From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Mar 4 23:36: 8 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from stage1.thirdage.com (stage1.thirdage.com [4.18.197.236]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 153E037B8C2; Sat, 4 Mar 2000 23:36:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jal@stage1.thirdage.com) Received: (from jal@localhost) by stage1.thirdage.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA15340; Sat, 4 Mar 2000 23:35:00 -0800 (PST) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 23:35:00 -0800 From: "Jamie A. Lawrence" To: cjclark@home.com Cc: Brett Glass , Mark Newton , chat@FreeBSD.ORG, "Koster, K.J." , "'FreeBSD Hackers mailing list'" , Wes Peters Subject: Re: Great American Gas Out Message-ID: <20000304233500.A15262@thirdage.com> References: <38BFEEA8.1A465CFC@softweyr.com> <59063B5B4D98D311BC0D0001FA7E452201313909@l04.research.kpn.com> <38BFEEA8.1A465CFC@softweyr.com> <20000304101212.A384@internode.com.au> <4.2.2.20000304091423.040b5590@localhost> <20000304132611.B48777@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.4i In-Reply-To: <20000304132611.B48777@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com>; from Crist J. Clark on Sat, Mar 04, 2000 at 01:26:11PM -0500 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org ++ 04/03/00 13:26 -0500 - Crist J. Clark: > Driving is an activity that incurrs a cost on society, building roads, > regular maintainance, salter, snow plows, maintainace to fix the > damage the snow plows did, etc. A cost that is not fully realized in the US. > > This week, I traveled from Wyoming to California and discovered that > > gas prices were 25% higher in the Golden State than in the Cowboy > > State. Why? Because Californians "tax" themselves by requiring that > > everyone buy fuel with high concentrations of MTBE, an oxygenating agent. > > MTBE was supposed to reduce pollution, but in fact is a worse pollutant > > than oxides of nitrogen ever were. However, since only California > > refineries make gas with a high enough concentration of MTBE, Californians > > are locked into buying from these few sources and the price goes up. > > WAY up. Los Angeles will have $2.50 gas this summer. > > Yet the number of f*cking SUVs and other gas-guzzling vehicles in the > region will continue to rise as will the miles driven per vehicle. Sure, personal assult vehicles consume more than they pay for. If they were taxed at a sane rate, far fewer people would drive them. This from a serious anarchist who wants to see private roads everywhere. If everyone payed a private entity to get to work, we'd see a saner commute schedule. It would be a lot different. Makes you ("you" meaning people in CA, US) wonder, I hope. I live here. > > It's the same the whole world over. Energy policies and fuel costs aren't > > driven by markets or even common sense. They are controlled by big > > cartels, big government, and politics. > > Just like everything else. The interesting part is that things are about to become a lot different. The same cartels know that, and they may end up on top, but there is a radical change in personal transport coming. Things are becoming interesting. If people choose (if alternative projects advertise well), we'll see neat things happen. -j To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message