03/15/2004: 
Breaking News
Cast your eye not on OPEC, but on yourself
from undisclosed source
Energy prices. We questioned last week why we hadn't heard much yelling about high gasoline prices in the press despite their near-record level. Well we got responses, indirectly and directly. First, a New York Times article popped up, suggesting that the enemy is us: "‘This is killing me,' Bob Sherwood, an electrician who spends a lot of time on the road, said on Friday at a Santa Monica gas station after paying $30 to pump 13 gallons of gasoline into his '71 GMC truck. In Detroit, Keith Bibbins complained that prices were ‘way too high, too damn high.' He was filling up his Chrysler minivan... " [Our emphasis] Then we heard from a fellow [company deleted] employee in the UK: "I do not know what you are complaining about at $33 a fill-up. I paid EUR30 this weekend in France - and that was a decidedly European scaled Peugeot 205, not some American... S.U.V. with its own ozone hole attached. And I only had to half fill the tank (it was a rental), and it was the decidedly cheaper diesel I was putting into the tank. $33 indeed. Count yourselves lucky, and go spend the difference in the mall. Goodness knows, we Europeans can not afford to."
