The Annual Unbrainwashed Anti-Holiday Rant

I really have come to loathe this time of year. Of course, I mean the holiday season, which starts officially tomorrow, although some radio stations have been playing Christmas music since Halloween, which means that millions of innocent people have had to endure that one person who insists on listening to Christmas music until you're ready to vomit anytime you hear "Holly Jolly Christmas", "Jingle Bell Rock", and "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree", which seem to get played every hour and a half on these stations. And although 'officially' the 'shopping season' doesn't start until four o'clock tomorrow morning, some retailers, in an effort to prop up a dismal year, are letting you know they'll be open today, so that when Dad, Brother and Uncle Pete are relaxing post-meal on the couch watching the football game, Mom, Grandma, and Aunt Shirley can sneak off to KMart to buy more presents that will get lost in the post Christmas morning overkill, that is, after they've finished all the dishes.
And by this time tomorrow, we'll be inundated with stories of that one shopper who falls victim to the spirit of the season and is trampled to death by salivating shoppers pushing each other out of the way to have first dibs on some item they don't really need but couldn't pass up, because it was such a bargain.
This is also the time of year where advertising takes it's toll on me, and I can hardly stand to see another commercial with kids in their jammies waiting for Santa, elves, or dogs with 'reindeer' antlers on their heads. And it's also the time of year when Christ-centric fuckwads refuse to acknowledge that their might be other religions celebrating their various holidays as well, and threaten to boycott advertisers who do acknowledge it in the same breath as they do Christmas.
It's also the time of year when, despite warnings of anthropegenic global warning climate change, not to mention dire predictions of the arrival of peak oil, people cover their yards with displays consisting of so many lights they could be seen from space. Many communities erect Nativity displays, or allow them to be erected on public property.
Not any more in Chambersburg, PA, where every year the local garden club was allowed to erect an Nativity Scene on the ground surrounding the town fountain. That is, until the local Pennsylvania Non-Believers, an atheist group, stepped in. It seems they wanted to put up a sign for the solstice honoring Atheist war veterans. I mean, after the birth of Jesus, what could be more sacred than our soldiers?
Oh. wait a minute, this is a sign honoring our veterans, not our, troops, a difference indicated by where they are now, either over in Iraq and Afghanistan, making sure that the Good Ol' US of A gets first crack at what little oil there is left, or, over here displaying the symptoms of post traumatic stress syndrome, reminding those who gleefully sent them over there, that, yes indeed, war is Hell.
Anyway, the town council, sensing a political hot potato decided that, rather than allow a religious-free message be posted, decided to remove the Nativity. Score a point for the War On Christmas!

It's Not Bad Enough That They rape You, It's the Fact That They Overcharge You For The Lubricant

In case you have noticed, gas prices are going up, just in time for that busy summer travelling season. I'm sure we'll be reading orhearing stories at the end of the quarter of the oil companies raking in record profits again. But why are the prices rising? There has been no refinery fire or Katrina like disaster, and tensions between Iran and the US are still the same, they're not as bad as when they were during the British sailor crisis of awhile back.
According to the Detroit News

drivers are burning through gas at a greater volume than refineries can produce it.

Hmmm. Tha sounds familiar. Where have I heard that before?

The Hubbert peak theory, also known as peak oil, is an influential theory concerning the long-term rate of conventional oil and other fossil fuels production and depletion. It predicts that future world oil production will soon reach a peak and then rapidly decline.

You see, it's not that there's not enough oil, hell, we just gained control of the second largest known oil reserve in the world, otherwise known as Iraq, it's that we aren't refining it fast enough to meet demand.

"There is plenty of oil, and oil prices are well below their record highs," he said. "It's that we're not getting oil made into gas fast enough."

Look for the oil companies to blame this on environmentalists, or someone else other than their ownseves for not sinking those record profits from last quarter into building more refineries. But why should they? Paying less for oil and gouging, excuse me, charging us more for it just means that many more golden parachutes for retiring oil executives.
As for me, I'm planning on walking more, or maybe winning that Harley~Davidson at the company picnic next month.