Found this on YouTube. A not-very-good quality video, but a local TV newscast intro with the lead story, gas shortages! It’s 1979. That’s Bobbie Battista, who was on CNN for many years. Complete with a vintage wrestling promo.

I just mentioned in passing in a previous post the ending of UK food rationing in 1954. Well LOL due to the 2008 energy crisis, it may be back, if only (initially) as a voluntary measure\:

Evoking an era of World War II austerity, British families are being urged to cut food waste and use leftovers in a nationwide effort to fight sharply rising global food prices.

It’s not back to ration books, “victory gardens” or squirrel-tail soup yet, but warning bells are being rung by experts at all levels of Britain’s government as well as from the World Food Program.

Wasting food is immoral in many cultures. If the UK can’t quite kick its petrol habit (I found that it’s almost as auto dependent as the US) at least it can reduce the wasting of food.

This site has a good folk historical overview of WW II food rationing in the UK. ‘Yes! We have no bananas today!’

Minivans suck. “Soccer moms” must suck too.

Stephanie Torgerson, 32, of Pataskala, Ohio, said she simply can’t put her three boys in her husband’s Mazda 626. The 1-year-old needs a car seat, the 5-year-old needs a booster chair and she doesn’t feel comfortable wedging her 8-year-old between the two.

Sure, she could probably get better mileage in a minivan, but she doesn’t like the stigma.

“I don’t want to be labeled as a soccer mom,” she said.

 And this lady has it easy. Embarrassed soccer moms in Europe have it even worse.