Solutions and solutions

I keep up with my vehicles’ gas mileage. Oh, not in any great detail, but it’s something I’ve always done, mostly out of curiosity as much as anything else. Plus, my newest vehicle has a computer that tells me it’s overall average as well a snapshot. Of course after a few thousand miles the average isn’t going to change absent some real radical movements.

So I also check it when I fill up. Just hit the trip odometer and divide. And again the results don’t vary very much. And yes, since I am product of public education of years ago, I can do such things without pen and paper, or hand held computer.

And being the frugal type I always buy the lowest price gas. That is unless it is Citgo, which I don’t use at all. So when I saw a sign saying $2.77.9 I drove in and filled up. I noticed the “10% Ethanol” on the pump. I don’t remember exactly what the mileage figure was, but it was close to the overall average of 25.6 mpg.

Now, imagine my surprise when the next fill-up came in at 23.7. That’s almost a 2 mph decrease. Close to 7.4%. And it jogged my memory that when I lived in Denver, every winter the gasoline was changed to reduce pollution. The additives were ethanol or MTBE. And every winter I noticed my gas mileage go down.

So I Googled up “ethanol” and discovered something. Ethanol, which is alcohol, has 34% less “power” than gasoline in equal volumes. Ergo. Ten percent ethanol results in less power. Less power means more fuel is burned to yield the same power required to pull my car around.

Now the use of ethanol as a fuel has been around for over a hundred years. It had many problems early on that existing technology couldn’t solve, plus it was more expensive than gasoline to produce. But in blends of up to 90%-10% it works well, except for the aforementioned loss of power, in the modern day internal combustion engines. Said engines can also be designed to use more ethanol and some countries have done exactly that. Brazil in particular.

The catch being that you must first have a ready source of ethanol, and cars that have been modified to run on fuel with much higher percentages of ethanol. The US has neither, although we are supposedly working to fix that.

So now comes the question. Why use ethanol?

First, fuel with 10% ethanol burns cleaner. Thus its use in Denver to fight pollution.

Secondly, the clean burning also reduces carbon dioxide which according to Algore’s Church of Global Warming, is going to destroy the earth and kill all the cute little polar bears.

Thirdly, it reduces the amount of gasoline used by 10%, thus reducing our dependence on foreign oil… All of the above is good, right?

Well, not exactly.

The pollution reduction in areas such as Denver looks like a cinch. It’s a seasonal fix of a known problem.

The global warming claim is shaky because it takes energy to run the equipment to produce ethanol and that energy produces carbon dioxide that is supposedly being reduced by the use of ethanol in autos. Question becomes, how much reduction are we talking about? I don’t know and I haven’t read enough information to convince me either way.

But I do know this. People drive to go places. If, at the end of the week, they have driven 250 miles using a fuel that yields 25 mpg they will have used 10 gallons.

If they have used a fuel that yields 23.7 mpg they will have used 10.54 gallons. So that one gallon savings now becomes .46 gallons. Not very much. And if you go back to the fuel consumed to produce the ethanol…. Well, it becomes smaller.

Over 50 years ago a science fiction writer named Robert Heinlein wrote: “TANSTAAFL”.

“There aint no such thing as a free lunch.”

Like it or not we are stuck in a world that runs on petroleum. Petroleum is plentiful and gasoline can be refined from it very inexpensively. In fact, petroleum is so plentiful that it is a commodity. And plentiful commodities should be cheap. Petroleum is not because a monopoly has been established to restrict the supply and the commodities markets have engaged in speculation on that supply.

Now if the monopoly’s profits were being used to improve the standard of living for its members’ citizens then you might be able to argue that the western world should pay to allow others to “catch up.” But it isn’t. The profits are being used to support the rulers who are also using them to pay protection from the radicals who would otherwise attack them. Said radicals, tolerated by the rulers, are also engaged in attacking the west.

Maybe it’s time to quit focusing exclusively on a technical solution and see if we have enough JP to fuel up the bombers.


Google Ethanol Fuel

The President of Mexico

is touring the US, and part of his agenda is reported to be to speak out
for the intercultural sojourners, aka illegal aliens.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Somebody tell this guy:

"Mexican go home!"

F. Gump had a point

when he said, "Stupid is as stupid does."

The next time George Bush, or any other politician starts blathering about Islam being a “Religion of Peace,” remember this.

RIYADH — The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), Saudi Arabia’s non-governmental rights body, will address the Governorate of Riyadh regarding Yara, a 36-year-old Jeddah-based businesswoman who was apprehended by the religious police and thrown in Al-Malaz Prison on Monday.

You may ask what her crime was.

Yara said she endured a humiliating and frightening hours-long ordeal that began with her arrest by a member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice for having coffee with an unrelated man in a Starbucks cafe in Riyadh.

And then we have this from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

LONDON - Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, said on Thursday the introduction in Britain of some aspects of sharia, Islamic law, was unavoidable……..

His unexpected comments were welcomed by some Muslim groups

Oh, really? What a surprise.

There is no doubt, dear friends, that some people are educated beyond their intelligence.

Link

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More on limit poker

Note that this is about limit poker, not No Limit, which is so popular on TV. Frankly, I think No Limit is ruining poker. First because it is much like flying. Hours and hours of boredom followed by minutes of stark terror, aka "thrills."

Secondly because too many poor players are playing it and losing too much money. That reduces the number of players, and that limits the number of tables and that limits the money the card room can make. Casinos don't believe in losing money. Especially when they can fill the space with One Armed Bandits. But I digress.

So you have had a few good hands beat by better hands and maybe better play. You’re in a tidy sum and the game has become progressively tighter as the other good players savior their win. And then he appears.

The Idiot.

A cheerful sort he returns all the greetings with a smile, buys some chips and sets himself down. Ah, you say to yourself, I have been rescued.

But you haven’t.

He cracks your pocket Aces with a 45 off suit. Your trip 10’s lose to his 96 when the river rings an 8. In the meantime he keeps smiling and stacking. Winning with trash on the river…. He is enjoying what is known as a “rush.” He has been hit with the “deck.”

Of course, everyone knows, he will “give it back.” The question is when, and to whom.

Now, if you play every day the odds are that you may get some of it. But if you are a recreational player, the odds are that you won’t be back tomorrow, or the day after…. The question is, what should a poor poker player do?

Take a long break. Quit for a few hours. Go to dinner. Go out to the parking lot and scream. Quit poker.

Or if you want to play and have a hand you want to play.

First, don’t raise in late position. All you do is entice him to call and, at the same time, bring in other players who might have mucked their hands but who now will play because of the pot odds. I mean how many people do you want in the hand with your KK? Oh. I know you’re supposed to raise to get people out, but a raise can also bring people in, especially if they are already in for one bet with six others. Your position raise merely makes a bigger pot and if you are not running well, you are increasing the competition by getting more people dedicated to playing to the river.

Secondly, do raise if you are acting almost directly behind The Idiot and have players behind you who have no money invested in the pot. This is especially true if The Idiot has demonstrated that he will almost always re-raise. The good players will know that they aren’t calling two bets, but three, maybe four if you re-raise.

Then just call to the river, or when you decide you are beat and fold, or better yet, when you are very sure you have him, raise and then value bet the river.

Now notice you have also done something else. You have limited the size of the pot, so even if he wins, he wins less. Remember, he isn’t playing the cards, he’s playing chips. By reducing the chips he can win you will gradually force him to buy more chips as the “rush” ends. At that point the question is, how much money does he want to dump in the game.

And remember. Keep smiling. Both when you are losing and when you are winning.

Dumber and dumber

I was on my cellphone this morning talking to a friend when it quit in mid sentence.
I thought it was the battery, but the battery charged, and then quit immediately...
so it's off to Verizon later...

Worse, I remembered that I had been adding telephone numbers for years to the phone, and had lost my hard copy.....

Hope to heck the SLIM can be popped into another phone and display the numbers...

I have long believed that he who dies with the most toys wins....and the toys will be what causes the fatal stroke.

Who's on First?

It's Saturday and the latest Abbott and Costello movie is on down at the Star Theater. Admission is 12 cents, popcorn a nickel and you will have 7 cents left over for gum and ice cream.

And even better! That girl who has ignored you for weeks said she might let you set by her.

Actually it's free! Enjoy the boys.

Housekeeping

Please note that the spellchecker function of the blog is still broken.

This means that if I get lazy and don't do the off line/check copy/post step yuo muy finde a few errrers.