Why is oil over $65 a barrel right now?

[gtownspur]

Why the would they cut profits?

I don't want them to cut profits. I want this country to pay for the damn oil they use, so that they'll start to use less of it. I want oil execs rolling in the money so that when there is 4 dollar gas people will actually start looking into car pooling, hybrid cars, and mass transit.

manny, i totally disagree with your oppinion. but i totally respect you for being honest.

[Spurminator]

It certainly would change the lifestyles of a lot of people. Perhaps there would be a reverse in the current flock to the suburbs. More people would live in the city, closer to work. They would probably walk/bike more, and maybe as a whole the nation would be in better shape.

***Tune of Kum-ba-yah begins to play in the background***
Furthermore, with an influx of people back to the cities, the racial divide would be less extreme. Whites and blacks and Hispanics would live closer to one another, building trust and neighborly friendship, all working towards the ultimate goal of racial harmony.

Just trying to put some kind of positive spin on it...

[Hook Dem]

Oh the irony of it all.

Figures coming from you!

[Hook Dem]

Ok, Ok, my bad.

Tahoe is the generic word we use for an SUV based on the popularity. But I will correct myself. According to Joch's stats, all the Dodge Ram driving assholes will be poor as .

Props to you Manny!

[Hook Dem]

Oh the irony of it all.

Judging from discussions we've had in the past, I'd say you still have a pimple on your ass. Get it healed!

[Trainwreck2100]

***Tune of Kum-ba-yah begins to play in the background***
Furthermore, with an influx of people back to the cities, the racial divide would be less extreme. Whites and blacks and Hispanics would live closer to one another, building trust and neighborly friendship, all working towards the ultimate goal of racial harmony.

Just trying to put some kind of positive spin on it...

Or the white people will kick the minorities out of the city redevelop it and make the smaller people work even harder.

[Duff McCartney]

Figures coming from you!

Yeah right..telling everybody to cut back on their gas usage while you go around driving a tahoe is the ultimate irony.

Maybe you should practice what you preach you freaking hypocrite, but you won't do that.

[Clandestino]

people are going to drive no matter what.. at least until we run out of oil... manny must hate the poor people. they suffer most from high gas prices.. i don't give a about this gas.. i just pump and forget it.. i fill up every time.. i don't put 5-10 bucks at a time like the poor do...

[MannyIsGod]

Haha, nice catch Duff.

Club, if you think SS is running a surplus then you have no idea how the system works. And private pension has and always will outperform SS.

There is no point in arguing the obvious.

[MannyIsGod]

people are going to drive no matter what.. at least until we run out of oil... manny must hate the poor people. they suffer most from high gas prices.. i don't give a about this gas.. i just pump and forget it.. i fill up every time.. i don't put 5-10 bucks at a time like the poor do...

Clandestino reminds me so much of Charlie Brown's teacher.

[Clandestino]

well, you must.. if you say, i want gas to go sky high... tell that to the poor people.. tell that to the mexican man who doesn't speak any english who cuts my grass...

[Clandestino]

do you even speak spanish manny...

[Hook Dem]

Yeah right..telling everybody to cut back on their gas usage while you go around driving a tahoe is the ultimate irony.

Maybe you should practice what you preach you freaking hypocrite, but you won't do that.

Did I exclude myself? You really are ignorant aren't you? Read the previous posts and you will realize that Tahoes aren't the problem. I'm talking about everybody cutting back on gas usage. Can you comprehend that? What good is it for you to go to school when you don't learn anything?

[MannyIsGod]

I do speak/read/write Spanish. I do not however, speak Charlie Brown's Teacher's Woh Woh language.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

I think the question on everybody's mind is whether or not Clandestino is using a legal worker to do his gardening.

[Clandestino]

I think the question on everybody's mind is whether or not Clandestino is using a legal worker to do his gardening.

when he offered to cut the grass, weed eat, edge, etc for $20 bucks i didn't ask for papers... i'm not totally cold.. i give him an extra 5 every time...

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

when he offered to cut the grass, weed eat, edge, etc for $20 bucks i didn't ask for papers... i'm not totally cold.. i give him an extra 5 every time...

So you're willfully breaking the law?

[MannyIsGod]

I'm going to report Clandestion to the authorities for breaking the law then I'm going to be unsympathetic when he gets convicted because you shouldn't break the law according to him. Unless it saves you some money on landscaping.

[j-6]

I read this earlier today...seemed relevant to the discussion.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/08/15/h....ap/index.html

250 miles per gallon? They're doing it
Tinkerers fiddle with hybrids to increase efficiency

Monday, August 15, 2005; Posted: 4:25 p.m. EDT (20:25 GMT)

CORTE MADERA, California (AP) -- Politicians and automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is years or even decades away.

Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage.

It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret -- a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries that boosts the car's high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even less fuel.

Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car.

Like all hybrids, his Prius increases fuel efficiency by harnessing small amounts of electricity generated during braking and coasting. The extra batteries let him store extra power by plugging the car into a wall outlet at his home in this San Francisco suburb -- all for about a quarter.

He's part of a small but growing movement. "Plug-in" hybrids aren't yet cost-efficient, but some of the dozen known experimental models have gotten up to 250 mpg.

They have support not only from environmentalists but also from conservative foreign policy hawks who insist Americans fuel terrorism through their gas guzzling.

And while the technology has existed for three decades, automakers are beginning to take notice, too.

So far, DaimlerChrysler AG is the only company that has committed to building its own plug-in hybrids, quietly pledging to make up to 40 vans for U.S. companies. But Toyota Motor Corp. officials who initially frowned on people altering their cars now say they may be able to learn from them.

"They're like the hot rodders of yesterday who did everything to soup up their cars. It was all about horsepower and bling-bling, lots of chrome and accessories," said Cindy Knight, a Toyota spokeswoman. "Maybe the hot rodders of tomorrow are the people who want to get in there and see what they can do about increasing fuel economy."

Plugged or unplugged?

The extra batteries let Gremban drive for 20 miles with a 50-50 mix of gas and electricity. Even after the car runs out of power from the batteries and switches to the standard hybrid mode, it gets the typical Prius fuel efficiency of around 45 mpg. As long as Gremban doesn't drive too far in a day, he says, he gets 80 mpg.

"The value of plug-in hybrids is they can dramatically reduce gasoline usage for the first few miles every day," Gremban said. "The average for people's usage of a car is somewhere around 30 to 40 miles per day. During that kind of driving, the plug-in hybrid can make a dramatic difference."

Gremban promotes the CalCars Initiative, a volunteer effort encouraging automakers to make plug-in hybrids.

Backers of plug-in hybrids acknowledge that the electricity to boost their cars generally comes from fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases, but they say that process still produces far less pollution than oil. They also note that electricity could be generated cleanly from solar power.

Gremban rigged his car to promote the nonprofit CalCars Initiative, a San Francisco Bay area-based volunteer effort that argues automakers could mass produce plug-in hybrids at a reasonable price.

But Toyota and other car companies say they are worried about the cost, convenience and safety of plug-in hybrids -- and note that consumers haven't embraced all-electric cars because of the inconvenience of recharging them like giant cell phones.

Automakers have spent millions of dollars telling motorists that hybrids don't need to be plugged in, and don't want to confuse the message.

Nonetheless, plug-in hybrids are starting to get the backing of prominent hawks like former CIA director James Woolsey and Frank Gaffney, President Reagan's undersecretary of defense. They have joined Set America Free, a group that wants the government to spend $12 billion over four years on plug-in hybrids, alternative fuels and other measures to reduce foreign oil dependence.

Gaffney, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, said Americans would embrace plug-ins if they understood arguments from him and others who say gasoline contributes to oil-rich Middle Eastern governments that support terrorism.

"The more we are consuming oil that either comes from places that are bent on our destruction or helping those who are ... the more we are enabling those who are trying to kill us," Gaffney said.

Now vs. later

DaimlerChrysler spokesman Nick Cappa said plug-in hybrids are ideal for companies with fleets of vehicles that can be recharged at a central location at night. He declined to name the companies buying the vehicles and said he did not know the vehicles' mileage or cost, or when they would be available.

Others are modifying hybrids, too.

Monrovia-based Energy CS has converted two Priuses to get up to 230 mpg by using powerful lithium ion batteries. It is forming a new company, EDrive Systems, that will convert hybrids to plug-ins for about $12,000 starting next year, company vice president Greg Hanssen said.

University of California, Davis, engineering professor Andy Frank built a plug-in hybrid from the ground up in 1972 and has since built seven others, one of which gets up to 250 mpg. They were converted from non-hybrids, including a Ford Taurus and Chevrolet Suburban.

Frank has spent $150,000 to $250,000 in research costs on each car, but believes automakers could mass-produce them by adding just $6,000 to each vehicle's price tag.

Instead, Frank said, automakers promise hydrogen-powered vehicles hailed by President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, even though hydrogen's backers acknowledge the cars won't be widely available for years and would require a vast infrastructure of new fueling stations.

"They'd rather work on something that won't be in their lifetime, and that's this hydrogen economy stuff," Frank said. "They pick this kind of target to get the public off their back, essentially."

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

I find this information to be relevant, too.

http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=445

There are hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals residing in the US. Most entered the country with a valid work visa, however, many of them are still in the country with expired visas - considered “out of status”. Given that Geographers are eligible to apply for US-based employment under the TN or H1B categories you should need to protect yourself and your company’s interests.

You’ve likely seen the recent headlines… “More than 250 Illegal workers employed by Wal-Mart… one law that Wal-Mart forgot to warp in its favor was the one that prevents U.S. companies from employing or taking advantage of the services of individuals who are not authorized to work in the United States.” So now I ask you, are your employees, consultants, and sub-contractors legal employees? I would wager that in 9 out of 10 cases you likely have no idea.

Until just recently, I had spent more than 4 years working in the US as a foreign national working as a “Geographer”. Of course I always had legal employment status, starting out with a TN visa, and then jumping to H1B status. My employer was also protected and was in no way breaking any employment or immigration laws, however, you may be surprised to learn that this is frequently not the case.

Here are some commonly overlooked facts to keep mind (particularly if your company employs alien workers)

* The employer pe ions INS for a work visa, NOT the employee
* A work visa (i.e. TN, H1B) is tied to a specific job with a specific employer. Therefore, a person holding such a visa is not permitted to sub-contract, offer consulting services, or work for anyone other than the pe ioner of his/her visa.
* A person’s work visa is technically not expired simply because the employer has returned to his home country. The onus is on the pe ioning employer to contact INS and instruct them that the alien’s term of employment has ended.
* When the term of employment ends so too does the visa.

Having spent more than 4 years as a Canadian working in the US, I have spent much time listening in on immigration chat/discussion boards and have been amazed at the constant abuse that exists with both alien employees and American-based employers as well. Given the current political climate and the latest homeland security initiatives that exist in this post 9/11 era, employers need to be educated and should safe-guard themselves from potential immigration issues… you don’t want INS showing up at your office!

Some things to watch out for which could get your company in trouble:
It is quite common for foreign nationals to search for work once they have been laid off. This may seem like no big deal, however, it’s not legal. Here’s an example; Joe is working in the US as a geographer with H1B visa status. Then, he receives layoff notice. Joe starts shopping his resume around the country in search of employment as a geographer; he may even boast to potential employers that he has a valid work visa. The reality, Joe actually has 30 days [roughly] to leave the country and return to his native country or, he may switch status to a visitor’s Visa. A new company may employ him; however, they will need to move very fast in order to pe ion Joe for a new work visa. Realistically, the only visa that can be secured on such short notice is a TN. Without doing so Joe’s new employer would have hired an illegal foreign worker. Something to keep in mind, Joe may have 30 days to clean up his personal matters and leave the country, however, he’s not “officially” terminated [along with his visa status] until his pe ioning employer reports to INS that they have laid him off.

Other things to watch out for:
If you employ a foreign national, is her Visa current or has it lapsed. This is very easy to overlook, particularly with the short-term TN visa, frequently used to employ Canadians in the US. To check, look at the employee’s passport and check the stamp, also, look at the I-94 card [white paper stapled inside the passport] – if they don’t have an I-94 you should be very concerned!

As an employer, have you inspected your foreign employee’s papers? Additionally, do you have copies of all communications with INS? Final approval for a work visa may be sent directly to the foreign national, however, the employer should always request to see all records and notices – make copies!

Do you hire consultants or sub-contractors? Have you ever asked about their employment status? I have heard of people who were “moonlighting” while on TN status in the US and working a second job on the side – this is illegal. The simplest way to do this is request to view a Social security card. Foreign nationals with approval to work will possess such a card.

Do you have access to an immigration attorney? Your lawyer may offer up advice, however, unless they are trained in labor law, and in particular, immigration labor, they likely can’t offer much advice.

As part of employees “perks” an employer may offer to hire a foreign national’s spouse for part-time work. A spouse is not en led to work unless he/she has a work visa.

What about paying taxes? Foreign nationals must possess a social security number. Without one you cannot possibly deduct taxes and subsequently remit taxes to the government. Of note; a foreign national with a Tax ID (TID) rather than a social security number (SSN) is likely not permitted to work.

Finally, as an employer you should be involved in the entire application process. Many employers simply sign on the dotted line and have no active involvement in the process, instead letting the pe ioning employee handle all the paperwork. Be involved and make sure you know what you are signing!

Suggested Resources:
Grasmick - www.grasmick.com – this website offers an immigration handbook for sale which is worth every penny!
NAFTA Chapter 16 - http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/nafta-alena/chap16-en.asp
US Immigration forms - http://www.immigration.gov/graphics/...orms/index.htm

[Clandestino]

just because he doesn't speak english doesn't mean he is illegal.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

just because he doesn't speak english doesn't mean he is illegal.

Who's making assumptions? You're the one unable to answer our question as to his job status?

You said he was Mexican, so he has to have either a work permit or maybe he's even naturalized - the point is, you can't answer if you're breaking the law as an employer.

[MannyIsGod]

Extra expenses will always provide the motivation and become catalysts for improvements in efficency. Always.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

We're just looking out for you, Clan.

We wouldn't want you to break the law or anything. , he might be a terrorist using the borders of Mexico to come through the country.

Your gardener could be building a dirty bomb, Clan...then what would happen if he did something. In this "War On Terror...", oh wait, I mean the "Global Struggle Against Extremism," you might be on the front line of all of this, Clan.

We'd just hate for you to end up being charged with something like aiding the terrori...uh, extremists and end up at Gitmo or some place.

[Clandestino]

I am unable to answer the question as to his status because I have not asked to see his papers. Nor will I....ever..

What's your address, I'll send him over. He does great work and you want to hire him you can check his papers...