Who ever thought this up understands Web Marketing. It is quite funny. Its the intro page for the new Phillips/Nerelco Body Shaver. http://www.shaveeverywhere.com/

Warning: Some may find this offensive.

This is the type of gorilla marketing that has become the darling of the internet. It is something very funny that is easily forwarded via the web, email and blogs. This is viral marketing at its best.

Today's What the Hell Letter Comes directly From the Utah County Daily Fantasy aka Daily Herald

BYU cheerleaders dress 'immodestly' for safety

I have been on the BYU cheer squad for four years and for years I have heard people whining about how "the female cheerleaders' skirts are too short."

The vast majority of BYU teams compete in "immodest dress." If the football team didn't wear their skin-tight pants then they could trip, or someone on the opposing team could use the slack to bring them down.

Every one of these tasks requires them to wear the uniform they wear or else they could slip and fall. Even in this our cheerleaders wear the most modest uniforms around. Nowadays, some cheer squads wear a sports bra and biker shorts in their team colors and call it good.

All I ask is for people to research things before they complain, or at the very least just give it a rest for a while.

Michael Russell,

West Valley City

Making A Mockery is truly Speechless after reading this letter to the Daily Herald
So let me get this straight being half naked at sporting events is about safety? I bet those professional sports cheerleaders are safety pioneers.

This letter may be in response to Oregon State Removing It's Cheerleading Program... and replacing it with a cheerleading program that caters to those who don't look good in mini skirts, bare midriff attire. Read More Including some Funny Facts about the change..

1. Wanted to Try Café Rio’s Steak Salad
2. Always been a fan of the Sundance Kid
3. Wanted to learn more from Orin Hatch about taking campaign funds from big businesses that prey upon the poor, the weak and the uneducated with emphasis of how not to represent his constituency.
4. It’s been too damn hot in Mexico
5. Can’t find any good gardeners in Mexico to mow the Presidential Palace Lawn
6. He finally is a Diamond member of NuSkin.
7. Thinks Rocky Anderson is one sexy bitch.
8. He is out of caffeine free Barq’s Rootbeer
9. Wants to learn more about Utah’s New Lexus Only HOV Lane
10. Knows where Warren Jeff’s is and is trying to get the reward cash.

In the city of Provo Utah, it is against the law to sell Shave-Ice before June 1st even though the last week it has been 90+ degrees. Who comes up with this stuff? Link

In August of 1998 I experienced my first job lay off. I was suddenly unemployed. At the same time of this kick to the chester cheetos, I was moving from one apartment to another. I desperately needed to disconnect my phone and start my new service at my new digs. Unfortunately for me, US West, or as I liked to call them US Worst (now part of Qwest) employees were on strike and I was informed it would be 6 months before I could be connected. This was unacceptable because I needed a phone to get a new job. I told them where to put their strike and started my mobile service I still use today.

I told you this boring experience to share my hatred for US Worst/Qwest. They have horrible customer service. Their poor service has been legendary in Utah. Recently it was disclosed by USA Today that NSA has been getting phone call records from US phone companies. These companies have been blasted by the media for their cooperation with the NSA.

My opinion who cares…
After all every major corporation has detailed files on my habits. I get bombarded with marketing and ad crap every waking moment of the day. I bought a house last year and within days of signing the papers I was inundated with offers for loans, home equity, as well as landscape services. If I fart I get an ad taped to my door for GASX placed their by an army of out of state flyer passer outers.(I have encountered quite a few African American sales people from CA and NY placing crap on my door) It’s too weird. My point is even my grocery store tracks me like the KGB. I buy one stupid Milk CHUG and suddenly I am getting ads on donuts. My point is the NSA is not stealing any data that isn’t already available publicly for a price. There are data warehousing companies that track your every move. How do you think www.zillow.com works?

Qwest is being praised for not joining the NSA in data collection. The sheep seem to believe that Qwest was looking out for its customers but it appears that Qwest was trying to negotiate a better price. Source Rocky Mountain News. Maybe I just have a deep hatred for their poor service.

Just as a little refresher… Qwest is and has been a part of one of America’s biggest corporate scandals rivaling Enron and WorldCom. So it appears that the CEO of Qwest Joe Nacchio' is using this flap with the NSA to save his butt in his defense against 42 criminal counts of insider trading and a slew of civil fraud lawsuits. What a genius idea? I committed fraud and insider trading because of my commitment to the protection of data from the government. Seems fishy…

“Long before the phone record story this week, Nacchio had been floating a possible "national security" defense against charges that he illegally sold $100 million of Qwest stock in the first five months of 2001 while knowing the telco was faltering.

The defense goes something like this: Nacchio was optimistic about Qwest's financial condition because his secret work on a top presidential advisory panel led him to believe the Denver telco was in line to land some major federal contracts.

The panel was President Bush's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, or NSTAC.”

We have all witnessed the recent melt down of local Utah business celebrity Dell Schanze. Who could have missed it? It has been Utah’s trial of the century ok maybe trial of the week. Dell has blamed the media for the collapse of his business. It seems obvious, right? Maybe the media did contribute but your silly antics/ploys/rants on TV didn’t help. With juicy quotes like “I transgressed the laws of men just as Jesus transgressed the laws of men but they were only the laws of men.” It is extremely hard not to just blatantly make fun of poor Dell but I will resist the childish urges. Just as a reminder Dell you pleaded guilty to speeding supposedly 50 in a 25 and you were just convicted by a jury of your peers of falsifying a police report so maybe it wasn’t just the media. Maybe a PR company could have helped you redo your media image, or maybe not? Who knows, it just seems like another rise and fall in the cycle of pride, a slice of humble pie from God, or maybe just Karma. Dell has continuously rebuked the media for being, “sons and daughters of Satan” and has continued to entertain us with quotes like: "Pray for a state that would issue you a concealed carry permit, but then arrest you the first time you use it to defend youself”, "Pray for justice to be done... the truth is on my side." or “It's too bad that all of the media in Utah are liars and murderers” or “You're basically angels of Satan. All I can say to the people in Utah is, please pray for all the news people.”

What struck me today as amusing is that another famous business leader is using the same excuse as Super Dell. Kenneth Lay of Enron fame recently testified that the energy giant was financially sound until just weeks before it collapsed.

“At times abandoning his legendary folksy manner for a sharper tone, Lay told jurors there had been "a real conspiracy" against Enron. He asserted that one newspaper in particular, The Wall Street Journal, "was on a witch hunt" aimed at the company and its onetime chief financial officer, Andrew S. Fastow. While also blaming Fastow, who has pled guilty to fraud and testified for the government, Lay zeroed in on articles the newspaper published in the fall of 2001 that he said "kicked off a run on the bank" that doomed the company.” Msn.com

What was more telling was this section… Basically calling the defense of blaming of the media for the downfall of a company genius.

“Lay didn't point out any errors in the Journal's coverage. But white-collar crime aficionados with no stake in the proceedings acknowledge the ingenuity of blaming the media in an era when journalists are widely seen in a negative light. "It's absolutely a novel defense," says Robert A. Mintz, a former federal prosecutor now with the firm of McCarter & English in Newark, N.J. But not unique. Making his case in the court of public opinion in the late 1980s, junk-bond financier Michael Milken claimed the Wall Street Establishment and media helped speed his downfall. He pled guilty to securities fraud and spent 22 months in prison.” Msn.com

This leaves me wondering who came up with this crazy idea? Super Dell? Or Kenneth Lay? Maybe Super Dell was a genius who has invented a new business excuse named the Dell Defense.

The good mayor of Salt Lake City found it in heart to waste $20,000 in taxpayer funds to have his portrait done. Many of Salt Lake’s mayors have commissioned paintings in their final year. Former Mayor Deedee Corradini plunked down $15,000. I guess this is a way to justify that $4.6 million dollar property-tax hike that everyone is oh so pleased with. Read All About It.

I just hope it is a portrait of Rocky with his look of just home from his trip to the Taliban Summer Training Camp. Thanks for wasting the money….

I don't. HA HA HA HA!!!! They totally hide the truth.

I recently hit a new high mark for anger when I filled up my jeep with gas and the pump read $50 for 15 gallons of gas. Are you serious? $50 for one tank? Can’t anything be done? Nothing if we listen to big oil and their paid staff of Congress. That all sounds good but Brazil is now free from the bonds of Big Oil Profits and have provided a blueprint map how the US of A could become self-sufficient. Unfortunately Big Oil Profits are trying to keep ethanol in the closet.

According to American Petroleum Institute: API.org
“Ten of the 12 largest oil companies in the world are controlled by foreign governments, and only one of the two investor-owned companies in that top 12 – ExxonMobil – is American. Based on potential oil and gas reserves – resources essential for future operations – only one of the 16 largest oil companies in the world is American. Most of the others are national oil companies owned by foreign governments. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s reserves are owned by these national oil companies and a mere 6 percent are owned by investor-owned companies.”

Translation: Exxon Mobile is a Monopoly in America.

The Ethanol Solution by Dan Rather 60 Minutes

"You might have noticed at your local gas station that ethanol is already in the fuel. In some places, it's 10 percent ethanol. Oil companies add some ethanol to gas because it boosts octane. But using ethanol as an additive won’t replace much foreign oil, unless Americans switch to what’s called "E85" — 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gas."

Yes it is true that not all cars are equiped to use E85 but 5 million are designed to run as dual fuel meaning they will run on anything from pure gasoline to E85 and are designed to auto detect. Many more are easily converted for several hundred dollars.

"And ethanol isn’t new to the auto business: the first Model T's ran on it."

"'I think what we like about ethanol, in this case is that there are things that we can really do right now. It doesn't require massive technology breakthroughs, and it does legitimately reduce the amount of oil the country has to import,' says Rick Wagoner President of General Motors and who was head of GM in Brazil during the transition. "

What about the Ability to produce E85

Ethanol is produced by corn or it can be produced by celios or plant fiber so any agriculture waste, prairie grass or wood chips can produce it.

"From New Jersey to California, about 300 ethanol plants are in operation, or on the drawing boards. By 2012, the government expects processors to make 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol a year. That’s only drop in the American oil bucket, since the country uses 140 billion gallons of gasoline a year. "

"But Professor Kammen at Berkeley says it's a good first step. "Ethanol provides a wonderful short-term option because we can use corn today to make it, and have significant savings in terms of off-setting gasoline, and modest savings on a greenhouse gas level," he says. "The big plus is it’s available today, so we could make this transition starting tomorrow, if we wanted."

"Oil industry executives, taking heat from Congress over their multi-billion-dollar record profits, favor a different approach. They want to spend billions find to new sources of oil, which is more expensive to produce, instead of switching over to E85."

"Red Cavaney, the head of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s trade association, says it’s not the oil and gas companies who are going to make the investment in order to sell E85."

"He estimates it will cost up to $200,000 to bring E-85 to each station — and the people who own the stations, he says, would have to foot the bill."

"But, while oil companies own only a fraction of the nation's gas stations, they have a huge influence over what's sold at most of them — and for how much."

Check this Crap Out

"It's my understanding that the petroleum industry in general says "ethanol — fine," but not in favor or E85. Is that true?" Rather asked.

"No, that's not correct," Cavaney replied. "The six largest refiners said that they support the E85 in their facilities as long as the mixture arrives and meets the government specifications for that. But we must understand that the market is exceptionally limited."

Nice marketing touch...

"Why shouldn't I think, well, this is just a way for the oil companies to slow or snuff out the growth of ethanol, and other alternatives?" Rather asked.

"We think we've shown that we're strong supporters for ethanol where it's appropriate," Cavaney answered.

“But what the oil industry considers "appropriate" is limiting ethanol to an additive and not moving quickly to something like E-85. “

I like this limit the alternative. We demand a free market economy but if the free market will remove huge record profits we don't want it.

"What we don’t wanna do is over-promise to the American public what can be done with these alternative fuels, and then under-deliver," says Cavaney. This is why you should tell the truth. I am pretty sure that America would vote for a change from outrageous oil to ethanol.

API wrote all of Congress a little letter blaming ethanol for a spike in price. But maybe that isn’t the truth… because Oil companies are not being forced to abandon MTBE – they are doing so by choice.

“MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) is a gasoline additive produced by the oil industry to increase octane and help fuel burn more cleanly. Because MTBE makers were not granted the liability protection they wanted in the energy bill (Energy Policy Act of 2005), they are abandoning MTBE sooner rather than later.” From Ethanol.org What the… big oil is already making the switch?

“But some states, like California, are already moving to deliver E-85 to more gas stations by helping pay the cost of adding the E-85 pumps. Professor Kammen from Berkeley says the process would be a lot less expensive than the oil industry’s estimate of $200,000 per station, and wouldn’t take that long.”

"The transition is pretty easy. It looks like its $30,000 to $40,000 per gas station to change over and have ethanol-dedicated pumps," he says.

"Are we talking three years? Five years? 20 years?" Rather asked.

"I think it's less than that, actually." Kammen replied. "I would bet that we will have enough ethanol stations within two to three years' time, at most. The reason is that the transition is so easy. That doing the retrofit to have ethanol pumps available can be done in a matter of weeks."
Move Over, Gasoline: Here Come Biofuels by the National Resource Defense Fund. Ok they are usually commie bastards but maybe they are right on this issue.

Clean-burning biofuels, made from plant materials, will power the cars of the future.

“Biofuels can slash global warming pollution. By 2050, biofuels -- especially those known as cellulosic biofuels -- could reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 1.7 billion tons per year. That's equal to more than 80 percent of current transportation-related emissions.

Biofuels can be cost competitive with gasoline and diesel. By 2015, we could produce biofuels at costs equal to between $0.59 and $0.91 per gallon of gasoline, and $0.86 per gallon of diesel. These prices are competitive with average wholesale prices over the last four years -- $0.91 per gallon for gasoline and $0.85 per gallon for diesel.

Biofuels will provide a major new source of revenue for farmers. At $40 per dry ton, farmers growing 200 million tons of biomass in 2025 would make a profit of $5.1 billion per year. And that's just the beginning. Experts believe that farmers could produce six times that amount by 2050.

Biofuels can provide major air quality benefits. Biofuels contain no sulfur and produce low carbon monoxide, particulate and toxic emissions. Using biofuels should make it easier to reach air pollution reduction targets than using petroleum-based fuels.

Biofuels offer major land-use benefits. Switchgrass, a promising source of cellulosic biofuel, is a native, perennial prairie grass that has low nitrogen runoff, very low erosion, and increased soil carbon, and also provides good wildlife habitat.”

New Gasoline Study Shows Profits, Not Crude Oil Prices Or Ethanol, Are Driving Pump Price Spike by The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights

Some Highlights
Increases in the "spot" market price of crude oil -- which is the highest price a major oil company would pay for crude oil -- accounted for only 12 cents per gallon. California's percentage sales tax increased fuel prices by another four cents per gallon. More than 40 cents of the 60-cent increase in gasoline prices over 3 1/2 months is attributable to increased refinery and marketing profit margins for the oil companies;

Neither the MTBE phase-out nor the substitution of ethanol is a serious part of the increase. If the MTBE phase-out or ethanol blending specifically increased costs for oil companies in California, other states in the West using conventional unblended gasoline should be much less affected. Yet Washington State, which uses only conventional gasoline and has similar refinery capacity and crude oil sources, mirrored California's increase;

The profit increase of 42 cents, on top of record profits last year, means California gasoline will cost consumers approximately $546 million more in April 2006 than in April of last year.

"While oil companies continue to blame crude oil prices and ethanol additives for the recent gasoline price spikes in California, the chief cause is increased profiteering by oil companies that have previously posted world record profits," said Hamilton.

"Oil companies are opportunistically using the rising world price for crude oil as an excuse to excessively raise gasoline prices and pump up their profits, even though the spot market price for crude has gone up far more slowly than gasoline prices," said FTCR President Jamie Court. "In addition, the spot price is higher than most oil companies pay, since they either harvest their own crude or pay more stable and often much lower contract prices."

Here is an interesting quote from Dateline NBC

Stone Phillips speaking with Ethanol Evangelist Vinod Khosla the founder of Sun Microsystems.

"He may be man of vision but Khosla’s under no illusions about the resistance ethanol faces back home from big oil.

Some oil companies have complained that putting ethanol at their stations would require costly and complicated changes to their trucks, tanks and pumps.

Phillips: How much of a burden will that put on oil companies to start distributing ethanol? To dedicate a pump to ethanol? I mean what about trucks? What about their holding tanks?

Khosla: In most cases, the same holding tanks can be used. The same trucks can be used to transport the ethanol. There are logistics problems to be solved, to be sure, but it’s not a difficult transition. I’ve looked at all the issues they raise. In fact, most of them are bogus.

As for the expense, Khosla estimates it would cost about $15 to 20 million to offer ethanol pumps at a thousand gas stations in California.

Khosla: $15 to 20 million dollars. Exxon alone made 36 billion dollars last year.

But Khosla, who’s invested millions of his own money in companies working on ethanol technology, says government must play a role as well, by requiring that gas stations everywhere offer ethanol, that all new cars be flex-fuel, and that oil companies play fair.

Khosla: We need to make sure that the major oil companies don’t manipulate the price of oil enough to drive ethanol out of business.

Phillips: Do you believe oil companies would deliberately drop the price of oil?

Khosla: Absolutely. A senior executive of a major oil company came up to me and said, “Be careful.” In a very warning tone he said, “Be careful, we can drop the price of gasoline.”

The battle to bring ethanol to your neighborhood pump is just beginning, but Vinod Khosla is confident that time and technology are on his side.

Phillips: What do you say to skeptics, who say, you’re a money maker, you’re an investor and what you’re trying to do here is to drum up support and governmental help to make sure your investment pays off?

Khosla: Well, I am in the business of investing. But in fact, this has become a mission for me: to get the message out of how simple it is to get independent of petroleum. In fact, my mission now is to put the fossil in fossil fuels. "

Is Ethanol the panacea of all are problems? Maybe but it sure looks promisign and it definitely could spell relief for consumers who have had enough of record breaking profits and $3.00+ a gallon price at the pump. Competition drives innovation and the lowering of costs. These are basic free market principles at work some how everyone but the angry public has forgotten this principle

I am not a conspircy fanatic but it seems that the oil industry has found a way to manipulate prices by restricting the production of gas. Big oil has driven up prices through speculation on the free market and also have limited production on the refining side to boost profits. If this isn't price fixing I am not sure what it is.

So what about a nice windfall tax that we could reinvest into the Ethanol industry?

Today is immigration protest day, or Uno De Mayo or what ever… I have noticed a few things.

I called in to work to say I was boycotting work and my boss told me to “get my @$$ into work”. Ok just kidding but I am positive that is what he would say. I guess the bill collector is no respecter of my rights to call in for a protest day off either when I asked not to pay any bills today. The white man just keeps the Scandinavian American down again and again, I just can’t win. Where is the Justice?

Another observation is that I had no road rage today. Traffic flowed great. Not one incident where a Latino construction crew in their 1985 Chevy Pickup, that burns so much oil that you think it might be a two stroke, pulled out in front of me.

My egg McMuffin order at McDonalds went smoothly. The drive through order taker even spoke nearly perfect English although she was Latino. I guess even the most dedicated human rights protestors have bills to pay. I even understood her reply. They however still messed up my order. I guess some things just don’t change.

I guess all this protesting leaves me asking a few questions. Why would you miss a day of free schooling in protest of immigration rights? Does this protest day also mean no freebies at the Emergency Room? No social welfare checks, No Star-Spangled Banner in Espanol? Does this protest include no sneaking over the border into America today?

And one other thing… Gas prices went up. It turns out that Latinos not doing anything today has raised fear in the oil trading oligopolies and the price of oil and gas production rose again.

I sure hope I can get a carne asada burrito today at the local mexican food place.