Deep fog this morning on California’s north coast — if the standard stays like the weekend, the sun will burn the moist off about noon-ish and produce a beautiful, clear-sunshine day.
And what a weekend!
In the UK there’s great rejoicing: Hosting the Olympics has boosted morale more than any single event in most people’s living memory.
In the US, shits-ville.
In the country as a whole, the crap is named Romney/Ryan — Mitt Romney named nit-twit Paul Ryan as his running on Saturday, and although a lot of Democrats were happy, no real good will come out of this.
Two ugly people can’t make anything pretty.
Up here in north California, meanwhile, prices at the gas pump have gone bonkers.
(Illustration found here).
Repercussions off the big Chevron refinery fire down just south of San Francisco last week have slapped us hard.
From NBC Bay Area:
The average U.S. price of a gallon of gasoline has increased 18 cents over the past two weeks.
The Lundberg Survey of fuel prices on Sunday put the average price for a gallon of regular at $3.69, about 8 cents higher than the same time last year.
Nationally, a gallon of mid-grade averages $3.84 and premium $3.96.
…
In California, the price rose 23 cents per gallon to an average $3.99 for regular.
That ain’t nothing — one week ago, the pump price up here was $4.09 a gallon for regular (before the fire), and then on Saturday, I put another $20 worth of gas in the old Jeep at $4.39 a gallon — 30 cents in seven days!
Yesterday, a customer at the store I manage (had to work, a guy was sick) told me the price had already gone up a dime to $4.49 a gallon.
WTF!
No telling the price this morning.
Although gas prices nationally dropped 60 cents during the spring, that dirty-ass crude is on the move upward again: The front-month September Brent contract on London’s ICE futures exchange was $1.53, or 1.4 percent, higher at $114.48 a barrel. Brent has risen to the highest level in three months.
The front-month September contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange traded up 69 cents, or 0.7 percent, at $93.56 per barrel.
And that ain’t nothin’ to do with no refinery fire.
As I said, politics is ugly and is going to get even-more ugly.
Lies will flourish and way-multiply:
When Phil Van Schepen recently went to fill up his dry-cleaning delivery van in Coon Rapids, Minn., he found a Post-it note a driver before him had placed on the pump faulting Obama for high gasoline prices.
“It’s a reminder of his energy policies overall, which I don’t agree with,” said Van Schepen, who buys about 100 gallons a week and finds he is spending about $40 more than he did in early July.
Still, he said the Post-it “was a bit much” because the president isn’t responsible for gasoline prices.
No shit sherlock!
Also this past weekend, it was announced Jen is engaged — now just how are we going to handle that?