Picture Thread

[Dorvid Barnas]

[Josh]

I actually saw this on a car yesterday. Seriously, Democrats?

[dave from knoxville]

I actually saw this on a car yesterday. Seriously, Democrats?

I am trying to understand the problem with this sticker.

[Josh]

It was $1.47!

[scotttsss]

I actually saw this on a car yesterday. Seriously, Democrats?

I am trying to understand the problem with this sticker.

The problem is it's the kind of dumb, opportunistic campaign-season sticker that sums up something horrible (Bush) by pointing out something a lot of people are complaining about (gas prices).  It diminishes the bigger issues, I think.  There's a lot more at stake in the world than gas prices.  How many people who complain about gas prices buy a small car, a hybrid, or a bicycle in the USA?  More than ever perhaps, but still, very few.  I went to an auto show last weekend which had all of the new models of cars for the year, and the majority of them are still SUVs and poor-mileage cars, with a few exceptions such as the Prius, a few hybrid SUV's which are still gas guzzlers.  Nothing really groundbreaking, however.  And let's ask our European friends their opinion about our "high" gas prices in the USA...

[Gilly]

I was listening to ESPN Game Night on the radio the other night and the announcer (it was a sub, I can't remember who) said if he ran for president his entire platform would be a promise that during his term a gallon of gas and a gallon of milk would be under 2.00,  and he'd hire a staff to make the rest of the decisions and he thought he could win.

Speaking of milk prices, milk isn't that expensive in MN. How much is it in the NJ/NY area? I think it's like 3.50 a gallon, that's an increase from a few years ago but not that much and you expect inflation. But, I've heard that in Hawaii it's something like 7.00 a gallon.

[Sarah]

I buy overpriced organic milk, but I'm pretty sure a gallon of inorganic (I love using this adjective this way) milk around here is about $4.50, which is a big increase from a couple of years ago, when it was slightly under $3. 

What really scares me is that the price of a fifty-pound bag of King Arthur unbleached flour has almost tripled in the last two years. 

[Martin]

Price of gas in Sweden: about $8 per gallon (12.14 SEK per litre = $2 per litre; 1 gallon ~ 4 litres)

Price of milk in Sweden: about $4 per gallon

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

I've been holding off messing up the fun picture thread with my pedantry, but part of the problem with expensive oil isn't just the fattened Western (American or otherwise) consumer with his/her big stupid car, though I hate them as much as anyone.  The other problem is that even those of us who are really conscious of our carbon footprints rely really heavily on fossil fuel for home heat, our food supply, and other necessities.  It takes something like 8-12 calories of oil to make and deliver every calorie of food we eat.  The biofuels thing has just made things worse, creating competition for food supplies and arable land.  I love you, but get off that bus, Willie Nelson!

[yesno]

I've been holding off messing up the fun picture thread with my pedantry, but part of the problem with expensive oil isn't just the fattened Western (American or otherwise) consumer with his/her big stupid car, though I hate them as much as anyone.  The other problem is that even those of us who are really conscious of our carbon footprints rely really heavily on fossil fuel for home heat, our food supply, and other necessities.  It takes something like 8-12 calories of oil to make and deliver every calorie of food we eat.  The biofuels thing has just made things worse, creating competition for food supplies and arable land.  I love you, but get off that bus, Willie Nelson!

ooh boy, nerdiness.

I also read about the one study that showed that the #1 source of carbon emissions used in food transportation is people driving to, and back from, the supermarket, and that food from far away that is efficiently shipped can use less energy than food from close by that is less efficiently shipped.  (That is to say, miles shipped does not equal energy consumed. Putting a million carrots in a truck and carting them across the country is going to use less energy than attaching a rocket to a single carrot and flying it a mile into your salad.)  This is not exactly an area I know much about, though.

As far as biofuels go, finding oil in the ground is like finding a bunch of charged AA batteries just laying there ready to be used.  Of course, we are able to manufacture our own AAs, but obviously making your own is never going to be as cheap or easy as picking up what nature has already gone through the trouble to make for you, and it may end up not even being worth the trouble.  I think that's the key point that discussions about fossil fuels ignore:  that they are pre-made and ready to go concentrations of a million years of sunlight.  The only sources of energy on earth are ultimately the sun or nuclear reactions.  Fossil fuels are cheating.

[Chris L]

This is an "image of the month" from one of our gastroenterology journals: a hairball pulled from the stomach of a woman who was pulling out her hair and eating it:

[Sploops]

[dave from knoxville]

I actually saw this on a car yesterday. Seriously, Democrats?

I am trying to understand the problem with this sticker.

The problem is it's the kind of dumb, opportunistic campaign-season sticker that sums up something horrible (Bush) by pointing out something a lot of people are complaining about (gas prices).  It diminishes the bigger issues, I think.  There's a lot more at stake in the world than gas prices.  How many people who complain about gas prices buy a small car, a hybrid, or a bicycle in the USA?  More than ever perhaps, but still, very few.  I went to an auto show last weekend which had all of the new models of cars for the year, and the majority of them are still SUVs and poor-mileage cars, with a few exceptions such as the Prius, a few hybrid SUV's which are still gas guzzlers.  Nothing really groundbreaking, however.  And let's ask our European friends their opinion about our "high" gas prices in the USA...

So, what you're saying is, if everything you say is not universally overreaching, don't say anything at all?

[John Junk 2.0]

My bumper sticker will read "When Bush Took Office, Gas Was $1.46.  Vote Democrat and We Will Get Give Foreign Oil The Best Blowjob Ever."

[Chris L]

From a poster on I Love Everything:



If I know white people like I think I do, then yeah, it's over.