Gas in stations along my morning commute on Northwest Boulevard in Spokane was selling for $2.94 a gallon today. Wow. And that was the cheapest stuff.

In our editorial board meeting today with Gov. Chris Gregoire, she commented on the announcement of the state investigation into gasoline pricing patterns.

She had some interesting theories about why it's so hard to figure out those pricing patterns. She noted that anytime an investigation begins, the prices seem to go down.

She said, "Do we actually think it's a coincidence that every year around the time that the kids get out of school and are going to go on vacations that suddenly the international market changes dramatically and so the cost of gas goes up? I don't remotely buy that."

(As this AP photo shows, it could be worse. These are the recent gas prices in San Francisco)

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Update: Right as I was posting this, a friend forwarded a mass e-mail chain letter kind of thing urging consumers to boycott two big gas companies. No need to name them here! Anyway, they believe that if everyone forwards the e-mail to 30 people, 30 million consumers will be part of the boycott within eight days and prices will come tumbling down...

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