On Mustangs and other wild things

A friend of mine is thinking about buying a 60s-something Mustang, although he is 70-something. So for him I'm rerunning the Thursday Thirteen blog I did about our cars several years ago, skipping ahead from #1 to #10, the Mustang.

1. We started married life in 1960 with a 1951 Oldsmobile 88. This car used to stall at intersections in Indianapolis and I'd get out and open the hood and jiggle something to get it going, occasionally with a push from the next guy in line. Just Married 1960, 1951 Oldsmobile
8.-10. In 1986 I replaced the 9 year old Buick with a 1983 (or maybe 1981) maroon Buick 4 dr. Skylark which had all the luxury options, plush unholstery, sound system, etc. Possibly the most comfortable sedan we ever had, but being a used car it had some mechanical problems.

Which gave me an excuse to buy my dream car--a 1987 red Mustang, which I had wanted lusted after since my brother bought one in 19631964 1/2. I had a tenure track job at the university and was wallowing in empty-nest grief--so I deserved some happiness, right? However, the night I drove it off the lot it rained buckets, and I discovered that the Mustang model had no gutter around the door frame so if you opened the door after a rain (and it rains a lot in Ohio), you got soaked as the water sheeted off the roof. I hated my dream car, and because it was low to the ground, it also just killed my back. Couldn't wait to unload it.
1987 Mustang in same location as the 1951 Olds photo. See how much the trees grew in 28 years

I sold it to a woman from Worthington who wanted a car for her teens to drive to school. I think she owned it two weeks before they wrecked it.

The Mustang hurt my back whether I was the driver (getting in) or the passenger, however, driving was less painful because I had something to hang on to.

More Obamath

HT Bits Blog

For a change, try ISBNdb

I read about this at a librarian blog today--I'd never heard of it--I've been gone too long to keep up on all the techie things about library searching. But instead of just linking to Amazon, which many library catalogs do these days (don't know if they get a kick back but they should) this librarian says ISBNdb can offer a range of sites for checking prices and availability. Here's an example.

"ISBNdb.com project is a database of books providing on-line and remote research tools for individuals, book stores, librarians, scientists, etc. Taking data from hundreds of libraries across the world ISBNdb is a unique tool you won't find anywhere else."

President Obama speaks out on the Iranian election

Fox News (you google it--I can't take any more) carried a long, long, long clip--could have been said in 1/3 the time and words. I think I agree with him, but boy! is this man painful to watch when he's off teleprompter. And to think people were near fainting just a few months ago at the thought of a graceful, fluent speaker.

I've got my orders

He's an easy guy to live with, but he does have a favorite TV show--The Closer. Tonight he said, "The Closer is on tonight, so when I get home from my meeting I don't want any Book-TV or funny stuff like that on. If I'm late, you'll need to fill me in. Channel 30, TNT."

Yes, boss. The Closer.

Kuitman thru-you

My son has been encouraging me to watch (and listen) to Kuitman, who pieces together snippets of video and sound from across the internet to create something new. Check it out here. I think my favorites were Mother of all Funk Chords, and Babylon Band. Kuitman is an Israeli musician, and his site was so popular when he first put it up earlier this spring, it crashed. Somewhere while looking for it, I also saw a video of him talking about how he did it.

Monday Memories of 1959

My brother is working on the 50th reunion of his high school class. Not only is he a "local" but he was also the class president. I think he's having a good time strolling down memory lane with his classmates. In today's WSJ, which I know he reads because he is a stock broker, Edward Kosner reviews Fred Kaplan's "1959: The year everything changed."

You can throw a dart at a timeline and write a book about almost any year (except 1957, imo) opines Kosner, but when examined closely, you can see important events that got us to where we are today. The most important one, from my view--1959 is the year I met my husband at the University of Illinois. We'd both broken up with our high school sweethearts (to whom we'd been engaged) and found each other. He told me on our first date that he planned to marry me--he was a big city (Indianapolis) slicker with a good line, and I laughed at him, much too smart to be taken in by that one. Other important events of 1959 outlined in this book were:

1. Castro took power in Cuba.
2. Berry Gordy started Motown.
3. Allan Ginsberg recited "Howl" at Columbia.
4. Pioneer space craft.
5. Lady Chatterley's lover heated up book reading.
6. Toyota and Datsun (Nissan) made their U.S. debut.
7. The microchip was introduced--the germ plasm of our digital age.
"Evolved from the transistor, the silicon integrated circuit was the work of a tinkering engineer named Jack Kilby. He showed off his little gizmo at a radio engineers' trade show in New York in March 1959. The debut of Kilby's microchip -- the germ plasm of our laptop, hand-held, wall-mounted, broadband, blog-sodden digital age -- merited two paragraphs in the next day's New York Times."
8. The first U.S. soldier was killed in Vietnam.
9. Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum opened.
10. Martin Luther King studied nonviolence in India.
11. The Birth control pill Enovid was approved for sale.
12. Jack Kerouac's "On the road" was launched.
13. The rise of Malcolm X.
14. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission documents racial discrimination in a 668 page report.

Kosner notes, "And, for all the wonders integral to 21st-century life, it's hard to argue that we're happier today than in good old, prehistoric 1959."

Fair elections

There was an on-line poll about whether the Iranian elections were conducted fairly. 1282 had voted by the time I saw it. Most voted No. I voted "undecided." How would I know, or anyone who wasn't there? How would the Iranian people know? Was our 2008 presidential election "fair?" The media overwhelmingly backed one candidate, even when there were many in the primaries. The media believed in beating up the girls--they didn't like Hillary and they smeared Sarah. Was that fair? Voters were bussed into Ohio, a key state, and shock and awe, they weren't voting Republican. "Activists" didn't know they weren't allowed to register and vote here. They got a wrist slap. Was that fair? ACORN was planting little oaks all over the country. Was that fair? Money flowed into the winning candidate from outside the United States. Was that fair? Now why should I expect Iran to have fair elections if we can't even guarantee it here? Let's stop talking about fair--life isn't fair--but elections should be legal, and dead people should stop voting.

Lauer on Letterman

It comes after the gas. . . the good old boys sticking up for each other. I don’t think Lauer gets it. The left hates her because she is 1) smart, 2) capable, 3) pro-life, and 4) didn’t get to her position on the coattails of her husband or father, so they attack her family. What Letterman said was a whole lot worse than what got Don Imus fired. Remind me. Do "entertainers" ever ridicule or suggest assaulting the young sons of politicians?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

HT Blatherings Blog

Update: Sarah Palin has graciously accepted his apology, but with a zinger of her own: In a statement Tuesday, the Alaska governor said she accepted Letterman's apology "on behalf of all young women, like my daughters, who hope men who 'joke' about public displays of sexual exploitation of girls will soon evolve."

She's made it clear that entertainers using their bully pulpit to make ribald, sexist, sexual jokes about any women, of any age, is not acceptable. It's really been open season for disgusting sex jokes about conservative women since Obama swept into office. There's Obama's lipstick on a pig comment; Obama's chief Axelrod called Prejean a "dog;" Playboy publishing a hate f**k article using prominent Conservative women as objects; the gays attacking women who actually agree with the administration's published stand on marriage; Letterman calling Palin a slut, and 14 year old daughter getting knocked up and so on (he then later made it worse by claiming--oh no, I meant her other daughter, as if that were OK). Nice guys these Obamatons. And where are the feminists? Oh, still playing with their marxist marbles, and this game isn't worth getting into because it doesn't further their agenda.

A note of thanks from Ahmadinejad’s Teleprompter

The Totus of the Potus can speak and translate teleprompter talk, and he/she has a message from Ahmadinejad's teleprompter here. The references to "seedlings" refers to ACORN and the good ideas they used during their election.

Hello, Great Satans, unclean and eaters of the pig. It is I, the blessed screens of the newly re-elected Grand Leader of the free land of Iran.

I want to thank you for the generosities of your leader, the man Obama, whose friends of the seedlings of oak trees have made The Great Mahmoud's re-election by landslide so very possible. Now you eaters of the cloven hoof and other infidels and moneychangers, may, thank Merciful Allah, wonder why the Great Satan is so committed in secret to our Great One? . . . "

The media bias and terrorists

There certainly are more coverage and media outrage about the murder of abortionist George Tiller and a Holocaust museum guard than there was about the murder of Pvt. Long, the military recruiter by a Muslim terrorist or the women murdered and wounded at a Jewish charity in Seattle in 2006 by Naveed Afza Haq (mistrial in 2008--he's still not convicted). In fact, the buzz in the news is all about right wing extremists and conservative talkers. Well, just to provide a little balance, here's a counterterrorism list which includes the Lakawanna 6, Ali Al-Tamimi, Jose Padilla, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, Iyman Faris and others, as well as white supremists. One of the women Haq shot in the Jewish Federation building was pregnant, but she's the one who called 911 and got him to talk to dispatchers, bringing the crisis to an end. The lefty columnists like Krugman who are now blaming conservative talkers for the museum guard's death and Tiller's death weren't calling out anti-war congressmen like Reid and Pelosi and anti-Bush agitators like Code Pink when those women were shot. Why the double standard?

My stats are down, but not this bad

The Daily Kos
Oct: 82,893,374
May: 25,293,380
Change: A decrease of 57,599,994, or 69%

Without Bush to hate, the lefty bloggers are struggling.

Bloggasm

Déjà vu all over again--Iran

The Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control has an interesting page called “Iran Watch,” just as it had one called “Iraq Watch” updated until three years ago. Here is Iran’s Nuclear Timetable updated this week. “Iran tested an advanced missile on May 19 – just two days after U.S. President Barack Obama outlined a plan to engage Tehran in an effort to end its destabilizing nuclear and missile work.”

The Iraq Watch data is interesting because it documents some of the speeches and letters of Senate and House Democrats (also Republicans) in the Clinton years who were concerned about the WMD of Saddam Hussein, calling for military action. Also the traditionally liberal media were on top of the WMD story until it became a Bush problem.

"The U.N. inspectors have learned that Iraq's first bomb design, which weighed a ton and was just over a yard in diameter, has been replaced by a smaller, more efficient model. The inspectors have deduced that the new design weighs only about one thousand three hundred pounds and measures about twenty-five inches in diameter. That makes it small enough to fit on a Scud-type missile. The inspectors believe that Iraq may still have nine such missiles hidden somewhere.

The inspectors have also concluded that Iraq's bomb design will work. Iraq, they believe, has mastered the key technique of creating an implosive shock wave, which squeezes a bomb's nuclear material enough to trigger a chain reaction. The new design also uses a "flying tamper," a refinement that “hammers" the nuclear material to squeeze it even harder, so bombs can be made smaller without diminishing their explosive force.

How did Iraq progress so far so quickly? The inspectors found an Iraqi document describing an offer of design help—in exchange for money—from an agent of Pakistan. Iraq says it didn't accept the offer, but the inspectors think it did." The New Yorker, Dec. 13, 1999

If you are of the “Bush Lied, People Died” crowd, you need to find out if you’re still being lied to by doing your own research. But do it quickly. Digital information is easily removed--I’ve been unable to find links I used the last 2 or 3 years. Some government sources disappeared on January 20. Also, if you are an out-of-work academic, they are hiring.

The Aeron chair

There was a story about it in the WSJ this week, but I wrote about the Aeron four years ago.

More diversity in management language

English is a rich language because it has borrowed so heavily from other languages--has over a million words. The President is leaning too heavily on the Russian/Ukranian/Serbian word for Caesar-- monarch, supreme ruler or king--Czar, or Tsar (царь). The blog at Heritage suggests the President needs more diversity:

"To start, let us refer to Mr. Feinberg as a pay Shogun. A shogun was a military leader in Japan serving the Emperor, so that seems fitting. Similarly, Steve Ratner could be retitled the car Kaiser. Carol Browner could be called the environmental El Supremo, befitting the supreme importance President Obama places on destroying our economy in the fight against global warming. To emphasize the warmth of his feelings toward the Arabs, the President could title his middle east envoy, Senator George Mitchell, the peace pharaoh.

A basic rule of economics is that things obtain value through scarcity. In contrast, excess, like an excess of currency, devalues an object. The proliferation of czars has debased the label. The President needs diversity in his labels. History is replete with titles for dictators great and small."

Speaking of diversity in language, it isn't enough these days to have someone on your medical staff who can speak/translate/interpret Spanish. This could create some new jobs under Obamacare. Isn't he promising that with all the money he's going to save with universal health care that there will be more for jobs? OK, maybe not in your town, or your field. So what if you were a Chrysler dealer creating jobs for 150 people in Cleveland--go learn some Spanish medical terms and be a translator at a hospice in Peoria. Unfortunately, the doctor pointing this out in the June 10 issue of JAMA, wasn't much of a linguist.

"It is equally important to appreciate various forms of Spanish dialect. Even in Spain, where Castilian Spanish is spoken, there are Basque, Catalan, Galician, Valencian, and many more variants of the language. There are major differences among dialects from South America, the Caribbian, or Spain." (p. 2327)

Basque, Catalan, Galician, and Valencian are not even Spanish, but are different languages. Basque isn't even a Romance language. Some Caribbean islands use English, French, Creole, Dutch, Portuguese or patois. Oh well, it's the thought that counts, right?

Strawberry rhubarb pie

The pie I fixed for our final meeting of the Visual Arts Ministry of UALC Wednesday just tasted so good I made another one today. Pastor Drummel said that when he lived in the south he didn't get rhubarb pie. He and his wife are Baptists, but have moved to this area to help a family member who attends our church, so he is now a very popular part-time pastor at our Lutheran church. He's also an excellent artist. Maybe I should take him a piece tomorrow?

Of course, I'll have to check it out first. "No crust, no pie," is my motto. I don't care how fabulous the filling is, if you've messed up the crust, forget it! I'll never be as good as my mother, but I'm better than most. But today I ran out of flour--was about 1/4 cup shy. I was going to go knock on the door of a neighbor, but decided may 1/4 of a cup of Bisquick might work. We'll see. It's too hot to taste.

Who's a Republican?

Apparently, if you voted for George W. Bush, you be one.

KERRY: Are you a Republican? You answer the question. Did you vote for George Bush? Did you vote for George Bush?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I voted for George Bush and I...
KERRY: Thank you.
(UNIDENTIFIED MALE sits while booed by crowd) John Kerry quotes

So why is there all this angst about not accepting Colin Powell as a Republican? He usually voted for Democrat presidential candidates in the past, and voted for Barack Obama to be his president in 2008. Case closed, according to John Kerry. I think it is pretty simple. If a man's race is more important to you than his political values, he's a Democrat and so are you.

What I was taught

Everything I was taught in school about poverty and political disenfranchisement being the root causes of so many of societal ills and revolutions has been proven wrong in just a few months of this presidency/congress. In the 50s, I was taught that the Germans accepted Hitler because the agreements forced on them by the Allies after WWI were so punitive it reduced them to poverty and they were looking for a savior, someone who could tell them how wonderful they were, and who could find a scapegoat for them to hate. They wanted hope; they wanted change. So what's our excuse? Poverty in the USA had to be redefined as "income gap" by the academics, social scientists and politicians, both Republican and Democrat. Yes, some homeless wandered the streets, just as they do in socialist countries, primarily because liberals in the 1970s shuttered all the institutions that took care of them. Drugs could take care of mental illness they said; group homes with no caring staff could handle people with special needs. Ah, the beauty of freedom to sleep on a city grate at night and panhandle during the day. Children too suffered from being born to single mothers, ensnared by the feminists' myths that marriage is just leftover of patriarchy. That was U.S. poverty--a tiny percentage even if you included the illegals and their baby anchors. Our middle class citizens who never knew want unless someone pulled their credit or raised ticket prices on a rock concert are lining up to bow to a narcissist with a big head and small heart. We have a leader who tries to diminish the accomplishments of his people so he can look bigger than life, worthy of worship--really, worthy to take over the whole world once he removes the only country who could have stopped him.

No, I don't claim to understand my friends and relatives who don't yet have buyer's remorse. They aren't even chagrined as they see their retirement accounts shrink, the job losses in their communities and watch as Obama takes over private businesses. Oh, they say, the recession started under Bush's watch. Indeed it did, and Bush inherited one from Clinton (go back and check your accounts--mine were sinking in 1999). Bush's administration had the tech bust plus the tragedy of 9/11 (now forgotten by careless voters), and turned that around quickly by encouraging investment and building our self confidence and sense of security. We all can see that Bush spent money like a drunken Ted Kennedy for 8 years--our deficit certainly isn't Obama's doing. But Obama spent more in 100 days than Bush ever thought about, but for some reason the Potus with the Totus is still racking up those points with the true believers as we slip further and further into national socialism.

Why do they hate George Bush so much?

Lots of people voted for Barack Obama simply because they hated George Bush, and by association John McCain. I don't pretend to know how McCain became the Republican candidate--he certainly isn't a conservative (but neither was Bush), and seemed even less so a Republican. The only thing positive about his campaign was Sarah Palin, and because she is so visibly pro-life (didn't even kill her baby with Down Syndrome or get her daughter an abortion) she was virulently hated by the left and snubbed by the right who really are sort of embarrassed by all those people trying to save babies). The latest Palin attack dog with a public face is David Letterman, who proposed her daughter be raped by an athlete as a joke--he even got applause, but no outrage from leftist feminists.

McCain was indeed a war hero, but certainly was a thorn in Bush's side through out his administration despite the fact we all know the country would be safer with him as Commander in Chief. It's even possible McCain would have immediately expressed his condolences when one of his miliary recruiters was murdered. Obama ignored the death of Pvt. Long, who was killed by a Muslim, although he was quick to see the political advantages of decrying the Tiller murder and the guard murder at the Holocaust Museum. I think McCain would have been the perfect Democratic candidate--far better than either Clinton or Obama. At least McCain is what I considered a Democrat all those years I voted as a Democrat up to age 60.

The Bush hatred goes back to the election of 2000. The Democrats just never got over it--that he didn't get the popular vote but the electoral vote put him in office. Oh, I know the fanatics say it was the Supremes who put him in, but SCOTUS judged the state law of Florida which was hanging by chads, corruption and ignorance in one black polling district, not even the whole state. Democrats essentially said that not that many blacks could escape the plantation to vote for a Republican. Besides, we know the lawyers were lining up to question all the close districts where the dead Democrats had voted in Florida and other states, especially Illinois, Oregon, etc. With those recounts, which would have taken forever, GWB still would have won. Democrats are so accustomed to stealing elections it is almost a birth right, and winning the electoral vote is not even stealing. Just feels like it, and Democrats rely heavily on feelings.

They didn't learn to love GWB just because was very soft on immigration--it would have been good for big business and big labor both--just very bad for the rest of us. They didn't love his Kennedy Drug Plan nor No Child Left Behind, even though if it had been a Democrat plan to throw money toward the NEA instead of away from it, they would have loved it. GWB, because he spent more money on social programs than any president before him, should have been their hero.

The Democrats in Congress voted for the war in 2002, 296-133, and we went to war in part on the intelligence of the Clinton administration. Go back and look at the Kennedy and Kedward speeches about WMD in 1999 and 2000--they were building up for their own war, and then called it Bush's war--the war they voted for. Now with Obama pursuing the war in Afghanistan, they can't even squeal about that. Where are those Code Pink Ladies--out shopping for new ridiculous outfits?

So it's not Bush's war per se, we know, because Congress declares war. Maybe it's because GWB liked to talk about military victory and Obama wants terrorists to be street criminals? I was reading one liberal/progressive/marxist blog yesterday that was comparing Bush's 2005 Annapolis speech with Bobama's. Bush's was about strength, power, victory, challenges, bravery, patriotism, and Obama's was, well, it was just one more head swiveling, yada yada speech by the teleprompter--hiding, keeping out of harm's way, reconciliation, wimp-out, negotiation, etc., so that the USA can continue the traditions of the last 64 years of going to war with no intention of winning. The blogger was salivating over Obama's ideas and criticizing Bush. You know--where we negotiate North Koreans into millions starving to death under a brutal dictatorship, and 20 years later abandon millions of Vietnamese allies when we run out.

Naked legs

We live across the street from a golf course. 99% of the men seem to wear shorts (knee length) when they play golf. Why is that? And mostly the same color--khaki, beige, buff, cream or taupe. Are there no bugs on golf courses? Do your calves need to be exposed to hit a golf ball? They even wear shorts when it's cool. When it rains. In the fog. When it's 87 in the shade. All the golfers in the TV and newspaper Flomax commercials are wearing long pants. They seem to have a good time and play a decent game. Tiger manages to wear long pants and he's a pretty fair golfer, so what's with the naked legs?