High fuel prices are not going away. You can fight back by following these simple but effective suggestions. Post them around the house, or write them on the back of your hand with a permanent marking pen.

1) Use fuel slowly. If you use it fast, it won't last as long.

2) After you get really good at using fuel slowly, try to go even slower.

3) Don't lose fuel. When you put fuel somewhere, make a note of the location so you can be sure and find it later when you need it.

4) Avoid wasting fuel. Whenever you're carrying a container of fuel, be sure not to spill any. You should also learn to recognize the sound of fuel leaking from a hole in the container. The less fuel you waste, the more you'll have available later on when you need it.

5) Never loan fuel, even to friends or relatives. Studies have shown that in many cases, people who borrow fuel never bring it back.

6) Make sure the fuel you're buying is genuine. Whenever a commodity goes up in value, criminals will attempt to swindle unsuspecting consumers. For example, If anyone ever offers to sell you a 55-gallon drum that has the words "Radioactive Waste" crossed out and replaced with "Fuel," there is definitely cause for concern.

7) Do not respond to ads on TV or in newspapers saying "We pay big money for your old fuel!" Never send fuel through the mail for a "free appraisal." These are typical methods used to perpetuate fuel fraud.

8) Avoid long trips that consume large amounts of fuel by finding places to visit that are close to home. Start by knocking on doors along your street. In many areas, neighbors turn out to be fascinating people. Some of them may have backyard swimming pools, hammocks, and other amenities that rival any destination resort.

9) Educate family members about the importance of conserving fuel. If you overhear your child playing with dolls and planning a "pretend party at the beach," intervene quickly and tell the child it would be much more fuel-efficient and personally beneficial to have the dolls relax on the back patio and do some serious reading. You can even make this into a craft
activity by using paper and glue to construct doll-size "pretend editions" of Proust, Stendhal, and Thomas Hardy.

10) Develop positive emotions about fuel. Feelings of contempt, disdain, or hostility toward any aspect of your daily life can disrupt your ability to make good decisions involving the object of your scorn. Treat fuel as you wish to be treated. Visualize a team effort. If you need a special phrase to maintain this mind-set here's an easy reminder--repeat as often as
needed: "I'm okay, my fuel's okay."

In my college fraternity, after rush night, we would all assemble to decide who would join our illustrious, underachieving crew. By the end of the night, we would either offer a prospective brother a "bid" to join and undergo the joys (mustache, lunchbox) of pledging, or "ding" him, thereby relegating the poor bastard to three years of sexless, boozeless purgatory (Dante would have learned much from these lost souls).

I'm exaggerating, obviously, but there is a degree of truth. Admission into the fraternity wasn't based on coolness--I got in, after all--but something even more intangible. A guy had to be what you and I might call "solid," what MC Hammer deemed "legit," and what that party animal Benjamin Franklin considered an embodiment of a "steady uniform Rectitude of Conduct."

As a result, you knew that your brother--the guy booting next you at the toga party, or squeaking back and forth in the bunk inches above your face at four in the morning, or streaking naked beside you through the library--would drop everything at a moment's notice to support you in whatever capacity might be required.

Unfortunately, there is no dinging when it comes to political parties. But the events of the past few days have left me with no choice but to ask my Republican friends the question posed in the title: "Really? You want to vote like that guy?"

As many of you now know, at a recent speech Sarah Palin blamed Katie Couric's questions as the cause of her unsuccessful interview. Her words riled up supporters against "the media" to such an extent that they physically threatened and verbally abused nearby reporters and camera crews, with one Palin supporter shouting at a black sound man to, "Sit down, boy."

Then there's that rally where John McCain simply smiled after an audience member shouted "terrorist!" in reference to Barack Obama.

I won't even get into what Senator McCain was insinuating when he called Senator Obama "that one" during the second presidential debate, or whether a psychopath in the audience was referring to Obama or Bill Ayers when he shouted "Kill him!" during Sarah Palin's speech in Clearwater, Florida.

I know there are plenty of Republicans out there who wouldn't dream of acting this way, and that's whom I'd like to address now. Everybody else, you can email Arianna asking when she's going to take me to a nice dinner here in Los Angeles.

So, my thoughtful, kindhearted Republican friends: those of you who read The Wall Street Journal and The New Criterion ; those of you whose churches and synagogues and mosques preach messages of love instead of hate; those of you who are generally creeped out by racist, homicidal weirdos... do you really want to align yourselves with the candidates and the campaign tacitly promoting this kind of behavior?

Or do you see yourselves as more of the dignified and, um, sane type? If that's the case, I think it's time to strongly reconsider who you're going to vote for on November 4.

Your momma got so forcefully impregnated against her will that now she has to be a momma again (because life begins then).

Your momma is so qualified to be Vice President that she agrees with my previous "snap" about rape.

Your grandfather is so old that he could very well die in the next few years because although he is in his early 70's a decent chunk of his life was spent being tortured and malnourished which probably makes him the equivalent of perhaps close to 90.   Also he is becoming an asshole.

Your father's skin color and name are so terrorist-y that he is going to become a community organizer and help set up job training programs, and tenants' rights organizations and then be accepted to Harvard Law and in his second year be elected president of the Law Review becoming the first different skin color than mine president of said Law Review which will lead to the publication of his first book ("Dreams from His Father") and then be elected to the Illinois Senate and gain bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws which will then allow him to successfully run for the United States Senate and deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in which he would describe yo maternal great grandfather's experiences as a World War II veteran and speak about the changing government's economic and social priorities which will launch his status as a national political figure and boost his campaign for U.S. Senate which he will then win by receiving 70% of the vote and then announce his candidacy for President of the United States on the site where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic "House Divided" speech and he's gonna emphasized the issues of ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care and eventually pass the threshold to become the presumptive nominee and at the '08 Democratic National Convention he will deliver a speech in front of 84,000 supporters and during the speech he will accept his party's nomination and present details of his policy goals which is all a ruse so that he can destroy the country and blow it up because also his middle name is Hussein.

McCain's big build-up promised a game-changing assault on Obama's credibility. Led by the shrill Governor Sarah Palin, McCain's campaign shot a cannonade across the bow of the USS Obama to put them on notice of a historic showdown. Palin boasted that John McCain had the ammunition to redefine Barack Hussein Obama as a closet radical and a pliant pawn of convicted terrorists led by that dastardly villain of yesteryear, William Ayers of the notorious Weathermen.

Palin shrieked a thrilling war cry for McCain to do battle with Obama that incited her crowds to shout out, "Kill Him!" McCain's minions followed suit on Fox News with a welter of dire warnings of the forthcoming destruction of Obama in the second debate set in their favored format - a town hall auditorium in the red state heartland of Tennessee. Amidst threatening shouts of, "Kill Him!" that sent a chilling pall over the presidential campaign of 2008, John McCain swore an oath before a huge audience to get tough with Obama in their no-holds-barred main event in Nashville, but he was all talk and no trousers.

On the night, McCain faltered and fidgeted and failed to deliver one single syllable about William Ayers, domestic terror or Obama being a radical candidate with a dangerous anti-American agenda. McCain went in like a testosterone-fuelled lion, but he came out like an impotent lamb - roasted, seasoned and garnished with a huge dollop of mint jelly. When McCain charged that Obama did not understand foreign policy, Obama retorted that he understood it was a colossal mistake to invade Iraq. When McCain charged that Obama mis-spoke when he said he might strike Pakistan to destroy Al-Qaida, Obama reminded McCain that he had sung, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." In the course of the debate, McCain was outclassed, outgunned and outrun, time and time and time again.

Obama's performance was so commanding that he barely noticed the petulant and pesky McCain. In the most telling moment of the crucial event, the debate moderator, Tom Brokaw, put the question to both contenders: "Is healthcare a right or a responsibility?" McCain plumped conservatively for "responsibility," while Obama opted for the progressive notion that healthcare is a fundamental human right. This dichotomy clearly defined the two candidates just as starkly as their foreign policies and their personal performances in the town hall debate.

McCain seemed like a man about to explode in a fit of fury, but he was merely frustrated because he did not have the spark to ignite his own fuse. Obama was as calm and commanding as ever. McCain behaved like a drunken braggodocio swilling double shots of scotch in a smoke-filled officer's club, while Obama exuded an aura of effortless superiority typical of a Commander-in-Chief in charge of the Situation Room during a crisis.

The background was far more complex than the McCain build-up would have had us believe. The most conservative national polling organization, Gallup, reported that Obama is leading McCain by a towering 9 points. Dick Morris, a right-wing apparatchik who is rooting for McCain, published an electoral map assigning Obama no less than 386 electoral votes to McCain's rather paltry 118. The more authoritative polling organizations, Real Clear Politics , FiveThirtyEight and Pollster.com are all indicating that Obama will garner over 300 electoral votes with McCain spluttering below 200.

While hope is being abandoned for a resuscitation of the political corpse that is the McCain-Palin ticket, diehard Republican operatives are hard at work purging voter rolls, caging thousands of eligible voters and suppressing the vote in Democratic strongholds in battleground states. In the denouement of this election, the last fading hope of John McCain has devolved from deception to deceit.

In an information age when little can escape the gaze of the multitude, McCain is now perfectly on course to vanish from the world stage on the fourth of November, Election Day - 28 days and counting. Rumors are circulating at the Monocle that the manufacturers of Viagra and Cialis are in search of a new poster boy, and McCain is said to be moving smartly toward the top of the list.

They say that Senator McCain's strong suit is the town hall debate. If this was, in fact, Senator McCain's strength, he might as well go home. Sorry... homes .

While not as smirky as the first debate, Senator McCain was jittery, reptilian (the darting tongue ), scattered and overall just plain creepy. At no time was this more obvious than when he referred to Senator Obama as "that one," calling to mind some of the not-so-subtle race baiting that has been the spasmodic, desperate tactic du jour for McCain and his airheaded coward of a running mate.

Meanwhile, as Senator Obama spoke, Senator McCain appeared to wander aimlessly around the stage -- lurking in the shadows like a hissing "gangrel creature with an ill-favored look" -- Gollum with a mic.

At one point, an African American woman was asking him about green jobs and he turned his back on her -- skulking off towards his podium presumably to pop another Ativan or whatever made him sleepily whisper many of his answers. This disrespectful gesture was on the heels of McCain correcting an African American audience member on "bailout" versus "rescue," and foreshadowed McCain's flat out refusal to shake Senator Obama's hand.

Senator Obama, meanwhile, was sharp, cool and presidential. And he hit McCain hard on foreign policy -- among other things, questioning McCain's judgment on Iraq after McCain dropped his "Obama doesn't understand" line. Senator Obama also let fly on McCain's inability to "speak softly" on "bomb, bomb Iran" and "next stop Baghdad." But where Senator Obama succeeded tonight beyond the undisputed accomplishment of his first debate performance was that he seemed to speak directly to you and me tonight. He spoke to our concerns about the economy. This is probably why, on half a dozen answers, the hypnotic CNN dial lines spiked off the charts.

At the end of the Bartlet/Ritchie debate on The West Wing , James Brolin's Governor Ritchie approaches Martin Sheen's President Bartlet and concedes defeat in the entire election as a consequence of Bartlet's debate performance, to which President Bartlet replies, "You'll be back." Following this debate, McCain must know that he's lost this election, barring some major national event. Indeed, he could very well have lost this one tonight.

BobCesca.com -- Go!

Well, for a town-hall meeting, I sure didn't see a whole lot of "town." A couple dozen of over-lit, underwhelmed people who got free tickets. As a comic, I have to say, that really looked like a tough house.

Not sure what the much-ballyhooed format does for us. Having the candidates begin their answers with "Thank you, Fiona" and "Why, that's a very nice question, Oliver" doesn't seem like such a huge plus to me. Although getting to stretch their legs did seem to agree with the two senators. Certainly McCain. Walking around seems to have helped diffuse the rage. For God's sake -- let the man walk around when he wants to.

Net result? Once again: I think if you already like Obama -- you like him more after tonight. Likewise McCain. If you want to vote for him, tonight would've given you no more reason not to. And if you're on the fence, I don't know... Are there really that many people genuinely on the fence? How big could this fence be?

You could see both of them working their notes from the last debate. Obama was too gracious last time -- so tonight he came out swinging. McCain was too angry last time, so tonight he was more soft-spoken and very free with the "My friend" and "my friends." At least he didn't say "maverick."

But we already know the next few weeks are going to be less about any policy distinction and more about character assassinations and vicious insinuation. And the reason we know that is because the Republicans told us. Publicly. They confessed that if they continue to talk about the economy, they will lose. So they've decided to ratchet up the personal attacks. (By the way -- is it really okay to say that out loud? Geez. And here McCain is worried Obama "telegraphed his punch" to Pakistan.)

I would have loved for someone from the audience to ask McCain to his face if he sincerely believes Obama "pals around with terrorists" or wants to "attack our own country." And if not, why does he allow that to be said in his name? When Sarah Palin works up a crowd with "Obama doesn't see the same America we do" to the point that and a guy yells out, "Kill him," and she -- to the best of my knowledge -- says nothing to quell the sentiment -- where is the sense of shame? How is fueling hatred and racial stereotype and appealing to the very worst in all of us -- how is that putting "country first?"

It's not. And regardless of how the election turns out Obama has already done this nation a huge service by raising the level of debate and showing -- by tireless example -- that we can be better than that.

And we are. People are at least now seeing this poison for what it is. And I really do believe that Good will prevail over Crap. I think the Best In Us is actually going to prevail over the Worst In Us.

And if we continue to push Barack Obama towards the White House -- we are headed for a great New Day, my maverick friends.