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Be patient, 2024 is a long way off.

First America needs to kick you progressives to the curb in 2022.

TRUMP WILL NEVER BE POTUS AGAIN. They should lock the whole lot of you up, the country would be better for it.

Wrong thinking again!

Look around you at the mess this country is in and that was just eliminating Trump.

If you lock up the rest of us, well, you best start looking under rocks for grubs to eat.

did accomplish. gas prices fell to very low prices. He protected the American oil industry by curbing production.


PS. that was your article that you shared with me. I just copied that out of there because I thought it was funny you were trying to say the opposite.

It kills me that you think your ilk is the salt of the earth, what makes us all safe, fed, housed, is ridiculous Republican rhetoric! Hell you are barely American! You worship Trump and Putin like they are rock star gods…

But in truth, those following Trump are the DUMBEST among us. They are not the producers of all things good, hell they can barely form a proper sentence.

So, no, those STILL supporting Trump are lost and just need to fade away. You included.

And I'm good with you wanting Trump reelected. It's good to know who goes on the list of insurrectionists and traitors.

And before arch, fate, or some other GOPer takes offense at my comment, I'm talking about people who still support him. If that's you, then you are on the list. And you are fascist, authoritarian, and un-American.

You obviously lack the comprehension of supply and demand. During the height of Covid many people were not traveling or gong back and forth to work. That's why gas prices fell. It wasn't "because of Trump". Secondly, Trump cut production AFTER gas prices were low. Now that cut back in production is biting us in the ass. That's what happens when a president has a total lack of foresight and doesn't see the long term effects of his own actions.


He protected their immediate profit margins. We are now feeling some of the impact of that.

"Drill Baby, Drill!"

Given the fact I haven’t thought about it too deeply yet, I think the idea of a “use it or lose it” lease makes sense in our current situation, doesn’t it?

Not when you look at the posture.

I could go through all the "threats" the WH has placed on the fossil fuel industry, but I'd have to go all the way back to Biden's campaign... and then certain posters would want to sidebar into arguments over ancillary events. Let's start with embracing a Green New Deal that said we would cripple the industry in ten years flat, and leave it at that.

Now the answer is to place all the blame on Putin and the industry... and offer more threats, i.e... "use it or lose it".

Yeah, just not seeing how that would be very constructive. But if it gets you brownie points on MSDNC and they call it "leadership", it's all good at the end of the day.

Somebody missing Trumpy Bear?

It cracks me up...

Obama lifted the ban on American oil exports, creating a way for big oil to make more money, and American gas went up.

Trump for all his drilling and selling off of public lands, sought out OPEC leaders and asked them to raise prices!

Now Biden, doing what he can to lower prices, is stuck with those two decisions. But yes, it's all his fault.

So let’s have this discussion, you and me. No side bars. Others can contribute obviously, but any disparaging spirals can just be ignored (we’ll see if that’s possible). Just genuine thought.

From my understanding, wouldn’t a “use or lose lease” basically say if you want to do business with us, then you have to do business, essentially? I could be off there. I definitely think - based on my every day experience - that in its own transactional experiences, the government does not nearly leverage its strengths enough when engaging with industry.

Implementation of a well-structured approach is an additional step where I am initially clueless. There would have to be some type of metric or method to balance a use or lose lease to balance between being arbitrarily punitive and effective in its goal.

You speak with way too much common sense, and that's not the way our political / corporate relationships work.

Structure would be great, but let's compare this to any other business relationship. If one party can be effectively "cancelled" by the other in four year intervals, how much confidence (not to mention expense) would the other have in future investments?

Imagine calling your band-aid supplier and telling him you hate his product, you want to replace it, but since there's so much bleeding going on you'll reluctantly take a pallet... "and start building another factory, just in-case I need more". Wouldn't be a very productive conversation, would it? Now look at an administration that has basically said "I'll cut off a hand and strap on a tourniquet before I buy your band-aids!"

Why? Because it's not their hand -- it's ours. They even pat us on the head and told us it's our own damn fault. The admin's mouthpiece says "Don't like high gas prices? Go buy an electric car!" Their approach to solving the energy/ planet crisis is to cut off the right hand and teach us to eat with our left. Meanwhile, for three administrations, no one has come up with any real solutions that would makes sense to a room full of third-graders. Just pork-filled initiatives to help these crooks play slight of hand.

From that point of view I can definitely see the point of the corporations, especially when each administration gives them a cozy seat in front of the fire. That doesn't mean I think they're any less evil, just prudent enough to see the writing on the wall... and the fact that every move and comment by Biden keeps him squarely on the negative side of their balance sheet.


The trouble is, each administration is also mired in a mix of corruption (at least that's my view of how corps buy their favors in this country) at every level, and willingly participate in more.

In this case, it all starts at the top of the pyramid (imo). Companies can hoard land-leases for pennies. Hell, I may lease that 50,000 acres just so you can't. Lands are offered at as low as $2 per acre and then become a tax deduction when they aren't used.

How about these lease costs move along a scale that reflects consumer price? That way when these companies don't provide due diligence towards keeping supply and price in line, they can belly up to the bar and pay for outrageous land-lease cost increases. I mean, there has to be some kind of penalty for inflating prices by restricting supply, right?

At the end of the day, this aspect of oil supply has very little bearing on our situation in the present. "Exploring new horizons" will do nothing to alleviate our current price spikes. It's almost as silly as Pfizer trying to create an omicron booster... too little, too late.


In short (too late lol), the government doesn't "leverage its strengths enough" because that's not how the game is played.

And part of the game is making sure people like us argue about "land-leases"... and keeping our eyes off common sense, and where the game actually breaks bad.

That do sound familiar.

1. I was the one who mentioned increasing the supply to reduce the cost. I never said it was trump was the reason. In fact, I said the opposite and how presidents have little control. (see page 2) - it may be worth it to actually read what I wrote instead of trying to argue with me regardless of what I say.

Here is what I said in my posts:


"If there is too much oil, prices go down. if there is not enough oil prices go up. If we add more crude, the prices will go down. If we supply our own oil, we would have much better control over pricing."

_____________

"The second biggest driver of high gas prices is rebounding demand as the U.S. economy recovers from the deadly pandemic. The increase of roughly 70 cents that occurred before Mr. Putin’s invasion is largely due to people venturing out again for travel, work and school, and the surge in truckers crisscrossing the nation to move goods.

The reality is, presidents have little influence on gas prices. Oil trades in a global market. Drilling in the United States is done by private companies, not the government. Americans also have other priorities right now, including doing what they can to tip the balance in Ukraine against the aggressors. Poll after poll shows the vast majority support cutting off Russian oil imports, even if it means prices go up.

So what can be done to lower gas prices? The biggest help would be more oil supply coming to the world market from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran or Venezuela. There are already efforts to make this happen. U.S. oil production also appears to be rising, spurred by higher oil prices. And there are signs the global economy, especially China, is slowing, meaning less demand for oil.

Mr. Biden could release more oil from Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but it would have minimal impact.

Mr. Biden is also berating businesses for price gouging. But it has long been true that gas prices have a tendency to rise much faster than they fall, and presidential tweets are unlikely to change that.

Any solution should begin with some honesty from their leaders about what — and who — is to blame, as well as an acknowledgment of the fact that many of the forces currently driving costs upward are simply beyond anyone’s control."


_______________

I quoted your article that your shared which said:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...s-military-support-sources-idUSKBN22C1V4
"The effort illustrated Trump’s strong desire to protect the U.S. oil industry from a historic price meltdown as governments shut down economies worldwide to fight the virus. It also reflected a telling reversal of Trump’s longstanding criticism of the oil cartel, which he has blasted for raising energy costs for Americans with supply cuts that usually lead to higher gasoline prices. Now, Trump was asking OPEC to slash output."


"Amply supply means crude barrel prices which will slow/curb inflation.

What don't you understand?"


2. Your memory is getting in the way of facts. Gas prices fell pre-covid https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm_epm0_pte_nus_dpg&f=a and were falling from their high at 3.68 in 2012

March 15th 2020 is when Covid shutdown


2018 the average price was 2.81
2019 the average price was 2.69
2020 the average price was 2.25 (covid)
2021 the average price was 3.10
2022 the average price are now 4.33

3. OPEC ramped down supply in 2020 (because of covid) and since you are trying to blame the former president, Biden has had 1+ year to convince them to ramp it up. Biden's team of people didn't have the foresight when life was getting back to normal and pushed OPEC to increase production. This cluster is on them.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/31/oil-opec-meets-as-us-considers-massive-release-of-oil-reserves.html

4. Now, Biden is tapping into our reserves (for an unprecedented 3rd time in 6 months) which, we will need if we do end up in a war with Russia.

*Prior to the last six months, U.S. presidents have authorized emergency sales from the SPR three times, most recently in 2011 during a war in OPEC member Libya. Sales also took place during the Gulf War in 1991 and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

so, go buy a $56,000 EV ($1,002/mo over 60mo at 2.79%) + the $40 a month to charge it just to save $80 a month when you can't even afford the car you have which is $450/mo and costs 200/mo for gas.

Up next... rolling blackouts all summer because the electric grid can't support the influx of EV and the price of electricity/kw doubles to pay for the upgrades to the grid.

After that, massive repair bills for EV battery replacement in 5-8 years will cost you between $3,000 and $18,000

#science

You are mocking science. Just hilarious irony in that for me. Thanks for making my night. Laughed so hard my jaw muscles ached.

I hate it when I have to pay gas at the pump.

I'm mocking the stupidity of these ideas by politicians and pushing technology on America that hasn't even been completely flushed out yet. We may as well go back to filling cans full of CFC's and start spraying into the air. We don't even know how to recycle these things at scale yet. Right now, they are basically being stored in hopes that we can figure it out.


www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=304070

What to do with all these retired electric vehicle batteries is going to be a huge issue," said Fengqi You, one of the authors of the study. The research team considered environmental and economic tradeoffs in how batteries are built, used and recycled.


"Lithium-ion batteries are designed today for performance and not for recycling or second life," said You. Lithium-ion batteries usually last 12 years or less before losing the capacity to power a vehicle. "There's very little discussion right now about the environmental dimensions of improving battery design for recycling or reuse."


https://www.science.org/content/art...e-coming-what-happens-all-dead-batteries

But when the battery comes to the end of its life, its green benefits fade. If it ends up in a landfill, its cells can release problematic toxins, including heavy metals. And recycling the battery can be a hazardous business, warns materials scientist Dana Thompson of the University of Leicester. Cut too deep into a Tesla cell, or in the wrong place, and it can short-circuit, combust, and release toxic fumes.

Current EV batteries "are really not designed to be recycled," says Thompson, a research fellow at the Faraday Institution, a research center focused on battery issues in the United Kingdom.

To extract those needles, recyclers rely on two techniques, known as pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy. The more common is pyrometallurgy, in which recyclers first mechanically shred the cell and then burn it, leaving a charred mass of plastic, metals, and glues. At that point, they can use several methods to extract the metals, including further burning. "Pyromet is essentially treating the battery as if it were an ore" straight from a mine, Gaines says. Hydrometallurgy, in contrast, involves dunking battery materials in pools of acid, producing a metal-laden soup. Sometimes the two methods are combined.

Both processes produce extensive waste and emit greenhouse gases, studies have found. And the business model can be shaky: Most operations depend on selling recovered cobalt to stay in business, but batterymakers are trying to shift away from that relatively expensive metal. If that happens, recyclers could be left trying to sell piles of "dirt," says materials scientist Rebecca Ciez of Purdue University.

Engineers might be able to build robots that could speed battery disassembly, but sticky issues remain even after you get inside the cell, researchers note. That's because more glues are used to hold the anodes, cathodes, and other components in place. One solvent that recyclers use to dissolve cathode binders is so toxic that the European Union has introduced restrictions on its use, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined last year that it poses an "unreasonable risk" to workers.


https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abi7633
Advanced LIB technologies with high specific energy density do not necessarily demonstrate better potentials for mitigating climate change and energy demand, especially when the material and energy inputs for the LIB production and recycling are highly carbon and energy intensive. The development of green recycling processes with higher material recovery rates, lower energy requirement, and utilization of less environmentally expensive materials is critical to improving the potential of mitigating environmental impacts. Moreover, their potentials for mitigating climate change and energy demand are confined by the penetration of renewable electricity. Therefore, it is essential to increase the share of renewable energy in the local power grid.

Also note, EV won't save the environment.




Also, US only accounts for 1% of the world lithium. We're simply going to be trading reliance on one master for another.

That’s a good post. I’m going to need to chew on that one for a bit.

Buying a $60,000 electric car isn't going to save people money.

Even when the cost of EV's start to fall in to line, if they ever do, the demand for electricity will rise causing those costs to rise.

If people think going electric is going to cost way less, you have been eating too much rainbow stew.

j/c

For those proposing we give oil companies more leases? They currently hold thousands of leases they refuse to drill for oil on. It seems the answer some propose is to give them more leases instead of requiring them to drill on their current leases. Then they look for someone else to blame it on.

Speaking of:

I spent a week on Trump's new social media app Truth Social. I felt like I was exploring a ghost town.

After being kicked off Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube early in 2021, former president Donald Trump pledged to launch his own social media platform. About 13 months later, on February 21, 2022, he did just that with the launch of Truth Social.

I downloaded the Truth Social app on launch day and created an account – only to be told I'd been put on a waitlist in spot number 157,120. Three weeks later, on March 14, I was finally allowed to use the app.

And I found…not very much. It was like a conservative ghost town that had been overrun by bots.

Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social, pitches its app as an alternative to the big social media platforms, which banned Trump for inciting violence during the US Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021.

The signs so far are that Truth Social is a flop.

Since it launched, downloads and time spent on the app have trended downwards. It has slumped from being the number one download on Apple's US App Store to number 173, according to an analysis by Similarweb.

That's partly down to the app's lengthy waitlist, which keeps wannabe users locked out for weeks. But even when I got off the waitlist and into the app, followed the app's most popular users, and scrolled through my feed, there still wasn't much to see or do.

Here's what I found.

My suggested follows were sometimes weird, and my feed didn't contain much original content

After completing the setup process for new users, I was prompted to follow 50 suggested accounts.

Of course, one was Trump's account (823,000 followers). Another was Fox News anchor Sean Hannity (372,000). And another was the account of Kyle Rittenhouse (269,000), who in November last year was acquitted of all charges after fatally shooting two people during protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Other suggested follows included the meme account "Cats with Jobs" (38,000), an account entitled "Hot Chicks Golfing" (61,000), and the official NASA account (113,000).

Once I'd followed these accounts, my feed of "truths" – what Truth Social calls posts – started filling up, but with very little original content. As I scrolled through my feed, I found that most posts were just linked-out articles on websites, posted automatically via RSS feeds.

Fox News didn't appear to have an account

A few media outlets, including Fox-owned tabloid TMZ and right-wing UK newspaper The Daily Mail, had Truth Social presences.

But other mainstream news organizations were missing: CNN, NBC, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal weren't there (though there was no shortage of parody accounts for these publications).

Interestingly, Fox News, which was once Trump's news network of choice, didn't appear to have a presence. There was an account called @FoxNewsChannel but it only had 5,920 followers, and has only posted 30 "truths" altogether.

There was an RSS aggregating bot for Fox Sports' website, which had 76,300 followers, but the account didn't appear to be affiliated with Fox itself.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Sean Hannity were on there

A few prominent conservatives were active on Truth Social.

Fox News host Sean Hannity had racked up 372,000 followers and was posting several truths a day. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and congressman Paul Gosar respectively had 71,600 followers and 12,400 followers.

But these accounts were the exception rather than the rule. A host of prominent Republicans and conservative commentators – including Ben Shapiro and Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones – weren't anywhere to be seen.

Through the app's profile finder, I couldn't find any verified US Senators, or Democrats from either congressional chamber.

I did find a few Republican lawmakers, though. Representatives Byron Donalds and Lisa McClain were there, with 1,000 and 233 followers respectively – but neither had posted any truths. Representative Clay Higgins was also there, with 4,320 users and seven posts.

Big news stories like the Russia-Ukraine war seemed to be getting minimal engagement

I could search for topic hashtags, but even hashtags you'd think would generate a lot of user engagement, like those related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, were barely getting any traction. For example, only 1,320 people were using the #Ukraine hashtag.

One Ukraine-related hashtag I surfaced on the app was #Ukrainebiolabs.

There's a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine is engaging in clandestine bio weapons testing, funded by the United States. Still, the conspiracy theory has been spread by sites like Infowars and Russian disinformation channels. It was also mentioned on three separate Fox News segments hosted by Tucker Carlson.

Still, the hashtag linked to very few posts and had limited engagement.

The direct message function wasn't working

Even the people you'd expect to be avid users of Truth Social, like Trump himself, are barely active.

A "truth" from Trump's account, posted about a month prior, said: "Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!"

The former president hadn't posted since.

Even if Trump was posting frequently on Truth Social, he still wouldn't be generating anything like the level of engagement he enjoyed on Twitter before he was banned. As of April 1, 2022, Trump had just around 823,000 followers on Truth Social – compared with 88 million followers on Twitter in early January 2021.

The app was overrun with bots

Truth Social was meant to be a haven for conservative discussion. It felt more like Bot Social. For example, many of the replies to Trump's solitary post were adverts for a niche cryptocurrency. And even popular hashtags turned up mainly bot-generated posts or non-organic content.

It's not impossible that Truth Social could take off at some point in the future. For now, though, it's some way off becoming the social media platform of choice for Trump and his supporters.

And other apps that attract right-wing audiences, like Gettr, a "cancel-free" app founded last year by former Trump aide Jason Miller, have more users and are getting more daily engagement.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/spent-week-trumps-social-media-090200075.html

I'm disappointed. I thought Clem was conducting his own science experiment.

Talk to the russkies. They are really good at doing just that. You guys can be best buds!

No idea how to translate this into anything resembling coherent English from this trolling note, but just so you know I care, SHUT UP.

First I was going to rewrite it so you could comprehend it. Then I let my grandson read it and he said he understood it and it was clear. Now, he is only 9 so I am thinking the problem may be on your end. Keep working on it.

Sure you did, that's exactly what an idiot would say. And I wasn't talking about the 9-year-old grandson that somehow gets you.

Do you mean like this?

And we had 4 years of peace.

Helsinki, Putin love, and insurrection... not to mention abandoning all of our allies... this is what you call peace? FOOL.

Not for nothing, but out on W130th yesterday, I paid 3.67 a gallon.. That was the Credit price.. The Cash price was 3.49

Not really.. You should stop listening to Trump and his Minions..

He forgot about Afghanistan. And maybe Trump's deal with the terrorists.

So the gas you bought yesterday was only $1.50 or so more than in the pre joe era. Dang that is comforting!!

Just for curiosity, what allies did we “abandon”??

You could start with the Kurds in Turkey and move on from there.