Tam’s Traction Control Is Better Than Mine.

She can drive off in the snow like nothing happened. Of course, her car is from krautland and mine is from Detroit. My Darling Wife’s Buick Terraza has traction control also. It works by cutting engine power also, by what feels like about 66%, for what feels like 2 seconds at a time.

There is a bump in the street on the way to my house. In my hot rod Elantra, I actually got onto 2 wheels going over it sideways once. It’s a bit of a large bump in the street, where two ways meet and the more-travelled one is elevated like a yard higher than the other. Driving straight across it makes the Elantra’s engine go rrrrRRRRrrr and then it’s back to normal before you realize that gravity is still the boss. In my wife’s van, the engine goes rrrRruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh and you’re almost to the end of the first block (at 30MPH) before it figures out to give you full power back. Annoying, but usable.

The other day, leaving the HEB parking lot, there was only a small gap in traffic. I gunned it and the car hit the street and, instead of taking off like a shot (like a car with some dam’ SENSE in its robot head) it cut power way, WAY back. So here I am, expecting to gi-gi-GO! and the car is bogging out. WTF?!

Traction control button: off. Park the car and then start the engine again and it’s back on. BOOOO!

I don’t call her “Bad Robot” for nothing.

My Elantra has one computer to run the fuel and spark timing for the engine, and that’s all. It had a computer to run the transmission, but I converted it to a manual transmission. I had to. Between Bad Robot telling me when I could open the door (only in park, you human monkey!) and my own Elantra telling me what gear it wanted to be in, I was going a little kookoo.

Oh well. Tam has a better gun collection armory than I do, too. Who am I to begrudge someone a better car? Hooray Capitalism!

Madness @ Work!

Warehouse Manager just spent a couple of days in our working area, straightening up and adding “incoming junk goes here” and “outgoing junk goes here” stripes on the floor. The idea is that it will be easier for the people who supply us with stuff to work on to be able to see at a glance when we have have plenty of work to do. WM is also partially responsible for filling our incoming stuff shelves so we won’t end up idle, sucking down company dollars time without doing anything worthwhile.

Cubicle Buddy had nothing to do for a few minutes at a stretch, despite the clearly empty incoming cart in his newly-designated incoming area. He likes to bust WM’s balls, so when he saw WM Talking to Company Owner #1, he hatched and executed a brilliant “small company only” plan. Backstory: WM and CO1 go way back, and CB is in the same boat with them. Nobody really gets in trouble when they give each other a ration of sh!t that would get you fired from a larger company right on the spot.

While CO1 was standing on his little car he sometimes drives around the warehouse, WM was literally sitting on his @ss just shooting the breeze with him. CB walked over to where they were burning our company’s $100 bills to light cigars with and they stopped talking. CB said he hated to interrupt while WM was sitting on his @ss and talking, but he didn’t have anything to work on.

CO1 looked at WM

All of a sudden WM remembered something he could have CB work on.

haha.

Now You Want to Spend $4T of My Money? Sure, What The Hay!

First it was $500B, then $850B, then $2B, and now it looks like your Elected Heroes are going to end up spending at least $4,000,000,000,000 more of your dollars to screw up the economy for the long term in a soon-to-be-failed attempt to stabilize the economy.

No, Really.

There Will Be A Time For Profits

. . . but that time is not now.

Your (Marxist) President said it. Now is not the time for a private individual to have more money than he absolutely needs, so he can spend it stimulating the economy.

No, stimulating the economy is a function of the State.

So, BHO, we are waiting for the first 5-year plan, comrade.

Blagojevich Convicted, Removed From Office.

Good.

Rod “But I Never Did Anything Illegal” Blagojevich has been convicted at his impeachment trial and removed from office. Make that one less crooked rod to blow up the engine of Chicago politics. Obama of course had nothing to do with the whole crooked sell-my-senate-seat affair. Never even heard of it. Right.

Tired. No Blogging. Leave Me Alone.

No wait, give me some coffee, brownies, and iced cream, and then leave me alone.

#3 is still working on pushing those teeth out, and still has a cold. Except now, it’s no longer the weekend and there is no more opportunity for a nap in the middle of the day. wow.

Colonel Cooper Never Stirred A Pot, Once, Ever.

Including in 2001, when he said:

“In proper hands, the Glock serves just as well as the 1911 – at conversational distances. And such distances are the rule in defensive combat.”

No one could ever have a problem with that, especially not fanboys. I dunno, it just made me laugh to think about the prospect of some n00b telling the Colonel he didn’t know his handguns because of that statement.

First Principles: Life is God’s and Self Defense Is A Human Right, Suicide is Not

You did not make yourself. You are not your own. You are, by the right of a manufacturer, God’s. He made you, he owns you (but you have disowned him)*.

Your life is not your own. Your life is also not property of the State.

NOBODY has a right to take your life without a darn good reason. You do not have a right to take a life without a darn good reason. If someone’s life is taken without a good reason, the murderer is answerable to God for her actions. She will be judged eventually, and her punishment will last for.ev.er*.

You are entrusted with the care of your own life. You are expected to do the things that tend toward continuation of your life. The State has no obligation to protect your life in particular, only to sort of keep the society from going all caddywompus. If anyone is going to defend you, it will be you. If the state sticks up for you, it is only dumb luck falling out in your favor. If you stand up for your own life, it is your duty. There are other reasons (love of family, love of self, love of country, etc.), but one really strong argument in favor of self-defense is that you are sticking up for the life God has entrusted to your care.

If someone is coming at you with a knife, he is trying to stand in the place of God and take your life. It is not his, he has no right to it, and what’s more, he is being disrespectful and presumptuous beyond the pale to try to take your life. You have a duty to God (and your family, society, etc.) to prevent that person taking your life. That’s where your little friend comes in.

To prevent the unjustified taking of your own (or another’s) life, you are justified in the use of deadly force.

Self Defense Is a Human Right.

Taking your own life is not. You are old, feeble, and in constant pain. Perhaps it is your fault and perhaps it is not, but your life is still not your own. Your little friend is not the answer. As a created thing, you have no right to question the motives of your maker. If you have a problem with the place God has let you get to, take that up with Him. If, on the other hand, you scratch and claw at life, and a dozen machines are working overtime to keep grandpa in a coma instead of a coffin, you are also not doing well. Sometimes life is hard, and sometimes life is very hard indeed, but taking your own is not your job. God has his own reasons and his own ways. Presuming that your little rat-brain (compared to His mind) can understand why you are where you are, is arrogant in the extreme. You take what God gives and praise him for it, because he is trying to help, whether it looks like it or not.

********

*A little boy made a model boat and was very pleased with it. He owned it because he had made it. Then he set it on a stream and watched it drifting, until he realized that it had drifted too far. He chased it but could not catch it. A couple of days later, he saw his own boat, for sale for $2 in a storefront window. He went in and purchased it. He owned it by virtue of the purchase, as well as having made it.

You are the boat.

God has a just claim on your love and obedience, quite aside from his own goodness. You are his, but you reject his lordship over you. For your disobedience, you will receive a just reward of separation from your maker. As he is infinite, so is your punishment. As all good things come from God, you will be removed from every good thing. Good things like not being on fire, dying of dehydration and sickness, hunger and loneliness. Yes it is eternal torment for rejecting the eternal God. You will forever be tortured and it will be your own disobedience that brought it on yourself.

According to the Bible, the soul in Hell is (among other things) tormented in flames, bound, in the dark, desperately thirsty, sad, and alone. Moreover, according to the Bible, there is no escape from Hell. You cannot ever leave, and no-one can ever go and get you. You can never send a message of warning to your family, and you will never see them again. But perhaps the worst part of it all is that, according to the Bible, there will come a time when they forget you. Every sadness will be removed from the memory of the souls in Paradise, including the sad memory of YOU in Hell forever. They will forget you, and you will know they have forgotten you. You will be tortured forever, and nobody will know, or care.

But you don’t have to end up there. If you will allow God to forgive your disobedience, he will. You can be given a new life that will be with Him forever and the highest of good experiences will be yours, forever. You will never grow old and sick again. It is easy. Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

News From The Place Where Scotland Used To Be?

In UK, you see, knives are dangerous. If you post a picture of yourself with one online, the police will hunt you down and tell you so. Seriously.

Man, I guess they would have to hire a whole new brigade of policemen to deal with The People of The Gun.

Whoever came up with the idea that folks should be prohibited from having sharp and/or pointy objects in the United Kingdom should be given a few pop knots and kicked out of government. What a crock of [deleted] this is.

Here is a proper response to a potentially dangerous scenario, in case anyone in UK is reading this:

Bloke #1: “Look out, he has a baseball bat!”
Free Man #1: “Oh, really, I’ve got a .45, let’s see him bring it!”

Stupid Congress. You Can’t Work Some Loans Out.

And another thing: My elected heroine was also talking about trying to get more loan work-outs done.

Hold on there.

Somebody please explain something to me:

If someone bought a property to flip for a profit in 2 months, and they were forced by a crashing market to hold it instead of flipping, and they are in default because they don’t want the property itself, much less the loan on it . . .

How are you going to get them to do a work-out instead of a straight-up default?

Hmm? Anyone?

I didn’t think so.

How about someone who got a liar loan sub-prime adjustable, who couldn’t really afford the interest-only first two years’ payments (nevermind the after-adjustment interest-and-principle payment) on their ballin’ new house even though the mortgage broker (spit) said they would be able to? Their credit card is just about maxed out from buying groceries because their mortgage is too high. A 40% reduction on their payment would maybe allow them to start treading water (instead of sinking). How are you going to work out that loan?

Hmm? Anyone? Bueller?

I didn’t think so.