PN:
Polyglot Times
Joe did not have an opportunity to demonstrate his polyglottery this weekend. You know, ability to speak or write (and understand) more than one language. Joe speaks Engrish, and Curseny (shouting obscenities at the top of his lungs while working on ridiculously designed and built machinery). Didn’t happen, although he worked diligently. Why? You might inquire….. below –
Dustin’s ’55 model 1433 hasn’t run for a while. It seemed like a good time to sort it out. First item on the list is brakes. Unlike modern trucks the control pedals don’t swing under the dash, they are mounted under the cab and swing through the floor. Notice the starter pedal to the right of the accelerator? Turn the key on then push, while working the throttle with the same foot. Some fancy rigging –
The amount of dirt, grit, and rust that fell in Joe’s face had him close to “speaking in tongues”, but the ease of removal won him over – 
Although the exterior of the master cylinder is cruddy and rusty, the innards of the body are not pitted or rusted beyond redemption. A light honing and a rebuild kit (Raybestos MK146) will make it work like new. Maybe some de-scaling and a paint job too –
The brake cylinder re-build kit ordered, time to see if the engine is free or frozen. Gotta remove the spark plugs, squirt some WD40 down the holes, wait a day, and see if she turns over by hand by golly.
This is where Joe started coming apart. With emotion. Weepy-eyed all through the 4 1/2 minutes it took to find a spark plug wrench, stand on a bench, and lean over into the engine bay to access and remove the plugs. That’s right. Less than 5 minutes. Joe’s Lincoln takes about 2 hours, and my Expedition about the same to get the plugs out. Joe likes old –
Next day, Joe SMILED! The engine turned over without a wrench on the crankshaft pulley. It turned over with his hands on the fan belt. This weeks task is to make the brakes work and perform an oil change. It might take a strange oil filter so better take a look –
Holly crap! THERE IS NO OIL FILTER!! Don’t know if it was an option on this engine, but this one doesn’t have any. Further inspection, the air filter is an oil bath type – no throw away filter, only clean and re-fill with oil. Joe likes it. Who knows, maybe next week a short video of “old Yeller” smoking up the back yard.
These early vehicles were frills-less, but they were a big improvement over vehicles of the ’30’s and ’40’s. This truck’s GVW is 8800 pounds. That’s a big load considering the tare weight is only half that amount. A few simple upgrades like dual master brake cylinder and an alternator would improve the reliability and safety. Maybe power steering too – it’s Armstrong steering all the way.
Conclusion? Joe says no contest when compared to a new truck – the only vague similarity is the maximum payload. But, Joe and I would rather drive one of these old timers around just to have the fun of fixing it when required. Working on these old girls is no contest compared to the new vehicles. Old is a pleasure (of sorts). You give some you get some.
Pet Peeve
Christ, what do you have to do to impose a “cease and desist” order against stupid bugger politicians? Stop the “Global Warming” “Climate Change” “Carbon tax” bull shit.
Stop frightening the children and the uninformed, the ignorant.
The authors of these scare tactics – the lefties, progressives, and liberals – they deserve a worse fate than fright. .
No one I know is hell bent on “destroying the planet”. Joe says he’s heard of a few out there, but for the most part they are heavily sedated and/or under intimate scrutiny by concerned adults.
What then, to make of the special folks who make it their business, their “crusade”, to “protect” the environment, to “conserve resources”, to “save the planet”, by acting out and doing things that are in contradiction to their stated objective? They make me shrug. They really piss Joe off. For example, he literally starts screaming obscenities at the TV whenever Kathleen Wynne’s homely mug appears on the news.
Consider the following:
The above chart is more or less accepted as the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature dating back to well before Joe’s birth – almost 600 million years BJ (Before Joe). If you haven’t taken the time to watch the following presentation from Patrick Moore, do yourself a favour – here is “Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout”:
Some salient facts from the presentation:
- The optimum CO2 concentration for plant growth is 2000 ppm (the earth is at 400 now)
- At 160 ppm plant life dies off
- The earth is in an ice age NOW!
- The average temperature has been much higher than today’s 14.5 Celsius – as high as 22
- The climate has always changed, and always will, with or without humans
Not withstanding the need for risk management and reduction against weather extremes, the idea of permanently “fixing” the environment in some state is meaningless, wrongheaded, and economic lunacy. Joe adds it won’t work, either. Same with “endangered species”, a fulsome topic for another rant…….
Take for example, the Canadian prairie provinces. At one time they were at the bottom of an ocean. Further back in time, there were no lands: the “Earth” was a swirling ball of cosmic dust. Some time in the future there will be no Canada or Canadian prairies: the sun becomes a “red giant” in the distant future and consumes the earth like a Hershy Kiss.
So tell me, especially tell Joe, somewhere between past nothing and future nothing, what precisely is the perfect time the holier-than-thou know-better-than-you crowd want the earth to resemble?
As Patrick Moore says, the reason there are 300 million people in the U.S. and 30 million in Canada is that it is COLD in Canada. Sheesh!
I’m starting to gravitate to Joe’s way of thinking.
The optimum CO2 level for plant growth is much higher (up to 5 X) than today. If the environmental crowd would stop thinking of humans as the “enemy of the earth”, and concentrate on optimizing the lowest impact highest return sources of energy instead of obsessing about things that are coincidental NOT causal. Read the graph. Watch the video.
Stop whining.
Stop pissing Joe off – he’s miserable enough.
Be grateful you live in the West where energy has brought you a standard of living orders of magnitude above 90% of the world’s population.
Taqiyah (Lying for Allah)
Juxtaposition is a fancy word. For this argument, Joe and I agreed it means a side-by-side comparison. Without sides…..
Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, president of the United States, was also a “trade commissioner” to Europe, along with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. At the time, Europe hadn’t gotten over its territorial warring. The governments of England, France, Spain all paid “jizyah” to the Mussulmen in order to ply the waters of the Mediterranean to trade. Europeans were constantly and aggressively captured and sold as slaves in the Muslim world.
Thomas Jefferson found this arrangement appalling. The United States had no such arrangement with the Mahometans, and no treaty with any European power to piggy-back on their agreement with the “religion of peace”. Furthermore, American vessels and citizens had been and continued to be captured by the mujahidens whereby the material goods were “pirated” (the Muhammeds called it a tribute) and the citizens murdered, enslaved. or sold into slavery.
As Joe points out, this wasn’t that long ago, Skippy.
What did Thomas Jefferson do? He studied what was known in Europe, in literature, and in testimony about Islam; the 5W’s and H of the issue. He wasn’t impressed. Indeed, he foresaw tragedy for America’s merchant marine fleet. His pleas to Congress were largely ignored. An excellent summary of Jefferson’s involvement from trade commissioner to secretary of state to president can be read here.
A quote from the article:
“Jefferson also discovered that the ‘tribute” was in reality less a demand for cash and jewels, spices and fine fabrics, and more about weapons. The “tribute” was largely a demand for arms shipments of ammunition and naval supplies without which the “pirates” could not be pirates at all. The Muslims were much too backward to have their own foundries capable of producing cannon and shot, iron spikes, gunpowder, and the nails required for wooden sailing ships.”
This arrangement was ridiculous to Jefferson. The Europeans, by supplying the “barbarians” (Jefferson’s word) with weaponry, were underwriting their own demise. During the course of his political life, Jefferson never stopped his quest to release the American hostages (slaves) held by the barbarians of the Barbary Coast. His continued agitation on behalf of the hostages led to the creation of the U.S. Navy, to the release of 85 surviving hostages, and when elected president in 1801, the dispatch of 4 warships to the Mediterranean and the ensuing 4 year war enshrined in the Marine Corps Hymn (“the shores of Tripoli).
An amazing man, that Thomas Jefferson.
Now, to juxtapose. From the above article, a quote about what Jefferson learned in 1785 about the “tribute” (jizyah) –
“But Jefferson also learned that the purchase of peace was at best temporary. The Mussulmen would always find some excuse to break the agreement, claim it was the European country’s fault, renew the hijacking, and force new negotiations for higher tribute.”
Zoom forward to the John Kerry (Lurch) negotiated treaty (framework) – announced with much fanfare and the blessing of the White House. Soon after the press release, the Iranian chief negotiator says the White House is lying about the details (fact sheet) of the agreement to mislead Congress and the American people. Read about it here. Another of hundreds of incidences of “taqiyah”. Not much has changed in 1400 years, certainly not since Jefferson’s time. Juxtapees, juxtapose.
What to do?
Here’s an idea. Listen to Bill Whittle in the “United States of America” segment below. He says it is simple; take them at their word and act accordingly.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The wackjob in the White House continues to initiate and promote in America the policies and cultural deviation that led to the decline of the Roman Empire. With breathtaking stupidity. Foreign policy? For whose team is he cheering… nay, playing?
Bill Whittle as polemic is insightful, often describing the future months and years before it arrives. Here is his analysis of the Obambi administration’s lame foreign policy decisions. As Bill suggests, Obambi’s hubris continually delivers nemesis:
On a more humorous serious note, Andrew Klavin piles on with his analysis of the “Obama Clown Car Diplomacy”.
The damage done by progressives and liberals in the name of their current ideology (the names change frequently) cause hardship, and ruin people’s lives. May result in death, especially in foreign lands.
America JUST HAS TO HAVE A FEMALE PRESIDENT because, you know, black president, it’s about time, you’re a racist, it’s her turn, whatever. Please, please, pick someone with something to offer. Joe and I are impressed to pieces with Carly Fiorina for her capability, her track record, and her outspokenness. Here are two speeches she has given this year. The first is from the 2015 CPAC conference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFvVzimrJ2s
The second is from the Unite Inland Empire Conservative Conference in California, 2015. Joe and I have been in the interior of California during the productive years (before the greenies destroyed the community in the name of a shitty little smelt). It is no idle boast that the Central Valley is fertile enough to feed the world. It is the most productive farmland in the world, but needs water. She is correct when she says lives and livelihoods have been destroyed at the alter of liberal ideology. She also maintains that in the time the California population has doubled, there have been no dam or pipeline or water relief projects. Liberals talk about caring about people when they really mean they care about their ideology. This woman makes sense.
Further discussion about the man-made tragedy in California, and especially the Central Valley, read the interview with Glenn Beck here. I would love to see her run, perhaps as a vice president. Joe says to hell with that. Run her on the big ticket against that immoral corrupt unscrupulous harridan Hillarius Rodent Clit-one. The political strumpet of Bengahzi.
FRANCE
Islamophilia
France, the West, and the Islamist Challenge is an interesting article you can read here. The author, Amir Tahiri, states the issue succinctly when he says :” The problem was misguided Islamophilia not bigoted Islamophobia. Islamophilia is often mixed with anti-Americanism, blaming America for whatever goes wrong under the sun.”
Another quote from the article:
“There are those who insist that Islam is a religion of peace. There is no word for peace in Arabic. There is “silm,” which means submission. They ignore the fact that Islam will be a religion of peace only after it has seized control of the entire world.
The sad fact is that Islam cannot be reformed, if only because it lacks a recognized authority capable of proposing, let alone imposing, reform. Today, the bulk of Islamic energies are devoted to political issues, with theological work not even getting a stool at the high table.”
Joe and I agree with this article and recommend reading it in entirety. Furthermore, Joe figures it is time for religion to be defined as a “fantasy of the imagination tantamount to dragons and unicorns”, followed by stripping “religions” of their unique status as tax-free political entities and declaring religious teachings fiction by content. Moral and ethical instruction is not solely the purveyance of the church (or mosque or whatever edifice behind which the sanctimonious lurk). As Joe has stated (with my concurrence) if you must get on your knees and supplicate, please do it in the basement or a closet quietly and alone. It is a shameful indulgence and embarrassment. Put on some grown-up panties and act like an adult.
POLITICS, POLITICIANS, WACKJOBBERY, HUMOROUS, STUPID
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, SMART STUFF
Smart Cartoons for Smarty Pantses –
GUNS, GUNNERS, GUNNERY
Notice the scoreboard? ‘Nuff said –
THE RELIGION OF PEACE (ALL OVER US)
SUNDAY SERMON
A change of pace for today’s pulpit pontification. Here is Bertrand Russell explaining “Why I Am Not a Christian”:
WEATHER (OR NOT)
This week was a pot pourri of chilly, sunny, cloudy, windy, warm, and night time rain. The grass is greening. The trees are blooming. Mostly tee shirt weather. All is good.
Joe (Busy) Mekanic
p.s. Ramirez for the mind – from Investor’s Business Daily
