Haha, don't get me started on Dallas.

I have an aunt and uncle that moved to Palos Verdes for business (commercial real estate) from Highland Park in Dallas. Just from visiting I can attest to the high prices of land.

Ah yes, the Williams Company...out of Tulsa I believe? Big players in natural gas. Huge actually.

Wait, lemme ask you: LOL Are there Alligators in Texas? (I know the answer to that question) -- It's my poll of what real Texans think...

Yes? Haha. I mean, there is a spring alligator hunting season. You can hunt them in South and East Texas....never done it though.

I feel like this is a trick question.

Home heating oil will cost me $4.39 a gallon. I'm debating on whether or not to fill up the tank.

Washington isn't that small of a state. It's in the middle in terms of area. But when you say that our resources are "precious" I really think it's more accurate to say that we treat our resources more preciously. We're crazy recyclers here (all of my life we had curbside recycling, way before it was elsewhere), and (seriously) half of our state's area is covered in pine trees...many people probably don't know that. But you know what? We're still good at using our natural resources. Did you know that Washington state gets less than 10% of our power from coal? We get almost all of our electricity from WATER. Grand Coulee Dam is the biggest power plant in the country, plus we have a bunch of other dams throughout the state. We have so much power generated from our natural resources (thanks to cooperation with Canada, Oregon and Idaho also) that we still have enough left over to sell to California. So I'm pretty happy with how we're treating our natural resources up here.

You do still have some nuclear plants, right?

Thanks :) I knew some of that--especially when I put a recyclable item in the wrong container. Compared to Texas, I would get "blank stares"--And poor California, first disaster they get, they ain't gonna make it... Namely issues with water--folks are going to lose they dayum minds...

I thought they shutdown Hanford--it's a superfund site now. Like they have crazy stuff like Thorium and Strontium in the stones...

Dude!!! I was in Sugarland visiting my husband's cousin's property... And there was this muddy retaining pond. And as we all got out of the vehicle, we looked around and all thought is was nice--until I saw to little eyes pop up out of the retaining pond... LOL... And I asked "what's that?" And my husband--a aquatic animal specialist--veterinarian--started skipping and yelping "That's an ALLIGATOR!!!" He was too happy!!!

Meanwhile, the dudes at my former workplace who hunt ALL THE TIME told me there are no alligators in Texas... And I was like, "but, but" :( They were that Cotton Bowl group... LOL.

I'm surprised they didn't know that. There definitely are. There are lots of areas in the state that are perfect habitats for them.

We have one nuclear power plant (Hanford), which has been cleaned up considerably since its days of producing plutonium during WWII...in fact, you can now tour the facility, even the reactor. Nuclear power accounts for less than 10% of our power. We have one coal plant, and it accounts, again, for about 10% or less or our power. More than 70% of our power is hydro from many dams throughout the state; natural gas and wind power also account for less than 10% of our power.

See this Web site for a map of our electricity sources and their locations: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/state/state...les.cfm?sid=WA
Here's and excerpt:
"Typically accounting for close to three-fourths of State electricity generation, hydroelectric power dominates the electricity market in Washington. Coal-fired, natural gas-fired, and nuclear powered plants account for roughly equal shares of the remaining generation. Washington is the leading hydroelectric power producer in the Nation, typically generating about twice that of the next leading State. Eight of the State’s 10 largest power plants run on hydroelectric power, primarily from the Columbia and Snake Rivers. The 7,079-megawatt Grand Coulee hydroelectric facility, located on the Columbia River, is the largest generating plant in the United States. Grand Coulee’s generation capacity is almost twice that of Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear plant, the second-ranked U.S. electric plant. Washington has one large coal-fired plant located near the State’s only coal mine in the southwest. Coal production has fallen slightly in recent years due in part to increased hydroelectric production. The State’s only nuclear plant, the Columbia Generating Station, is located near the Columbia River in the south-central part of the State, and generates nearly one-tenth of the State's electricity."

My uncle used to work at Hanford.. only reason I even knew that it existed :) He's been retired for a while now so I wasn't sure if it was still up and running or not.

Just came across this story and while it could go just about anywhere, parts seemed to place it here:
Cuba oil plans could put hole in U.S. embargo
"HAVANA (Reuters) - Sometime next year, Cuba plans to begin drilling a major oil field off its northern coast that might do what little else has done -- bring change to U.S-Cuba relations.
In a rare confluence of circumstances, oil could grease the wheels for the two bitter enemies to come together in the middle of the Florida Straits out of mutual need, experts say.
Getting there would require a sea change in U.S. policy -- namely putting a major hole in the U.S. trade embargo imposed against Cuba in 1962 to topple Fidel Castro's communist government."..................
"CLOSE TO U.S.
An odd fact is that Cuba will be drilling 50 miles from the Florida Keys, or more than twice as close as U.S. companies can get due to regulations protecting Florida's coast.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who has introduced bills to lift the embargo for oil companies, said the environmental argument may be key because there is much concern in Florida about potential oil spills.
"If there are going to be oil rigs off of Florida, I think most Americans would be more comfortable if they were U.S. oil rigs, rather than Chinese for example," Flake said.
He said U.S. companies are definitely interested in Cuba, but have not publicly pushed for embargo change. In interviews, industry executives emphasized they did not oppose the embargo because it is U.S. national policy and were pushing instead for access to U.S. areas that are currently prohibited, such as offshore western Florida.
"When U.S. companies are not even allowed to drill in the eastern half of the Gulf of Mexico, we have a long way to go before we can think about international waters off the coast of Cuba," said Larry Nichols, chairman of Houston-based Devon Energy.
Cuba has said it would welcome U.S. companies to their offshore field and showed its interest by sending Cubapetroleo representatives to a 2006 conference in Mexico City with companies including oil giant Exxon Mobil and top U.S. refiner Valero Corp.
The conference became the center of international controversy when the Sheraton Hotel kicked out the Cuban representatives after the Bush administration told the U.S.-based hotel chain it was violating the embargo by having paying Cuban guests.
The incident may have convinced the oil industry to lie low on Cuban oil.".............
http://www.reuters.com/article/inDep...thNews&sp=true

Hahahaha. I love that part. Now that is just freaking ridiculous. I guess that's what we get for being complete morons when it comes to our country's energy needs. State and Federal governments bitch for years about coastal drilling.......and now Cuba is basically gonna drill in our backyard, so to speak. Brilliant.

Brother;
Now on hand:


Dutch Mandel

General Motors' very smart move: Can it help save the planet? Who cares! At least they're thinking about it
"Talk about a smart move.

The General Motors announcement that it was shuttering truck plants, giving the hybrid Chevrolet Volt a production jolt, eyeing future strategy of the Hummer brand, developing a Chevy Cobalt replacement and closing other manufacturing facilities is a brilliant tactical move. It telegraphs a message that this company understands life as we have known it has changed, and it's trumpeting that message to shareholders around the world and to customers near and far in advance of the annual stockholders meeting.

Brilliant!

Is it enough? Is it a response with sufficient rapidity? Will naysayers pooh-pooh it?

In order: No. Maybe. Almost surely, yes.

Is it the right kind of public relations for a behemoth seen as slow and cumbersome by its detractors? Absolutely. "........

And then this comment on the other:

"Allow for a moment, as an example of this, a bit of digression. Last week ExxonMobil's embattled CEO, Rex Tillerson, said that instead of developing alternative fuel technologies, it was consumers' responsibility to exercise conservation efforts.

No joke.

Is that like a cigarette company saying, if you think cancer strikes those who smoke cigarettes and you suck down three packs a day, maybe you should cut back to two packs?

Or is that akin to car companies saying that if we want to get better fuel economy, perhaps, Ms. Consumer, you should drive slower.

It is disingenuous, short-sighted and arrogant for Tillerson or any other executive to place this onus on customers and shareholders, the very people who made the companies what they are. "................
http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl...7221/1049/FREE

BTB Brother, while out shopping today, I paused to give some thought of you.
Do you prefer 25 or 30 year old?
\_/ \_/ cheers!

Haha, 25.....but usually just stick with 12 or 18 because it's a little much for my wallet!!!

I'm not sure how I feel about Tillerson's comments. On one hand, I think he could have worded his comments a little better......on the other, I tend to agree. Our country overconsumes and uses up oil and gas like nobody's business. 20 million barrels a day, a QUARTER of the entire consumption of the entire world. We use three times more a day than our closest rival China.....who has over a billion more people than we do.

If people are upset that someone had the balls to say that we need to exercise some personal responsibility and not sit on our asses and wait for other people to "make it better" for us then they have some issues, IMVHO.