Today's peeve started about, oh, the 1970's.  There was a lawsuit against Edison, that said they were not competing fairly in the marketplace.  You see, Edison used to give away light bulbs for free. Light bulbs that lasted FOREVER, and the bringer of the suit wanted to manufacture light bulbs to sell. Of course, who would buy them, with Edison giving away bulbs that lasted FOREVER for free?  Nobody, in short. So the suit went ahead, and we forever lost light bulbs that lasted FOREVER that were free, in fact, lost them all together.

    So, where is this all leading to??  As soon as I am sure, you will be too!!  No, I am just kidding, you probably won't know.

    So, after that suit was settled, then came the next one.  Breaking up the horrible MONOPOLY that was Ma Bell, this little move to protect us from the mean corporate MONOPOLIES led to my phone bill being (now I can't prove this) 10 times what it was before they moved to protect us. TYVM.

    Now they are de-regulating this, that, and the other thing (Gas, Electric, Airlines, etc...) in order that the competition will be fair.  I expect that in the next 10 years (assuming Y2K doesn't bring us to our knees) I will no longer be able to afford to have luxuries like lights and heat.  We received a notice from our gas company that we now have "CHOICE" in whom we purchase our gas from. Yahoo! Now we have another impossibly difficult decision to make. As of now though, it means we can save a dollar a month on our gas bill if we choose one of the other providers, but the gas will be delivered by our old company (with a delivery fee) and wind up not saving us anything at all !!! Big Surprise HUH?
 

     In closing, I would like to say :

I DO NOT WANT THE GOV'T PROTECTING ME FROM THE CIGARETTE COMPANIES,  WHO THEN PASS THE COST ON TO ME. ( THERE WILL BE A COMMENTARY ON THAT SOON)