This probably happens to some of you - find a friend on the net and to keep in touch, they put you on their personal mailing list, blindly sending chain mail, urban myths, content bordering on spam. I generally ignore e-mails unless it's content is really directed to me personally.

Anyway, this spamish e-mail seems to reflect the ignorance of the general public:

• Everybody boycotts Exxon and only Exxon gas
• Exxon lowers their gas to about $1.30 a gallon
• Do the same to Shell, then Valero, etc....
• Everybody has prices at $1.30

I'm not that great at math, but if the oil busisness is still profitable at $1.30 a gallon, the Exxon CEO would be several times weathlier than Bill Gates! While I don't rule out Exxon taking advantage of the consumer, I think everyone here knows demand exceeds the supply.

Anyway, read and enjoy!

_______________________________

Subject: GAS WAR - an idea that WILL work

This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineerbuddies who retired from Halliburton. It ' s worth your consideration.

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by next summer and itmight go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, unitedaction. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea.

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don'! t buy gas on a certain day" campaign that wasgoing around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew wewouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience tous than it was a problem for them.

BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read onand join with us! By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap.Me too! It is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies andthe OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of g! as is CHEAP at$1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the
marketplace..... not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumersneed to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hitsomeone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurtingourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN havean impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (whichnow are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not! selling any gas, they will be inclined toreduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers.It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out at this point.... keep reading and I'll explain howsimple it is to reach millions of people.

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at least ten more (30 x 10 =3D 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 =3D 3,000)...and so on, by the timethe message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLIONconsumers. If those three million get excited an d pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 millionpeople will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE
>>>>HUNDRED MILLION >>>>PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you don't understand how wecan reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you justaren't a mathematician. But I am, so trust me on this one.)

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within oneday of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you! ?

Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this messageon. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICESTO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.

THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

 

My mom, God bless her, does this all the time. Actually, she's a lot better ever since I introduced her to Snopes.com -- the Internet urban legend/myth archive.

Snopes.com results for 'boycott gas'

 

Good job - introducing her to www.snopes.com!

 

I just gather the email addresses, and about once a year, go to yahoo, open a free mail account, and send a SPAM to them all explaining that the only reason these exists is to harvest email addresses.

 

my wife is THE rumor-crushing ****, and man do I love her for it! She's ticked off a lot of people by replying to their chainmail with a link to snopes. Funny how they get upset when they realize how stupid/ignorant/fooled they were.

 

to your wife!

It's a sad commentary about today's world that so many take critique so personally for doing things obviously unhelpful. When one refuses to respond to even gentle critisism, they are a missle out of control.

 

while on the topic, everyone who's ever posted on gasbuddy should be required to read through snopes before logging on again. Gasbuddy is sort of the epicenter for the uninformed poster- uggh.

 

How 'bout buying more fuel-efficient cars? Being less addicted is the 1st step.

No demand, no sales...cut prices!

Doesn't sound like the domestic car companies at all.

 

Are you my sister?

Oh, I don't have one, so I guess not.

Also, my mom has yet to get the hint even though we've sent her to snopes.com many, many, MANY times.

Maybe we should start withholding pictures of the grandkids. "Mom, for every unchecked rumor you send, you miss one round of pictures."

{edit because I can't spell snopes}