Category Archives: Random Access

Random Access, the op-ed.

Keep On Truckin’

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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.

Nice '13 GMC Sierra

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:

'94 Ext Cab Chevy Pickup with Matching Doors

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!”

 

The Campaign of 4-Year-Olds

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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus says Trump supporters should “leave it to the professionals” when it comes to quelling interruptions.

Mr. Priebus also says the GOP could have a different candidate at the national convention in Cleveland this July.

A brokered, or contested, convention occurs when no single candidate has secured enough delegate votes to secure the nomination on the first ballot. Sadly a brokered convention can also occur when the party elite change the rules so the popular vote doesn’t matter.

The winning Demorat needs to have at least 2,383 delegates in the primaries and caucuses; the winning Repug has to get at least 1,237 of the 2,472 delegates. Hillary Clinton currently leads the Democratic pack with 774 pledged delegates to date, far surpassing Bernie Sanders’ count of 946. That means she’s currently well on her way to the nomination.

Say what?

Yeah, the guys on the other side of the aisle already cooked the books; they have “superdelegates” to swing the nomination wherever they want. Ms. Clinton has 469 cheaters, so she really is well on her way to the nomination unless the Sanderistas can take over that convention.

Mr. Priebus says the GOP could have a different candidate at the convention in July, too. Repugs are looking for ways to cook the books, too.

Donald Trump leads the Repuglican pack with 739 pledged delegates to date, far surpassing Ted Cruz’ count of 465, which means Mr. Trump is well on his way to the nomination, too.

Mr. Priebus is counting on the GOP having a different candidate at the convention in July.

Dear Reince Priebus:
I’ve been a Republican Town Chair. I’ve run for and held elective office. I’ve put governors and congressmen and bank presidents together to register new voters. Now I’m just a crotchety op-ed writer with a message.
You say, “We have rules.” We hear you say, “We are weasels.”
You’re going to have a populist candidate with pretty close to the 1,237 delegates required for nomination. If you go ahead with this plan to steal the nomination, just to give it to another party hack, you will have stolen the party that freed Americans from slavery and made it the party that enslaves Americans.

Remember the “stiletto” job the “mysterious cabal” attempted in 1964? When Nelson Rockefeller appeared at the convention, AuH2O voters shouted down Mr. Rockefeller and beat back your backroom deal makers.

And they were still so mad at the party that LBJ slaughtered Mr. Goldwater that November.

Here’s what is likely to happen. You give the nomination to another party hack. Demorats do the same at their convention:

  • It won’t matter whether you pick UNTrusTed Cruz or Mitt Romney or Bruce Wayne.
  • Repuglican voters will stay away from the polls.
  • Ms. Clinton will win the White House.
  • Democrats will win 7 of the 11 gubernatorial races, a dozen of the so-called “safe” Senate seats, and more than half the 18 retiring Repug House seats.
  • We’ll get a business friendly Supreme Court Justice.
  • Business pretty much as usual.

The bills getting passed will change but the real business of politics will just keep on keeping on. The trillion-dollar deficits will continue to fund your cronies. Congress will continue to do everything for themselves and nothing for us. You’ll grumble in the press and be secretly pleased that you survived.

That’s the best you can hope for.

Now imagine what happens if give the nomination to another party hack and the Demorats actually let Mr. Sanders win their Convention!

  • It still won’t matter whether you pick UNTrusTed Cruz or Mitt Romney or Bruce Wayne.
  • Repuglican voters still stay away from the polls. (New) young Demorats will turn out by the million.
  • Mr. Sanders will win the White House.
  • Democrats will win 9 of the 11 gubernatorial races, a dozen of the so-called “safe” Senate seats, and at least the 18 retiring Repug House seats.
  • We’ll get Stephen Reinhardt or Goodwin Liu or Vermont’s John Dooley as a Supreme Court Justice.
  • And a Sanders administration will start prosecuting all the bankers and businessmen he rails against.

Voter Considering Ballot BoxThat’s the second best you can hope for but you still haven’t thought about all those voters who stayed home.

This isn’t 1964 but this could well be your Viet Nam.

See, social media will keep that core of disenchanted voters alive. Sooner or later, we will elect a populist candidate. And we will throw out all your party hacks.

Here’s your real nightmare:

  • Repuglican voters will come back to the polls.
  • A businessman (and loose cannon) will win the White House.
  • In three election cycles, every sitting bum^H^H, ahem, politician will be replaced.
  • And then a populist administration will prosecute EM>you.

The Arab Spring can become the American Fall. You whining 4-year-olds won’ get a time out, though. That means actual jail time.

The country survived Viet Nam. The politicians didn’t.

We get a great choice this year. A loose cannon businessman v. a liar-turned-party-hack and a liar-and-party-hack v. a loose cannon socialist. I can hardly wait.

 

“This Town Ain’t Big Enough …”

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Another Puffin Tale from Dodge City that you just can’t make up.

Nick Grindell: I’m getting tired of your meddling. This town ain’t big enough for the both of us and I’m going to give you 24 hours to get out. If I see you in Carabinas by this time tomorrow, it’s you or me!
Tim Barrett: I’ll see you at this time… tomorrow.

A tumbleweed skitters across the road from The Western Code (1932) to High Noon (1952). There are no shadows. The sun is merciless in the sky. And the Sheriff says to the d00d, “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

From IMDB, When Tim Barrett rides into Carabinas in The Western Code, his reputation as a lawman precedes him. Rescuing Polly Loomis from the unwanted attentions of a saloon ruffian, he learns her mother married ranch foreman Nick Grindel shortly before her death, and left everything to him in her will. Nick has proposed marriage to his stepdaughter, and she fears violence if her hot-blooded brother Dick finds out. When a body is found at the Bow Knot, Tim barely rescues Dick from a necktie party and is deputized to investigate when Dick confesses to a crime he didn’t commit.

The Sheriff ran a d00d out of town.

You may recall the Key West shootout in October last year when Timothy Thomas got into it with deputies on Stock Island.


I shot the sheriff, but I didn’t shoot the deputy.

No matter what my daughter often says, sometimes life just isn’t a country song.

The Key West Police and the Monroe County Sheriff’s office had been looking for Mr. Thomas for an armed robbery at a home down the street from Key West High School; the school was locked down. He took off in a stolen black Ford Mustang. Deputies spotted the car in the dark out on Stock Island not far from the jail. He opened fire on them when they tried to nab him.

He shot a Sheriff’s deputy in the chest but the deputy’s bullet-proof vest saved him.

He’s charged with attempted murder of a police officer, four counts of being a felony possessing a firearm, burglary, altering a firearm serial number, and property damage.

Jump to the present.

Tyler Thurston, Mr. Thomas’ younger brother, threatened the lives of a police officer and his family in text messages and Facebook posts hours after bad guy bro Tim was jailed for that shooting.

Text 1: “I got a 357 magnum fully loaded and a 9 ruger with 16 bullets waiting for yalls names to pop back up in my f—in’ ear. I know where yall live, I’ll kill everybody in the house.”
Text 2: “…there wont be a f—ing soul that could save yall from me. I’ll kill yall b—-es slowly and unmercifully.”

“Kids nowadays just don’t realize once you text something or put in on Facebook, it’s out there forever, whether you’re serious or not,” his lawyer told the Keynoter. “He had to learn these things the hard way and he feels badly that what he wrote scared some people.”

Uh huh.

The “kid” bro has been under the care and feeding of the Sheriff since October. Last week, he agreed to five years of probation in a plea bargain with prosecutors. The deal says he must complete a two-year drug offender program. He also has to get out of Monroe County and stay out.

 

Burn the Bern

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That’s the word that has gone out to every Demorat and Repuglican hit team, too.

Demorats have poured millions of dollars into discrediting his ability to beat Hillary Clinton now and any Repuglican in November. Repugs chant “socialist,” and “communist,” and “unwashed masses” — the codewords they bring out to tar that which they fear.

Why are the parties so afraid of Mr. Sanders, too?

He voted against the Iraq war. He rails against big business and the rich. One of his most popular quotes is that if a bank is too big to fail, then it’s too big to exist. He wants dump ObamaDon’tCare (say what?). Don’t worry, he’ll implement Medicare for everyone. Including US Congressmen. He’s Elizabeth Warren but louder. He strongly wants campaign reform. He calls himself “independent.”

Worse yet, people love Bernie Sanders.

The fact that Mr. Sanders has never actually passed a piece of legislation doesn’t seem to matter to anyone; he has his say!

The Demorats have it much easier than the Repuglicans.

They have 718 superdelegates whose sole purpose is to put their fingers on the scale to prevent nominations like that of Bernie Sanders from ever happening.

If Mr. Sanders shows up at the convention with more delegates than Ms. Clinton, you can bet the marching orders are, “Burn the Bern.”

Tomorrow is another big day with five presidential primary elections and a Repuglican party caucus (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, the Northern Marianas, North Carolina, and Ohio.)

I expect you’ll vote for someone tomorrow. I hope you won’t vote for the worst liars in the bunch (pantsuit-on-Fire Hillary Clinton, UnTrusTED Cruz, or second string Marco Rubio).

Who’s left?

We need a loose cannon in politics now more than ever but we’ve been growing little water pistols and arming them with blanks, I wrote four years ago. It’s even more true today, although the water pistoleers are starting to load acid.

Loose cannons Bernie Sanders on the far left and Donald Trump on the middle right. I hope you will vote for one or the other. Instead of burning the Bern, let’s burn the parties.

I wrote more about Derailing the Donald over here.

Who knows? With two “populists” running head to head in November, anything can happen.

 

Derail the Donald

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That’s the word that has gone out to every Repuglican and Demorat hit team in the universe.

Forget Occupy Wall Street. Today it’s Occupy Donald Trump.

Repuglicans have poured millions of dollars into a negative ad campaign to discredit his ability to beat Hillary Clinton in November. Demorats chant “hatred,” and “racism,” and “uneducated masses” — the codewords they bring out to tar that which they fear.

Why are the parties so afraid of Mr. Trump?

“The Repubs are reaping the results of the misinformation, division, racism, and fear they have been feeding the public since Barack Obama took office,” my oh-so-liberal friend Fanny Guay said. That is the Demorat’s party line, but the reality is that the only people ever to play the division or race cards in politics are liberals.

And misinformation belongs to both parties.

Pundits and establishment Repuglicans alike pretend they have no idea what will come out of the Donald’s mouth next, but that’s not true either. We all know perfectly well what he’ll say and we think we know what he’ll do.

Establishment Repugs and Demorats alike know they won’t control a Trump administration they way they have controlled the process for decades.

The unholy triad of big government, big business, and big media reaps billions and they protect one another to keep it flowing. No one cares who sits in the White House as long as government keeps getting bigger, programs keep programming, and the money keeps flowing. It’s a filthy relationship that makes everyone filthy rich. Everyone except thee and me. Everyone except We the Overtaxed People. We get ripped off.

The maverick Donald Trump doesn’t need anyone’s help so the Dems can’t control him either.

Worse, the radical Donald Trump may well prosecute the movers and shakers of that unholy triad, starting with Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton themselves and that keeps people up at night.

Even Bernie Sanders wouldn’t do what Mr. Trump could.

Hence the adjectives thrown around. “Toxic.” “Racist.” “Scam.”

Misinformation. It’s what they do.

Is Mr. Trump causing or simply riding the toxic atmosphere?

John Dickerson took Mr. Trump to task for the violence at his campaign rallies.

I call foul.

Mr. Sanders says “Donald Trump has been incredibly divisive…”

Interesting. It’s Mr. Trump’s fault when his supporters take a shot, but never the good guys who the first punch. Never, Mr. Sanders said. “Our campaign has never once organized any effort disrupt Mr. Trump’s rallies…”

In fact, every news report I’ve seen blames Mr. Trump for the increasing violence at his events and every news report I’ve seen fails to mention the Demoratic candidates the violent protestors represent. And no reporter would ever blame a Demoratic protestor for the rampages.

A Gallup poll last year found that six in 10 Americans say that their trust in mass media ranges from “not very much” to “none at all.” Trust in the mass media has fallen even more sharply among those younger than 50.

I wonder why.

Mr. Trump has 460 delegates to Mr. Cruz’ 370, Mr. Rubio’s 163, and Mr. Kasich’s 63. Ms. Clinton has 771 pledged delegates plus probably 460 “superdelegates” vs. Mr. Sanders’ 576.

There are 718 superdelegates whose sole purpose is to put their fingers on the scale to prevent nominations like that of Bernie Sanders who displeases the party insiders. Right now the Repugs are wishing they had superdelegates. Right now the Repugs are probably rewriting the convention rules so they do have superdelegates.

Americans also gave the GOP a 63% favorable rating and the Demorats 61% in 2015. This is the only time since Gallup began tracking the parties’ images in 1992 that neither party has achieved at least 40% favorability from the public.

I wonder why.

Tomorrow is another big day with five presidential primary elections and a Repuglican party caucus (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, the Northern Marianas, North Carolina, and Ohio. Florida and Ohio are winner-take-all on the Republican side).

I expect you’ll vote for someone tomorrow. I hope you won’t vote for the worst liars in the bunch (pantsuit-on-Fire Hillary Clinton, UnTrusTED Cruz, or second string Marco Rubio).

Who’s left?

We need a loose cannon in politics now more than ever but we’ve been growing little water pistols and arming them with blanks, I wrote four years ago. It’s even more true today, although the water pistoleers are starting to load acid.

I wrote more about Burning the Bern over here.

Loose cannons Donald Trump on the middle right and Bernie Sanders on the far left. I hope you will vote for one or the other tomorrow. Instead of derailing the Donald, let’s derail the parties.

In any event, the only positive political ads on TV during the news are for Viagra and Cialis. Yeppers, we’re gonna get screwed.