AM I IMAGING THIS

Various news sites are reporting that the spill in the gulf is gushing out 100,000 barrels of oil a day.

Does anyone remember over the past few years that whenever a threat of a storm anywhere near an off shore oil rig IMMEDIATELY caused gasoline prices to rise, "in case" of an interuption in production.

And yet, during the past two months while oil is spewing, uncontained in the gulf, gas prices are pretty low.

It couldn't be a price fixing and publicity ploy by government and big oil, could it?

You know, when things are going great, we can gouge the customer, but when we have this little "interuption of flow" that is sort of pissing lots of people off, we better not screw them?

Kind of reminds me that we have had 200 abandoned gravel pits in Dufferin since at least 1991 but only NOW is the Sand and Gravel Association, freely and without pressure from anyone, coming forward to say it long overdue that these pits and quarries be rehabilitated. Wow, what a great organization, what a load of bullshit and what a self serving publicity stunt that is.

Which brings me to my point and I do have one. BP Oil has put up $20 billion to pay for damages and so far in addition to this $20 billion has already paid out a reported $2.4 billion in damages.

Now the Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron, is concerned that BP will go under. Hm... Wonder how much in profits this company has made over the past 10 years - I would bet it is WAY more than $20 billion.

And quite frankly, if you can't pay for the damage, you shouldn't be in the business at all.

So the point is, a year ago a Melancthon ratepayer asked that should the Highland Companies application for a 2,400 acre 200 foot deep open pit limestone mine proceed, that they post $500,000,000.00 to pay for water issues experienced by ratepayers. That way, we don't have to use our own limited funds to sue a company for the clear damage they have done to our water, but they can pay for it.

If they can't afford to fix the problems, we can't afford to have the wonderous benefits from this benevolent company.