Irony

I'm stuck on irony today. For the last few days, gas prices have gone steadily down to the point that in many neighborhoods you can actually get a gallon for less than $4.00. That is, of course, if you steer well clear of San Francisco. This has never made any sense to me, especially when you consider that San Francisco, Oakland and surrounding areas are quite near to the refineries in Richmond. When then, would gas cost so much in these areas, and be as much as 0.25 to 0.30 cents cheaper some 90 miles away in places like Modesto, that are definitely far from the refineries. It would absolutely make sense for these places to have additional cost added to their gas price due to the labor and transport costs of trucking the stuff all the way out there. Inversely, it should cost more for us out here to get goods that they have out that way like produce. While that is usually the case, it doesn't work that way for gas apparently. Taking the irony a step further, gas prices last took off like a rocket when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf back in 2005, sending prices well past $5 in some areas. There are no less than 3 Hurricanes out in the Caribbean right now and yet gas prices are dropping. If we buy the story that they gave us in 2005 about being worried that production might be hampered by the severe storms, then we should expect an increase right now.

The Republican Convention started over the weekend. Could that be a reason why gas prices are coming down? Just coincidence? Could it be that in somebody's speech they want to be able to point to some unrelated action and claim that it was because of them that gas prices not only stabilized, but started to come down? After all, at these prices, plenty of profit has surely already been taken this quarter. I don't doubt that this crossed somebody's mind as all of the Republicans started to descend upon the Twin Cities last weekend. Perhaps The Man called an emergency conference call and the consensus was that gas ought to come down to try to appease the masses for a few days while their little soiree took place. And what a soiree it was/is!

The clips that I saw on the news made it look like the place to be. Perhaps it was TOO good of a party and some realized it as they tried to cover their faces when the news cameras showed up. You would've thought they were caught coming and going from a house of ill repute how they all scattered and ran for cover when the cameras started rolling. Despite McCain's rather tepid appeal to the party that they should chill and be mindful of the pain and suffering going on in the Gulf, the parties raged on. Oddly enough, I don't recall hearing him call for folks to actually go down and lend a hand. I guess, giving a moment of silence is just as good, eh John?

But let me get back to irony now. I know I'm not nit-picking too much by suggesting that had Obama chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate, the media would've had a field day with it. Hannity and Combs, Larry King, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, and even little John King with his graphical map would've gone on and on about how she has no experience with foreign policy and that being the mayor of a town of 6,000 and governor of the state of Alaska for a couple years does not a VP make. They would've jumped all over her statement that

“As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”

The fact that her own 17 year old daughter is 5 months pregnant would've been huge news were she the democratic VP nominee. The Christian Conservatives would've had a field day with this too, saying that this lack of good family values is not at all what this country needs. Instead, it's spun as "hey, these things happens...kids make mistakes." Irony? I think not. Like I always say: Control the media and you control the messaging.