I remember when gas was this price!

I remember a time when my dad was so happy that he could buy 5 gallons for a dollar! Gas wars of the 60's as I recall. I was just a yungun....


OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- A misplaced decimal point gave drivers a surprisingly good deal on gas, and even inspired some threats of violence at a west Omaha filling station Wednesday night.
Carolyn Folsom, who occasionally helps her brother and father run the self-service, attendant-less Shell station, said she goofed Wednesday afternoon when entering prices into the computer that runs the fuel tanks. A gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline was supposed to cost $1.89 but ended up costing only 18 cents.
"I don't know if my finger missed the nine or what," Folsom said. "The whole family is laughing about this. I will never live this down."
Folsom said about 500 gallons of gas were sold during the several hours the price was down, costing the business about $1000. The station does not have an attendant and the only way to pay is at the pump, so the mistake went unnoticed for hours.

A fuel truck driver who came to deliver gas discovered the problem and tried to block the entrance of the station with his truck, Folsom said.
But by then word was out and the rush for cheap fuel was on.
Folsom said one person threatened to hit the fuel truck driver with a hammer if he didn't stop blocking the entrance.
"That's the thing that upsets me," Folsom said. "I mean, grow up."
Folsom said her father fixed the price about 7:15 p.m. And he's forgiven her for the mistake, she said.

A geezer bike owned by a geezer

For 75 of his 95 years, William Wagstaff rode the same bicycle -- until a brush with a car finally made him decide to stop pedalling and donate the bike to a transport museum.Wagstaff, from Croydon in southern England, bought the bicycle for £14 in 1929, the Daily Mirror newspaper said on Wednesday.Over the years he pedalled more than 80 000km on the bike, which he named "Evans" after its manufacturer.He replaced the saddle twice, used up 15 sets of tyres -- but kept the original saddlebag and tool-kit, plus a World War II oil lamp masked with blackout paper."Even into his nineties, he used it two or three times a week. But a car knocked him off and upset his confidence," Wagstaff's daughter told the newspaper.Robert Excell, curator at London's Transport Museum to which Wagstaff donated the cycle, said: "It's remarkably well preserved, partly because they were made out of stronger steel in those days and partly because Mr. Wagstaff soaked everything in oil to preserve it. It's a real gem." -- Sapa-DPA

What did you think?

They probably lack the capability the people of Vietnam did....don't care!



"The Iraqis lack certain capacities, and if we focus in this next period after the election on helping them to build those capacities beyond where they are now, I think we will have done a major part toward the day when less coalition help is needed."
- CONDOLEEZZA RICE

Comet crashing rocket

Sort of worried about NASA sending a rocket to crash into a comet. I can only think of bad things that could happen.

1) The rocket hits the comet. It changes the course of the comet which then runs into the earth and kills us all. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!

2) The rocket hits the comet. Really pisses off the aliens that are using it for their observation site. They attack the earth and kill us all!

Hmmm, you can see there are all sorts of bad things that can come of this!

Tourist says he has been stumped by this situation!

A German professor who went on a dream holiday to Costa Rica woke up in an airport departure lounge to find his leg had been amputated. The professor said he had gone to see a doctor at a hospital in San Jose because his left foot was swollen. He said: “An aspirin usually did the trick. I have had the problem before - it was nothing serious - just something caused by my diabetes. “When I got to the hospital they put me on a bed and I heard the word amputate. I tried to protest, but before I knew it they had given me drugs to black me out, and when I woke up I was at the departure lounge. “My suitcases were by my side - and then I realised my leg was missing. I couldn’t move, and when I checked my wallet I found that £200 had been taken out and replaced with a receipt for the amputation.

GET DOWN AND DO YOUR PUSH UPS YOU MAGGOT!!!!

"Tonight eat only half the dessert. And then go out and walk around the block. And if you are going to watch television get down and do 10 push-ups and five sit-ups."
- TOMMY THOMPSON, secretary of Health and Human Services, on new diet
guidelines.


Tommy doesn't look like he misses too many desserts!

How forward looking they are in Wisconsin

In 1972, my first job out of college, paid $6 an hour. I could have gone to work at a newspaper for $5 an hour, but I went to the higher paying job in surveying. It is nice that 32 years later, the great state of wisconsin thinks $6 an hour might be a fair minimum wage. GET A LIFE!

Madison - The Assembly's leader said Friday that he would be willing to raise the statewide minimum wage to $6 per hour - a sign that Republican lawmakers are increasingly nervous about the possibility of Milwaukee becoming the second city to set its own wage.
The Push for a Wage Increase
"I don't believe we should have all these communities doing all these different things," Assembly Speaker John Gard (R-Peshtigo) said, explaining why he could support a compromise that would lift the minimum wage from the current $5.15 per hour.
Gard offered no details of how or over what period the current wage should be boosted.
But Democratic Gov Jim. Doyle immediately said a $6-per-hour minimum wage would be too low. He would not agree to a scale of less than $6.50 an hour, saying that figure had been recommended by a bipartisan group of business and labor leaders.
The exchange came the day after Milwaukee leaders followed Madison's lead, and said they were looking into raising the minimum wage in Wisconsin's largest city. Madison increased its minimum wage to $5.50 on Jan. 1, and it is scheduled to rise to $7.75 per hour in January 2008.
Madison is being sued by business groups over the city's wage increase.
Last year, a committee Doyle appointed recommended a two-step increase to $6.50 an hour - a process the Legislature should seriously consider, another Republican leader, Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), said Friday.
A co-chairman of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee, Fitzgerald said he had talked to Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) about a possible increase in the minimum wage, but Fitzgerald did not offer his own plan.
Wisconsin's minimum wage "should be closer" to the recommended two-stage boost of $6.50, Fitzgerald said. Republicans in the Legislature this week delayed until the end of 2006 a state agency's rule that would have implemented that boost, however.
Doyle has said he wants the state to have a uniform minimum wage, but he understands why frustrated municipalities might take action on their own.
"Like I've always said, I'm in favor of a statewide minimum wage, and we would make sure then that it's uniform across the state," Doyle said Friday.
"We have a process in Wisconsin that was established decades ago that. . . is intended to keep legislators from playing these kinds of political games."
State Sen. Bob Jauch (D-Poplar) offered his own compromise Friday. It would raise the minimum wage to $6.50 per hour and forbid any city from enacting any higher wage.
Also Friday, Gard said the Legislature should act quickly next week to refinance long-term state debt to save $11 million. But he said that $7.5 million of that should go to pay for a 2005 state income tax credit for Health Savings Accounts, or HSAs.
HSAs offer federal - but not state - tax deductions for setting aside money to pay future health-care bills. Gard said the state tax code should mirror the federal rules.
Gard said the Assembly could pass the debt-refinancing, which the governor wants, and add the HSA tax breaks as early as Tuesday.
But Doyle said: "Not much chance I'm going to agree to that. Here's $11 million of taxpayers' money. Let's not spend it before we even have the money."
Lawmakers bent on spending the $11 million should "restrain themselves," Doyle said. "It's simply a matter of making this (refinancing) so that we can save taxpayers the money and resist the temptation to go out and spend it as quickly as they can."
Senate leader Schultz said Friday that the $11 million should be set aside as a down payment on a deficit of more than $220 million in state health-care costs.

Be careful with those thermometers

DETROIT (AP) -- The sign on the toilet brush says it best: "Do not use for personal hygiene."
That admonition was the winner of an anti-lawsuit group's contest for the wackiest consumer warning label of the year.
The sponsor, Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, says the goal is "to reveal how lawsuits, and concern about lawsuits, have created a need for common sense warnings on products."
The $500 first prize went to Ed Gyetvai, of Oldcastle, Ontario, who submitted the toilet-brush label. A $250 second prize went to Matt Johnson, of Naperville, Ill., for a label on a children's scooter that said, "This product moves when used."

A $100 third prize went to Ann Marie Taylor, of Camden, S.C., who submitted a warning from a digital thermometer that said, "Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally."
This year's contest coincides with a drive by President Bush and congressional Republicans to put caps and other limits on jury awards in liability cases.
"Warning labels are a sign of our lawsuit-plagued times," said group President Robert Dorigo Jones. "From the moment we raise our head in the morning off pillows that bear those famous Do Not Remove warnings, to when we drop back in bed at night, we are overwhelmed with warnings."
The leader of a group that opposes the campaign to limit lawsuits admits that while some warning labels may seem stupid, even dumb warnings can do good.
"There are many cases of warning labels saving lives," said Joanne Doroshow, executive director of the Center for Justice and Democracy in New York. "It's much better to be very cautious ... than to be afraid of being made fun of by a tort reform group."

Dixie is a nice unity song for the Republicans!

Band's version of one-time Presley tune hits sour note with someAssociated Press
MADISON, Wis. - As if the incoming Legislature didn't have enough problems, a high school band's rendition of a tune that was an Elvis Presley hit decades ago drew a complaint from a newly elected member of the Senate.
The Richland Center High School band played "An American Trilogy" at the Senate's inaugural ceremony at the Capitol Monday - the first day of a session expected to be dominated by battles over budget-cutting, a tax-freeze amendment and a myriad of other issues.
Sen. Spencer Coggs, who is black, said he was shocked, as were his family and other guests, to hear the strains of the Southern anthem "Dixie" played in the Senate chamber as part of the trilogy, along with "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "All My Trials."
Coggs, a Democrat from Milwaukee, complained in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center.
"Whether the slight was intentional or not, the selection was not appropriate," he wrote, noting that "Dixie" is often associated with slavery.
"While now it should be unnecessary to suggest, in the future a list of songs should be submitted prior to a performance and the list should be reviewed for its appropriateness," he said. "It is unfortunate that this special day was marred by such an unnecessary event."
Schultz had invited the band and choir to play at the ceremony.
He said the complaint caught him by surprise.
"A simple apology is what's needed," Schultz said, "and I will certainly be happy to do that."
He said he wasn't aware of every musical selection the band prepared for the event, and the piece has some historical significance.
"But I want everyone to feel included. If Sen. Coggs felt offended, I would want to extend my hand in apology."