The economic climate sucks for almost everyone...

...but not everyone. 3rd quarter earnings are being announced in the energy sector and if you're Valero Energy (42% year on year), Murphy Oil (+190% year on year), Marathon Oil (+102% year on year) or Occidental Petroleum (+72% year on year) things are pretty good indeed. There there's Royal Dutch Shell, whose profit rose 71% to $10,900,000,000 for the quarter (or about $120,000,000 a day); British Petroleum whose profits rose 148% to $11,500,000,000 for the quarter (about $126,000,000 a day); and of course my old employer Exxon whose profits rose a mere 58% to $14,800,000,000 ($163,000,000 a day) to shatter its own quarterly profits record.

Life is good, eh?

I smell an invasion comin'!

At the very least, if the discovery of up to 20,000,000,000 barrels of oil off the coast of Cuba will see the end of the Helms-Burton Act as American oil executives clamber to get their hands on the money.

If the figure is roughly correct the find will put Cuba's reserves at nearly 70% of those in the US. (What's the Spanish for "drill, baby, drill?)

No sex for oil!

Bush administration officials tasked with collecting billions of dollars from oil giants in royalty fees found that sex and drugs made their job more enjoyable; no word on rock and roll.

I am certain that the oil companies involved will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law; or not as the case may be.

Tories accuse Labour of hate crime

Apparently the calls for a windfall profits tax on energy firms by (mostly not-so-New) Labour backbenchers is apparently just a reversion to good old "socialist hatred" of the stinking rich according to Alan Duncan the shadow business secretary and will not lead to "fair taxation". The Rt. Hon. Mr. Duncan doesn't go on to explain what he might mean by "fair taxation" but it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to guess.

Why I like Pelosi's big idea!

Surrounded by brainless right wing protesters outside the Democratic Convention who were chanting "Drill here now" Ms. Pelosi suggested that we could make a good start by drilling in "their brains".

I have a better idea. Maybe we could start with whatever brains this lot has!

Praise the Lord - the petrol price crisis is over!!!

In the past fortnight the last chance Texaco I pass on my walk from the station to work has dropped its price for unleaded petrol from £1.199 a litre to 1.119 a litre. The crisis is over! Get the Chelsea tractors out of the garage!

Note: to Americans this new, low price translates to roughly $8.45 a US gallon so stop fucking whinging will you.

1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President

Number 71: he is bought and paid for!

Hey - free oil!!! (This is not spam)

But only if you're an oil company and don't really need it!

"Recession? We don't see no stinking recession!"

If you were an energy company yesterday was a very good day indeed! British Gas announced first half profits of just under £1 billion and then stuck up two fingers at the British consumer by announcing a 35% price hike. Then Royal Dutch Shell said "hey - things are OK by us" and ExxonMobil, well what can one say about ExxonMobil.

Clearly all of these companies much have exemplary management teams to manage to do so well when times are so difficult economically!

"I told you not to fuck me Tony"

Why, oh why does Ecuador hate freedom so much that they would dare to insist that their national sovereignty outweighs the "right" of Chevron to make ever more obscene profits?

Things to do this afternoon

1) Pop round the bookies and put £50 on oil to hit $200 a barrel before Captain Codpiece checks out!

Please pay attention I'm only going to say this once!

Americans do not have a God given right to cheap petrol and praying to God for cheap petrol is a useless exercise. If She really is God She surely has more important things to do and if She isn't God She won't be able to do anything! Got it?

The angrier I get

The more I think about Captain Codpiece's latest little lie to us the angrier I get. This lie, and the consequences of his obfuscation will probably lead to more deaths than the illegal invasion of Iraq and orders of magnitudes more than the undoubtedly tragic attacks of 11 September 2001. The ever increasing price of food, which we now know is driven largely by America's shift to subsidised bio-fuels, is a global tragedy in the making. The poor are driven to desperation. The desperate are driven to starvation. The starving are driven to death. On his watch. Whilst he lies about and the World Bank swears to it. If he had a conscience one would wonder how he sleeps nights.

Surprise! Surprise!

Captain Codpiece has been lying to us again; I assume that no one is surprised by this. Remember back when he made the specious claim that bio fuels only accounted for 3% or 4% of the rise in world food prices? Well even the World Bank knew he was lying. But as an American client, the term use of the word "world" in the bank's name is just about as appropriate as the use of the same word in "world series", the bank has been keeping it secret for Georgie doesn't get upset.

1,000 reasons John McCain shouldn't be President

Number 60: little the man he so wishes to replace he doesn't know what the price of petrol is AND he doesn't see that as a problem.

Crude pro quo

Well finally the American soldier American taxpayer planet's gargantuan oil companies are getting some payback for all of the blood and treasure sacrificed by the planet's gargantuan oil companies American soldier and taxpayer. And who better to safeguard this trust fund for those who have paid so dearly than ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and BP, eh?

Look, the omniscient hand of the market at work

As petrol prices in the US approached 4 USD a US gallon American drivers drove 1.4 billion fewer miles in April than they had the year before. I'm sure someone will try to ruin this by calling for a petrol tax holiday or something equally stupid.

Your tax dollars not at work

America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is cutting back on climate research to save fuel costs. That's some clever thinking. They need about $1.7 million to keep up with rising fuel costs. That's about what 7 minutes of the war in Iraq costs.

Not so fast you two!

Both The Aged One and Captain Codpiece have spoken out to demand the repeal of the ban on off shore oil exploration in the US. After all Americans' God given right to cheap petrol trump the preservation of the planet. At least in the case of the Captain he's being consistent whereas TAO used to be against it!

Nonetheless the two of them shouldn't get carried away as, even if the ban were lifted tomorrow, there aren't enough drilling rigs to go around as it is and the situation won't improve for several years if at all.

If a bandwagon goes "off-shore" does it become a bandboat?

In the blink of an eye after John McCain decided that he only was against off shore drilling if the price of petrol was less than 54p a litre $4.00 a (US) gallon Captain Codpiece decided he wanted a piece of the action and said that he wants to do it too. At least we need to be sure that if this unfortunately comes to pass that we don't actually let Captain Codpiece do the drilling. Because if there was one thing that he proved in his career before politics, other than he couldn't run a business, it was that he couldn't find oil - in Texas.