<snip
 The  pump should have totaled @
 $38.00 (and change).  When the receipt was printed, and she checked  it
 was $ 47.00 (and change).
 <snip
  Whichever grade you are using,  put EXACTLY 10 LITERS in your
  tank, then look at the dollar amount. If the dollar  amount is not
  EXACTLY 10 times the price of  the fuel you have chosen, then the pumps
  are  rigged.

  In my case, as I said, the  mid-grade was $0.885 per liter; my dollar
  amount  for 10 liters should have been $8.85 . I wish I  had checked the
  pump. It doesn't matter where  you pump gas, please check the 10  liter
  price. If you do find a station that is  cheating, contact the MTO, and
  direct your  comments to the Commissioner, the info is on  the gas
  pumps.


 This test is unlikely to give you much information.  If they have
 rigged the pump to say it delivered 10 liters when you only got 8,
 it's likely to give you the price for 10 liters also.  You certainly
 wouldn't be complaining if the pump said it delivered 10 liters and
 only charged you for 8.  The first example seems to be different in that
 it would appear the published rate was one amount but the price was
 being calculated at a higher rate.  I would also be surprised if the
 pump was capable of calculating at a different rate than shown on the
 pump although the sign at the station could easily be different than
 what is shown on the pump.

 I'm not a gas pump expert and they may not work they way I think, and
 the internal working could be tampered with, but if they aren't
 designed to use the price displayed on the pump to calculate the total
 cost then whoever oversees the design of gas pumps is incompetent.

 On the price of oil, There is a movie at
 http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/geology/tectonics.html that shown the
 movement for the last 740 million years.   Dinasours were from around
 280 million to 65 million years ago.  I tried to email it, but it
 exceeded your size limit of 15 MB.  Right click on the Quicktime link
 just under Plate tectonics animations to get a copy.  It's a lot more
 useful after downloading than trying to view the web versions.  There
 is a lot of information on the subject at this web site.

 My personal opinion is that there was a lot of stuff going on.  You can
 grow a large mass of carbon based stuff in 200 million years.  Some of
 that may now be coal, tar sands, or oil.  That doesn't mean the Russian
 theory is incorrect either.  My understanding is that the core heat
 that drives plate tectonics is mostly generated by radioactive decay of
 material in the core. Don't remember which elements were involved.

 Bob W.

 Still pretty cold at the north pole.

 Paul Lamar

Maybe not.  There is another interesting animation at
http://www.scotese.com/paleocli.htm  which shows the earth temperature
for 440 million years.  200 million years ago the polar regions were
warm temperate, about like the US and Europe today.  I had trouble
getting the animation to run.  It uses Java applets, so depending on
how your browser is set up it may not work.  Attached is the average
temperature time line from the site.  What does this chart suggest
about the issue of human caused global warming?

BTW, the "processing" of stuff didn't start 65 million years ago, it
would have been an ongoing process for 280 million years or so.

Bob W.