Month: May 2007

This blog’s not normally a place where I run around screaming and yelling “Buy this! Buy that!” but I bought a product recently that saved my butt, and if any of y’all are auto tinkerers, you really ought to check this puppy out:

It’s Stanley Part #89-962, the Stanley Rotator Ratchet. From the Amazon.com description (and no, I don’t get some sort of “credit” if you click that link–I just like the product):

Provides Constant Drive Action with the Twist Action Handle. Twist Action speeds fastening and loosening. Thumb operated reverse switch and quick release button. Works in tight spaces – Requires less than 1 degree arc swing in Twist Action mode. 3/8″ drive, Pear Read ratchet design. Meets or exceeds ANSI standards.

Go find one at a local parts or hardware store and see if you can live without it. I can unequivocally state that I would not have gotten the starter changed out of my car recently had I not had this tool. The space I had to work in was just way, way too constricted to use a normal ratcheting action wrench. I may only need it once in a blue moon, but any $35-$40 tool that can save me $150-$200 in mechanics’ billing once has a place in this tightwad’s tool box. It’s an elegant solution to some thorny “mechanicking” problems.

Public health be damned, full speed ahead with whatever epidemic can take down America!

Seems to be the ACLU’s new battle cry in seeking to have a man infected with highly contagious, “extreme multi-drug-resistant TB” released from an isolation ward after he repeatedly refused to take medications to treat the deadly disease.

The ACLU says he’s been convicted of no crime and so should be allowed to run free to spread the disease. Well, that’s what their argument amounts to, since he resisted taking treatment for it before.

Next, expect the ACLU to argue for some poor schmoe who “was just running around firing his gun in the air while screaming about ‘Blue flame monstors invading from Uranus!’ He didn’t hurt anyone and isn’t convicted of hurting anyone. Why should he be locked away?”

I can recall testifying at an involuntary committal hearing about the “risky” (and dangerous to others) behavior of a woman with diagnosed TB. The judge didn’t even have to think about it. In fact, knowing it was a committal hearing in chambers for someone with TB, the judge was wearing a mask.

Smart judge.

Probably had the place thoroughly gassed before using it again, too.

Any chance that someone, somewhere can teach a verse or two of “If I Only Had a Brain” to the ACLU?

Surface, schmurface: I wanna coffee table I can put my coffee cup (and cake and magazines and feet–not all at once, of course :-)) on.

Lotsa buzz recently about Microsoft’s new foray into paradigm breaking. *yawn* As has happened so frequently, when Me$$y$oft gets into the breaking-the-mold mode, they’ve come up with a real dog of an idea: Microsoft’s new touch screen coffee table/computer called “Surface” that has some serious problems from the git go.

Anyone else see the obvious problem? Right. How many folks hunch over their coffee table that way? Maybe for a short time, but not for long. Would you be willing to sit uncomfortably for enough hours reaching awkwardly around on a coffee table sized computer touch screen to make it worth the bucks, when using a remote (or even wireless keyboard/mouse) to manipulate data on a media center PC hooked up to a nice flat screen TV while sitting back in your chair would be easier and more comfortable… and likely cost less to boot? Less? “With a price tag between $5,000 and $10,000 per unit… ” Yeh, a LOT less. You could buy one HUGE honker of a flat screen and throw in a nice media comp for those kindsa bucks.

Neat idea, Me$$y$oft, really neat, but dumb. Even if placed as a desktop replacement, the ergonomics would be a bomb. Just think it through and do a few hand-tapping exercises on a comparable area on your desk. As a concept, it’s perhaps better than Microsoft Bob (although Bob at least had the virtue of recognizing that the “new breed” of computer users coming up at the time were totally clueless), though by how much I’d be hard pressed to venture at this point.

Of course, customer use in hotels, restaurants and other commercial establishments to make interfacing with databases, placing orders, getting more information on products (the things will be able to read bar codes) makes some sense and will probably be the backbone of Me$$y$oft’s customer base for the product. But the only consumers who’ll waste their money on such a thing are folks who have money to waste and little sense about how they waste it (goes without saying, of course: they’re wasting it. *heh*)

In the real world of real people, coffee tables are to put stuff on, Me$$y$oft. Maybe use for the occasional board game or some such. Prop one’s feet on. You get the drift. Trying to make it into a surface for touch screen computing is… well, it’s not going to take the world by storm.

Another yawner from the folks who thrust Vista–which, BTW, is the OS for this gold-plated iteration of the Microsoft Bob mentality–down the throats of computer users.

Trackposted to Pet’s Garden Blog, Perri Nelson’s Website, stikNstein… has no mercy, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Conservative Cat, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Well, the “official” start of Summer is three weeks away, but it pretty much feels like it’s here already, so here goes.

Thirteen (Good) Things About Summer:

1. Learning all over again how to deal with heat. It’s a good thing. Helps keep my brain active instead of just melting down.

2. Mowing the lawn. Sure, I’d rather just pave the thing cos I hate mowing, but I guess I can view it as exercise. It’s a good thing. *heh*

3. Sweat. I’ve never tried to be hot without sweating, and I don’t want to start now. Sweat’s a good thing.

4. ICE CREAM! OK, one Good Thing sans reservations. 😉

5. A long, cold glass of water. And another.

6. Wacthing the cats go quietly insane trying to get at the birds through the windows. Doesn’t take much to entertain me.

7. The joy of the hunt! (Every time another racoon, ground hog or squirrel thinks he/she/it can invade The Boys’ back yard. *huh* Not much chance of that. Maybe if they brought doggie treats?)

8. Lil honyocks out playing in the street til all hours. Kid sounds. Ahh, let ’em have their glad.

9. Outdoor grilling. Yeh, I can do it when it’s cold, but summer gives me the advantage of cooking and smoking mosquitoes off at the same time. I like multitasking.

10. Chiggers, ticks (eek!) and fleas, Oh! my! See #2. Yep. Exercise. *heh* See? It’s all good when it’s summer.

11. Sunglasses. During summer, my wraparound “welder’s goggle dark” sunglasses don’t look so weird.

12. Celtic skin + Sun. Ahhh! The smell of sizzling flesh! Love it!

13. NO NEED FOR SAUNAS!!! Wow! Now, that’s cool. Urm, I mean, hot.

Noted at the Thursday Thirteen Hub and Trackposted to Right Pundits, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Azamatterofact, DeMediacratic Nation, guerrilla radio, Maggie’s Notebook, Webloggin, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Amboy Times, The Florida Masochist, Colloquium, Pursuing Holiness, Blue Collar Muse, stikNstein… has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

(With apologies to Horace Greely for the post title…)

This isn’t a hard news or deeply-researched post, just a quick grab from some top Google hits from news organs, NGOs, official government websites, etc. Heck, you’d think that if I could do a shallow Google-based post in just a few minutes, some congresscritters’ staffs–even Teddy Kennedy’s staff–could do better, but *sigh* no, of course not.

As a modest proposal *cough*, I’d like to suggest that our congresscritters take a look south for immigration reform. Yes, south, to Mexico. From the Foreign Worker’s Guide to Labor and Employment Laws in Mexico (warning, PDF file), from the The Commission for Labor Cooperation, an international organization created under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC):

The 10% rule. At least 90 percent of the employees of a Mexican company must be Mexican.

Well, that’d be a good start. Of course, it’d close down the “chicken plant” in America’s Third World County that was raided recently, where more than 100 illegal aliens were found (this, after weeks of warnings that the “raid” was coming). Hmmm, it’s no wonder the school in that town is flooded with “English as a second-language” students, is it?

And how about the residency and other requirements for foreign worker employment… in Mexico?

Well, let’s start here:

Mexico’s General Law of Population sets out the rights and obligations of foreigners, as well as the different statuses associated with foreign immigration.

In general, foreign nationals are welcome to visit Mexico for a defined period of time to take part in non-remunerative activities (e.g. a holiday), and requirements for remunerative visits or longer stays (beyond 180 days) require special permits from the Mexican Consulate.

There are two kinds of permit: Non-Immigrant and Immigrant:
Non Immigrant Permits are for people who intend to visit Mexico for a specific purpose and then depart.

Immigrant Permits are for people who wish to live in Mexico, short or long term.

Hmmm, let’s see now. What sorts of folk fall under the two different classes. Non-Immigrant visas cover

Continue reading “Immigration Reform? Look South, Old Pol, Look South”

As I was reading a novel during “downtime” this weekend, I ran across this insidious comment, made by the protagonist,

“Despite the rituals, the rhetoric, and even the bombs, every religion is saying mostly the same thing… The Torah, the Bible, the Koran. Each offers a recipe for spiritual contentment, for hope, for love… “

Etc., in the same vein. Pardon my bluntness (or not; I really don’t care), but that’s just pure bullshit.

Compare the lives and teachings of the founders of just two of the religions mentioned above. On the one hand, a man who counseled his followers to love their enemies, who said that a man who lusted for a woman to whom he was not married committed adultery; on the other a man who personally ordered the murder, enslavement and plunder of thousands, and who engaged in the most exaggerated forms of sexual gluttony and perversions.

People who commit horrendous acts of mass murder, rape, torture and slavery in the name of the founder of Christianity do so in direct and blatant disregard for the life and teachings of the one whom they claim to follow; that is, they are liars and the truth is not in them.

People who commit horrendous acts of mass murder, rape, torture and slavery in the name of the founder of Islam are simply being good disciples of the Butcher of Medina, who himself committed–and ordered committed–horrendous acts of mass murder, rape, torture and slavery. (And those “peaceful” Muslims who do not overtly engage in such behavior or actively aide in such endeavors are liars, either by commission–claiming Islam is a religion of peace”–or ommission, not actively and openly and honestly admitting that their “prophet” was a monster.)

There is a difference. Those who seek “spiritual contentment, hope and love” by faithfully and genuinely following the life and teachings of Mohammed by seeking to follow his example in brutal oppression of others are not the same as the followers of the Nazarene.

It really is that simple, and people who refuse to make the distinction are unlikely to see a distinction between any other examples of good and evil either.

Just a reminder.

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This weekend, culminating in Memorial Day on Monday, we honor servicemen (and women) who have paid for our freedoms with their lives. Below is a reprise of last year’s Memorial Day post. Apart from this, there’ll probably not be any other twc posts this weekend. Just the thought of spending time giving thanks for all the folks I know/knew personally who paid the ultimate cost personally for my liberty is enough to occupy my weekend.

We Shall Keep the Faith

by Moina Michael, November 1918

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet – to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead
.Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

Today, large numbers of Americans hold such sacrifice in disdain. Indeed, in recent years, many have attended and participated in “demonstrations” that have celebrated the terrorist savages who seek to kill not only American servicemen and women but civilian non-combatans as well.

Moina Michael’s poem was instrumental in establishing “Decoration Day” (now Memorial Day) and in establishing the (apparently dying) tradition of wearing a poppy in honor of our fallen military. That the more well-known “In Flanders Fields” (John McCrae, May 1915) is “better” art, I’ll not dispute. But Moina Michael’s poem has a heart that’s sadly missing in all too many Americans today who cannot comprehend, let alone echo these lines:

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies

Would that we too teach our children well, that duty and honor and sacrifice are due our deepest respect and support.

One last note: In order to maintain some sense of connection with my curmudgeonly side, I’ll not explain the significance of the phrase “Flanders Field”. For those who read this who either had competent history teachers in grade school or who have taught themselves from readily available history texts, it’d be superfluous. For those who don’t know the significance of the phrase when they read it here, well, they have computers and an internet connection. I’ll not be their crutch–especially if such persons are even too lazy to click the link above. One word: Google. Folks who are too lazy to click the link above or type a search into a Google search box are just hopeless. *heh*

Let me encourage you to “buy” a poppy from an American Legion member; to spend some time thinking on what that poppy represents; to spend some time this weekend in quiet contemplation and prayer, being thankful for those who gave their lives to preserve your liberties.

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson’s Website, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, DeMediacratic Nation, Adam’s Blog, Maggie’s Notebook, Webloggin, Cao’s Blog, The Amboy Times, The Bullwinkle Blog, Phastidio.net, Colloquium, , Conservative Cat, Blue Collar Muse, The HILL Chronicles, Woman Honor Thyself, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, stikNstein… has no mercy, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

So, I get this birthday card from my insurance agent. One person who’s always happy to see me still kicking. 😉

Hit me with your best shots.

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(Yes, this does apply to all the categories I’ve listed it under. Thimk about it.)

From a book I’ve not yet finished (when I have, perhaps I’ll comment further):

“Politicians abandoned statesmanship to practice mindless partisanship, making war against each other while real enemies made lists in the shadows of their national monuments. The culture of cynicism that had grown up over generations had taught us to mock heroes and scorn sacrifice.”

Gee, you’d think the “End Times” were near…

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