Who's kidding who?

This past Tuesday, which was appropriately April Fool's Day, the Associated Press reported that the executives of "Big Oil" went before the U.S. Congress to defend their record $123 billion in profits and to fight for their $18 billion in tax relief. They are asking Congress not to refuse these tax breaks or they may not be able to afford to invest in alternative energy research. "On April Fool's Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on American families by Big Oil," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. during the hearing.

Meanwhile, in the hallowed halls of Chevron Corporation, Chairman David O'Reilly(who opted not to testify in this week's Congressional hearing) received a 17% raise in 2007 totaling a salary of 15.7 million for the year. That doesn't include the 600,000 stock options he excersized after a 27% increase in Chevron's stock price, putting a modest 18.2 million in his pocket book. This is just one example of the excess and greed happening right here in our backyard, at our expense.

Being a brain wielding human, it is hard for me to believe that someone isn't capitalizing on the misfortune of the other 99% of our population. We're slowly slipping into a full blown recession and are watching gas prices rise like a thermometer in hell, but these select few corporate tyrants are living like a Pharaoh.

Oil and energy alternatives will not happen tomorrow. It takes time to research the next major move for our entire energy infrastructure, and even more time to build it once we've found an answer and I will support these efforts however I possibly can. In the meantime, energy providers should not have an open ticket to dictate prices and rape the American public. Someone once told me not to "shit where I eat"... I think someone should send that message to "Big Oil".