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Notes 2006 Archives Oil Refining: I am reading a book about oil refining. When I finish I will make a book report for you. It turns out I had a nearly complete misconception about how crude oil is turned into useful products. I thought it was all about catalytic cracking. Wrong! Cracking is used, but it is as much about distillation as it is about cracking. Distillation is the same process that good-old-boys use to make white lightning except it’s done to crude oil rather than sour-mash. National Security: McCain and Stephen Hadley were on the Stephanopolous hot seat. They were talking about the mad king’s request to have a free hand in torturing prisoners by rewriting the Geneva Conventions. I thought McCain acquitted himself well. It was as good as I have ever seen him. On the other hand, Hadley the National Security Advisor, came over as a conman. He continuously resorted to the old, I cannot reveal the details of the activities, game. This administration has made that line threadbare through overuse. The other worn out line is, we won’t have a program if you don’t agree with us. That, of course, is blackmail. Some of us have done that when we were kids. I’m gonna take my red wagon and go home. Sure! Go ahead. I don’t want your damn red wagon anyhow. They finally made a deal. The moderates sold out. Instead of modifying the language of the Geneva Conventions, they will make special provisions for torture in legislative law. So, what’s the difference? George can go ahead with his plans. And the dance of idiots continues. DeVos: That tears it. He publicly came down on the side of the
creationists. He wants Sticks and Stones: An Idea: It seems that telephone conmen are working overtime these days. We get stories from the media at least once a week about another twist on the telephone scam. We are always told, “Don’t give out any personal information on the telephone.” Even a damn fool should know that. Even so, about once a month we hear about someone more foolish than a damn fool who has been ripped off. What we need is a new alert device. There should be a red button on every phone that initiates an immediate trace on the call and notifies the police. Then, when one of those crooks calls, even if it’s from a payphone the cops have a chance to get him while he is still making the pitch. Until we get that, people who have caller ID should know that a blocked phone number from the caller is a tip-off. The Pope and Mohammed: One buffoon insults another buffoon. The Pope has insulted
Mohammed, so they claim. This is a rare time in my life. I suddenly find myself
in agreement with something the guy in the white
dress has done. He said, in effect, a philosophy that advocates Jihad is not
compatible with the idea of God. For sure, that got all the Muslims frothing
at the mouth and that frothing caused the Pope to back
peddle. It is getting more and more difficult to believe there are any moderate Muslims. All the ones I have seen act like savages. They are childish fools who are looking for an excuse to behave badly. They do not need much excuse to act like savages because, as far as I can tell, they are savages. If there are moderate Muslims, where are they? Where are they hiding? Why are they hiding? I conclude, there are no moderate Muslims. Some say the rioting savages have gone too far, but no Muslim has said that. The ones who pretend to be moderate offer rationalizations for the savage behavior. They claim their sensibilities were offended by the Pope’s words. I saw a Muslim alleged doctor of theology make that silly claim. What bull! Words are birds. They fly out and fly away. If your philosophy and your alleged prophet are so fragile they can’t stand examination, you have bologna for a religion. Mohammed was a second rate camel jockey until he conned a bunch of ignorant savages into believing he’d had an interview with Gabriel and become a mullah. He was no more enlightened than Tammy Baker. The Big Three: Remember the big three? There were three American auto companies that dominated the world market. They got fat and lazy. One of them sold out to a foreign company and then there were two. Now we have a rumor that the big two may become the tiny one. There are rumors of a merger between GM and Ford. They are still fat and lazy. They have become inefficient and uncreative. Merging won’t help. We have seen it too many times. Does anyone remember the Burroughs Corporation? When one looser merges with another loser, you don’t get a winner. You get a bigger loser. In theory, a merger combines the strengths of two different entities to make a stronger entity. In this case, there are no strengths. These two outfits have identical problems. I say again, they have become fat, lazy, inefficient, and uncreative. A Minor Breach: So a loony drove his car through
a so called barrier almost up to the capitol. Then he ran inside and got to
the rotunda. He had a gun and he ran all around the inside of the capitol
before they could stop him. This guy was just a
loony, but he could have been a Muslim with a bomb. They said this tiny
capitol area has more cops than |