I think you underestimate the greed of people, LD. Most people won't give a shit about a Kyoto Treaty if they can get that new HDTV.

Ditto, LD :D

I'm with Kirk (surprised?). With friends like the US soverign nations need no enemies.

So are you telling me that perhaps that's the reason some of those we condsidered to be our friends chose to become ex-friends???

We are, what, 6% of the world's population? And we use what percentage of the power? 20%? 30%?

We consume everything: cars, energy, food, and whatever else we like. Check out this picture:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html

6%, remember.

I'm not suggesting that anyone is saying we will go isolationist. But I am hearing people say we could. Look at this picture, and tell me so again...

Interesting picture - those nations that are most industrialized and most developed own more lightbulbs than those which aren't. All I really see from this is that the more heavily populated regions are consuming more energy. No one denies we use more that our share if you divide the entire world population by the total energy used. I doubt those numbers would hold up when you compare other nations that are comparable. Having just said all of this, the mail lady just brought in my electric bill for April - OUCH!

Getting back to the rant - I am sure we consume more than others - I know that personally - where we live causes us to burn more gasoline than you probably burn in Oregon - simple geography and lack of population causes us to drive a lot of miles. Could we eliminate a lot of this driving? Sure if we changed our lifestyle a bit. Do I honestly believe the US could be self-sufficient? Yes I do, but we'd have to change our lifestyles a bit! Do we really need product from the nation screaming the loudest about this? No! We don't.

(http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/14395/1.html)
The US violated Hungarian air space by flying over six helicopters and a c-136 refueling plane. Earlier the US claimed that the helicopters and plane were part of a contingent bound for Afghanistan, but it later turned out that they ended up at the Romanian port of Constance, where the US is further stockpiling munitions and equipment in its war against Iraq.

USA did the same with austria, now tell me: is it a sign of freindship that america ignores the will of their allies? The USA simply do not care for other opinions. nice friend....

You think the amount of money we have budgeted for foreign aid to countries that didn't support us in the war (i.e. Israel) even comes close to the bill we're gonna have to front for that very war? Try again...

So your electrical bill was pretty high eh LD?

Hmm, imagine what it would be like without all that cheap canadian natural gas to fire your generators?

About 20 times what it is now.

That would be allot more than ouch, more like a hemotoma.

The US could never be self sufficient in a billion years. You are too suburban, too wasteful. I live in the heart of the city, i take the subway to work, drive a car, not an SUV or pickup truck.

Most americans would balk at the very idea.

salut

No, what I'm saying is that if I had a friend that couldn't cope with me disagreeing with him he would go from 'a friend' to 'someone I know'. And if he kept up the bs he would become an enemy.

And to my knowledge Canada never said 'You're either with us or against us.'.

We aren't burning Canadian gas - I live in a little town that has the largest natural gas field in the world named after it. We are just like you - we export all of our gas to NYC too. They buy it there for about a third of what we pay for it here because ours isn't federally regulated because it is intrastate commerce. Our power plant is owned by the city and the rate we pay is about three time that of neighboring communities - I have a large walk-in beer cooler with 18 display doors and it takes a lot of electricity to keep the beer cold.

As a Brit I have to agree, I mean without American help Canada would have be taken over by polar bears ! Come on get real.

Canada has helped and supported many countries, and unlike America has not tried to invade or overthrow countries who do not agree with them.