Friday, May 21, 2010

It's That Time Again

This weekend we will be heading out. We will go by way of Tejas to pick up Charlie The Snow-Bird Dog before heading UP to the Tundra. Whether or not I do posts in the next months will depend on my access to a confuser and having something to say to my loyal readers???

Hopefully the snow will be gone by the time I get there. They had 8 inches of snow 2 weeks ago, but the weather forecast I saw for next week had the temp at 80 degrees.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Another Driver Aid

Last month I did a post on the Cow-Pilot being back on the job. Now doing one on another driver aid.

TADA!!! The Seeing-Eye Frog!!!


Monday, May 17, 2010

This Needs To Be Repeated Often


We had eight years of Bush and Cheney, Now you get mad!?
You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn't get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.
You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn't get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.
You didn't get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.
You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.
You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.
Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans...oh hell no.
I have one of my own: You didn't get mad when Diebold and his electronic voting machines fixed the election for Bush/Cheney in 2004!!
H/T to YellowDogGranny for the pix!!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Snake Bite Kit

Towards the end of '83 we were moving from Reno to back UP on the Tundra. The first stop for the night was in Wendover, UT. We ate breakfast at the Red Garter Casino in Wendover, NV as the Motel 6 didn't do breakfast(this was before any motel chain did breakfast). As a souvenir I bought this Snake Bite Kit. It lived for many years in the glove compartment of my vehicle(never know when you might get bit by a snake) and then finally migrated to a dresser drawer where I ran across it recently.

The Snake Bite Kit contains Pain Killer and a Tourniquet. As you can see the Pain Killer is a small bottle of Vodka and the Tourniquet is a Red Garter.
Below is a more recent photo of the sign for the casino. When I googled it, I found several things relating to the Red Garter Casino. Some good, some not so good, there were comments about the hotel part where some were happy with it as a cheap place to spend the night and others were not happy with the conditions they found and the service. Could've been the service wasn't up to snuff because at the time the place was in financial trouble and the workers were worried they'd lose their jobs. Then last Feb. it got new owners, the major owner is the half-brother of Sen. Ensign of NV. He got the money from their father to buy the casino and merge it with the others he owns.

What struck me when we stopped there was the name change for the town. In the 70's I straddled the grey dog on a trip to the Bay Area. The bus stopped at the Stateline Casino for a short rest break (15-20 minutes). At the time I think the town on the Nevada side was called Stateline, NV. (Stateline Casino was bought some years back by David Ensign and renamed the Nugget which then bought the Red Garter).


Friday, May 14, 2010

My Bullshit Dectector Still Works

Recently I received an e-mail about the 2008 Presidential Election results. After a quick glance at it, I thought it was pretty much a case of bullshit facts to back up a biased opinion to justify that Obama isn't a legitimate President. Below is the e-mail, I just copied the body of the e-mail. The names have been removed to protect the guilty!!



Subject: 1776 - 2008

Born 1776, Died 2008

It doesn't hurt to read this several times.

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St.Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning lastNovember's Presidential election:

a.. Number of States won by: Obama: 19 McCain: 29 b..

Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000 c..

Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 million d..

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2 McCain: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territoryMcCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of thecountry.

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in lowincome tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the"complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition ofdemocracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population alreadyhaving reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty millioncriminal invaders called illegals - and they vote - then we can saygoodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.

If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize justhow much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to ourfreedom.

Like I said this struck me as bullshit, so I googled the Professor. When I started typing in the guys name, google helpfully came up with several suggestions including;
joseph olson hamline university

So I clicked on that and then the first hit and came up with this;
http://law.hamline.edu/node/784

This is his bio at the Hamline University website listing of faculty.

After reading the entire page, I clicked on reply all on the e-mail and sent this message:
I googled this guy and here is what I found on the first hit. http://law.hamline.edu/node/784

DISCLAIMER: There are a series of e-mails floating around the internet dealing with the 2008 Obama/McCain election and the 2000 Bush/Gore election, remarks of a Scottish philosopher named Alexander Tyler, suicide rates, or ANYTHING ELSE. I did not author any part of either email. I've been trying to kill this falacy for nearly 10 years. I didn't have any part of it in 2000 and I still have no part of the email in regards to the 2008 election. For details see: http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp.

I think I'm pissing in the wind here, but bullshit is bullshit and has to be rebutted.

" When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross" - Sinclair Lewis
___________________________________________________
So far, no e-mails. Nothing. Nada.... The silence is deafening!!!

Also while googling about this, found almost the same results for the 2000 Presidential Election.

Gotta get me a set of those Bullshit Protectors, wonder if there is a set for the eyeballs. I mean a body can only stand so much bullshit and being able to deflect most of it would ease the strain.


















Saw where this picture was labeled as a guy listening to aWol give a speech during the 2004 campaign.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Check Out The Knockers


Call Rudeness

Last night I discovered that you can turn off the call waiting feature on your cell phone. While reading the manual for The Old Lady's new cell phone, I saw where it looked like call waiting was optional, that maybe you could turn it off. Went thru the menu til I got to call waiting and ran a check which came up as call waiting is on. Clicked on cancel and now the call waiting should not work. The Old Lady calls that feature "Call Rudeness" in that it is rude to interrupt one call to take another call. If the second call is important, they will call back, or if you check the Caller ID, you can call them back after you have finished the first call.

Bird Deaths And Wind Turbines

Saw where George Will (that fount of Reich-Wing knowledge) said that wind farms kill more birds every year than can possibly be killed by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. So I decided to look on-line to see how many birds are killed by wind turbines. Below is a chart I found at HowStuffWorks. Found a couple of other sites and seems like more birds are killed by power lines, towers, and windows than turbines. The bird deaths those against wind power cite are usually from before 2000. Since then the speed of the blades have slowed way down thru gearing and the blades are much easier for birds to avoid.

Man-made structure/technology_______ Associated bird deaths per year (U.S.)

Feral and domestic cats__________ ___Hundreds of millions [source: AWEA]
Power lines__________________ ____130 million -- 174 million [source: AWEA]
Windows (residential and commercial)__ _100 million -- 1 billion [source: TreeHugger]
Pesticides_______________________70 million [source: AWEA]
Automobiles _____________________60 million -- 80 million [source: AWEA]
Lighted communication towers ________40 million -- 50 million [source: AWEA]
Wind turbines ____________________10,000 -- 40,000 [source: ABC

A while back I saw where someone had said that wind turbines kill bats. Found an article about bats and wind turbines at Advice from an Expert that basically says the bats that are killed by turbine blades are migrating bats. It is theorized that migrant bats, since they are not searching for insects or feeding, turn off their echolocation in order to conserve their energy resources.

Then again, talking head pundits especially those on the Far-Right don't care about the accuracy of their talking points, only whether or not it sounds good!!