This Looks Like a Job...
For...CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!
Sometimes, you just have to bow to the absurd. Other times, you might as well ignore the hell out of it. But leave it to the media to always provide fodder for our cannons.
On today's early news, the story was:
OIL PRICES NEAR $100 A BARREL -
FIND OUT WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOUR CAR AND HOME.

Now, being the person of keen intellect that I've become over the years, I just shook my head at utter disbelief that ANYONE would even think of placing a story like THIS in front of me (and my morning coffee). What an insult to my (and your) intelligence. But, just for argument's sake...a moment of self-indulgence.
Gee....lemme "do the math" on this.
Oil prices near $100 a barrel + prices at the pumps over $3 per gallon + home heating prices rise 20% for natural gas = SCREW ME SOME MORE, PLEASE!


ANY person with even the smallest number of neurons firing in their freaking primate craniums can TELL YOU what's going on with oil prices (in very few succinct words), and they don't have the inside line at WALL STREET. AND...they can tell you what it "means" to their car and home. Also, since my "car and home" cannot speak to this THEMSELVES, I will elaborate in their stead.
Those "Happy Holidays" signs we're beginning to see in stores seem more like personal SARCASM directed at every one of us, than any sincere wish for a festive season, don't they? Then again, one man's sarcasm IS another man's joy.

My wife and I have always maintained an air of frugality when it comes to our cars and the home. it's something my folks taught me when I was young: "Never live ABOVE your means". So if you've got a "champagne taste" in things, you better NOT have a "beer pocketbook". But how much more "frugal" can WE (or anyone else) get? We only use our vehicles for trips we NEED to take...like to work, or the store (weekly) for groceries. We don't spend endless hours cruising the streets of this city in search of "something to do" (unlike the numbers of boomcars we are privy to daily). It's just not in our "budget". We might take a drive to Portland twice a year to visit the relatives, or meet them in Decatur, but aside from these (very) few indulgences, that's IT! The vehicles are mantained to produce the best mileage possible for their age (sounds like ME on a MONDAY) so we don't ignore the small s**t like tire pressures and oil changes.

And when it comes to our house, we don't run the furnace full-tilt in the winter, nor do we do likewise with the A/C in the summer. For it's age, it's not the "tightest" house around, but with some careful insulating and caulking, things are not so bad. Our thermostat is probably the MOST "toyed-with" device in our entire home...(more so than the TV remote) LOL!
We have tightened OUR belts as much as is humanly possible without cutting ourselves neatly in two, while still being able to maintain a level of "livability". We're not freezing like some SIberian gulag, nor are we sweating our butts off in some Kalaharian venue. With careful management of our heating and cooling, we are doing OK.
So now we're given choices we should not have to decide upon, such as do we sacrifice FOOD FOR FUEL? Wow, didn't the U.N. pull some gig like that with disasterous results?
And when you think about those on FIXED incomes such as seniors, the equation I stated above becomes way too real to consider, simply because of the consequences. But maybe it's all part of some "master plan" to off the elderly and get more cheap-ass housing for the undeserving. I would not put it past some people to think that way.

It all makes such a damn good argument for Britain to have NOT given back the Middle East (part and parcel) to those nations after WW2, doesn't it? It's also a forgone conclusion that NONE of our paychecks can keep up with ALL these rising prices to offset the increased expenses we're now incurring.

So, after all this "saving" on OUR part...where is our "payoff"? What "benefits" do WE, the average consumer wind up with, after all is said and done (this week)?
Not a helluva lot, that's for certain. We might get a good feeling for doing the right thing...and not much else. No rebates, no savings, no nest-eggs...yeah, the future's so bright we GOTTA wear shades (thanks to global warming and less ozone).
Sure.
Got it.

Still, the media must be having a SLOW week to provide THIS kind of ridiculous "news". But the REAL story of normal, everyday citizens having to decide on whether to buy gifts for their kids this Christmas...OR eat...OR fill the car up with fuel...OR heat their homes should be more journalistically pressing an issue.
Besides, isn't the NEWS about informing us of things we DO NOT know?
Captain Obvious already KNEW that much.