I must be taking crazy pills
As the gas prices in the USA continue to rise, the political hot air does too. More deadly than a methane clathrate release, this hot air seems to be headed for doing what the sun cannot, and that is slowly baking us to death. Ideal time to be a Montgolfier if you can get close enough to collect some.
I listened to NP(Z)R and their All (NO) Things (Logic) Considered. I watched the nightly network news. I listened to the radio. I read the newspaper. I threw up in my mouth.
IS ANYFUCKINGONE ACTUALLY THINKING LOGICALLY AND CLEARLY AT ALL??? I feel like Mugatu in Zoolander being the only one noticing that every one of Derek Zoolander’s looks is the same one look.
- Oil Prices
We’re not out of oil, we’re not running low, and we’re not running into problems getting to it and recovering it. We’re watching yet another market manipulation by OPEC and non-OPEC oil producing nations no different than the so-called energy crisis (that never was) of the 70s when we had even-odd license plate number rationing.If you believe the news, the shortage is being purposely caused by “Big Oil”, which in all cases is defined as strictly American oil companies. - Additives
We’re requiring additives, neither of which are in proper supply, and given the long term supply picture and well known seasonal variations, the suppliers don’t have much of a choice on pricing.We could stop requiring the additives and eliminate a big chunk of the problem and you would think a looming economic disaster as a result of this collective unfunded mandate-a-thon on the people would spur someone to consider it. Well, you’d think that if you were maybe something other than a human from this point in history. The present inhabitants don’t notice this simplicity. - EPA Regulations
Thanks to a congress that has for decades ignored the Constitution and simply delegated their authority away to various executive branch agencies which should not be a problem in the first place since those delegations are to enforce and dream up new regulations which neither branch should be doing under the theory of “government being the lesser competent of the two, the other being the people, they should do as little as possible”, we have an environmentally unhealthy obsession with fact and science free environmentalism where we make up regulations based on politics and not on science and logic. This didn’t work for Mao with the Chinese agricultural system and it won’t work for us.
We have allowed the EPA and the various state environmental agencies to make a simple cost benefit analysis on the subject of renovation of oil refineries to modern EPA standards something so simple, your dog could do it. I’ll spoil it so don’t wait for the cable version: it’s pure profit due to ever increasing demand and obviously decreasing supply to close them down and pure loss to comply. - Consumption
Unless you’re working out of your home, chances are you have to drive to work. I know of no business that wraps its schedule around some group of ninnies’ idiocy about the environment which is becoming yet again one of those lies that people always fall for like “it’s for the children”, “it’s to stop terrorism”, “the check’s in the mail”, and “I won’t come in your mouth”.
Also, since we are becoming more affluent, we are more and more being able to afford to drive to work. If you live within walking distance of work, you either work out of the house or you have a really low end job for all places outside of downtown Manhattan and working in Manhattan can be its own punishment anyhow.
We cannot simply stop driving to work, build ninety mile subway systems, knock down thousands of houses to put in new rail systems, infringe at will on others’ freedoms simply in the name of theories and social engineering. - TAXES
Goodness knows we already pay too much money so the government can bribe us to vote them back in with our own money. In ancient days, robber barbarians noted that if they didn’t totally sack the agrarians, they could sack them just a little each year and then later on sack them a constant basis in return for not actually sacking them in the classic sense. You paid them to protect you from other robber bandits which they’d do anyways since you were their livestock, and if you didn’t they’d sack you themselves.
Thus was born government and other protection rackets.
One of their wonderful slow blood lettings is to hit us for money at the pumps every single time. Federal and state, there are taxes on the gas which serve only to make the situation worse.The government would have it that if it eliminated the taxes that it would be like a shoe horn and have done its job of expanding your wallet enough for that extra room freed up by the tax elimination to be taken up with increased oil company profits. The average consumer is apparently just stupid enough to believe this.
The best the politicians can do is to scream at each other and scream at American oil companies. They pose idiocy such as INCREASED taxes (SAY FUCKING WHAT?!) to force a change in consumption (as if you have a choice in driving to work or roller skating instead), INCREASING the ethanol/etc. blend requirements as if the supply problem that already exists at lower demand levels will magically eliminate itself and supply twice as much additives as they already cannot, TAXING the oil companies and thus giving a big FUCK YOU to countless Americans whose 401K plans invest in those companies, and giving you a $100 rebate check which at the current rate of increase will fill a single SUV in southern California in about one week from now.
Solutions are obvious. Eliminate as many taxes as possible on the gas in this country and give fair warning that taxes on the oil and gasoline companies will follow in retribution should they take up the slack by jacking up the price. Relax the regulations and declare an emergency and stop requiring additives that are in short supply and do everything possible to encourage increasing refinery capacity rather than discouraging it with insane environmental policies which make no sense because as a whole, they are dragging us to economic and social collapse and collapsed societies no longer care about the environment; they only care about survival and that means fuck the environment.
I keep hearing Princess Leia’s words in my ears about the tighter the grip and all. We seem to be locked into a crazy world of crazy people who are truly believing against all logic to the contrary that their actions will the opposite of what logic dictates. Counterproductivity. Inefficiency. Misdirection. Self-delusion. We’re drowning in a sea of idiocy and believing it’s holy water. If only it were gasoline.
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