Monday, June 29, 2015

Shotgun Weddings?????????????

A lot of bible-bangers are talking about now that gay marriage is legal that ministers will be forced to officiate gay weddings. Who is going to hold the shotgun to the minister's head?? In traditional "shotgun weddings" the shotgun is held on the groom to make him get married, it has never been about forcing the minister by using the threat of a shotgun!!


Actually, ministers (or whatever form of clergy, pastor, priest, rabbi, etc....) have refused to do weddings for any number of reasons. At one time some would refuse to marry interracial couples (willing to bet there are still some that would not do an interracial wedding!!) Some won't do interfaith weddings, some won't marry someone that has had one or more divorces, etc...

A Sister-in-law was told by a minister that he wouldn't do their wedding because she and her husband-to-be hadn't given any money to the "new carpet fund" for the church and/or parsonage!! So if a minister can refuse for such a bullshit reason, WHAT THE FUCK makes anyone think they would be forced to do gay weddings?????????????

Hearing reports about some officials in various states that are not issuing marriage licenses. In one county in Alabama the judge (I guess the local judge has the final say on marriage licenses in Alabama) won't issue any marriage licenses to anybody, straight or gay. On that I just have this to say: IF YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS PREVENT YOU FROM DOING YOUR JOB, GET A DIFFERENT FUCKING JOB!!!!



That applies to all categories of jobs, pharmacists, clerks, judges, what the fuck ever!!

While the First Amendment guarantees freedom of  religion, we need to get to the point where it GUARANTEES FREEDOM FROM RELIGION!!!!

Saturday, June 20, 2015

NRA FAIL!!!!

From Fortune magazine; June 15, 2015
Colt Defense LLC, maker of firearms from the legendary Peacemaker pistol to the M4 rifle used by today’s U.S. Army, said late Sunday it’s filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, two years after losing a key Army contract for the M4.

NRA FAIL!! They had one primary purpose for the last several decades and the NRA failed. That job was to scare the shit out of people enough that they would rush out and buy more guns to keep the gun manufacturers in profitability!! While they have managed to create shortages of ammo, looks like maybe the market for guns has been saturated. Most of those that want to buy guns have bought guns.

For many years now various state DNRs and groups that are devoted to hunting have been saying the number of hunters is declining. Younger people are not as interested in hunting as their parents and grandparents were.  Even before the stories about less hunters began circulating, the gun manufacturers must have seen the handwriting on the wall. That's when they started giving the NRA boatloads of money and the NRA started the scare campaign about the "ebil gubmint" is coming for your guns. The BULLSHIT about how Obama is coming for your guns is just the latest installment!!

Tempted to say, "You had one fucking job and you failed". But I won't. 

Friday, June 12, 2015

How Can Naked Boobs Offend A Mountain???

Recently heard on the radio about how naked tourists on a mountain in Malaysia were being blamed for the earthquake that hit the area. If I heard it right they said, "Your boobs offended the mountain." Or maybe it was just my dirty old man mind that heard it that way. In any case how in the fuck can boobs offend anyone or anything??????? I have yet to see a boob that was offensive and I've seen a bunch thanks to the internet and before that thanks to magazines like Playboy, Penthouse, etc....

One would think a mountain would be all about Au Naturel.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Religion = People Wanting To Believe In Magic

A few days ago there was a thing on facebook about a father corresponding with his kid's teacher about an Easter program that really wasn't really an easter program. In this exchange the father referred jebus as "the allegedly magical jew". Which got me to thinking (and yes it did hurt!!) about how religion is basically about people wanting to believe in magic, miracles, afterlife, etc...

I really don't know where this post is going, I could offer my opinions on religions, but believers are still going to believe. There are some that would say there is proof, "The bible tells me so". Well, Marvel comics tells me Spiderman is real!!.They were both written by men.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is real, there's even a website for FSM!!

After the thought occurred to me, I did a tweet saying, "Religion = People wanting to believe in magic!"

Thursday, June 4, 2015

If Energy Self-Sufficiently Is A Good Thing, Why Are We So Slow In Developing More Fuel Efficient Vehicles

Yesterday while celebrating my B-day with my cousin with the same B-day the topic of gas prices came up. The consensus seemed to be that this country needs to be energy self-sufficient. Later after I got home I got to thinking about that and the thing that came to mind is that nobody seems to be working very hard at making more fuel efficient vehicles, more horsepower, Yes, more mpg, Not So Much!! All they are doing is tinkering around the edges!!

While on average the vehicles these days get better mileage than before, it's not that much better individually. Personally I can come up with several examples of how cars haven't improved much if at all. I had a '94 Escort that got better mileage than The Old Lady's 2009 Focus. In 15 years you'd think there would have been a huge improvement in similar cars, but no!! As a matter of fact, The Kid had a '87 Olds 88 with a 3.8L V-6 that got around 35mpg on the highway or about what the Focus gets now.(Focus has a 2.0L four-banger.) Whenever gas mileage comes up The Old Lady usually mentions Wendy. Wendy was a 1982 Datsun 200SX. It had a 2.2L engine with a 5 speed and got 32-36mpg. (It was named Wendy because it would nag you, a voice would say; Door is ajar, Fuel level is low, Lights are on, etc.......)

I remember my uncle having an early 60s Falcon that got 30mpg. There were other cars back then like the Ramblers that got good mileage, but people wanted more horsepower not good gas mileage. The question I have is if they could make cars with that kind of mileage 20-30-50-60 years ago, why don't we have cars today that get 50-60mpg?????????? Could all those old conspiracy theories of long ago about all the high mileage carburetors and other improvements being suppressed by the oil companies have some truth to them???????????

I remember reading articles when I was in high school (this year is my 50th reunion) about cars that were made to get better mileage. One was a 1950 Plymouth with a flat head 6. Texaco converted the engine to overhead valve with direct fuel injection. The fuel was injected into the cylinder in a swirling pattern that made combustion more complete.  It got 50mpg on any combustible liquid that you could pump thru the injectors. They used gas, kerosene, peanut oil and fuel oil, it didn't matter what it was, it ran and ran good. This was before there was electronic fuel injection.

Another one I remember was a class project. A high school shop class made a car that got 110mpg using off-the-self parts. They took a MGB and used a Kubota 3 cylinder diesel engine with a 5 speed transmission and a two speed overdrive. (They managed to make a British car halfway reliable!!) Granted it probably wasn't a very speedy car to drive, but there should be something that got good mileage and was drivable!!

The above articles were in magazines like Mechanix Illustrated, Popular Science, or Popular Mechanics. At the time about all I read were magazines that were car related, other than magazines like Playboy.

I tried doing some google searches looking for these examples, but didn't have any luck. The articles are probably somewhere in cyber-space, but I wasn't using the right "magic words"!! I did find a blogpost about a 1970 Morris Minor that got 40mpg. This is using technology that is at least 60 years old!! (They probably first created that drive train in the 50s.)

Monday, June 1, 2015

Aircraft Maintenance





































Saw this on Twitter this morning with the comment: Always worrying when are duct taping the plane together :-s
The guy isn't using duct tape, aircraft mechanics call duct tape "200mph tape". What he is putting on the engine cowling is aluminum tape which is called "500mph tape"!!

Instead of worrying about the tape on the outside of the cowling, I'd like to know what is in the intake. Could it be his trash and he'll clean it out when he's done??