Well not much has been said here about the upcoming U.S. elections this November. Certainly unlike four years ago!

But anyways, I'm really disgusted with all of the candidates. You just can't trust McCain. And as far as Hillary and Obama go, I'd vote for a dead dog before I'd vote for either one of them. The battle between the two of them is interesting to watch though. Hillary would need some major victories in order to overtake Obama, and that's looking very unlikely to happen. It seems that it's going to all come down to the superdelegates. Hillary is counting that they will vote in her favor. But if they do pick Hillary despite the fact that Obama had the lead in delegates, then that may piss off a lot of their people.

And that may be the only chance McCain has. The battle between Clinton and Obama is really overshadowing him. If Hillary wins the nomination despite the fact Obama got the most delegates, then that's going to taint the Democrat party with scandal. But if Obama wins the nomination, then I think he'll ride all the way into the White House.

Truth be known, Clinton would probably be a slightly better president than Obama. Yet for some reason, I'd still like to see her loose against him. The Clintons are just a crooked bunch, and it almost seems like she thinks that becoming president is something that she's entitled to. It's fun to watch her panic and throw everything she can at Obama. Obama winning will most likely lead to McCain loosing, but McCain is no great choice either. It looks like we're screwed no matter who wins, and we'll just have to hope they don't cause too much damage.

I'm not really into politics, but I'm supporting McCain with this year's elections.

You also make some good points though Chug and I agree with Obama having a better chance than Hllary at beating McCain. it will certainly be interesting to see how things play out. Especially with the Democratic split.

if thats possible that is. once you hit a low, you can only go back up.

bush is the low, Youseff would be a better president lol.

If Hillary gets the nomination over Obama because of the superdelegates, I expect the democratic party to be in shambles for a LONG time.

An interesting piece of dirt is starting to arise.

Obama is a member of a white-hating church. All that someone would need to do is spread clips of the outrageous things that Obama's pastor has said over the years. Obama couldn't simply come out and denounce the pastor's statements, since this is a pastor that he's been listening to for the past 20 years! Why, this pastor even performed the marriage between Barack and Michelle.

I'm telling you, this could have a real impact if it's played right. The question is, who's going to play it right? So far the mainstream media has been doing everything they can to try and silence this.

Oh shit.

I've been pretty into this election. I have been a Ron Paul supporter for a long time..but alas, that has gone the way of other candidates.

I will never support McCain. The moron wants to continue this horrible war for a long time, and expects it to last 100 years.

I don't trust Hilary, as much as I like Bill. I do like that Obama is a real person, and I would be very suprised to find he hates white people, being that his mother is white.

I'll comment more later, but I have to run

where do you have that from chug?

what's the source?

Well you know, this pastor has lighter skin than Obama. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a white parent also.


So far it seems about the only news source that hasn't been trying to cover this up is Fox News. I guess that's because they don't have a political agenda like the other channels.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/03/14/ob...ept-11-attacks/

Oh, and Rush did mention this also:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/sit...5106.guest.html

Y'know Chug..I honestly expected better from you.

1. Fox News is the most known for its agenda. Cover it up?! Its NOT Obama, its his pastor. And as Obama says, everyone has someone in their family that has some foolish thoughts, but we still care about them.
2. CNN
3. ABC News
4. Washington Times
5.

Oh, and here is Obama's disagreement with the pastor. By ABC, the same news agency that found the original story, NOT Fox News.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4452990&page=1


And ironically on the front page of Fox News
http://elections.foxnews.com/
and , which Barak has already done.

Here is CNN's report about Muslim Barak

A little 3 1/2 minutes about Fox News taking on Obama

They've reported Obama has been to a Muslim school for 4 years, which it was 2 years when he was 6. And its publicly known he is Chrisitan now.

Oh, ok. When I first heard about it yesterday, I checked around the front pages of various news sites, and the only one I noticed it mentioned on was Fox News.

I still think this could be big though. It's nice to know that a presidential candidate disagrees with his pastor's "God Damn America" sermon. But considering this is a pastor that he has been listening to for 20 years, it really reeks of nothing more than an empty political move. If I was a Democrat, I'd have real reservations about voting for this guy now.

One statement in Fox's article really caught my attention:

For sure, for sure.

Sure, but who do you think were the sources who brought this to Fox News' attention to begin with? Both Obama and McCain have been very, very careful to run clean campaigns, I can't help but assume that the only candidate slinging dirt this year slung this as well.

I have concerns about Obama's level of experience, but at the same time I can't help but feel that someone without 20 years of exposure to Washington politics might be better for the country right now. For that reason, I'm supporting him.

That being said, I'm not as against McCain as some are, and I would vote for him over Clinton at this point (even though I'm pretty liberal politically). I'm by no means sexist, but I can't help but believe that in a time when we are having problem after problem with countries who still treat women as second class citizens that electing a woman as president would be detrimental to the process. The US is already coming in as an aggressor, throwing in the potential insult of having to deal with a woman can't possibly make things any easier.

so. so far (at the time of your writing), the only news source that has been trying to make this an issue is Fox News. I guess that's because they have a political agenda unlike the other channels?

Oh. and Rush mentioned it also?!


I really can't believe this mud-slinging is starting all over again, much like it has in 2000 and 2004!? can't you guys just have honest elections like every other country you are insisting on they should?! FFS?! how the hell can you (we in a few year's time?!) possibly live with this?!

what frightens me as well: the same cowardly evolution is happening here. It is not anymore the content of a person or party which wants to be elected, but it is about how much the other party can find to trash the opponent.

This years Presidential hopefuls are all losers, for the most part. Almost tempted to go Republican this year just because of all the miserable network coverage of the Democrats.

Do we REALLY need year long plus campaigns? Rediculous.
And what are these 3 people doing about the jobs they have now?

Christ, that's (sadly) the most positive thing I've heard about any of the candidates yet and if his election will help to rescue us from the Billionaire Boyz Club bullshit that's been going on then then I'm all for it.

I don't know how sincere his rebuke of the preacher's inflammatory rhetoric was ... but it certainly sounds like he's actually interested in sticking to the facts before they're spun into a cloak of bullshit.


I'd just like to 2nd the scared shitless vote.


The thing that baffles me to no end, is there is a huge pink elephant in the room ... called Skyrocketing gas prices are destroying the economy ... and none of the candidates seem to have the compunction to acknowledge the elephant.

i even got the feeling that, should obama be elected, he'll be killed (literally) before the end of his term - much like "they" did Kennedy.

LOL That will never happen. The American people have been effectively castrated into a bunch of sniveling Politically Correct whiners. The only exhibit I need for proof is the simple fact that nobody has put a bullet in curious George's simple minded fucking ass and he's been skull fucking us like a $2 crack whore for the last 8 years.

Bush and his ilk are 90% of what is wrong with this country today. Big ($$$) Oil raping the people because they can due to our societies dependence on it. Microsoft got vilified because the made the mistake of being the only motherfucker standing when the smoke cleared, the losers in the mêlée cried Monopoly and tried to re-stage he battle they lost in court (Boaring...). Big Oil comprises a tiny group of insanely rich fucks that continue to rake in billions of dollars while the rest of us get to bleed our way into the poor house.

Now who's Monopoly is really causing damage to the (allegedly) free enterprise Economy that we're purportedly based on?!?

Name one other company that recorded record profits in the last quarter?!!? (There ain't any)

99.99999% of the companies in America are hanging on by a thread except for the one group of blood sucking greedy bastards that are doing there dead level best to destroy this country. And it ain't the Arabs ... it's our own sticky pawed, sheep fucking, proud to be from Texas, "Good-Ol'-Boys" that are lining their pockets right into making our demise the sequel to the fall of Rome.

There is abso-fucking-lutely no reason why premium (ie 93 octane) should be one read cent over $2 a gallon period!!!!!!! Fuck you, Suck my Dick, that's enough money. If you can't manage to get a wheelbarrow of money to the bank at those rates then I guess you can then sleep soundly knowing that you "Took One for the Team" and did some thing to save the economy instead of blindly raping us the American people to death while professing ignorance of what your self indulgent greed was doing.

Bush pretends to be trying to come up with a way immediately stimulating the economy by tossing everybody a few hundred in 6 months (or so...). Exactly who does that ignorant motherfucker think he's kidding!?! Grab your goddamn Jerk-Circle Buddy's by the short hairs and force the price of gas down and the economy will spring back in a flash because then people will be able to afford to go to work and do the jobs that they are trying to get paid for so they can afford to buy the shit that keeps us going. Instead of just praying that they can afford to pay for the gas that they need to get to work to make enough money to cover the bills for all of the shit that is skyrocketing in price because of the skyrocketing price of fucking fuel!!!!

my turn to lol. that must be the most hilariously written foul-mouthed piece of putrid post I have read since this imploded board came of existence.

thanks for the read.

then again, you are absolutely right. it IS the same people behind all of them. these guys just don't give a toss whether it's the dems or the reps or anyone in between who would be elected. the same persons pull the strings. the money-makers. the invisible money-makers. the Morgans, the Bilderbergers, the Rockefellers, Rothshilds, Bundy's, Rusks and McNamara's out there. they don't give a damn either about poverty, about war, or instability. they thrive on it - as does oil. the reason I said that Obama might get plugged should he get into the office, is that once in a while, some president gets elected they have less control of. who actually slams his fist on the table and says he does not need a change of policy, he needs a change of advisors. the last one was Kennedy and I somehow feel Obama could be as well.

as for Bush, it was these puppet master's wet dream. far more manageable than Gore or Kerry. a monkey with half a brain. i keep on wondering more and more: reading through the american comments here lately. us europeans "warned" you of Bush. I got insulted, bashed, probably almost banned for defending "anyone but bush". how come that only now almost all seem against?!

Glad you caught the humor, and yes I am guilty of not being tactful in the slightest, but putrid? That's really a bit much I think...

ew skull fucking ...

Phonics, although I'm the first one to agree with you on anything negative about Bush, I should point out that Europe is facing the same oil price issue as us. But to be fair, I don't know who supplies their oil.

Although Exxon is scoring massive profits, and its atrocious, I should point out that part of the problem is the gas buyers. When I drive, I constantly see Exxon significantly higher than other places. But people line up to give those fuckers money. Which is stupid. I go to the cheapest place I can find,

But to take this math into account... $100 for a 55 gallon barrel of oil. That breaks it down into about $1.81 US for oil. Of course, they have to 'purify' it and do shit to it. So even that that, I agree, it shouldn't be at $3.

My co-worker brought up a good point. The oil is being produced in the Middle East, and 1 or 2 other nations, pretty much all of whom hate Bush/USA. So they can't attack us physically, why not get us financially?!

My theory is that January 20, gas prices will start to decline. And as for how Clinton/Obama/McCain can lower the prices, something tells me they don't have a clue yet. Its a complex problem.

*Sigh* ... I just love the do the math argument. You can't really blame the consumer, the average Joe doesn't have to play "Who's the Nicest Oil Rapist" while they're trying to get to work in the morning. We all just go to which station is closest/easiest to get in & out of when the gas Gage goes "ding" on our way to work. There's too much minutia on most peoples mind to factor in the global economy (besides that is the governments job...).

True this a weakness that big oil is exploiting, but it's quite easy to succumb to (That doesn't make it right for either side however).

Most people now days are just fighting to keep the lights on & the house payments made so there is no "Disposable Income" to get buyers buying ... We're all just stagnating trying to make ends meet.

Supply is at a (14 year) record high.

Demand is in the toilet (Due to we can't afford it).

The Oil Companies are reporting record profits across the board.

There is only one way "The Math" there can be explained: Price Gouging. <- and it needs to come to a screeching halt).

If the cost of a barrel of oil truly was driving the prices up, then with a drop in demand would leave the oil companies with a huge drop in profits. But we're just not seeing that now are we?!?

The oil companies are making a killing, and we are the ones being killed.

The government stepped in back in the 40s to force the cost of phone services down to an affordable rate because it was deemed necessary for the good of the country.

Okay, president set.

Now they simply need to do the same thing with gas prices...before we all collectively finish circling the drain.

I agree. It is crazy to have these prices, when they aren't even close to that in other nations. Exxon/Chevron, etc are all doing a nice job of screwing us all. And no buying us dinner first.

Ummm, gas price for premium in the UK last week when Fod and I discussed it was about $4 per LITER. Prices are always higher in Europe, but you certainly can't say that prices are more fair there.

That being said, with the examples set by the oil companies and the publicly-traded lending institutions, it's pretty obvious that capitalism is headed down the same road as communism; it's just taking a few more years to get there.

I don't think its full capitalism. If it was, prices would be different. But because there is one source of oil, it isn't capitalism. Look at the cell phones and cable companies. They're all trying to undercut each other, and nickle and dime each other. But with gas, its all pretty even, unchanging.

look what I found.

so, I can not say I am surprised really. only sad that it took 5 years for Americans to come to understand. :/


oil price is dependent of a lot of factors. it is not because production is up, that it automatically gets cheaper. oil, steel, wheat etc. all are higher as well because of massive demand coming from countries which did not need it as much before. think China, or India. Car ownership in the former rose an insane amount in the last decade. they all need the same gas as well.

fact remains: prices do get higher when there is instability. with instability "you don't know when you'll get your next dose", so you tend to put more in reserves, hence reducing availability further, hence increasing asking price, thus margins. oil companies know that... why do you think most of them supported pre-emptive strikes and all. they can not just wait for the next catrina to incapacitate their mexico gulf oil rigs!

some reasons for high prices.

about capitalism: it is not a correct form of economics. some'll get all the dough. some'll get jack-shit. in pure capitalism, like in "everybody can get to the american dream", you do not give out help, since all of us have the very same possibilities. yea. that fucking stinks, when you are born in the gutter. you need a fair degree of socialism as well!

Brains... Just out of curiosity, what are the current gas prices in Belgium?

$8.87 / gallon, you lucky bastards!

in the UK (if I am not mistaking): $11.53 / gallon!

There are good examples of how the free market has worked (AMD forced Intel to lower their insane prices and speed up their product schedule, which in a large part is responsible for the Internet as it is today), but what you see in the Cell industry hardly qualifies. If there were REAL competition going on, Sprint would just make their SERO plan (500 mins, unlimited text and data, $30) their ONLY plan, and the other companies would be drained dry of customers in a year if they didn't follow suit. As it is, prices only slowly creep down over the course of years, and all of them do it at exactly the same time and rate. That's not free market competition, that's price fixing and competitor collusion thinly disguised as it. The way Cell service works in the rest of the world is MUCH closer to a free market model, what we have here in the US is a joke. Just like our education system, our health care system, our food distribution system, our banks, our labor laws, and just about every other "advantage" of being an American (so the media tells us). The only real advantage of living in America? We have cheap crap, and lots of it. We can buy crap all day long for a lot less than other countries can.

But answer this: does being able to get a DVD player for $40 instead of $60 make up for being charged $2 every time we use an ATM or talk to a bank teller? Does it make up for the thousands of dollars that we pay for higher ed that UK citizens get for free? For the thousands of dollars we pay for health care we get? Does it make up for the extra paid days of vacation that other countries get that we don't?

These are just a handful of the things Americans don't even realize that they're being f**ked over by daily.

Ouch! I think most people in the U.S. don't know what high gas prices are. If our prices got that high, there would be riots!

Brains doesn't mention the excellent public transit system, nor the fact that the average American commute is about the 1/4 the length of his country.

My commute is 4 miles, with no freeway driving, so while gas prices going up hurts, it's not as huge a deal as my co-worker who drives 35 miles each way. If I weren't making a car payment, I might take the bus to save money - but him? He's hosed.

I know people who live in Olympia, WA and drive to work at Microsoft in Redmond (60-70mi each way, usually 2+ hours due to traffic). I can't imagine the horrors of the drive alone, even without factoring the high gas prices (which makes the cost of the drive ~$1000 per month!).

True. Luckily I just live about three miles from work. But where I live, driving 35 miles to work is not uncommon. One of my coworkers lives in a different state.

And so I wonder, why exactly does gas cost more in Europe if the demand is lower?

haha chug. that might well be because of socialism here. there's a lot of taxes on it.

All in euro and per liter (example from the netherlands):
0,561: Bare Prices
0,005: Tax on Reserves
0,689: Taxed
0,239: VAT
1,494: Pump Price
-------
0,932: Fiscal pressure
62,44%: Percentual Fiscal Pressure on bare price

but well. we (are able to) pay it. I said it before: if these high taxes allow me to live in a safe country, I happily pay them. Violent deaths still are prime time news items here. They are exceptional - although on the rise. That might be because we are confronted with an increasing cost of living as well, while wages are not increasing as much... there increasingly is "unhappiness".

another edit: I drive 100 miles a day to work as well. luckily jam free, while the company pays for gas as well as the car.

I found a similar breakdown from last summer by our state attorney general:

Total price: $3.07 per gallon
Crude: $1.52 (50%)
Refining: $.67 (22%)
State Tax: $.36 (12%)
Retail Markup: $.26 (8%)
Federal Tax: $.18 (6%)
Transportation: $.07 (2%)

So our tax is a mere 18%, incendental fees are 10%, and 72% is the oil company share. Quite a different picture.

(Be aware our prices here are non-typical, due to the fact that we lost our main refinery a couple years back which jacked our prices)

49 Billion dollar profit!!

They can afford to build another one.

Sorry, you don't get to post those kind of numbers and cry poor at the same time.

In defensive Driving they have a term for this, it's called being "Dead Right".

Did you charge out into the intersection assured in your assertion that you had the right-of-way? (Which you did).

Did you get killed as a direct result of this assertion? (Yes you did).

...Well you are now dead right ... which is exactly what the oil companies are doing to us. They have the insanely complex little jerk-circle of an numbers game to "prove" their "right" ... and they're killing us (e.g. the economy) with them.

I made the comment a while back about them "Taking-one-for-the-Team" to help out the economy. But $49,000,000,000 worth of Greedy, Greedy, Greedy just can't seem to make it happen.

But I understand, I really do ... It's not their fault that they have been cut off from the stark reality that the rest of us endure. I mean really how could they possibly be expected to truly see to world around them for what it really is when it has been hidden from them behind all those hugh stacks of fucking money?!?

didn't read this until now.

can't really say i don't agree... :/

Oh, you're preaching to the wrong person there. They are building one, but it takes about 7 years. They claim that they "couldn't predict the failure, nor project the need for increaed capacity" and hence hadn't planned on building ahead of time. People here are pissed; we used to be the tail end of any price spike, now we're the first ones hit.

I'm not preaching, I'm venting ... In the hopes I won't end up in a bell tower...

I just think we should call a spade a spade and be done with it.

The oil company execs are terrorists, they are creating mass destruction by intentionally hampering our way of life, they need to be dealt with accordingly.

What say we round up a few of them and lock them up in that prison camp everybody keeps bitching about...(hell we could even shoot a few)...shouldn't take more than a few days to tidy up this whole gas price debacle that way.

nah. that's too sweet.

I'd say drop 'em at an Outlaws, Hell's Angels, Pagans or Bandidos club with "I like them gas prices HIGH" tattooed on their foreheads.

Now there's an idea that deserves a dancing banana!

"I did misspeak the other day"

heh im on LPG bitchess! lmao i had to say that

per litre i pay $0.72 and to fill up my tank its usually about $35AU which lasts me about a week -ish (5 days sometimes). and a full tank clocks about 300KMs

In my view, voting McCain is voting for the same next four years after 2009. You are also going to welcome depression and stuff, and nice fat political scandals.

Clinton is mostly likely to go out of the race next in the Democrat party. So it is going to be Obama and McCain how are going to compete in the presidential race for the next four years. At least that is how it looks like, what happens in the end is anybody guess.

Clinton lost because of this issue.

Well it looks like Obama had to apologize for the comments he made about people in Pennsylvania:

http://mfile.akamai.com/5020/wma/rushlimb....maapologypa.asx LOL

craps. clinton won pensylvania.

that lying bitch walks on.

I honestly don't have full trust of either of the Dem candidates.

She has played dirty politics non-stop, and although I like his charisma, his backings are shady.

Well, we knew for weeks now that this would be the outcome in Pennsylvania. Hillary would have a slight lead over Obama. It doesn't make any difference though. She is not going to win the nomination without angering black voters and making the Democrat party look (even more) corrupted. I find it amusing to see just how desperate she is to win.

Going in to this campaign period, I thought that McCain didn't stand a chance. But now it seems like he might be good competition against either Hillary or Obama.

More corrupted then Republicans ? From my perspective, that seems unlikely. Given all the gay sex and sex scandals Republicans have faced this year and the last.

So you're saying they (the republicans) broke the cardinal rule of politics:
"Never get caught with a dead girl, or a live boy"...

...Yes?