Locking lug nuts are more trouble than they're worth

You know you're in for a good time and some learnin' anytime you see this:

Dear Tom and Ray:

TOM: The inside of your locking nut is stripped. We see this all the time. Once the inside of a locking wheel nut is stripped, you have to resort to extraordinary measures to remove it.

RAY: These may include jumping up and down on the car, cursing at it and, in rare instances, setting it on fire and shrugging when the customer comes to pick up the charred wreckage.

Hey, whatever it takes.

I've been damn lucky when it comes to locking lugnuts. I've never seen a stripped one, and I've found some neat stuff pawing through the customer's car looking for the key. Heh.

Song for Dick Cheney

Johnny Cash - I Got Stripes Town Hall Party, Los Angeles, California August 8, 1959

Thanks to Carters01, Canada.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

I've put this one up before. It's so good I'm doing it again. This is from The Transatlantic Sessions.

Emmylou Harris with Mary Black and Iris Dement ~ Wheels Of Love

Thanks to tomtscotland, Glasgow.

Life's a bitch, ain't it?

Click to embiggen

Thanks to YubaNet.

The Big Barge ... revisited

Our travel agent was aboard Oasis of the Seas a couple weeks back and I stole some pics from her. It's a technological marvel but too big. They even have to post directions to get around.

Heh ...

NYers would rather vote for this guy sooner than Rudy "9/11 All The Time" Giuliani for mayor.

Bad Sex Writing

Fixer did a post on porn today. My 2¢ is that I'd rather read than watch. Gives yer imagination a chance to work and yer other hand something to do.

I didn't know they gave awards for bad sex writing, but they do:

Sometime nominee Ian McEwan, one of Britain’s greatest novelists, once graciously described the Bad Sex Awards as the prize every writer longs to win. He has yet to join the ranks of John Updike, Norman Mailer, and Tom Wolfe, all of whom, in the awards’ 17 years, have been judged to have inflicted on readers the worst piece of erotic writing of the year. Every year the Literary Review compiles a short list of offending new fiction, with debut novelists as vulnerable as big stars.

The awards, held at the In and Out Club in St. James, a conservative, members-only London club chosen purely for the bad-joke value of its name, are conducted in a Carry-On-Up-the-Literati spirit, which means that I can only describe myself as a Bad Sex Awards virgin. On a freezing night, while publishers are cutting back on lavish launches, here the Champagne flowed freely, and around 200 people were squashed into the usually sedate venue. Novelist Howard Jacobsen and historian Andrew Roberts, alongside just about every literary editor in London, all listened intently as the nominated passages were read aloud. This is the circus of smut and schadenfreude that is the Bad Sex Awards.

Mmmmmm...smut and schadenfreude. In a room full of people. Sounds like a dream night out to me.

Go read. Enjoy.

Did Asians Scare Palin Out of Hawaii?

The Daily Beast

The Palin story of the day seems to be her semi-endorsment of the birther movement, but there's another question now being asked: Why did Sarah Palin leave Hawaii after one semester when she was an 18-year-old student? The New Republic draws attention to a startling passage from Sam Tanenhaus’s recent New Yorker review of Palin’s book: In Going Rogue, Palin says “Hawaii was a little too perfect. Perpetual sunshine isn’t necessarily conducive to serious academics for eighteen-year-old Alaska girls.” But Tanenhaus then flags another passage from Scott Conroy’s and Shushannah Walshe’s biography of Palin, in which Palin’s own father says she left because she was uncomfortable around Asians and Pacific Islanders: “They were a minority type thing,” her father says, “and it wasn’t glamorous, so she came home.”

Read it at The New Republic.

Good grief.

American Airlines Hauls Some Serious Ass

MSNBC passes along this picture of a slightly awkward situation on an American Airlines flight.

It was 'awkward' all right:

"[...] Seems the guy paid for only one seat and the gate staff let him board."

I think the stews oughta move him a little to the left so he's in the center of the plane. Trim tabs can only do so much.

"Cobra's Anger"

At first, I thought "Cobra's Anger" was a reference to my health insurance premium which is going up in January in time to thwart any cost-lowering legislation, damn their eyes, but it's the name of a new Marine op in Effedupistan.

KABUL — U.S. Marines and Afghan troops on Friday launched the first offensive since President Barack Obama announced an American troop surge, striking against Taliban communications and supply lines in a southern insurgent stronghold, a military spokesman said.

Hundreds of troops from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines and the Marine reconnaissance unit Task Force Raider were dropped by helicopter and MV-22 Osprey aircraft behind Taliban lines in the northern end of the Now Zad Valley of Helmand province, scene of heavy fighting last summer, according to Marine spokesman Maj. William Pelletier.

A U.S. military official in Washington said it was the first use of Ospreys, aircrafts that combine features of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, in an offensive involving units larger than platoons.

In my day, we came off those goddam flat-bottomed Mike boats* ready to fight. ANYTHING was better than throwing up and getting thrown up on in those bobbing little vessels of the devil. Pretty good psychology on the part of the Marine Corps, really. It worked great from Guadalcanal to Inchon and beyond. The Corps never lost a fight if it woulda meant getting back on those things. Heh.

It almost woulda been a relief if the damn things had sunk. Most of us could swim.

Things have been amped up in our fast paced modern world, but as good as they are, Marines can't fly. I can only imagine that today's young Jarheads are so thankful to get outta those Ospreys alive that they're ready to assault Hell with a bucket of water. The fuckin' Tallyban directly in front of 'em don't stand a snowball's chance. Heh.

Get some, three-four!

*Actually they were 'Papa' or 'Peter' boats due to the 'P' in LCVP. LCM's were 'Mike boats'. Too much for simple minds to remember so we called 'em all Mike boats, or maybe it was because the word 'Peter' made us giggle and the brass thought a boatload of giggling Marines wasn't quite the image they wanted in case we landed on a beach with photographers. Wasn't all that much difference between 'em anyway.

Dick Cheney’s Steno Pool

Mad Kane

Somebody please explain why the garbage and lies spewed by Richard Cheney are routinely treated like they’re gospel. Dick makes George W. Bush look like a statesman, for heaven sakes. And yet media outlets (read this one! - G) love to present the former Veep’s vicious distortions and malicious rants virtually without challenge.

The latest example is Politico’s regurgitation of Cheney’s lengthy tirade against President Obama. A tirade, I might add, made on the eve of Obama’s Afghanistan troop buildup speech at West Point.

Politico deserves a double limerick, don’t you think?

Dick Cheney’s Steno Pool (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Politico, kindly explain
Why you act like Dick Cheney is sane.
You repeat all his lies
Like they’re truthful and wise.
Your stenography’s worse than inane.

Richard Cheney has harmed our great nation.
Yet you act like each Cheney quotation
Is golden and true,
Worth transcribing on cue.
You’re not journos — you just take dictation.

I think if I got the chance to interview Cheney, which is not really what I would like to do if I got within arm's reach of him, I would ask him this question:

"While you're in prison awaiting the gallows, are you likely to get into arts and crafts or would you rather work in the laundry?"

Quote of the Day

Dr. Myers:

A study that tried to analyze how pornography affected men's views ran into an unfortunate problem: no control group. It seems there does not exist a population of males that doesn't see some porn regularly ...

Heh ...

Sometimes, even a blind squirrel ...

Or two, finds a nut. Last night on Goofball, Chris Matthews asked Howard Fineman a question. That and the answer were quite telling. Paraphrasing:

Matthews: Would Obama have voted for this [the "surge" in Afghanistan] were he still a senator?

Fineman: No.

Amazing how things change with your perspective.

Thank fucking god it's Friday ...

Quote of the Day

Maru (again, I know, but she's the best):

...

Um, Huck, what part of “long and violent criminal history,” “repeated, in writing, that Clemmons should remain in prison” and “108-year prison sentence” didn’t you understand? You fucking imbecile? [!!!!!1!!]

Take 30,000 and call me in the morning ...

Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
30,000
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Vid stolen from Heather.

Light Blogging Today

Mrs. G has a rare local dentist appointment this A.M. and I'm going along to visit with the Doc and his lovely wife who is the brains who runs the joint. He is a Vietnam Vet Navy dentist who worked with Marines and later retired from the Air Guard as a General. Also to go to lunch after at this joint. Yum. Won't need any supper tonight, you betcha!

Thought I'd leave ya with a little light entertainment:

NEW YORK - A home movie showing a relaxed Marilyn Monroe apparently smoking marijuana has surfaced, retrieved from an attic some 50 years after it was filmed.

The reel-to-reel silent, color film taken at a private home in New Jersey was recently purchased by collector Keya Morgan for $275,000 from the person who took the film, who has asked to remain anonymous.

Thanks to EmAminee.

More contractors!

Our pal Montag points out that along with the "surge", we'll be getting more Blackwater (or a reasonable facsimile):

Along with the increase of 30,000 troops to the Kabul Quagmire, there will be an increase in the number of private contractors and mercenaries hired to support their effort. As the Army Times reports, we would be much better off without some of that "support".

...

How we'll win ...

We won't. If you read anything today, read D-cap:

...

Defeating Al Qaeda does not equate to rooting out terrorism - but 8 years since 9/11 and many in this country actually believe that if we capture (and execute) Osama bin Laden or any of his thirty-four #2 lieutenants, terrorism will stop. This is true 1984 - endless war. Fighting will not kill the ideals behind the terrorists. But it will keep the bottom lines of many companies very happy.

...

More "light distraction" ...

I could watch this all day. Heh ...

Hey Santa ...

Take yer kettle and bell and shove it up yer ass. Ain't getting shit from me except for maybe a loogie.