Replies

I just spent $45 to get barely 3/4 of a tank of regular gas two days ago. It makes me mad every time I go to the gas station. Not to mention the lady next to me was talking on her cell phone. Did you see what happened to that guy in NY whose cell phone rang and made a spark which caught the vapors as well as him on fire?

Appeal to the Governator

The rising cost of gas prompted UCAN to ask Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a fuel emergency. In a letter dated May 10, Executive Director Michael Shames recommended several steps the state government could take to provide some relief to consumers.

For starters, he urged the suspension of the sale of 89 octane gasoline in the state. Eliminating this grade of gasoline would free up the equivalent of nearly 200 million gallons of storage at terminals and stations around the state, based upon industry observer estimates, Shames wrote.

His second recommendation was for the state to deploy California Public Utilities Commission electricity inspectors as "refinery cops" to conduct spot checks on refineries that are undergoing planned or unplanned operation outages and prevent the "economic perversion" of the 2001 electricity crisis.

Shames also wants the state to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies that are "opportunistically gouging" their customers.

http://www.sandiego.com/sdbusiness.jsp?id=296

Peggy Noonan:

Here's the point: Bad things are coming, and we all know it. But most of us can't afford to buy a farm in the Hudson River Valley. Most of us can't afford to buy the safety of being far, far away on a lake in the mists. Many of us are stuck living near Port Newark.

What are we to do? This is the great domestic policy question of our time. Why doesn't our government provide us all with the means to survive an expected nuclear, biological or chemical attack? Why doesn't our government provide us with what I think of as a "get out of Dodge" kit--a protective suit, a regulation gas mask, information on which direction to walk in, or rather run in, and how soon, after Port Newark, or Times Square, or the Sears Tower, or the Shrine Auditorium, is hit? Why aren't they doing this?

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1134704/posts