I thought I would provide a brief glimpse of our future auto industry.
Blogging has been slow but I hope this makes up for it a bit.
Archive for the ‘humor’ Category
Government Motors
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010Bike jobs
Sunday, March 28th, 2010The fundamentally unserious nature of this administration, including Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, is illustrated by a new policy announced this week. Bicycles are are to treated equally with cars and freight trains in funding projects by the administration.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced a “major policy revision” that aims to give bicycling and walking the same policy and economic consideration as driving.
“Today I want to announce a sea change,” he wrote on his blog last week. “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized.”
Now, motorized transportation includes more than cars. Are bicycles to be treated equally with airplanes, for example ? Chicago needs a second airport southwest of the city but perhaps we will spend that money on bike lanes ?
Transportation agencies are urged to take action on a number of fronts, including the creation of pathways for bike riders and pedestrians on bridges, and providing children with safe biking and walking routes to schools.
They are also encouraged to find ways to make such improvements in concert with road maintenance projects and to protect sidewalks and bike lanes in the same manner as roads (by clearing them of snow, for example).
Mr. LaHood also indicated the department is discouraging “transportation investments that negatively affect cyclists and pedestrians.”
Hmmm. So, if a new airport would make bike riders have to go around, it wouldn’t be funded ? Maybe an underground bike lane beneath the runways ? What do we do about ports? A suspension bridge for bikes ?
More looney leftist ideas. Now we know why Obama wanted pseudo-Republican LaHood in his cabinet and how wise Senator Gregg was to decline.
The way a lot of us feel
Sunday, January 24th, 2010I saw this at another blog this morning.
A man owned a small ranch in Montana. The Montana Work Force Department claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to interview him.
“I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them,” demanded the agent.
“Well,” replied he said, “there’s my ranch hand who’s been with me for 3 years.. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board.
“The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $150 per week plus free room and board.
“Then there’s the half-wit. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.”
“That’s the guy I want to talk to … the half-wit,” says the agent.
“That would be me,” replied the rancher.
Al Gore Poetry Prize
Sunday, January 10th, 2010By Bradley J. Fikes
Courtesy of James Delingpole at the Telegraph.
This is my favorite:
Hark the Al Gore warming sting
“Glory to the carbon king”
Cap and trade and tax the air
Help the drowning polar bear.
Plant the wind farms curb and sanction
He needs the bunce to fund his mansion
The science settled graphs are in
Computer models tweaked and spinned
Give him money for your sins
“Glory to the carbon king ”
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DISCLAIMER: This post represents my opinion, and not necessarily that of my employer, the North County Times.
Climategate In Song
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009Courtesy of Wattsupwiththat.com and Minnesotans
for Global Warming . . . the lyrics say it all.
Posted by Bradley J. Fikes, who speaks for himself and
not necessarily for his employer, the North County Times
Reagan, a great story
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009I love this story about Ronald Reagan as president. It comes from Ted Kennedy’s upcoming memoir. I am just beginning the two volume set, Age of Reagan.
The senator said it had been difficult to get Reagan to focus on policy matters. He described a meeting with him that he and other senators had sought to press for shoe and textile import limits.
The senators were told that they would have just 30 minutes with the president. Reagan began the meeting, the book said, commenting on Mr. Kennedy’s shoes — asking if they were Bostonians — and then talking for 20 minutes about shoes and his experience selling shoes for his father. “Several of us began conspicuously to glance at our watches.” But to no avail. “And it was over!” Mr. Kennedy said. “No one got a word in about shoe or textile quota legislation.”
They had been rolled and it will become one more story of how dumb Reagan was. I love it. I wonder if, in those lucid and sober moments he had, Kennedy ever wondered if maybe Reagan knew exactly what he was doing when he genially stalled them until they ran out of time.
I will bet five dollars there are not five Democrats who will understand that story.
UPDATE: He did it to Republicans, too. He also said “There is no limit to what can be accomplished as long as it makes no difference who gets the credit.”
Duck season
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009I was up this morning making coffee and watching the Sunday talk shows when I noticed a duck swimming in the pool out the window. The ducks seem to like our pool because it is just over a fence from a small lake that they spend all year swimming in. Unfortunately, they poop in the pool and, in the summer heat, algae becomes a serious problem. My first response when seeing ducks in the pool is to chase them out. This time was different.
When I started to go out the door, I noticed that the female duck had an escort. She had her duckling swimming right along her right wing tip. I watched them for a while and finally opened the door. The mother duck squawked and jumped out of the pool. The duckling could not get up to the deck from the water. The distance was too great. After a few minutes, the mother duck gave up flew away. I decided I would help the duckling out of the water although I couldn’t see how he had gotten into the yard. He must have walked under the gate which does have a gap of about 6 inches although it is screened by a lot of flowers.
As soon as the duckling saw me, he was excited and, as soon as I headed his way, he would madly paddle the other. He practically was airborne he was paddling so furiously. I tried to use the small skimmer net to lift him out but he was just too fast. Finally, I went up and woke Cindy to help me. We came downstairs and looked out but no duckling. I figured he had gotten out somehow. Cindy was up now and she decided to lie in the sun while I watched the rest of the talk show.
A few minutes later, she opened the door and came in with the duckling in her hand. She had decided to look in the pool skimmer and there he was. He went madly paddling away but came back to the skimmer and she caught him. We decided to put him through the fence onto the sand next to the larger lake. We couldn’t see the mother duck but hoped she would find him before a coyote did. Cindy set him down and he huddled on the sand.
After a few minutes, she reached down to pet him and he took off running to the lake. He dove in and then the mother, who had been sitting under a tree nearby, came flying over and took him in hand. A few minutes later, they were paddling around the lake as though nothing had happened. I hope she learned her lesson as we might not be here to rescue the ducking the next time.
Another quiet Arizona Sunday morning.
The worst airline in the world
Friday, March 20th, 2009Apologies to Keith Olbermann (Did I say that ?) but Michael Totten has a hilarious story about flying on Alitalia. If anybody wants to know what the health care system Obama will design is like, read this.
A fifty year-old Italian man in a fedora started screaming at both of them.
A man standing next to me chuckled.
“Do you understand what he’s saying?” I said.
“I’m from Argentina,” he said, “but I speak Italian. That man is cursing like you wouldn’t believe.”
Mr. Enraged was screaming like you wouldn’t believe – wild-eyed, nostril-flared, spittle-flecked screaming.
Listening to him and imagining which curse words he used he was entertaining, but mostly the guy came across like a belligerent jerk. The two Alitalia employees on the receiving end of his tirade weren’t responsible for our predicament. The baggage handlers were on strike, but the counter employees were still on the job.
Later, though, I realized that Mr. Enraged was just ahead of everyone else. The rest of us booked on the flight to Chicago would learn soon enough that a huge number of Alitalia’s employees absolutely deserved to be screamed at.
It’s a hilarious story as long as you didn’t have to live through it.
The banned SNL skit about the mortgage crisis
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008NBC quickly moved to ban a Saturday Night Live skit that actually explained the mortgage crisis very well. That was the problem. It named the real crooks.
Enjoy.
The Decline of the Mainstream Press.
Saturday, September 6th, 2008
Andrew Sullivan has damaged the brand of the Atlantic Monthly, an old and formerly respectable magazine. This cover is a parody but suggests what he has done. I used to read his blog and even contributed to it. I wonder a bit if he is an example of AIDS dementia as he has been HIV positive a long time and his behavior was quite circumspect until about three years ago.
I suppose this would be considered empathy for Andrew. He needs his medications adjusted.
Here is the story of his latest smear. It didn’t even last one news cycle before being debunked. Ace of Spades has more to say, although some of it is not safe for pre-teens.
A British view of the rage convulsion of the left after Palin was nominated. Note also the commenter linking to the discredited smear of Palin. It will continue until November 5 and then they will all explode. I can’t imagine the rage when this election is lost.