Good grief, things are such a muddle. And getting worse. And getting unresolvable without something like a nuclear war.
Iran getting an atom bomb is the worst, of course. I mean, let's face it, Abracadabrajab is a complete lunatic. He's going to have a finger on the button? Apparently Turkey and Brazil regard a relationship with Abracadabrajab as some kind of ticket to their own position of power. Well, we'll see how that works out for them.
And the Comrade seems to be using the BP Gulf oil spill as a really effective way to alienate the US from the UK, who may be the only friends we have left... Since the Comrade has embraced Israel's enemies in the name of promoting the wonders of pre-Medieval, tribal Shar'ia law, or something. Picture Michelle with a bag over her head.... She couldn't display her biceps for fear of being stoned. Has she or the Comrade considered that?
On the other hand --
Just for one moment, imagine what life would be like if we had a president who understood American values, was committed to upholding the US Constitution and the principles behind it, and who believed in individual rights and free enterprise.
I'm almost in tears.
Imagine what it would be like to NOT have to get on a bus every other week to go to Washington to demonstrate against some fascist or socialist legislation. And then be snubbed and mocked by the likes of useless idiot and marxist tool Pazzo Pelosi.
Imagine what it would be like if the feds responded appropriately to a national disaster without turning it into an ineffectual political fiasco.
Imagine what it would be like to have a government committed to defending our borders.
Imagine what it would be like to have a functioning government that stayed inside its own rules, rather than a predator state that casts a shadow over the land, kinda like a hungry vulcher.
Imagine... and share this dream of the Founding Fathers -- Imagine a place where you could be free to peacefully practice your own faith, make a living, raise your kids -- all without being relentlessly harrassed by ruthless, power-mad dictators and their pompous and ignorant minions, like SEIU.
I just wanna cry.
What a mess these assholes in the White House have made. What a freaking mess. And for what? To try to establish yet another doomed-to-fail experiment in marxism?
Hey, doofus! Marxism doesn't work! It never has! It never will! Millions of people have been anihilated over exactly this issue in several countries, as marxist loonies were "breaking eggs to make an omelet." Forget the pie-in-the-sky you absorbed from your radical, nihilist professors. Look at reality for a change!
The people in and around the White House are heartless -- no, soul-less -- creatures, steeped in bizarre and actually anti-human abstractions created by a guy who could never get his own life together. They're hell-bent on "proving" that they're "right", and dammit, they'll do it even if they have to kill you. At least that will shut you up.
But shutting us up still can't make marxism work. And God knows, Stalin and Chavez and Castro and Lenin -- the whole nasty and vicious pack of killers -- have tried and tried. AND IT STILL DOESN'T WORK.
But just imagine what life would be like if we had a government like the one Thomas Jefferson and George Washington envisioned. Free. Prosperous. Rational. Getting along with our neighbors. Winning the respect of others around the world. Sounds like heaven, doesn't it?
Life could be so good.
Save the republic.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Come to the cabaret, my friend!
Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome....
Watched Glenn Beck today and as usual, it really scared me. Actually, it reminded me of a few things.
Ever see the movie "Cabaret"? It came out in 1972 and won a bundle of Oscars. I saw it the night it opened in Chicago. I've never seen the stage show, so all comments here relate to the movie.
I was pretty young at the time, and "Cabaret" got me thinking about the relationship between moral corruption and poltical totalitarianism. There is a definite link there. Like, when individuals refuse to assume the responsibility for themselves, refuse any accountability for their own actions.... What results is crime, social disorder, rip-offs on both sides of the trade transaction -- fraudulent sellers and people buying without any clue about how to pay for things....
In general, the collapse of human civilization as we know it. Or at least as I've known it, in a relatively free country for most of my life.
Lost, corrupted, injured, dazed, confused people start looking to a "higher power" to solve their problems -- usually either God or the government.
God I have no objection to. If God can inspire people to take care of themselves -- and that is what Protestantism teaches -- then that's a valuable and viable answer.
Government -- no. Government is only "other people" who have no better answers than you do. And more often than not, if these people are in government to begin with, they have some kind of agenda and are looking for lost, corrupted, injured, dazed and confused recruits. (See Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer".) They need an army -- you -- to carry out their plans to run the world. And if someone's goal is to run the world, that person is probably profoundly insane and very likely vicious and dangerous to human life.
Hey! What if we can actually create the kind of moral, social, and economic confusion and disorder that would drive people to look for a "higher power?"
Yeah. Whaddaya think? Who would do something like that? Destroy a peaceful and prosperous society to install himself in a position of authority?
Gee, I wonder.
Not entirely unrelated, crude oil is still spewing out into the Gulf of Mexico. BP has managed to cap the well, but it's still leaking.
Meanwhile, while Carol Browner-and-browner has claimed "We're in control!" and the Comrade himself has accomplished two (two! count 'em! two!) photo ops on white sand Gulf beaches, it seems everyone but Bobby Jindal is running around like headless chickens regarding not the leak itself, but the clean-up.
Jindal has had a couple little boats out in the Gulf with something like vacuum cleaners sucking up the oil. He wants some help with this.
Well, maybe the Comrade can come down and have his picture taken next to the workers in the little boats. Will that help?
Got to give credit to Bobby Jindal. He's a real person trying to really do something real about this real mess.
Can't say the same for ANYONE in the federal government so far. At least not those at the top, who, behind closed doors, are probably hoping the crude will creep around Florida and come up the East Coast so they'll have an enormous disaster to exploit.
All of the above fits into the Cabaret thing in this way: You can sit on your ass and wait for Uncle Sam or the Comrade to promulgate some kind of holy bull to fix your problems (any problems) or you can accept the responsibility and do what you can.
Want to see a fine, terrifying, cinematic example of those who wait for authority to respond? Look up "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" on YouTube.com. It's a scene from the movie "Cabaret." I'd give you a link, but that seems to be illegal, or YouTube will drop the video or something. So just look it up.
Anyway, that's it for now.
Save the republic! WE CAN DO IT. WE'RE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN.
Watched Glenn Beck today and as usual, it really scared me. Actually, it reminded me of a few things.
Ever see the movie "Cabaret"? It came out in 1972 and won a bundle of Oscars. I saw it the night it opened in Chicago. I've never seen the stage show, so all comments here relate to the movie.
I was pretty young at the time, and "Cabaret" got me thinking about the relationship between moral corruption and poltical totalitarianism. There is a definite link there. Like, when individuals refuse to assume the responsibility for themselves, refuse any accountability for their own actions.... What results is crime, social disorder, rip-offs on both sides of the trade transaction -- fraudulent sellers and people buying without any clue about how to pay for things....
In general, the collapse of human civilization as we know it. Or at least as I've known it, in a relatively free country for most of my life.
Lost, corrupted, injured, dazed, confused people start looking to a "higher power" to solve their problems -- usually either God or the government.
God I have no objection to. If God can inspire people to take care of themselves -- and that is what Protestantism teaches -- then that's a valuable and viable answer.
Government -- no. Government is only "other people" who have no better answers than you do. And more often than not, if these people are in government to begin with, they have some kind of agenda and are looking for lost, corrupted, injured, dazed and confused recruits. (See Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer".) They need an army -- you -- to carry out their plans to run the world. And if someone's goal is to run the world, that person is probably profoundly insane and very likely vicious and dangerous to human life.
Hey! What if we can actually create the kind of moral, social, and economic confusion and disorder that would drive people to look for a "higher power?"
Yeah. Whaddaya think? Who would do something like that? Destroy a peaceful and prosperous society to install himself in a position of authority?
Gee, I wonder.
Not entirely unrelated, crude oil is still spewing out into the Gulf of Mexico. BP has managed to cap the well, but it's still leaking.
Meanwhile, while Carol Browner-and-browner has claimed "We're in control!" and the Comrade himself has accomplished two (two! count 'em! two!) photo ops on white sand Gulf beaches, it seems everyone but Bobby Jindal is running around like headless chickens regarding not the leak itself, but the clean-up.
Jindal has had a couple little boats out in the Gulf with something like vacuum cleaners sucking up the oil. He wants some help with this.
Well, maybe the Comrade can come down and have his picture taken next to the workers in the little boats. Will that help?
Got to give credit to Bobby Jindal. He's a real person trying to really do something real about this real mess.
Can't say the same for ANYONE in the federal government so far. At least not those at the top, who, behind closed doors, are probably hoping the crude will creep around Florida and come up the East Coast so they'll have an enormous disaster to exploit.
All of the above fits into the Cabaret thing in this way: You can sit on your ass and wait for Uncle Sam or the Comrade to promulgate some kind of holy bull to fix your problems (any problems) or you can accept the responsibility and do what you can.
Want to see a fine, terrifying, cinematic example of those who wait for authority to respond? Look up "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" on YouTube.com. It's a scene from the movie "Cabaret." I'd give you a link, but that seems to be illegal, or YouTube will drop the video or something. So just look it up.
Anyway, that's it for now.
Save the republic! WE CAN DO IT. WE'RE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN.
Hypocrisy on stilts
Interesting.... Film all over the news today of the Comrade giving a commencement speech at a high school, and cautioning the kids not to blame their problems on other people, but to accept responsibility and work through their errors and shortcomings.
Does this guy ever listen to himself?
Best part of the speech was the kid in the cap-'n-gown in the background, yawning first, then slowly nodding out. Yeah. I know exactly how he feels.
Anyway, so this whole thing reminded me of this movie called "Disclosure," starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore.
They have an affair -- or did have an affair or something like that. Michael Douglas, at least, is married to someone else. And Demi Moore seduces him, and then files a sexual harrassment suit against him and possibly against the high-tech Seattle-based corporation where they both work.
Meanwhile, company operations are going to hell in a handbasket.
Douglas is stuck in this sexual harrassment thing, distracted by it, and may be facing either a big promotion or being fired.
Then he starts getting these emails that say "Take care of business." Not signed.
Anyway, the whole upshot of the situation is: Demi Moore also wanted the big promotion and was using the sexual harrassment suit to keep Michael Douglas from figuring out that the company's manufacturer in China or someplace had a fairly straightforward manufacturing problem. See, if Douglas couldn't handle the manufacturing problem he's toast -- entirely apart from the problem of sexual harrassment. And apparently Demi Moore figured she'd get the promotion. It's all politics.
Long and convoluted way of saying to the Comrade: Take care of business.
He's all kinds of busy with his foot on the throat of BP and all, and taking his Obamacare Road Show out for a summer tour....
Just take care of business, Comrade.
Lots of things the US government could be doing with the help of BP, private business, and recruited assistants (like all those Gulf fisherman who can't fish right now) to clean up the oil spill.
No, more important to promote the socialist agenda.
And there were primaries in 11 states today. Interesing results. Lots of women won, a few of them supported by the Tea Parties. In Nevada, Sharron Angle, who was barely in the race three weeks ago, won the candidacy against better known competitors, including a woman who's head of the Nevada Republican Party.
Commentators say Angle has less of a chance against Harry Reid in the general election because she's so conservative. Same with Fiorina winning the Republican senate candidacy to run against Boxer in November. In both cases, commentators say that "more moderate" or "less radical conservative" candidates would have a better chance against the dems.
I don't know.... I think we've pretty much had our fill of socialist democrats, even in California.
And as to the Comrade picking off the scabs about socialized medicine again -- and during the forthcoming congressional campaigns -- go ahead, make my day.
Save the republic.
Does this guy ever listen to himself?
Best part of the speech was the kid in the cap-'n-gown in the background, yawning first, then slowly nodding out. Yeah. I know exactly how he feels.
Anyway, so this whole thing reminded me of this movie called "Disclosure," starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore.
They have an affair -- or did have an affair or something like that. Michael Douglas, at least, is married to someone else. And Demi Moore seduces him, and then files a sexual harrassment suit against him and possibly against the high-tech Seattle-based corporation where they both work.
Meanwhile, company operations are going to hell in a handbasket.
Douglas is stuck in this sexual harrassment thing, distracted by it, and may be facing either a big promotion or being fired.
Then he starts getting these emails that say "Take care of business." Not signed.
Anyway, the whole upshot of the situation is: Demi Moore also wanted the big promotion and was using the sexual harrassment suit to keep Michael Douglas from figuring out that the company's manufacturer in China or someplace had a fairly straightforward manufacturing problem. See, if Douglas couldn't handle the manufacturing problem he's toast -- entirely apart from the problem of sexual harrassment. And apparently Demi Moore figured she'd get the promotion. It's all politics.
Long and convoluted way of saying to the Comrade: Take care of business.
He's all kinds of busy with his foot on the throat of BP and all, and taking his Obamacare Road Show out for a summer tour....
Just take care of business, Comrade.
Lots of things the US government could be doing with the help of BP, private business, and recruited assistants (like all those Gulf fisherman who can't fish right now) to clean up the oil spill.
No, more important to promote the socialist agenda.
And there were primaries in 11 states today. Interesing results. Lots of women won, a few of them supported by the Tea Parties. In Nevada, Sharron Angle, who was barely in the race three weeks ago, won the candidacy against better known competitors, including a woman who's head of the Nevada Republican Party.
Commentators say Angle has less of a chance against Harry Reid in the general election because she's so conservative. Same with Fiorina winning the Republican senate candidacy to run against Boxer in November. In both cases, commentators say that "more moderate" or "less radical conservative" candidates would have a better chance against the dems.
I don't know.... I think we've pretty much had our fill of socialist democrats, even in California.
And as to the Comrade picking off the scabs about socialized medicine again -- and during the forthcoming congressional campaigns -- go ahead, make my day.
Save the republic.
Monday, June 7, 2010
White House adds insult to injury on socialized medicine
Well, the Comrade and the merry marxists have finally figured out that THEY ARE GOING TO LOSE REALLY, REALLY BIG IN NOVEMBER, largely due to their criminal lack ethics, shocking naivete and lack of experience in actually running a country as opposed to getting elected, their complete disregard for the public, and their contempt for the US Constitution, so they're mounting a big public relations campaign to try to sell us all on their socialized medicine scheme. Which they finally understand that NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WANTS.
Actually, the Comrade and the merry marxists are only adding insult to injury through all this. I mean, back to this -- how stupid do they think we are? They might be surprised to find out what's actually in that piece-of-crap socialized medicine legislation, but we actually read the bill and tried very passionately to get them to NOT pass this garbage. Spending a proposed $125 million more of OUR MONEY on this b.s. isn't going to convince anybody that the USA needs death panels or drek-for-brains federal agents advising us on diet and exercise.
I can see it now, Anita (pup-tent-on-her-head) Dunne dressed in a white coat with tongue depressors and colorful lollypops (for the kids) in her breast pocket: "I'm not a doctor, but I play one in the nation's capitol..."
The New York Times reports that one major concern driving this huge investment of public money -- at a time of 10% unemployment among other things -- is that the Comrade and his band of crazy-ass marxists have come to recognize that a majority of the public demands a repeal of socialized medicine, and that candidates who promise to vote yes on repeal will probably be elected.
Some butthead from the Comrade's regime commented in the Times that Republican candidates will attack socialized medicine and socialized medicine must be defended.
You know, if socialized medicine was a good idea, a good law, we-the-people would be defending it. We wouldn't need a government-funded p.r. effort. After all, we aren't half as stupid as the people in Washington.
And why change tactics and move to a soft, persuasive approach? Socialized medicine is law. Just continue to shove it down our throats. That's all they have to do. They can just put us in jail if we refuse to pay for it, or comply with it, or take all our medical business to the black market.
But the marxists really don't want to lose their congressional majorities. They aren't done yet. Let's see, they've destroyed the US auto industry, wrecked the credit and banking system, are working hard on ruining the availability of energy, made college scholarship political plums, and have turned the Gulf Coast into a toilet.... Nope. Not done yet. There may be one or two families in the USA still living a decent life. That certainly can't be tolerated.
Tomorrow is a big primary day across the country. Funny, too, lots of disputed races among the dems, but not many dems -- no matter which of them win the candidacy -- stands much of a chance of winning against their Republican and/or Tea Party opponents.
Does that tell you something?
Hey, Comrade, give me the $125 million you're donating to Anita Dunne's little p.r. campaign. I do p.r. And I guarantee, I'll spend more wisely than she could ever imagine.
Save the republic.
P.S. Long-time White House press corps fixture Helen Thomas, was compelled to retire today, after confiding, "Kill all the Jews! Kill all the Jews!" Or something like that.
Good riddance, know what I mean? Actually, I suspect she's just a knee-jerk liberal who has completely lost track of exactly where the hell the liberals are in the USA. Exactly the same reason the Comrade is losing the blockheads who elected him. They can't figure out where he's headed and refuse to face the fact that he's a rigid marxist.
Actually, the Comrade and the merry marxists are only adding insult to injury through all this. I mean, back to this -- how stupid do they think we are? They might be surprised to find out what's actually in that piece-of-crap socialized medicine legislation, but we actually read the bill and tried very passionately to get them to NOT pass this garbage. Spending a proposed $125 million more of OUR MONEY on this b.s. isn't going to convince anybody that the USA needs death panels or drek-for-brains federal agents advising us on diet and exercise.
I can see it now, Anita (pup-tent-on-her-head) Dunne dressed in a white coat with tongue depressors and colorful lollypops (for the kids) in her breast pocket: "I'm not a doctor, but I play one in the nation's capitol..."
The New York Times reports that one major concern driving this huge investment of public money -- at a time of 10% unemployment among other things -- is that the Comrade and his band of crazy-ass marxists have come to recognize that a majority of the public demands a repeal of socialized medicine, and that candidates who promise to vote yes on repeal will probably be elected.
Some butthead from the Comrade's regime commented in the Times that Republican candidates will attack socialized medicine and socialized medicine must be defended.
You know, if socialized medicine was a good idea, a good law, we-the-people would be defending it. We wouldn't need a government-funded p.r. effort. After all, we aren't half as stupid as the people in Washington.
And why change tactics and move to a soft, persuasive approach? Socialized medicine is law. Just continue to shove it down our throats. That's all they have to do. They can just put us in jail if we refuse to pay for it, or comply with it, or take all our medical business to the black market.
But the marxists really don't want to lose their congressional majorities. They aren't done yet. Let's see, they've destroyed the US auto industry, wrecked the credit and banking system, are working hard on ruining the availability of energy, made college scholarship political plums, and have turned the Gulf Coast into a toilet.... Nope. Not done yet. There may be one or two families in the USA still living a decent life. That certainly can't be tolerated.
Tomorrow is a big primary day across the country. Funny, too, lots of disputed races among the dems, but not many dems -- no matter which of them win the candidacy -- stands much of a chance of winning against their Republican and/or Tea Party opponents.
Does that tell you something?
Hey, Comrade, give me the $125 million you're donating to Anita Dunne's little p.r. campaign. I do p.r. And I guarantee, I'll spend more wisely than she could ever imagine.
Save the republic.
P.S. Long-time White House press corps fixture Helen Thomas, was compelled to retire today, after confiding, "Kill all the Jews! Kill all the Jews!" Or something like that.
Good riddance, know what I mean? Actually, I suspect she's just a knee-jerk liberal who has completely lost track of exactly where the hell the liberals are in the USA. Exactly the same reason the Comrade is losing the blockheads who elected him. They can't figure out where he's headed and refuse to face the fact that he's a rigid marxist.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Seeking one honest mechanic
Here's the problem: I pulled into the street near my home Sunday night, returning from a shopping trip. I stopped to check my mail. Stepped on the brakes -- suddenly spongy, which usually means there's air in the brake lines. Not a really good sign. Checked my mail, got back in the car.... No brakes at all, hardly. Unless I practically stand up on them. The pedal went right to the floor. Not good.
Got to my driveway without destroying anything. Next day a holiday. So the day after that, called a local garage that seemed to have a good rating -- I'm new to this area -- and had the car towed over there.
Let me explain, I've had mostly junk cars all my life. Two of the really nice-running cars I had were stolen. I mean, one by one, not both at the same time. One car I owned only enjoyed the luxury of brakes intermittently, and I had to drive that thing about 20 miles back and forth to work every day in city traffic. So you learn to drive very carefully and very well. And you also learn a whole lot about: 1) How cars work; 2) The scams mechanics perpetrate. I can usually tell where the problem is in a car is by listening to it. And, of course, the scent of leaking fluids is a dead giveaway.
One really fun adventure was having the hood of one car pop open one day while I was barreling along down Lake Shore Drive. That was interesting. You do realize, you can't see anything in front of you when the hood is up. And no shoulders. Had another car that the points and timing were so bad, it kept backfiring and the engine would just shut off when you took your foot off the gas. Of course, turn the ignition and it would start right up again. I remember negotiating the "S" curve on Lake Shore Drive, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the ignition key.... Oh, the good old days....
So, anyway, I bought my current ride brand new a few years back when it was still possible to make a living in the USA, and have had almost no problems with it at all. (It even has an automatic transmission.) I figured I probably broke a hose. The brakes went out suddenly -- I mean within minutes. No slow loss of braking over time. No little puddles left in the driveway. Ever. And I could smell the brake fluid. I told this to the woman who answered the phone at the garage. Her immediate answer was, "It could be the master cylinder."
Cha-ching. Suddenly what could be a relatively minor repair now is at least a couple hundred bucks. And, curiously enough, I actually had the master cylinder go out in one piece of junk I owned, so I knew exactly what she was talking about.
But wait! There's more!
Had the car towed over there and the mechanic called me about it. It's not a hose, he says. It's not even the master cylinder. All my brake lines are rusted out. And, "if you touch one part of it, all the rest of it just comes apart." He estimates the job will cost about $2,000.00, and on top of that, I should have the front brakes replaced, and something done with the back brakes, yada yada yada, for another $900.00. All kinds of exotic terms, like "shoes" and "drums" and so on. (As though we haven't all taken our brakes apart at one time or another and carried the discs in a tote bag over to TraxAuto to have them re-ground.) He doesn't even think the car's worth fixing! Until I suggested, "Well, maybe I'll just junk it, then." He got rather quiet at that.
So I go to the internet and look up brake lines, something that I wasn't all that familiar with, as opposed to hoses and master cylinders, calipers, etc. And find some kind of Q&A list about brake problems, and -- lo and behold! -- here is a person describing MY brake line problems -- in exactly the same words this mechanic used to describe them. The question was written about a year ago.
But wait! There's more!
I checked the internet for pricing for the job, and the highest possible price for these repairs seems to be about $2,000.00 -- but that for high-performance and custom cars, foreign cars, classic cars, and maybe certain trucks. A couple people (who claimed to be mechanics) suggested that you shouldn't pay more than $150.00 per brake line replacement. That's like $600 max, given that most cars have four wheels and four brake lines.
In addition, I looked up the reviews for several auto repair places in my area. Funny thing -- it seems that every damn time a car gets towed to a shop without its owner -- any shop -- the repair is suddenly thousands of dollars and takes at least a week. No matter what the original problem was.
Seems that the towing is key. If your car is towed as opposed to driven in, the repair shop apparently believes they've got you by the short hairs. I mean, you're walking. Know what I mean? And maybe you can't walk to the repair shop very easily to verify their claims.
Anyway, so I figure I probably REALLY just cracked a hose, but I can't drive the car without brakes, and tows are $75.00 each. So what to do?
If anyone reads this and knows an honest mechanic in northern Illinois, please leave me a message. Pretty please. With sugar on top. Maybe my insurance agent knows someone. Because that's another thing I've learned: If you're a friend of a friend, garages actually fix your car at a reasonable price.
No wonder the nation and the world is such a mess. Are there no honest people anymore?
But we have to approach this diplomatically, because if there's anything liars and cheats really, really hate, it's realizing that you're onto them. I mean, look at how bitter the Comrade is becoming, along with many other democrats.
Save the Intrepid! I mean, the republic!
Got to my driveway without destroying anything. Next day a holiday. So the day after that, called a local garage that seemed to have a good rating -- I'm new to this area -- and had the car towed over there.
Let me explain, I've had mostly junk cars all my life. Two of the really nice-running cars I had were stolen. I mean, one by one, not both at the same time. One car I owned only enjoyed the luxury of brakes intermittently, and I had to drive that thing about 20 miles back and forth to work every day in city traffic. So you learn to drive very carefully and very well. And you also learn a whole lot about: 1) How cars work; 2) The scams mechanics perpetrate. I can usually tell where the problem is in a car is by listening to it. And, of course, the scent of leaking fluids is a dead giveaway.
One really fun adventure was having the hood of one car pop open one day while I was barreling along down Lake Shore Drive. That was interesting. You do realize, you can't see anything in front of you when the hood is up. And no shoulders. Had another car that the points and timing were so bad, it kept backfiring and the engine would just shut off when you took your foot off the gas. Of course, turn the ignition and it would start right up again. I remember negotiating the "S" curve on Lake Shore Drive, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the ignition key.... Oh, the good old days....
So, anyway, I bought my current ride brand new a few years back when it was still possible to make a living in the USA, and have had almost no problems with it at all. (It even has an automatic transmission.) I figured I probably broke a hose. The brakes went out suddenly -- I mean within minutes. No slow loss of braking over time. No little puddles left in the driveway. Ever. And I could smell the brake fluid. I told this to the woman who answered the phone at the garage. Her immediate answer was, "It could be the master cylinder."
Cha-ching. Suddenly what could be a relatively minor repair now is at least a couple hundred bucks. And, curiously enough, I actually had the master cylinder go out in one piece of junk I owned, so I knew exactly what she was talking about.
But wait! There's more!
Had the car towed over there and the mechanic called me about it. It's not a hose, he says. It's not even the master cylinder. All my brake lines are rusted out. And, "if you touch one part of it, all the rest of it just comes apart." He estimates the job will cost about $2,000.00, and on top of that, I should have the front brakes replaced, and something done with the back brakes, yada yada yada, for another $900.00. All kinds of exotic terms, like "shoes" and "drums" and so on. (As though we haven't all taken our brakes apart at one time or another and carried the discs in a tote bag over to TraxAuto to have them re-ground.) He doesn't even think the car's worth fixing! Until I suggested, "Well, maybe I'll just junk it, then." He got rather quiet at that.
So I go to the internet and look up brake lines, something that I wasn't all that familiar with, as opposed to hoses and master cylinders, calipers, etc. And find some kind of Q&A list about brake problems, and -- lo and behold! -- here is a person describing MY brake line problems -- in exactly the same words this mechanic used to describe them. The question was written about a year ago.
But wait! There's more!
I checked the internet for pricing for the job, and the highest possible price for these repairs seems to be about $2,000.00 -- but that for high-performance and custom cars, foreign cars, classic cars, and maybe certain trucks. A couple people (who claimed to be mechanics) suggested that you shouldn't pay more than $150.00 per brake line replacement. That's like $600 max, given that most cars have four wheels and four brake lines.
In addition, I looked up the reviews for several auto repair places in my area. Funny thing -- it seems that every damn time a car gets towed to a shop without its owner -- any shop -- the repair is suddenly thousands of dollars and takes at least a week. No matter what the original problem was.
Seems that the towing is key. If your car is towed as opposed to driven in, the repair shop apparently believes they've got you by the short hairs. I mean, you're walking. Know what I mean? And maybe you can't walk to the repair shop very easily to verify their claims.
Anyway, so I figure I probably REALLY just cracked a hose, but I can't drive the car without brakes, and tows are $75.00 each. So what to do?
If anyone reads this and knows an honest mechanic in northern Illinois, please leave me a message. Pretty please. With sugar on top. Maybe my insurance agent knows someone. Because that's another thing I've learned: If you're a friend of a friend, garages actually fix your car at a reasonable price.
No wonder the nation and the world is such a mess. Are there no honest people anymore?
But we have to approach this diplomatically, because if there's anything liars and cheats really, really hate, it's realizing that you're onto them. I mean, look at how bitter the Comrade is becoming, along with many other democrats.
Save the Intrepid! I mean, the republic!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Let's just erase all the laws
Los Angeles voted today to boycott Arizona because of Arizona's law to report illegal aliens to the feds.
The federal law about illegal aliens is much worse than Arizona's. Hell, Mexico's law relating to illegal aliens is much, much worse than Arizona's or the US fed's. But let's ignore the facts when they get in the way of our political bullshit.
I'd like to know, Los Angeles, and other like-minded "sanctuary city" buttheads: What is the alternative?
No borders at all?
Anyone can just come and go to and from the US as they wish, robbing, raping, murdering and stealing -- and terrorizing, I assure you -- as much as they want. And like diplomats, they all will be magically immune from prosecution -- or at least deportation. After we read them their rights.
Would that be better? Is that what you want?
No, I think the asshole liberals promoting Latino unrest are just a bunch of lying phonies hoping to attract ANY vote in November. These liberal assholes are so damn incompetent and such a threat to civilization that no one in their right mind supports them -- except criminals and terrorists.
So the US has no right to protect its borders and other recent events, neither does Israel.
Nice going buttheads!!
Save the republic.
The federal law about illegal aliens is much worse than Arizona's. Hell, Mexico's law relating to illegal aliens is much, much worse than Arizona's or the US fed's. But let's ignore the facts when they get in the way of our political bullshit.
I'd like to know, Los Angeles, and other like-minded "sanctuary city" buttheads: What is the alternative?
No borders at all?
Anyone can just come and go to and from the US as they wish, robbing, raping, murdering and stealing -- and terrorizing, I assure you -- as much as they want. And like diplomats, they all will be magically immune from prosecution -- or at least deportation. After we read them their rights.
Would that be better? Is that what you want?
No, I think the asshole liberals promoting Latino unrest are just a bunch of lying phonies hoping to attract ANY vote in November. These liberal assholes are so damn incompetent and such a threat to civilization that no one in their right mind supports them -- except criminals and terrorists.
So the US has no right to protect its borders and other recent events, neither does Israel.
Nice going buttheads!!
Save the republic.
Professional victims: Islamo-terrorists
So here we have a ship in the Mediterranean headed for the Gaza Strip. It's coming from Turkey, and supposedly is loaded up with medical supplies and other "humanitarian aid" type of things. Loaded up by organizations like Hamas, to name one.
So here we have Israel, the perennial target of Hamas and like organizations, who have promised to "push Israel into the sea."
Israel has a naval blockade up around the ports that feed the Gaza Strip. Any ship that comes in has to be inspected by Israel to be sure it isn't carrying weapons and armaments. (Or, they can choose to be inspected by Egypt, if they prefer.) Because these ships are sponsored by groups like Hamas, which has promised to "push Israel into the sea." And Hamas actually works at it tirelessly and has done for decades.
On the one hand, some ships coming to Gaza have been inspected and haven't been carrying arms. On the other hand, Israel has allowed the "humanitarian aid" to reach the Gaza Strip after inspection -- without stealing it and selling it on the black market, as is common in many Third World nations.
Anyway, so a bunch of Islamo-terrorists are riding on one of the humantarian aid ships coming into the Gaza Strip. En route, these Islamo-terrorists announce to anyone who pays attention to them that they are going to break through Israel's naval blockade. Just for the hell of it, I suppose.
I mean, if an Islamo-terrorist says he's only carrying humanitarian aid and not weapons, why would you not believe him?
Maybe because he's an Islamo-terrorist? Good enough reason for me. I mean, these particular Islamo-terrorists are actually rather more honest and forthcoming than most, who routinely just wrap themselves in explosuves and blow themselves up in highly populated market places and things like that. They usually don't announce their intentions beforehand for fear of reducing the number of their victims, I suppose.
So Israel stopped the ship for inspection. And the Israeli soldiers were beaten with metal rods and thrown over the side to a lower deck in one case. The Israeli soldiers fired upon the Islamo-terrorists and killed about 10 of them.
(Nice shot, by the way.)
Anyway, so now the wolrd is all pissed off at Israel. I mean, as stated above, who wouldn't take the word of an Islamo-terrorist when he claims he's carrying nothing but bandaids and aspirin?
The world is an idiot and probably deserves to be blown up by Islamo-terrorists. And it probably will be -- surely it will, if Abracadarajab gets his bomb.
Have to hand it to the Islamo-terrorists, though. They have this victim thing down pat. If I got really skinny and walked aroud barefoot with an AK-47 slung over my shoulder, would you take pity? Stop me in the airport and ask my how my mother was doing? Offer me money or a missile launcher?
I mean, why the sympathy? These are psychotic killers, as they've proven over and over and over again.
And Israel has it right... The world can't accommodate the Islamo-terrorists. You certainly can't trust them. You can't co-exist with people who relentlessly lob rockets into your population centers and blow up school buses. Can't be done.
The US is finding this out. The Europeans seem to have forgotten it. Maybe they've just gotten used to it, they've been at each others' throats over so many hundreds of years.
So, I repeat, the world is an idiot. But I guess the world loves to slobber over self-proclaimed victims just as much as the Islamo-terrorists love to whine how much the world owes them -- for what? The Crusades? Islamic culture doesn't seem to have advanced much since then.
So perhaps it's a co-dependency made in heaven. (I'll be Richard Lionheart and you can be a Saracen, OK? I mean, what is this, the Renaissance Faire?)
On September 12, 2001, I would have "tested" a few nukes. That's my take on it. Apparently Ronald Reagan's relatively low-level buzz-over of Crazy Colonel Qadaffi's big tent in Libya drove the colonel mad. And shut him up. And made him nothing but a rather clownish asterisk in history.
These guys really don't have much guts. And they certainly don't have a moral leg to stand on. They label themselves victims of (?), and wear that like a badge. Their apparent inability to do anything but kill people is supposed to generate sympathy for them?
I don't understand.
Maybe it's just that they're so damn stupid, all Europeans can do is feel sorry for them? Or maybe Europe has entirely forgotten what human decency is. After all, they're all socialists over there; reason enough to hate humanity when you're compelled to carry it on your back.
This is something we're also learning in the US.
On another subject, I think it was Bill O'Reilly who played a tape of Pazzo Pelosi yammering on and on about religion. I have no idea what she was trying to say. Is she even capable of constructing one logical and complete sentence? It doesn't seem so. But I bet she sure feels sorry for those Islamo-terrorists.
Save the republic.
So here we have Israel, the perennial target of Hamas and like organizations, who have promised to "push Israel into the sea."
Israel has a naval blockade up around the ports that feed the Gaza Strip. Any ship that comes in has to be inspected by Israel to be sure it isn't carrying weapons and armaments. (Or, they can choose to be inspected by Egypt, if they prefer.) Because these ships are sponsored by groups like Hamas, which has promised to "push Israel into the sea." And Hamas actually works at it tirelessly and has done for decades.
On the one hand, some ships coming to Gaza have been inspected and haven't been carrying arms. On the other hand, Israel has allowed the "humanitarian aid" to reach the Gaza Strip after inspection -- without stealing it and selling it on the black market, as is common in many Third World nations.
Anyway, so a bunch of Islamo-terrorists are riding on one of the humantarian aid ships coming into the Gaza Strip. En route, these Islamo-terrorists announce to anyone who pays attention to them that they are going to break through Israel's naval blockade. Just for the hell of it, I suppose.
I mean, if an Islamo-terrorist says he's only carrying humanitarian aid and not weapons, why would you not believe him?
Maybe because he's an Islamo-terrorist? Good enough reason for me. I mean, these particular Islamo-terrorists are actually rather more honest and forthcoming than most, who routinely just wrap themselves in explosuves and blow themselves up in highly populated market places and things like that. They usually don't announce their intentions beforehand for fear of reducing the number of their victims, I suppose.
So Israel stopped the ship for inspection. And the Israeli soldiers were beaten with metal rods and thrown over the side to a lower deck in one case. The Israeli soldiers fired upon the Islamo-terrorists and killed about 10 of them.
(Nice shot, by the way.)
Anyway, so now the wolrd is all pissed off at Israel. I mean, as stated above, who wouldn't take the word of an Islamo-terrorist when he claims he's carrying nothing but bandaids and aspirin?
The world is an idiot and probably deserves to be blown up by Islamo-terrorists. And it probably will be -- surely it will, if Abracadarajab gets his bomb.
Have to hand it to the Islamo-terrorists, though. They have this victim thing down pat. If I got really skinny and walked aroud barefoot with an AK-47 slung over my shoulder, would you take pity? Stop me in the airport and ask my how my mother was doing? Offer me money or a missile launcher?
I mean, why the sympathy? These are psychotic killers, as they've proven over and over and over again.
And Israel has it right... The world can't accommodate the Islamo-terrorists. You certainly can't trust them. You can't co-exist with people who relentlessly lob rockets into your population centers and blow up school buses. Can't be done.
The US is finding this out. The Europeans seem to have forgotten it. Maybe they've just gotten used to it, they've been at each others' throats over so many hundreds of years.
So, I repeat, the world is an idiot. But I guess the world loves to slobber over self-proclaimed victims just as much as the Islamo-terrorists love to whine how much the world owes them -- for what? The Crusades? Islamic culture doesn't seem to have advanced much since then.
So perhaps it's a co-dependency made in heaven. (I'll be Richard Lionheart and you can be a Saracen, OK? I mean, what is this, the Renaissance Faire?)
On September 12, 2001, I would have "tested" a few nukes. That's my take on it. Apparently Ronald Reagan's relatively low-level buzz-over of Crazy Colonel Qadaffi's big tent in Libya drove the colonel mad. And shut him up. And made him nothing but a rather clownish asterisk in history.
These guys really don't have much guts. And they certainly don't have a moral leg to stand on. They label themselves victims of (?), and wear that like a badge. Their apparent inability to do anything but kill people is supposed to generate sympathy for them?
I don't understand.
Maybe it's just that they're so damn stupid, all Europeans can do is feel sorry for them? Or maybe Europe has entirely forgotten what human decency is. After all, they're all socialists over there; reason enough to hate humanity when you're compelled to carry it on your back.
This is something we're also learning in the US.
On another subject, I think it was Bill O'Reilly who played a tape of Pazzo Pelosi yammering on and on about religion. I have no idea what she was trying to say. Is she even capable of constructing one logical and complete sentence? It doesn't seem so. But I bet she sure feels sorry for those Islamo-terrorists.
Save the republic.
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