Sunday, July 05, 2009

"Gee, Your Totalitarianism Smells Terrific!"

Creepy -- and yet, how shampoo commercial!

Tam found it, I came up with the line, we matched pennies, I won. Yayy, double-headed penny!

JULY BLOGMEET!

Rec'd in the "R.X." mailbox 'tother day, a suggestion:

"Would folks entertain having the next Blogmeet at the Rockbottom Brewery off W. 86th. St.?"

I've driven by the place on several occasions and it looks interesting. Nice menu. Whattaya think?

I'm leaning to the 19th, on account of people bein' in town. Your input sought!

Independence Day Thought

(The headache's not fading but what else am I gonna do to pass the time? Some of the commenters at Tam's are makin' it worse, in fact).

Just a reminder, one for which I may catch hell: The Declaration of Independence? It has no legal standing. While philosophically, emotionally, it is indeed one of this country's "founding documents, in actual fact it is nothing of the sort; the founding document is the Constitution (and it does not express quite the same sentiments; closest we get is found in the first ten amendments).

The Declaration of Independence didn't even start the Revolutionary War -- there was fighting aplenty going on before it was drafted.

Don't get me wrong. There's more there I agree with and approve of in the Declaration than can be found in the Constitution. But it's just the flashy ad for the cruise trip; the Constitution's the trip itself, dripping faucets and all.

Where am I going with all this? Just one place: on 4 July, we celebrate an idea, not a government. And not even a country: an idea. An idea that people did not merely debate in correspondence but one they fought, bled and died for.

Incoherency

...I'd post something but right now I have one of those one-sided headaches that explains why archaeologists occasionally find evidence of the ancients having drilled holes in their own skulls. Eating a little something now so I can take ibuprofen as soon as I finish this.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

"Partisan Hyperbole"

Yeah, I gotcher dang pardy-zan eye-purr-bowlie, Slick. But it ain't here. Tam writes a perfectly Tamlike post, criticizing by implication a wide array of Government-Here-To-Help idiocy from all across the conventional political spectrooom'n'drang, an' maroooooons take offense. Either it's "partisan" or she's not blamin' the electorate hard enough.

Riiiiiiight.

Sturgeon, Theodore: "And Now The News." Go read it. And be thankful Tamara K.'s got a barbed wit to wield instead.

Independance Day!

I'm not especially sanguine about where our Great Experiment is going but withal, if you look at where it came from and where it's been, the United States of America is a special place.

Just about time to break out the ol' Gadsden Flag, spend a while reflecting -- and another while playing with fire and whooping it up!

Friday, July 03, 2009

You Will Not Believe Me

I just saw Tamara not finish a freshly-grilled steak because she had filled up on corn.

Grilled corn-on-the-cob, mind you, with a nice pat of Irish butter, cleaned, rewrapped in its own damp husks and encased in aluminum foil, which I had not made that way for a long time. It isgood with any decent corn and this time, the supermarket had laid hands on some of the Very Best Sweet corn. It was darned good!

We had four cobs, two each, and were she not a friend (and better armed), I might've offered to fight her for the last one.

Heavens, that was good! About 25 minutes on the grill, only turned it the once. Ahhh! Like fresh tomatoes, grilled corn is the taste of summer.

Tastes Vary

F'rinstance, say you were a Yip-Yip and y'found a radio....
There's no accounting for taste.

Science Genius Girl

(If you don't like electronica, don't click Play).
This one is almost about me. Almost!
I wonder what Raymond Scott would have thought about Freezepop?

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Car Question

Finding myself in the untenable position of owning two small cars, one not presently running or roadworthy and the other in need of some serious work,* I am trying to decide how to proceed.

I don't like having to make car payments. Owning a shiny new car is simply not worth the bother and cost to me.

I do like small, quirky cars. I like older cars.

My non-roadworthy car is a '74 MGB. When it was garaged, it needed a new brake master cylinder, possibly some fuel system work, the seats were overdue for rebuilding, one (wire) wheel needed replacement and it had a mild case of sill rot. That can only have become worse in the intervening years (I know the top has perished). It'll take time and money to get it back on the road -- though last I knew, there was a good MG restoration shop here in Indianapolis.

So here's the question: what would you do? I could drop off the 'B and throw money at it 'til it was a car again. I've driven this one and its predecessor year 'round in the past and I like them. On the other hand, it'll take no small amount of cash and probably a lot of time before my MGB is in even useable shape.

I've been looking at MGB-GTs on auction sites. Really like them and some look good, the problem being that rust issues endemic to the breed mean nice-looking MGs can be Bondoed up in a trice...and will revert to being junkyard fodder within months of purchase. The only way to tell is to go lay hands on 'em, a project that quickly founders on lack of time and airfare.

Another option would be a buy a small truck and sell the Hyundai. That'd give me something useful for transportation and I could still play at sportscar ownership if I wanted to. (I've owned pickup trucks before -- even a Ford F150, way back when).

Or I could buy something else. But what else? Most of what I see on the roads now is either too expensive or I dislike it. The Hyundai Accents I've owned -- three! -- were all bought with the thought that they were "disposable cars," commuter vehicles cheap enough to buy for cash.

Any advice?
_____________________
* All three of the Hyundai Accents I have owned have had very short-lived rear brakes, so much so that I suspect serious design flaws.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

All Day Movie

Let's see --

Global recession/depression? Check.

Democrat President with socialistish leanings who utters vague platitudes while cultivating a cult of personality and pushing programs that make the economy worse? Check. Smoker? Check!

First Lady Redder than her hubby? Check.

Congress full of idiots who are On Board with the The Prez? Check.

Wacky-and-not-in-a-good-way Pacific Rim (Asian Division) country's leader(s) thinkin' about doin' nasty to Hawaii? Check.

...Darned if it doesn't appear to be gettin' close to where I came in. One World War and 1.25 "police actions" to go and I'll have seen the whole film!

(Oh, dear, I think the sad part where they assassinate Hector Bywater is coming up pretty soon. Or did it happen already?)

Cluelessness

Getting It Wrong At The Supreme Court

It should come as no surprise that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has only a tenuous connection to reality, though her willingness to expose it might be.

In the recent Ricci decision, the good Justice decided to read her dissent from the bench -- and in what night be read as an expression of sisterhood, made use of the word "empathy" in describing what see felt was the proper course of action.

The situation? Seems the fire department of New Haven, CT had a test for promotion; and when no African-American firefighters passed the test, instead of the city making more of an effort to attract more-qualified Black firefighters, they panicked and threw the test out. Caucasian and Hispanic firefighters sued, alleging discrimination (and note the majority opinion of the High Court was they were right). No word, I guess, from Asian or Pacific Islander firefighters.


This is the cold, dead hand of Woodrow Wilson's Democratic Party, reaching out with the soft bigotry of low expectations. telling us, "that's all they're capable of, poor creatures." Bullshit! Pure, unadulterated, triple-strength bilge and hokum! It's 2009 and just about the only groups that have to be reminded of the countervailing examples all around 'em are unregenerate racists and liberals -- but I repeat myself.

And BS again over the invidious idea that "candidates for a promotion don't need to be the best; they need simply have qualifications that are only 'necessary to successful performance of the job in question.'" So if Justice Ginsburg's house is burning down, she's okay with firefighters led by the barely adequate instead of by the best? Fine for you, Judge, but I'd rather have the starters than the benchwarmers, myself.

New Haven, the majority on the bench was right and Justice Ginsberg and her three buddies are clueless; put the test back in and if you've got some demographic goal, put your attentions to the input end of the process. There are plenty of firefighters out there with a real knack for the job and it's not linked to their complexion.

...But what still has my blood boiling is this burning desire to define tests down to achieve "balance." It shows up in public safety jobs and the military these days but public safety is the most damaged by it -- there are often different physical requirements for the boys and the girls, yet once they qualify, they do the same job. This is the worst sort of foolishness; if a fireman's got to be able to carry X weight for Y distance under Z conditions, then a firewoman had better be able to do so, too, or she's gonna have to leave someone to die that her brothers would've been able to save. Unfair? --It may have the effect of setting the bar higher for women than for men but it does not make it impossible, and it could be your loved ones or even you, left to burn by someone who only got in because the bar was lowered.

Some jobs take strength or stamina; some take great powers of concetration and fine motor control. Some -- Supreme Court Justice, perhaps? -- merely take good sitting-down muscles at both ends. And many jobs require some basic abilities that if you, personally, lack 'em, you had not ought to be doing that job. Not even if Justice Ginsburg thinks it would be "fair."