Stuart at the delightfully obscure Random Useless Info has an interesting chart of gas prices:

The following plot shows how much I paid for each gallon of gas I bought over the past 26 years or so. [...] The plot contains data from 996 fill-ups.

Turns out that we’re just now getting back to the equivalent price we were paying for gasoline back in 1983 (the first year I could drive, so I well remember it, btw). Big whoopty whoop. So why are people continuing to just get stupid about the cost of oil?

UPDATE: Instapundit points me to the brilliant Larry Kudlow, who says on the subject:

Permit me to take a contrarian view on the oil price shock. I say three cheers for higher energy prices. Why? Because I believe in markets. When the price of something goes up, demand falls off (call it conservation) and supply increases (call it new production). We’re seeing a tectonic shift.

And

The moral of this story: markets work if you let them.

Amen and amen.