America... Watch Out!

Jeff, please. I know that your the creater/webmaster of this site and I respect you tremendously for that. I also love the site and can't imagine what life would be like without CB. ;) HOWEVER I do disagree with you.

You can honestly sit there and tell me that Iraq wasn't a safe haven for terrorists way before we even invaded?

I know were getting off topic again and i'm sorry but i'm just sticking up for what I believe in.

Resume talk on effects gas prices will have on travel to amuesment parks now...

Just shut up...

I think that I will stop but it's not because your a huge ass TeknoScorpion, it's because i know that these boards aren't for politics. So once again go shove it teknoscorpion.

Uh, yeah, I can tell you that. Even the U.S. government can tell you that. Do you not remember before the war when Colin Powell made his case to the U.N., then after the war the administration said, well, actually, we have no intelligence indicating a link between al Qaeda and Iraq?

Read a newspaper, son.

Son? Look I know that i'm not as old as you but I can comprehend information just as well as you can. Don't pull this son crap on me.

Your posts seem to indicate otherwise ... son

---

Jeff said:
Uh, yeah, I can tell you that. Even the U.S. government can tell you that. Do you not remember before the war when Colin Powell made his case to the U.N., then after the war the administration said, well, actually, we have no intelligence indicating a link between al Qaeda and Iraq?

Read a newspaper, son.

---

Thats funny because I definatly remember Al Zaraqui (I dont know and frankly dont know or care how to spell this "man"'s last name, you know who Im talking about) has been in Iraq for quite some time (google it, he was causing trouble along the Iran-Iraq border for years before the invasion). Im not saying Bush is a saint or everything that has been done in Iraq is correct, but to say that there werent any terrorists in a country where a dictator gave sucide bomber's families money is insane.

The masterminds were there, the invasion incited them and got their cronies to swarm into the country. If we have another terrorist attack on US soil while this war is going on then I will say Iraq was a failure but until that time Im keeping an open mind about it and letting historians 20 years from now judge if this invasion was the correct thing to do.

Anyways back on topic, just wondering if there is any gas lines along 95/295/64 from Washington DC to Williamsburg. Im going on Sunday and just want to know what areas to avoid gassing up in (I should only have to do it once). *** Edited 9/1/2005 2:00:40 AM UTC by Touchdown***

Impulsive, was I talking to you? No, so shut the hell up. I'm stopping on this because it's never going to end. I'm convinced that I'm right and I know that many are convinved I'm just a stupid delinquent who doesn't know jack ****. Well fine go ahead and think that but I just want those people to know that they're wrong about me and as cliche as this may sound, you don't know me. End of conversation.

I'm done people so don't start it up again with another stupid comment like impulsives here.

Well I don't know about your areas, but we (Mid MO) are now at $3.00/gallon as of 7pm central time

$3.75 here in SW Michigan.

Blink:

Your entitled to your opinion as is everybody else. There were plenty of reasons to go to war when put into context. This is the reason there was bipartisan support for the war. There are many who lurk on these boards that agree with your take. Unfortunately, they are not a vocal bunch. Anyhow, an opinion piece presented as fact is still an opinion!

OVER 6 bucks a gallon in parts of Georgia reported... major price gouging... yet you see people lined up forever at those stations filling up.

CNN reports that there will be fines as it's against the law... but shouldn't it then be against the law to do over 4 bucks a gallon, as that'd also be gouging, considering the national average?

Oh, as for the NY Tax... eliminating one of the taxes won't affect anything in New York since there's already a gas tax I think on the federal level... so there's a tax on the tax which makes us one of the higher taxed states for gas.

That is true Jeffrey, now let's get back to the topic, shall we...

I was relieved [sarcasm] to hear that Maryland has no laws against price gouging. Touchdown, I don't know if the amount of comsumers will increase, but it'll take you less than 5 minutes to figure out if it's worth stopping at the truck stop at the intersection of 301 and 95. It's just above King's Dominion. Usually, they have awesome prices on gas. The exit number should be either 104 or 110 (the exits are mileage based on traveling towards Richmond).

Missouri's highest is $3.10 (GasBuddy.COM) and that is found in KC and STL. Right across the river in Troy, IL it is $3.49

Editted because I just saw on the news the station that everyone mentions below.

*** Edited 9/1/2005 3:57:05 AM UTC by Swoosh***

No there was a BP station on the television selling for $5.87 or so as Chuck stated above. It's legit, just because it's not reported on GasBuddy doesn't mean it wasn't out there. If that aired on TV I'm sure the manager dropped the price to compensate for bad pub. and the threat of state fines.

Sometimes I'm glad that Pittsburgh is behind the times. Last week, I filled up at $2.53/gal. Today it was $2.57/gal.

Seriously, though, how can you justify raising prices when it's the same gas in the underground tanks? Being allowed to raise prices only when receiving a new supply seems like a good law to me.

Then again, it's a free country, if people are willing to pay $5.87 a gallon, then why shouldn't I be able to charge that?

Oooh! I'm such a dichotomy!

To update my earlier post, coming home most of the stations had regular for $2.799. What a coincidence they all had the same price. Except for a few places that were $2.899 and one place that was at $3.15. I guess they didn't get the same e-mail everyone else got. I was tempted to pull over and walk in the store and say "your price is 35 cents above everyone else's, you asshole" then leave.

---

Touchdown said:
...but to say that there werent any terrorists in a country where a dictator gave sucide bomber's families money is insane.

---

There are terrorists in every country, including our own, what's your point? Shall we invade them all? Start with Canada? The administration said that Saddam was tied to al Qaeda, and later retracted that as false intelligence (which also got Tony Blair in trouble for going along with it). That is a fact. Again, read the newspaper or watch the news.

Come to think of it, the case for war was made on three premises:
1) That Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction" and therefore posed an imminent threat to someone. They did not.
2) That Saddam had ties to al Qaeda. He did not.
3) That Saddam was a brutal dictator hurting his own people. I might give you that one, but there's little evidence he was naughty in the ten years prior to the war. Even then, why did we sit around and not get involved in Sudan, Rwanda, Bosnia, etc.?

So none of that panned out, and now Gallup says 54% of Americans think the war was a mistake, and only 45% approve of Bush's performance in office. The guy's a moron, and he has sent thousands of our kids to their deaths unnecessarily, to say nothing of the Iraqi civilians killed in the process. God knows we could use all of those reservists right now in the south where they could be helping save lives. I know they all chose to enlist, and God bless them for doing their job, but their boss needs to be held accountable.

A note on the gas price thing...

An interesting thing happened here in Central Ohio. We were sitting at anywhere between $2.39 and $2.69. Yesterday, a lot of people decided that the price of gas was going to go up, and they responded by going out and filling up their fuel tanks. So many of them, in fact, that several stations actually ran dry. A news story indicated that a couple of those stations wouldn't be getting resupplied until Thursday morning, which means a whole day out of business.

Another reason for jacking up the price is to preserve the supply. If the station knows it isn't getting more gas for two days, raising the price can reduce the demand and stretch that supply, especially in a competitive market. I remember this from back in 2001 when a lot of people suddenly panicked and bought gas. I actually saw one station running at $5-something a gallon while the station across the street was at $1.30something. What surprised me was that there were people filling tanks at the $5 station!

It looks like GasBuddies server is crashing tonight, so I can't get the most recent local price reports. But as I was coming home tonight the going price seemed to be $3.09 and the traditional "most expensive station in town" was at $3.59. Right now there is a lot of panic going on, and while supply is going to be tight for a few days, I personally think it has more to do with panic buying than with any real supply disruption. Unfortunately the supply disruption is going to make it harder to recover from the demand peak of the past 48 hours, but the good news is that once the tank is full, it takes some time to drive it empty again. Hopefully that, combined with the insane price (gas prices have been insane for a year and a half now...) will normalize demand and allow the price to come back down a bit.

The problem is that right now there isn't any real sense of reality yet in the fuel supply. Nobody knows what is really going on, or how long it will take to get answers. I just read that all of the pipelines that were shut down have re-opened, though at dramatically reduced capacities, and the deep-water crude oil port is back in business, though at some reduction of capacity due to power problems. So the biggest short-term kinks in the supply chain are getting straightened out. But as of yet, nobody quite knows what that means, least of all the commodities traders who apparently know nothing of how oil gets from the wellhead to the gas tank, but who set the price for making it happen.

The point is, as consumers we're seeing a huge price spike right now. But I think it is a spike, brought on largely by panic at many levels, and I think once the initial information crisis gets sorted out we will get some relief. In fact it's already starting to happen...the price of crude oil ultimately went down again today on the realization that in spite of the damage to wells there won't be a 'real' shortage. That and on the realization that it's already way overpriced...

This is going to be an interesting situation to watch. I just hope it plays out quickly enough that I don't have to buy any >$3 gas anytime soon.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.