$90 awl

Onwards to $100! Tightened fuel efficiency standards take a long time to work themselves into the market. Which is why it has been such a travesty that very little has been done about that since Jimmy Carter left office. Though our economy is not nearly as oil-dependent as it may have once been, we might all be a bit happier had we not drunk the Kool-Aid of eternally low crude prices and just resisted purchasing that SUV for the daily commute. It appears that now the only option available short-term is to increase the proportion of non-crude combistibles in gasoline (ethanol). It should be obvious that though prices might ease slightly after some of the factors that led to this are taken care of--Turkey and the Kurds, Iran, weak dollar, etc.--prices will remain high for a long time to come. Yet even at this stage we have oil company chearleaders and free-market extremists running around Washington DC, telling us that high profit margins will lead to disscoveries of hitherto unknown reserves of the limitless black gold underneath our feet and railing against fuel efficiency standards. And many of our nation's leaders seem to be eating it right up. Truly amazing times we live in.