The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine things

Posted on April 5, 2024April 15, 2024 by Mike 4 Comments

Welcome to Ye Olde Colde Furye Blogge’s shiny new open-comments thread, where y’all can have at it as you wish, on any topic you like. Do note that the official CF comments policy remains in effect here, as enumerated in the left sidebar. All new posts will appear below this one. There will be blood…

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The trouble with teachers

Posted on April 18, 2024April 18, 2024 by Mike 2 Comments

“Chalkboard Heresy” for sure, he’s blaspheming against the Left’s Bull God.

One thing I’ve realized after working with teachers for 12 years is that it’s very hard to get them to commit to political or ideological neutrality in the classroom because:

A. They view teaching as an inherently political act intended to turn students into political units… pic.twitter.com/2t640P7KcL

— Chalkboard Heresy 🍎🔥 (@CBHeresy)

April 16, 2024

If you don’t want to bother with the annoying “Read more” click-generator, which I cordially despise myself, here’s the full text:

One thing I’ve realized after working with teachers for 12 years is that it’s very hard to get them to commit to political or ideological neutrality in the classroom because:

A. They view teaching as an inherently political act intended to turn students into political units (activists/“change agents.”)

B. They attach moral value to their beliefs, and thus view the proliferation of those beliefs as a moral obligation.

C. They do not recognize particular beliefs as political or ideological, and believe they’re “just teaching truth.”

D. When trying to be balanced, requiring students to compare two sources or opinions, they engineer- purposefully or unwittingly- the lesson to bring students to certain conclusions.

He’s right, right down the line. It’s always the way with shitlibs; they truly, sincerely cannot fathom how any intelligent, decent, well-intentioned person could possibly disagree with their noxious, proto-fascist views except out of pure, black-hearted evil. They are right, you are wrong, and that’s the end of it. There really is no point in trying to reason with them, or even talk to them at all; their belief in their own righteousness is rock-solid, and that’s the end of it. They aren’t interested, therefore aren’t listening anyway. They cannot be persuaded, they can be neither bargained with nor wheedled; they perceive no need whatever to reconsider or even re-examine their own opinions. Put in the simplest terms possible, they cannot see, and have no desire to.

In effect, shitlibs are, as the priests used to caution, “obstinate in sin.” So to Hell with them, then. When you persist in attempting to debate fairly and factually with them, all you’re really doing is teaching a pig to sing. Unfortunately, we all already know what that fool’s errand will get ya ere the end.

Via Stephen, who adds:

Plus this: “This is so contrary to the teachers I grew up with in the 70’s and 80’s. I didn’t even know if most of them were married, let alone their political persuasion. There were always 1 or 2 more “radical” teachers who didn’t hide their politics, but they were rare.”

I’ve joked for years that I knew so little about my teachers’ lives outside of school that, for all we knew, they blinked in and out of existence when the morning and end-of-school bells rang.

Not so much with my teachers; nearly all of them went to our church, knew my entire family well, and were considered good friends. Several had even taught my dad when he was but a wee bairn, and remembered him fondly. Looking back, it’s another benefit of growing up in a small, close-knit town.

As for knowing your teacher’s marital status, that was simplicity itself: the ones who went by “Mrs” were married, the ones who were “Miss,” as was my young, attractive 3rd grade teacher Miss Fitzgerald, weren’t. The negligible fraction of “Mr’s” among the faculty…well, frankly, who cares? I didn’t have a single male teacher until Junior High, now renamed “Middle School,” to prevent the lasting psychological damage inflicted upon fragile young minds by the hateful insult implicit in the word “Junior,” I reckon.

Naturally, the shitlibs had to get busy doing away with the Mrs/Miss linguistic convenience as quick as they could. “Disrespectful,” “derogatory,” “injurious” and/or “offensive,” an archaic remnant of the Patriarchal edifice of Systemic Misogynist Opression and Enslavement, holding the Sisterhood entire back from being all they could and should be, don’tchaknow. Thank God Gaia we’ve “evolved” beyond that particular hideous atrocity, at least.

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“A devastatin’ blow to our antiquated systems”

Posted on April 18, 2024April 18, 2024 by Mike 5 Comments

One of the all-time greatest scenes in the history of the cinematic art.

A blazing campfire way out in the boonies; a handheld camera shooting from the back seat of a scarlet 68 Chevy Impala ragtop purchased specifically for the purpose, rolling along at no more than 25mph so as not to jostle the cameraman overmuch; gorgeous, gleaming, one-of-a-kind Harley Panhead choppers; joints with actual, no-shit weed in ‘em for purposes of artistic verisimilitude; three immensely talented, daring actors improvising the dialogue in real-time, as they went, unscripted and unrehearsed.

Folks, it just don’t get much better than this.

The Captain America and Billy bikes were designed and built by the somewhat unlikely team of Cliff Vaughs and Ben Hardy, which is a great story in its own right.

When The Easy Rider concept was quickly made into form, Peter Fonda set out to get him a couple of bikes for the movie. There’s lots of controversy about who built these bikes. Some say Dan Haggerty, who was in the movie. The guy who painted the bikes, his son says it was him (his dad, that is). Some say it was Peter Fonda.

But the guy who built them was a guy named Ben Hardy. Ben was an African american man who knew Harleys, and knew what he was doing. When Cliff Vaughs was asked by Fonda to oversee the building of the bikes, Vaugh’s turned to Hardy who was well known (if you were black) in Los Angeles as the go to guy to build a killer bike, and do it right.

Peter had only one thing he wanted on the bike. He wanted Captain America to have a flag on his gas tank. Beyond that, the design was left to Vaughs. I gotta think tho…Peter was an experienced rider, and Dennis hopper wasn’t. That had to have come up in the conversation somewhere, because the Billy bike was a much easier bike to ride. I had a fat boy that was really close to the same configuration, and my brother has a friend with a Billy Bike replica. They’re easy bikes to ride. The captain America bike? Cut that steering head off and rake that bitch out like it is, throw in those long forks with no front brake and see how you fare. You don’t give that kind of bike to a beginner.

It was Cliff who actually first offered the name “Easy Rider” to Fonda. It was a term he used in the day. Whats an Easy Rider? that depends on who you ask. In the 1900s it meant a freeloader. A guy who mooched off you. To Dennis hopper, it meant a man who lived off the money of a whore. He got it from an old Mae West movie. Whatever cliff meant by it, I’m not sure. All I know is he redefined the word. To this day I think it is associated to Harley riders. Maybe because of cliff, but most definitely because of the movie. When you say Easy Rider, I think of the movie. I think of Harley’s.

Vaugh’s quickly took the idea to Ben Hardy. Peter bought four 1950’s panhead police bikes from auction, and got them to Hardy and Vaughs. Jim Buchanan fabricated the frames, the engines were built by Hardy, Dean Lanza did the paint (his son is adamant he built the entire bikes). 2 bikes were for filming, 2 were for the final sequence of the movie, which I’m fucking assuming you know about, otherwise you wouldn’t be here reading this. Hardy went to work, and the rest is history.

It is at that, it surely is, and not just biker history alone. A pic of Hardy, and of his LA shop.

Ben hardy Easy Rider Bike.

Ben hardy shop-1.

The shop is still there as of the writing of the above article (mid-2012, that would be), in the same location, albeit with a new name and under different ownership, seeing as how the great Ben Hardy passed away in 1994. Betcha didn’t see all that coming, now did ya? And I truly hope you didn’t think for a moment I’d leave out one last cultural lodestone immortalized in the film.

For whatever it’s worth, I always dug the minimalistic, cut-down lines of the Billy-bike bobjob way more than the near-parodically stretched, raked, and extended 60s chopper archetype represented by the Captain America machine. Two beautiful bikes, two completely different stylistic approaches, brought together in one unforgettable movie masterpiece. Taken for all in all, Easy Rider is as 100% all-American as apple pie, hot dogs, and hog-leg Colt .45 wheelguns; it could never have happened in any other time or place.

Nitpicking update! One decidedly trivial flub-up from the early part of the movie that has always irked me disproportionately is when Billy chides Captain America for being incautious about gassing up his bike, saying “Man, all the money we have is riding inside that peanut tank.” No, gawddammit, it is NOT a “peanut tank,” Billy boy. That’s the nickname for the original Sportster gas tanks, like thus:

As any fool can see without half trying, the American-flagged receptacle adorning Wyatt’s bike is actually a Mustang tank, to wit:

The Mustang tank is so-monikered because of its origin—namely, on the pioneering Mustang mini-motorcycle, a cute li’l thang that went the way of the dodo back in 1965 after a tragically abbreviated nineteen-year run during which it somehow never found its market niche, despite a plethora of innovative technical advances such as being the first American motorcycle of any size or type to feature the now-ubiquitous telescopic-fork front suspension.

The noble Mustang name lives on in its beautifully understated fuel tank, an unforeseen legacy that’s still available for most makes of big bikes from various aftermarket companies today. It’s been a go-to favorite with more discriminating and tasteful Harley customizers since the 60s. Myself, I’ve run a Mustang tank on every Sporty I’ve owned except for the first and last ones—what is that, three of ’em, four? Whatever, I absolutely adore the things, have ever since I first got hipped to their existence by an ad in the once-glorious Easyriders magazine.

For one thing, the Mustang has a much higher capacity than the stock Sporty “peanut” go-juice tank, which holds a measly gallon or so—some .9, others 1.3, depending on the year. That translates to no more than ninety miles or so before you have to make a stop for a refill. Which, actually, was just jake with me, since an hour and a half of having your teeth rattled and your bones jarred by those old Ironheads on a daylong putt with your local wolfpack was quite enough for anybody, thanks. By the time you’d gone through your peanut tank’s capacity and switched the petcock (Pingel Power-Flo, of course; no shoddy stock PoS will suffice) over to reserve (14-15 more miles at best), you were good and READY to climb off and unkink your aching legs and back a little.

Yeah, while you glided to the nearest pump sucking fumes the Big Twin ironbutts’ unwieldy 5-gallon fatbobs would still be well over half full, so you could count on catching the usual ration of good-natured shit for your “dirt bike” or “woman’s” bike’s short legs from them. But who the hell cares what those Geezer Glide pricks think anyway? Let ‘em snigger, let ‘em chortle to their hearts’ content; their ol’ ladies will be pestering you at the bar later on for a leg-wettin’ thrill-hop packing on the p-pad (“p” for pillion, although some mischievous wags swear it actually stands for pussy, and as all Sportster riders know, neither side is entirely wrong) of your fleet little speed-demon, and everybody knows it too. When some horny, sexy biker bitch is reaching around from behind you to fondle your throbbing erection through the thin fabric of your worn, grease-stained jeans as you rip down a lonely back road, the last laugh will be yours.

Ask me how I know. Never mind, don’t, I ain’t gonna tell ya.

For another, the Mustang tank’s curvaceous good looks simultaneously offset and complement the rest of the Sportster’s no-frills, bareknuckle-brawler savagery, making what was for me a perfectly irresistible aesthetic combination. Plus, back when I bolted on my very first prized Mustang the tanks had fallen so far out of contemporary vogue as to be downright rare; almost nobody who saw mine in those days—be they old-school scooter trash or cake-eating-civilian cager—even knew what the hell it was, although they all liked it. Or they said they did, at any rate, which was good enough to suit me. I certainly did, and as the builder, owner, and rider, my opinion was the only one that mattered.

It still is, I still do, and if I had a Sporty today there would almost certainly be a Mustang tank, in flat-black rattlecan sprayed on by yrs trly etc, perched saucily on the upper frame rail between the top triple-clamp and the stiff, uncomfortable nut-buster of a seat. Or there soon would be, you betcher. Even though I’m too old for that sort of thing nowadays, hey, that’s just how I roll, people.

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Yeah, NO

Posted on April 18, 2024 by Mike 2 Comments

Oh, I freely concede there’s some killing needs to be done right enough. Plenty and to spare of it, in fact. But not the kind that’s done with any silly switch, by God.

The Kill Switch
Soon the government might shut down your car.

President Joe Biden’s new infrastructure gives bureaucrats that power.

You probably didn’t hear about that because when media covered it, few mentioned the requirement that by 2026, every American car must “monitor” the driver, determine if he is impaired and, if so, “limit vehicle operation.”

Rep. Thomas Massie objected, complaining that the law makes government “judge, jury and executioner on such a fundamental right!”

Congress approved the law anyway.

A USA Today “fact check” told readers, don’t worry, “There’s no kill switch in Biden’s bill.”

“They didn’t read it, because it’s there!” says automotive engineer and former vintage race car driver Lauren Fix in my new video. The clause is buried under Section 24220 of the law.

USA Today’s “fact” check didn’t lie, exactly. It acknowledged that the law requires “new cars to have technology that identifies if a driver is impaired and prevents operation.” Apparently, they just didn’t like the term “kill switch.”

No, they wouldn’t, would they? But a kill switch by any other name is still a kill switch, and I say it’s the bunk.

The kill switch is just one of several ways the government proposes to control how we drive.

California lawmakers want new cars to have a speed governor that prevents you from going more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit.

That would reduce speeding. But not being able to speed is dangerous, too, says Fix. If “something’s coming at you, you have to make an adjustment.”

New cars will have a special button on the dash. If you suddenly need to speed and manage to find the button when trying to drive out of some bad situation, and it lets you speed for 15 seconds.

For all these new safety devices to work, cars need to spy on drivers. Before I researched this, I didn’t realize that they already do.

The Mozilla Foundation reports that car makers “Collect things like your age, gender, ethnicity, driver’s license number, your purchase history and tendencies.” Nissan and Kia “collect information about your sex life.”

How? Cars aim video cameras at passengers. Other devices listen to conversations and intercept text messages.

Then, says Mozilla, 76% of the car companies “sell your data.”

Finally, Biden’s infrastructure bill also includes a pilot program to tax you based on how far we drive.

“A mileage charge seems fair,” I say to Fix. “You pay for your damage to the road.”

Oh sure, “fair”—as long as you leave the road-use taxes FederalGovCo (and states as well) rakes in on every gallon of gasoline you buy out of your calculations. Jackass.

One thing you can be sure of: if our Masters are letting the word get around about these supposedly “new” spy-snitch-and-control devices get around, then they’re already in place and functioning, likely have been for a good-ish while now.

Speaking strictly for myself, I’d never even dream of buying, owning, or operating a new(er) car. Not that I could afford to anyhow, natch. But still. At present, the Hendrix automotive stable consists of

1) An extremely rare 2012 Focus SE hatchback skinned in Blaze Yellow Metallic* with some minor performance mods to the peppy little 2.0L i4 under the hood, which mill I’ve personally clocked at an honest 39 mpg. Low-slung, stable, almost shockingly responsive and nimble, the Focus corners like it was on rails, betraying its race-car design heritage at every least twitch of the leather-wrapped steering wheel. The schweet little Focus has never failed to leave a huge grin on my face every time I’ve driven her, she’s hands-down the most just plain fun automobile I’ve ever owned; and

2) A battered, raggedy but dead-reliable old 1994 Burick Century and a Half** Grampamobile for backup

Both of which cars, to the best of my knowledge, predate all that goobermint jiggery-pokery. I’ll stick with my two strugglebuggies until I find out otherwise, thanks, at which juncture I’ma have to either get cracking on some serious uninstalling, or unload ‘em for something older and less personally intrusive.

From my cold, dead hands, you perfidious bastards.

* Factory paint color, 2012 model year only, obtainable exclusively via custom-order through a duly-licensed Ford dealership. I have it from an impeccable authority that there were just over 400 Focus hatchbacks in that color with the also custom-order-only 17 inch alloy wheels delivered across the entire Southeastern US that year. Who knows how many are still on the road or in driveable condition today; a great many Focii get converted into race cars and run on the flourishing, popular Compact-class circuit. So yeah, rare as hen’s teeth. Unfortunately, it’s still only a Ford Focus, of which type there’s a blue million out there, so not all that valuable or collectible, then

** Equipped with the rock-solid Burick L82 3.1L v6 renowned among mechanics as “the Indestructible Six,” and for very good reason; a smidge over 155k on the odometer, which is damned low for a car that age. The two previous owners are close, close friends and/or family, so the Burick’s entire history is known to me, which is always nice. That said, though, the piss-poor 17-18 mpg the big battlewagon clocks in at is a bona fide lifestyle-changer, sadly enough, especially at these vampiric Bidenflated petrol prices…which, cushy, plush, and mechanically solid though the car is, fortunate as I’ve been to have the use of it while the Focus has been down for extensive repair/refurbishment, nonetheless explains why I’ll always think of it as the backup ride

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You can almost hear him choking on the words

Posted on April 17, 2024April 17, 2024 by Mike 4 Comments

How bad must it suck to be a “liberal” and continually be having to write these “Sorry, I’m an idiot, I got it all ass-backwards and wrong, mea maxima culpa” essays after reality has curb-stomped your stupid, stubborn, self-righteous ass yet again? No wonder they’re all so goddamned miserable, and absolutely determined to make sure everyone else is miserable right along with ‘em.

Why so many of us were wrong about missile defense
Writing about military spending is difficult.

No shit, Dick Tracy, where’s the fuckin’ squad car? Funny, innit, how that wasn’t your attitude AT ALL back when you were sanctimoniously ridiculing Reagan’s proposal supporting research into ground-based and aerial anti-missile defense systems as “Star Wars,” insisting the very idea was preposterous, impossible, and just downright insane.

A couple of days ago, Iran launched a major attack against Israel, in retaliation for Israel killing one of Iran’s military commanders. The attack included about 170 drones, 120 ballistic missiles, and 30 cruise missiles. But something pretty incredible happened — almost all of the drones and missiles were shot down before they could hit Israel, by a combination of Israeli, U.S., Jordanian, French, British, and possibly Saudi forces. Only a few ballistic missiles made it through, wounding one Arab Israeli girl severely and causing minor injuries to a few other people.

My thoughts on the geopolitics of this attack are going to be pretty familiar — the Middle East conflict is a distraction from far more important matters in East Asia, and we should keep our role to a minimum. The Gaza war has not fundamentally altered the balance of power in the Middle East; Israel and the Sunni powers are unofficial and uneasy partners against Iran and its proxies. Both sides are pretty brutal, and neither looks likely to dominate the other. U.S. resources and attention are far better spent elsewhere.

With that out of the way, I think the really interesting part of this story is that almost everything the Iranians threw at Israel was intercepted. Drones are slow-moving and easy to shoot down, but ballistic missiles are fast-moving and generally very hard to hit. Yet Israel’s Arrow system, jointly developed with the U.S., had little trouble knocking most of Iran’s ballistic missiles out of the sky — with some interceptions even occurring outside of Earth’s atmosphere.

That’s pretty interesting, because for most of my adult life, I believed that ballistic missile defense was a hopeless, failed cause. From the 2000s all the way through the 2010s, I read lots of op-eds about how kinetic interceptors — “hitting a bullet with a bullet” were just an unworkably difficult technology, and how the U.S. shouldn’t waste our time and money on developing this sort of system. For example, all the way back in 2006, Matt Yglesias — among my favorite bloggers, both then and now — wrote the following:

No excerpt, because fuck that noise. What we have here is yet another reliably-wrong shitlib idiot flapping his yap as if he knew a single damned thing about what he’s lecturing his intellectual betters about. SO…onwards.

In short, Matt and the many other critics of missile defense were right that missile defense will probably not provide us with an invincible anti-nuclear umbrella anytime soon.

Which nobody ever once suggested it might, you disingenuous fool.

But they were wrong about much else (as Matt has since acknowledged).

Gee, what a guy! Such COURAGE!™ Such STUNNING, such BRAVE! Why, the man’s literally a HERO!!!

The purpose of this post isn’t to dunk on Matt or any of the other critics — after all, I also believed missile defense didn’t work. But the way in which critics got this issue wrong illustrates why it’s difficult to get good information about military technology — and therefore why it’s hard for the public to make smart, well-informed choices about defense spending.

One big reason critics got missile defense wrong was that they didn’t understand the technological advances that were making it possible to “hit a bullet with a bullet”. No, the basics of rocketry and aerodynamics haven’t changed much in recent years. But the key to hitting a bullet with a bullet isn’t building a faster or more maneuverable rocket — it’s figuring out where the target is going to be. Advances in detection technology — better sensors, and especially better software to process the signals from sensors — have made it a lot easier to observe a missile’s trajectory to a high degree of precision. Therefore it has become more feasible to predict exactly where it’s going to go, so you can get an interceptor there first.

In other words, you didn’t even know what you didn’t know. How perfectly typical.

Why didn’t critics realize the central importance of detection software, and how fast it was improving? Well, because they’re not experts in the field. This isn’t a knock against them, or a demand that they “stay in their lane” — if you’re a writer who writes about politics and policy and budget priorities, you pretty much have to have an opinion on defense spending, because it’s a big and important part of the budget. No writer can be an expert on everything (except Brian Potter, but he’s one of a kind). So instead, as a writer, you go looking for domain experts to explain things to you, or at least point you to some good reading material so you can teach yourself the basics.

Would that it were so. No, what you and your insufferable “journalist” ilk always and forever do instead is simply assume a mantle of expertise your knowledge and experience can in no wise support, scold your political opponents as if they were semi-retarded puppies who have just piddled on the rug again, declare another “victory,” and then move on to the next topic you know precisely jack and shit about. Lather, rinse, repeat, ad infinitum ad nauseum.

Then, decades hence, after the raucous accolades from your equally pig-ignorant celebrity admirers have finally died away, the microscopically tiny handful of you possessed of even a wafer-thin scrim of honesty and integrity get to write another non-apology-apology like the above.

And that’s about it for me, I refuse to subject myself to another syllable of this self-serving twaddle. Those of you who wish to peruse the rest of the author’s rotgut self-justification, lame explication, and blame-shifting blather are perfectly free to do so, although I recommend against it.

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Memezapoppin’!

Posted on April 17, 2024 by Mike 2 Comments

Welcome to this week’s installment of our Wednesday meme feature, folks. Links to the “found via” sources will be attached to the specific MiQ’s (Memes in Question) whenever I can remember them, which likely won’t be very often. Only the first two memes will appear above the fold to save on bandwidth usage, since I assume not everybody who shows up at this here websty will want to see all of them. This intro will appear at the top of each week’s Memezapoppin’! post. Enjoy, funny pitcher-lovers.

Continue reading “Memezapoppin’!“ →

Old dog learns new trick

Posted on April 17, 2024April 17, 2024 by Mike 1 Comment

That old dog would be moi, seeing as how a six-string lap/pedal steel guitar—SIMULATED pedal steel, more like, since I ain’t seeing any foot or knee involvement, as is required with your conventional pedal steel—is something I never saw before.

Super cool country guitar pic.twitter.com/mWlqoDMURG

— Darrell Craig Harris Pro Bassist (@DarrellCBassist)

April 16, 2024

Man, that ain’t nothing but a sweet, sweet one minute-seventeen seconds of pure country-music Heaven right there. From here, looks like he’s using a Gretsch Filtertron-style pickup on that home-style beastie, perhaps a TV Jones Magnatron, even. Veddy interesting, too, how he has that stainless-steel plate bolted overtop the bridge p/u to keep the heel of his right hand up off of it, thus avoiding any inadvertent dampening of strings he doesn’t want dampened. Altogether ingenius, the whole setup.

MOAR NEW TRICKS update! Dug through the comments to see if I could maybe pick up more info on this remarkable instrument, and damned if I didn’t. Ladies and germs, I present to you…the Duesenberg Fairytale!

THE FAIRYTALE LAPSTEEL IS ONE OF THE MOST DESIRED INSTRUMENTS FOR LAPSTEEL ARTISTS AROUND THE WORLD.

Its innovation on countless aspects from the integrated capo nut down to the versatile Multibender bridge system leaves this lapsteel without competition.

“The minute I picked up the Duesenberg Lapsteel I was hooked.

This is a lapsteel that is a complete joy to play,

even if you’ve never picked up a slide before.”

– John Mayer

I don’t doubt it. Clearly, this beaut is made for the serious player who knows exactly what he not only wants but needs from his axe.

The Multibender is an integrated string bending device that can be configured to do a number of different things.

It is used for bending specific strings up or down a semi- or full tone, all done with the heel of your hand while playing. This comes in handy for changing chords from minor to major or all kinds of other intervals. The Multibender takes up to five levers (additional levers available seperately) which can all be set up to do different things.

I said it once, I’ll say it again: remarkable. Also, ingenious. What a wonderful world this can be, no?

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“We live in a banana Republic”

Posted on April 16, 2024April 16, 2024 by Mike Leave a comment

And yet somehow, some way, “Donald Trump is going to crush these people in November.” Sorry, Charlie, you have to pick one or the other. They’re mutually exclusive; both can’t be true, it’s by definition an impossibility. Making things tougher still is the concomitant fact that before you can even begin to sort out the latter, you first have to fully accept the ugly truth of the former.

BURNED

Posted on April 16, 2024April 16, 2024 by Mike 4 Comments

Stephen says, “I’m trying to think of a bad decision she missed but I’m coming up short. The implied supposition that the car dealer has the shopper’s best interest at heart might be the biggest though.” Agreed, one hunnerd percent.

Mom, 28, forced to sell her dream car after forking out $40,000 in INTEREST alone over three years – as America’s auto debt spirals to $1.6 TRILLION
Three years ago, 28-year-old Blaisey Arnold entered a local auto dealership and came away with the keys to an $84,000 Chevy Tahoe.

Despite paying $1,400 a month in payments totaling more than $50,000, she still owes a balance of $74,000 to her lender – GM Financial.

Not only did she not make a down payment, she said she traded in a previous car on which she had fallen into negative equity.

Negative equity occurs when a driver owes more on their car loan than the vehicle is now worth. Sometimes, a dealer or lender can offer to roll the balance of an existing auto loan onto a new one, making it more expensive.

While rolling over debt into a new loan can seem convenient, it can be very dangerous and dealers have been known to not properly inform buyers that they will still be responsible for the remaining balance.

‘Honestly, it blows my mind that I have paid $50,000 into this car and only paid off $10,000,’ Arnold said.

She told DailyMail.com the loan was issued to her on the very day she visited the dealer – and that had an APR of 10.2 percent.

‘I did not go with my husband and as a female I feel they took advantage of me. They knew I really wanted the car and that I was by myself,’ she said.

Oh believe me, Bimbelina, they didn’t take advantage of you “as a female.” Not at all. They took advantage of you as a goddamn dumbass, is what they did. I strongly suspect that your husband isn’t any smarter than you clearly are—otherwise, how could he stand being married to you?—and the dealership would have given him the exact same reaming you got.

All car salesmen LIVE to see people like you walk into the showroom; as artillerymen have long described troops in the open, you’re their meat—a wet dream come true.

Some of us always say that stupidity should be painful, and know what? Sometimes, it actually is.

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John Cougar Melonhead upbraids concert audience, hilarity ensues

Posted on April 16, 2024April 16, 2024 by Mike Leave a comment

Just in case y’all were wondering what a dick with ears looks like, here ya go.

I met Mellancamp a few times & EVERY-TIME he was an asshole! And this was long before politics were even a thing to most of us. https://t.co/rcGDxXV3aI

— Brad Doty (@braddoty18)

April 16, 2024

What a pissy, smug bitch the little runt is. Jack and Diane, my chapped ass. Whether they know it or not, he did the audience a favor by walking off in a snit, sparing them from having to endure any more of his shitty music.

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The Cowardly Lion

Posted on April 15, 2024April 15, 2024 by Mike 1 Comment

Don’t hold back, Chris, tell us what you really think.

Joe Biden Is a Sniveling, Unabashed Coward
Joe Biden is a coward in every sense of the word. Cowardice emanates from him like rotting garbage. Cowardice overflows his speeches like a drain backing up from a clogged sewer line. Cowardice infects everything he touches. The well from which he extracts his cowardice is truly bottomless. To witness it, in its shameless, reeking putrescence, is utterly cringeworthy.

There is nothing beneath the man. There is nothing he won’t say or do to retain power. This is true of many politicians, but most understand in some Machiavellian sense that at least some show of strength, however artificial, is required from time to time. Even Barack Obama had a moral compass that, on rare occasions, would spring to life just long enough to effect confident, decisive decisions like killing Osama bin Laden (you should recall that everyone in the room except Biden supported the move, a point of shame about which he brags).

Over the years, Biden’s media quislings have laughably associated many virtuous adjectives with him in efforts to fortify his reputation. Decent. Moderate. Accomplished. Steady. Lucid. It is telling that nobody, not even the most ludicrous of leftist outlets, has ever called him brave.

OOOF! I gotta say, this one’s such a fun, enjoyable piece you might actually come in your pants a little from reading the whole thing. Not that you should let that stop you, of course. Just, y’know, be forewarned of the possibility, that’s all.

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Rule by decree

Posted on April 15, 2024April 15, 2024 by Mike 1 Comment

Emperor Biden, in his infinite wisdom, again blesses the illegal-alien hordes with his merciful favor.

Biden Quietly Expands ‘Temporary’ Amnesty to 1.2 Million Foreign Nationals
Nearly 1.2 million foreign nationals are safe from deportation thanks to President Biden’s expansion of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) eligibility.

This is a move Biden has taken since he came into office. He has added several countries to the TPS list. For example, almost half a million Venezuelans received expanded amnesty protection in 2021. Biden’s record has surpassed previous levels of expanding amnesty for foreign nationals, increasing the foreign-born population in the United States to a record high of an estimate of over 51 million. That surpasses previous levels that go back to 1970.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the numbers are staggering. Since Biden took office, the number has increased by 6.4 million.

“The foreign-born share of the U.S. population has more than tripled since 1970, nearly doubled since 1990, and is up 40 percent just since 2000,” CIS researchers wrote.

“Since President Biden took office in January 2021, the foreign-born population has grown by 6.4 million — larger than the individual populations of 33 states.”

DHS Secretary Mayorkas announced Friday that an extension and redesignation of Ethiopia for Temporary Protected Status was granted, allowing them an 18-month reprieve. A corresponding Federal Register notice was released, which provides information about registration for applicants.

Remember now, if you think this maneuver at all concerning, you are a RAYCISS!© xenophobic bigot, your ill-considered, hateful opinion thereby rendered contemptible and/or unworthy of serious consideration by all decent Americans.

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New car club

Posted on April 15, 2024April 15, 2024 by Mike 32 Comments

The Wylde Blogger Wrecking Crew CC, perhaps?

I turned eight in 1954, but I was no different than Randy Honkala, (and is that a mid-western car kid’s name or what?) maddened like every other boy I knew (except for the suspicious weirdos), breathlessly counting the days before the sheets covering the main windows of the major local car dealerships came down in the fall to reveal their glittering trove of chrome and jewel-painted treasure.

I never really got over it, either, and by the middle 1960s my lust for the splendors roaring out from Detroit reached an apotheosis just about simultaneously with Detroit’s own steel climax. You might say we came and went together.

Ten years later, all was rust and ruin, shitbox VeeDubs and Jappo tinfoil cars ruled the American roads, and guys my age were more concerned with whether we’d make it through until Nixon extracted us from Vietnam (the Ukraine meat grinder of its day, although not a patch on our current slavic murderfest).

But those cars. Most of my most beloved vehicles were built in the period from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. And like Randy, I too Have A List, although not nearly as extensive as his.

Well as I’ve known my old friend and colleague Bill Quick, for as many years as I have, I’ve never really thought of him as a car nut. His taste in lead sleds is impeccable, starting with this shot of a 1959 Impala like the 58 he owned in his misspent youth:

Now as y’all know, I’m a diehard Ford man from a long line of Ford men on my dad’s side. That said, the 59 Impala is one of a handful of exemplary Chevy iron I always really dug, others being the 58 Bel-Air:

And basically, every model of Corvette ever made, up to and including the criminally underappreciated early-mid 80s body styles, known to automotive historians as the Third and Fourth Generation ‘Vettes. Shown below: the breathtaking 1954 Corvette C1.

Ahh, those swooping, curvy lines; the vivid paint in some other color besides nondescript gray, silver, or charcoal; that toothy chrome grill, the stainless body trim! Folks, they just don’t make ‘em like that anymore, and that’s a crying shame if you ask me.

What with anonymous plastic eggmobiles and graceless, chunky SUVs ruling the road nowadays, no wonder America’s long love affair with their automobiles has finally guttered out, except among a steadily dwindling number of mulishly unevolved fans of the vintage Detroit steel who still bitterly cling to the old ways. No esthetics; no gut appeal to anything besides pure utilitarian practicality; no soul, no spark, no romance: seriously, who could possibly fall in love with and take pride in such uninspiring machines as are on offer these days?

Bill’s post moved me to leave one of my infrequent comments in response, to wit:

Gawd DAMN, but that Impala is gorgeous! One of the small handful of Bowties I do actually like. The death of the car culture—premeditated murder, more like—has robbed American youth of a hell of a lot of cross-generational tradition, joie de vivre, and good, old-fashioned fun.

I’ve lamented that grievous loss here before more than once or twice, so no need to belabor the point further right now, I don’t think. To be perfectly honest, I just wanted an excuse to run a few cool car pics, really. My thanks to Bill for providing me with one.

Update! Man, I’m thinking in my munificent spare time I might just try to Gimp up a patch design for our notional blogger CC cutoff, maybe. We’ll see about that; I know at least Bill and Phil over at Bustednuckles would find such a project interesting, if nobody else did. Too bad Randy Herring is gone; if he was still with us, I could get him to draw me a really good ‘un up in a heartbeat. In fact, knowing Randy he very well might’ve done one on his own hook a long time ago, without ever being asked.

Updated update! For Barry, whose comment-section contribution brought it to mind.

Great tune, great cars, even if they are fuckin’ Bowties.

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The greatest band you never heard of

Posted on April 14, 2024April 14, 2024 by Mike 1 Comment

A look behind the scenes at the Cramps. First, a cpl-three of my personal favorites.

Yes, I’m aware that the Cramps’ bare-bones, raw, stripped-to-the-primer sound; the shock/schlock vintage horror-movie sensibilities which are shot through both their recordings and their onstage presentation; and Lux Interior’s more-shouted-than-sung vocal style isn’t going to appeal to all of y’all CF Lifers—let alone the bizarre way he prowls and flings himself around onstage, the outré antics, the in-your-face freaky-deakiness. I can see how that might be off-putting to those who didn’t come of age during the mid-70s punk rock explosion like I did, and that’s cool. In consideration of more-restrained and/or genteel tastes, I’ll do y’all a favor and just tuck the rest of this post away beneath the fold.

Continue reading “The greatest band you never heard of” →

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Boeing: What happened?

Posted on April 14, 2024April 14, 2024 by Mike 1 Comment

From a half-century as one of the world’s premier, most respected aircraft manufacturers to…well…

Meme purloined from the awesome Ken Lane. Now to the who, what, how, and why of it.

Suicide Mission
What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

John Barnett had one of those bosses who seemed to spend most of his waking hours scheming to inflict humiliation upon him. He mocked him in weekly meetings whenever he dared contribute a thought, assigned a fellow manager to spy on him and spread rumors that he did not play nicely with others, and disciplined him for things like “using email to communicate” and pushing for flaws he found on planes to be fixed.

“John is very knowledgeable almost to a fault, as it gets in the way at times when issues arise,” the boss wrote in one of his withering performance reviews, downgrading Barnett’s rating from a 40 all the way to a 15 in an assessment that cast the 26-year quality manager, who was known as “Swampy” for his easy Louisiana drawl, as an anal-retentive prick whose pedantry was antagonizing his colleagues. The truth, by contrast, was self-evident to anyone who spent five minutes in his presence: John Barnett, who raced cars in his spare time and seemed “high on life” according to one former colleague, was a “great, fun boss that loved Boeing and was willing to share his knowledge with everyone,” as one of his former quality technicians would later recall.

But Swampy was mired in an institution that was in a perpetual state of unlearning all the lessons it had absorbed over a 90-year ascent to the pinnacle of global manufacturing. Like most neoliberal institutions, Boeing had come under the spell of a seductive new theory of “knowledge” that essentially reduced the whole concept to a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, discarding “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs. CEO Jim McNerney, who joined Boeing in 2005, had last helmed 3M, where management as he saw it had “overvalued experience and undervalued leadership” before he purged the veterans into early retirement.

“Prince Jim”—as some long-timers used to call him—repeatedly invoked a slur for longtime engineers and skilled machinists in the obligatory vanity “leadership” book he co-wrote. Those who cared too much about the integrity of the planes and not enough about the stock price were “phenomenally talented assholes,” and he encouraged his deputies to ostracize them into leaving the company. He initially refused to let nearly any of these talented assholes work on the 787 Dreamliner, instead outsourcing the vast majority of the development and engineering design of the brand-new, revolutionary wide-body jet to suppliers, many of which lacked engineering departments. The plan would save money while busting unions, a win-win, he promised investors. Instead, McNerney’s plan burned some $50 billion in excess of its budget and went three and a half years behind schedule.

Swampy belonged to one of the cleanup crews that Boeing detailed to McNerney’s disaster area. The supplier to which Boeing had outsourced part of the 787 fuselage had in turn outsourced the design to an Israeli firm that had botched the job, leaving the supplier strapped for cash in the midst of a global credit crunch. Boeing would have to bail out—and buy out—the private equity firm that controlled the supplier. In 2009, Boeing began recruiting managers from Washington state to move east to the supplier’s non-union plant in Charleston, South Carolina, to train the workforce to properly put together a plane.

That move, also, didn’t work out so well for the now-floundering aerospace company. The story details a toxic mish-mash of Wokesterism, the rise of a know-nothing MBA class, and a creeping, not-my-problem/not-my-fault corporate blame-shifting culture that replaced the former all-American can-do, git-er-done spirit which may well prove fatal to the once-mighty Boeing…and probably should, frankly.

It’s a sign o’ the times in Amerika v2.0, by no means unique but an increasingly commonplace story—and an extremely sad one.

(Via Ed Driscoll)

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Your feel-good video of the…um…welllll….

Posted on April 13, 2024April 13, 2024 by Mike 2 Comments

EVER, I’d say.

If you don’t particularly feel like watching the vid—which, you really, really, REALLY should, it’s a joy and a wonder to behold—this meme sums it up quite nicely:

Nicely, and word for word, also. Excellent work, Ms Williams, ya done good.

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GIVE TIL IT HURTS

THANKS!

Mike @Substack

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