Elmwood Park, NJ— I’m here making a pickup.
I’m driving a different truck this week, because of a problem that developed with my own last Sunday night. My fault, this one. There’s a large part of the transmission sitting on my younger boy’s desk as a paperweight. A mute testament to what happens sometimes when you miss a gear. I’ll have my truck back about midweek, but for now I’m driving a different truck until mine gets repaired, sometime midweek.
I'm driving this rig just now
Here’s what I have at the moment, in a pic taken 6-8-09 in Shamokin Dam, PA along US 11 & 15. It’s an International 9900.
It’s what’s called a long nose, or a conventional, which is a little bit different in construction from my usual rig. The truck as a whole is the same length, but the wheelbase is a little longer, with the front wheels being pushed to the extreme front of the rig, and the nose being high, rather than tilting down as my usual rig does. This makes for a bit less visibility, and somewhat less maneuverability, because with this design you simply can’t turn the wheels as much as you can with the other rig.
In that sense, this rig’s a bit harder to drive… I have to work harder to get around corners, for example. Takes lots more space to do much of anything.
My usual rig, along the same stretch of highway a couple Novembers ago.
Backing, too, is more of a chore for that reason, too, as well as the fact that there are no power mirrors on this tractor. Power mirrors seems a small thing to someone who has never driven something this large, but to me it’s a big deal; In my usual tractor, I’ve grown used to, and quite good at, backing with one had on the wheel and one on the mirror control. None of that for this one.
Oh, well. It’s only a couple more days.
Looking around, today:
- It did what? I note the big push on the Titanic of late… the 100th anniversary this past week of the sinking, and the opening of the 3D version of the movie… which was doubtless released to coincide with that anniversary . I note there’s still a largish number of government- educated types who don’t know the thing sank. But notice, please, that the Hollywood left likes to portray the sinking as the result of greedy capitalists putting profits ahead of human lives. David Paulin addresses this.
- The bigger threat…. to… what, exactly? John Hawkins raises an interesting point a few months back on Twitter: :If Tea Partiers are terrorists, then maybe liberals should ask themselves, “What have we done to make them hate us?” Isn’t it interesting that the Democrats consider the Tea Party unworthy of the same question they demanded we ask ourselves of the 9/11 terrorists? Doubtless because they consider conservatives a bigger threat to the leftist agenda.
- Tied again? Not so long ago, Rick Santorum was pretty much tied, nationally, with Obama in the polling. Now we find Romney similarly tied. That tells me many things. Primarily, it tells me that this upcoming election is a referendum vote on Obama and the Democrats, and their performance. Unfortunately, this is being treated as an “anything and anybody but Obama “vote. I wonder if they recognize how many votes they have thrown away by not choosing a real conservative. Somehow, I tend to doubt it. What it comes down to now is will Obama look bad enough, November to make whoever the GOP establishment throws up, look good? I grant that’s not much of a bar to get over, but then again, the weakness of the GOP establishment of late leaves lots of room for doubt. Was Romney really the best they could offer? As I’ve said many times I don’t think so. And I think we’ll pay the price regardless of his being elected are not. As to whether not he will actually get elected…. ehh… We’ll see.
- Things we shouldn’t forget, come November: I’ve been saying for several years now that the only government program that has ever been cut by Democrats is defense. The debt ceiling increase deal from last yearseems to back that point rather well. The fact is, Governments don’t default, they simply print more money. Think I’m wrong? Here’s a challenge; Where in history has a government that had it’s own currency, ever defaulted? Ever? Look, gang, that whole debt ceiling deal whole thing was set up to do two things: 1):Raise taxes… something they’d not be able to slip by absent a crisis situation
2): Demonize the increasingly popular Tea Party… who is giving the Democrats, including those who call themselves moderate Republicans, fits. I bring all this up now, because it Romney doesn’t make it part of his campaign, he hobbles his campaign, needlessly . Else, he labels himself, or both.
- Cheers to Jim Treacher who notes:”Mitt Romney cares so little for poor people, he gives them his own money instead of forcing you to give away yours”
- Say WHAT? Obama wants you to think your home energy prices have gone down? Yeah, he thinks we’re idiots.
- Stay at Home Moms? With regard to Stay at Home Momns as I wrote about yesterday, Casey Kelly points out, correctly: “If Progs can’t tax it, kill it or redistribute it, then it has no value. Case and point SAHMs
- Zimmerman: I commend Clarice Feldman to your reading, Re: Zimmerman, et al.
- Cheney’s still connected to reality: Says Obama’s been an unmitigated disaster. He’s certainly got that part right.
- Demanding Holder’s resignation: I see Justin Amash, House member from Michigan, and a member the oversight and government reform committee, has joined the long list of those calling for the resignation of Eric Holder… who is likely the most corrupt Atty General in American history. Given Janet Reno, that’s saying something.
- Kenya? Now why, I wonder, in the months before Obama gets forcibly removed from the White House, would there be a huge push on US funding for… wait for it… Kenya? They’re coming from the White House, of course.
- You know they’re corrupt when even fellow Democrats start screaming about it: Patrick Kennedy, for example.
- The “Green Economy? eh…. Not so much. Says Rick Moran,
Obama’s promises on green energy in 2008 made him sound modern, forward looking, even cool.
Rick Moran
But the truth was there for anyone who cared to see it; most of his program – including the $90 billion for green energy in the stim bill – was unrealistic and deceptive. It’s not clear that all that money added a significant amount of renewable electrical generation to the national grid that wouldn’t have been built in the first place, and plenty of evidence that much of it was misdirected (Solyndra and many other loan recipients as well as money for job training gone to waste).For all his promises, Obama’s green plans have utterly failed. The question is: Why isn’t anyone talking about this?
Indeed, why? Including, Dare I say this, Mitt Romney? Oh, and take Electric cars, like the Volt, from Government Motors, which has halted production, since nobody’s buying the thing. Given the Obama war on coal fired electric generating plants… doesn’t that mean we’ll have to rely on Nuclear power even more than before? See, here’s the issue…. the left is NEVER, and I mean NEVER rooted in reality. That is nowhere made more clear than in this “green” nonsense. I’ll tell you what, gang…. I”ve got an alternative to all this. How about… Oil? It has the advantage of actually working…. Coal, as well.
