Will wonders never cease?

Suck it, Bitches! Let's hope the rest of the country adjusts as easily!

I love it ! hell I haven't seen bill the cat in years , not since a long time ago when berkley breathed's toon was in the orlando sentinel [ when I lived there]. that paper soon scrapped bloom county for his other " outland" ; after they had something about " mortimer mouse" with disney's michael eisner[ CEO then] counting money! LOL anyway, I love how they all are mooning the sheik, the exxon execs.; and yes, america's favorite " dick" head! [ cheney] where " uncle george" is at? maybe behind the car?

where " uncle george" is at? maybe behind the car?

No, he's under the car.

The key to Breathed's scene is the solar panels. Electric vehicles charged any other way is only shifting our dependence from one fossil fuel onto another (i.e., coal).

Yet even if solar powered, today's electric vehicles don't provide much improvement over oil-burners. All electric vehicles have one major technical drawback: toxic, short-lived, and expensive battery packs. If humans around the world start producing and consuming the billions of batteries needed to shift to electric vehicles, it would create environmental and human health disasters.

Electric vehicles might not save us anything in the long run. They wont discourage our sedentary ways, urban sprawl, or other ills the auto culture inflicts on society.

The most efficient animal on the planet, by far, is a human on a bicycle.

We have more guns than the cops sent to guard the gas stations. Peace and love and earth shoes are all wonderful things. I hope the cannibals don't get you.

Hey, I'm halfway there - got the panels and inverter, just need the car. You can do it too!

(PS: I bike a lot as well.)

all this neo self sufficiency smacks of Mao's great leap forward.

Has anyone been following the progess of MDI company? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4)

According to the internet there are several companies experimenting with vehicles that run on compressed air. If this is indeed feasible, imagine what it could do, not only for our wallets, but also for air quality and independence from Big Oil.

In my humble opinion, it can't come quickly enough. I'm almost afraid to believe this is possible.

What do you think?

Would be much more effective if Bill were offering his frontside...

That? What pooped forth from Opus's super smart car trunk?

Is that what is found at the end of the Opus's oil-stingers?

A dip stick with a dick vice commando. Opus says `fugue!

It belongs to who? Yoo? This is a bad exxon honeymoon.

Opus. Mother Mary of the doe-lard, and pork roast, fan a fire?

Opus needs to take some oral temps... My head aches.

Sister Hellion Dementia can donate one dirty oil doilies.

Berkeley Breathed can cover the trunk head with a lace.

The image coming from the truck needs a thermometer.

Poor mom, fibbers, and halibuts in a big lard, fry pan.

We need to pray for more lace, silk, and barf buckets.

Pious Opus barfs. heehaw.

O what stage of grief is this:

okay? post-croak. relief. sigh.

apologies if this was grievous.

It was said from a` pure intent.

Compressed air will work. Compressed air locomotives have been made and used. They are safe in mine tunnels or anywhere else where there is an explosive atmosphere.

Nanotechnology is promising a real breakthrough. Capacitors that will hold a huge charge. No chemicals involved, just the storage of electricity. This has recently been done experimentally.

Nanotechnology is also promising a big efficiency improvement of solar cells.

Those 185-watt solar panels, and that 5000-watt inverter aren't cheap, and a lot of oil-based energy was needed to manufacture them. So the cost of a 'fill-up' for the hybrid plug-in is not $0. Is it a better way to go? Yes. Does that technology threaten the oil barons? Yes. But neither is it as pure or as cheap as many people might like, and the oil barons will do their best to keep it that way.

have you no ability to just enjoy?! RRK whatever, please throw away all your black clothing and get out of the house, stop reading political news if a little bright happy comic strip leads you to be such a killjoy. do you really think you need to remind everyone there's a price on the front side to INVEST in alternative energy?! if you check real goods solar, there's a great price on american made 25 year 180 watt panels, about $480 each.

chill out! go buy a sense of humor!! dismissed.

It said everything it needed to say-- and the setup was perfect. Cheney absolutely belonged in there.

My big question is...what exactly is Steve Dallas looking at? PPPLLLLLEEEEAAASSEEE don't tell me he's looking at Opus and Bill's privates through the sunroof....PPPLLLEEEAAASSSEEE!

Otherwise I may have to vomit!

The liberal solution to the oil crisis, and it aint the electric car. It is Bill the Cat's spit, which he will need to propel the car after it has gone more then 50 miles.

adze13:Steve seems to be adapting quite well to his golf cart.

Although the earliest, post EV1 electric GEM cars were *similar* to golf carts, no plug-ins that I've seen are, nor are the newest slew of electrics. The latter are more like microcars, while the former include the Prius - a huge car, if you ask me. I'll be curious if the Fit, with Honda's plans to use a modified version of the Insight's drive train, will become the new car to convert to plug-in.

shackindawoods:Where's the bicycle? (and other comments):

A bicycle is indeed the best form of individual transport from the point of view of energy taken per mile traveled. Effectively mid-600s in mpg compared to mid 300s for walking. Most EVs top out at around 250mpg; a well used electric train crushes all competition though.

But don't get crazed; EVs and to a lesser extent plug-ins are a pretty drastic improvement over ICE cars, especially when you consider they're within a reasonable fraction of that Holy Grail mileage of bicycles. There are activities, even in areas of the world with good public transport, where a car or truck is needed. Absolutely people need to get out of the single occupant H2s and walk, bike or carpool. However, going cold turkey Just. Won't. Happen... and doesn't solve America's basic problem. I'd *love* to see a better solution (trains!), but we're too far along to not have an intermediate step and even that is going to be painful - and a lot more than Steve's problems.

And the batteries aren't quite the problem you say; they've got fair room for improvement, but anything associated with manufacturing is a potential disaster. Plus, you can actually recycle pretty easily battery components, and all the evidence supports that it would be easier to do that than to mine further materials for new batteries. Also, what people tout as a "short lifespan" for batteries tends to be longer than most people keep their cars, and even then it's hardly like the batteries crap out. All those Prius owners haven't needed to swap out their packs - despite the fear mongering.

There are problems with batteries, but these aren't them. "All those people getting ..." never happens; the fleet only changes out so quickly, no matter what, and there will still be people who love their big trucks & the particularly motivated who just don't need cars (my gas car gets driven < 1000 miles/year, my bicycle about the same as my tiny electric ~4-5k/year).

Roosty & BlueAmberol: Compressed air cars will likely be part of the fix. They have a few odd problems themselves, and US laws the way they are I suspect we'll be the last (if ever) to get them. They are a unique idea that's actually quite good. Still below EVs in their mileage, about 80-100mpg, but a valuable piece of the puzzle.

rrk1:There's no free lunch.

Of course not, and that counts for the bicycle. Hell, walking - I still need to eat. However, the startup costs for the renewables is commensurate (or better) with the startup for fossil burners, *once* you remove the subsidies for the latter. There is also that minor point that solar, wind, OTEC etc don't dump stuff like methyl mercury, SO2 & such into the atmosphere, but those are "externalities" and many people feel comfortable ignoring them as long as it's not in their neighborhood. Not claiming you're one of these, jus' sayin'...

(For the unaware or curious, those nasty pieces that get thrown off by fossil fuel burning are *HUGE* compared the one-time stuff done with renewables, and that's not counting the nasty pieces needed to make those fossil fuel burning plants in the first place).

One last comment or two:

Yes, they (plug-ins) still use fossil fuels. They are, or should be, the first step away from such (ignoring the real past successes and some minor failures) of EVs. They use a lot less, maybe even to the point of reducing our imports. Remember, it's declining, but we still have domestic production. We won't/can't get them into use fast enough to do much reduction - see my comment about to shackindawoods - but it's a part of the puzzle.

Folks, there is no silver bullet solution to our problems - not the plural. If there is one biggest problem we - humans, not just Americans - face, it's that we think there is just one biggest problem we face and one way to fix it.

And lastly... BB, that's a big array. Or did you just get an oversized inverter with the idea you'd get more panels as needed? Not a bad option; I still stuck with 3k since I just didn't calculate a need for more. I still have spare power - I need to leave more lights on to keep PG&E from getting a free lunch from me. $200 in spare credits the first year since I didn't have an EV, $96 the second as I didn't have it all year. I calculate I'll just be giving them $10-30 this year, and that's the most I'll be able to use barring getting that electric powered Death Ray Cannon from EBay.