I was recently taken to a new low looking through this weekend's newspaper. I am now the shamed owner of a coupon for a product called Potato Finishers.

All-American Potato Finishers ("Great on baked and mashed potatoes!"). This is exactly what America needs. How have we been eating potatoes for all these years without this product? Basically, it is a bag containing cheese sauce, shredded cheese, and bacon bits. It's not like you could buy cheese sauce, shredded cheese, and bacon bits in already-prepared, individual packages and then apply all three items to a potato separately. Moreover, it's not like you could buy a chunk of cheese and shred it yourself, or buy packaged bacon and cook it yourself. The fact that the main ingredient is missing from the product should be your cue to run in the other direction. If that's not enough of a hint, seeing that the widely-publicized coupon allows the "savvy" shopper to "save" $1 on this item, the price should scare off the rest of you; I'd guess $3 - $4.

Perhaps even more disconcerting than the Potato Finishers themselves is the fact that a Google search for "potato finishers" returns eBay auctions for the very coupon to which I earlier referred as the first result. It's not enough that our planet is littered with this coupon in who knows how many newspapers across the country; people are now selling this same coupon for actual money. There are presently 8997 food coupons listed on eBay. You probably had no idea that there is such brisk trade in food coupons happening right under your nose. Is there really a market for mass quantites of useless food coupons? I am also unsettled by the fact that a single product line now merits its own domain registration (thank goodness sargentofinishers.com was available, imagine the horror if terrorists had snatched up the domain and our All-American Potato Finishers couldn't have their own website) and web design efforts. As the nutritional information and even the list of ingredients is conveniently absent from this special website (it's a food product, what else could the website legitimately have?), what does appear on the site is laughable. I'm not sure I'd agree that pictures of fake cheese mixtures on top of various degrees of fried potatoes qualifies as "exciting serving suggestions". Not to be outdone, the hidden nutrition facts are equally bothersome: 1/4 of the small pouch is considered a single serving and has 23% of your daily saturated fat intake and 25% of your daily sodium. Ah, America owes you a vote of thanks, Potato Finishers.

It has never occurred to me that I could call the government if I were to run out of gas.

Alan Peterson, Incident Management team leader for the Utah Department of Transportation, has been assisting drivers who have pushed their fuel tanks too far and run out of gasoline. In 2007 the team gave out about 721 gallons of gasoline to stranded people. This year so far, they have already given out about 524 gallons. [...] Last month, the team helped 150 motorists refuel.

If the end of the year sees double the current amount, that equates to 3 gallons of free gas every day. At the current price of $4.15/gallon, Utahns are [collectively] paying $12.45 every day because of a growing number of idiots (as of last month, we're now up to 5 per day!) who disregard their fuel gauges. Is it really that hard to put gas in a car? Even using the lower 2007 numbers, 721 gallons divided by 52 weeks is 14 gallons/week. Let's hear that again with gusto: The government is handing out a full tank of gas every week! My car doesn't even hold 14 gallons, but I'd still like to know how to submit my name into the drawing.