Gas Pains

As a side observation, I noticed as the Dow has been dumping, the business press isn't covering.

Anyway.... SOME will ALWAYS HAVE OIL:

"Boeing wins protest of $35b aerial tanker contract" by Bloomberg News | June 19, 2008

Boeing Co. deserves another chance to bid on the $35 billion US Air Force aerial tanker contract won by rival Northrop Grumman Corp., a government agency said.

"The Air Force had made a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome of what was a close competition," the Government Accountability Office said yesterday in Washington. "We therefore sustained Boeing's protest."

Boeing appealed to the GAO after Northrop and partner European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. won the contract Feb. 29, snaring a program that had been Boeing's for more than half a century. Chicago's Boeing claimed changes the Air Force made during the competition favored Northrop....

Winning the protest also helps Boeing keep its main commercial aircraft rival, EADS' unit Airbus SAS, from getting a foothold in the US defense industry. Airbus took the number one commercial plane position away from Boeing in 2003."

And SOME WON'T!

"Gas prices drive many stations out of business; Credit card fees add to burden, owners say" by Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | June 19, 2008

Add to amateur stock car racers, pleasure boaters, taxi drivers, and workaday commuters a new group suffering from high gas prices: those selling the stuff at more than $4 a gallon.

Dozens of gas stations in Massachusetts have stopped selling gas or shut down, and hundreds more are expected to follow suit because rising costs coupled with crippling credit card fees and fewer customers make it impossible for them to afford the roughly $40,000 it costs to refill their underground tanks, according to the New England Service Station and Repair Association....

The problem lies in large part with credit cards, industry officials say. Gas stations customarily mark up the price by 8 to 12 cents per gallon, no matter the market conditions. But credit card companies charge a fee of 2 percent to 3 percent per sale. So as the price-per-gallon increases, the gas stations pay a larger share of their profits to credit companies. And these days, more customers are paying with credit cards because few carry the $60 or $70 in cash it costs to fill up.

Paul O'Connell, the New England Service Station and Repair Association's executive director.

"Business people have to make a decision. Do you keep losing money day after day, or do you just make a business decision and say it's not worth it?"

And some never seem to lose!

Also see: Congress Cleans Up While Americans Eat Shit

The Senate's Beer Farts

Some gas stations are revolting and refusing to accept credit cards. Some are offering a discount of 2 to 3 cents a gallon if the customer pays cash. Many gas station owners, from the Berkshires to Cape Cod, are hurting financially, wondering how much longer they can stay in business as prices spiral steadily upward.

But at a time when oil companies are reporting record profits, a barrel of crude is selling for nearly $140, and a gallon of unleaded retails for an average of $4.08 in Massachusetts, gas station owners are finding little sympathy from their customers. Many drivers have long assumed that, as prices increase, local gas stations profit.

But gas station owners say the oil market is squeezing them in a race to the bottom.

Wow, Big Oil is really sticking it to everybody, huh?

Not only are they shelling out more to fill their underground tanks, but many stations also are seeing fewer customers because of the high prices. And the owners say they resist raising prices because their customers will drive to a station that offers less expensive gas, even if the difference is just a cent or two. In their business, they say, every penny counts....

Where and when doesn't it (save the shit-crust elite)?

To read their stories, go here

As for the oil, where can we get more?

"Those in favor of opening closed areas to drilling say they could eventually yield 18 billion barrels of oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas."

Please, explain to me why the corporate editors over at the Boston Globe dropped the the following sentence from the web but not the paper:

", but opponents say it could be years before production begins and that would do little to stem the current rise of energy prices."

Why would the Globe do that? Part of a pattern, it seems.

Is this why?

"This oil crisis is being engineered by the same forces that are up to all the other nasty shit going down."

That's O.K. Just got our hands on a whole pile!

And if the problem is SO URGENT, what is with the BACKLOG and PROPORTION of $$$$ and ATTENTION GIVEN to OIL over the "GREEN" stuff, folks?

"Evergreen Solar receives contracts worth $600m

Evergreen Solar Inc., a maker of wafers used in solar-power panels, won contracts to supply $600 million of solar panels to US-based groSolar and Germany's Wagner & Co Solartechnik GmbH over four years. The latest contracts bring the company's backlog to more than $1.7 billion, Marlborough-based Evergreen said. The company plans to produce the wafers at a plant in Devens. In total, the recent sales agreements represent 65 percent of the plant's annual production capacity of 160 megawatts through 2013. The deals were disclosed after the stock market closed (Bloomberg June 19, 2008)."

Just sucking the HOT-FART MIST of AGENDA-PUSHING PROPAGANDA, aren't you?

Here, take a BIG BREATH!

"McCain calls for building nuclear, clean coal plants
"Republican John McCain called yesterday for the construction of 45 nuclear reactors by 2030 and pledged $2 billion a year in federal funds "to make clean coal a reality," measures designed to reduce the United States' dependence on foreign oil.

McCain, continuing to campaign on the energy issue, said the 104 nuclear reactors operating around the country produce about 20 percent of the nation's annual electricity needs:

"Every year, these reactors alone spare the atmosphere from the equivalent of nearly all auto emissions in America. Yet for all these benefits, we have not broken ground on a single nuclear plant in over 30 years. And our manufacturing base to even construct these plants is almost gone. We will need to recover all the knowledge and skills that have been lost over three stagnant decades in a highly technical field."

Really? Where did it go?

McCain did not say what steps, if any, he would propose to ease the permitting process for nuclear plants. Nor did he say how he would dispose of the waste, other than to say "we will need to solve complex problems of moving and storing materials that will always need safeguarding (AP June 19, 2008)."

Yeah! That stuff stays around for THOUSANDS of YEARS.

How about YOUR BACKYARD, readers?

Can we store it there?