Can Ari Fleischman say this crap with a straight face?

The BBQ Pit
1

I nearly drove off the road today when I heard a news story about the Administration’s response to anticipated gasoline pump prices of $3.00/gallon. I heard an audio clip where Fleischman said that the Administration would not accept solutions that required Americans to change their lifestyle. “The American way of life is blessed” he said, and their goal was to increase domestic production to meet demand–not to alter demand in any way.

It’s a terrible thing to ask someone to make a few changes? Does anyone really think this way? It’s some kind of pinko commie plot to suggest that someone ride a bike to work once a week? To ask Americans to plan their weekend errands carefully to minimize unnecessary driving? To encourage employers to consider ways to make more telecommuting possible? These simple ways of making a tiny dent in energy consumption are loathsome? This is unamerican? What?!?

Next month I suppose we’ll organize a militia to shoot anyone who suggests turning off lights in unused rooms, setting the A/C one degree higher, or drying clothes at a lower temperature.

I am no bunny hugger, but I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around this philosophy that DEMAND for energy can not be tampered with. Mayhap this would be easier to grasp if I, say, owned an oil well? Even then, I could hardly find a “take the bus” campaign a serious threat to my livelihood. It’s not like we’ll cut gas consumption 50%.

I wonder exactly what Ari Fleischman had to sniff to get that statement spit out without cracking up.

2

[pardon me if I ramble and/or babble, I’m doped up on Nyquil]

snort

Make a few of these people sit in a gas line like we had to during the oil crisis in the late 70’s and see how they feel about it then. Or maybe they can afford to fill up a 15-25 gallon tank at 3.00 a gallon and have nothing to do all day but sit in gas lines.

Feh. I love my big ol’ station wagon with it’s big ass engine and 25 gallon tank and, yeah, it may be inconvienant to not go somewhere at the spur of the moment and not run my AC in this Oklahoma heat part of the summer but even if a tank of gas lasts almost 2 weeks that’s still 75-fucking-dollars! Of course, upping domestic production will help, among others, Texas.

Ari may not be planning on making any changes but I am.

3

Gah, the goofiest thing is that we have a history of these campaigns working, to some small extent. And I realize it’s small. But in my lifetime, I do think the crying Native American guy made a little dent in litter. I don’t see people tossing junk out of cars at quite the same rate. Yes, I still see it, and I’m sure people could post many, many examples of how they saw it last week. But it got a little better. And the deposit on cans and bottles – that worked a little bit. And those stickers that offices put on their switchplates, reminding you to turn off the light. And the carpool lanes.

Whether or not these things actually work, there’s quite a history of campaigning for Americans to change their lifestyle, so when did we get blessed?

4

Sometimes it’s hopeless…On this very board I suggested two small remedies to current problems and got responses similar to those below (I’m listing only one response to each question --what I got back made me hang my head and wander off). As you can see, I’m paraphrasing.

  1. I would prefer my tax rebate to go to the infrastructure: rebuilding roads, bridges, etc.
    Response: The crews that the government would hire are all union and don’t work anyway. Why, I know a union worker who brags that he works only an hour a day and gets paid for eight (read fifteen minutes; paid for eight, etc.)

  2. In our California power crisis, my neighbors and I have
    drastically reduced our electrical consumption but notice that the businesses close by continue to keep those decorative lights blazing - not the company name or lights used to ensure safety, but twinkle lights in trees and office lights left on all night.
    Response: Your paltry efforts are meaningless and it actually saves power to leave office building lights on all night.

No one has proven to me yet that if all companies turned all lights off (except those for safety) while their buildings are unoccupied, that money would be wasted. And if you can prove it to me, there’s something even further wrong with our power engineering.

Dubya is out of touch as was his old man. Right now he’s operating under his ‘compassionate conservative’ mode but it’s beginning to wear thin. Big oil will survive but it will be on the backs of those Americans ‘refusing to change their lifestyle.’

5

What really bites is that anytime mention is made of mass transit, you hear cries that “I don’t want my tax dollars subsidizing this.” Meanwhile, we have BILLIONS of tax dollars subsidizing thousands of miles of road, and not even allowing the option of mass transit to exist in many places.

I know, I know, it’s a pain to use (I’ve read the rants in the pit about bad manners on the buses and subways). But I used the bus system in Chapel Hill, N.C. I loved walking everywhere. All right, it was a pain in the rain and snow, and I always had my car to fall back on, but I still used mass transit. Most of the time in other towns I’ve lived in, it seems the system was run on a shoestring by monkeys who used the William S. Burrough Clip-Art method of putting together the schedule.

Is it wrong to take an evil delight in all the SUV buyers who are now having to pay through the nose for their ego-boosting monsters? While I’m still driving around in my 43-mpg Festiva I will!

6

It’s Ari Fleischer, incidentally.

7

"You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna get myself a 1967 Cadillac El Dorado convertible… hot pink… with whale-skin hubcaps, and all-leather cow interior and big, brown baby seal eyes for headlights. Yeah! And I’m gonna drive around in that baby at 115 miles per hour, gettin’ one mile per gallon, suckin’ down Quarter-Pounder cheeseburgers from McDonald’s in the old-fashioned non-biodegradable containers.

“And when I’m done suckin’ down those greaseball burgers, I’m gonna wipe my mouth with the American flag, and toss those styrophoam right out the side and there ain’t a goddamn thing anybody can do about it. Y’know why? 'Cuz we’ve got the bombs, that’s why. Two words: Nucler-fucking-weapons, okay?!? Russia, Germany, Romania… they can have all the democracy they want. They can have a big democracy-cakewalk right through the middle of Tianenmen Square and it won’t make a lick of difference, 'cuz we’ve got the bombs, o-kay?!?”

-Dennis Leary, Asshole

8

(Jesus, am I actually going to say this?)

The argument that President Cheney is making is that American energy needs are going to increase in both the short and the long term. Therefore, planning, research, and development must be directed toward increasing energy supply. Conservation, while of course beneficial, will not effectively counteract this increasing need.

Nevertheless, it is difficult for me to view such a policy without a healthy degree of skepicism. Turn a team of construction workers loose on a problem with nothing but a hammer, and they’ll come back with a handful of nails, guaren-fucking-teed.

9

Shit! Shit! I knew that, too. Damned Northern Exposure reruns on A & E!

Thanks for putting me straight boinks head in “coulda had a v-8” gesture

10

I know this is going to sound terribly cynical but…

It IS a terrible thing to not get re-elected.
It IS a terrible thing to see the house and senate go the other way next year.

And asking American’s to change their lifestyles will do that. Blaming it on OPEC has a lesser chance of doing that.

11

Ya know, I consider myself a Republican (with Democratic leanings). Granted, a Republican that hates politics and doesn’t follow every Presidential move with bated breath. However, this administration is really beginning to just not make any sense at all.

12

Well, I’m all in favor of the local power company taking out a few “turn it off” ads or a mayor encouraging people to bike to work once in a while.

But we already have a perfectly good way to shape people’s behavior without government intervention. It’s called the price mechanism.

Wanna see people turn in their SUV’s for Saturns or bike to work? Let gas hit $3. It worked just fine last time.

Don’t want $3 gas? Then let somebody get a durn permit to open a refinery. We’re at capacity now, which means that even if Crude went back to $8/bbl, we’d still be paying $1.76 for gas (last week’s nationwide average for regular unleaded).

I’m a little unclear as to what conservation measures people would have the government mandate. Would you force people to move closer to their offices? Force work-at-home days? Disallow driving to Disneyland? What?

13

I’ve never understood the ethical purpose of getting re-elected if one is unwilling to serve the public good during one’s mandate.

14

On your first point, I got the impression that the administration was going to do everything in its power to up supply to bring that price down (yes yes, I know we’re at refinery capacity. Do tell Spence Abraham–I’m sure that’s part of the plan too). They don’t want Americans to feel the pain of $3 a gallon, even though (as you point out) $3 a gallon would go a long way to making some people rethink their leisure consumption.

As for mandating? They could mandate changes in government jobs and buildings and vehicles, of course, that would reduce consumption. I don’t expect them to pass laws making it illegal to drive 20 miles farther to the Old Navy store in Glen Meadowe Hills because the one in Fair Haven Pointe doesn’t have the right color crop top you wanted. However, the government could ENCOURAGE changes that would alter consumption. It’d do a fair sight better than trying to whip people into a frenzy about energy consumption being a god-given, manifest-destiny, American-way-of-life freedom-of-lifestyle RIGHT. We’ve got enough suggestible people in this country that I think I could actually make money on a bumper sticker that read “You can turn down my thermostat when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.”

I’m just saying I think it both staggering clueless and very high-handed for the Bush administration NOT to see demand-and-supply problems with a non-renewable, polluting resource as an opportunity to revisit our consumption.

15

…and on the 8th day God created the Ford Explorer…and 1$/gallon gasoline…

At the very least, Dubya and company could be using the bully pulpit to actually give more credence to sensible conservation measures.

On NPR this morning, Frank Murkowski (R, Alaska) was talking about drilling in the ANWR…and he prefaced his statement with “Of course I support conservation like everyone else but…”

And my initial reaction was “exactly how do you support conservation, Senator?”

“What public statements or legislation have you introduced to encourage conservation of non-renewable energies?”

BTW anyone see Donnesbury this morning?

In California, 35,000 homeowners associations forbid clotheslines. nice…

16

I didn’t see/hear the clip in question, Cranky.

Without a doubt, we do need to increase our energy supply. We need more power plants and more refineries desperately. Anyone who tells you differently needs to pay more attention to the issue.

But addressing that portion of the equation is far from the complete solution. Conservation is a big component. So is looking at alternative fuel sources and new technology that uses both new types of fuels and existing fuels in a more economical way.

And I (the mostly Republican conservative) am as concerned as you are that there isn’t much talk about those other parts of the equation coming from the Bush administration. (I was encouraged to hear v.p. Cheyney say on “Hardball” several weeks ago that he sees more nuclear plants as a possibility for the future.)

Again, they are right in the fact that the most immediate need is more supply. It should be their priority. But they should better recognize the way they come off when they don’t talk about and address the other parts.

I filled up my gas tank today. $35! And it’s going to get much, much worse.*

And I’m getting my fossil-fuel-burning flame-thrower ready for the first asshole who pooh-poohs the rising cost of gasoline, as some did last summer when only the Midwest (where I live) saw the $2.25/gal. prices.

I could give a flying fuck what gas costs you on the other side of the pond. Here, our lives are built around it costing a certain amount. When it goes up more than 100 percent in a matter of a few weeks, and keeps going up, it’s a hardship.

Do you recognize that in rural areas, it’s almost a mirror image of the situation in urban areas? The poor live away from the population centers, as those towns are usually more affluent, particularly in a largely resort area like where I live.

The poor’s work, however, is most often in those towns, which means they have to commute. Rural busing that fits with their work requirements is virtually nonexistent.

I am without a doubt that as this crisis gets worse, some are going to simply not be able to afford to drive to work. What does a person do then, if they have a family to support?

Shit, I’m wondering how I would be able to swing $3 a gallon gasoline.

This is a scary fucking thing.
(*I drive a GMC Jimmy - a poor man’s SUV. For all of you SUV-bashers, you may have a point with many or most who drive them, but I invite you to spend a winter where I live, with the roads I drive on, and tell me about how I don’t need 4-wheel-drive.)

17

The following is NOT a jab at Milossarian . . .

We live in central Wisconsin, on a pissant country road that’s usually one of the last ones to get plowed after a snowstorm. We’ve never owned a FWD vehicle. When Mr. S and I were both driving to work, he commuted 100 miles round-trip in his beater S-10 pickup, and I had my little front-wheel-drive Aspire (read: golf cart) to go 70 miles round-trip. Our co-workers were flabbergasted that we didn’t drive huge FWD trucks. The trick is to know how to drive through snow, and how to use your stick and clutch. Too many drivers think they can drive the same on snow as they can on clear roads. Not gonna happen, Bubba. In fact, there were more than a few bad snow days when Mr. S drove his 50 miles on country backroads and got to work with time to spare (because he planned ahead, left early, and drove carefully), while co-workers who only had to go through town showed up half an hour late.

18

I can personally attest to this. As anyone who’s been listening to me whine (or is coming to the party) will attest. I live far out in the country.

And the only bus that’s EVER come our way would be Mary Pranksters tour bus and I had to PAY her to come out. No busses, no trains, no cabs, no nothing.

19

  1. Mandate higher efficiency of home appliances, (Air cond, dishwasher, etc). I read that Clinton already had rules for this in the works, but Bush repealed them.

  2. Mandate higher fuel-efficiency averages for all new cars. And (most importantly) TRUCKS. The reason the average fuel efficiency in the USA has dropped in the last 20 years is because most SUV’s are built on truck frames and thus sidestep the fuel efficiency mandates.

This is also (incidently) why you never see station wagons anymore. They are technically cars, and brought the average fuel efficiency down too much, so the auto makers stopped making them.

There are other things that can be done, but these are the big two. In fact, (this is from memory) just upping the average efficiency of cars by 2 MPG would save more oil in 6 months than is estimated to exist in the ANWR.

tj

20

Wow. $3/gallon - that’s even better than I expected! Ok, I’m kidding, sort of. I know that for some people (especially truck drivers), gas at a reasonable price is important. But the OP has a point. I’m out here in California, where our college has just spent buttloads of money getting enough generators to run most of the school in the event of rolling blackouts. Anyway, the school asks people to conserve in order to keep costs down, but most people don’t seem interested. It seems that nobody other than me can be bothered to turn the hallway lights off at night, sometimes I find the TV on when nobody is in the room, and air conditioners are left running till it feels like an arctic chill. The problem, quite simply, is that people are used to using electricity whenever they feel like it without thinking, and they’re not going to stop just because someone sends an email to the student list recommending that they conserve. Meanwhile, everybody gets to pay for it; we’re getting a monster tuition hike this year.