These two strategies, pursued in concert, would seem to be mutually defeating. Ah, but that is what makes our two-point plan so diabolical – it goes against all known laws of economics and common sense. Unfortunately for us, the media and Congress are full of people whose thinking is not constrained by the known laws of economics and common sense, and our plots have thus been deciphered.

After a long period in which our BIG OIL conspiracy inexplicably let the price of oil fall as low as $10 per barrel (possibly to lull the American people into a false sense of security and increase their oil dependence), our plot really got up and running with the invasion of Iraq. As you can no doubt remember from Agent Cheney’s excellent PowerPoint presentation, the Iraq War was carried out entirely to increase profits by liberating Iraq’s oil, which had been locked up under sanctions since the first Gulf War, which we engineered to increase profits by locking up Iraq’s oil. This is a little hard to follow, I know. But the important part is that we control the world and make profits. All of this has been exposed, of course, by Michael Moore – who has also managed to uncovered our role in invading Afghanistan, which neither has nor uses oil.

Unlocking Iraq’s oil through war worked so well that a global oil shortage quickly followed, allowing us to increase profits further. This shortage, which we accidentally engineered to increase profits, can now be used as a pretext to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which will increase supply, and thus increase profits.

Again, however, we have been found out. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in an editorial entitled “Spare ANWR – The oil industry gets enough profit elsewhere,” sharply countered our machinations, and claimed that we suck by stating, “Oil companies, which already are sucking up record profits, should turn their attention elsewhere and spare the American public the despoilment of one of its environmental treasures.” The “environmental treasure” apparently being ANWR, which the editors claim to have actually seen in a picture book.

Such exposés and setbacks have not, however, entirely curtailed our ability to increase profits, since we have also been busy at work manipulating the price of gasoline, under the cover story that gasoline is somehow derived from oil. This cover story has not fooled noted fuels expert Bill O’Reilly, however, who told me during a recent appearance on his show that oil companies merely use high oil prices as an “excuse” to raise the price of gasoline. If this revelation of the horrible truth gains much more credence, it may become necessary to cause another Gulf Coast hurricane and use that instead as an excuse to raise the price of gasoline.

The real key to gasoline price manipulation, of course, has been the artificial shortage of refinery capacity that we have engineered since we teamed up with environmentalists in the 1970s. Astoundingly, though, even this plot has been found out and exposed. Representative Rick Boucher recently revealed that “the real reason we have a refinery shortage is the companies that own refineries are profiting enormously” from it. Rep. Boucher made this statement while justifying his recent vote against a bill that would have made it easier to gain permits to build new refineries.

The bill was also opposed by environmentalists on the grounds that the increased refining capacity would only serve to increase profits by BIG OIL, and would not lower the price of gasoline. Thus, our brazen attempt to increase profits by increasing refining capacity failed, requiring us to stick with our current plan of increasing profits by decreasing refining capacity.

Senator Chuck Schumer, however, is on to us and has called for an investigation into our refining efforts, noting that refineries are operating at only 85 percent capacity during the switchover to summer blend gasoline. Schumer, a noted refining expert, believes the switchover should only reduce capacity to 90 percent, and that the extra 5 percent reduction is therefore potential evidence of some sort of plot, possibly designed to increase profits.

And of course, it is. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!