Remember when everybody was speculating about what future headlines might read.. Here an intresting sidebar. The Oil Crises continues in Europe. The following excerpt is from a Sept 26 2000 News Article. Lets pretend it still 1997. If Somebody wrote it as speculation then would we have thought it was a Y2k issue?

To the Last Drop As blockades threaten to clog still more of the Continent's arteries, European politicians are starting to feel the pain By ROMESH RATNESAR

The talk was tough. "No specific category of people should be allowed to hold the rest to ransom," declared Loyola de Palacio, the European Commision's top transportation official, in a speech before the European Parliament last week. But hardly anyone was listening. The revolt against fuel taxes continued to spread across the Continent like an outbreak of influenza. In Spain, 100,000 farmers snarled traffic by driving 15,000 tractors through 34 cities, while fisherman blocked cargo ships from entering Barcelona and other Mediterranean ports. In Germany, 300 truckers formed their vehicles into a glacial convoy on an autobahn at Mainz, and 32 more trucks clogged the streets of Frankfurt. Even in countries where the worst seemed to be over, the slightest hint that pickets might have returned to the barricades caused widespread panic. Offhand remarks about fresh fuel shortages made by two D.J.s in South Wales sent motorists scurrying back into queues to top up their tanks. Within hours, stations that had just begun to replenish their supplies were empty again.

-- slammer (billslammer@yahoo.com), September 27, 2000