...Its one thing to tap the reserves because of a national emergency, but quite another to try and manipulate the fair market value in an open and otherwise (besides price) functioning market. I see two (now three) problems here:

<rant>

1. The Clinton / Gore administrations's lack of energy policy, coupled w/ their environmental agenda, that has left the US at the mercy of OPEC. When you don't negotiate / pressure OPEC to ensure a consistently high flow of oil, and make no efforts to produce a substantial amount domestically bc of environmental concerns, you leave yourself up to this type of fluctuation in price.

2. The government's misguided notion that by releasing a measly 5M barrels into the US supply, when our daily average consumption is approximatly 18M barrels, it can effectively lower prices. This is classic government thinking (only short term, no long term) and doesn't address the fundamental problems that have caused prices to increase (see point 1).

3. It is a VERY bad idea for the government to interfer with a properly working market economy. Government has the right to intervene in a monopoly situation where the monopoly is illegally keeping their hold on power. That is one example of the government's right to intervene. However, the market is working as intended in the this oil situation. Supply has decreased, thanks in no small part to a reduction of domestic drilling, and price has (appropriatly so) gone up. Who are we to blame? OPEC? Why? They know we are more dependent on them for oil than at any other point in our history. Even during the oil crisis of the 70's, we generated domestically a greater percentage of the oil we used than we do now. They simply see an opportunity and are exploiting it for higher profits. That's the American way! Blame should fall on the Clinton / Gore administration (see point 1).

Though these are three reasons why the government is headed down the wrong path, this doesn't even begin to address Mr. Gore's problems. Mainly, his use of class warfare against the American population. There are too many examples to even begin to list here, but his policy of "haves" versus "have nots" only creates tension in America. He so quickly points out that American oil companies have seen profits triple in the last year, while conspicously neglecting to remind the American people that when prices were around $10 a barrel that all of the major oil companies were losing money, or were close to it. Its not hard to triple profits when profits are razor thin or non-existant. How is anything supposed to get done when you've got leader that builds support by turning American's against Americans... And to think, America may actually want this divisive man as a leader...

</rant>

Rob Rants #2.... it's time

The metric system doesn't impact a whole lot of average joes in this country. I mean, let's face it, when was a NASCAR fan from Tennessee really worrying if the race he's watching is in miles or kilometers? But there are those of us that get bit in the butt every now and then by the lack of standards the rest of the world is using. It's a challenge enough to try to bully them into the metric system, but what about one of the most basic and fundamental things in an office: paper.

For someone who interfaces with Aussies, Kiwis, Japanese, Chinese, Brits, French, Danes, Dutch and 38 other nationalities, I can say they've got a plan to make me mad. It all comes around to paper. The A4 paper for those of you that are unaware is a different paper size that tons of other nations use. It's about 3/16 of an inch narrower BUT it gives you the bonus of 5/8 of an inch in heigh. So, I'm sure you're wondering how much an extra lousy 3.1 square inches is going to impact anyone's life? Well, enough so it won't fit into a copier right--the biggest logjam you've seen since the moron before you printed the Powerpoint slides (all 80 of 'em) right before you had to crank out the one pager for the meeting with the president of the company and the clients... of course it was starting in 2 minutes, but that printer was going nowhere.

Also, I receive lots of stuff on A4 paper. Try to print it and the same printer that does the copying will stop you dead in your tracks and beg you to load A4 paper into Tray #4. Well, sorry we're short on that stuff and I didn't pick up any at Stapes or OfficeMax. Mostly because they're fighting the invasion and don't want to sell the stuff. I have to applaude them for this. However, I realize Microsoft knew they'd sell software to these nations so they put it into their software so they can continue their sneaky ways against me.

Resizing to Letter size means you push a lousy line or two onto the next page. This means everything I get from Australian companies is just begging to throw off my print job and makes people ask questions like, "Why did you set the margins to print one line on page 2 anyhow?"

The name A4 means nothing to me. At least "Letter" means something.

If you have comments, put them on letter paper and send them to me. A4 will be prompty discarded.

What next, A4 sized post-it notes for reminders and on our 17 inch monitors?