crossposted @ www.vermontbloggernaut.blogspot.com

A friend sent me an e-mail with these helpful tips.  He works a fuel company so I didn’t want him to take flack at work for these hot tips.  Some I’d heard before, some I hadn’t.

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, so buying 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, diesel  and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role.   A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.    

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.  In slow mod e 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 other 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   worth for your money.    

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL or HALF EMPTY. The reason for this is, the more gas you have in your  tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can 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. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.    

Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up–most likely the gasoline is  being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.  Hope this will help you get the most value for your money.

DO SHARE THESE TIPS WITH OTHERS!   WHERE TO BUY USA GAS, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. READ ON    Gas rationing in the 80’s worked even though we grumbled about it. It might even be good for us! The Saudis are boycotting American goods. We should return the favor.  An interesting thought is to boycott their GAS.   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 are the best to buy gas from and which major 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 South America, from a Dictator who hates Americans. If you do the math at $30/barrel, these imports amount to over $18 BILLION! (oil is now $90 – $100 a barrel)   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  

If you go to Sunoco.com, you will get a list of the station locations near you.   All of this information is available from the Department of Energy and each is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.  

Hours after I post a diary about how Pollina’s campaign may think it knows this game, but if they want to play in the big leagues, they’re going to have to start dotting all their communications ‘i’s and crossing all their public-perception ‘t’s, lest the press and the public rip them to shreds, we get this news from Sneyd:

(Sneyd) Now, (Vermont Milk Company) whose founders hoped they could show a new way for farmers to control their own destiny, is regrouping.

A new investor who doesn’t want to be publicly identified has pumped $200,000 into the company.

Okay. Let’s get this straight. A politician backs off from electoral politics for a couple years and starts a business. He decides to run for Governor, largely on the success of that business. News comes out during the campaign that the business is in trouble, and the press reports on it in the context of the politician’s campaign. Within days an anonymous 6-figure contributor swoops in to bail out the business.

Holy crap!!

Who gave the money? What will they expect from Pollina if he is Governor? And what knuckleheads thought that this wasn’t going to stink to high heaven??

Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!!!

It seems there are some posters here on GMD who are intent on blaming the Vermont Progressive Party and/or Anthony Pollina for every Democratic Party failure.

Shumlin couldn’t get elected Lt. Governor years ago? Blame Anthony. Dems can’t find a gubernatorial candidate? Blame Anthony.

Dems won’t stand up to Douglas or Bush and the big war machine? Dems sign on to stupid bankruptcy bills and laws enabling the government to spy on us? Dems won’t protect the nation by not only putting impeachment on the table but making use of it?

GODDAMN YOU POLLINA!

If only the Vermont Progressive Party and Anthony Pollina would go away. The flowers would bloom, children would behave and Santa Claus would come once a week.

Damn you Pollina.

The Alan Yandow Job Security Study.

A friend of mine calls the Lottery a tax on the foolish ,what are the odds 75000 to one ?

In hard economic times boosting a the lottery seems a poor idea at best .Let’s spent $150,000 to explore a tax on Vermont Yankee and Entergy .

Go where the money is for tax revenue not into some poor scratch ticket buyer’s pocket .

State to spend $150,000 on studying expansion of lottery

Vermont Press Bureau

MONTPELIER – Gov. James Douglas’ proposal to lease the Vermont Lottery never got much traction in Montpelier. But lawmakers are exploring whether the state can capitalize on the same profit potential that prompted Wall Street investment firms to offer the lottery buy-out.

The Vermont Lottery, run by a five-member commission appointed by the Governor, reaps close to $24 million in annual revenue for the state’s education fund. At the Legislature’s behest, the commission will soon embark on a wide-ranging study to see what Vermont can do to bolster its lotto revenue.

“(The study) would give us an idea of things we could change and an idea of what we could make,” Alan Yandow, executive director of Vermont Lottery, told lawmakers via speaker phone Wednesday. “I can’t quantify it now, but that is the thrust of the study.”

Correction from Times Argus

March 29, 2008

A story that appeared in the March 27 edition of The Times Argus reported that the Vermont Lottery Commission will embark on a $150,000 study to determine how to enhance lottery revenue in the state. In fact the commission has yet to approve the study, and will meet on April 9 to decide whether to proceed with the project.

Jon Margolis at 7 Days has moved quickly to differentiate the publication in the post-Freyne era. Where Freyne devoted a lot of ink to promoting Anthony Pollina’s gubernatorial candidacy and minimizing any potential competition, Margolis takes a more detached view – although one guaranteed to elicit howls of protest from the Progressive faithful whose dissatisfaction will undoubtedly be on display in next week’s letter column. Regardless, it clearly stands out as the definitive traditional media analysis of the Pollina/Prog/Dem dynamic to date. Readers of this site will find familiar rhetoric in Margolis’s piece; basically that Pollina can’t win, and the Dems are looking pretty damn bad:

But in this bizarre campaign, there’s another winner: Anthony Pollina, the Progressive Party candidate. He wins not because he is going to be governor – he is never going to be governor – but because he has flummoxed, outfoxed and humiliated the Vermont Democratic Party…

…Some Democrats are convinced not only that Pollina can’t win, but that he knows it, that he just likes running. It’s a plausible supposition.

This is the point where I disagree with Margolis, however. I think its clear that Pollina and company very much believe he can win, as I believe many still cling to a parochial notion that the great unwashed will recognize their rightousness and rise up to carry them to victory in defiance of the polls and pundits.

That’s not to say Pollina isn’t running a good campaign so far, but there are cracks. And in sizing up those cracks – in particular some apparent sloppiness in Pollina’s public comments, one gets the sense that there may be some unexpected turmoil ahead if they get their wish and get to be the left-wing option to Jim Douglas, in lieu of a Democrat.

To use the parlance of the Presidential primary, Pollina has never been vetted. Now, when Clinton makes such a charge against Obama nationally, it should be self-evidently ridiculous; being a major contender in a big election comes with press scrutiny and is a process of “vetting” in  and of itself – and the same is true at the state level.

Pollina is, at this point, an old pro at running a statewide election, so he and his team may well be comfortable in the conceit that they know the territory. But the truth is, they’ll be in unknown territory entirely if he is the one and only challenger to Jim Douglas. For the first time, the press will consider him a “major contender,” and where they couldn’t care less about his background before, they’ll be all over it in a one-on-one with Douglas. The recent piece at the far-far-right-wing Caledonian Record looking at purported troubles at the Pollina-founded Vermont Milk Company may simply be the first shot across the bow.

Pollina has always had a tendency to speak in very cavalier terms about what he has said and done, and the recent apparent contradiction between his statement to Philip Baruth that “at every step in that early process, we actually kept the Democratic party informed. We literally called them up to say, ‘We’re opening a bank account today,’ or ‘We’re gonna do this today.'” and VDP Chair Ian Carleton’s response that “Neither Pollina nor anyone on his behalf ever called the VDP to let us know that he was ‘opening a bank account today,’ as Mr. Pollina claims in the interview, nor was any such call made about ‘trying to raise the money,’ as Pollina also states.” suggests that cavalier approach may still be operative. If he is serious about being the candidate of the left, he’d be well advised to speak far more carefully in the future, as the down side to having the press actually listen to you for a change, is that they are the press… and when they do listen, they usually listen rather carefully.

crossposted at ibrattleboro.com

In the Winter Soldier testimonies, it has become commonplace to hear of US forces killing Iraqi civilians.

The Rules Of Engagement, outlined to soldiers before their shipping out, seem muddy at best. Many soldiers tell their stories of killing civilians by accident, but sometimes under direct orders. The shooting of farmers who violated curfew by being out after dark in their fields was by order. The mistaken firing on a wedding party was because they thought there was hostile gunfire.

These incidents also can turn friendly Iraqis into enemies, understandably, overnight.

This entire occupation is a mess, but to get the particulars on the hows and whys of it all, read on at:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2…

Nothing explains it like the soldiers who lived it.