Ike's Gas

What in the H-E-double hockey stick is up with gas prices this week? Unless you've had your face glued to Obama's Facebook page for the past week, you know that hurricane Ike tore across the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into Texas, sending thousands of Americans and millions of illegal aliens scurrying across the state seeking shelter.

However, as Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) said, the Texas oil and gas industry "dodged a bullet" and "some of those refineries are actually back in operation". However, this has not stopped the local gas stations from raising prices, despite that the price of oil has slid to under $92 a barrel. CNN is reporting that some states saw prices rise as much as 15 to 20 cents per gallon in southern states. There are even a few instances of stations raising prices to $6 and $7 per gallon. Opportunists? Indeed. Gaugers? Most likely.

Take the Sunoco and BP stations in Eldersburg, Maryland. The day before Ike hit land, both stations, along with the Exxon, were at $3.459 per gallon. The next day, while Exxon had raised prices to $3.499, Sunoco and BP raised prices to $3.719. Hello! Twenty-two cents per gallon. Guess which 2 stations had no customers? To fill up my gas guzzling minivan at 18 gallons, it would have cost me $4 more. That's enough to buy several NoBama bumper stickers.

We are now several days removed from the storm. Oil prices continue to fall. Refineries continue to come back on-line. However, the price of gasoline in Carroll County continues to stay at high levels. Prices in Westminster are generally at the $3.70 point.

Why you ask? People are emotional and will take advantage of the common man at every opportunity. The simple answer is because prices rise faster than they fall. It's sort of like the opposite of Martin O'Malley's popularity. It plummeted when he decided to gauge Maryland residents with unnecessary taxes that he could use for pet projects. However, he has mostly kept his head in the sand for the past couple of months (which is a good thing), but his popularity still remains comparatively low, much lower than Governor Ehrlich's popularity ever was.

I suspect that his popularity will rise dramatically when he announces that he's not going to run for Governor again, but will instead focus on being featured on Project Runway.

Like Hurricane Ike in Texas, O'Malley has already done the damage, come in and created havoc and weakened our state. But unlike Ike, O'Malley's going to stick around for a bit longer. So no matter how much you prepare, no amount of boarding up your windows or evacuating to higher ground will save you. You will still suffer the consequences of Hurricane O'Malley.