Boo-hoo (Wuz: Great gas out!; gas prices, gas pains, gas gas, etc.)

["Shaun D. Mullen" <smullen@philly.infi.net>]

The q-list is invariably interesting when the subject is quattros.  It can be
downright hilarious when i'ts about something few of us know jack spit about.
Like the world petroleum market.  The one certainty -- the one absolute
certainty -- about the historically cheap gas prices in the U.S. over the last
few months -- was that they were going to go up.  The one certainty -- the one
absolute certainty -- now that they've begun to go back up, is that sooner or
later they'll come back down.  Not in the long term, like the next 30 years,
perhaps, but certainly in the short term, like the next 3 years, if not the
next 3 months.  Beyond that, there are an incredible number of factors and
market forces at work in the petroleum market that have little do with common
sense, the size of the allowance mom and dad give some of our more adolescent
listers, shrinking natural energy resources or alternative fuels.  Non-U.S.
listers have every right to feel less than sympathetic to the hankie-ringing
among those of us peeved that our little at-the-pump party is over, however
temporarily.  I myself have pumped 94-octane at US$1.10 with disbelief for
months now.  I too am sorry the party is over, but it's a wonder it lasted so
long.

Shaun Mullen
West Grove, PA