Piccolo and Jimmy get stopped

Jimmy got stopped for a burned out tail light.

When the officer approached the car he held a 'sovereign citizen' sign against the glass. He refused to identify himself and was totally obnoxious to the officer that had originally planned to simply inform Jimmy he had a tail light out and to tell him he should get it fixed. The officer even had a multi tool in his pocket to help Jimmy if he happened to have a spare bulb in his glove box.

The officer, tired of Jimmy's belligerence is forced to break Jimmy's window, cut his seat belt, yard him out of the car. Jimmy bounces up and takes a swing at the officer and the scuffle escalates and ends with Ossifer Friendly tasing the living dogsnot out of him and gets carted off to jail.

He later gets a $20 fine for the tail light violation and a year in the county lockup for resisting arrest. Over absolutely nothing.

======================================

Two hours later. Same cop pulls Piccolo over for the same thing. Piccolo was on his way home after a night pf pretty hard partying.

Piccolo pulls over and gets well off the road for officer safety, shuts off the pickup, opens the window, drops his keys out the window and waits with both hands on the top of the steering wheel.

Ossifer Friendly approaches the car and shines his light and finds Piccolo sitting there with a joint in his mouth, a beer between his legs, a whisky bottle on the seat. There's also a hypodermic needle on a syringe sitting on the dashboard.

He asks Piccolo for his driver's license which he produces, returns and asks him to exit the vehicle, turn around and put his hands behind his back. Piccolo explains he has a handgun in an inside the pants holster, a switchblade in his back pocket and tells the cop to be careful of the sharps he has in his shirt pocket. The cop takes it all and hoos pic up.

He seats Pic in the back seat of the patrol car and starts driving toward the police station and he and Pic have a delightful conversation about trout fishing.

The officer stops about halfway there and announces he's had two fights that night, one with Jimmy and another with an entitled purple haired fat woman and that he just plain old didn't have the heart to throw such a nice cooperative guy like Pic in jail. 

He turns around and while driving Pic back to his pickup tells him about how to avoid the DUI checkpoint 3 miles ahead. The get to his pickup and he fishes a bulb out of his glove box and the two of then replace the burned out tail light in Pic's truck. He returns Pic's gun, switchblade and his needles. Then he told Pic the body in the trunk is starting to smell and recommends that after he buries it he plants endangered flowers on top of the grave so it is illegal to dig it up. They thanked each other and make a date to go fishing together and Pic is sent on his way.

Yeah, I know it's bull$hit but you get the point.

Most people go to jail for being stupid.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

Poor people don't understand maintenance.

Someone once told me 'poor people have poor ways'.

Lot's to be said for that. People don't understand the true cost of things. They seem to think, for example, if they can stretch the budget to make the payments then they can afford a new (or newer than the one they have) car.

They forget that it has to be maintained and taken care of. Oil changes are required at intervals to keep the engine running properly. The other fluid levels have to be maintained and checked. Oil changes run in the $50-75 range. Needless to say, oil change intervals usually land when you've had a bad month and it gets put off and often generally forgotten about for a year or so and now your engine is smoking and clattering.

Now you're handed a $4500 engine job to deal with and you put it on a credit card and get yourself in deeper.

Or windshield wipers wear out and instead of coughing up $35 to replace them you keep putting it off until the windshield is scratched up. In some states that won't pass a safety inspection so you're out another $400 that you add to the credit card.

Of course this isn't only about cars it's a general lifestyle choice.

You have to take care of things. The cost of owning something doesn't stop when you take it home with you.

=================================

Protip.

You're getting ready to make your last $500 car monthly payment on a 5 year note. This proves you have managed to cough up $500/month for the last 5 years. 

You figure you're going to keep it for another five years. 

Open an account, label it 'car payment' and drop $500/month into it. Inflation, pay raises etc. have made it easier to do now than it was 5 years ago so it's easily doable.

When you get around to needing a new car you should be able to either pay cash or put one hell of a down payment on your next vehicle.

Plan ahead.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

Islam has no place in western civilization

ESPECIALLY not in the United States. Read what I have to say carefully before you start babbling about the First Amendment. I'm pretty much a hard nosed Constitutionalist.

Muslims don't assimilate. They want to change their new home to fit them. Mamdani has already taken over a city owned building and is using it for a mosque. One of his lieutenants has already said Islam will be in every home in the United States. Another has said their goal is to destroy the Constitution and replace it with Sharia law. Other Muslim leaders have said the same things. 

There have been criticisms over people bringing their dogs into their homes. The new and improved NYC grocery store doesn't sell pork products. Restaurants have been hassled over serving pork barbecue. Muslims want to ban alcohol. 

Muslims have hassled people for eating in public during Ramadan citing that they are fasting and it annoys them. Sorry about that but I am eating my lunch where and when I want and demand to be able do it in peace. 

Imams have stated they want to replace the Constitution with Sharia Law. Islam is actually a religion of conquering. Everywhere they land they insist the locals bend to them. I have no intentions whatsoever of living under Sharia law or changing my habits to accommodate newcomers. It's their job to assimilate.

The Quran permits them to lie, cheat, steal and even murder unbelievers.

It's not a religion, it is a terrorist organization. It destroys everything it touches. It was directly responsible for 9-11. A big example of that is Iran which has supplied many groups with arms and ammunition to go after western nations in general and the United States in particular. The Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas and others come to mind as I sit here. All have been given money and arms from Iran and other Muslim sources.

They have killed any number of Americans and Islam in general and Iran in particular is a clear and present danger to the United States. Period.

The United States hosts every religion in the world that I am aware of and probably some I'm not aware of. We all seem to get along together and they have all assimilated well...EXCEPT the Muslims. They get along with none of the other religions. In fact they don't even get along with themselves. Sunni and Shiite Muslims are constantly going after each other. 

One time I wished a Hindu a merry Christmas and he smiled and replied that even though he was Hindi he loved Christians offering to share their holiday with him. He was gracious.

Not so when I offered a Muslim cab driver to buy him lunch. He could have simply said he was Muslim and fasting and been halfway decent about it. Instead he got $hitty about it.

Another time I offered a Jewish subcontractor a ham sandwich (I didn't know he was Jewish) when I was making lunch at work and he graciously begged off. It later got back to me that the Jew had gone and told my supervisor I was a nice guy for offering him lunch. Gracious.

Muslims simply have no place in western civilization. For the record the first war our then fledgling nation fought was with the Barbary pirates. They were not Irish Catholics or Methodists. They were Muslims. Our dealings go way back.

Japan has told the small handful of Muslims there to go whistle and I'm sure they'll soon get the boot. Denmark and Sweden have had a bellyful of Muslims and are in the process of giving large numbers of them the boot.

England and France are screwed royally. France seem to have a number of Catholic churches falling prey to mysterious fires and although the Notre Dame fire is officially listed as being caused by a worker it would be interesting to know of the employees possible connection with Islam. The Mayor of London is a Muslim and you might just as well write England off.

My solution is to follow the leadership of the Japanese and expel any non native born Muslim. We should also designate Islam to be a domestic terrorist group and encourage the rest to leave. 

Before anyone accuses me of being a Nazi, I don't advocate camps, death chambers or any harm be done to these people. I simply want them to leave and go somewhere else. That's fair and reasonable.

This is the Islamic Doomsday clock. I figure that right now we are between 7 and 8 O'clock. They've done a damned good job at 4 O'clock. They have taken New York City!

I've said what I said. As a hard nosed Constitutionalist it was difficult for me to come to this conclusion. I have always stood on the side of liberty but it has occurred to me that those people simply want to take our liberties away from us.

Historically in the early 70s I had a leave them alone attitude toward gays. By the mid 80s I had dealings with the TG community and left them alone, preferring to treat them the same way they treated me which for the most part was civilly. I had and still have a live and let live attitude. 

Before you decide to go off on me, do your own research. You just might find I am not too far off base when I say the biggest threat to democracy is Islam. Open your eyes and look around.

Here's a list. The list is not all inclusive. It is a plain and simple fact.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

Books.

I have had two I wanted to read and just finished one of them. 

"The Filthy Thirteen" which was a memoir of a WW2 paratrooper. I finished it wondering how accurate it really was. Much of it sounded a little over the top to me regarding his run-ins with officers and NCOs.

The other one arriving soon is "The Simple Sounds of Freedom" which is about the only USGI ever to join the Russian Army.

He was captured a few days after D Day in France, escaped from the PW camp a couple of times, finally making good an escape where he worked his way east and met the Russian forces. 

Instead of asking the Russians for repatriation he simple joined the Soviet Army and fought alongside them for a while.  Later he was wounded and sent to a hospital. 

A Soviet general was visiting and found out the non-Russian was there and made arrangements to return him to the States.

I kind of like off the wall WW2 incidents. It makes for good reading. Especially when it's about ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

After 50 years I realize I miss

my old coffee boiler.

For some reason I woke up with a hankering for Old School boiled coffee. I do not know why I would like such a nasty beverage as this upon wakeup but I do want a cup or three.

I had a real chuck wagon gallon boiler for a while when I lived in a tipi and would make up a batch every few days. Surprisingly it drew many favorable comments.

Later when I lived in more civilized housing I'd make a  basic 9 cup batch with a percolator I took the guts out of.

Today I think I'm going to go to Goodwill or maybe Walmart if I feel like getting dressed up and grab a stovetop percolator and use that.

Drip coffee is OK but I do believe it is time to build me a pot of Old School cowboy coffee.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

we have gotten too lax with criminals.

I just read where some clown with 54 arrests just got arrested for murdering someone. What was he doing out on the streets to begin with? It's obvious the system isn't working if that is the case.

Back in the early 60s there was an episode of a long forgotten television show 'Car 54 where are you?'

There was an episode where Car 54s beat was the lowest crime beat in the entire city. Police officials wanted to know why and discovered that Toody and Muldoon had endeared themselves and were so useful to the community that the locals decided they were too valuable to have to waste their time doing police work so they handled it themselves. Robbers and thieves woke up on an alley outside of Car 54's beat. Here's a link to the episode. The good part is the last third of it.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQEridEINzw 

Needless to say, if the locals did decide to  get rid of the police and police themselves it would soon reduce things to chaos. 

However the system doesn't seem to be doing it's job and because of that I am of the mind that there are circumstances that I would cover for someone that did take the law into their own hands.

People are getting sick and tired of catch and release judges and recently after someone murdered a rapist that raped his daughter and was given no prison time simply whacked the rapist and got off.

It wasn't long ago I would have wanted to see the killer get time because I don't generally believe in extra legal justice but that has been changing over the years. If the system fails something must be done to keep things from falling into chaos.

People think the police (and by extension the courts) only protect us from criminals. The fail to realize the police protect society from itself. 

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

The heaving line

Early on in my career I worked on a bunker barge. We refueled ships.

Ships don't pull into the corner Sunoco and stick the nozzle in the tank filler. The fuel is delivered to them. A barge comes alongside and ties up alongside, a barge hose is sent up, normally a 6 inch in diameter hose. The hose gets bolted to the manifold and the barge pumps the fuel into the ship. 

Anyway, there was this Korean crewed ship and the crew was pretty lazy. They just wanted us to hang on with 2 lines which is illegal. we required at least six.  

Most ships would throw down a heaving line and pull our deck lines up.  These guys made us throw our heaving line up and then after they removed it they would throw the whole thing back instead of just the end with the weighted monkey's fist.

That angered me so I busted my ass to make them bust theirs by making them pull up at least 8 lines. The bastards could have tried to make it easier for both of us but tried to be lazy and wound up doing more work because of it.

They became a monthly customer and my pard and I decided that enough was enough. we decided to fix their ass good. We started to beg, borrow or steal all the 3/8s manila we could find and spliced into one long heaving line. It was at least an entire mile long but probably closer to a nautical mile of 6000 feet long. There was a monkey's fist on one end and the other end was back spliced. 

We left the tail out of the humongous galvanized tub we coiled it up in and about 90 feet of the end with the monkey's fist out the other side. The tail we tied to the deck line and covered the tub the pile of line with a tarp to hide it from the ship's crew.

When we came alongside I threw the monkey's fist aloft and one of the deckhands caught it and started pulling it up. It went from the strange to the ridiculous to the sublime as they kept pulling more and more 3/8s inch line up. Finally they got well over a mile of heaving line up and the deck line came with it. They were rather exhausted.

They found the monkey's fist and threw it down and it was repeated that way until all six deck lines were made fast. They sure had a pile of manila line on deck. 

The fueling went efficiently and flawlessly.

After everything was finished and we sailed they dropped our deck lines and we snapped them and they landed on deck. We'd coil them after we sailed.

When the last line was off a deckhand threw us our monkey's fist back and the crew gathered to watch me have to haul all 6000 feet of line back aboard. 

I pulled back about 85 feet, pulled out my knife, cut it and we sailed off leaving them a huge rat's nest of line on their deck. Their jaws dropped.

A month later when we came up alongside them they threw a heaving line down to us made of the 3/8ths manila rat's nest we had left behind a month earlier and everything went smoothly thereafter. They probably had made about 50 to 60 heaving lines out of what we had left behind!

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

Sad news.

My ex-wife just passed last night. I got the call from my former brother in law last night at 2240.

The animosity between us ended shortly after the divorce and we became friends afterwards so this is nothing to cheer about.

She passed as a result of the medications she was taking for depression which is actually what broke up our marriage in the first place. She had a choice between fighting depression at the cost of longevity and she chose to fight the depression. Personally I would have done the same thing.

She passed peacefully, thank God.

Maybe I'll eventually post part of it.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

A long term immigrant would pick up on this almost immediately.

One of my handful of immigrant friends some time back told me he learned British English in school. While he said he arrived in the States with a basic skill for communication he felt he didn't speak the American dialect as well as he should have. 

Now he speaks excellent unaccented American English. He's worked hard at it and because of that he says he's constantly still picking up little 'Americanisms' that go with the language and the culture.

I always say that when you pick up and see the humor in little things like I posted you've conquered Americanisms to the point beyond that of many native born Americans.

when an immigrant reads something like this and laughs themselves silly it's a damned good indicator that they have assimilated.

                                                       

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY