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[A fresh sandbox was overdue. Among the topics spawned hereunder, Watashi-wa would like to see a discussion of the current news that Russ Steele introduced as 'boots on the ground' in the 3may15 sandbox, and repeated below –
BEIRUT (AP) — U.S. commandos mounted a rare raid into eastern Syria overnight, killing a senior Islamic State commander in a firefight, capturing his wife and rescuing a Yazidi woman held as a slave, the Pentagon said Saturday.]
This one is for Steven Frisch and his fellow enviromential travelers.
With bargain gasoline prices putting more money in the pockets of Americans, owners of hybrids and electric vehicles are defecting to sport utility vehicles and other conventional models powered only by gasoline, according to Edmunds.com, an auto research firm.
There are limits, it appears, to how far consumers will go to own a car that became a rolling statement of environmental concern. In 2012, with gas prices soaring, an owner could expect a hybrid to pay back its higher upfront costs in as little as five years. Now, that oft-calculated payback period can extend to 10 years or more.
ooo
In all, 55 percent of hybrid and electric vehicle owners are defecting to a gasoline-only model at trade-in time — the lowest level of hybrid loyalty since Edmunds.com began tracking such transactions in 2011. More than one in five are switching to a conventional sport utility vehicle, nearly double the rate of three years ago.
That one-and-done syndrome coincides with tumbling sales of electric and hybrid vehicles. Through April, sales of electrified models slid to 2.7 percent of the market, down from 3.4 percent over the same period last year, Edmunds.com said. At the same time, sport utility vehicles grabbed 34.4 percent of sales, up from 31.6 percent.
– See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/#sthash.l9KLqoOl.dpuf
This is surely a set back for Governor Brown who wants to reduce CO2 by increasing the number of EVs on California roads. This was all predictable. All my family members that experimented with hybrids are all back to reliable gas powered vehicles with roof racks, something your could not get on hybrids.
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Posted by: Russ Steele | 19 May 2015 at 04:07 PM
Going to interesting to see if this trend reverses itself as gas prices are climbing back up a bit?!
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Good timing. AAA just announced that the average price per gallon of gasoline is $2.81 nationwide. California took the booby prize for having the highest price per gallon with an average of around $3.81. Within California, LA won the honors with a average price for a gallon of petro at $3.99, with many stations selling now over 4 bucks a gallon.
And some said we would not notice that little gas tax that went into effect this past January to fund the bullet train and low income housing, yet not fill one solitary pothole, straighten nary a crooked lane, nor even restripe the faded paint on one road.
It’s all for the poor children in Tanzania who need clean drinking water and the best way to achieve this noble goal is to build low income housing and the Bullet Train. My old beat up vehicle is faster than the current speeding Bullet Train and more economical.
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RussS 407pm – I think that Mr Frisch and his “fellow environmental travelers” have known for years that they could not sell a single item off their patent medicine wagon without the government’s gun forcing people to become their customers.
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Just heard another news report (ABC Radio) on the oil “spill” in Santa Barbara. It is a pipeline rupture not an offshore but the news does not say this. I think we may have a anti-fracking eco terrorist at work/.
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Sure Todd. That lovely oil industry strikes yet again down on the beautiful Santa Barbara coast. But I am sure that Plains All American will provide all sorts of assurances and remind folks of their commitment to a green future.
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Jon, my guess is your eco terrorist pals did the deed. They want to remind America of the spill way back when. You libs are so easy.
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Planet Delusional Todd. Wishful thinking in your support of a dirty, greedy industry who cannot maintain their infrastructure. That spill will change the dynamic in Sacramento in regards to oil in our state.
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jeffpelline says:
May 20, 2015 at 11:11 am
Now Rebane is pleading with the boneheads who comment on his blog: “Substance, stick to substance!” Trouble is, there is no substance. There never has been.
Reply
Three people heard the bleat of a man to whom nobody pays any attention. I was one of the three.
jeffy haz a sad.
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Of course the knee jerk reaction liberal politicians of our state will overreact. They always do. Good press opportunities. Never let a tragedy go to waste they say. I see Jon never disavowed my statement that his pals, the eco terrorists, probably breached the pipes.
Regarding the “dirty business” of oil. My goodness you are so in oneness with the APPLE folks of Nevada City. What a hoot!
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Fish, he is lonely and he will stay that way. No one likes him. That is why he is adios from our local newspaper.
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Sure Todd. Opining that terrorists of any sort are “my pals” or the pals of any progressive minded person, is why Kesti has told you what he did about your style.
Dirty Business of Oil is the accepted terms for that industry. of tens of millions of Americans. God when they screw up like this in such a big way, impacting huge amount of tourist and recreation dollars, you cannot even admit it. Its a dirty, dirty business. Just admit it and tell us the truth of how you feel- that promoting oil is worth the dirty externalities, the occasional spill. You’re just not that worried about the death of thousands of birds, fish and millions of ocean dwellers? Just say it!
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Well Jon, disavow the eco terrorists then. Pretty simple it seems to me.
I don’t call the oil business a “dirty” business “jon”. It may be dirty as say, building a home might be, you know, in the dirt itself but the results are beautiful. No, you libs eco nuts are simply hypocrites, one and all. Oil is turned into thousands of things like, Hmmm, the plastic in your laptop, the plastic in the smog belching Volvo you drive and many more. I call oil the “savior” of the human race, well after the true savior. It has made life for humans much more bearable and has allowed even people like you, a paid for physiologist for your malaise.
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The sock puppet spews more party line. ‘terrorists of any sort are my pals or the pals of any progressive minded person’ Seems every convicted eco nut claimed to have acted on a progressive agenda for the betterment of (fill in the blank).
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Todd, eco nut? Mainstream enviro oriented? Yes. My view of the oil spill is the same as most everyone else talking about it today. Also, I hate Volvos and Saabs, especially the belching ones, and have never owned a Suburu or hybrid. And I disavow any act of any eco terrorist, ever.
The entirety of your post above is very funny, I will give you that.
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Nobody like oil spills “jonny” But what I find hilarious about you libs is this. You trash the oil companies regardless if there is a spill because for some reason you have allowed yourself to be brainwashed against them and their product. You wail against a spill that might encompass 5 square lies and put some oil on some birds yet when your pals burn down thousands of acres of our forests and kill all those critters, you are silent.
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Quite a stretch there Todd re: forest burning and the early eco-terrorist accusation. Par for the course. Stay tuned on the Santa Barbara spill. Its bigger than 5 square miles.
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Jonnie you missed the point. Millions of acres burn and it is your programs that make it happen. Millions of critters die and your eco terrorist groups like the Sierra Club and Earth First sue to keep the burned wood from being logged. The left could care less. But have a little spill and a couple of birds get gooey and you libs go apoplectic.
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Todd, when you talk about the mainstream, moderate Sierra Club as an eco-terrorist group, you lose all credibility. Lets stop the exaggerations. Your opinion about forest management is just that, an opinion. There are many other scientists who disagree with your view.
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Annie Fox says:
May 21, 2015 at 7:57 am
Hearing the babble on that station I’m inclined to believe they’re bleach blondes
Reply
C’mon jeffy……how bout a fresh crop of imaginary playmates with whom you can converse for our amusement?
“Annie” is all played out.
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The Sierra Club formed a 501-c4 called “Earth Justice” and they sue just about evry tree harvest and free market business dealing with just about any product taken from the natural world. I call them terrorists since the recipients of their attacks usually leave the planet. They are the legal side of Earth First. Your opinion of them is just that “Jon”, an opinion.
You are a troll anyway without credibility at all. What a hoot, the troll telling me I have no credibility.
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Fish, I think Pelline has lost his noggin. My goodness, a normal, regular man would jump on the bandwagon about the beauty of FOX babes. He must not be “normal”?
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TJ,
You can call anything or anyone a terrorist, but it doesn’t make them a terrorist. You just like using it to describe folks that actually value our natural world over greed and profit at any cost. Makes ya feel good, I get it.
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Great example of exaggeration again when you talk about wanting to stop every timber harvest. If you don’t like concerned enviro groups using their constitutional rights under our legal system, would you like to propose an alternative?
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You can call anything or anyone a terrorist racist, but it doesn’t make them a terrorist racist.
I wonder if your progressive minded friends have been made aware of this?
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Todd, serious question-
Do you honestly believe that profit seeking timber and mining outfits would voluntarily set up remediation and reclamation plans on their own, with regulation and legal system checks and balances?
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..without..
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You can read a rebuttal of the President’s Climate Speech distortions here:
http://sierrafoothillcommentary.com/2015/05/21/does-the-leader-of-the-free-world-really-know-so-little-about-climate/
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Todd, serious question-…….
Todd give him a serious answer in that there are multiple legal avenues to recover damages in the event that a private concern damages the commons.
Those avenues don’t involve the formation of new Government Agencies that hire an army of government employees to administer the preparation and documents and all the fees associated with them.
That’s probably why the left isn’t thrilled with them. Remember there is a legitimate branch of historical scholarship was that the French Revolution was driven as much by the quest for government sinecures as to remedy any oppression by the French government at the time.
Why would we think that our idiot American “rank and file” brethren are any less venal?
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Jon you are a troll so I won’t debate you any further after this. Terrorist is in the eye of the beholder (you are one of those that says one man’s terroist is another freedom fighter). Eco terror to me is your lib ilk causing many towns in the west to become “ghosts” as your legal terrorists have successfully stopped resource extraction. (while you use its results in your computer and house) So your opinion is different than mine, good for you.
I suggest you review the Federal Organic Act of 1897.
Soper Wheeler and many other private companies do a great job of managing their forest ownerships. You can see when the fires burn the forest the fire does not burn theirs. It is profit and true concern for the environment that drives these companies. They should be given the ownership and management of what the Forest Service has and you would see a truly beautiful forest.
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Jon, IMHO the Sierra Club is indeed a terrorist organization in that it can bring its considerable wealth and collective clout to bear through our corrupt justice system on an individual or small enterprise that does not have the financial resources to oppose such practiced onslaught – even the contemplation of such suits is terrifying. Similar types of social terror is also threatened by big corporations on smaller entities to limit competition or gain market share.
And yes, corporations that depend on harvesting natural resources for their income and survival do indeed support regulations that promote the long term sustenance of such resources. You see, it’s a profit maintenance thing.
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This is breaking the thread, but the following story makes me wonder about conservative claims that they are the true defenders of our Constitution, particularly the part about the separation of powers:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/kansas-lawmakers-budget-move-links-court-funding-to-court-decisions-1432067876?KEYWORDS=kansas+legislature
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Dr. R,
I do not agree that Sierra Club has targeted individuals or small time enterprise (mom and pop) in the vision you are painting of nailing the little guy. Yes, of course the various state and federal regulators may target these people if they violate the law. The Sierra Club obviously does not have unlimited resources, and focuses its projects and actions against impactful large scale organizations who can bring equal or greater resources to bear. Chevron, ExxonMobil or Shell, with their billions and its army of lawyers are not exactly cowering under the supposed overwhelming power of the advocacy of the Sierra Club.
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GeorgeB 1125am – Perhaps you are confusing state constitutions with our federal Constitution. In the federalism left us by the Founders, Kansas can damn well do what it wants in the cases such as you cite. Now I understand if you are no great fan of federalism which does seem to be eschewed by the Left.
Jon 1147am – While agreeing with you on the big cases, the Sierra Club has no problem acting as the ‘people’s enforcement arm’ for federal bureaucracies like the EPA, Fish and Wildlife, … .
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Regarding public sentiment about the disastrous SB spill,
You cannot blame enviros for the fallout on this one. The vast majority of people of all political stripes are frankly pissed off about these spills, and the local business folks from the So. Central Coast region are pissed off about the impact on their business for many months to come, right as we go into the tourist season.
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Jon 1154am – I feel your pain, but perhaps in a different part of my body. Have you and yours considered what a tremendously large, complex, and partially known infrastructure system undergirds America, and makes our quality of life possible? Does anyone understand the statistics that define the tails of natural distributions of, say, the integrity of the thousands upon thousands of miles of conduits carrying all manner fluids that pass beneath our feet and our shores? Does anyone understand what small fraction of failures we have witnessed in recent years? Are we demanding perfection and at what cost to ourselves are dunning those who fall short?
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GeorgeB, as a conservative I am PO’d that a court can toss the decisions of the voters and their legislators as they have done on homosexual marriage. Who gives them the final say? Other than the Marbury v Madison where the SCOTUS decided it was the final arbiter of “constitutionality” (yep they did Dredd Scott) I find no where in the US Constitution a “final arbiter” “right” of the court. It has actually morphed into its present form by the legislatures not taking the courts to task for what I deem their usurpation of the people’s rights.
No one likes oil spills but but the left seems to like forests burning down. The left does not seem to have the same outrage when thousands of acres and its critters are toasted. Why is that I wonder? I blame the terrorist Sierra Club etal and their terrorist legal arm, the EarthJustice yapper lawyers for a lot of the destruction we see in our once national treasures called forests.
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Yet another one of the inane Todd comments- the left seems to like forests burning down and toasting critters. Who is on the LEFT has said that they like these things?
There are wide varieties of opinions on forest management. For example, no problem with proportional and proper logging operations where proper studies have been done and consensus achieved. needed. The US forest service certainly has projects going. But as to issues such as logging every last remaining stump or woody particle of the Rim Fire territory, there is no clear consensus. Many scientists say that more damage than good will be achieved.
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The left has implemented policies and laws and lawsuits that have left the forests in a mess. You can’t deny it. But as a lib troll you do. You need to get educated about these topics since you appear very ignorant.
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no problem, proportional, proper, proper…..consensus ….. which really means delay, obscure and obfuscate resulting in nothing.
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