Cognitive dissonance. No one thinks they are the bad guy in their own story. By extension, no one wants to think of their ancestors as bad guys. Couple this with the whitewashing of American history that came out of Reconstruction and the Lost Cause, and you have a ton of Southern white people actually believing that…

If the Civil War comes up in elementary school, the cause is stated as “it was slavery”. When it comes up in high school, there’s more wiggling. “Slavery was a big* part of it, but there were social and economic factors to consider.” After high school, when you look at the source documents, the voting record of…

Hell is nothing but television, but not the awesome stuff on right now. It’s all just reruns of “Matt Houston” and slap chop commercials.

Maybe I’m missing something, and of course a reasonable person wouldn’t have expected that to be a triple, but where was the left outfielder? Why wasn’t he watching and moving in to back up 3rd base? Sure, that would mean having to actually, you know, do some running, but you’d think an outfielder would relish the…

There’s a one hour documentary on Camp X on Netflix (or was, it was supposed to be pulled in early June, but it’s still in my list, maybe because I watched it recently). It smacks of the History Channel treatment, but was interesting nonetheless.

Britain and Canada built a covert op school in Whitby, Ontario, not far from the town line with Oshawa, and about 30 miles east of Toronto. It was collaquially known as Camp X. Fleming was there, as were a large number of British SOE operatives and American OSS agents. It was ideally situated on the rail line between…

To quote Billy Connelly, “More to be pitied than scolded, I assure you.”

It’s a textbook example of a cult of personality.

What is it about French colonials and crappy pavement? The worst roads I’ve ever driven are down here in Louisiana. It’s sad when even Mississippi’s roads (except, for some reason, around McComb) are better than your state’s. You don’t need a sign to point to the exact Texas-Louisiana border.

Canadian English spelling is an odd mix of American and British spelling. Canadians spell these words colour, centre, favour, but also spell these words magazine, tire (British tyre), aluminum (my Dad installed aluminum in the Oshawa area for years, but as a Scot he had to break himself of aluminium). There are some…

If he gets picked up, it’s not entirely out of the question that it will be the age at which he retires...

Yesterday I said that I probably wouldn’t watch this year’s Azerbaijan race considering how bad last year’s was. I did end up watching it, and if the race were actually a person, I’d be sending it a handwritten apology. Hell of a race.

I’m a big F1 fan. I watch every race every season except when I can’t due to illness or travel. I’m not planning to watch the Azerbaijan race tomorrow. Not before I find out whether or not it’s as big of a snoozefest as last year. I’ve seen my share of dull races. Last year’s was the dullest I can recall. Even the US…

But winless...

You have to drill down into the Wikipedia source information to see where they came up with that number of states. They got it from a site that indicates there are 19 states with “variable fuel taxes”. Some of those are flat up sales taxes on fuel. Others are “variable” in that the per gallon tax rate changes yearly…

I didn’t say those were the only states with fuel taxes. I said those were the only ones with sales taxes, where the dollar value of the fuel is taxed.

You made me look. The only states with sales tax on gas are California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and New York. I should have known about Georgia. I forgot Michigan, but it’s been 10 years since I had to look at their tax structure.

Not in the majority of states. The federal gasoline and diesel excise tax is a fixed rate per gallon: .183 for gas and .243 for diesel, as well as a .001 liquid underground storage tank fee added to both.

Okay, here’s the scoop on midgrade.

Not if you’re talking profit margins. Midgrade carries the highest profit margins.