If all the excuses ... Oops ... Did I say "excuses?" If all the reasons ... Oh hell... If all the excuses, excuses, excuses, excuses from our nation's capital for geyser-high gas prices took the form of toxic fumes, we'd all be dead.
The excuses just seem to burst from the ground and gush faster than gas from a full-fisted trigger grip on a fuel pump hose. And they smell even worse. Government fears of this, and warnings of that. Gaseous words. Asphyxiating too.
Fears of possible, if not probable, terrorists attacks on Saudi Arabia - a country with an estimated 75-83 billion barrels of oil, and whose financial bloodline finds its source and course in massive bodies of oil veins that are all vitally connected to the heart of the U.S. economy. But what about Kuwait? Didn't the U.S. lead allied troops to liberate them not too long ago? Sure, they are a peninsula bound on the south side by Saudi, but they are liberated and fall in second place to the oil fields of Ghawar, Saudi Arabia with 66-72 billion barrels of oil bubblin' in the fields of Burgan - contributing more than 10 percent of the world's oil production.
Haven't concerns of terrorist attacks been sounding off warning signals on our nation's EKG monitor since 9/11? So why all of a sudden is the flatline showing up now? In fact, it's not a flatline at all. It's a high-rising, thermometer mercury-exploding blip, sending America into a defibulator-shocked, body-bending burst of consciousness to soaring gas prices.
Now here's a new one: It seems like our government's sudden "educated" interest in meteorology has cited the strong and early start of tropical storm activity in the Gulf Coast as yet another "reason" for high fuel prices. So good is this excuse that it has a strength classification of its own - a real category five with 100-foot high rises of absolute crap.
In 2004, the U.S. National Hurricane Center acknowledged 16 tropical storms in the North Atlantic and named 15. But Hurricane Ivan was the only significant one to enter the Gulf of Mexico, and that came midway through the recognized hurricane season on Sept. 22, and stayed around to pulverize until Sept. 24. This year, Hurricane Dennis made entry into the Gulf. The difference was that Dennis's unwelcome visit came early and was unusually strong for such an early-season arrival.
Granted, many tropical storms never make landfall and remain gods over water for several days where we may drill for oil, but aside from the early knock-on-the door by Hurricane Dennis, there really hasn't been an insurmountable wave of tropical storms in the Gulf that recent history hasn't shown us already. So again, why the gas price hikes?
The excuse of unusually active tropical storm parades comes across more like a faded tropical storm - a soggy, weak depression that causes just enough discomfort to make us gas-pumping citizens annoyed and grouchy. But y'know what? This all contradicts what the U.S. is claiming that the tertiary age reservoirs of oil in the Gulf of Mexico are nearing depletion anyway; so why blame this "dead sea" of oil for a gas price hike?
And what's up with the U.S. refineries? All of a sudden, the U.S. government has started up their emergency epiphany generators to light up our lives and minds with yet another typhoon-size excuse - that our U.S. refineries are apparently too old to keep the pace of gas demand. Ohhh, so they're old are they? Nothing like waiting 'til your car leaves a rusted body part on every foot of the road to realize it's too old to run anymore, I always say.
Too old? Well... REPLACE THEM! We've known this for years! We had the time! Seems like we had enough money to send our youthful and unwary troops to Kuwait and later to Iraq, places where oil spurts abundantly from drinking fountains. So, why the gas price hikes? What's that you say? Hmm? What? Sorry, can't hear you.
Just like anything else that is related to the U.S. economy, the price we citizens pay for just the psychological warfare; i.e., government mind games, is more than the price of gas itself. And it WILL go over $3 a gallon quite soon. Like a dog's eyes and head following motion, we follow the mind games of our government as they wave a lighted match over a fuel stream. Then they drop it in.
When the explosion subsides, gas will have dropped from more than $3 a gallon to just under $3 dollars a gallon, and we will step out of our mentally reconditioned state of brain drain, and exclaim, "It is so good to see gas so cheap again!"
Ah yes. The Emperor's New Clothes cum Manchurian Candidate version of conditioned acceptance and psychological vegetation. Right where our government wants us.
John DiMambro is publisher of the Nevada Appeal. Write to him at jdimambro@nevadaappeal.com.
