I’m fairly politically active, at least locally.  Just ask those developers who want to construct a luxury nursing home highrise in my ‘hood.  More shade studies I say!  Anyway I don’t like being hounded for signatures when buying eggs at King Soopers, and I don’t like emails from airlines telling me I need to get active for their causes, namely fuel costs. 

Last week several airlines sent out an email imploring us to fill out a petition which would lower energy costs, thus defraying the cost of my ticket price or something I don’t believe will happen.   Does this mean I am now a lobbyist?   I’m not opposed to reducing fuel costs, but I’m just plain apathetic to this one. 

In this Slate article by Timothy Noah he says its pretty rich of the airlines to demand more transparency in oil buying when the airlines themselves are shrouded in arcane fees and pricing.

In that e-mail I won’t be sending to Rep. Norton, the airlines have me asking Congress to “Bring transparency to all energy trading.” The airlines’ “open letter” to customers like me promises that tighter regulation of oil speculation “will provide more disclosure, transparency and sound market oversight.” I’m all for providing more market information to investors, consumers, and government regulators. But if any industry has forfeited its right to lecture others about “disclosure” and “transparency” on pricing, it’s the airline business. The big story about airlines this summer has been the rapid proliferation of hidden fees added to the price of a plane ticket.

He also references the FareCompare.com fee chart.  First time I’ve seen this, and a VERY useful tool.   Its now in my bookmarks, so I guess something positive happened from my UAL spam after all.