Month: May 2019

25 Best Bargains

Drive Time

Via Insty, I stumbled across this list:

If you can afford the running costs or get a great warranty, these cars will be nicer than anything new at the same price. Here are some great used luxury cars to buy.

Go ahead and look at what’s on offer.  Then come back for the challenge, which is:

Pick your top 3 (assuming that all the cars are well-maintained inside, and that they’ll run for at least 40,000 miles before something breaks).

Unlike my normal practice, I’m going to pick my own top 3 up front.

#1:  Aston Martin DB7 Vantage

…because Aston Martin, and that exquisite V12, better than anything outside a Ferrari or Bentley.

#2:  Jaguar XK

…and NOT the XKR, which is horribly vulgar.  Honestly, the “ordinary” supercharged 4.2-liter V8 should be enough for anyone.

#3:  Jeep Grand Wagoneer

Of all the twenty-five cars on the list, it’s the one that gets a visceral reaction from me.  I want to drive it on a crappy dirt road in Colorado, guns in the back and elk/bear hunting on the brain…

Your top 3 in Comments.

Who Knew?

Music

We all know that Anthony Hopkins is a wonderful actor — but did anyone know that he was also a musical composer of some note?  Fifty years ago, he wrote a waltz, but was always afraid he’d be laughed at, thinking that it was no good.

He was wrong.

Some years ago, he asked pop orchestra leader André Rieu to see if he could play it — and Rieu heard it, loved it, scored it and played it last year at his annual concert in Maastricht, Belgium.

Enjoy.

And bravo, Sir Anthony.  If you’re going to be a one-hit wonder, it might as well be for this piece as any other. But he’s been writing music all his life — so encore, Maestro.

“But It’s SO Much Healthier!”

Health

Uh huh.  And then we have this:

Global Meat-Eating Is On the Rise, Bringing Surprising Benefits
Sub-Saharan Africans currently have tiny carbon footprints because they use so little energy — excluding South Africa, the entire continent produces about as much electricity as France. The armies of cattle, goats and sheep will raise Africans’ collective contribution to global climate change, though not to near Western or Chinese levels. People will probably become healthier, though. Many African children are stunted (notably small for their age) partly because they do not get enough micro-nutrients such as Vitamin A. Iron deficiency is startlingly common. In Senegal a health survey in 2017 found that 42% of young children and 14% of women are moderately or severely anaemic. Poor nutrition stunts brains as well as bodies. Animal products are excellent sources of essential vitamins and minerals. Studies in several developing countries have shown that giving milk to schoolchildren makes them taller. Recent research in rural western Kenya found that children who regularly ate eggs grew 5% faster than children who did not; cow’s milk had a smaller effect.

In the reign of Emperor Kim, all those of the vegan persuasion will be exiled to sub-Saharan Africa, so they can never again be tempted into betraying their religion.

In the meantime, I’m going to help the New Wife in the kitchen:

Can’t run the risk of becoming malnourished now, can we?

When Gummint Fails

Gummint

…which is to say, almost all of the time, it’s incumbent then for citizens to step in and fix the problem, if they can.  As did a couple folks in the People’s Collective of Oakland, Californistan:

We don’t need to remind Oakland drivers their streets are some of the worst in the country, costing locals an extra $1,049 a year in car maintenance on average.
The problem has prompted two Oakland residents to go rogue, pulling off covert missions to patch potholes in the middle of the night. They’ve dubbed themselves the “Pothole Vigilantes” and show off their work on an Instagram page by the same name.

Needless to say, Gummint isn’t impressed:

When asked about the unauthorized roadwork, Oakland Public Works empathized with the problem at hand, but made it clear that Oakland residents shouldn’t be taking to the streets to themselves.
Said Sean Maher, a spokesperson for the department, “We can’t recommend anyone do this work themselves, not least because it raises safety issues while people are working in the streets.”

Oh yeah, the old “safety” bullshit.  Like hundreds of people hitting deep potholes with their cars every day is a “safer” alternative.  I also like the other part:

Maher made a plea for patience, saying more resources to fix roads are on the way. The city council is set to vote on a $100 million plan to repave streets over the next three years. The money would come from Measure KK, approved by voters in 2016.

Okay, let me just make sure I’ve got the arithmetic right.  The voters approved the necessary spending in 2016.  We are now nearly halfway through 2019 — and the council is only now “set to vote” on the repaving plan?  Uh-huh.  No wonder people are getting impatient.  I wonder what else the OakGov may have been doing over the past couple years, that prevented them from working on the thing any earlier… never mind, I remember now:  Oakland City Hall was busy preventing ICE from rounding up illegal immigrants, making themselves feel all virtuous by defying federal law.  But back to our story:

“They are frustrated and fed up with the pavement condition in their neighborhood,” said Maher.

I bet this guy also works for the Oakland Department Of The Blindingly Obvious.

Not Quite

Elections, Politics

This from our little Somali-American friend (Soc – MN):

Ilhan Omar calls herself Trump’s ‘biggest nemesis’ and his ‘nightmare’

Please keep up your unhinged rants against America and Israel, my little Hamas/Hezbollah/Communist sympathizer, because you are actually going to help Trump win reelection in 2020 and, most likely, you’ll also help your adopted political party lose their House majority.

Some nemesis.  Some nightmare.  (Maybe for Nancy Pelosi;  not so much for Trump.)

What I’d like  to do is find the USCIS bureaucrat who granted you asylum in this country, and kick him — hard — in the nuts.  (Not in the ass;  he’s probably black and blue back there from kicking himself  by now.)

Fucking parasite.

Techno-Snooping

Technology

Let’s hear it for the companies who are spying on us:

The only Alexa I’d ever let into my house is a wonderful lady friend thus named.  The electronic snooper and spy?  Well, I guess somebody could put one into my house at some point, but the recordings would be kinda boring, because I’d be dead.

Bloody hell, it’s bad enough that the bastard government alphabet agencies might want to climb up my ass on a 24/7 basis, simply because I once wrote that I wanted to beat Ted “Swimmer” Kennedy to death with a lead pipe;  and that ever since the fat prick died, I’ve wanted to pour a bottle of Glenmorangie 10-year-old over his grave (after first passing the stuff through my kidneys).

Now the post-adolescent techno-weenies want their turn at my asshole, just because I buy books and deodorant from their poxy company?  Fuck ’em.