Hacks.

"20+ year career. 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case." - Lance Armstrong tweet

Remember back in the 80's, when 60 Minutes did their hatchet job on Audi, claiming the cars took off by themselves, even though the drivers were standing on the brakes? And then, when it was shown that while the drivers thought they were standing on the brakes, they were actually standing on the accelerator, which is why they drove into storefronts, and rivers, etc.? And this was long before today's "sophisticated" electronics which make Toyotas really take off by themselves? And when presented with the actual facts, that due to a slight design flaw the brake and accelerator pedals were a little too close together for big American feet, they just ho-hummed and moved on to the next ambush victim without so much as a mumbled "sorry" to Audi?

Yeah. That 60 Minutes. They're going to do it again this Sunday. I'll miss it, because I haven't watched it in over 25 years. See if you can't miss it, too. And I hope a million cancer survivors march on CBS headquarters in protest.

This Is A Big Fuc.. .. Deal!

Doves, seeking shelter during the worst.
I feared for their lives.

For the last two days, we've had temperatures well below normal. For example, the normal high for this time of year is 62°F. We struggled to come close to 20°F. Probably 40% of the state is without water, us included. Many are without natural gas, and with power companies effecting rolling blackouts, some have been without power. The winds from the North on Wednesday and Thursday were strong enough to turn a trace of snow into a blinding
blizzard!

In our area, particularly, the homes are not suited to cold this extreme. We've been without water since Wednesday night, probably because the water line from the well building to the house is not buried deep enough. Fortunately, our well building is well insulated, so there was running water from the tap there.. we were able to fill some 5 gallon buckets to at least be able to flush the toilets. We've been spoiled here, and had forgotten the rules about opening the taps to prevent freezing.. besides, who could have imagined that we would break the record for low temps by a whopping 20 degrees?!

The dishwasher is full. The kitchen counters are full of more dirty dishes. Our bodies are.. well, enough said about that. We could use showers.

I awoke at 6:15 this morning to the sound very much like a dog getting ready to empty its stomach. I was afraid the drains were about to back up. In reality, it was the faucet in the bathtub, trying mightily to produce water! It would produce only a trickle, but a trickle was more than we've had for more than 50 hours. To compound the good news, the same was happening in the second bathtub. Not a drop from any of the sink faucets yet, but now that appears only a matter of time.

The forecast for the next 10 days is for highs in the 60's. That sounds a whole lot like normal to me, and the last two days will be but an ugly memory. Next Winter we'll know better, and I want a wood burner in the house!

Off The Wall.

Search terms that bring people to this blog:

OK.. Victoria's Secret I get. But the Beck thing? WTF? And what they get when they see the Beck post, is just the Esquire Magazine photoshoot image I grabbed from the Google to illustrate a post on a completely different subject. Go figure. Ah well, it's all traffic.

Gonna Choke!

 This must be a joke!

OMG, No!  It's Hoke!

U of M has completed its metamorphosis into Notre Dame.  I'm pretty sure the Oregon Ducks or the TCU Horned Frogs will welcome me, provisionally at least, as a fan, while the Wolverines wander in the wilderness for the next dozen years or so.*

If I don't have a stroke.

OBTW.. you can say goodbye to #16.  Here's the new coach on the spread offense:

"When asked recently about the influence of Oregon’s offense, Hoke subtly revealed his disdain for the tactical shift Michigan experienced under Rodriguez. He is convinced that modern spread option offenses can be counterproductive to the core values of smashmouth football and are, therefore, to be avoided. 

  

“Right, wrong or indifferent, when you’re zone blocking all the time -- when you’re playing basketball on grass -- you practice against that all spring, you practice against it all fall and then you’re going to play a two-back team that wants to knock you off the football,” Hoke said. “I don’t think you’re prepared. 

  

“I think there’s a toughness level (required in college football). I still believe you win with defense. That’s been beaten into my head a long time, but I really believe that. The toughness of your team has to be the offensive front and your defensive front.” 

Whoop-dee-doo! Our own version of the Neanderthal in Madison.










* And, of course, I'll be a fan of wherever Rich Rodriguez ends up. And you can take that to the bank.

Call, Email, or Write Your Congressperson.

(But don't send a cable if you don't want to be immortalized by WikiLeaks)

Click on the post title above, or here, to see why-

"There's no single action Congress could take that would help the economy more than putting money in the hands of people who'll spend it right away."

Don't Worry 'Bout Me.

Despite the fact I've been left on my own for yet another holiday period, I'll get by. MMmmm-mmm-mmm.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Mencken Knew..

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people," - H. L. Mencken

So, let me see if I can sort out the just completed mid-term elections in as few words as possible.

As I understand it, the exit polling determined that the number one, over-riding thing on voters' minds was the economy, and by extension, jobs. OK, fair enough, but here's where it gets tricky.. Progress, admittedly slow progress, is being made, so the obvious answer is to what? Turn out the folks who are trying to accelerate that progress, and put in their place people who want to reverse the process.... return to those bad old days?

Friends, it makes me...

More amazingly prescient 100 year old commentary from H. L. Mencken can be found here.

Now, things could have been worse. Laurence O'Donnell made a good point on MSNBC last night. Considering the economy, the voters' (mis-placed and ill-advised) anger with Washington, the high unemployment rate, this should have been much worse, and the Republicans should be scratching their heads wondering why they didn't do better. Much better. This barely lived up to the level of the '94 mid-term "massacre". Maybe Americans aren't nearly as stupid as I give them credit for. Well, except for Kentuckians. And Oklahomans.

Terrierman, Pat Burns, ties it all up in a neat bow for you.

It Was 40 Years Ago This Weekend.

What would it hurt to repeat a little history, really.

Smack-down for "Wrong Way Wilson"

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

Why?

That's right.  Why be content to get stuck where a mere little Kubota tractor can help you effect your escape from the muddy clutches, when there's a really deep boggy situation just waiting down the road, and woe unto you if you venture a little too right or left of the hard pack.

And that's the situation we found ourselves in last Thursday.  First we tried the tractor again.  Not this time, sport.  The more it pulled the further right the Express wanted to slide until it was tipping precariously in the really soft stuff, and leaning on the chain link!  This also blocked the normal exit we call a "door".  Out the window, take the ladder off the back so Margaret could exit gracefully and head to Hugo to upload the II pictures.

Meanwhile, I called our road service provider, because we were going to need something bigger; much bigger.. than the neighbor's Massey-Ferguson.  We were going to need the big boy, because how do you extract a 20,000 pound behemoth that's heeled over against a fence, a foot and a half in the soggy earth... without damaging the awning, and the coach finish?  Watch and learn, kids... watch and learn:

These ol' boys were really good!

Empty Echoes in the Senate.

Sen. John McCain spent the last couple of days on his Senate soapbox, reminding us exactly what he is:

Loser.

And that's why you're still in the Senate, John.

Wrap Up.

The advantage of not being emotionally involved in the outcome of today's Super Bowl is that I can say, "wow... what an entertaining game".

That is all.





Because... if I was to ramble on, I'd probably whine about the only Buckeye on either roster ending up as the MVP.. Grrrrr. Defensively, ex-Wolverine, Lamar Woodley made some great plays.

That's really all. Seriously.

Putting Those Donations to Good Use.

No.

Not the donations sent here to help out Dutch Salmon's family. I'm talking about the money donated to PETA. (Not by anyone who reads this blog, of course, but those other people.) They're not going to be able to help out all those widdle cuddewy-wuddewy furry critters... you know, the ones they end up euthanizing... if they're blowing 3 million bucks on a pornographic Super Bowl commercial.

Alas, we won't get to see the cute lady do herself with a broccoli. NBC decided the ad was too racy. It's OK though... PETA was just going to lie to us.

Like always.

That's Quite A Resumé , Norm...

Below is the funniest line I've read about the Minnesota senatorial race, and subsequent recount, which ended yesterday with a proclamation of victory for author/comedian/lecturer, Al Franken. It comes from this post by Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight.Com blog:

"Let's be frank: Norm Coleman doesn't have much of a future in electoral politics. Defeated Presidential candidates sometimes have nine lives, but defeated Senatorial candidates rarely do, and in his career running for statewide office, Coleman has lost to a professional wrestler, beaten a dead guy, and then tied a comedian. He doesn't have much to lose by fighting this to its bitter conclusion. But it's hard to envision how he'll come up with enough ballots to overtake Franken."

Coleman should think about that before he puts the state through a long, drawn out, expensive, and ultimately futile legal challenge.

So, congratulations to Al Franken. Minnesotans have shown the guts that the Texans didn't have a few years back when they rejected Kinky Friedman as their governor.

)(@$&*) Hillbillies!

Of course all the southern Republican Senators voted against helping the middle class autoworkers. They were following orders from their constituents masters in Japan, Germany, and Korea.

And you thought our fathers and grandfathers won that war...

A Sirius Rant.

If you're a subscriber to satellite radio... either Sirius or XM, you already know what this is about. Like me you woke up last Wednesday, turned on your radio, got the message "Updating streams... this may take a few minutes". OK, this has happened before, no big..... WTF?!?!?!?!? Sirius Disorder, the station I listened to about 60% of the time, was gone. In its place, something called "The Bridge". I have no idea what format "The Bridge" is, because it's currently the home of "Led Zeppelin Radio" for a limited engagement.

Welcome to "Sirius XM"... the future of satellite radio. We know the merger was approved in the congress last Summer. We knew there were probably going to be some changes coming. We knew ...thought... there would be some time before the changes took effect that we would be sent an email, or got some kind of notice about what the changes would entail. Un-uh. I listened to Sirius all the way across New Mexico, and a hunk of Texas driving back to Oklahoma last Tuesday. Not a word was mentioned on any of the stations I listened to. Larry Kirwan spoke as if he'd be there the next day, and the day after that.

Wednesday morning some time.. probably right in the middle of a song on some channel, it all changed. I was pretty sure I knew what happened, but until I got an email, hours after the fact, from Sirius, trumpeting their wonderful new channel lineup, I could only guess. It took a lot of online time to ferret out the true nature of the beast. Indeed, Disorder was gone. As was the classic jazz channel I listened to, replaced by something lighter weight from XM. Left of Center.. the alternative, "college format" channel was replaced by "Sirius XM U". And on and on it goes.

Most media sources I Googled, agreed this transition was not handled well by the corporate brain-dead. (Read the article, but also the comments). While almost no one, in or out of the media, knew what the changes would be, or when, save this site, which let its readers in on it. It's now bookmarked on my computer, as I don't want to be, as The Who sang, fooled again.

Writing this one week after the fact, I can now say that this would be much more blistering had I responded immediately. But now I've got a week under my belt... or between my ears. Things may not be as bad as they seemed at first. The Loft, a station recommended by Sirius for folks who liked Disorder, is loading up with some of my favorite shows- "Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight", David Johansen's Mansion of Fun (perhaps the most eclectic bit of programming in the history of broadcasting), Lou Reed's New York Shuffle, and perhaps most importantly, Meg Griffin- the brains behind the Disorder channel will return December 1st with a program called..... Disorder.

I'll still miss Larry Kirwan's Celtic Crush, and The Kennedys' Dharma Cafe on Saturday mornings, but on the plus side- Outlaw Country remains, anchored by wild man Mojo Nixon, and it's been complemented by a new channel, Willie's Place, featuring Texas Honky Tonk music! All the NPR channels are untouched, and in December we'll also get a channel for movie soundtracks, so maybe things arent as dire as they seemed last week. Time will tell. It appears maybe our emails did some good.

Tell us about your transitory experiences last week when your favorite channels disappeared.. do it in the comments section.

Fall Color

...and yes, we're still blogging, although it would be hard to prove it based on the past couple of weeks' activity. Gonna try and change that over the next couple of weeks, because the leaves are turning, and it's time to head South for the Winter.

I've updated the schedule, to the left right, and you can see we're heading to Kentucky next. Leaving tomorrow as a matter of fact. Then it's the ASFA Greyhound specialty in Georgia, followed by the LGRA-NOTRA OB National race meets at Windyglen in Oklahoma. We've also added some events with some new clubs, and we'll try and get out to New Mexico before the first of the year so Sandia can get his (sizable) feet wet in the heat of organized competition.

And, of course, Margaret's kids and grand kids are calling, so we'll be in Georgia again for Christmas, and that means the folks at GANG have let us know we should also include Calhoun at the end of the year for 5 straight days of trials.

Among the other things I need to catch up on:

1. A shout-out to the folks who made our California trip enjoyable
2. The toilet story
3. Anything else of note that's happened since I posted last. (This will not include anything about Michigan football, which is mothballed until next season)

VEEP Debate Observation.

I'm glad we're not playing the "nuk-u-lar" drinking game while watching the debate. We'd be really, really drunk.

This Would Be Really Funny If....

...there weren't a grain of truth in it. Coming this October, in the Simpson's Treehouse of Horrors.

Gimme Some Truth.

Wednesdays and Thursdays are two of my favorite days of the week on Sirius radio . For two hours (more or less) each day, Vin Scelsa reprises the glory days of FM "freeform" radio, broadcasting live from his basement studio in the hills of northern New Jersey.

One song he plays, without fail, every single week is one that maybe we should hear on a daily basis during this political silly season:


Especially relevant for a certain campaign that will remain nameless here... but they like to talk about a bridge. ;-)