Oil: enough energy to melt glaciers!
November 18, 2009 2:50 PM   Subscribe

 
Oh, dear.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:52 PM on November 18, 2009


Ha!
posted by brundlefly at 2:56 PM on November 18, 2009


Well, not maximal irony. It's not actually the heat energy from the oil which is causing glaciers to melt. Still it does count as "funny shit people said and now wish they hadn't because it's too close to the actual truth to be funny anymore."
posted by Sova at 2:57 PM on November 18, 2009


Humble Oil: We're Fuckin' Wrecking this Shit.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:01 PM on November 18, 2009 [4 favorites]


SHUT UP POLOAR BEARES ARE DOING JSUT FIEN
posted by shakespeherian at 3:02 PM on November 18, 2009


When I see advertising like this I can almost understand why many persons of a certain age don't want to hear anything about global warming, peak oil, etc. When you were young the oil was never going to run out and technology was going to solve all of the world's problems with absolutely no downside. Now you're old and every time you pick up the paper it's filled with stories about glaciers melting and looming oil shortages. Who wouldn't prefer a return to the days when an oil company could brag about its ability to melt glaciers and it was a good thing?
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:05 PM on November 18, 2009 [3 favorites]


From about the same time period.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:06 PM on November 18, 2009


This is right up there in the top ten list of "pictures conveying unintended irony" with empresscallipygos' comment and link regarding all the 700 Club folks praying to an apparent Golden Calf.
posted by bearwife at 3:12 PM on November 18, 2009 [3 favorites]


That oil company may have been a lot of things, but it was not Humble.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:15 PM on November 18, 2009


I wonder what miracle technology today will be cynically laughed at in 40 years.
posted by stbalbach at 3:21 PM on November 18, 2009


Clean coal.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 3:24 PM on November 18, 2009 [3 favorites]


HilarinowI'mcryingous.
posted by Astro Zombie at 3:32 PM on November 18, 2009


More environmentalists use Humble Oil to heat their homes.
posted by zzazazz at 3:36 PM on November 18, 2009


Enco must have become Esso at one point. Was it a merging of Enco and Standard Oil?

too lazy to google it...
posted by five fresh fish at 3:47 PM on November 18, 2009


I'd love to see a picture of that glacier today. Anybody got the skills to determine which one it is and whip up a side-by-side?
posted by keep_evolving at 3:58 PM on November 18, 2009


"Enco was a secondary retail brand name for products of Humble Oil, (now part of ExxonMobil) in certain parts of the United States from 1960 to 1973. It was used on filling stations operated by Humble in states where they were not permitted to use the Esso brand under conditions set by the court-ordered breakup of Standard Oil in 1911."
posted by kirkaracha at 4:07 PM on November 18, 2009


SnarkOilâ„¢

It's the only game left in town!
posted by vectr at 4:10 PM on November 18, 2009


And since you can snark on top of other snark, it's an infinitely renewable resource!
posted by rokusan at 4:35 PM on November 18, 2009


fff- Enco, Esso and Humble were brands of Standard Oil. Most (all?) of their stations in the States became Exxons sometime in the 70's.
posted by swell at 4:45 PM on November 18, 2009


Truth in Advertising?
posted by snsranch at 4:55 PM on November 18, 2009


That's pretty ironic, but it doesn't beat rain on your wedding day.
posted by DU at 5:05 PM on November 18, 2009 [3 favorites]


Tell me about it. I was going through the kitchen drawers last night on the verge of tears: "Where's the fucking knife? It's just spoons, spoons, spoons!" I went outside to calm my nerves with a cigarette and you don't even want to know what sort of sign the Body Corporate had installed in the stairwell and also none of those things are irony.
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:59 PM on November 18, 2009 [5 favorites]


I wonder what miracle technology today will be cynically laughed at in 40 years.

Hmm, I wonder?
posted by Pollomacho at 7:29 PM on November 18, 2009


Ah, so all the similarities in logo and product names are from being broken up, not corporate mergers.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:27 PM on November 18, 2009


Hmm, I wonder?

But those things are funny today.
posted by delmoi at 12:26 AM on November 19, 2009 [1 favorite]


But those things are funny today.

yeah, but they are funny because we get to laugh at old impotent guys, not because how ridiculous we are for devoting so much money and effort to creating pharmeceuticals for moronic causes like old guys' penis problems rather than stuff like AIDS or cancer. Right now that is just infurinating, give us 40 years and an AIDS vaccine and it will be cynically hillarious.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:38 AM on November 19, 2009


infurinating

Wow, my spelling error seems to have coined a new word. Infurinating - when you are so pissed off that you litterally piss your pants. Perhaps they'll develop a drug to treat that?
posted by Pollomacho at 5:41 AM on November 19, 2009 [3 favorites]


A runner up.
posted by Phlogiston at 7:55 AM on November 19, 2009 [1 favorite]


I think Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" is criminally misunderstood. Everyone uses it as a punchline because "that's not really irony!" but they don't bother to actually analyze the song. The key to understanding are the lines, "Life has a funny way / of helping you out when you think everything's gone wrong / and everything blows up in your face." The song's fundamentally about God trying to help you out, which you ironically interpret as God shitting all over your day.

So just to take the first lines, "An old man turned ninety-eight / He won the lottery and died the next day" The real lottery he won was death, because he was old and had constant pain and suffering which no amount of money could cure, and death was a release from that. But ironically, we interpret this as a horrible thing to happen after he becomes rich.

"It's like rain / on your wedding day" is God trying to send a message to you that what seems like a great thing (your wedding) will actually lead to 20 years of fighting and misery and finally a protracted, expensive divorce. He's actually trying to do you a favor but you're too blind to see it, and you interpret it as God ruining the most important day of your life. Etc. The whole song is supposed to work like this.

The part that really takes the song to another level entirely is when she says "A little too ironic, don't you think," because that implies that God wants you to think that he's shitting on your day when he's helping you, because maybe he's a sadistic, super-malevolent being who delights in that kind of thing. Truly a dark masterpiece, that "Ironic" song.
posted by naju at 8:49 AM on November 19, 2009 [1 favorite]


Pollomacho, according to my org chem drug develpment husband, Viagra, at least, was in the process of being developed for a more 'legitimate' medical use (heart prob, or prostate or something, I am too lazy to research...) when they were doing trials etc many men were quite....enthusiastic...to continue taking the meds.
posted by supermedusa at 9:35 AM on November 19, 2009


when they were doing trials etc many men were quite....enthusiastic...to continue taking the meds.

maybe "swollen with eagerness"?
posted by hippybear at 11:29 AM on November 19, 2009


Viagra was initially studied for use in hypertension and angina. It turned out to be rubbish at treating angina, but had an unexpected side effect which ended up being what Pfizer marketed the drug for. Just a happy accident... The patents expire somewhere around 2012 I think, and Sildenafil citrate may well widely become an over-the-counter drug - it already is in the UK, for example.

The reason we don't have a cure for cancer yet, by the way, is because cancer is a damn tricky and varied big collection of diseases to treat, with a huge range of causes. Any company that does succeed in making an effective treatment with minimal side-effects for even a single type of cancer will make more money than even an investment banker could dream of.
posted by ArkhanJG at 11:47 AM on November 19, 2009


Any company that does succeed in making an effective treatment with minimal side-effects for even a single type of cancer will make more money than even an investment banker could dream of.

So you are saying it would be more lucrative for a pharmaceutical company to sell a patient one drug that cures them as opposed to ten drugs that just maintain the patient in drug dependence for years?
posted by Pollomacho at 6:24 AM on November 20, 2009


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