Citizen Energy

In New England we are blessed to have a Santa on an oil fuel truck named Joe Kennedy. Yes, he is from the world famous Kennedy clan. When it comes to rock stars of charitable work then Joe Kennedy is the Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.

Some people have a problem with Joe Kennedy’s public charity that delivers home heating oil to many people in the New England area at huge discounts. For the life of me I can not comprehend why they have an issue with Joe Kennedy but some people just do not understand what real human kindness is. I’m thinking, Joe worked in our government, saw how polarizing it was to get anything done and just made up his own mind to just make it happen on his own.

What is the non issue of the work that this great man does is Hugo Chavez. Citgo Corporation and the government of Venezuela donates the home heating oil to Citizen Energy at undisclosed prices if not for free. I’m big on the devil in the details but if the end result is my seventy eight year old neighbor having heat then I more or less chuck the bird at the politics. Her furnace does not care or differentiate between oil at price gouging rates due to over market manipulation or something she can actually afford. The end result is a senior citizen that is warm while the temperatures dip below thirty degrees.

Joe Kennedy is a saint amongst the poor of New England for a reason, he cares. He isn’t running for any political office and frankly he never should. The work he does for the poor in my home state alone is to valuable to loose him.

That leads me to this thought, what are the Republican’s doing to help the poor in the northern parts of the United States? If you are coming up with the same results that I am you come back to just one result. Market forces are good for business and government should not interfere. Blah, blah, blah. What the interpretation of that is simply put. Screw the poor! Their personal portfolio of oil stocks has doubled in the last eight years. Making money is more important than caring for a neighbor or someone you never will meet. The very poor do not exactly associate in the same circles with people making even $50,000 plus per year.

With home heating oil at record prices this winter, in his own way, Joe Kennedy and Citizen Energy rescue a people much in need. They are not contributing dollars to any political campaign but Joe hears their voices anyway. Home heating for the poor amongst us will never be on the Republican Party radar.

One thing that the Republican’s forget is that many of the soldiers that have died in Iraq and in the Republican lead War on Terror have left family behind here in New England if not in the rest of the country. What happens to them after the burial of their husband? They seek public assistance! They have no choice. That ranks them with the worst people of the political opinion of the Republican Party. And yet being Republican is manipulated to be pro military. That works as long as your are not killed in action.

After the pictures are taken with all of the political so called leaders paying their respects, the family still grieving is left at the door of the forgotten. Supporting the troops ends right after the photo Op when it comes to any Republican politician. What happens to the kids and wife left behind is not of any concern to them if the speech went well. Do not look for the answers over at the Republican Party. They believe that you must make your own way and be damned if your life is up ended just because your husband and father of so many children was killed in service to our nation. You must help yourself and not be a burden on the taxpayers of our nation. Get a fringing job you blood sucking pieces of trash. Insert chuck the bird to the Mom with one or two babies as they are also kicked off of the military base as a widow.

I don’t care how Joe Kennedy puts the oil in the poor people of this regions oil tanks, heat and warmth is a Godsend when you don’t have it. Many widows not just from this war but many others that were designed by so called great minds in Washington have been left behind and Joe Kennedy is the only one offering a warm home this winter. Sponsored by Citgo and Hugo Chavez is more relief than any of the Republican millionaires running for President are offering the people left behind and in the cold.

Thank you Joe Kennedy, and thank you Citizen Energy for doing all that you do for the forgotten people of America in the cold. You renew the forgotten faith in human kindness with every oil tank you fill. God bless you Joe Kennedy.

Papamoka

Cross posted at Michael Linn Jones and Bring IT ON!

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My Friend Needs Your Help

Not everyone in America has a great job or the best lot in life and this time of year we need to reach out and touch a life. By no means am I affluent but my five daughters sleep in a home with heat and blankets that keep the chill off when the temperature dips. They never have to worry about wearing three sets of pajamas when going to bed or for that matter if I could get them to wear the pajamas in the first place. Little ones will be little ones.

As a blogger I have had the blessings to meet many creative writers and frankly artists when it comes to the written word. Not everyone can put a point of view into a coherent sentence and leave the reader thinking. My online friend Chell can do just that and it amazes me to no end. With that being said, she is in dire need. You can help her.

We all know the pains of trying to keep the house warm during the winter and folks in the northern part of our nation know that fact is very costly this time of year. For some folks a simple wood stove could heat their entire home and the kids would sleep like they should. That is what my friend is trying to do but in the mean time they are doing without conventional heat. I personally want to beg you to help this family. My voice on the net is not big but I have touched many of my readers with my work, Chell does the same thing with her readers.

This is a plea to offer assistance and help to just one family this winter. Like many of you I don’t have a ton of excess cash lying around but this family needs our help. I donated ten bucks. Can you spare five or even two bucks. Chell is good people, her heart and soul is gold when it comes to her writing works that she puts out there for all to read. No she is not of the conventional perspective but I never judge a good book by the cover. That is what her blog is all about.

Please donate what you can to help this family. Please visit Chell’s Roost and donate what you can. She has swallowed her pride asking for help and I can not see it in my heart not to try and help her and her family to get heat into their home.

Note to Chell: I’m not going to apologize Chell for putting this post up so shut the hell up. I only hope it helps.

Copy and paste in your web browser if you can not get the link...

http://chellsroost.com/2007/12/17/ten-steps-to-tepid/

Papamoka

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Poli Gazette

Wormtown Taxi

Michael Linn Jones

Im From Worcester

Screw You OPEC and Wall Street!

With the never ending rise in the price of oil comes the never ending desire of Americans to find a better way. Some months ago I wrote a piece on the strangle hold that OPEC has on not just America but the world. In it I mentioned that the last stage coach was probably the best built carriage in the world but the combustion engine eventually put it out of its misery.

American’s can be a funny group of people. We are not well liked around the world for many reasons and one of them is our arrogance or intolerance of anyone saying “It can not be done!” Screw you, or some other creative twist of the English language is usually replied in return. Not in the board rooms of our nations corporations but in the barns, the sheds, the garages of Americans that know that IT can be done!

If you look at all of the papers today, oil is and will break $100 per barrel simply because it can if the market wants to see that number. Joe Six-Pack American aka a mongrel dog of European, Asia, Africa, South America and North America descent is chucking the bird at Wall Street and finding a better and cheaper way to not only run his Chevy but your Ford and Buick as well. What is that old saying about being an American is like baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet? We need to add anti OPEC garage scientist to the list.

Over at the New York Times they have this great piece on yet many possible new fuels for your car or truck, a must read …

The Energy Challenge
Fuel Without the Fossil

DENVER — Mitch Mandich proudly showed off his baby, a 150-foot contraption of tanks, valves, hoppers, augers and fans. It hissed. It gurgled. An incongruous smell wafted through the air, the scent of turpentine.

Mr. Mandich’s machine devours pine chips from Georgia and turns them into an energy-rich gas, a step toward making liquid fuels. His company, Range Fuels, is near the front of the pack in a technology race that could have an impact on the way America powers its automotive fleet, and help ameliorate global warming.

“Somebody’s going to hit a home run here,” Mr. Mandich said. “We want to be first.”
For years, scientists have known that the building blocks in plant matter — not just corn kernels, but also corn stalks, wood chips, straw and even some household garbage — constituted an immense potential resource that could, in theory, help fill the gasoline tanks of America’s cars and trucks. - New York Times

Leave it up to American’s to screw up a really great deal by the world oil producers. They can finally afford to buy Canada and those nasty pesky American’s pull the rug out from under their futures investments. Sponge Bob and the Krusty Crab have never faced such a more evil plot from Plankton. Foiled again but this is just the beginning of the plot.

I’m not big on conspiracy theories. God only knows there are enough whack jobs out there to tell you any theory for any event that happened in the world. I think that I would have to be a total moron to think that the billions of dollars in quarterly profits from big oil companies will try their very best to squash the back yard and garage inventors trying to find a better fuel. Common sense drives my thoughts on this because billions of quarterly profits are at stake. In the news over the next decade or so will be the reports that one start up company after another with a new alternative fuel will be bought up by xyz oil or energy company. With that sale will be the burial of the technology.

Trillions of dollars are at risk if any of these back yard chemist and geniuses make a go of it. Times come and times go and with the beginning of the end of oil as the only source for energy will come a new wave of American ingenuity that comes from an angle that Wall Street and OPEC thought was a waste of time. Is the 200 MPG carburetor a myth or something that was squashed. I put myself in the shoes of the CEO of XYZ Big Oil Corporation and if my product is at risk from a new fuel then I would do everything in my power or ability to take it off the market. That would be common sense. Tens of billions of dollars in quarterly profits can and will make that possible. You can not spend ten billion dollars in profit at the local corner store so what are they doing with all that money? That is the question that nobody is talking about which worries me.

Associated Press
updated 5:53 p.m. ET, Fri., Nov. 9, 2007

WASHINGTON - When gasoline prices first hit $3 a gallon in 2005, irate lawmakers quickly assembled top oil executives for a public grilling.

Pump prices are again above $3, yet the outcry from Congress is barely a whimper by comparison — even after this week’s warning from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that oil near $100 a barrel is a serious economic threat.

The change in tone since Nov. 9, 2005 — when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., castigated oil executives for reaping multimillion-dollar bonuses while “working people struggle” — reflects an altered landscape in terms of energy economics and politics, analysts said. - MSNBC

One of the things that I love about America is that if you put a knife to her throat, thousands of creative minds will find a way to make your blade as dull as hot butter. Screw you OPEC and Wall Street! America has brainiacs that think past your bottom line. Fueling the Chevy is more important than raping your nation for a profit. The price of gas at the pump or the price for filling your heating oil tank is not supply and demand driven, it is greed and gluttony that is setting the price. Meanwhile, Washington is silent. I’m not surprised.

Papamoka

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This isn’t your Father’s Wood Stove

Picture courtesy of Whitfield

There is no better feeling in the world on a cold fall or winter night than having a fire going in the house. With the warmth of the flames also comes a sense of well being and a calming effect to the children in your family. Not to mention the romantic side of it with sitting with the one you love and just snuggling up together in a total sense of contentment with your life. With your home warm and toasty you find relaxation comes just that much easier to your spirit.

All the worries and cares fade away as the heat from the fire lets your body unwind from whatever hectic schedule your lives have. If you have one of the old fashioned fireplaces it’s nice to look at but most of the heat from the wood is going right back up the chimney. Then again, one of the old cast iron wood stoves that you might have may be reminiscent of the Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn days but the house smells of smoke no matter how well ventilated the stove is. If you own your own home and love the idea of having a warm fire to take the chill out of the house, then a wood pellet stove is something you should consider.

Wood pellet stoves are nothing like the old wood stove your father had. There is no lugging of cords of wood and waking up in the middle of the night when the temperature dips way below freezing to feed the fire. Wood pellet stoves run for hours without any other feeding of fuel other than tossing a forty pound bag in the hopper and it tends the fire for the night. You do not have to build an ugly cinder block chimney to vent the smoke and gasses from the fire because they can vent directly out through the wall of your home. Granted you have to follow your local fire code on the venting but in most cases you can vent it right out the wall.

Once upon a time we owned one and I loved it, the wife loved it and so did the kids. Nights like this where the temperature dropped down and the house had that uncanny pecking at your neck nip to it were soon warded away with the pinging sound of wood pellets dropping down into the basket that warmed the entire house.

Word to the wise before investing in a wood pellet stove for your home, make sure wood pellets are readily available from at the least three sources. In the past heating seasons many locations were not able to keep up with demand but still sold the stoves which I thought was hypocritical. I’m talking about Home Depot and Lowes whom both had truck loads of wood pellets on consignment or pre ordered. I tracked down a local farm supply store that had wood pellets listed under horse bedding? I do love my Google Search engine!

Wood pellet stoves are a renewable energy resource and in that sense I back them one hundred percent. When I first had my wood pellet stove the cost to heat my home in New England was less than half as much cheaper. That may not be the case anymore so you should research the cost of pellets for five or six tons per heating season versus your current heating source. I used five or six tons of pellets to heat an 1800 square foot home because my family and I enjoyed the fire going in the living room in late September all the way into April. Your use may differ.

Papamoka

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