I love Mountain Dew. Lately though I am outraged by the high cost I have to pay. I am part of the working class of this country. I pay my taxes and obey the law. But evil Pepsi is charging way too much for Mountain Dew. They are making tons of money and paying their President millions of dollars. And who is suffering? Myself and all the other helpless soda drinkers. I have no choice but to drink Mountain Dew, because there are no other rehydration options available to me. I demand that Pepsi, a private business that only exists because they want to, lower the price of Mountian Dew immediately! They are obviously charging more for soda than they have to, and even though I have zero evidence to prove that, I will continue to cry "PRICE GOUGING!"

Ridiculous right? The above is completely idiotic, yet people continue to complain about gas prices in the same way. Some morons in Sacramento are suggesting a new tax on gasoline profits. As any economist will tell you, taxes make things cost MORE!

Sacramento: Hey evil oil companies, if you make more money than we think you should, we’re going to tax you.
Oil Companies: Geez, that doesn’t sound fair. Are you going to tax McDonald’s if they make a lot of money?
Sacramento: No, of course not, don’t be silly.
Oil Companies: Why are you going to tax us then?
Sacramento: Because you’re EVIL! (and all the morons in America will be happy and vote for us because we attacked the evil oil companies).
Oil Companies: Right…

The above article details several things that explain our current oil "situation."

1) We have LESS oil refineries than we did in the 1980′s, reducing the supply of refined crude oil.
2) After 30 investigations in the last 20 years there has been ZERO evidence of price gouging (including congress questioning oil execs just a few months ago).
3) Oil companies earned 5.8 cents on each dollar, compared to 5.5 cents for other industries.

Unfortunately none of that matters. The public hears that an oil executive makes 400 million dollars and BAM, they’re evil and ripping off the American worker. GET OVER IT! Ride a bike, buy a bus pass, strap on your rollerblades, tame a wild stallion, carpool, walk, jog, run, crawl, move closer to work, get a hot air balloon, flyer a glider, invent a new gyrocopter, or hop on that pogostick.

Here at The Blarg I am proud to say….I AM NOT A VICTIM!

Found a cool site where people can list low gas prices when they find them. I drive by two stations everyday, so I figure I’ll update those frequently. It’s only as useful as the information that people update with, so I encourage you to adopt a station or two and update them when you can.

And speaking of gas prices, the President is confused. Yet again we are looking into gas prices. Give it a rest already! He was also blabbing today about how illegals work jobs that Americans won’t. Repeal minimum wage and get rid of social welfare and guess what, you’ll have plenty of people working those jobs. Instead of a guest worker program, now it’s a temporary worker program. He kept saying he’d give them a "tamper proof" card…as if he can just say "tamper proof" and it magically becomes tamper proof. "Ah look, a tamper proof card. Because I called it tamper proof, it will never be counterfeited!"

He’s sure doing a good job of pissing off his supporters. Build a fence, no "temporary worker" permits, and stop spending all our money!

Dick Durbin is a whiner. "Ooooh, gas is too expensive! Maybe if I whine about it people will vote for me, because lots of Americans are whiners too." His "solution" to high gas prices? Taxing oil companies for making money! Oil companies make a lot of money, he doesn’t like it, so he thinks he can tax them for that? Why don’t we start taxing Microsoft and McDonald’s for making lots of money?

Americans do NOT have a right to cheap gasoline prices. Get a bike, walk, ride a horse, I don’t care. Stop crying victim!

I may need to start a new section entitled "(Insert the name of liberal target here) is the devil!"

Now that gas prices have gone down the evil oil companies are no longer the devil (at least until the next time they go up). Now Wal-Mart is the devil. Apparently being the largest private-sector employer makes you evil. When will people get it through their head that no one is forced to work (or shop) at Wal-Mart?

Think Wal-Mart wages are too low? Then don’t work there!
Think Wal-Mart is immoral? Then don’t shop there!

That’s it, end of discussion, there is nothing else to talk about. This is private business, if you don’t like it, don’t shop there. This goes back to the stone age and something called "bartering." One party agreed with another party to the terms of a trade. Neither party is forced, and both do it because they want to. The same is true in a capitalist economy. Wal-Mart says "We will pay you this much" and people then decide whether they will or will not work there. This transaction is mutual!

I can only imagine what liberals would cry about if Wal-Mart were to go out of business. Then they’d start complaining that the poor and elderly have to pay high prices for consumer goods at their local mom and pop store, the new devil.

While John seemed to be the only one interested last time (and he’s on the internet fast) I thought I’d bring this to people’s attention.

The local media loves to report when gas prices go up, but when they go down it’s not a big story. Like I’m sure you’ve noticed, gas prices are going down, and that’s because oil prices are going down. Now I’m not an oil industry expert, but it would seem that gas prices at the pump are directly related to oil trading prices! All sarcasm aside, I am very curious about the oil to gas pricing process. To me it appears that the evil oil companies are somewhat at the will of the oil stock market. People pump oil, it sells on an oil stock market (whatever the heck that is), it gets refined, and then evil oil companies sell it. I need to research it, but I think that’s the process.

So what’s the point? Last week the senate decided to look into the evil oil companies to make sure they’re not ripping us off. Is it any surprise that as oil traded higher, gas prices were higher? And now as oil trades lower, gas prices are going down. That doesn’t sound like evil oil ripping anyone off. To me it sounds like politicians saying "oooooh look at me!!! The oil guys are more evil than me!!! Don’t forget to vote for me in 2006!"