Why hasn't the price of gasoline skyrocketed in Europe?
Because it hasn't.
If
our price is the direct result of a world shortage, as the oil
companies claim, why isn't the rest of the world similarly affected? The price of gas in Britain five years ago was around $5/gal. Since then it has risen in increments to about $5.85/gal.
If the British price had risen in the last few months to the same
stratospheric degree that the US price has, it would be closer to
$10/gal.
It isn't.
Why isn't it?
The same is true
in every other country in the world. Gas prices have NOT risen in any
of them anything like the US price. In Japan, the price of gas has
hardly moved at all. Five years ago, it was $4/gal; today it's about
$4.40.
What is there about the world oil market that makes us so...special? Just asking.
I kinda sorta thought maybe it was, you know, like, a SCAM. But I
didn't want to assume it automatically. One should leave open the
opportunity for somebody to offer a counter-explanation that doesn't
include corporate highway robbery and vast consumer ignorance and
gullibility.
Should one exist, that is.
Add to your thoughts the fact that prices in the US can vary from 2.50
to 3.50 per gallon and the obvious questions of WTF become
even more pressing.
Cindy Sheehan: The right wingers are really having a field day with me. It hurts me
really badly, but I am willing to put up with the crap, if it ends the
war a minute sooner than it would have....
Bob Zmuda has a novel idea, Rush is NOT a right-wingnut, he's just putting us on as the world's greatest Satirist.
By now, we're all familiar with the quote from yesterday's Rush
Limbaugh show in which he accused Cindy Sheehan of faking documents in
order to make it appear as if her son had been killed.
When I first read the remark
I flew into a rage, using my arms to melodramatically sweep decorative
items off various tables whilst exclaiming shallow insults directed at
his bulbous forehead. I finally came to my senses as I attempted to pull the sink out of the floor so as to smash it through the wall and escape to watch the ballgame.
This is all a joke, I thought.
Eureka! We're all the victims of an elaborate Dittopunking: a meta-joke
orchestrated by Rush Limbaugh, who we can now comfortably refer to as
Rush Limbaugh: World's Greatest Satirist. All these years, Rush
Limbaugh has been satirizing modern Republicanism.
Dittobusted!
We do it all the time. We imitate and exaggerate those worthy of
ridicule in order to prove a point or get a laugh or both. Saturday
Night Live, The Daily Show, Al Franken, and The Simpsons all employ
satire as a means of serving up a point of view. But it never occurred
to me that Rush is playing a character as a means to prove a point
about the worst aspects of Republicanism.
Do the math. It's common knowledge that he's used pseudonyms in the
past (Rusty Sharpe and Jeff Christy, for example). That bulbous
forehead could be a sophisticated silicon appliance. Throw in multiple
divorces and drug addiction while preaching moral values and the satire
rises to surface. You know what? Andy Kaufman or Don Novello could be under there for all we know.
The dots were further connected as I researched yesterday's Rush Limbaugh Program. Within the transcript, I discovered this:
These are basically a bunch of miserable, angry people exploiting death.
Rush was referring to Cindy Sheehan and those who support her. But
not really. Check it out. This is so damn smart. While his "Rush"
character appeared to be accusing us of exploiting death, he
was actually taking a deliciously subversive stab at the Bush
administration who, while "angry and miserable", used 9/11 for its own
political gain.
Perhaps he was slyly commenting on the "America Supports You Freedom
March" orchestrated by the Pentagon and featuring Clint Black. You
know, the march that blurs the line between the Iraq War and 9/11 and
turns it all into a big PR stunt. Megadittos, El Rushbo (wink, wink)!
Either way, that single statement perfectly spoofed the right's hypocrisy.
More from yesterday:
I'm weary, ladies and gentlemen, of even having to express
sympathy. "Oh, she lost her son!" Yes, yes, yes, but (sigh) we all lose
things.
Now that's cutting edge satire worthy of the greatest minds
of our time. Not only did he rip Bush's unsympathetic "I have to move
on with my life" comment, but he also sliced into the the right-wing's
uncanny ability to trivialize the war dead. "We all lose things." I love it! If he had followed it up with a "Flip Flop" chant, it would've been spot on.
I can imagine George Carlin saying something like that while mocking
the right-wing. On second thought, Carlin would be much funnier and
probably nowhere near that insensitive, but we're only grading the
satire here. Besides, who am I to judge Rush Limbaugh: World's Greatest
Satirist?
The evidence is incontrovertible. The gig is up. I can't wait to see
the look on the faces of all those poor, naive Dittoheads when they
learn that the console-tapping, nuhnuh-nuhnuh-chanting voice from which
they derive all their political thought... is actually punking them. Satire on loan from God is what I say.
Time to come clean now, "Rush", or whoever you are ( ?).
Nothing the Cheesy Gordita says or does has the power to shock or
surprise anymore. The satirist angle is an interesting hypothesis, but
a humor-Republican association is unprecedented in the modern era. I
lean towards a destructive force of Nature explanation. Similar to a
hurricane, but fueled by radio waves, money and narcotics instead of
moist warm air. Composed of insubstantial substances, yet deadly if
you’re in its path. Beautiful in its own way.
