Mine
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Wordless Wednesday
He Had a Wide Stance
Bruce Springsteen canceled his North Carolina show to protest the bathroom law.
Mr. Springsteen and the E Street Band were booked in the Greensboro Coliseum yesterday. 15,000 ticket holders will all be eligible for a refund.
Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) signed the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, HB2, last month after the North Carolina General Assembly called a special session to push the law through after the Charlotte City Council passed a non-discrimination ordinance.
“[The abominable Charlotte act] allows grown men to share bathrooms and locker facilities with girls and women,” one North Carolina Repuglican said.
Be very afraid!
The newly enacted law requires individuals to use bathrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate.
“To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress,” Mr. Springsteen said in a statement.
Update:
PayPal pulled 400 jobs from North Carolina. Braeburn Pharma is pulling out. The NBA All Star game probably won’t happen in NC. Some 100 national companies have decried the law.
“F**k Springsteen,” my friend Dino Russell said. “Wanna see what sex you identify with? Look in your underwear.”
Dino is a world traveler so I’m pretty sure he has peed and pooped in Europe. I didn’t know he much cared then if the next guy was male, female, both, or anything in between.
“I don’t give a crap for me,” he said. “My daughters and granddaughters presumably do and I do give a crap if the next guy over is, well, a guy with his cellphone on the floor looking up her snatch. Or whatever. Bad enough they have to deal with the weirdos of their own sex.”
Pfui. It’s Victorian. We need to get over the legal idea that there’s something secret or dirty about our bodies.
“You are being stupid,” he said. “This is an issue of increased potential for rape. Pull your head out of your ass.”
In case you missed it, please notice a number of bathroom references here.
I’m being stupid about yet another salvo in Conservative attempts to wrest local control away from the local voters.
Liz Arden gives us a few points that Dino and the other ostriches would do well to understand.
a) Just because someone thinks they’re female or homosexual or asexual or nonsexual does not mean they are pervs who will violate your person or your privacy.
b) There are pervs who will violate your daughters’ and granddaughters’ privacy and threaten their sense of safety and well-being. Period. They could be sitting next to you in church.
c) North Carolina and the other states don’t care a whit about pervs with cellphones in bathrooms. They care about competition in the bathrooms. Oh, yeah. And they care about catering to the emotional idiocy of people and the Sharia belief that they can impose their religious interpretation on everyone within 10 feet of them. Or within 3,000 miles.
How many rapes happen in the famed Parisian unisex public toilets?
How many by transgender folk or even cross dressers?
Weirdos are weirdos. A person who genuinely feels they are female despite having XY chromosomes and penises, well, that weirdness does not in the slightest threaten Dino, his wife, his daughters, his granddaughters, nor any other human being on the planet.
Unless they are carrying an axe like, say, Carrie Nation. Or the lawmakers who passed HB2 or HB 1523. Then be very afraid.
Dino’s daughters and granddaughters would do well to understand that. Dino would do well to understand that. There are already laws banning pervs from being in the bathroom looking up the little girls’ snatches. Or raping them.
Update:
Bryan Adams has canceled his show at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum this Thursday, because that state’s new “Religious Liberty” Act, HB 1523, discriminates against gay couples or members of the LGBT community.
We gotta get over the legal idea that there’s something secret or dirty about our bodies.
It’s tough, though.
He merely had a “wide stance.”
A (now-former) Republican senator pled guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge after his arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Former Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) had been caught flat-footed by a police detective investigating lewd behavior in an airport men’s room. His 28 ultra conservative years in Congress, years spent fighting gay rights at every turn, put him in second place in Idaho history, behind only Sen. William Borah (R-ID).
Former Sen. Craig barred extension of rights to same-sex couples. He voted “yes” on an Idaho constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. He voted against extending the federal definition of hate crimes to cover sexual orientation. And so on.
Who’s making odds on how Former Sen. Craig would have voted on HB2 or HB 1523?
For the record, I’m OK with Balian Buschbaum (formerly Yvonne Buschbaum) or Erik Schinegger (formerly Erika Schinegger), Jaiyah Saelua (formerly Johnny Saelua), Mianne Bagger (formerly Michael Bagger), or Caster Semenya (formerly Caster Semenya) sharing the restroom with me or with my great-granddaughters. Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce), though, I’m not so sure of.
“Buncha pansies who think it strikes too close to home,” Miz Arden said.
And there you have it.
Does Anyone Speak Owlish?
This new pair of burrowing owls live in a storm drain under a driveway right on Ocean Boulevard. Some of our other South Puffin birds can be found here under the Aminals tag. Others are in the North Puffin Gallery. Enjoy.
Keep On Truckin’
I need a new-to-me pickup truck. Understand that I don’t need a pickup very often. It’s just that sometimes not much else will do. It’s really hard to carry a sheet of plywood in the Camaro. The plywood lays flat in the bed of my truck. And I can’t tow a boat or any size camper with a Chevy SSR. Or bring home a refrigerator in SWMBO’s sedan.
The current resident in the Great White Fleet is a 16-year old Silverado just broken in with under 150,000 on the ticker.
It’s a pretty nice LS, Z71 truck with Chevy’s great 5.3L V-8 and automatic trans, four-wheel-drive, towing package, alloy wheels, the third door, air, power steering and door locks, cruise, premium AM/FM/CD/MP3 radio, a bed liner, sliding rear window, and running boards. Pretty much everything I need except the fourth door and a sunroof. Trouble is, it also comes with the optional rust package and my mechanic said, “Don’t bring it back to Vermont, Dick.”
I guess it’s really time.
Sad. That truck has been as economical to own as any.
The economics are important. I have in the past figured to spend about $1,000/year to own a vehicle — that’s just the cost I pay less the cost I can sell the junker for divided by the number of decades I own it, not the cost of gas and oil and repairs. Inflation meant I figured I’d have to spend $1,500/year to own my next truck.
I.Will.Not.Buy.A.New.GM.Vehicle. Not after that car thief in Washington stole the company.
Used cars are still fair game so I’ve been looking for a used Chevy, F-f-f-f-f-f-ford, or GM pickup. I’ve tried to find a good ’96 Buick Roadmaster station wagon with the towing package. No joy.
So. Buy another 5-6 year old truck for $15,000. Keep it 10 years. Or buy an 8 year old truck for $10,500. Keep it 7 years. And so on. I’d prefer one I can keep for more than a decade.
I found a pretty nice 2013 Chevy sold by a Russian fellow on Long Island who called me from Baltimore. I checked out the seller (cops had never heard of him). CarFax OKed the truck. It wasn’t white, but I made an offer anyway. We made a deal. I sent him a deposit on Paypal.
He relisted the truck and sold it to someone else who offered more money before I could get up there.
Fortunately, I had made it a refundable deposit and I got it back.
I’ve kissed a lot of other frogs. There was the 2011 Silverado Work Truck. Turned out that seller wanted $28,000 for a “low mileage” five-year-old with 80,000 miles that cost about $28K new. Really really proud of that truck. A lot have been priced that way. The red ’97 Chevy might have been almost worth taking just because of the 303,640 miles! It needed a seat, though, and that got me worried about the suspension. A real beauty was a two-tone Silverado in Sebring that survived Hurricanes Wilma, Jeanne, and Frances. OK, no.
I got to thinking that if I buy a 24-year-old truck, it’s gonna have too too many miles so it’s better to go for as many as I can get (456,000 anyone?). I found that one in Houston but everyone said I was nuts.
None of the trucks that fit my criteria have been anywhere close to my price.
I finally found a lovely 2013 GMC Sierra 1500 SLE with just 19,000 miles advertised in Bowling Green (home of the Corvette)!
It has the right engine, the 5.3L V8 with the good 6-Speed automatic, and the other options I need: the HD handling/trailering package, locking rear, 170° rear doors, power steering and door locks, cruise, a premium AM/FM/CD/MP3/XM radio with steering wheel controls, a bed liner, and 20″ chrome wheels. It also has all the options I’d like: leather, power seat, power windows in the rear doors that go all the way down, dual zone air conditioning, locking tailgate, Bluetooth, and more.
Oh, yeah. It’s even Summit White.
I had the high bid in the auction but it didn’t trip the seller’s reserve price. He’s asking $25,000.
Rufus said, “So make him an offer — not your usual lowball, just absolutely the best you would be willing to do (and somehow convince him that you really mean it.) Nothing to lose…”
Lotta lotta money on the table for a used truck.
I use Kelly Blue Book pricing to check these used “deals.” The KBB Average Trade-In ranges $21,349-21,874 for good or very good condition for that truck in Vermont. Interestingly, The Average Trade-In is $21,703-22,228 in Bowling Green, KY.
Worse, NADA says the Average Trade-In is $22,925. Vermont charges tax on the higher of the purchase price or the NADA Average Trade. $1,376 in tax. The typical cost to register and title a vehicle for the first time in Florida is $420, plus sales tax; the state imposes a 6% sales tax on the full purchase price.
It will cost to get it here. About $900 if I grab a rental so Anne and I can drive up there and back, a little less if I fly into Nashville alone, grab a rental and a motel, and drive back. About $1,100-1,200 if I ship it. Add in the sunroof and $900 in tires sooner than later, and suddenly it’s a $27K truck for a guy sweating to buy a $15K truck.
I really want a truck like that one. I really should get a truck like this one:
I heard on the radio this morning that people who sleep just one extra hour per day can make up to 16% more in salary. Looks like I’ll need to nap here at work. A lot.
Liz Arden says, “Get guitar (steal Rufus’ dreadnought — he won’t notice). Sit on corner. Place guitar case, cover opened, in front of you. Strum guitar.”
Rufus, who noticed, said, “Ahh, the American farm model. They’ll pay you not to play!”