Go HERE to Peedee’s blog and follow the link for a petition to name a bridge after one of the fallen heroes from the first Gulf War, A-10 Pilot, Capt. Patrick Brian Olson who gave his life during Operation Desert Storm in Feb 1991.
The second is a post up at Lawdog’s blog HERE about some Gurkas doing ‘exactly’ what they were supposed to and getting a negative reaction from thier Brit bosses… Be advised, Lawdog is in FINE form on this one đ And you will be as pissed as he is…
Nothing new on this end, still on ‘location’, still herding cats…
sigh…
Creeping closer inch by inch, 900 feet above the mighty
section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be seen twisting and
winding around and across the dam itself.
When complete, it will provide a new link between the states of Nevada Arizona
In an incredible feat of engineering, the road will be supported on the two massive
concrete arches which jut out of the rock face.
The arches are made up of 53 individual sections each 24 feet long which have been cast on-site and are being lifted into place using an improvised high-wire crane strungbetween temporary steel pylons.
The arches will eventually measure more than 1,000 feet across. At the moment, the structure looks like a traditional suspension bridge.But once the arches are complete, the suspending cables on each side will be removed. Extra vertical columns will then be installed on the arches to carry the road.
The bridge has become known as the Hoover Dam bypass, although it is officially called the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, after a former governor of Nevadaand an American Football player from Arizona who joined the US Army and was killedĂŻin Afghanistan.
Work on the bridge started in 2005 and should finish next year.An estimated 17,000 cars and trucks will cross it every day. The dam was started in 1931 and used enough concrete to build a road from New York Lake Mead is
An extra note:
The top of the white band of rock in Lake Mead is the old waterline prior to the drought and development in the Las Vegas area and is over 100 feet above the current water level.
Impressive… to put it mildly…
I know most people won’t remember these, but I do…
These used to be on the rural highways throughout America, I remember seeing them when I was growing up in the South. There would be five signs, each with one line on it, the last was always the Burma Shave logo and name.
Old ‘Burma Shave’ Roadway Signs!
DON’T STICK YOUR ELBOW
OUT SO FAR
IT MAY GO HOME
IN ANOTHER CAR.
Burma Shave
TRAINS DON’T WANDER
ALL OVER THE MAP
‘CAUSE NOBODY SITS
IN THE ENGINEER’S LAP
Burma Shave
SHE KISSED THE HAIRBRUSH
BY MISTAKE
SHE THOUGHT IT WAS
HER HUSBAND JAKE
Burma Shave
DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD
TO GAIN A MINUTE
YOU NEED YOUR HEAD
YOUR BRAINS ARE IN IT
Burma Shave
DROVE TOO LONG
DRIVER SNOOZING
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
IS NOT AMUSING
Burma Shave
BROTHER SPEEDER
LET’S REHEARSE
ALL TOGETHER
GOOD MORNING, NURSE
Burma Shave
CAUTIOUS RIDER
TO HER RECKLESS DEAR
LET’S HAVE LESS BULL
AND A LITTLE MORE STEER
Burma Shave
SPEED WAS HIGH
WEATHER WAS NOT
TIRES WERE THIN
X MARKS THE SPOT
Burma Shave
THE MIDNIGHT RIDE
OF PAUL FOR BEER
LED TO A WARMER
HEMISPHERE
Burma Shave
AROUND THE CURVE
LICKETY-SPLIT
BEAUTIFUL CAR
WASN’T IT?
Burma Shave
NO MATTER THE PRICE
NO MATTER HOW NEW
THE BEST SAFETY DEVICE
IN THE CAR IS YOU
Burma Shave
A GUY WHO DRIVES
A CAR WIDE OPEN
IS NOT THINKIN’
HE’S JUST HOPIN’
Burma Shave
AT INTERSECTIONS
LOOK EACH WAY
A HARP SOUNDS NICE
BUT IT’S HARD TO PLAY
Burma Shave
BOTH HANDS ON THE WHEEL
EYES ON THE ROAD
THAT’S THE SKILLFUL
DRIVER’S CODE
Burma Shave
THE ONE WHO DRIVES
WHEN HE’S BEEN DRINKING
DEPENDS ON YOU
TO DO HIS THINKING
Burma Shave
CAR IN DITCH
DRIVER IN TREE
THE MOON WAS FULL
AND SO WAS HE.
Burma Shave
PASSING SCHOOL ZONE
TAKE IT SLOW
LET OUR LITTLE
SHAVERS GROW
Burma Shave
It’s officially HOT!!!
Went down to Acitrezza to check on a boat, it was a ‘balmy’ 99 down on the coast with a light cooling breeze, so it only felt like 103…
Back up to where we are staying, the temps were a ‘warm’ 102 with a heat index of 110, and 20 kt breeze… I now know what a convection oven feels like… sigh…
Went back to get in the car and run to lunch, the interior temp was 53C, which equated to 127F! And it’s not even ‘really’ hot yet!!!
Just for S&Gs ran a density altitude profile for the location at 284ft above sea level, turns out the DA is over 3500 feet!
Sorry for the lack of posting and commenting, connectivity is lousy even when it’s up; which is about half the time. I’m doing this on my lunchbreak, since there is actually an open terminal.
Back to the oriface… y’all have a good weekend!
Need crabs for crab cakes? How about a bushel of crabs to eat?
Don’t these look good???
Surprise…
These photos were taken at a wedding in North Carolina ..
Get ready for this: It’s a wedding cake!
The crabs, corn, and even the container of Old Bay Seasoning are made of white chocolate.
The sand is crushed graham crackers and vanilla wafers.
The mallets are fondant, a confection used for decorating.
The entire $700 cake is edible!
Crab Cake is not always what you think!
All I can say is WOW… Somebody put a LOT of time and effort into that, and it would have been a real shame (for about 10 seconds) to eat it. đ
Truly a YGTBSM moment…
Got this from a friend in MD this morning via email…
A Maryland judge issued an $85 fine to the owner of a Pontiac G8 GT for illegal tail lights, despite being factory-installed and approved by the US Department of Transportation.
She’s promised to keep fining him. Judicial activism, FTL!
A forum member on G8.com was ticketed by a Maryland officer who claimed he was sporting illegal tail lights. After amassing a healthy amount of evidence proving he hadn’t modified his car and it was approved for sale by the Department of Transportation, he went to court confident the ticket would be dismissed, only to find the contrary. We’ll let him tell you how it all went down:
Went to court for my clear tail lights on my car and was found guilty!
The judge actualy told me she didn’t care what the manufacturer said, what the federal govt said, what the DOT # stamped onto my taillights said if the officer says my lights aren’t legal then they’re not legal. I took the G8 sales brochure in along with pics of my car and other G8 GT’s and the VIN trace by 3 different dealers saying my lights were factory none of it mattered she found me guilty of failing to display or reflect red light on the rear of the car. Didn’t matter the reflecters were in the bumper, didn’t matter where the light is has that little red circle, the whole lens isn’t red so they’re not legal. Also where the back-up and turn signals are should be the reflectors according to the cop so the V6 cars lights aren’t legal either.
Judge stupid went on to tell me that maybe I should consider trading in or selling the car since its not legal in MD and that I’m going to continue to get the $60 tickets till I get rid of the car.
So I contacted Pontiac’s 1-800 # and I have an apt next friday to have my car looked at by them and see if they can help or at least repay me the $85.50 fine and court costs.
I honestly don’t know what else I can do. The cop was ALL smiles afterwards and winked at me! WTF! Now I’m screwed! How do I go to work now? I drive right thru where he works!! So this ass nuget can make up **** randomly for any car he gets a hard on for and nothing can be done to fight it!
This is BS.
The problem centers around the clear lens tail lights and bumper-mounted reflectors of the Pontiac G8 GT model. Because the red area in the lenses is reduced in the G8 GT, there are reflectors mounted in the bumper to reflect additional light and bring the reflective requirements into spec. Th officer and by extension the judge considered them illegal.
Now, we can understand Mr. Xxxxx’x momentary lack of respect for the legal system above â this is B.S., but he’s got legitimate cause to be pissed. He bought a car he assumed to fall within the operations laws of all states and which was in reality approved for nationwide sale by the government. According to the Judge, the opinion of an Officer of the Law supersedes what the Federal government approved for sale and the design somehow doesn’t jive with what the State of Maryland considers legal.
One of the other forum members has offered up legal service to fight the fine, but it makes us wonder if all the G8 GT drivers in Maryland now have something to worry about. Should motorists who’ve bought a car approved by the Federal government be worried about being arbitrarily fined by a Judge who seems to side with the opinion of an officer over the law.
And something tells me we are going to see more and more of this under this administration and the “new” judicial mentality… sigh…
I’m outta here for about three weeks of fun and games
Y’all have fun, and I’ll try to get the occasional post up.
Don’t EVER waste your money at Lenscrafters, especially at Pentagon City in Virginia…
They can’t seem to get glasses measured properly, I’m firmly convinced they overcharge you out the ass for glasses and lenses.
I had a new prescription done in late May, wanted lenses for the glasses I currently had, but no they “recommended” new glasses that ‘fit’ better. Okay, fine…
The woman ‘measured’ my old glasses, wrote a bunch of numbers on an order blank, and then started adding options; by the time she was done, the total was over $400. I didn’t like it, but needed them and was getting ready for a trip, so…
I fork over the money, only to find it would be 5-7 business days… (Now if I had a brain, I would have gotten a refund and immediately went elsewhere, but nooooo!)
So I finally get the glasses, have fit problems, they “bother” me with the ways I have to cock my head to see stuff, I go back and they ‘adjust’ them… Doesn’t get any better.
I go back to the Optometrist, and just for S&G, get her to check the prescription. She looks at it, says it’s “close”, and puts the glasses on me and has me do the eye chart. She then started measuring, they were too high on the progression, not centered correctly for my pupils and something else.
So I trot my unhappy ass back to Lenscrafters , with old glasses in hand, and the store manager says, “oh we can do a quick set of lenses (for your OLD glasses) and we’ll work out a credit for your new glasses. “
(Screwup #2, I didn’t get the credit up front)
$241 later and one hour later, I’m back. These are actually pretty good and I can sit and look normally and see…
Sooooo… I ask about getting some credit back for the ‘new’ glasses I now no longer need since I’m within the 90 days of the warranty.
Only to be told, “Oh I can’t give you any credit, the only thing I ‘could’ have done was lenses for THOSE glasses; but you can donate them!” And she said that with a SMILE!!!
I just got up and walked out before I said something I “REALLY” shouldn’t have…
So, for what it’s worth, DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH LENSCRAFTERS!!! They will screw you and smile at you as they do it!!!
Got this via email, backs up some discussions we’ve been having…
A Safety Warning
Below is a picture of a CFL light bulb from my bathroom. I turned it on the other day and then smelled smoke after a few minutes. Four inch flames were spewing out of the side of the ballast like a blow torch! I immediately turned off the lights. But I’m sure it would have caused a fire if I was not right there. Imagine if the kids had left the lights on as usual when they were not in the room.
I took the bulb to the Fire Department today to report the incident. The Fireman wasn’t at all surprised and said that it was not an uncommon occurrence. Apparently, sometimes when the bulb burns out there is a chance that the ballast can start a fire. He told me that the Fire Marshall had issued reports about the dangers of these bulbs.
Upon doing some Internet research, it seems that bulbs made by “Globe” in China seem to have the lion’s share of problems. Lots of fires have been blamed on misuse of CFL bulbs, like using them in recessed lighting, pot lights, dimmers or in track lighting. Mine was not in any of those. It was a normal light socket.
I bought these at Wal-Mart. I will be removing all the Globe bulbs from my house. I have not decided yet if we are going back to incandescent bulbs at this point.
Ironically, Project Porchlight is giving away Globe bulbs, that THEY claim are safe… Read HERE
Having said that, HERE, HERE, and HERE are some counter points to that… I did find they don’t last as long as they are supposed to…
I’m gonna go buy a case if incandescents and hope I die before I run out of lightbulbs…
From the WAPO yesterday…
The Swiss rejection of the U.S. request, which cannot be appealed, was a surprise. The government grants the vast majority of extradition petitions, and even Mr. Polanski’s lawyer said the decision was “not expected.” Switzerland Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf blamed U.S. authorities for failing to provide confidential testimony about sentencing procedures used at the time of the case. This technicality essentially proved a convenient excuse for a Swiss government caught up in a wave of protest from European intellectual and political figures sympathetic to Mr. Polanski.
French Culture Minister FrĂ©dĂ©ric Mitterand said that Mr. Polanski was being “thrown to the lions for an old story that doesn’t really make any sense.” He’s made terrific movies, in other words; he’s one of us; why can’t the Americans get past this obsession with holding child rapists accountable?
You have GOT to be s**ting me… What ‘little’ respect I had for the French just went out the window…
This turd is obviously just like Polanski, and based on what Wiki has on line HERE, he’s probably guilty himself… Either that, or he wants a part in the next Polanski movie…
Why would we want to change to a socialistic system that has resulted in total failure everywhere it has been implemented???
Current European tax rates:
United Kingdom (Value Added Tax due to increase to 20% in January 2011)
Taxation in the United Kingdom may involve payments to a minimum of two different levels of government: The central government (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) and local government. Central government revenues come primarily from income tax, National Insurance contributions, value added tax, corporation tax and fuel duty. Local government revenues come primarily from grants from central government funds, business rates in England and Wales, Council Tax and increasingly from fees and charges such as those from on-street parking.
Income Tax: 50% VAT: 17.5% TOTAL: 67.5%
Germany Taxes in Germanyâbeing a Federal Republicâare levied by the Federation (Bund), the States (LĂ€nder) as well as the Municipalities (Gemeinden). Many direct and indirect taxes exist, whereof income tax and VAT are the most relevant.
Income Tax: 45% VAT: 19% TOTAL: 64%
France
Income Tax: 40% VAT: 19.6% TOTAL: 59.6%
Greece
Income Tax: 40% VAT: 25% TOTAL: 65%
Spain
Income Tax: 45% VAT: 16% TOTAL: 61%
Portugal
Income Tax: 42% VAT: 20% TOTAL: 62%
Sweden
Income Tax: 55% VAT: 25% TOTAL: 80%
Norway
Income Tax: 54.3% VAT: 25% TOTAL: 79.3%
Netherlands
Income Tax: 52% VAT: 19% TOTAL: 71%
Denmark
Income Tax: 58% VAT: 25% TOTAL: 83%
Finland
Income Tax: 53% VAT: 22% TOTAL: 75%
If youâve started to wonder what the real costs of âsocialismâ are going to be, once the full program in these United States hits your wallet, take a look at the table. As you digest these mind-boggling figures, keep in mind that in spite of these astronomical tax rates, these countries are still not financing their social welfare programs exclusively from tax revenues! They are deeply mired in public debt of gargantuan proportions.
Greece has reached the point where its debt is so huge it is in imminent danger of defaulting. That is the reason the European economic community has intervened to bail them out. If youâre following the financial news, you know Spain and Portugal are right behind Greece .
The United States is now heading right down the same path.
The âVATâ tax in the table is the national sales tax that Europeans pay. Stay tuned because that is exactly what you can expect to see the administration proposing after the fall elections. The initial percentage in the United States isnât going to be anywhere near the outrageous numbers you now see in Europe .
Guess what, the current outrageous numbers in Europe didnât start out as outrageous either. They started out as minisculeâright around the 1% or 2% where they will start out in the United States . Magically however, they ran up over the years to where they are now. Expect the same thing here.
Itâs time to rethink the âAmerican Dreamâ idea: It is the notion that with hard work and perseverance, anybody can get ahead economically here. Do you think that can ever happen with tax rates between 60% and 80%?
Think again. With the government taking that percentage of your money, your life will be exactly like life in Europe . You will never be able to buy a home. You will never buy a car. You will never send your children to college. Letâs not shuffle the battle cry of the socialists under the rug either. Itâs always the same cry. âEqualizeâ income. âSpread the wealthâ to the âpoorâ (whoever they are). âLevelâ the economic playing field. Accomplish that and everything will be rosy.
Itâs time to take a really hard look at reality. Greece is a perfect example. Despite the âsocialismâ system that has ruled this country for decades, with a 65% tax rate, they are drowning in public debt, would have defaulted without hundreds of billions in bailout money, and still. . .20% of their population lives in âpoverty.â What has all that âsocialismâ money bought, besides ultimate power for the politicians running the show? Do you think these people are “free”? They’re not. They are slaves to their economic “system.”
People, we are at a tipping point in America . We all know it. Turn this around right now or your grandchildren will be massing in the streets of this once-great country, just as the people of Greece now are. Economic slavery is slavery, just the same. Carefully and deeply consider what it takes to throw off the yoke of slavery, once it takes hold and settles over your neck.
Remember in November and lets take out Country back…