On the cover of the current issue of the magazine THE FUNNY TIMES (which went to the printer before the election, I believe), there's a cartoon suggesting that immediately after the election, gasoline prices will jump. This magazine -- which presents a good sampling of liberal funny opinion -- had inadvertently presented a possible test of the gas price conspiracy theory that was popular before the election: the Bushwhackers had artificially lowered the price of gas to help them stem the DP tide, by calling in favors with the petrol industry, etc. As suggested by the cartoon, the corollary of that theory is that after the election, gas prices would soar, since Big Petrol would want to make up for lost time (or rather, lost profits).
Did gas prices soar, provisionally validating the conspiracy theory? no. They've stayed flat. See the price at the pump. Or see the government data at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_history.html -- Jim Devine / "Crime seems to change character when it crosses a bridge or a tunnel. In the city, crime is taken as emblematic of class and race. In the suburbs, though, it's intimate and psychological - resistant to generalization, a mystery of the individual soul." -- Barbara Ehrenreich
