Cold steel, hard cash, dry socks,
And stay away from red-headed women.
Three outta four ain't bad!
Bonnie Raitt ~ Coming Home
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Saturday Slide Job
Many years ago a friend of mine gave me this advice on how to get over in life which I've tried my darndest to follow:
Cold steel, hard cash, dry socks,
And stay away from red-headed women.
Three outta four ain't bad!
Cold steel, hard cash, dry socks,
And stay away from red-headed women.
Three outta four ain't bad!
Dissent = Terrorism. Again. Still.
Raw Story
Hey, it works when the anti-choice assholes actively foment to goad nutbags to kill abortion doctors. False equivalence strikes again.
The drillers are exempt from environmental protections and The Clean Water Act. Thanks Dick. Did I mention that Halliburton developed this method of drilling that lets you set your tap water on fire?
Description of the video:
Some things are more valuable than money? Not to the oil companies and Big Biz in general.
Zodiac actor placed on terror list for opposing oil drilling method
Indie actor Mark Ruffalo says he found himself on the Pennsylvania Homeland Security office's terror watch list for organizing screening of an oil-drilling documentary.
According to the World Entertainment News Network, Ruffalo -- who has starred in such films as The Kids Are All Right, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Zodiac -- told GQ magazine he found it "pretty f--cking funny" that he would be suspected of terrorism for raising the alarm about what many say is an environmentally harmful way of drilling for oil and gas.
The Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security appears to be at least as heavily focused on anti-oil and gas documentaries as it is on international terrorism. In October, it was revealed that the department had declared the documentary Coal Country to be a "potential catalyst for inspiring 'direct action' protests or even sabotage against facilities, machinery, and/or corporate headquarters."
Hey, it works when the anti-choice assholes actively foment to goad nutbags to kill abortion doctors. False equivalence strikes again.
The drillers are exempt from environmental protections and The Clean Water Act. Thanks Dick. Did I mention that Halliburton developed this method of drilling that lets you set your tap water on fire?
Description of the video:
GASLAND - (2010) Directed by Josh Fox. Winner of Special Jury Prize - Best US Documentary Feature - Sundance 2010. Screening at Cannes 2010.
It is happening all across America and now in Europe and Africa as well - rural landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative offer from a multinational energy conglomerate wanting to lease their property. The Reason? In America, the company hopes to tap into a huge natural gas reservoir dubbed the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. Halliburton developed a way to get the gas out of the ground—a hydraulic drilling process called fracking—and suddenly America finds itself on the precipice of becoming an energy superpower.
But what comes out of the ground with that natural gas? How does it affect our air and drinking water? GASLAND is a powerful personal documentary that confronts these questions with spirit, strength, and a sense of humor. When filmmaker Josh Fox receives his cash offer in the mail, he travels across 32 states to meet other rural residents on the front lines of fracking. He discovers toxic streams, ruined aquifers, dying livestock, brutal illnesses, and kitchen sinks that burst into flame. He learns that all water is connected and perhaps some things are more valuable than money.
Some things are more valuable than money? Not to the oil companies and Big Biz in general.
Thanks to CMGOpMgr.
Headline of the Day
Fox Nation readers confuse Onion article with real news
Those morans'll believe anything if Fox says it. Yeesh.
The President's in stitches. Yuk yuk.
CNN
Mr. Decerega will be OK. Barry's a good sport. Remember when The Chimp fell off a Segway (damn hard to do!)? The Segway's still at Gitmo.
Apparently no good deed goes unpunished for President Obama, who was trying to make sure he didn't get a flabby belly after Thanksgiving but wound up with a fat upper lip instead.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the President received a dozen stitches after getting hit with an errant elbow during a Friday morning basketball game with White House aide Reggie Love and some unidentified family members at the Fort McNair military base in Washington.
The elbow belongs to Rey Decerega, who works for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. According to White House aides, Decerega went up for a shot and turned into the President, who was playing defense and accidentally got hit in the mouth.
"I learned today the President is both a tough competitor and a good sport," Decerega said in a statement released by the White House. "I enjoyed playing basketball with him this morning. I'm sure he'll be back out on the court again soon."
...
Asked by CNN if Decerega will be getting a presidential pardon, a top White House aide laughed.
Mr. Decerega will be OK. Barry's a good sport. Remember when The Chimp fell off a Segway (damn hard to do!)? The Segway's still at Gitmo.
When Mama's happy ...
Everybody's happy. The new cooktop came this morning and it's already installed. It just fit, by the way (36" cooktops aren't created equally).
She's already started cooking with it and the Dingo Sisters are waiting for the spoils. Heh ...
She's already started cooking with it and the Dingo Sisters are waiting for the spoils. Heh ...
Friday, November 26, 2010
The TSA, the Right, and My Busted Watch
William Rivers Pitt
His busted watch? It's right twice a day, a helluva lot more often than the Right.
What I do know is that the leading voices of outrage over this issue are the likes of Charles Krauthammer of the Post, Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, incoming House Transportation Committee chairman John Mica (R-FL), a bunch of rabid right-wing websites which are also leading the "Obama is not a citizen" birther charge, and a "mainstream" media that continues to push messages that auger inexorably toward the claim that the "Tea Party" is right about everything even remotely related to government.
That is not the kind of company I like to keep, and it gives me great pause about jumping on the TSA-outrage bandwagon. I mean, sure, I have a busted watch at home that's right twice a day, so it's possible these far-right mouthpieces may have stumbled onto some truth for a change. But the fact that the attacks against Obama and the TSA happen to be coming from the same people who have made a cottage industry out of claiming Obama is a secret terrorist who wants to bring Sharia law to America, yet who are now saying he has gone too far in defending the nation from terrorism, even in the face of credible threats to the airline industry, leads me to suspect there is a different game afoot.
Bank on this: if the year was 2002, and President Bush declared these TSA measures to be absolutely necessary to the security of the nation, the same right-bent people currently screaming about the heavy-handed Obama TSA policy would be defending those exact same policies to the teeth, with the "mainstream" media right with them all the way down the party line. For the right, this is opposition simply for the sake of opposition itself, and thanks to the media, they have once again managed to shoehorn another "Government sucks" screaming match to the forefront of the national conversation.
Nothing from the "mainstream" media about how the GOP is scuttling the all-important START treaty for no other reason than the fact that a Democrat is in the White House. Nothing from the "mainstream" media about how the GOP is letting unemployment benefits for millions of Americans lapse for no other reason than the fact that there is a Democrat in the White House. Nothing about how 71% of air travelers, like me, do not appear able to work themselves into the seemingly-required media-driven froth over the issue. That's no fun to report on. And it's awfully, awfully convenient that, instead, we have yet another circus inspired by the always-effective loudspeakers of the right.
His busted watch? It's right twice a day, a helluva lot more often than the Right.
White Trash At The Gates
I've been going on today about Palin's gaffes, but in a serious post Robert Reich says it's all part of her plan. The ignorance of others is her power.
We can laugh at her blunders, and there are many and it's almost too much fun, but we'd better not underestimate her. Since ignorance and anger have been elevated to qualities, and the 'elites' are now those of us who can think and read and decide things for ourselves without FOXProp, we'd better be on guard.
It’s all part of The Palin Strategy for becoming president in 2012 — or 2016 or 2020.
The Republican establishment doesn’t get it. Celebrity is part of The Palin Strategy – as is avoiding the insider game. She doesn’t want to do what Huckabee, Pawlenty, Gingrich, or Romney have to do. She has an outside game.
No prospective candidate so sharply embodies the anger of America’s white working class as does Palin. And none is channeling that anger nearly as effectively.
According to the right-wing narrative, the calamity that’s befallen the white working class is due to the global and intellectual elites who run the mainstream media, direct the government, dispense benefits to the undeserving, and dominate popular culture. (The story and targets are not substantially different from those that have fueled right-wing and fascist movements during times of economic stress for more than a century, here and abroad.)
As I believe will become clearer, the Palin Strategy will involve a political threat to the GOP establishment: Deny her the nomination she’ll run as independent. This will split off much of the white working class and guarantee defeat of the Republican establishment candidate. It will also result in her defeat in 2012, but that’s a small price to pay for gaining the credibility and power to demand the nomination in 2016, or threaten another third-party run in 2020.
More than anything else, the Palin Strategy depends on the continuing fear and anger of America’s white working class. She’s betting that their economic prospects will not improve by 2012, or even by 2016 and beyond.
Sadly, this is likely to be the case. [...]
It all fits into Sarah Palin’s strategy.
We can laugh at her blunders, and there are many and it's almost too much fun, but we'd better not underestimate her. Since ignorance and anger have been elevated to qualities, and the 'elites' are now those of us who can think and read and decide things for ourselves without FOXProp, we'd better be on guard.
Class Warfare
WaPo
For once, and amazingly enough, Battle-Axe Bar and Moosebreath are both right. This is one 'class war' I'm all in favot of!
Update:
Might as well include The Rude One's take on the one-woman clusterfuck from Wasilla:
He's right. Great rush! Funny and on the money.
In an interview Wednesday with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, Sarah Palin fired back at former first lady Barbara Bush, opting to make a class issue out of Bush's comments earlier in the week. Bush told CNN's Larry King in an interview that aired Monday that she hoped Palin would stay in Alaska. From Palin's interview with Ingraham:
"I don't want to concede that we have to get used to this kind of thing, because I don't think the majority of Americans want to put up with the blue-bloods -- and I want to say it will all due respect because I love the Bushes -- the blue-bloods who want to pick and choose their winners instead of allowing competition," Palin said.
For once, and amazingly enough, Battle-Axe Bar and Moosebreath are both right. This is one 'class war' I'm all in favot of!
Update:
Might as well include The Rude One's take on the one-woman clusterfuck from Wasilla:
Think about that for just a second. Ask yourself what happens when any Democrat you can think of says something like it, about how the nation is most Americans versus old money. Oh, how the right wing media would explode with accusations of class war and socialism and MarxAlinskyAyers and other people with scary-sounding names that virtually no one who mentions them knows a goddamn thing about. But Palin? When she says it, it's just Sarah bein' Sarah, God love her First Dude-fellating mouth.
By the way, in case you need a magical Black Friday laugh, the Taiwanese take on the Palins is like a hit of pure heroin. At about 1:16, you can learn how she wrote her latest "book," and it's as good an explanation as any.
He's right. Great rush! Funny and on the money.
Quote of the Day
Sarah Palin is drawing criticism from around the world after declaring that the United States has to stand with "our North Korean allies."
How d'ya say "Oy!" and "brain-dead" in Korean?
Update:
From Mad Kane, whom I
Palin Unveils Our Newest Ally — North Korea
By Madeleine Begun Kane
North Korea’s an ally, says Palin.
Her brain cells have clearly been bailin’.
Though her knowledge is weak,
She hastens to speak
With her fact-free assurance prevailin’.
Hi. I am now going to touch your junk
If it's Friday it musta been Morford a coupla days ago. You just knew he'd do this!
Just...go read the rest.
It seems so obvious. You want to ignite some delicious outcry in this brutally divided country? You want to unite the wary populace around a single, seething hotbutton of patriotism, privacy and putrefied civil liberties?
Do not launch bogus wars that cannot be won. Do not tell them lies about a major health care reform package that actually helps millions. Do not invade their dreams with thoughts of happy gay people holding hands in a wedding chapel. Do not rip their retirement accounts to shreds, sell them bad home loans with a grunt and a slippery Wall Street grin. What are you, an amateur?
What you do is, you go direct. You grope them right on their tingly 'n forbidden genital regions, AKA God's country, AKA Father O'Malley's special secret, real and true and WTF-do-you-think-you're-doing. Works every time. Just ask the Vatican.
Just...go read the rest.
But of course ...
Our American conservative idiots have to weigh in on the tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Of course, their answer to everything is to start another war. I guess they didn't learn from the Chinese response to MacArthur crossing attempting to cross the Yalu (that's right, history isn't one of their strong suits).
If they think the Chinese won't come to North Korea's aid should American troops (or aircraft, or ships) cross the 38th Parallel, they're just as misguided as MacArthur was. North Korea is China's buffer with the West, much as the Eastern Bloc was for the Soviets. They won't let us, or the South Koreans, approach their border. If they think the Chinese wouldn't respond to a nuclear detonation spitting distance from their border, they're smoking something really good.
Like their adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, should the conservatives dictate Korea policy, the best case would be a protracted, drawn out war like the other two. North Korea might have a half-fed, mostly broken down army, but backed up by a million Chinese it's a whole different story (and just for perspective, you can see the lights of Seoul from the DMZ at night; think about the casualties). Like I've said since the latest hostilities began, this could get real ugly, real quick, especially if the conservatives have anything to say about it.
Update:
It just gets better:
It's time, if we were smart, to drop this squarely in the laps of the Chinese. Maybe some trade sanctions against the Chinese might give them the impetus to rein in their vassal state and create a few thousand American jobs in the process.
...
Instapundit: "If they start anything, I say nuke 'em. And not with just a few bombs." In a November 23 post on Instapundit, blogger Glenn Reynolds wrote that if the North Korean military were to "start anything," the US should "nuke 'em." Reynolds went on to say that a nuclear attack on North Korea "would be a useful lesson for Iran, too." From the post: [em in orig]
...
If they think the Chinese won't come to North Korea's aid should American troops (or aircraft, or ships) cross the 38th Parallel, they're just as misguided as MacArthur was. North Korea is China's buffer with the West, much as the Eastern Bloc was for the Soviets. They won't let us, or the South Koreans, approach their border. If they think the Chinese wouldn't respond to a nuclear detonation spitting distance from their border, they're smoking something really good.
Like their adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, should the conservatives dictate Korea policy, the best case would be a protracted, drawn out war like the other two. North Korea might have a half-fed, mostly broken down army, but backed up by a million Chinese it's a whole different story (and just for perspective, you can see the lights of Seoul from the DMZ at night; think about the casualties). Like I've said since the latest hostilities began, this could get real ugly, real quick, especially if the conservatives have anything to say about it.
Update:
It just gets better:
YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea – North Korea warned Friday that U.S.-South Korean plans for military maneuvers put the peninsula on the brink of war, and appeared to launch its own artillery drills within sight of an island it showered with a deadly barrage this week.
...
It's time, if we were smart, to drop this squarely in the laps of the Chinese. Maybe some trade sanctions against the Chinese might give them the impetus to rein in their vassal state and create a few thousand American jobs in the process.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
For Anthony Bourdain Fans
Yeah, like you're thinking about more food right now! Heh.
MoJo
Enjoy.
MoJo
The Omnivore's Agenda: An Interview with Anthony Bourdain
MJ: Once your daughter figures out that Ronald McDonald does not actually have cooties, how do you hope to keep her from the perils of food marketing?
AB: Well, we'll just go to Italy if we have to. McDonald's uses local meat in Italy, actually. My wife likes Italian McDonald's. But I don't want my daughter to see it; I don't want to go near there. It's like huffing crack in front of your kid.
MJ: Speaking of which, is there any shameful food that you give in to once in a while?
AB: I like the macaroni and cheese at Popeye's. I'll even eat the stuff at the Colonel, because I can slip in there late at night when no one's looking. I'll eat it in the street, huddled in a doorway, 'cause I don't want my wife to see. I don't want anyone to see.
Enjoy.
A little hot air, please, Maestro
Me 'n Fixer loves us some ICE. That's "Internal Combustion Engine", not the folks that shoo the Meskins back south, or the potent "Marathon Midnite Wrenchin' Powder"... hmmmmm...belay that last one...
We like engines. From little 1-cylinder sneezers that can blow snow 50 feet to earth-shakin' 3000 HP V-8 behemoths that can get a car up to 300 per in the quarter mile. Aero engines from the ones with their crankshafts bolted solidly to the airframe that beat the Kaiser to the great hulking twin-bank 18-cylinder radials named for stinging insects and the supercharged V-12s named for birds and apocryphal occultists of yore that saved the free world and everything in between. Stationary engines that can pump water out of the ground to a cattle trough or power an oil refinery, and everything in between and beyond, from the Otto Cycle to the Schnurle Loop to the Diesel in all their variations.
We like engines. The sounds, the smells, the power to move things, from pumping water a thousand feet straight up to getting the space shuttle to its launch pad, the bloody knuckles...ah, a step too far. As usual. Then there's raw speed, but that's for another time.
We of course leave leaf blowers out of this. Rake 'em up, yingyangs. But I digress...
As much as we like the damn things, their time is up. 120 years ago they were a great improvement over tracking horseshit everywhere you went, but they went through their heyday and Golden Age years ago. Now there are simply too many of them spewing their noxious byproducts of prehistoric flora and fauna into the atmosphere and thence our lungs. There have been great improvements in performance and emissions of course, but they've gone about as far as they can go, he says not really knowing what may come next that changes everything but doubts it. They'll be with us for years to come, but they're on the way out.
The basic, yet little-known fact about Internal Combustion Engines is that they run on air. That's right, your car runs on expanding hot air. The fuel you put in the tank, whether it be gasoline or diesel oil or a mixture of yak butter and moonshine like some of my stuff, merely helps the air to burn rapidly and expand, allowing it to do work, generally by pushing on reciprocating parts that make other parts turn, thus creating circular rotating movement that can be harnessed to do work.
That said, I see a use for this clown. Why let all that hot air go to waste? If we could get his kind under our hoods blowing into the intake manifold, we could skip the 'gas pump' step and drive forever for nothing! He's fat enough for thousands of miles without refueling and when he's done we ditch the smelly remains and get another one. There seems to be an inexhaustible supply of these odious critters.
The trick is to get them to run quietly. That may be the insurmountable problem. Maybe some sort of 'closed-loop' system, he's got his head up his ass already.
Maybe we could all just use the one Limpbaugh. If we could hook our cars' AM radio speakers (in a well-insulated compartment so we wouldn't have to hear him) to the wheels, we could adjust our speed with a dashboard-mounted remote volume knob! Or a reg'lar ol' foot-feed rheostat, mox nix.
Listen to this moron equate environmental transportation progress to some evil liberal form of world view, aka you and me and everyone with a brain. It's almost unbelievable, but then the bar of unbelievability has not been raised (or lowered) lately. It's been thrown out.
Kudos to Motor Trend as well.
We like engines. From little 1-cylinder sneezers that can blow snow 50 feet to earth-shakin' 3000 HP V-8 behemoths that can get a car up to 300 per in the quarter mile. Aero engines from the ones with their crankshafts bolted solidly to the airframe that beat the Kaiser to the great hulking twin-bank 18-cylinder radials named for stinging insects and the supercharged V-12s named for birds and apocryphal occultists of yore that saved the free world and everything in between. Stationary engines that can pump water out of the ground to a cattle trough or power an oil refinery, and everything in between and beyond, from the Otto Cycle to the Schnurle Loop to the Diesel in all their variations.
We like engines. The sounds, the smells, the power to move things, from pumping water a thousand feet straight up to getting the space shuttle to its launch pad, the bloody knuckles...ah, a step too far. As usual. Then there's raw speed, but that's for another time.
We of course leave leaf blowers out of this. Rake 'em up, yingyangs. But I digress...
As much as we like the damn things, their time is up. 120 years ago they were a great improvement over tracking horseshit everywhere you went, but they went through their heyday and Golden Age years ago. Now there are simply too many of them spewing their noxious byproducts of prehistoric flora and fauna into the atmosphere and thence our lungs. There have been great improvements in performance and emissions of course, but they've gone about as far as they can go, he says not really knowing what may come next that changes everything but doubts it. They'll be with us for years to come, but they're on the way out.
The basic, yet little-known fact about Internal Combustion Engines is that they run on air. That's right, your car runs on expanding hot air. The fuel you put in the tank, whether it be gasoline or diesel oil or a mixture of yak butter and moonshine like some of my stuff, merely helps the air to burn rapidly and expand, allowing it to do work, generally by pushing on reciprocating parts that make other parts turn, thus creating circular rotating movement that can be harnessed to do work.
That said, I see a use for this clown. Why let all that hot air go to waste? If we could get his kind under our hoods blowing into the intake manifold, we could skip the 'gas pump' step and drive forever for nothing! He's fat enough for thousands of miles without refueling and when he's done we ditch the smelly remains and get another one. There seems to be an inexhaustible supply of these odious critters.
The trick is to get them to run quietly. That may be the insurmountable problem. Maybe some sort of 'closed-loop' system, he's got his head up his ass already.
Maybe we could all just use the one Limpbaugh. If we could hook our cars' AM radio speakers (in a well-insulated compartment so we wouldn't have to hear him) to the wheels, we could adjust our speed with a dashboard-mounted remote volume knob! Or a reg'lar ol' foot-feed rheostat, mox nix.
Listen to this moron equate environmental transportation progress to some evil liberal form of world view, aka you and me and everyone with a brain. It's almost unbelievable, but then the bar of unbelievability has not been raised (or lowered) lately. It's been thrown out.
Kudos to Motor Trend as well.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Headline of the Day
Fox reporter rewrites history, claims socialism almost killed Thanksgiving
Equating 'working together for the common good' with 'socialism' like it's a bad thing? The blanketasses kickin' down some eats as 'welfare'? Yeesh.
No wonder we can't get anything done in this country.
Fuck you, Stossel, and the wingnuts you rode in on.
Turkey Day Music Blogging
Happy Turkey and what Gordon said. I'm sure some pshrink would have a good time figuring out how, and why, all these tunes were playing in my head when I opened my eyes this morning but who cares? Enjoy!
Argent - God Gave Rock & Roll To You
Righteous Brothers - Rock & Roll Heaven
Jethro Tull - Too Old To Rock & Roll, Too Young To Die
Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band - Rock & Roll Never Forgets
Giving Thanks
I'm thankful for everything I have in this world - health, family, home, circumstances, the works. I'm thankful to be associated with Fixer, and I'm thankful for all of you who read this and hope you get everything you need in life.
We all say that kinda stuff every year and we ought to be thankful every day, and on this day in particular I'm especially thankful for:
Tom DeLay GUILTY
Bwa-fuckin'-hahahaha! There may be justice after all.
Have a great day.
We all say that kinda stuff every year and we ought to be thankful every day, and on this day in particular I'm especially thankful for:
Tom DeLay GUILTY
Bwa-fuckin'-hahahaha! There may be justice after all.
Have a great day.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Resupply Run
Since me 'n Mrs. G thought we would be out on the coast for her family Thanksgiving, we let groceries run low. We're going out early to recop on eats before The Locusts get to the supermarkets for their four-day weekend. There's plenty of snow, the ski hills are all open, and the skiers/tourons are expected in droves. Great for business, and we need it, but not so great for locals unconnected to the tourist biz. Lay in supplies, spend the weekend under the bed is Plan A.
We're a little low on snowthrowers too, so we're gonna do some Heavy Metal shopping as well.
See yas later.
Heavy Metal Update:
Bit the bullet and bought the Honda HS928TAS. Had ta hold a gun to my own head to write the check, but I'm glad I did. I was looking for the price tag and another customer told me that Hondas were like a fancy French restaurant - the prices aren't on the menu. If you have to ask, you can't afford it. Ask the waiter.
The waiter showed up toot de sweet. His name is Mike, the owner of the joint, whom I've known for thirty years. I finally bought something more substantial than starter rope and shear bolts. He said he knew someday I would and was ready for me. Boy, was he! Heh.
I asked him about all the discounts I'm entitled to - veteran, senior citizen, retired clergy, old fool, whatever. He said those were in August. It was a coupla hunnert less than MSRP anyway, so that's OK.
He made a point of telling me that the tool kit that came with it had a special thin-walled 13/16" spark plug socket and that a regular one wouldn't fit. I was amazed to discover that apparently not everyone has a custom self-made thin-wall spark plug socket for getting at the center plug on a 3-cylinder Triumph Trident (or BSA Rocket III) like I've had for 40 years! Imagine that! I thought everyone had one of those. Live and learn.
A nice young gent had it in my driveway thirty minutes after the walletectomy. He showed me how to work it and was off to deliver another one. They're sellin' like hotcakes and I'm glad they had the one I wanted in stock.
I just brought the machine up the driveway and parked it, but now I see why folks spend the extra money. Damned easy to run and boy can the sonuvabitch eat snow! Flings it a long way too.
I'm a little poorer of purse, but a lot happier in spirit. A good day.
We're a little low on snowthrowers too, so we're gonna do some Heavy Metal shopping as well.
See yas later.
Heavy Metal Update:
Bit the bullet and bought the Honda HS928TAS. Had ta hold a gun to my own head to write the check, but I'm glad I did. I was looking for the price tag and another customer told me that Hondas were like a fancy French restaurant - the prices aren't on the menu. If you have to ask, you can't afford it. Ask the waiter.
The waiter showed up toot de sweet. His name is Mike, the owner of the joint, whom I've known for thirty years. I finally bought something more substantial than starter rope and shear bolts. He said he knew someday I would and was ready for me. Boy, was he! Heh.
I asked him about all the discounts I'm entitled to - veteran, senior citizen, retired clergy, old fool, whatever. He said those were in August. It was a coupla hunnert less than MSRP anyway, so that's OK.
He made a point of telling me that the tool kit that came with it had a special thin-walled 13/16" spark plug socket and that a regular one wouldn't fit. I was amazed to discover that apparently not everyone has a custom self-made thin-wall spark plug socket for getting at the center plug on a 3-cylinder Triumph Trident (or BSA Rocket III) like I've had for 40 years! Imagine that! I thought everyone had one of those. Live and learn.
A nice young gent had it in my driveway thirty minutes after the walletectomy. He showed me how to work it and was off to deliver another one. They're sellin' like hotcakes and I'm glad they had the one I wanted in stock.
I just brought the machine up the driveway and parked it, but now I see why folks spend the extra money. Damned easy to run and boy can the sonuvabitch eat snow! Flings it a long way too.
I'm a little poorer of purse, but a lot happier in spirit. A good day.
"Gee, what's that little black badge for?"
Science Friday
Because then the world would know beyond the shadow of a doubt how dangerous those scanners are. We'll find out in a few years anyway when the cancers show up.
Why do dentists, doctors, med techs, etc.. who work in other x-ray environments gladly wear these exposure detectors on their clothing but TSA employees do not or cannot?
Because then the world would know beyond the shadow of a doubt how dangerous those scanners are. We'll find out in a few years anyway when the cancers show up.
How close we came...
Ray McGovern writes about Bush's dismay at failure to get us in a war with Iran. A 'must read':
Think our military's dicks are in the dirt in Afghanistan and Iraq? How fucking close we came to an even larger disaster. Please read the rest.
Nowhere in his memoir, Decision Points, is Bush’s bizarre relationship to truth so manifest as when he describes his dismay at learning that the intelligence community had redeemed itself for its lies about Iraq by preparing an honest Estimate that stuck a rod in the wheels of the juggernaut rolling toward war with Iran.
But can you blame Bush for his chagrin? Alas, the NIE had knocked out the props from under the anti-Iran propaganda machine, imported duty-free from Israel and tuned up by neoconservatives here at home.
How embarrassing. Here before the world were the key judgments of an NIE, the most authoritative genre of intelligence report, unanimously approved “with high confidence” by16 agencies and signed by the Director of National Intelligence, saying, in effect, that Bush and Cheney were lying about the “Iranian nuclear threat.”
"But after the NIE, how could I possible explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?”
Thankfully, not even Dick Cheney could persuade Bush to repair the propaganda juggernaut and let it loose for war on Iran.
Think our military's dicks are in the dirt in Afghanistan and Iraq? How fucking close we came to an even larger disaster. Please read the rest.
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