GASOLINE PRICES are up by over 50 cents per gallon, have passed $2 in some places, and show no signs of moderating. Venezuela, one of our major suppliers, is in an uproar, with unions curtailing oil production. Never mind: We have a reliable supplier to fill the supply gap–Iraq. Our imports from that charter member of the axis of evil rose 24 percent last month, to 1.2 million barrels per day, representing one-third of that country’s exports under the U.N. oil-for-food program (or, more aptly, oil-for-Johnnie Walker and aluminum tubes).
Not a good situation. So bad, indeed, that Hollywood types, feeling guilty about the share of the earth’s resources that they consume and the pollution that they create (from driving Hummers, not from appearing on television), want us all to give up our safe SUVs and cruise Beverly Hills in prototype vehicles that don’t use gasoline.
