Well, put another feather in the proverbial cap of President Bush and his legions. His energy bill passed thanks to all the oil company lobbyists — er, I mean bribes to our “elected” representatives.

Not one measure is designed to encourage conservation. Just think of all those people driving 90 mph on the freeway in their eight-cylinder SUVs who could have been saving money if the “oil slick” in the White House had bothered to improve fuel efficiency standards.

Now that we are importing 58 percent of all our oil, what does this measure do? It gives billions in tax breaks and subsidies (that’s right folks, your hard-earned dollars) to the oil and gas industry. Well, if I were an optimist, I’d say people will get sick of paying $3 a gallon, and our lawmakers will put in price controls. But I would rather put the geniuses in the biotech industry to work on an antidote for population stupidity for putting these bums back in for another four years.

— Richard Reiss, Thousand Oaks