Gasoline Surprise
Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold . Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline. When it gets warmer gasoline expands. When you pump in the afternoon or in the evening….your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline plays an important role.
When you’re filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3)stages: low, middle, and high. You should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you’re getting less fuel for your money.
Fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL or HALF EMPTY. The more gas you have in your tank the less air is occupying the empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you might imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation.
If there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop , DO NOT fill up–most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered. You might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.
Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia . Just buy from gas companies that don’t import their oil from the Saudis.
Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to people who are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends.
I thought it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies import Middle Eastern oil.
These companies import Middle Eastern oil:
Shell…………………….. . 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco……… 144,332,000 barrels
Exxon/Mobil…………… 130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway… 117,740,000 barrels
Amoco……………………….62,231,000 barrels
Citgo gas is from Venezuela.
Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:
Sunoco………………0 barrels
Conoco………………0 barrels
Sinclair………………0 barrels ;
BP/Phillips………….0 barrels
Hess………………….0 barrels
ARC0…………………0 barrels
Protecting Aunt Bee
Here is a video of “Mookie” Sadr discussing events on Al Jazeera. The chat is in Arabic, and I don’t understand a word of it. Gestures and body “English” ( what a chauvinistic phrase) only tell so much.
But then, the more I read about Babylon, the less I know.
Abbas, formerly Iraqi Konfused Kid, supplied the link to the video. He is not impressed by Mr. Sadr.
Abbas is a source of much information about Babylon. Nor is he impressed by Mr. Maliki, the purported president of Iraq.
Mr. Maliki ordered an attack on various militias in South Iraq recently. Apparently he did not achieve the results he wanted. After the militias ignored his suggestion to surrender, someone…possibly Mr. Sadr…proposed another ceasefire. The fog of war has spread across eight time zones and has engulfed America.
The view of Babylon from the Iraqi Blogs is very different from the view from the radio whiners. The phrase “IslamoFascism” is not heard. The idea that we are in Iraq to kill Al Queda before they come to Mayberry to kill Aunt Bee and Opie seems very silly.
Spell Check Suggestions for this feature:
mookie– rookie, cookie, bookie
Jazeera- Gazetteer, peerage, Jeralee, Azerbaijan, steerage
Abbas- abba, abbeys, adabas.
Maliki- Malice, Malibu, malign
blogs- logs, slogs, clogs, flogs, bogs, blobs, blots, blows,
Opie-pie, odie, obie, opine,
sadr- sad
More Stories about Music
I decide to download it. It is rehearsal tapes from when they were preparing to go in the studio.
Husker Du means “do you remember” in Danish and Norwegian.
I saw them sometime in the eighties. I thought it was at the metroplex, but it might have been the 688. I say this because there is a list of shows they played, and the metroplex is not on there.
I saw a show at the Metroplex the next night, but I cannot remember who. The metroplex was a dark spooky building on Marietta street near the omni. The balcony was very dark, with everything painted black, and I tripped over a bench.
Funny how HD means “do you remember” and my memory is letting me down here.
688 was a different story. I saw a bunch of shows there, both as 688 and Rose’s Cantina. HD may have been the last show I saw before they closed. I was well into the work/sleep lifestyle that preoccupied my life after a certain point, and just didn’t make it out much anymore. A friend won tickets to the show or I wouldn’t have made it.
I didn’t get into the show very much. HD was a trio, with the later outed Bob Mould as the guitar g-d. For all of his musical skills, Mould is not much for onstage charisma. I had the feeling that if I had been more familiar with their music, I would have enjoyed it more. Some bands you can see without hearing their records and get into it right away, where others need a bit of familiarity.
The first and second times I saw Talking Heads were like night and day. The first time I won tickets, and didn’t know much about them. They were OK, but did not really impress. The second time I had played their second album enough to know all the songs, and thought the show was great. That was the night after I saw my neighbor do blackface drag at Club Sheba.
That first time, there were a bunch of security guys standing in front of the stage. They might have been needed in New York, but sleepy Atlanta was not the place. At some point in the evening, I was standing up, and raised my left arm and lifted a ceiling tile about half an inch out of its frame, and quickly put it back in. A rent a goon came by to tell me not to mess with the ceiling.
My friend and I were riding home on the bus, when a couple of black guys started talking trash to/about us. At the next stop, this rather large black man…who we knew…got on the bus and greeted us warmly.
It is a good story how I got the tickets to the first show. WREK FM was giving away tickets. I called the station, said I was a loyal listener, could I please be put on the guest list?
So, the download is over, and DSL is a gift. It is 1016 already, and I need to function in less than eight hours. That work/sleep lifestyle is a bitch.
Spell check suggestions for this feature:
metroplex- metropolis, metropolitan, retroflex, metronome, electroplate
cantina- catina, canting
mould- could, would, gould, mold, moued, mound,moult
Answering Letters
There is power involved in returning letters.
I wrote a bit yesterday about military service, the draft, and the War in Babylon. I sent Mike Gallagher an email about it, since it was a comment on his radio show that inspired the feature.
This morning I got to work a bit early, and checked my email before I got started. There was a message from Mr. Gallagher, which gently corrected me on something I said. (The man was born in 1960, not 1961). This is still too young to worry about Selective Service, but facts are facts.
And I felt a bit better as I started the day.
I have written four radio talkers over the past two years: Gallagher, Neal Boortz, Laura Ingraham, and Michael Medved. Gallagher is the only one to send a reply.
What is puzzling about this is the software that will send an automated answer to an email. It is not always necessary to send a detailed reply, but letting you know that the message was received and that someone will read it would be appreciated.
Before the War in Babylon started, I thought it was important to go on record in opposition. Once the fighting started, it would be a matter of supporting the troops, and I am going to do this. I will support the fighting men and women no matter how ill conceived and executed the battle plan is.
As an aside, I am happy to see these braves folks referred to as men and women. During the Vietnam disaster, there was a lot of “Back our Boys” talk, and that always annoyed me. If you go overseas and face death, you are a man (or woman).
Back to the letter I sent before the invasion. I sent a letter to my representatives in Washington to the effect that the impending invasion of Iraq was not a very good idea.
Zell Miller never sent a reply. Of course, my letter said, ” you were elected to represent me”, and Zig Zag Zell was appointed to fill the term of a Senator who died in office. The Senator…I believe his name was Tysinger…was a Republican, and yet the Democratic Governor of Georgia appointed the Democratic Zell Miller to finish his term. Mr. Miller showed his gratitude by giving the keynote address at the Republican Convention.
Saxby Chambliss sent a reply a few months later. He talked about how important the war was, and what wonderful progress was being made by the troops. I wonder if his staffer even read my letter.
Denise Majette was my representative in the House. She defeated the notorious Cynthia McKinney in November of 2002.
I got a three page letter from Ms. Majette. She said that she essentially agreed with me about the war, but that there was little that could be done about it at that time. She also said that it was important to support the troops once the fighting started.
For some reason, Ms. Majette ran for the Senate, and got badly beaten. Ms. McKinney regained her seat in Congress, to the embarrassment of many.
Cynthia McKinney is another person who does not answer my letters. The fact that I have never written her is not important.
No serve No Chatter
A radio whiner named Mike Gallagher had a few things to say about opposition to the war in Babylon today.
Now, with my job and aversion to commercials, I never hear the complete show. I did miss some of the context of today’s comment. It had something to do with a man on the Phil Donahue show, who said that those who never served in the military should not support the war.
Mr. Gallagher disagreed. He gave an analogy about not being a policeman, but supporting the police. On this level I agree with him. This is a free country, and you should be able to say what you like about an issue.
Of course, you just might be talking about something you don’t know much about.
It is sometimes said that those who have been in combat are not so eager to see another fight. This is not always the case. An example might be current Presidential hopeful John McCain.
On July 29, 1967, Mr. McCain was on the USS Forrestal when there was a big fire. He was allegedly quoted later as saying that after seeing what napalm did, he was not sure we should be dropping it on people. ( This quote was in an earlier wikipedia article on McCain, but is not currently posted. It may be fictitious.)
Now, whether or not he said that, Mr. McCain did see what happens when munitions explode. He also returned to the air war, until he was shot down on October 26, 1967.
Mr. McCain is a supporter of the war in Babylon, and has been quoted that he thinks we should be there another 100 years.
There is one more aspect of this serve/not serve/support/dissent story that Mr. Gallagher may be too young to know about. It is called the draft.
Mr. Gallagher was born in 1961. He was 12 when the Selective Service was shut down. He has never had to worry about getting a letter from the Government inviting him to military service.
George W. Bush was in the National Guard, where he may or may not have shown up for drills. He was not in the Army, and he did not go to Vietnam.
It is well documented that most of the “Brain trust” that got us into this war did not serve in the Military. Many were prime age during Vietnam, but did not find it convenient to go.
Atlanta is home to prominent Radio Whiner/ War monger supporter Neal Boortz. Mr. Boortz is rather sensitive about his draft record. He is another current war hawk who was prime cannon fodder during Vietnam, but did not go.
I was in Fifth Grade during the escalation in 1965. I wrote my story about the draft at my old blog.
Here again, a person can say anything they want. But if you were too busy to fight when it was your turn, you take the chance of being called a chicken hawk.
Of the three current Presidential hopefuls, only McCain served in the military. To be fair, the story of his captivity is inspiring. The fact that he dropped napalm on targets from an airplane…and possibly hit women and children…is less comforting.
Mr. Obama, like Mr. Gallagher, was born in 1961, and never worried about the draft. He found things other than military service to occupy his time when he was younger.
Ms. Clinton is a woman. Compulsory combat duty is a man thing. Like many others, she did not include military service in her lifestyle.
Which one of the three is the best potential president? McCain is a hot head, and seems eager to have his own war for the history books. Obama and Clinton are clueless. At least Obama has consistently opposed the war…even if he was never in the military.
Life and Taxes
One of the radio whiners was talking about taxes today. ( That sentence could get a lot of use). There was some kind of economist guest, and the consensus was that lower taxes stimulated the economy.
The thought occurred to this reporter…why have taxes at all?
If lower taxes would stimulate the economy, then what about no taxes at all?
Now, I am no economist, but I suspect this would not work. To begin with, we have to pay the interest of the debt we already have.
If we don’t pay this interest, then no one will loan us any more.
Second, we have the War in Babylon to consider. Our Government tried to pay for this war with a tax cut before the invasion. The budget deficit went over 400 billion bucks a year. The economy was stimulated, though, and there was regime change in Baghdad.
Our army was not greeted as liberators, though. However, the tax cut was greeted as a liberator in certain circles here.
It would seem to this slack Georgia Blogger that the issue is not whether or not to have taxes, but how to assess them, and and what rates.
I have written a few times about the “Fair tax”. These can be found hither dither and yon. I think the FT has the potential to work, but there are a lot of doubts remaining. And no, I have not read the book. I did read “Barry” Obama’s speech about race, and feel much the same about it. “The speech”has the potential to work, but there are a lot of doubts remaining. At least Neal Boortz does not talk about his grandmother.
Getting back to the matter of how to set the tax rates. It is a mess. Tax deductions and Tax write offs have produced many jobs and done much good work. The powerhouse economy of the last seventy years has been a product of many factors, with the combination of deficit spending, a print happy federal reserve, and baffling tax laws important components. Should we throw the baby out with the bathwater?
Maybe we can go back to an emphasis on tariffs to raise money. This would have the dual effect of bringing in money and protecting what the industries that have not gone south of the border. Nevermind this was a minor cause of the war between the states.
A tax on the rich would bring in revenue, and is a crowd pleaser at election time. However, some of these people are entrepreneurs who create jobs. Besides, they give political contributions, and are protected. ( Never throw away your dead tree dictionary. I screwed up the spelling of entrepreneur so bad that spell check did not know what I had written)
Maybe we could tax political contributions, and other forms of prostitution. Legalizing certain controlled substances would add to the tax digest.
In short, I don’t have a clue. I am just a slack georgia blogger who doesn’t get campaign contributions.
That’s right, I was talking about tax rates, and I was about to go back on the clock. Gotta go earn some more money, so we can kill terrorists over there before they kill us here.
What the General Says
Please, no betray us jokes this time. That gave the warmongers a good distraction last fall.
General David Petraeus spoke to the press recently.
He said victory in Babylon would occur when there is:
“an Iraq that is at peace with itself, at peace with its neighbors, that has a government that is representative of — and responsive to — its citizenry and is a contributing member of the global community.”
There are a lot of differences between the United States and Iraq. The USA has 160k troops in Iraq. Iraq recently won a major soccer tournament.
One has to wonder, though, how the USA does at meeting the standards it sets for Iraq.
an Iraq that is at peace with itself
Last week, the major news story was an important minority bashing America from the pulpits of it’s churches. It’s just the way it is in the black church, you don’t understand.
at peace with its neighbors
Despite all the political noise the rightwing can produce, the border with Mexico is wide open. The effects of a poor country on the border of a “wealthy” country do not stop.
a government that is representative of — and responsive to — its citizenry
This depends on who you talk to. It seems like everyone has a gripe, from the right wing ( social issues, immigration) to the left wing ( the war, the environment, the rich-poor gap, health care). There are plenty in the middle who are tired of the whining, but essentially agree with both sides of the spectrum.
is a contributing member of the global community
In all fairness, we are contributing to the global community. We contribute carbon emissions to the atmosphere. We contribute interest to the Asians who are financing our debt. We contribute cluster bombs and depleted uranium to Babylon.
One of our presidential hopefuls was quoted recently as saying we might be in Iraq for 100 more years. Somehow, I don’t think the problems in our own country will be solved by then.
Seven Deadly Sins Test
Whatever you think about them, on line quizzes are here to stay.
They are not always accurate. I know a person who hasn’t drank in 19 years who rated 82% alcoholic.
The good news is, they are easy post fodder. Just take the quiz, observe the results, copy the code, and give credit to the person who directed you to it.
Today’s quiz is how I rate on the Seven Deadly Sins.
Your sin has been measured. You have committed many sins, but Lust is the mortal sin that has done you in. Just below, discover your full sinful breakdown and learn what it is about you that condemns you to hell.
Greed: Medium__Gluttony: Medium__ Wrath: Low
Sloth: High___Envy: Very Low__Lust: Very High__Pride: Low
The HT for this goes to Renegade Evolution, who stole it from Daisy. On the all important Lust issue, Ren scored (?) very high, and Daisy registered very low.
There is a bit of irony in finding this today. It is Easter Sunday. In the Jesus Worship tradition, this is the day Jesus rose from the dead, and in the process forgave our sins. ( I don’t see the connection)
In other words, my sins will not condemn me to hell.
The JW church uses the promise of life after death to justify verbal abuse.
I have my ideas about life after death, and I may share them with the internet someday. Suffice to say today that it has nothing to do with my opinions about Jesus.
This has been a bad week for Jesus. Jeremiah Wright has been much discussed. Mr. Obama made a speech. Very few people are looking out for Jesus.
| Greed: | Medium | |
| Gluttony: | Medium | |
| Wrath: | Low | |
| Sloth: | High | |
| Envy: | Very Low | |
| Lust: | Very High | |
| Pride: | Low |
Happy SAD!!
So I was coming in on I-75, and listening to Glenn Beck. He was talking about the economy, and it was not pretty.
I don’t believe everything he said, but to hear him tell it, the dollar is about to become a worthless piece of green paper. The world economy is tied to this dollar, and this would make the world economy go into convulsions.
This is shock and awe day (SAD)…the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Babylon. The war ended quickly, but putting humpty dumpty together has proved to be a challenge. One of the effects of this war is vast amounts of capital leaving the country into the desert sands. Much has been lost to corruption, and more is being paid to “concerned local citizens” to fight Al Queda.
The latter effort is paying some benefits, and Al Queda is almost down to the level of pre war Iraq.
Getting back to the dollar, and the connection to our economy. One of the more bizarre features of this enterprise is having a tax cut before an expensive government program is going to start. This has created vast budget deficits, and huge interest payments that will continue for a long time.
Now, with the money to armor troops and buy smart bombs, there is a lot less money available for day to day life here. And when there is an emergency here, like a cajun hurricane or a New York broker banker gone bust, the government has to crank up the printing press and make more green paper. And the more this happens, the less the green paper is worth.
Maybe green is not such a great color anymore. Those environmental wackos have totally spoiled it.
So, Mr. Beck was crying about the dollar, while ignoring the effect of the enterprise in Babylon. After all, he is a conservative, who wants both a smaller government and 160k troops stationed eight time zones away. And, if we didn’t go into Babylon, then Al Queda wouldn’t be there for us to fight, and we have to fight them there rather than here.
Meanwhile, I looked up at the traffic. An 18 wheeler decided that the car in front was not driving fast enough. The big truck swerved into the next lane, and missed the little car by a couple of feet.
Happy SAD y’all!!
Shock and Awe Day
This is turning into a dandy holiday week.
Yesterday was Saint Patrick’s Day.
Tomorrow is Shock and Awe Day (SAD)…the anniversary of the invasion of Babylon.
Today, we had a presidential candidate, standing in front of four U.S. flags, saying that his preacher is a racist nutcase, which is why he wants to be president of our racist nutcase country,which he loves.
And this weekend we have a grand slam…Good Friday, Dead Saturday, Easter Sunday and the Spring Equinox.
This time, let’s put two boulders in front of the cave.
The best place to focus now is Shock and Awe Day. SAD is the initials.
The war is over. We achieved regime change, at least in Babylon. The occupation is what is going on now, and it just might be the death of this country.
Yes, there is less sectarian violence now. Al Queda is not as prevalent as it once was. Of course, it is still more active than when Saddam was in power.
Turkey has invaded Kurdistan, but just a little bit. Iran has not invaded Babylon, yet. The Saudi regime has not fallen, and they have a lot more money to finance terrorism.
The US economy is in trouble. Maybe we would be in this mess without a few trillion more in debt, and the healthcare bills for thousands of wounded soldiers coming due. Maybe we could build more levees if we weren’t paying the concerned local citizens of Iraq to help us fight Al Queda. We will never know.
It should be noted the the presidential candidate mentioned above has long stated his opposition to “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. Just what he will do about it, should he get elected, is another good question.
Kerouac
Ok,I finished reading this thingie about Kerouac, and now I have 19 minutes to go on my lunch hourj. I can write my addendum in that time.
I got my copy of “on the road” from a used bookstore in Cocoa Beach Florida. I was staying overnight at a house of a friend, while on my way back from Key West.
The owner of the house was an activist named Nichols. I saw a book in the living room, signed with the inscription,” i saw away the posts to which others tether their lives”, or something like that.
Back to Kerouac. I did read On the Road, and found it entertaining but not life changing. I get the sense that Kerouac and Cassidy could be real jerks if it was too their advantage, and that the printed page was the best way to know them.
Oh, and I have to throw this in. Truman Capote said of Jack Kerouac’s books, thats not writing that is typing. Capote is another archetype of our generation, or is that degeneration.
Another story I like about Kerouac is the time he was in a bar in New York with John Coltrane and a jazz producer named Orrin Keepnews. Kerouac said to Keepnews, the problem with you is that you don’t like jazz. John Coltrane busted up laughing, the only time Keepnews ever saw this happen.
Keepnews produced “Stories to Tell” by Flora Purim. At 21 I thought this was the greatest record ever made. Today I don’t own a copy.
Nine minutes to go, and I have already run out of things to say about Kerouac. The man is really famous for being famous. The fifties were the kettle that these fish were cooked in, and I know little about it. OTR was published in 1957, when I was three years old and living on a street of always pregnant stay at home moms. Whether or not the world of the sixties and beyond would have appeared without the likes of Kerouac and Ginsberg is beside the point. I suspect that if Jack Kerouac had not written his books that someone else would have, and maybe survived fame in better shape.
I know one more story. At one time, Kerouac was staying with Neal Cassidy ( his uncredited co author) and his family. Mr. Cassidy thought that Mr. Keruac was smoking too much marijuana.
The candidate and the toilet seat
There are two stories in the media today. One is the unfortunate relationship with a loudmouth minister by a presidential candidate (PC).
The other is a lady who lived for two years on the toilet. The punch line is the same for both.
The lady has issues. She did not get off the commode for two years. Food, water, and clothes were brought to her. I dare say her enabler has a few issues.
Finally, paramedics were called. The toilet seat and grown into her body, and needed to be pried loose.
The PC has worshipped for twenty years at the church pastored by a terrible man. He yells a lot, and says things that many find offensive. He would not be saying these things if he did not have an audience. The audience is enabling this man in his noisemaking.
The PC listened to a hatemonger for twenty years.
The preacher needs to be pried off his butt.
Spell check suggestions for this feature-
Pastured- pastured
Pried- pride
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