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Bill O'Reilly's Factor Blog gets stupid:

shuamort

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Gas-Free Sundays
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, looters aren't the only ones making out like bandits. Oil companies are soaking Americans at the pump while raking in unconscionable profits. As one example, ExxonMobil will earn about $30 billion this year, and pays its CEO Lee Raymond $38 million. But where does that leave ordinary Americans who need gas to get to their jobs and schools?
This week the average price of a gallon of gasoline reached a record $3.07 - that's a 45 cent increase in just one week! The Factor is calling on the major oil companies to reduce their profits by 20%, which will enable the rest of us to buy gas without taking out a second mortgage.

And to show Big Oil that we mean business, The Factor is asking all of you not to buy gas on Sundays. Gas-free Sundays will send a clear message: American drivers are mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore. Drive right by the gas station on this Sunday and every Sunday until the oil companies agree to sacrifice a small portion of their profits for the sake of the common good.

OK, now, I'm sure the well-researched blog somehow missed the Snopes article debunking this idea:
First of all, everyone's "not purchasing a drop of gasoline for one day" will not cause oil companies to "choke on their stockpiles." Oil companies run their inventories on a weekly basis, and since the "gas out" scheme doesn't call on people to buy less gasoline but simply to shift their date of purchase by one day, oil company stockpiles won't be affected at all.
(Snip) The very same amount of gasoline will be sold either way, so the oil companies aren't going to lose any money at all.

By definition, a boycott involves the doing without of something, with the renunciation of the boycotted product held up as tangible proof to those who supply the commodity that consumers are prepared to do without it unless changes are made. What the "gas out" calls for isn't consumers' swearing off using or buying gasoline, even for a short time, but simply shifting their purchases by a couple of days at most. Because the "gas out" doesn't call on consumers to make a sacrifice by actually giving up something, the threat it poses is a hollow one.
 
From an old e-mail I wrote last year when I got an email saying not to buy gas on a certain day...

Not buying gas on a certain day will make a gas company cry? Are we that
naive?

Listen up folks...It's time, once again, for (cnredd) to go off........

I'm watching the news last weekend and a lady with a couple of snot-nose
punk kids are in her HUMMER(!) explaining to the cameras that the 30 bucks
that she put into her car didn't fill up half of her tank.....and claimed
this as "ridiculous".

NO, you obnoxious whore!!! That fact that you drive a Hummer that gets
micron miles to the gallon is ridiculous! And in the f'in city, no less! Who
the hell needs a Hummer(or for that matter, a Range Rover, Grand Jerokee, etc)in the city?...Who needs one outside of the city?

People are buying these bohemeths that get 2 miles per gallon and can't fit
into a parking space at 35 grand a pop, and bitch when a gallon of gas goes up 50 cents? The pussification of America continues, my friends...

The only, only, only, only, only(one more), only reason oil is such a
commodity is because we use it to such excess. You want prices to go down? How about stopping Nascar, which uses up more fuel in one race than a small town uses in a week. Or we could stop glorifying power...Does any soccor mom in the country need a Hemi in her Dodge to get their inbred children to the game on time?(A game that doesn't keep score because it might send half the kids into depression, but that's a story for another time....)

And help me figure this out...If mom "A" (we'll call her "bitch" to keep her
real name anonymous...even though its "Shirley") has an SUV so she can drive the 7 neighborhood kids to ballet, swimming, boy scouts, and the local methadone clinic, then why do the other 6 moms have an SUV, too? If one mommy is driving these mutations everywhere, then the other six SUVS are, essentially,...IDLE. That means the local car dealership sold 7 SUVS at 30 grand, and only one of them can be used to full capacity at any one time.

And use your brain cells on this one, folks...If you spend 10 extra "G"s to
buy one of these monsters and use it to a capacity higher than an average
6-cylinder car a total of 20 times during the life of the vehicle, that means you have spent $500 for each use. You frickin geniuses.

And if you're paying 10 extra grand so you can fit your canoe, gas grill,
sports equipment, dildo collection, Jimmy Hoffa's rotting corpse, and 2
Massachusetts same-sex marriage couples into your SUV, then don't come whining to me when you can't pay the 20 dollars extra to push your sorry ass around. These are the same people who started out getting a cell phone for emergency purposes only, and end up calling the husband, whose on his way home from work, to remind him that the cheese he's picking up at the deli is "provolone".

And if you're buying a vehicle that gets less than 20 miles per gallon, then
don't complain to the general public that you have a problem filling your gas
tank. Especially when we live in a culture that drives to the corner store.

I'm not here to preach about cornoil gas and fuel cells...but I do believe that
there should be regulations on vehicles. Car companies know they can build
a car that gets over 50 mpg...good ones, too...but their question is
simple..."Why bother?" The only reason they'll shortchange the public is BECAUSE THEY CAN. It's the car companies that bow down to the oil companies that we are in this situation.

So a day without buying gas won't do anything except create bored gas station attendants. If no one buys gas on the 19th, you can be rest assured that twice as many people will be buying it on the 20th.

Source=Me
 
That is f-ing great, I love it. Reminds me of this....

Tom Friedman....Thanksgiving Day, 2004...and it's not a partisan diatribe, just keep reading.

In my next life, I want to be Tom DeLay, the House majority leader.
Yes, I want to get almost the entire Republican side of the House of Representatives to bend its ethics rules just for me. I want to be able to twist the arms of House Republicans to repeal a rule that automatically requires party leaders to step down if they are indicted on a felony charge - something a Texas prosecutor is considering doing to DeLay because of corruption allegations.

But most of all, I want to have the gall to sully American democracy at a time when young American soldiers are fighting in Iraq so we can enjoy a law-based society here and, maybe, extend it to others. Yes, I want to be Tom DeLay. I want to wear a little American flag on my lapel in solidarity with the troops, while I besmirch every value they are dying for.

If I can't be Tom DeLay, then I want to be one of the gutless Republican House members who voted to twist the rules for DeLay out of fear that "the Hammer," as they call him, might retaliate by taking away a coveted committee position or maybe a parking place.

Yes, I want to be a Republican House member. At a time when 180 of the 211 members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Iraq who have been wounded in combat have insisted on returning to duty, I want to look my constituents and my kids in the eye and tell them that I voted to empty the House ethics rules because I was afraid of Tom DeLay.

If I can't be a Republican House member, I want to be Latrell Sprewell, the guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves. I want to say with a straight face that if my owner will only give me a three-year contract extension for a meager $21 million, then he's not worth working for, because "I've got my family to feed."

Yes, I want to be Latrell Sprewell. At a time when N.B.A. games are priced beyond the reach of most American families, when half the country can't afford health care, when some reservists in Iraq are separated from their families for a year, including this Thanksgiving, I want to be like Latrell. I want to make sure everyone knows that I'm looking out for my family - and no one else's.

If I can't be Latrell Sprewell, I want to be any American college or professional athlete. For a mere dunk of the basketball or first-down run, I want to be able to dance a jig, as if I'd just broken every record by Michael Jordan or Johnny Unitas. For the smallest, most routine bit of success in my sport, I want to be able to get in your face - I want to know who's your daddy, I want to be able to high-five, low-five, thump my chest and dance on your grave. You talkin' to me?

I want to be able to fight on the court, off the court, in the stands and on the sidelines. I want to respect no boundaries and no norms. And when I make your kids cry, I want to be able to tell you to just "chill" - that my coach says "stuff happens" and that my union rep is appealing my punishment in the name of the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta. Yes, in my next life, I want to be The Man.

If I can't be The Man, then I at least want to be the owner of a Hummer - with American flag decals all over the back bumper, because Hummer owners are, on average, a little more patriotic than you and me.

Yes, I want to drive the mother of all gas-guzzlers that gets so little mileage you have to drive from gas station to gas station. Yes, I want to drive my Hummer and never have to think that by consuming so much oil, I am making transfer payments to the worst Arab regimes that transfer money to Islamic charities that transfer money to madrassas that teach children intolerance, antipluralism and how to hate the infidels.

And when one day one of those madrassa graduates goes off and joins the jihad in Falluja and kills my neighbor's son, who is in the U.S. Army Rangers, I want to drive to his funeral in my Hummer. Yes, I want to curse his killers in front of his mother and wail aloud, "If there was only something I could do ..." And then I want to drive home in my Hummer, stopping at two gas stations along the way.

If I can't be any of these, then I want to be just a simple blue-state red-state American. I want to take time on this Thanksgiving to thank God I live in a country where, despite so much rampant selfishness, the public schools still manage to produce young men and women ready to voluntarily risk their lives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to spread the opportunity of freedom and to protect my own. And I want to thank them for doing this, even though on so many days in so many ways we really don't deserve them.
 
cnredd said:
From an old e-mail I wrote last year when I got an email saying not to buy gas on a certain day...

Not buying gas on a certain day will make a gas company cry? Are we that
naive?
My college does it, would that offend you.

Listen up folks...It's time, once again, for (cnredd) to go off........

I'm watching the news last weekend and a lady with a couple of snot-nose
punk kids are in her HUMMER(!) explaining to the cameras that the 30 bucks
that she put into her car didn't fill up half of her tank.....and claimed
this as "ridiculous".
Actually listen to someone with moderate exerience on cars is rediculous. She bought it, she pays dearly for her gas!

NO, you obnoxious whore!!! That fact that you drive a Hummer that gets
micron miles to the gallon is ridiculous! And in the f'in city, no less! Who
the hell needs a Hummer(or for that matter, a Range Rover, Grand Jerokee, etc)in the city?...Who needs one outside of the city?
Not really, my Car and Driver says it gets 15 mpg. Which is not any more or less than any other SUV of its size. It compares to the Chevy Suburban, Ford Excurtion, Nissan Aramada, etc... As for the hummer it weights at 8.6 tons, carrying a 325 V8. The engine is not much different than that, that is in an camaro.

People are buying these bohemeths that get 2 miles per gallon and can't fit
into a parking space at 35 grand a pop, and bitch when a gallon of gas goes up 50 cents? The pussification of America continues, my friends...
Why are you so angry! You can't car shop for other people? If they decide to buy a defected product so be it! I couldn't give a rats ***!

The only, only, only, only, only(one more), only reason oil is such a
commodity is because we use it to such excess. You want prices to go down? How about stopping Nascar, which uses up more fuel in one race than a small town uses in a week. Or we could stop glorifying power...Does any soccor mom in the country need a Hemi in her Dodge to get their inbred children to the game on time?(A game that doesn't keep score because it might send half the kids into depression, but that's a story for another time....)
Ern. Wrong answer. We are actually the 3rd of the countries that use gasoline.

And help me figure this out...If mom "A" (we'll call her "bitch" to keep her
real name anonymous...even though its "Shirley") has an SUV so she can drive the 7 neighborhood kids to ballet, swimming, boy scouts, and the local methadone clinic, then why do the other 6 moms have an SUV, too? If one mommy is driving these mutations everywhere, then the other six SUVS are, essentially,...IDLE. That means the local car dealership sold 7 SUVS at 30 grand, and only one of them can be used to full capacity at any one time.
Good point! But I would also like to make a point also. ALL SUV'S ARE BASED ON TRUCKS. SUV's are nothing more than cross bars (added reinforcement), 2 extra doors, and two rows of seats away from being a truck. You can chop and SUV down to just the front cabin, seal the cabin, add a truck bed, voila you got a truck.

And use your brain cells on this one, folks...If you spend 10 extra "G"s to
buy one of these monsters and use it to a capacity higher than an average
6-cylinder car a total of 20 times during the life of the vehicle, that means you have spent $500 for each use. You frickin geniuses.
Don;'t ask me I don't car shop for other people! But hey I drive a coupe.

And if you're paying 10 extra grand so you can fit your canoe, gas grill,
sports equipment, dildo collection, Jimmy Hoffa's rotting corpse, and 2
Massachusetts same-sex marriage couples into your SUV, then don't come whining to me when you can't pay the 20 dollars extra to push your sorry ass around. These are the same people who started out getting a cell phone for emergency purposes only, and end up calling the husband, whose on his way home from work, to remind him that the cheese he's picking up at the deli is "provolone".
Very good point! :mrgreen:

And if you're buying a vehicle that gets less than 20 miles per gallon, then
don't complain to the general public that you have a problem filling your gas
tank. Especially when we live in a culture that drives to the corner store.
Exactly! You bought the SUV, you pay upkeep costs!

I'm not here to preach about cornoil gas and fuel cells...but I do believe that
there should be regulations on vehicles. Car companies know they can build
a car that gets over 50 mpg...good ones, too...but their question is
simple..."Why bother?" The only reason they'll shortchange the public is BECAUSE THEY CAN. It's the car companies that bow down to the oil companies that we are in this situation.
Actually I've actually seen a car run off cow dung (poop)! But the real blame goes the automobile manufacturers, because hey you gotta give credit where credit is due. They make them, they sell them, they are very ineffiencient.

So a day without buying gas won't do anything except create bored gas station attendants. If no one buys gas on the 19th, you can be rest assured that twice as many people will be buying it on the 20th.
Actually It can save you money! I've calculated that if my car gets 33 mpg or 333 miles on a full tank, and I don't go to college one day! That day I just saved from $2.50-$5.00 and that was before the price hike! Thanks for your post cnredd!

Source=Me
FIGHT THE POWER! :mrgreen:

Well I got to go! Hurricane OPHELIA is hitting my state, and I will probably loose power. Either I will get the eye wall, or the whole eye of the storm. But its only a "1" hurricane, so it won't be that bad!
 
mixedmedia said:
That is f-ing great, I love it. Reminds me of this....

Tom Friedman....Thanksgiving Day, 2004...and it's not a partisan diatribe, just keep reading.

In my next life, I want to be Tom DeLay, the House majority leader.
Yes, I want to get almost the entire Republican side of the House of Representatives to bend its ethics rules just for me. I want to be able to twist the arms of House Republicans to repeal a rule that automatically requires party leaders to step down if they are indicted on a felony charge - something a Texas prosecutor is considering doing to DeLay because of corruption allegations.

But most of all, I want to have the gall to sully American democracy at a time when young American soldiers are fighting in Iraq so we can enjoy a law-based society here and, maybe, extend it to others. Yes, I want to be Tom DeLay. I want to wear a little American flag on my lapel in solidarity with the troops, while I besmirch every value they are dying for.

If I can't be Tom DeLay, then I want to be one of the gutless Republican House members who voted to twist the rules for DeLay out of fear that "the Hammer," as they call him, might retaliate by taking away a coveted committee position or maybe a parking place.

Yes, I want to be a Republican House member. At a time when 180 of the 211 members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Iraq who have been wounded in combat have insisted on returning to duty, I want to look my constituents and my kids in the eye and tell them that I voted to empty the House ethics rules because I was afraid of Tom DeLay.

If I can't be a Republican House member, I want to be Latrell Sprewell, the guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves. I want to say with a straight face that if my owner will only give me a three-year contract extension for a meager $21 million, then he's not worth working for, because "I've got my family to feed."

Yes, I want to be Latrell Sprewell. At a time when N.B.A. games are priced beyond the reach of most American families, when half the country can't afford health care, when some reservists in Iraq are separated from their families for a year, including this Thanksgiving, I want to be like Latrell. I want to make sure everyone knows that I'm looking out for my family - and no one else's.

If I can't be Latrell Sprewell, I want to be any American college or professional athlete. For a mere dunk of the basketball or first-down run, I want to be able to dance a jig, as if I'd just broken every record by Michael Jordan or Johnny Unitas. For the smallest, most routine bit of success in my sport, I want to be able to get in your face - I want to know who's your daddy, I want to be able to high-five, low-five, thump my chest and dance on your grave. You talkin' to me?

I want to be able to fight on the court, off the court, in the stands and on the sidelines. I want to respect no boundaries and no norms. And when I make your kids cry, I want to be able to tell you to just "chill" - that my coach says "stuff happens" and that my union rep is appealing my punishment in the name of the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta. Yes, in my next life, I want to be The Man.

If I can't be The Man, then I at least want to be the owner of a Hummer - with American flag decals all over the back bumper, because Hummer owners are, on average, a little more patriotic than you and me.

Yes, I want to drive the mother of all gas-guzzlers that gets so little mileage you have to drive from gas station to gas station. Yes, I want to drive my Hummer and never have to think that by consuming so much oil, I am making transfer payments to the worst Arab regimes that transfer money to Islamic charities that transfer money to madrassas that teach children intolerance, antipluralism and how to hate the infidels.

And when one day one of those madrassa graduates goes off and joins the jihad in Falluja and kills my neighbor's son, who is in the U.S. Army Rangers, I want to drive to his funeral in my Hummer. Yes, I want to curse his killers in front of his mother and wail aloud, "If there was only something I could do ..." And then I want to drive home in my Hummer, stopping at two gas stations along the way.

If I can't be any of these, then I want to be just a simple blue-state red-state American. I want to take time on this Thanksgiving to thank God I live in a country where, despite so much rampant selfishness, the public schools still manage to produce young men and women ready to voluntarily risk their lives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to spread the opportunity of freedom and to protect my own. And I want to thank them for doing this, even though on so many days in so many ways we really don't deserve them.

That's good, I like that.

If I didn't dislike Wal-Mart I want to come back as one of those guys that hands out the shopping carts and greets shoppers. No stress, watch people all day. Underwear? ilse seven, $1.97 for twenty pair sir.
 
I put no trust or credence in bill o'reilly..
 
Pacridge said:
That's good, I like that.

If I didn't dislike Wal-Mart I want to come back as one of those guys that hands out the shopping carts and greets shoppers. No stress, watch people all day. Underwear? ilse seven, $1.97 for twenty pair sir.

Yes, I love Tom Friedman. This particular column was a deviation from his usual level-headedness, or rather, decorum. It is rather level-headed, isn't it?

I am reading his latest book right now, The World Is Flat. I enjoy his writing because it makes it easy for marginally-educated people like myself to understand complex things like economics and globalization and stuff. :smile:

Coincidentally the chapter I am reading right now is about Wal-Mart. Even though I don't like Wal-Mart either, and refuse to shop there, it is giving me insight into how innovative they have been - it is amazing that this little company out of Bentonville has become such a monster force in the world - essentially by daring again and again to take a chance on unproven methods. But, it is still unfortunate that a portion of their success has been at the expense of so many.
 
wxcrazytwo said:
I put no trust or credence in bill o'reilly..
Thats kool! I hate it when he doesn't give his oppositions a chance to state their point of view, and he interrupts them. Then it leads to yelling and I turn the channel. :lol:
 
Pacridge said:
That's good, I like that.

If I didn't dislike Wal-Mart I want to come back as one of those guys that hands out the shopping carts and greets shoppers. No stress, watch people all day. Underwear? ilse seven, $1.97 for twenty pair sir.

Yes, but think of all the lonely women that would come in there because they heard men's underware was half-off!
 
Hoot said:
Yes, but think of all the lonely women that would come in there because they heard men's underware was half-off!
I would tell you that this should be in the joke thread...But it was too weak even for that.:doh
 
Its not about impacting the oil companies bottom lines
Its called 'Trying to Make a Point' , taking a SYMBOLIC action
Oil companies make obscene amount of profits, (which is why my entire extended family owns them in their retirement portfolios) and while americans dig deep to contribute to the victims, i see no reason why the oil companies can not as well.
Not some million dollar check, but decreaseing prices so as not to crush the everyday guy. My car is my office, and these prices are killing me.

SNOPES is the stupid one trying to read more into it than it was actually meant to be
its comment is based on a false assumption
 
Considering that the oil companies, as snopes said, only see their figures on a weekly basis, a one day layover is not even going to show up as a blip on their radar.
 
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