Plans for tomorrow start at what we used call in the army “zero-dark-thirty”, 0530 in my case, when I must arise, fix myself some coffee and a quick bite, and then put my tired old butt on the road for one of my stations down in the heart of Cajun Louisiana near the little town of Erath. I need to be there for a meeting at 0900 to discuss next year’s capital budget items.
Who knows. Maybe I can take a few pictures.
that my government is stepping in to save this country from the bankers and the automobile companies and the insurance giants and (add the next boogeyman here)
(From the American Spectator)
Obama and his bunch have never existed outside academia and government. Their only tools are taxes, handouts and laws. And now these fine people are going to take what was once the largest automobile manufacturer in the world and ‘rescue’ it. One would suppose that they are going to apply the same principles to GM that they’ve done to the government.
As usual, Mike Ramirez nails it with a cartoon:
This is really scary to me, folks, that the full force of the government of the United States is willingly brought to bear on private industry and private individuals. Yes, granted that GM is in big trouble. But a lot of that trouble can be laid at the feet of Washington, and GM is made to be a big boogyman by a complicit media happily running the stories spun the way the Obama administration wants them to be heard.
So who’s going to be the next target, and which industry will NEXT be stripped of leaders and re-manned by Obama’s lackies? I’m betting Big Oil is on the agenda. I wouldn’t be surprised if food giants like Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson and others are on a list in some desk drawer.
You want to see crises? We’re going to see crises, because each crisis comes with an implicit (in liberal minds) that government Do Something. And this is just the administration to do it.
And if you want to think about how well the government handles things, just think about every negative story you heard about those poor Katrina victims waiting for government to Do Something.
And think of how well-managed public housing is. And if the government can’t get those right, how, exactly, do you think they’re going to manage real industries?
1774 – American Revolutionary War: The Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed in the Boston Port Act. That whole “Tea Party” thing really upset them.
1854 – Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade. Nothing like armed naval vessels showing up on your doorstep to get the ol’ diplomacy going.
1889 – The Eiffel Tower is inaugurated. Built to commemorate the French national bloodbath Revolution, it is very French in that it is eminently elegant and does absolutely noting except give the Germans something to march under…
1933 – The Civilian Conservation Corps is established with the mission to relieve rampant unemployment. It wouldn’t work today because back then, people actually wanted to work. Today it’d just upset the dimoocrats’ biggest voting bloc.
1992 – An era ends as the USS Missouri (BB-63), the last active United States Navy Battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.
1998 – Netscape releases the code base of its browser under an open-source license agreement; the project is given the code name Mozilla and would eventually be spun off into the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. If you’re still running MS Internet Exploder, you should change to FireFox. Really.
Saturday night was the planet-wide “earth Hour”, wherein we were all supposed to turn out our lights to show our love for Mother Gaia. Me, I ignore these things, putting them in the same category as other “feel-good” shenanigans of the Weird Left.
Sydney, Australia has a percentage of enviro-wackos, too, so they celebrated. Ah, but then, cruel fate stepped in:
Power Failure Brings Sydney to a Halt
By Phil Mercer
Sydney
30 March 2009A widespread power blackout brought chaos to the heart of Australia’s biggest city, Sydney. Thousands of homes have been left without electricity and there has been mayhem for commuters when the power failure forced the closure of major tunnels.
The power failure struck Australia’s biggest city during the evening rush hour. For tens of thousands of commuters and shoppers, the journey home proved to be long and frustrating as traffic lights were blacked out, causing massive congestion.
A spokesman for power company, Energy Australia, said the blackout was caused by an unspecified problem with high-voltage cables that service two major substations in the central business district.
The Sydney Harbor tunnel was closed along with other major routes out of the city and hundreds of office buildings were left in darkness.
Nothing like losing electricity to put civilization (and its fragility) in perspective.
I’ve been through the aftermath of several hurricanes in the last few years, and driving through a totally dark city is an eerie feeling. And I had the advantage that I was in cities that had been evacuated, so the only traffic I faced was other emergency services vehicles. Sydney was rolling along at full toot when the lights went out. You can imagine the joy…
Fire fighters say they were inundated with calls about automatic fire alarms and dozens of people trapped in elevators had to be rescued.
“It has been a bit chaotic for a lot of the emergency services. I know the fire brigade had, at one stage, over 40 incidents happening at the one time,” said Brierley. “We received numerous triple zero [emergency] calls when the power went out. A lot of our calls were to automatic fire alarms, which is buildings-installed fire protection, but probably the major things that we went to were lift rescues.”
Apparently, however, Australia is populated with a more civilized crowd that us here in the USA, because when the lights go out in one of OUR major cities, the “diversity” sees this as an opportunity to gather “emergency supplies” like liquor, athletic shoes and consumer electronics, i.e., rioting and looting.
In the city center and some surrounding suburbs about 70,000 homes and businesses lost power. After more than 2.5 hours, power slowly started returning to many areas.
The outage forced the cancellation of Monday’s performances at Sydney’s iconic Opera House.
The blackout comes two days after Sydney deliberately turned off its lights for Earth Hour 2009, a global campaign by environmental groups that urges people to turn their lights off for 60 minutes to highlight the issue of climate change.
I’d have expected that some of our Australian buddies would take the opportunity to string up a few tree-huggers, but the lights came back on too soon.
No real info is available as to what precipitated the outage. “An unspecified problem with high-voltage cables” is way too nebulous to support intelligent conjecture.
1. Have you ever been searched by the cops? Nope. Worse, though, I’ve been searched by those gamma-minuses at TSA
2. Do you close your eyes on a roller coaster? No, but it’s been some years since I rode one. I used to own and fly an little aerobatic biplane, and I didn’t close my eyes in that thing either…
3. When’s the last time you’ve been sledging? Sledging? What the h*ll is “sledging”? I was a pretty competent sledge-hammer user when I was a tank commander. Lots of things on a tank respond well to the application of a sledge hammer.
4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone? With my sweetie…
5. Do you believe in ghosts? No.
6. Do you consider yourself creative? Creative, innovative, and pure joy to have around…
7. Do you think O.J. killed his wife? Does a bear sh*t in the woods?
8. Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie? If I want a promiscuous skank, I can find one at a local bar…
9. Can you honestly say you know anything about politics? Are you serious? REad this blog. I know lot about politics.
10. Do you know how to play poker? Yes. I made some pretty good money at it from time to time from other people who just THOUGHT they knew how to play poker.
11. Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight? More than once.
12. What’s your favorite commercial? Don’t have one. I often have the TV on, but I pay little attention to it. The cats like to watch.
13. Who was your first love? The little next door girl when I was four…
14. If you’re driving in the middle of the night, and no one is around you, do you run a red light? I’ve been driving around in the dark with no electricity in the whole corner of the state and the traffic lights were out and I didn’t run the red light…
15. Do you have a secret that no one knows but you? NO.
16. Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees? Watch a baseball game or beat myself in the head with a small hammer…
17. Have you ever been ice skating? No. Used to rollerskate as a kid, and roller-bladed as an adult, but this is south Louisiana. We don’t do ice-skating. Ice is something you put in tea.
18. How often do you remember your dreams? Some of them for years…
19. What’s the one thing on your mind? Leaving the world in good condition for my children…
20. Do you always wear your seat belt? Always.
21. What talent do you wish you had? To be proficient at the banjo.
22. Do you like sushi? I love sushi. All sorts and varieties…
23. What do you wear to bed? uh… no!
24. Do you truly hate anyone? Yes…
25. If you could sleep with one famous person, who would it be? That’s a sad question…
26. Do you know anyone in jail? As of right now, nobody I can think of…
27. What food do you find disgusting? Possum.
28. Have you ever made fun of your friends behind their back? Nope! I can insult them right to their faces so all of us can laugh.
29. Have you ever been punched in the face? Yes. Upon receipt of that little gift, the giver got much worse in return. HE needed medical attention.
30. Do you believe in angels and demons? I’m not particularly sure that I DON’T believe in them.
(The above meme was stolen from “Look! A Baby Wolf!“)
1814 – Britain & allies march into Paris after defeating Napoleon. How many foreign armies have paraded through Paris?
1858 – Hymen Lipman patents a pencil with an attached eraser.
1867 – Alaska is purchased for $7.2 million, about 2 cent/acre ($4.19/km²), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward. The news media call this Seward’s Folly.
1870 – Texas becomes last confederate state readmitted to Union. Lately they’re asking about a do-over on that.
1932 – Amelia Earhart is first woman to fly solo cross the Atlantic, spneds first half of trip with left blinker on, applying mascara.
1951 – Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau. 5,200 vacuum tubes, weighed 29,000 pounds (13 metric tons), consumed 125 kW in electricity.
1981 – President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley, Jr., who is trying to impress Jodie Foster.
1991 – William Kennedy Smith allegedly rapes a woman, in keeping with his family’s high tradition. Also in keeping with his family’s high tradition, he’s found “not guilty”.
A Mafia Godfather finds out that his bookkeeper has cheated him out of ten million bucks.
His bookkeeper is deaf. That was the reason he got the job in the first place. It was assumed that a deaf bookkeeper would not hear anything that he might have to testify about in court.
When the Godfather goes to confront the bookkeeper about his missing $10 million, he brings along his attorney, who knows sign language.
The Godfather tells the lawyer, “Ask him where the 10 million bucks he embezzled from me is.”
The attorney, using sign language, asks the bookkeeper where the money is.
The bookkeeper signs back: “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
The attorney tells the Godfather: “He says he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”
The Godfather pulls out a pistol, puts it to the bookkeeper’s temple and says, “Ask him again!”
The attorney signs to the bookkeeper: “He’ll kill you if you don’t tell him!”
The bookkeeper signs back: “OK! You win! The money is in a brown briefcase, buried behind the shed in my cousin Enzo’s backyard in Queens !”
The Godfather asks the attorney: “Well, what’d he say?”
The attorney replies: “He says you don’t have the balls to pull the trigger.”
1806 – Construction is authorized of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becoming the first United States federal highway.
1971 – A Los Angeles, California jury recommends the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers. And he’s STILL alive. Our enlightened overlords call this “justice”.
1973 – Vietnam War: The last United States combat soldiers leave South Vietnam.
On this fine spring day…
One hospital reports thirty-three births between 2/26 and 3/17. Fourteen babies have parents not married to each other, and five mommies didn’t see fit to put a name on the birth registration at all.
Ebony P. & Tracey W. present a new daughter, little Kadynce Bri’Jaelyn.
Miss Ashley R. Has a new son, little Jacory Jermaine. She was creative coming up with “Jacory”, but less so in remembering who the baby daddy is.
Clarissa G. & Archie T. show they can do “tryndeigh” and tag their daughter with Haylie Alexis.
Miss Savannah T. has a new son, little Shaquille Lee, names after a famous basketball player. One HAS to set goals, yaknow…
Perry & Holly G. change spelling up a bit with their daughter, little Abbygail Elizabeth.
Sean & Laura K. name their daughter Aspen Renee. So you tell me: the tree, or the ski resort, or a the label they saw on a car in the Walmart parking lot?
Stephanie & Tommy H. didn’t want you thinking they named their daughter “-son”, so we end up with Madisyn Clare.
Shelmekia (!) S. and D’Antonio (!) G. have a little girl they tagged with Destiny Nichelle.
Duana C. presents her new daughter, little J’Miyah Christian. She doesn’t present the name of the baby daddy.
Miss Danielle C. likes vowels, so when her new daughter popped out, she got hung with a few for a first name, so we have little Alaia Hope. And no baby daddy.
And that’s it for this week…
Michael Ramirez nails it again:
Most of the Federal government are professionals at one thing: government. They’ve exist for most of their lives going from one government job to another, elected post to elected post, and most of them have a government mindset, i.e., problems are to be solved by either or both of two methods: enact more laws or throw money at the problem.
They know “budget” in a way you and I and the business community do not understand. We see a budget as a means to work within the amount of money coming in. We make our goals fit within the income. The government sees what they want to do, and then taxes or borrows the money to meet their goals.
And these people are moving to interfere in the business community on a scale that is orders of magnitude greater than they ever did before.
Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 8:30 pm, local time. I’m thinking about lighting the place up and checking load balance on my house distribution panel with all the burners on the stove lit, the central heat on, and maybe just idling the car int he drive.
Hippy a**holes!
845 AD – Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving.
1933 – German Reichstag confers dictatorial powers on Hitler. History. Learn from it.
1979 – In Pennsylvania, a pump in the reactor cooling system fails in the Three Mile Island accident, resulting in the crapping of many pairs of pants.
A duck hunter was out enjoying a nice morning on the marsh when he decided to take a leak…..
He propped up his gun in the corner of his duck blind.
Just then a gust of wind blew, the gun fell over, and discharged, shooting him in the genitals.
Several hours later, lying in a hospital bed, he was approached by his doctor.
‘Well sir, I have some good news and some bad news.. The good news is that you are going to be OK. The damage was local to your groin, there was very little internal damage, and we were able to remove all of the birdshot.’
‘What’s the bad news?’ asked the hunter.
‘The bad news is that there was some pretty extensive birdshot damage done to your penis. I’m going to have to refer you to my sister.’
‘Well I guess that isn’t too bad,’ the hunter replied. ‘Is your sister a plastic surgeon?’
‘Not exactly.’ answered the doctor. ‘She’s a flute player in the Houston Symphony. She’s going to teach you where to put your fingers so you don’t piss in your eye.’