Unauthorized Areas Tour of USS Iowa

I thought this was pretty cool.  The blogger didn't know a lot about naval vessels, but who cares - his guide sure did. H/T Every Blade of Grass via Lagniappes Lair.

The Natural Enemy of the Do-It-Yourself Mechanic

Tonight I completed what has to have been the single worst car repair I have ever attempted: replacing ball joints on my wife's vehicle - a 2002 Nissan XTerra.  I was reminded again of the natural enemy of automobiles and those who fix them:  RUST.  Exacerbated of course by all the salt we use on our roads here in MI in the wintertime.

The rust I found on this truck (and it's truly a truck - it's the SUV version of the Nissan Frontier pickup) was just incredible - in some cases impervious to the heat I applied to get rusty nuts off rusty studs, not to mention impact wrenches and breaker bars.  I ended up cutting one nut off, as it was spinning the whole ball joint in its hole.  Crazy!  It added many hours of work to this task.

I started this project on Saturday morning, and didn't finish it until about 7:30pm tonight (Thursday)  what a colossal pain!  However, it was completed successfully, and now my wife won't be embarrassed by the rusty hinge sound the old joints made when you turned the wheel or went over bumps.  Or shifted too much in your seat.  Plus it really isn't safe to keep running with worn out ball joints.  So embarrassment yes, but also safety concerns addressed.

It should also be mentioned that it took all that time just to do one side!  I bought parts to do both sides (thanks RockAuto.com!), but I'm not doing the other side until the weather warms up - that 35 degree damp with a north wind blowing into the garage that I dealt with yesterday was nasty!  It made the concrete I was sitting on even colder!

Special thanks to my Dad, who rescued me on several occasions during all this.  He was here helping me with this project every day I worked on it, sitting in that cold garage with me, bouncing ideas around and driving me to Harbor Freight, several auto parts stores, and Tractor Supply when our other car was needed elsewhere.  I couldn't have done it without him.

Hoping for a little consistency from the Michigan Senate

State Senator Virgil Smith (D-Detroit) has been convicted of assault and sentenced to 10 months in jail and 5 years probation for shooting up his ex-wife's car with his rifle after she caught him in a compromising situation with a female.

There is apparently some question as to whether Sen. Smith will resign or be expelled. The good Senator has offered to resign as a part of his plea deal, but the judge rejected that part of the deal because he can't enforce it.

If Senator Smith doesn't resign, it seems to me that in order to maintain the high level of moral outrage displayed over the cases of Representatives Courser and Gamrat, the Senate should immediately expel Senator Smith.

Not defending Courser and Gamrat, but the House didn't even wait for them to be tried and convicted before expelling them.  Seems like the Senate is a little behind the indignation curve on this one.

200 Lions killed in Zimbabwe

The real aftermath of Cecil the lion. 

http://wjimam.com/zimbabwe-killing-200-lions/?trackback=fbshare_top

Granholm: Snyder should move to Flint

In today's Detroit News:  (full Article)

Gov. Rick Snyder should buy a Flint home with water service from a lead pipeline and take up residency in the city until all of Flint’s lead-leaching pipes are replaced, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Saturday.

“I think who’s ever going to fix this problem should move to Flint and live in one of those houses so that they can understand the urgency with which the citizens of Flint are operating, that they feel it so deeply because every single day they have to deal with water that has been poisoned,” Granholm said in a telephone interview with The Detroit News.

First of all Jenny, it was your tolerance of the corrupt leadership in Detroit and Flint that led to this crisis in the first place.  If you would have put aside party loyalty and taken Dennis Archer, Dave Bing, and Kwame Kilpatrick to task for their mismanagement of the Detroit Water and Sewer Department, Flint wouldn't have been so eager to disconnect.  It was the outrageous water rates they were paying because of all the graft and corruption that was going on in Detroit that set the stage for all of this, and that points right at you, madam ex-Governor.

So go crawl back into your leftist utopian stinkhole at UC-Berkeley where you came from.  Nobody in this state needs any advice from you.

Establishment Republicans planning ways to steal their Party's nomination

Apparently the Republican establishment in Washington is beginning to realize that Donald Trump is not going away, and his promises to upset their applecarts have a very good chance of becoming reality.  So they are plotting ways to oust Trump by parliamentary maneuvering, even if he has the requisite number of delegates to secure the Republican nomination for President.

I realize I'm just one little occasional blogger out here on the internet, and my voice doesn't carry very far, but if this were to happen, I would renounce every and all Republicans, and vote for Trump and the third party he would undoubtedly form to make his run for President.

I should note at this point that I am not a Trump supporter, I'm pretty much in the Cruz camp (with some disagreements)

For too long we conservatives have had these mealy-mouthed, platitude spewing invertebrates shoved down our throats (see McCain, John; Romney, Mitt; Dole, Robert; and yes, Bush, George W).  And we have been told that if we didn't vote for them we were really voting to elect the Democrat, and we had to be loyal.

But now, the shoe is likely to be on the other foot.  The establishment hates Trump and they hate Cruz as well, and they done their utmost to get one of theirs elected (Jeb, Kasich, Graham, Rubio, Huckabee, etc.) and they have all been rejected by the voters, and all but two have dropped out.  Those two have between them won one state primary and have less then half the delegates Trump and Cruz have earned.  So it looks like a guy the establishment doesn't like is going to be nominated, and they aren't going to support him, they aren't going to unify behind him for the sake of the party and the country, and they aren't going to vote for him.  Even though that is exactly what they have asked we conservatives to do for the last eight election cycles. 

So to all you establishment types out there who think Ryan/Boehner/McConnell/Preibus/Romney  (and I'll add Saul Anuzis for my Michigan readers) wing of the party are great guys and can put together a campaign that will drub Hillary, let me tell you something:  For too long you guys have been putting up losers against weak democrat candidates who you should have blown out of the water.  It's time for you to suck it up and support the choice of your party's voters this time around, whoever that may be.  Otherwise you will destroy whatever you think it is you have.