Not bad.

I tried, “Barack Obama is beating John McCain by 6 percentage points in the latest Franklin & Marshall College Keystone Poll.” Jott transcribed it thusly: “Barack Obama is beating John McCain by 6 percentage points in the latest Franklin and Marshall College Keystone Poll.”

Very cool.

Allow me to pause here, though, to get something off my chest, to tell you what really chapped my hide. I just can’t seem to get past it. No, it’s not the $3.99 for a gallon of gas we paid up and down Interstate 95. That’s pretty bad. We’re getting hosed, for sure. We’ll have to take out a second mortgage to pay off the roughly $225 we charged at the pump. But I figure if you’re dumb enough to drive a gas hog — and I think I’ve already told you what a fool I was/am — then you probably don’t have the right to complain too much. So I won’t. At least not about that.

Here’s what I think really stinks: I’m on I-95, somewhere near East Armpit, N.C., a gallon away from an empty tank and two hours to go to Pedro and South of the Border (I just love the billboards every mile or two, particularly the one with the big kielbasa over the phrases, “You never sausage a place! You’re always a wiener at Pedro’s!” How funny is that?) and our exit ramp to Vacation Land, and I see one of those roadside signs telling me there’s a gas station in the next town. I pull off the highway and into a dusty little crossroad — to call it a town would be to grossly overstate this particular hole in the ground — where there in fact does sit a beaten down shack with a couple of gas pumps rusting away out front. The sign says $3.99 a gallon for regular unleaded. OK, I’m thinking. I can deal with that.

Now this gas pump, it had been stripped of all of its stickers. Its paint — a weird shade of mustard — was flaking away. The markings you’d find on a normal gas pump didn’t exist. But the gas was a major brand, one you’d all recognize, so we’re still OK, right? I slid my credit card into the reader, punched the regular unleaded button and began filling up the tank when I noticed the price listed in that little digital window: $4.09.

$4.09?

So I stop pumping. I stare. I wonder if seven hours of nonstop driving has made me a little funny in the head. I check again. Yep. $4.09. I walk into the store. It’s empty, barely lit, and three shady looking kids are sitting in a circle behind the counter smoking cigarettes. “Hey. What’s the price of gas here?” I point up to the sign. The clerk, a 20-something with bad teeth and a dirty cutoff T-shirt, giggles and says, “$3.99 … if you’re paying cash. It’s more if you’re using a credit card.” She points to the sign, and sure enough, now I notice the small word “cash” stamped next to the $3.99. But nowhere does that sign or pump say there’s an extra charge for using a credit card. So I storm out and get in the Jeep and take off, spitting mad and vowing to fire off a nasty letter to the head of this particular chain.

I didn’t write it because it’s pointless, obviously. Why waste the effort? I’m just one in a long line of suckers who have been taken, right? Right. I mean, today I find that this kind of thing is going on everywhere (if you don’t believe me, see here, here and here). It’s called dual pricing, and the worst part is gas stations in most states don’t have to advertise the “credit price” prominently. They can just slip it onto one of their pumps, in 6-point type, and that’s good enough, apparently. Surprise!

Bottom line: Pay attention at the pump. It’s bad enough you have to pay $4 cash per gallon. You don’t want to get hosed twice.

From Bloomberg:

General Motors Corp., struggling to return to profit amid record gasoline prices, said it will close four truck plants, make more small cars, and may drop its Hummer brand of large sport-utility vehicles. Gasoline exceeding $4 a gallon represents “a structural change, not just a cyclical change,” Rick Wagoner, chief executive officer of the largest U.S. automaker, told reporters today before its annual shareholders’ meeting in Wilmington, Delaware.

… Americans return to that much-maligned meat food product, Spam.

What’s your favorite Spam recipe? How about a Spam Reuben? (8-oz can sauerkraut; 8 slices rye bread; 1 cup grated swiss cheese; 3 tbsp butter, softened; 1/4 cup Russian dressing; 12-oz can SPAM, cut into 8 slice.)

The Cradle of Liberty Council currently pays $1 annually for its space now, but the city has given it until Saturday to open membership to gays or start being charged fair-market rent — $200,000. The Scouts have sued the city in federal court.

“The choice given the scouts was an impossible one: accept a local policy they cannot abide by, or pay an escalated rent they cannot afford,” Armstrong wrote. “This unfortunate and unnecessary confrontation has already had repercussions, cutting into contributions, which in turn leads to cuts in staffing and programming and puts the participation rate at risk. This is a clear case of a political agenda being put ahead of the interests of tens of thousands of inner-city kids.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the Boy Scouts, as a private group, have a First Amendment right to bar gays. But the policy has had consequences, with municipalities, charities and donors withholding support.

“Philadelphia’s advocates are often mystified why Pennsylvania taxpayers are reluctant to pump additional money into the city,” Armstrong continued. “One of the reasons is that people in other parts of the state are frequently appalled by the actions they see, where the hopeful words said do not match the counterproductive actions taken by city government.”

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&layer=c&msa=0&ll=39.959524,-75.175452&spn=0.016776,0.034676&t=p&z=15&msid=114583682617760697320.00044e48c4c9091d3fad1

Armstrong, who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, went on to write: “The timing is sadly ironic in another way: The city is giving the back of its hand to the Boy Scouts at the same time it is reaching out the other hand for tens of millions of dollars more from state taxpayers. What lesson is being taught? Any organization, no matter how long its tradition, no matter how strong its record of commitment, no matter how many youths it serves, may fall victim to an outburst of political correctness. Philadelphia, which has run a lot of expensive tourism ads in recent months, once again comes across as a city where common sense is too often on vacation.”

Arjun N. Murti, a so-called “oracle of oil,” on the looming super spike – and why it’s not such a bad thing: “One of the biggest challenges our country faces is our addiction to oil,” he says, and high prices “send a message to consumers that you should try your best to buy fuel-efficient cars or otherwise conserve on energy.” (Also see Thomas L. Friedman, “Dumb as We Wanna Be,” 4/30/08)

And now, thanks a lot, I can’t get this song from Veggie Tales out of my head.

Larry- I like your car.
Girl- I like Yours too.
Larry- Is It a Jeep?
Girl- A Subaru.
Larry- I like your tires.
Girl- You’ve got nice chrome.
Larry- A trailer hitch ?
Girl- Left Mine at home
Larry- Oh your suspension it suspends me over heights I’ve never known.
Girl- And your roll bar is to die for. By the way, I like your chrome.
Larry-You already said that.
Girl- Did I ?
Larry-Yeah.
Girl- Oh.
Both: Oh you and me in our Sport Utility Vehicles, cruisin’ to 7-11 for a bag of Frito-Lays! Oh you and me in our Sport Utility Vehicles, we’ll slam into 4 wheel and pick up a dozen eggs. And if there ever was a snow… y’know.
Girl- A really really deep snow…
Larry: And if everyone was stuck but us
Girl- We’d be the ones not stuck
Larry- Then we could be the heroes.
Girl- We could be the heroes.
Both- Yeah we would be the herooooooos..
Larry- We would push them and pull them….
Girl- push them and pull them…
Both- Push them and pull them right out of the snooooooooow.
Girl- I like your car
Larry- I like yours too
Girl- Periwinkle?
Larry- Its baby blue
Girl- Hows it handle?
Larry- Like a dream
Girl- How ‘bout coffee
Larry- and then Ice cream!
Both- OOoooh. You and me in our Sport Utility Vehicles cruisin’ to Dunkin Donuts for a cup of steaming Joe! Oh you and me in our Sport Utility Vehicles we’ll slam into 4-wheel drive for a scoop of rocky road.
Girl- And if we ever go campin,.. y’know
Larry- Haven’t been but one day.. I’ll go
Girl- And we find a ranger stuck in a ditch
Both- A nice ranger in a deep ditch.
Girl- Then we could be the heroes.
Larry- Oh, we could be the heroes.
Both- Yeah, we could be the heroes…
Girl- We would push him and pull him
Larry- Push him and pull him…
Both- Push him and pull him right out of that ditch.
Larry- I like your car
Girl- I like yours too
Larry- Is it a Jeep?
Both- Its my Sport Utility Vehicle