Shall we buy food or fill up the car?

Are you driving more or less?
Have you dusted off your bicycle?

How can we be an "ownership" society when we can't afford to own anything?

People are complaining that the high cost of fuel is not in their budget. When you factor in the cost of transportation, you have in effect taken a pay cut. And most likely you haven't had a decent raise since the bushistas seized power. Sure, in the cities, you can take a bus or a train, but in the suburbs and rural areas, it's not like buses are coming by your corner every 10 minutes, if ever.

Check it out: In Great Britain, they are paying close to $7/gallon. Taxes there account for 66%
But then again, all their citizens have access to free health care. What do we get?


UPDATE: Morford as usual has a nifty take on how our leader spent Earth Day.

Look, see those tire marks? That ungainly footprint? Feel that breath of humid doom upon your skin? Yes, the president was just here. Up in Napa Valley, riding his official Trek Mountain Bike One over the rocks and down the trails and through the cool California mud, a small army of handlers and Secret Service agents and emergency medical personnel by his side and/or rumbling along behind him in big black SUVs.

...

He talked about how he enjoyed mountain biking because it had such minimal impact on the pristine, wild surroundings. Shockingly, lightning did not strike him dead on the spot.