Prison yard auto repair

If you ever find yourself needing to put a water pump belt back on its pulleys in a car with less than two inches of clearance, there is nothing like a homemade tool for pulling off the job. Not shown is the 1x4 which went through the loops to provide a foot pedal/pull bar. Also thanks to a kind contractor who provided the third hand needed for finishing.

Tool not recommended to establishing turf or maintaining dominance in maximum security pen.

Intentional Naughtiness

We found out that Warwick blew a head gasket, and will be in the shop for a week. Soon after hearing this Helmy decided that he was not getting enough attention. On our way home from a weekend away, just before we crossed back into Virginia, his temperature spiked and after we looked him over we found he had split the belt that drives the water pump. Since we will not put up with intentional naughtiness we left him north of Lucketts for the night, just to see if he would start behaving. We will be bringing him back home tomorrow, and we got him a new belt. We are not rewarding him, but the old belt is totally useless since he pitched his little fit.

AAA

Once again we are thankful for AAA. We are not quite sure what is wrong with Warwick, but we are glad we did not have to leave him on the side of the LCP.

Blast!

In Virginia, the use of non-mining explosives (e.g., for road construction) requires the user to have a blaster's license from the State Fire Marshall, pursuant to Virginia Code § 27-97.2. Once granted, the license is good for three years and can be renewed at three year intervals. However, each time a set of fingerprint cards must be submitted with the application.

Which leads me to wonder, in addition to running background checks, do they keep track of how many fingers each blaster still has?

Pesky Puritans

Reuben was determined to stay on track. "[The United States] can have riots, but not sustained [civil] wars, because the sides are too geographically mixed and the resources are too one-sided."

[Dr.] Torrent shook his head. "The seeds of civil war are always there, in every country. England in the 1600s--nobody would have believed that those pesky Puritans could provoke a Royalist versus Puritan civil war, and yet they did."

--Orson Scott Card, Empire

Don't mess with old guys

Four German pensioners, in their 60s through 80s, found guilty of kidnapping their financial adviser after he lost over $3 million of their money. The quartet not only managed to bind him with tape and gag him, they got him into a box and shifted him into the trunk of a car before driving him across Germany and stashing him in a basement. Oh, and they beat him badly enough to break several of his ribs.

Full story here.

Matchless

Brit army bike, Dutch made, all original still and in working order, it is 1 of 300 of its kind.

The owner thought it was flattering that I wanted to take its picture.

Boys, stop drooling.

(And I really like that German car next to it.)

Oscars: Best Picture

If Avatar wins, the Oscars are bought.
If Up in the Air wins, the Oscars are stuck in a rut.
If Inglourious Basterds wins, the Oscars just go to whatever the most outrageous idea is.
If Precious wins, the Oscars are liberal heartthrobs.
If The Blind Side wins, the Oscars are conservative heartthrobs. (Ha!)
If An Education wins, the Oscars are perverts.

I guess that leaves The Hurt Locker (since District 9 has sci-fi-itis, and anyway shouldn't be permitted to win if Invictis can't)?

Biathlon rifle facts

Nice short piece on equipment for one of the hardest-core Olympic events. (Spoiler - most biathletes use the Anschutz Model 1827 Fortner rifle.)

Article Here, courtesy of Yahoo Sports.

Neither of these is going to pass with TSA

Thanks Adam!!

A moment of explanation

:::Breaking News:::

Washington, DC - The White House today released information from a recent medical exam of the President indicating the existence of minor nerve degeneration in the chief executive. The symptoms are limited to a loss of inner ear equilibrium when bilateral pressure is applied to the President's right hand, giving purely medical episodes the appearance of bowing during a handshake.

Some things should not be published

Others should be published so you can judge for yourself whether or not they should be published. As an example, I provide the following comic strip annotation (on a strip poking fun at Aragorn for trusting the oath of an oath-breaking ghost army), authored by David Morgan-Mar of Irregular Webcomic fame:

Swearing of oaths used to actually count for something. It used to be that people really respected sworn oaths, and would take you at your word, pretty much without question.

Nowadays we're much too cynical a society to really put anywhere near as much credence on to an oath. I mean, if the director of a huge company swore on his mother's grave to stop polluting the rivers near his chemical factories, would anyone really believe him?

It would be nice if we could revive faith in oaths, so that you really could believe someone if they swore to stop dumping toxic chemicals into the waterways. Lend such things more credence.

It would be a credence clear-water revival.

Nintendo 1, President 0

Change Chomp Ball t-shirt at Split Reason.

He who reads the inside of the top of the box

"To me, a lawyer is basically the person who knows the rules of the country. We're all throwing the dice, playing the game, moving our pieces around the board, but if there is a problem, the lawyer is the only person who has read the inside of the top of the box."
~Jerry Seinfeld

Finally, a correct version of the U.S. Military Services Language Chart!!!

MILITARY LANGUAGE

CONVERSION CHART

(You may need to click on the chart to enlarge it.)