Gas prices suck. Being that I drive about 30+ thousand miles a year (AWESOME Carbon Footprint, Suck it Al Gore), I pay out the ass. Filled up the thank on the Subaru today, ran me $33.50. On top of that, I see this May Day Socialist bullshit where Harry Reid, I mean Hugo Chavez, nationalizes their oil fields for the “people.” What a crock of shit. If the “people” means the people’s faces on Venezuelan money, that’s the only way it’s the truth. Turns out that the only two companies who put up somewhat of a fight to this Stalinist move was ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil. Which got me to thinking, if I have to pay out the ass I may as well pay out the ass to one of the companies who I actually have some semblance of respect. I surveyed most of the companies we see here in the Lehigh Valley and come to some conclusions. After having some respect for ConocoPhillips, after learning of their strong pro-Gore stance, I refuse to give any money to any of their affiliates due to my hatred of all things hippy. There are only 5 major gas stations I will buy gas from (places like WaWa and Quick Check are exempt due to their ease and great convenient stores). Lukoil was looking good but I found out they have some deals in place with Ahmonkeynajad and Iran, so fuck ‘em, not using them anymore.
Anyway, here are the “Top 5 To the Right of Wrong Gas Stations”:
- Shell – Most of the gas sold here in the states that comes from Shell is made in the US, but they sure as hell use a lot of oil from the Middle East elsewhere. What offsets this is that they seem indifferent to Global Whining morons and simply throw them a bone on their website. Additionally, they are drilling in Alaska, something else I like since it makes hippies and Democrats equally irritable.
- Exxon Mobil – The Giant. Sure I get mad when I look at the CEO’s pay and their insane profits. On the other hand, they give a sincere “fuck you” to hard-core eco-terrorists on their web page. There’s also a nifty little chart where they show how much money they are investing in oil and gas exploration in various parts of the world. They don’t play much lip service to the alternative energy sources like other companies either. I also like the fact that they are bitching about the amount of taxes they are forced to pay and that they at least griped with Chavez before finally folding (hey some money is better than none right?). Also, they are the company that helps me get through difficult days at work by conjuring up images of an oil spill. In those most stressful times, I simply imaging the Valdez Carnival Dunk Tank, where instead of water, it’s good old’ 5W 30 in the tank and instead of a person it’s a baby seal on the hot seat. How many balls does five bucks buy?
- Hess – The Jets are lame, but the business model is solid. In fact, if not for having to deal with Indonesia and Algeria, they’d be rated higher. Algeria’s government at least fights terrorists, and Indonesia isn’t nearly as radical as the Middle East, but they’re borderline. What makes them rank higher than Exxon is that they don’t deal with the Middle East and their convenience stores are pretty damn good. 2 Liters of Aquafina for $2 is pretty nice, as is the included Blimpie’s at most of the stores. Plus, every time I see a Hess station I can envision Joe Namath hitting on Suzy Colbert.
- Sunoco – Completely Middle East free. That’s a pretty solid thing for me. Plus, they have a lightning bolt in their logo, playing on the irony that if lightning were to hit their product supply it’s explode like a suicidal Muslim. Again, not much lip service paid to the hippies, it’s basically “we’re going to use all types of oil an gas and we’ll try to be cleaner about it if it doesn’t mean going broke or having to lay off employees.” Nice.
- Valero - The largest refinery company in America also picked up some gas stations near us recently. Their CEO is the shit. In late April he went on the offense and said $4 a gallon is basically scare tactics and that its bad business for oil companies, people predicting this price, and that if indeed it did happen it would cripple the American economy. How true. Gotta love the honesty there. I’ve never seen an advertisement on TV from them yet (don’t screw it up guys) and I see a lot of stickers on the road from satisfied consumers. They get my top rating.
- Caomhin
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