch black smoke.

Propane or natural gas offer several advantages over diesel in automobiles, especially in colder climates. And at least two of the big three (Detroit Diesel, CAT, and Cummins) offer natural gas engines for the big rigs, we simply need to build out the fueling infrastructutre, and incentivize their higher purchase price.

I continue to believe that bio-diesel, the Toyota Prius (http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=11001et imitators), and Daryl Hanna are more about being trendy than saving the planet. If you want to drive a small cab, great! If I want to drive a Jeep or Cadillac Escalade, then good for me. Al Gore will produce more carbon dioxide emissions NEXT WEEK than I will generate for the next 40 years. When he and John Edwards move into small mud huts and travel exclusively on two legs or two wheels, I'll happily follow suit.

Cabbie,

I checked with Dad: he said the Cutlass Supreme was a 1978 model that he bought in '77, with a 260 c/i V-8 (not a V-6).

It was so poorly engineered that they scrapped it the following model year (it was just a Chevy 350 engine block that had been hastily converted).

Worst. Car. Ever.

I also owned a VW Passat with a gasoline V-6: twice I was stranded due to "clogged fuel injectors". I will never own another VW, because they forced me to pay for both towing bills, despite being under warranty.

Oh, man, y'all bought the Oldsmodiesel !!! That thing was such a horribly engineered POS it resulted in a class action lawsuit against GM, and alienated an entire generation of Americans from Diesel engines.

No wonder.

The 6.2l/6.5l series that the military uses were a direct result of that colossal screwup...they're no Cummins, but they last forever if cared for properly.

Seriously, take a look at modern technology, it's amazing the leaps and bounds that have taken place. If you want a larger rig like a Jeep or Escalade, there are going to be Diesel offerings in those type vehicles that blow the gas alternatives out of the water for both MPGs and towing capacity. I certainly can't afford any of it yet, but I can look, and wait...

Yeah, I also agree with you for the most part about crass hypocrites like Gore and the whole "climate change" circus.

When I was at OIT down in K.Falls in the late 80s, there was a Diesel Tech prof that had a late-70s Corvette converted to a diesel V8...that was a weird car...
And one of my friends in HS, his mom drove an 80s Ford F150 that ran on propane. This was all 20+ years ago. I would hope the technology has improved since then.

Big trucks are nothing...they need to change the combustion process for container ships. They have HUGE engines, much bigger than locomotives. (Think pistons 3 feet in diameter, and as many as 14 cylinders.)
Those things burn more fuel in a 2-week trip than any SUV on this planet will burn in 2 lifetimes.
You can see one of them here:

http://people.bath.ac.uk/ccsshb/12cyl/

Crazy stuff.

I'd bet money that your prof had the same V8 in that Corvette that is in my miniature bus/camper. Those 80's Detroit Diesel V8 engines bolt straight on to the GM Turbohydromatic 400 transmission series, which are known alternately as a THM400, THM475, 3L80, or 3L80HD, depending on year and application.

That Japanese ship engine is insane, alright. But, that's what the economies of the world are based on, moving extremely large things from place to place, mostly by ship. If that "peak oil" hustler Y2Kunstler is right about anything at all, it's the idea that we will see a return to this technology in the United States, with all of the gritty waterfront vice districts that go along with it.

Gods, I'd love to see those horrible condominiums lining the Willamette torn out in my lifetime, to make room for the return of heavy water-based shipping traffic. I'd take back all those nasty things I've said over the years about the man's failed prophecies to his acolytes if only that one prediction came true.

Of course, there are those hopelessly naive idealists who would like to see all shipping based upon the burning of fuel done away with, and a return to preindustrial agrarian life, short and brutal as it may be...