Angelika Finally: An anti-SUV campaign is sweeping across the country. SUV stands for "Sports Utility Vehicle," a hybrid of a souped-up Jeep and a small van. One in four people here drives such a monstrosity, which angers drivers of normally proportioned cars.

We mentioned it in our Christmas list: SUVs are gas guzzlers, block everyone's view, and take up two parking spaces - unforgivable in a parking crisis area like San Francisco. The country has always been divided into three groups: SUV drivers, wannabe SUV owners, and SUV opponents. Until recently, the latter group consisted of a few extreme environmentalists and people like us, who deal daily with the excesses of the SUV plague.

In the fall of last year, columnist Arianna Huffington suddenly wrote an article in which she provocatively linked driving an SUV to the financing of terrorism. Her line of reasoning: SUV = gas guzzler = more oil needs to be imported from Arab countries to the USA = more money for Arab states, some of which sponsor terrorism with their funds.

This might seem far-fetched to you now. But it's important to know in this context that the Bush administration recently launched an anti-drug advertising campaign: fresh-faced American teenagers were shown with the following text overlaid on their faces: "Where do terrorists get their money? If you buy drugs, some of it might come from you." This upset the good Arianna so much that she sarcastically turned the tables in her column, linking SUVs to terrorism, not knowing (or perhaps knowing?) that she would thereby spark a media spectacle.

Meanwhile, she, along with others who are annoyed by SUVs, founded the so-called Detroit Project and started their own advertising campaign. Two television spots were produced. In one, you see a man named George who is fueling his SUV: "This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV. This is the oil company executive that sold the gas that George bought for his SUV. These are the countries where the executive bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his SUV. And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV. Oil money supports some terrible things. What kind of mileage does your SUV get?"

Some television broadcasters promptly refused to air the commercials, but the SUV manufacturers still panicked that sales figures might decline, as they suddenly churned out advertisements promoting the lower fuel consumption of certain SUV models.

And even President Bush supports the idea of becoming independent from oil-producing countries: In the annual "State of the Union" address, which was broadcast a month ago and heavily debated, he repeatedly brought up the idea of the hydrogen car, which no longer consumes gasoline and produces no emissions, in between elaborating about a looming war.

Due to the Iraq crisis, the oil companies thought: Let's raise the gasoline prices. And within the last month, the prices at the pumps skyrocketed by an astonishing 30%. While we used to pay $1.50 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline, it now costs $2.03 even at the discount gas station "Rotten Robbie" in Mountain View!

Since a gallon holds 3.785 liters and the exchange rate is currently 0.91 euros per dollar, this results in a euro price of ... crunch, crunch ... 0.49 cents per liter. Still significantly cheaper than in Germany! And still far too cheap to banish the SUV fools from the road. Let's raise the price per gallon to 5 dollars, we say!

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Risk of a terrorist attack
  	Duct Tape -- your friend
  	Mr. Bush and the War
  	Goodwill
  	Newsletter Top Product
  	Religions of the World
  	Curb Your Enthusiasm
  	The Boat Is Full
  	The Record Of the Month