Swallows back to Capistrano and gas prices go up

Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press

Kevin Drum blogs for Mother Jones and is of course a liberal---or a "progressive," if that's the term you prefer---but he's genuinely independent intellectually and isn't a party line ideologue. He understands, for example, how dumb the state's high-speed rail project is. Today Drum reminds us that it's the time of year when the state's oil refineries always report some problems:

I used to keep a file of clippings of this exact same story running each spring and summer. I mean, literally the exact same story. Every year, right at the point where the winter/summer switch squeezes supplies from out of state, there would suddenly be a bunch of "glitches" that took some local refinery capacity offline and prices would spike.