(IN CASE YOU MISSED IT)

An irreverent and not always accurate view of the world

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OIL INDUSTRY CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS 

So oil is less than $40 a barrel. At such a price, one might expect gasoline to be hitting $1.90 or something along those lines, but of course it isn’t. We all know the real reason for this; oil companies are greedy turdballs that are creating made-up stories to prop up the price of, and profits on, gasoline because they can and we’re stuck. The federal government should be helping to prevent this kind of market manipulation, but both political parties are in the pocket of oil and gas so don’t hold your breath.

The industry doesn’t even feel the need to be creative with its deceptions anymore. Labor Day is approaching, oops a refinery is being taken off line for repairs causing the price of gasoline to go up just in time for the end of summer. Sorry America.

Oil has slipped below $40 a barrel but the price of gasoline isn’t coming down supposedly because BP shut down a refinery near Chicago due to leaky pipes. Go back five years and you will find that nearly every spike in gasoline prices has been excused because a refinery “unexpectedly” went off line.

So with that in mind, let’s rethink the Keystone XL pipeline. The XL pipeline will be bringing in thick tar-sands oil from Canada to the refineries around Houston. This oil is such poor quality that, even after being refined, nearly all of it will be shipped overseas to places where the laws will allow such crap to be burned. It won’t help U.S. gasoline supplies at all… BUT, it will take up most of the capacity of several U.S. refineries.

If shutting down one refinery for leaky pipes or scheduled maintenance can cause a $1 spike in gasoline prices, then what will Keystone XL’s removal of far more refinery capacity do to our price of gasoline? Could we see a $2, even $3 increase?

You can’t have it both ways, oil and gas industry. Either you are lying now about the impact of refinery capacity on the price of gas in order to prop it up, or you are lying about what Keystone XL will cost American consumers due to increased gasoline prices. Which is it?

ASHLEY MADISON’S SECURITY MEASURES WERE IMMORAL? AND OTHER HYPOCRITICAL MYTHS OF THE DIGITAL AGE 

Let the lawsuits rain down. In case you have been in a coma, here’s a brief recap. Ashley Madison is a website where people who want to have an affair can go to find other like-minded, selfish, lying cheaters willing to put their partners and entire families at risk for a little self-indulgent action — presumably after the allure of putting on gold chains and hooking up with Rosie for that pretend affair has worn off. The site was recently hacked and all the names and other personal info including income and sexual proclivities were made public (think: my name is Daryl, I make 40K a year, and I like to do it with parrots watching).

Before the hack, the site boasted it had 40 million members. It’s hard to believe that there are actually 40 million people who are stupid enough to think that a cheating website’s security would protect their identities even though hackers have made child’s play out of the security systems of the Pentagon, Target, IRS, creditcard companies and half the banks in the country.

Out of these 40 million stupid people, eight have now stepped forward to file lawsuits against the company they trusted to protect their lack of trustworthiness. All eight suits are seeking class-action status.

The language used to describe Ashley Madison’s wrongful actions in the lawsuits is hysterical considering the context. The Associated Press reports that the suits “claim negligence, breach of contract and privacy violations.”

Are we crazy, or are those the exact claims that 40 million spouses are getting ready to make in court against their idiot cheating partners? It really is a new level of hypocrisy; cheating isn’t the problem, website firewalls are the problem.