Fuel panic!

[Boxbrownie]

18 minutes ago, Spacewagon52 said:

There seems to be a trend, particularly in the USA, where conspiracy theories are believed by an increasing number of people. Opinions and rumour become fact in people's minds. We are slipping into an era of extreme distrust in elected governments - I worry that a saviour will come along and promise to put things right. Parallels with the 1930's are ringing alarm bells in my ears. I sincerely hope I am wrong.

Unfortunately that saviour is happening in the US right now, the good’ol’boys believe Trump will put everything right, if there was a god I’d pray for his downfall (court prosecution) but it’s beginning to look like he might actually come back in 2024…….and we worry about the price of fuel.

[Malc1]

49 minutes ago, Spacewagon52 said:

extreme distrust in elected governments - I worry that a saviour will come along and promise to put things right.

come come you guys.  look, Mr Guy Fawkes had his moment again just this last Saturday  5th  November .......  and as usual nothing meteoric happened ....

Malc

[dutchie01]

47 minutes ago, Boxbrownie said:

Unfortunately that saviour is happening in the US right now, the good’ol’boys believe Trump will put everything right, if there was a god I’d pray for his downfall (court prosecution) but it’s beginning to look like he might actually come back in 2024…….and we worry about the price of fuel.

I guess the democrats are hoping he will run, its the best thing that can happen to them. Trump lost the general election and the house. And that was before the cobweb of lawsuits, before the classified docs story, before the financial fraud allegations. Then there are now republican candidates standing against him, Desantis, Pence, Cruz. The republican party cannot win a general election with Trump.

[Moleman]

1 hour ago, dutchie01 said:

I guess the democrats are hoping he will run, its the best thing that can happen to them. Trump lost the general election and the house. And that was before the cobweb of lawsuits, before the classified docs story, before the financial fraud allegations. Then there are now republican candidates standing against him, Desantis, Pence, Cruz. The republican party cannot win a general election with Trump.

They said that in 2014/15.

The rest is history.

[Bluemarlin]

4 hours ago, Moleman said:

They said that in 2014/15.

The rest is history.

But he was an unknown quantity then Maurice, with a lot of promises. Now he's known, has an even worse record, and largely failed to deliver. The Republicans know that all he'll do is drive up Democrat voter attendance, which is why their main policy seems to be doing all in their power to restrict voting.

[Bluemarlin]

18 hours ago, toffee_pie said:

Everything is subject to inflation, Electric Cars are expensive now, and will be expensive to get in the future – I can get one now if I wanted to but I am not a sheep and it would be a useless investment - the point is, I could buy a petrol car tomorrow for £5k that would serve me better than a £50K EV ever will - Do you think that the natural resources required to make EVs are grown in your back garden? it seems so, they use as much oil as an EV in manufacturing and that isn’t even factoring in the half tonne lithium batteries, so like I said -- rose tinted glasses, take them off, it amazing the amount of people who think things are changing for the better - I am talking gods lifesaving booster jab and the powers that be are cutting off our power for 3 hours at a time in winter - people like you are saying its ok to tag along with elites and their evil plans - you don’t have to be a conspiracy nut job to see what is happening – all the events since 2019 are not a coincidence it’s pretty obvious.

 

No one is saying it's ok to tag along with the elites, let alone doing it. People are simply acting according to their own personal preferences. To say otherwise would be akin to suggesting that you're just a sheep too, who is following the elites invested in the fossil fuel industry.

The bottom line is that you prefer ICE vehicles, which is fine, and others prefer EVs, which is fine too. There's no need to try and prop up your own preferences by denigrating the different choices made by others, and calling them sheep who are blindly following some kind of nefarious hidden agenda.

You're also free to believe in whatever vaccine, WEF, Ukraine conspiracy theories that various grifters post on Youtube, but that doesn't mean that those who don't believe unsubstantiated claims are brainwashed either. Make your choices, be happy wiith them, and accept that others are just as happy with theirs too. They're no more or less of a sheep than you are, and perhaps just choose a different shepherd.

[Moleman]

58 minutes ago, Bluemarlin said:

But he was an unknown quantity then Maurice, with a lot of promises. Now he's known, has an even worse record, and largely failed to deliver. The Republicans know that all he'll do is drive up Democrat voter attendance, which is why their main policy seems to be doing all in their power to restrict voting.

Not quite true. He was considered a rank outsider and pointless for most of the primary run, never taken seriously until it was too late, by both the Republicans and Democrats. I was there watching it, with disbelief. What he offered then and still offers, is that he not a politician, he talks directly to a large element of the voters and they like what they hear (we do not need to understand why, but it is true), it would be a mistake to underestimate him again. The Democrats have never recovered from the shock of his election  and still do not know how to counter what he seems to offer. As a result politics in the USA is split almost 50-50 and small voter movement in swing states will win the election for either side. The Mid Terms this week will be interesting.

The media in the US have also never dealt with their failure to take him seriously. Media reporting is very unbalanced in the states and rarely reflects voter intention, do not be fooled.

[First_Lexus]

We should also bear in mind just how unpopular Biden is, as is Kamala Harris. 

America is divided. If they get to a Trump - Harris choice (for example) it will be totally polarised, even more than previously. I actually think the experience of the last election would mean higher Republican turn out but we’ll see. Trump’s base is loyal (and fanatical) but how many Republicans who don’t like him would vote for Kamala Harris? Who knows, but I fear they’d swallow hard and choose Trump if that was their choice.

Either way none of the options look good from here…

[Phil xxkr]

1 hour ago, Bluemarlin said:

But he was an unknown quantity then Maurice, with a lot of promises. Now he's known, has an even worse record, and largely failed to deliver. The Republicans know that all he'll do is drive up Democrat voter attendance, which is why their main policy seems to be doing all in their power to restrict voting.

Largely failed to deliver Bill? Dear GxD if this is failure I would dearly like to know your definition of success 🤯

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/trump-administration-accomplishments/0

[Moleman]

1 minute ago, Phil xxkr said:

Largely failed to deliver Bill? Dear GxD if this is failure I would dearly like to know your definition of success 🤯

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/trump-administration-accomplishments/0

Totally agree.

We may not understand it, but be certain he has a very large body of support and is seen by many as the most productive and successful President of the modern era.

Just because the American media do not cover this widely, does not change this.

Do not underestimate him.

[Phil xxkr]

1 minute ago, Moleman said:

Totally agree.

We may not understand it, but be certain he has a very large body of support and is seen by many as the most productive and successful President of the modern era.

Just because the American media do not cover this widely, does not change this.

Do not underestimate him.

Couldn’t agree more Maurice, it's somewhat tragic that over here unless you do the research the reality is hidden from view. Right here, right now there is a monumental existential threat to our culture and way of life and it is not climate change and it is not China and it is not immigration. What it is, is, the incompetency of our politicians. I genuinely can't recall a time when I had less confidence in our alledged

[Phil xxkr]

Just now, Phil xxkr said:

Couldn’t agree more Maurice, it's somewhat tragic that over here unless you do the research the reality is hidden from view. Right here, right now there is a monumental existential threat to our culture and way of life and it is not climate change and it is not China and it is not immigration. What it is, is, the incompetency of our politicians. I genuinely can't recall a time when I had less confidence in our alledged

When I had less confidence in our alleged leadership. During Brexit they were shown to be ineffectual, during CV-19 ineffective and now as we face huge structural challenges, utterly inconsequential. So why wouldn't you vote for a true leader? Cometh the hour cometh the man, but for us here in the UK we're still waiting. 

[peniole]

Kind of back on topic. Prices coming back up again. Witnessed a guy in a red 8th gen civic type R yesterday drive onto the forecourt with both plates concealed with tape. Filled up and just as security was about to get to him, he jumped in and screeched off without paying. He had to mount a kerb to get past my car parked at the filler in front of him. Thankfully, both myself and car unscathed.

[dutchie01]

Not too clever. Blank out your plates on a red civic type R? How many of those are registered? Easy find.

Reminds me of a group of 20 something olds driving an alfa spider classic. Did thesame on a warm summersnight 4 in the car hood down and going full speed through a speedcamera with pants down of the rear passengers, mooning i think it is called. They took the licence plate off what could happen? They had them within a day, how many alfa spiders are registered.

[Malc1]

13 hours ago, dutchie01 said:

how many alfa spiders are registered.

stopped me in me tracks then ........... I'm fed-up popping £130 a time into my Ls400 so thought I'd try the same trick ..............  hahahahahaha  ..  no one would ever know it was me for sure ...  so so many Ls400s about these days  ..  two a penny 😇

Malc

[toffee_pie]

14 hours ago, peniole said:

Kind of back on topic. Prices coming back up again. Witnessed a guy in a red 8th gen civic type R yesterday drive onto the forecourt with both plates concealed with tape. Filled up and just as security was about to get to him, he jumped in and screeched off without paying. He had to mount a kerb to get past my car parked at the filler in front of him. Thankfully, both myself and car unscathed.

So what I read the other day about fuel theft is happening, why do people think they can fill up without paying? Guess that honda owner can meet his monthly payments?

[toffee_pie]

23 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

stopped me in me tracks then ........... I'm fed-up popping £130 a time into my Ls400 so thought I'd try the same trick ..............  hahahahahaha  ..  no one would ever know it was me for sure ...  so so many Ls400s about these days  ..  two a penny 😇

Malc

17 saloons like mine were only ever registered and that's back in 06-08. So probably as good a car you could use for such an exercise.. You could probably fill up in a different station each time 😟

[Bluemarlin]

22 hours ago, Phil xxkr said:

Largely failed to deliver Bill? Dear GxD if this is failure I would dearly like to know your definition of success 🤯

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/trump-administration-accomplishments/0

Success isn't leaving a country where half of it actively hate the other half, believe in conspiracy theories, and that the election system is rigged suffiently to warrant armed protest and the invasion of government offices. And a list of achievements posted by the Trump White House is hardly an unbiased source. I'm pretty sure the Biden White House would claim equal success, depite a pretty mediocre performance. One can easily find other sources that paint a very diffferent picture, such as 23% of promises kept and 53% broken:

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/

At best he had a mixed record of successes and failures, once you remove the spin and rhetoric.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-biggest-accomplishments-and-failures-heading-into-2020-2019-12?r=US&IR=T

So there's no point in batting back and forth various opinions on his success or failure record, as there's plenty of ammunition for either side of the argument. Bottom line is that he succeeed in some areas, and failed in others, like most presidents do, and so was nothing special.

The point I was making though is that he is now a known quantity, who is as much a liability to the Repulican party as an asset. With all the claimed success, he still managed to lose the presidency as an incumbent, as well as the house and the senate, to a candidate as poor as Biden. The senate should have been a shoe in, but was lost entirely due to his actions and involvement. Sure, he has a solid base, but that loyalty is matched entirely by his ability to drive voters to the polls to elect anyone but Trump, which isn't helped by his continued election denial, conspiracy theories, snowflakey whining, and mounting crimiinal investigations. If my life depended on a Republican president at the next election, then I'd be writing my will if the nominee was Trump. He's a gamble at best, which the Republican party could have avoided had they ditched him after the last election, faced the consequences from his base for a year or two, and moved on to build a stronger, more credible opposition.

Sure, Biden may well stumble his way to losing the presidency, but the Republicans, and the country, deserve a replacement who can make real changes and improvements, and not someone who will spend the next four years acting out his perceived grievances and resentments.

[Moleman]

19 minutes ago, Bluemarlin said:

Sure, Biden may well stumble his way to losing the presidency.

That is likely to happen, because the Democrats are in the same position as the Republicans, they have no credible candidate to run against Trump. Biden was the only hope they had, they used it, and it failed.

The Republicans, and the country, deserve a replacement who can make real changes and improvements, and not someone who will spend the next four years acting out his perceived grievances and resentments. 

Totally agree, all Americans deserve better. The world deserves better.

That all said, currently Trump has the base, the support, and is likely to prove to be the winner.

Time will tell, lets see how the picture looks after tomorrow.

Wishing things looked different, will not change anything. Politics in the US is in terrible mess, that said, not much better in this Country. Perhaps the problem is the politicians we currently have.

[dutchie01]

Its the polarisation of the country, you are with us or against us. Its killing the debate and fuelling the hate.

Not US only just go country by country in Europe and youĺl find thesame sentiment.

I think both democrats and republicans are not happy with their leaders  and dont want them to run if there is a good number 2, but who is that?

[First_Lexus]

10 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

Its the polarisation of the country, you are with us or against us. Its killing the debate and fuelling the hate.

Not US only just go country by country in Europe and youĺl find thesame sentiment.

Totally agree. It’s isn’t that many years ago that, after an election, the majority of people would get behind the winning candidate (or decision) or at the very least wish them well as success is good for everybody.

Things have changed, and not for the better. Now, the ‘losing’ side (in an election or almost any subject or question) seem to actively want the ‘winner’ to fail in order to prove they were right all along. The ‘winners’ can never accept things aren’t as brilliant as they hoped, and they become similarly entrenched.

Disagree and debate by all means, but this deliberate antagonism and hate has to stop. It won’t of course, as the internet age has made it almost the default position. Sigh.

[dutchie01]

The media plays a big role as well. Just look at the nr 1 news site in the US Fox News. Compare that with nr 2 MSNBC and dear g8d its two sides of a coin, 2 different realities, worlds. Facts are just ideas and Science is an opinion. Twist and turn whatever is needed to reach your goal. Russia comes to mind where lying is accepted if it is done to achieve something. 

[toffee_pie]

3 hours ago, Bluemarlin said:

Success isn't leaving a country where half of it actively hate the other half, believe in conspiracy theories, and that the election system is rigged suffiently to warrant armed protest and the invasion of government offices. And a list of achievements posted by the Trump White House is hardly an unbiased source. I'm pretty sure the Biden White House would claim equal success, depite a pretty mediocre performance. One can easily find other sources that paint a very diffferent picture, such as 23% of promises kept and 53% broken:

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/

At best he had a mixed record of successes and failures, once you remove the spin and rhetoric.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-biggest-accomplishments-and-failures-heading-into-2020-2019-12?r=US&IR=T

So there's no point in batting back and forth various opinions on his success or failure record, as there's plenty of ammunition for either side of the argument. Bottom line is that he succeeed in some areas, and failed in others, like most presidents do, and so was nothing special.

The point I was making though is that he is now a known quantity, who is as much a liability to the Repulican party as an asset. With all the claimed success, he still managed to lose the presidency as an incumbent, as well as the house and the senate, to a candidate as poor as Biden. The senate should have been a shoe in, but was lost entirely due to his actions and involvement. Sure, he has a solid base, but that loyalty is matched entirely by his ability to drive voters to the polls to elect anyone but Trump, which isn't helped by his continued election denial, conspiracy theories, snowflakey whining, and mounting crimiinal investigations. If my life depended on a Republican president at the next election, then I'd be writing my will if the nominee was Trump. He's a gamble at best, which the Republican party could have avoided had they ditched him after the last election, faced the consequences from his base for a year or two, and moved on to build a stronger, more credible opposition.

Sure, Biden may well stumble his way to losing the presidency, but the Republicans, and the country, deserve a replacement who can make real changes and improvements, and not someone who will spend the next four years acting out his perceived grievances and resentments.

You would need to have pretty thick skin to say everything since 2019 is a conspiracy 

Even the WC in Qatar, the Qatari organisers are paying fans from NL, England and I assume more countries air fare, tickets and credit cards pre-loaded with $$$ all gratis as long as they provide positive feedback on the event on social media forums AND report any unwanted tweets etc.

Interest rates going up every month, really? The Bank of England, America, Australia it seems are all involved.

This behaviour is rampant all over the last number of years, the government of the west pay off the eco nut jobs about net zero - its fact, whether you accept it or not is your problem.  Reliable Combustion Engine cars manufactured since the 1800s do not disappear just like that without a crazy amount of intervention from governments.

It doesn’t surprise me one bit because I know a) combustion engine cars are not the problem for greenhouse gases themselves - in England combustion cars account for less than 1% of global greenhouse gases b) EVs are damaging for the environment in terms of manufacturing c) the batteries weight a tonne, literally, and are difficulty to recycle d) the number of batteries to make the tens/hundreds of millions of planned EVs in the future will outstrip the available natural resources e) most of the charging uses fossil fuels anyway

So saying they are the saviour for greenhouse gas is nonsense but I stopped listening to governments around the time they said diesel was good, I never did buy a diesel and never will.

You probably have heard the Mark Twain quote It’s easier To fool people than To convince them that they’ve been fooled, well this is another of his beauties

"There is nothing in the world like persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus."

[Malc1]

and we wonder why the Xis and Putins of this world are readily welcomed by their populations  ..........  so far anyway !

Malc

[Moleman]

23 hours ago, Moleman said:

Time will tell, lets see how the picture looks after tomorrow.

Wishing things looked different, will not change anything. Politics in the US is in terrible mess, that said, not much better in this Country. Perhaps the problem is the politicians we currently have.

So the results so far show a Republican increase but not as high as expected. Will bring the Biden presidency to end, and there will be two years of fighting ahead.

Interesting, some of the more right leaning media are gently (for now) suggesting Trump may be getting in the way. Be interesting to see how this plays out!

So far it just confirms how divided US Politics have become.

Sadly, we seem to be devolving back into the Dark Ages where superstition ran wild and the Clergy (Establishment) dictated what is truth.

A change is needed.