Thanks Joe Kennedy and Hugo Chavez-100 gls. free heating oil!

We're scraping by this winter and stuck living in an old house that was designed to be heated with oil that was 30 cents a gal. We've shut down 35% of the living space and done all the no-brainer low cost things to tighten it up to economize. We keep the house cool, 52/night and 55/day. Conditions apply that will not allow us to supplement heat with wood or pellets or anything like that. Our income levels allow some LIHEAP help but not enough to carry through the whole winter.

Yesterday our friendly hometown oil dealer alerted us to a recent change in the Citizens Oil program from a one time fill-up with a 40% discount to......a one time drop of 100 FREE Gallons. This works out really well at this particular time for us. We have a hundred gallon balance with LIHEAP program and this will fill the tank and in all probability get us through the rest of the winter.

If interested, pdf article on program change dated 1/24/07 here:
http://www.meoil.com/documents/CitizensCITGOProgram_2_.pdf

A local politican is married to a gal who was from Venezuela and her family had connections to the Chavez. I know that the oil was a welcome help to many families struggling to stay warm through the winter

My sister also got some help from them. 52/55 is cold. Will you be able to raise that? I hope for you and others that Feb. isn't that cold of a month.

Sweaters and fleece! The heating system is forced hot air and somewhat unhealthy with dry sinuses so the cool temps are ok. We will be making changes for next year.
Thanks for asking.

:sarcasm:

HOUSTON - Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company -- $39.5 billion

While this charity on Chavez's part is undoubtedly good for America, and it's very good PR for Chavez personally, it's clearly not good for the people who he's actually meant to be representing.

The program is administered through the corporate offices of Citgo Petroleum:

http://www.citgo.com/CommunityInvolvement/HeatingOil.jsp

The estimated cost to Citgo is between 50 and 100M dollars.
While this certainly represents a sizable amount of money, consider this:

Exxon posts record annual profit of $39.5 billion

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/01/business/web.0201exxon.php

Perhaps Citgo wants to illustrate what decent corporate ethics are and Sr. Chavez is audacious enough to exhibit the solidarity of generosity between neighbors.

It takes a lot of people sticking their necks out to bring progress out of real bondage. I admire those who confront the risk of exposure, and predictable hatred and murderous intention from the oligarchy, and move ahead, anyway, for the greater good.

Venezuela's sending oil to 16 states, well over 100 Native American tribes. These same states, with the leadership of their Democratic Congresspeople, etc., (one Republican governor) and groups were blown off earlier by American oil companies before they approached Venezuela for a better deal.