Here, for your delectation, are two fine specimens of southwest Virginia Clover:
This Clover was gimping along at 10-15 MPH below the posted speed limit – and passed by two turn-outs, where he could have easily allowed the cars stacked up behind him to get by and then resumed his slow-mo’ pace. Of course, this he would not do. Clovers – by definition – won’t lift a finger to make things easier on their fellow motorists – but expect every other motorist to defer to them and their shit-driving ways. They’ll whine, What’s the hurry? After all, your time doesn’t matter to them.
The second Clover was worse, though:
This chocolate starfish also refused to pull off to let the cars stacking up behind him get by – despite several convenient places to do so. But what makes this guy an uber Clover is that he actively tried to thwart anyone who tried to pass him.
As we approached a passing zone, this magnifico rocked up to almost 70 MPH – more than 20 over the posted maximum – and at least 30 MPH faster than he’d been going moments before – in order to keep the other cars behind him from getting by. The Clover’s next move – well known to those who study this species – would have been to slow back down to 10-15 below the speed limit the moment the passing zone ended.
Clover says he hates “speeders” – except when the speeder is him.
Throw it in the Woods?
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I noticed EPA’s clover doesn’t post here as much as before. I wonder if clover followed one of my links to EPJ and goes by the handle of Jerry Wolfgang?
Have a look and see if you don’t think this is the same character:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/10/how-elites-view-system-and-how.html#comment-form
Jerry comments at EPJ quite a bit.
It’s really hard for me to comprehend more than one person behaving and not-thinking in that manner. I guess I shouldn’t though, there’s a whole team of them somewhere I suppose.
The clovers in general, I cannot imagine them spending more than ten seconds on websites such as EPA or EPJ, and never looking back. Let alone keep at it like clover and Jerry do.
Roth, I’ve considered many times of registering to refute him on EPJ but then I read the rest of the comments and save my time. He does sound just like a clover here don’t he? His thoughts on the Koch brothers really hit home, the veritable pinnacles of freedom and fair play. Why, they own Cato and why not, they had used their majority to strip their “journalists” of any dissenting big govt. opinion before they took ownership. Of course, I might write some boot-licking bs as they do for the right remuneration and that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? At least to the Koch’s and those who lick their boots. I have a Koch plane come over every week or more often, oh wait, they sold that pipeline recently I think, but anyway, I HAD a Koch plane come over for years and they always seemed to check my place out in depth even though I wouldn’t let them keep their pipeline here, hasn’t been here for nearly 15 years so why the scrutiny? Surely they wouldn’t do the bidding of the feds? Naw, shed that thought. Unless they got paid some way. Yes, I’ve read everything the Koch boys have to say personally and it means nothing but Cato, that’s another story and it sucks the big one. Well. those are my views anyway and Jerry can go do you know what.
“I noticed EPA’s clover doesn’t post here as much as before.” We’ve been putting all his posts in the trash.
Yo, Eightsouthman. You don’t gotta register anymore @ EPJ. So if wanna flip them, do so. By all means.
I’d appreciate it.
I’m sure others wouldn’t think it’s a waste.
dom wrote, “We’ve been putting all his posts in the trash.”
Ha. That’s cool.
I totally get it.
And here I thought he quit us. …Like we were beneath him or something? Ha. j/k.
It’s hard for even me to believe that the gooberment spends money to send goons out onto the internet to refute the opposition. It seems like such a waste. ..Oh, wait, ha, the gooberment, plus waste. What am I thinking?
The more I read, the more I’m inclined to say they commit such waste.
The people who sign up for that kind of job must be some complete sell-outs. I mean, lower than the TSA crew, even.
…So, now I know wHAt happened to the ‘hall monitors’ when they grew up. And the asshole bullies too.
Clover tried to slip two more past us last night. He can’t get enough of EPautos!
I advised him that, per policy (as regards Clover) he must remit 50 cents (per post) prior to any post being published. This is not a free speech zone.
Though I wouldn’t call Clover’s colon coughs “speech.”
I think 50 cents per post is more than fair. Did you tell him if he buys 9 posts we’ll give him the 10th one free?
Hi Rothbardian,
On Clover: The consensus was he added nothing. If his posts were intelligent, if he were capable of intelligently disagreeing with us, I’d have no issue with allowing him to post as often as he wished. I’ll debate anyone. What I won’t do is provide a forum for non sequiturs, repetitive straw man eructations and – most of all – people who cannot or will not acknowledge a principle or concept when discussing a particular.
I’d rather toss corn at the chickens.
Town Manager Lance Terpenny could not find any record of a business license for the Across the Way Productions for the last two years.
Debate over FloydFest
http://www.blueridgemuse.com/node/19460
Hero Town Mgr Terpenny of Christiansburg – Fired
http://www.andassoc.com/Ampersand/1996_11/ampersnd.htm
Terpenny`s severance could top $290,000
(World News USA)
Lance Terpenny – Former Town Manager Lance Terpenny could receive more than $290,000 in severance benefits from Christiansburg over the next decade, according to details released Thursday. Town council membersasked for Terpenny`s resignation in July, saying they `lack confidence in Mr. Terpenny`s continued employment` in Christiansburg. His resignation ended a 21-year stint in the town, 14 of which Terpenny served as town manager and seven as assistant town manager….
Damn, it cost them a lot to get rid of his ass, didn’t it? Maybe it wasn’t as much as he could have cost them had he been allowed to stay, but….. damn.
Yeah, that’s a lot of dollar Michelobs here at the dead-end of the Rainbow, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Last Vegas
Morgan Freeman jumping out a window. Looks horribly awesome.
Yup – and now he’s here….
One of James Blish’s Cities in Flight series was a juvenile novel in which the young hero makes good and, at the end, is poised to become the City Manager. But then he gets a mention in a later, adult novel in the series, as a historical figure who was shot because the central systems thought he was going too far (they could do that administratively to anyone but elected officials, who were exempt so as to leave them in ultimate charge). So there is a way to have managers of that sort and still keep them reined in.
The Thing in the Attic – James Blish
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32447/32447-h/32447-h.htm
One Shot – James Blish
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22958/22958-h/22958-h.htm
Blish – assorted online viewable pdfs
http://www.unz.org/Author/BlishJames
As far as I can see there’s no Soros or other Dark Sith Lord behind the trucker strike. So why not? Fri Oct 11 – Sun Oct 13 . What if the garbage trucks all stopped, then people would see how much society really stinks. Farmers. Barges. Heavy equipment operators. Circle the wagons so to speak. Political action always fails, except when it doesn’t. Look at India. Look at blacks enjoying the gibsmedat fruit of civil rights protests. Look at angry old broads hear them roar in their hard won designer sweatpants and total statutory prohibitions on gender differentiation.
Besides going to DC, why couldn’t some others park their rigs at highway visible overnight sleeping spots, with some kind of political banner or message on their rig?
I never understood the popularity of Raygun. He always played the clover a-hole in movies, it didn’t seem to be an act.
A Hitleresque hardass while Gov of California, never passed up a chance to stomp on a hippy, or to shit in the punchbowl and ruin everybody’s party.
Also, since the size of the US Govt increased 45% while he was Prez, I don’t see how anyone can claim he was any kind of conservative.
Movin On – In Tandem – Episode 1 of 46. 1974
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DirIZD02QeU
1973 Kenworth W-925 in this epiode
I think alone, yeah. With nobody else
You know when I think alone. I prefer to think for myself
Tor wrote, “I think alone, yeah. With nobody else
You know when I think alone. I prefer to think for myself”
HaHaHa! Love it!
Tor wrote, “I never understood the popularity of Raygun.”
Well, if you squinted real hard, and didn’t look out the corner of your eye (and suspended all thought and fell into the conditioning you were brought up under) a person could deceive themselves into thinking they were looking at someone who was good and right and true.
Especially if you were watching him on TV during the dreary cold Winter months of those days when unemployment seemed like it was sneaking up on everyone while you were eating a cooler full of hot dogs.
He promised a ‘New Day’ donchya know.
A new day seemed possible then.
Anything seemed possible then,… even the 1984 on steroids we have now. …Only, it seemed to me that no one expected The People would embrace 1984 on steroids like they have. … Isn’t that the biggest surprise of all?
RR was slick.
I was a young kid back then – high school – and it was easy to love him. Weeeelllllllll. At age 14, I bought the agit prop about the Ayatollah, the need to stand straight and tall. What teenage boy would not find this appealing?
But then I grew up.
Tor- Must remember he didn’t control the Congress mobsters, who muscled him around pretty hard. It is all a game anyway.
Yep!
The teary-eyed performance of North – and Rex 84 – was the precursor of The Chimp and the full-blossomed police state we now enjoy.
It was RR who instilled worshipfulness of “the troops” – anyone in a uniform, with government authority.
And I always hasten to remind RR loving conservatives that it was their Grecian Formula God who effectively outlawed civilian possession of guns in California.
“A Hitleresque hardass while Gov of California, never passed up a chance to stomp on a hippy, or to shit in the punchbowl and ruin everybody’s party.”
He was also a snitch for Hoover’s FBI during his career as a B-actor in dismal B-movies. He sic’ed the feds on his fellow actors causing ruination of their careers due to his reports to the feds on “communist activities” in the film business.
Fuckin’ Reagan. There was a little poetic justice for him, though. After skating away from messes his subordinates created by claiming that he “didn’t recall” details of their wrongdoing or his own involvement, he lost his cognitive abilities to Alzheimer’s.
Tor, when I think of RR, I remember the guy who was so paranoid of blacks exercising their rights he had one of the most repressive gun laws ever passed “just for them” supposedly although it took everyone’s rights away, but that wasn’t anything for an old “cowboy” like Ronnie, shithead. You also have to remember who employed as prez, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and almost everyone who later did their worst to this nation again under the “leadership” of the Shrub. Need I say more?
Dear Eight,
“You also have to remember who employed as prez, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and almost everyone who later did their worst to this nation again under the “leadership” of the Shrub. Need I say more?”
That last point pretty much nailed it. Those guys are about as close as one can get to Dr. Strangelove and General Jack D. Ripper.
I confess I was a RR admirer. Hey, we all make mistakes.
Bevin, none of us were born Libertarians so it takes awhile to realize the “system” is all a bunch of the same thing no matter what political affiliation except for Libertarianism. I was always a loner, wouldn’t just submit because I was told to do so. I wasn’t even a good Boy Scout. Hey, don’t do that. Why? Because I told you not to. Not good enough Scoutmaster, gimme a reason. Children, when you hear the three rings of the bell, get your body under your desks(even though the sides are open to the wall of windows facing the direction any atomic blast would be coming from, but excuse me for pointing out physics), put your heads between your legs and shut your eyes. Teacher, I want to see it coming. Do you think bending over will negate the Nagasaki effect? Young man, you just keep your mouth shut and do as I say. Oh right, bend over and pucker my lips? Get up, right now and go into the hall. Now teacher, that makes sense since the hall is protected. Get out right now. I’m going, I’m going. Since I could read from an early age, I was most impressed by the literature at the local barbershop as well as the signs on the wall. Now this place was never seen by mothers or other women so they didn’t know what went on there, a very good deal for we men and boys. A woman could stand outside the door and watch their son go in but for them to actually look in was verboten, as it should be. One reason I hate feminists so much is the all male sanctuary where you can fart, spit, say any word and take a nip and nobody says anything but Sounds like you enjoyed that. They had never seen the big sign on the wall that said “In case of nuclear attack, sit down, bend over, put your head between your legs, and kiss your sweet ass goodbye”. It wasn’t lost on me as were none of the articles I read in Soldier of Fortune, a banned magazine in my home but one that kept me going to the barber all my life.
Reagan Versus Communists – People were blacklisted if they refused to cooperate with investigators
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ensqVTnGkNw
Reagan – A Time For Choosing – 1964
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi3x7mmywDE
Hey Y’all. There seems to be a real “anti-clover and his maters” party going on over here:
https://www.facebook.com/truckerstoshutdownamerica
Clicking that stupid FakeBook link locked up my puter.
Anyway,… Does this mean I should go to the gun show that weekend, or I shouldn’t go?
I’m confused on that.
Yes, the taxes collected from that show would help the gooberment, on the other hand, the independence bought would not.
Coin toss?
I don’t know if the “media” is reporting on it (I made a Frisbee out my satellite dish a couple of years ago), but the truckers are calling for a nationwide 3 day strike, and road trip to DC. Something about being pissed off about how things are going, and they want Obama impeached. October 11-13. Stock-up on beer bro.
Stock up on beer? You really think it will make any kind of dent or impact anything in a meaningful way?
I don’t.
Not if it’s just for three days.
Besides, local warehouses are loaded to the gills with beer.
I know.
Anyway, beer takes up too much space, is not Paleo or Primal (Not that I don’t like it or approve of it, mind you) it’s just that ta-kill-ya takes up so much less space, is Primal (not Paleo though) and orange juice is all you need for a chaser if you can’t handle it straight.
And don’t forget, beer is full of GMO shit. Unless it’s from… places that don’t allow GMO shit, like Belgium, and Germany…. if I’m not mistaken.
Whiskey comes in a close second, that is, if it was made before GMO times. After-all, the world’s oldest man once said his secret to living a long life was: whiskey, cigarettes and wild wild women.
Who can argue with that expert on living long? His long dead doctors? Ha!
[When exactly did GMO time start? 1990?]
I should have added two things:
1. Unless the big trucking outfits participate (which they won’t) this is a nothing event, imho. It will be just like the bikers, over and forgotten the next week.
Not that I don’t wish they’d make an impact. They just won’t. Not for three days.
2. That should have been, “the former world’s oldest man”
He died, no one lives forever, but, what 114? That’s plenty long enough for me. Heck, I’m not sure I wanna last past 80,… or 70… or even 60. Fifty’s even too dang old. Oh crap, I’m almost there! Seems like just yesterday I was 22 and didn’t mind dyin’:
We shut it all down in ’75. Even big carriers shut down, don’t care for injured rigs not that it was really a problem. The truck stops shut down with us too, no fuel pumped. Some idiot dumped a load of rocks into my windshield from an overpass west of San Antonio on I-10. That was two days before. It was a stupid thing to do, could easily have killed us and for no reason. I was hauling 102 bales of cotton.
Eightsouthman, 1975 was worlds away, back on planet earth (or closer to it) not this here Bizzaro World we find ourselves on now.
A truckstop closing? Today? It’s more likely I’d win the Lottery, imho.
I remember the ‘Convoy’ of the 1970’s. I remember the men who were adults then. …They’re mostly dead now. ‘Cept for one or two.
The men today that I know are mostly nothing like those guys were. …That whole feminazi thing worked. …For the most part.
Or so it seems. …Even the women are worlds apart from the women then.
Again, for the most part.
I think if they can pull it off this time is different. If they can get enough general population cooperation to all but shut down the economy and money for three days the corporations, stacked up containers at the docks, and frozen bank “flows” will give some pain. Bohner is already doing the Al Jolson “mammy” dance up in DC.
Then there is the Black Friday empty store pre-Christmas event planned if this one fails. No new XBox or IPhone 5 at 1/2 price? Whhhhat!
Personally I think it is very cool. DHS and company will go into FAIL mode when there is no one to riot, arrest, shoot at or put into a camp. Just a peaceful F.U. from the prols. Except for the welfare recipients, but that is another story.
RE: “the Black Friday empty store pre-Christmas event planned”
The thing about that, if it’s for Black Friday, won’t the stores already have everything they need? If it had any meaning, it’d be, pre-Black Friday. … about a week or five beforehand and last for that long.
But wHAt do I know?
Anyway, the fact that they have plans for, “If this fails” …ain’t a good indicator of success or impact.
@Downshift The truckers are really pissed and have sympathizers willing to just say no for three days. Everything gets there by rail and truck. A LOT of our food now comes in on ships from China and Indonesia. Just look at the fish and most packaged and canned foods. Stuff you thought we made or grow here is no longer thanks to the Free Trade and Partnership agreements from our elected Benedict Arnolds. Stack those ships up in the Long Beach and San Francisco harbors for three days while the crews play canasta. Sounds like corporate pain to me.
Karl Denninger, who I think is a smart guy, says all it will take is 10% of the population to participate to make it a game changer. It is all about the numbers.
I used to do – and still do, every once in awhile – some late night/long haul highway drives. It is Zen being almost alone out there – except for the truckers, most of whom are (in my experience) courteous and pretty excellent drivers. I dim my beams as they clear my car – they blink back at me and sidle back into their slot.
Truckers do have my sympathy. I’ll be pleased to join this protest.
The fish won’t spoil, they’ll just freeze it.
…If the ‘strike’ has effect, we shall see.
I just doubt it.
They aren’t trying to be John Gault.
Seems to me, it will hurt them more than it will hurt anything else.
That’s the way the system works, they use what you love against you.
@Eric That is it – from the book – “Zen”.
I am friends with a Yellow Freight driver who makes the nightly trip from Barstow to LA and back. I would be in jail if I had his job and have to put up with the donkey car drivers who have no idea what 60,000 lbs takes to stop and change lanes.
Thanks for the warning, DS. I avoid FaCIAbook whenever possible, though my daughter has logged on to her page there from my computer a time or two. A few years ago, one of my computers was killed by a malware app that came in through my daughter’s facebook login. It was some kind of “XP Defense” file that proved to be impossible to remove.
Naturally, within days there were seemingly thousands of people on the blogosphere spamming threads with the claims that the malware had never been distributed via facebook. Yeah, right. That computer is off my network now and my other machines are equipped with Malwarebytes. FaCIAbook can KMA.
Yeah, breaker one nine
This here’s the Rubber Duck
You got a copy on me Love Machine?
Uh, yeah, Ten-Four Pig Pen, fer sure, fer sure
You’re coming up on a double clover leaf
Be sure and put the hammer down, ’cause then
By golly it’s clean clear to Taco Town,
Yeah, we definitely got us a front door, good buddy
Mercy sakes alive, looks like we’ve got us a convoy
Intro to Convoy
Truckers form a mile long convoy in support of a trucker’s vendetta with an abusive sheriff
‘Cause this here’s a mighty convoy
Rockin’ through the night.
Yeah, we got a mighty convoy,
Ain’t she a beautiful sight?
Come on and join our convoy
Ain’t nothin’ gonna get in our way.
We gonna roll this truckin’ convoy
‘Cross the U-S-A.
Convoy!
Tor, here’s you one: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071012/ I remember sitting in line at Cargill on the Houston Ship Channel waiting to unload and watching this on a new 12V tv a friend’s wife had given him for harvest. We’d sit around and laugh our asses off. They did have a righteous tractor though, a 1974 KW W925(dark green, not the one pictured). I’d still be out there jamming gears if I’d had a Caddy like that. Every truck I ever drove for any time I’d outfit the cab with the best insulation you could get and everybody would want to know how I’d have such a quiet truck. I’d spend maybe $20 making them really quiet and warm or cool as the need be. I remember in one episode Will going out back and releasing the trailer about to explode(tanker). I’ve spent all day with another person getting a fifth wheel to release and one thing you didn’t have to worry about was one releasing when it sitting full weight on a fifth wheel. In the 70’s nearly all trailers had a two speed landing gear so getting out from under a load was doable. I remember in 1970 having a truck catch fire and trying to get it to a big hump in the barditch to try and jerk the trailer loose. I could never get it started since the fuel in the lines was vaporized. It blew up as I exited and burned my left arm. A guy chased me down to render first aid. I was extremely pissed to get a hot load and burn my uncle’s newly rebuilt rig. Trucking, one damned story after the other and you never have to embellish them. The craziest shit in the world happens to truckers. Then there was the time a guy begged me to take some co-eds back to college since he was shut down 500 miles away. Well, ok. Gee mister, this sure is a big sleeper…..ain’t it though.
@Eightsouthman, the best one may come next month:
http://www.infowars.com/convoy-to-d-c-truckers-to-shut-down-america-in-october/
Garysco, thanks a bunch. I hadn’t heard about this but I’ll be on top of it now. Without anything but word of mouth we pulled off a strike in 1975, in protest of fuel prices that took 75% of independent truckers out of business in 1975 and the same percentage again in ’76. I sold out in ’76, got my back fixed, went back to trucking in ’77 and quit again in 1981 after Ronnie deregulated trucking and wages fell by 50%. I never got to personally chew Ron’s ass but knew without a doubt Nancy was doing it for me. Goddamned politicians, can’t leave anything alone and the Rep. have always gone to screw those just getting by. Now it’s both parties, go figure.
EightSouth,
What about the Double-Dip Democrats? Were they EVER good, or just better at hiding their lies from the get-go?
Jean, when I was growing up, Democrats were the conservative party and I watched Republicans hijack that conservative mantra as their own and label the dems as “liberals” even though what they meant was the democrats weren’t up for their latest war Things changed quite a bit after Kennedy, not for the good I’m afraid. Republicans like to call Dems the tax and spend party but the only real differences there ever was between the two was the Republicans liked to tax “certain demographics” and spend their money on moneyed and connected people. Democrats spent more money on social programs and helping the less well connected. I’ve watched the Big Ag subsidy go from All Democrat to something the Republicans cut out for themselves to win over farmers and the like. Not much difference now as I’m sure you’re aware of. It’s ALL out of control.
I got a little sister that works at Chevron Phillips Chemical on that very ship channel. Small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to drive a big rig all the way around it.
Sadly, libertarians can’t handwave away the statist vermin. Those rats run everything now days.
Port of Houston Authority
http://www.portofhouston.com/about-us/houston-ship-channel-map/
Chevron Phillips Chemical currently holds more than 2,500 patents and patent applications.
The proprietary Chevron Phillips Chemical loop-slurry process for polyethylene production is one of the most widely licensed processes in the world.
Our Aromax® technology is the lowest cost process for on-purpose production of benzene.
Other technological achievements and proprietary technology include: On-purpose 1-hexene technology, proprietary primary normal alpha olefin technology, Ryton® PPS generation V process, tapering technology for K-Resin® SBC, methyl mercaptan process and technology, Aromax® catalyst and process, first and second generation functional drilling fluids, and polyalphaolefin stability and low temperature performance enhancements.
Tor, most of the granaries, steel companies and consumer goods are shipped from the west side. I got to thinking about being in line to unload near Cargill and remembered an area about 3.5 miles long and a mile or more wide to the west of the channel and abutting the RR tracks there that was all forest….or so it seemed. When you got to looking closely there were old roads clever disguised and when you went off into this area it was nothing but camoflaged bunkers. It dates from WW11 and all the large munitions factories there. It was a good place to take a walk while waiting to unload. The entire world was different then, or at least this country was. A couple hundred trucks or more waiting to unload, a 24 hr. wait not uncommon, and I waited as long as 38 hrs. once. It was a community, impromptu, of a sorts where everybody was doing their own thing with the common thread of beer drinking, poker, prostitutes(scary, they were, Houston hookers)ptomaine wagons(many bootlegging beer) and the occasional crazy Okie truck driver. We used to go to harvest every year, sleeping on top of the load(make you a hollow in the tarp)to get further from the huge amounts of skeeters and staying drenched in those chemicals that would keep them off of you. Back then, fights were non-existent, it just wasn’t done. If someone got bent he’d find a half dozen guys sitting on him and pouring water on his head till he got right. No use to take it out on your fellow man when we’re all in the same boat so to speak. It really was a great deal of fun. With truckers, you never knew what sort of person you had. I used to run with a guy who thought mainly about electronics, another you could find buried in Shakespeare, another was a restauranteur with the family holding down that business, another a NM wheat farmer. You just never knew what the next guy would bring. Everybody was preparing for something else in life for the main part except the old truckers who knew that next year would hopefully be a better version of this year. BTW, Chevron had a plant that made something highly noxious next to the Budweiser brewery. I’d nearly pass out from the fumes when the air currents were coming in off the ocean. FF 20 years and we’re about to install some new tile in our house. I get everything prepped, tile ready, lines marked, open the can of adhesive, good god, it’s that smell from the Houston ship channel. I hung in there a couple minutes and had to exit the house. I went back in and put the lid on. No tile laying for me, got a friend to do it who Enjoyed it, said the stuff made him feel GREAT ha ha ha ha. I was prompted to buy gas masks and keep them on hand after that.
Chevy Chase – Modern Problems – “Yessss! Ah ha ha ha haaaa…I Like It!
In Europe, in the ’70s and ’80s, there was another sort of community of truckers among the rest of them: short and slavic, sometimes with slightly slanted eyes and often left handed. They were Soviet tank colonels in mufti, building up familiarity with the roads west of the Iron Curtain (the height and handedness related to selecting personnel for the ergonomics of fitting in a tank, loading the guns, etc., and the eyes to the Tartar element in their gene pool; when western intelligence first saw certain Soviet tank designs they refused to believe what they were told because the designs could only be operated by short left handers – but they had forgotten that mass conscription could supply as many of those as necessary).
Do not ask me how I know this. “I do not recall”.
I’ll bet the 2nd Clover was on a sail-fone too. Many of the constant-speed adverse Clovers I see are yakking away on the phone, just barely paying attention to the road. When they realize they are crawling (usually when someone attempts to pass), they jump on the gas like a spooked deer.
I see it every day now. I basically just do whatever I can to get some space between me and them, but then I usually drive 4 lane roads. When I lived back east I didn’t have that luxury. But I knew the roads well enough to know where the passing zones and blind corners were.
” I basically just do whatever I can to get some space between me and them, but then I usually drive 4 lane roads.”
So do I. I’ll take a route that’s 15 miles longer going into Richmond and it takes 20 minutes less in driving time. The outlying counties of Southside are filling up with retired bureaucrats from DC. None of those assholes can drive worth a shit.
eric, I came on the “I’ll keep you from seeing if the road is clear” clover today. The prick somehow had slipped my mind. After coming up behind him and having moved up to the stripe on a two lane road I was reminded. We all know riding the stripe is the most dangerous place to be but a clover is addicted to that position….if you’re behind her and wanting to go around. The closer you get, the closer she gets to the stripe….won’t see around me, just fall in line MF. In this case it was a male as if that makes a difference. I don’t care how fast you want to drive, just don’t actively block me from driving how fast I want(75, the speed limit). These people are infuriating, making you move across the stripe to see what’s ahead. I always wish they’d be up there when a big wind blows the rear of that big rig trailer over in their lane. In my part of the country this is common. We have alerts for people and especially big rigs traveling at a 90 to the strong winds of the day. S winds often blow rigs off I-20 as well as I-10 and I-27 and other N-S roads are often cited as being dangerous due to high W winds. No telling where clover would be driving on those days though.
8, that sounds like the kind of dumbass who will swing out into the left lane in front of you just as you’re about to pass a truck, then pull up alongside the tractor and pace the truck, trapping you beside the trailer for 40 miles.
The idiots who will pace a truck would deserve what happened if a recap came off an outer tire and beat their car to shit. If cops were worth a shit they’d be looking for that kind of driver and pulling them over instead of looking for speeders.
Ed, as my wife says “you have an anger problem”. Damn right I do….for dumbasses. I never chew ass when I know people are just doing their best. When someone, time after time, year after year, continues to do something that will cost money, time and can be dangerous, I can get quite bent over it. Yes, I have done plenty dangerous stuff but I only put myself at risk. I don’t expect anyone else to assume the risks I might take….and vice versa. Don’t mess with me by putting us all at risk. As many times as I’ve seen recaps come off and beat the lights and wiring and sometimes much more valuable stuff off a rig, I have almost foamed at the mouth for one of those blockers to be alongside. You make a damned good point Ed, one lost on clovers since they’re clueless. eric, I want an avatar of a circle with FOOLS in bright red script with a line through it. Can dom do that? I’m old, lost my patience with stupid.
Yeah, I can do that. I’ll get to it one night this weekend.
Hey Eight. I know you have a sick sense of humor, but quit leaving those gators around as motorcycle slalom courses for us bikers. 🙂
dom, thanks, I’d appreciate that. Garysco, what can I say? I just run over gators(sometimes eat them…fried, yum), didn’t think about what they’d do to bikes….my bad. Just last night we had an encounter with a croc. I walked into the living room and there were six kitties gathered round a croc, the old ladies shoe. They looked at me and back at the croc. Hey, don’t mess with us, we’re fighting a bad croc here. Ok, then, just let me go on through and you all can fight the croc.
Dear Eight,
So what happened?
Did the six kitties tear the croc to shreds?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Bevin, morning light showed the croc behind a recliner, dead and lifeless with lots of small teeth and claw marks….never had a chance.
Dear Eight,
I knew it!
I know it, 8. I’ll keep hoping for recap justice on all the truck pacers out there. Fleet managers will make it possible by their practice of taking the new tires off new trailers and saving them for the tractors and putting recaps on the trailers. All those assholes who pace a truck like a fucking remora fish on a shark will someday have their luck run out and catch a beating from a recap casing.
Since we no longer have the hazard of ring rims that can blow a remora into the median, recaps are our only hope. God bless Bandag.
Oh yeah!
I see the species almost every day – across the intersection, where the are in the opposing right-turn lane – blocking my view of oncoming traffic as I try to make a left turn. They habitually roll up as far away from the curb and as close to (or even straddling) the yellow as possible, so as to make it as hard as possible for anyone trying to cross the intersection to see what’s coming at them….
When you passed the first one, I could just about hear the squeal of terror as he/she (it?) hit the brakes after finally noticing they were not actually the only person on the road. That’s a classic one I see here quite often.
I’m seriously considering getting a front and rear-facing dash cam to catch some of the idiocy that goes on down here in Heaven’s Waiting Room (TM).
The northern army is once again massing their bespectacled and cotton-topped troops for the annual invasion of the deep south. Any day now, the Silver Alert will go out as several divisions of Buicks and Cadillacs cross the border into the southlands and are spotted crawling at 5-10 under the limit in the southbound fast lanes. Though they may occupy our golf courses and clearance sales for a time, we will send them home, carrying with them tacky trinkets shaped like sea shells and tiny light houses. They will warn their kinfolk with horrifying tales of insects large enough to carry away small children, tiny reptiles that infest the landscape, and having visited the lair of a giant mouse that laughs in a falsetto voice as it devours money.
We shall fight them on the beaches. We shall fight them on the roads and in the parking lots. We shall fight in the grocery store aisles and checkout lanes. We shall fight in the towns (but not the Villages since those were lost long ago). We shall never surrender.
Ferret, now if you could just get rid of that smarmy rodent you see now and again schmoozing with local politicians and selling condos at a price they just can’t resist…..Oh, they wanted to retire in Ca. but it was too pricey so a piece of Everglades dozed out for them will work since they’ll never be outside except so Muffy can shit on the neighbors porch. I can hear the dozers right now….along with the din of illegals getting ready to pour concrete.
LOL Ferret. Must be the excessive number baby boomers that somehow continue to survive. Whoops. That includes me. Bad dog!
I got this flyswatter here….but my hands are hurting too much to use it, just yell at you like I do Cholley Jack. If I’m not talking and somebody else is, I’m getting my ass chewed. Bad dog indeed.
The Yankee is a peculiar animal. It finds it does not like the town or county or state or country it has created, and visits or moves or takes over someone else’s town or county or state or country… and then does all it can to recreate the town or county or state or country it left in the new place.
And then, having ruined that place, moves on again.
Agent Smith: I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species, and I realised that humans are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Instead you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed. The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern… a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague, and we… are the cure.
+++++
Like the Killer-T cell in the human body?
I have always wondered why the people of the 1800’s left the nice green East and traveled thousands of miles on foot to the deserts. Now I know.
Both sides of my family(highland Scots rewarded by Robert the Bruce for saving his life from a bull, killing the bull on the spot, hence the name, Turnbull)and the crazy ass Irish/English on the other side all came to Tx. from Kaintuck, Tennessee and Alabama. My great grandfather on my dad’s side was fairly rich and wanted no war, Lincoln or otherwise. He was finally buried in his CONFEDERATE officers uniform he didn’t really have any taste for(although less for yankees). My maternal great grandfather fought Comanches in Mobeetie(fur, Tx. although he gained no satisfaction since they were small groups, starving and desperate enough to steal what they could to survive. These weren’t faint of heart people. Old photos show them decked out with their guns and considerable knives. I must be channeling them. Even during my mother and father’s life, yankees were spurned. No matter what they were, they didn’t want anything to do with yankees, the north or anything associated with it. I was raised that way and have never seen any reason to change.
re: EightSouth,
I hope you’ll be a little forgiving, as I’d be classed a “Yankee” despite the fact my Grandparents emigrated here. 😉
I think I’m like most Irish (Celts?) in that I don’t much like centralized authority, though – maybe that disqualifies me from being a Yankee?
Hi Jean,
Yankee is a state of mind, really.
There are born and bred Southerners who are Yankees. And born and bred Northerners who are more Southern than them!
The ones who travelled to deserts on foot were mostly recently immigrated Mormons with hand carts, heading for the Mormon settlements out of Mormon motives.
No No no, that’s the californeyeans that ruin life everywhere they go!!!
Ya, sure. I heard the same whinny talk from the Oregonians. 🙂
“And then, having ruined that place, moves on again.”
I know it. Fuckin’ yankees just rurn everthang. 😉
“I know it. Fuckin’ yankees just rurn everthang.”
And they never learn!
My little corner of Virginia is a petri dish example.
Ten years ago, there was very little going on here – unless “going on” meant working your land, being left the hell alone and so on. It was these qualities, precisely, that made the county a refuge for people who wanted to get the hell away from places like Northern Virginia – a nest of Yankee-ism.
Some of these newcomers, though, found that “not much going on” (according to their Northern Virginia standards) didn’t appeal to them very much. So they set about recreating Northern Virginia here. The bought up farmland – and built McMansions. They infiltrated the county government, brought in an asshole “town manager” – who’d already ass-raped a nearby town (Christiansburg) to do the same here. It was called “economic development,” though. Bring in the tourists; show them McSouthern (TM) “culture” – and sell them shit. Have endless cornpone faux “southern” festivals, complete with banjo strummin’ faux hillbillies.
I figure we’ll have to move again within five years.
That’s depressing, Eric. 20 years ago, when I lived in Martinsville, I used to drive to Roanoke to the Sam’s Club there. Roanoke was still a pleasant place to visit back then. The big trouble with a “town manager” is that the position puts some hired asshole with a contract in a position of heavy influence that’s out of reach to the residents. They can’t vote him out and there’s damn little they can do to reverse his decisions.
Town managers are in a position to do the bidding of “political entrepreneurs” who know that they would have to bribe all the members of a city council if there was no town manager.
It is, Ed.
This asshole’s name is Lance Terpenny.
Among his credits when he was town manager of C-Burg was the erection of a massive boondoggle “Aquatic Center” financed by increased taxes on the locals… who must pay to use the damn place.
Lookee here:
http://blogs.roanoke.com/theburgs/news/2013/08/18/debate-continues-over-aquatic-centers-benefits-versus-costs/
So, the local greedheads brought his dude here to replicate the experiment. We won’t get an “Aquatic Center – but things of a piece.
It’s only a matter of time before Wal Mart comes to town….
eric, the Dallas Libertarian just raked the Ft. Worth star Telegram over the coals for being a mouthpiece for thepolitically connected, lawyers and the like. They want to build what amounts to a new Dallas downtown in Ft. Worth. Of course the land was already bought up by aforementioned collection of public fund thieves. All those people in Ft. Worth who have watched countless industries dry up there can go spend their $7/hr. job paychecks at upscale malls…..not. It’ll be like other places I’ve seen where security would dog people to death who can’t afford it. And who gets to get that “new” real estate at bargain prices? Sure, it’s only fair the ones who sold it in the first place. It’s not like it’s going to kill anybody, well, anybody who counts anyway. $M109.9 ain’t much money, don’t even sound like much if you say it fast enough. Of course the city manager is waaaayy behind the idea. Well, gee whiz, we’re in a recession….how do you expect the rich to get richer? Create new jobs for everybody? Don’t make them laugh.
“We shall fight them on the beaches. We shall fight them on the roads and in the parking lots. We shall fight in the grocery store aisles and checkout lanes. We shall fight in the towns (but not the Villages since those were lost long ago). We shall never surrender.”
Tell it, brother. We shall whup their asses. We shall jist plumb fuck them up. Sorry, I got a little wound up there.
Dear Ed,
Don’t forget
“We will fight them in the mall… ”
Dawn of the Dead is a 1978 horror film written and directed by George A. Romero.[3] It was the second film made in Romero’s Living Dead series… and shows in a larger scale the zombie plague’s apocalyptic effects on society… survivors of the outbreak… barricade themselves inside a suburban shopping mall.[3]
Bevin, I saw that at a drive-in theatre in Waco, Tx. and only jumped when the women would scream. Back then I saw the practical aspects of it and always wondered if anyone else did. If you haven’t seen Zombieland, do so. It has some reaching social commentary and a great amount of humor, the best part in my view. BM: ” I never was a good practical joker”. Me too Bill, me too.
Zombie films used to scare the crap outta me.
I still haven’t gotten over, Night of the Living Dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Dead
With the popularity of zombie films, and scary movies altogether, I’m surprised there’s so many anti-gunners out there.
How many times while watching a scary film does the audience think, almost yell out to the actors, “Grab the gun!!!” but they almost never do and wind up for the worst.
Dear Eight,
” Back then I saw the practical aspects of it and always wondered if anyone else did.”
I’m sure others did too. I know I did. It was almost a prepper instructional film!
A famed Jungian psychologist whose workshops I used to attend said that popular entertainment, such as popular movies, were essentially “collective dreams” reflecting a society’s “collective unconscious.” They are useful indicators of what is on the minds of people in a society at that particular moment in time.
(Here the term is innocuous. it refers not to externally imposed political collectivism, but merely to shared inner experiences.)
Several decades of zombie apocalypse films, beginning with George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” surely reflect a collective anxiety about imminent societal collapse and the breakdown of any civilized behavior.
Uncannily accurate, and ironic, given all the rhetoric about how “progressive” and “advanced” our “mature democracy” is.
The Ugly Truth? Even the sheeple sense at some subliminal level that “democracy” is nothing more than the Law of the Jungle beneath the ever so thin veneer of civilization.
Again, ironic, considering how “champions of democracy” accuse libertarians of being atavistic “Social Darwinists.”
Dear DS,
“With the popularity of zombie films, and scary movies altogether, I’m surprised there’s so many anti-gunners out there.”
Amen to that!
Especial the “Scream” type helpless young female babysitter films.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve clenched my teeth and muttered to myself, “Why didn’t you arm yourself with a gun for god’s sake? Idiot!”
PS: Did see “Zombieland.”
Very good. Very funny variation on the Zombie Apocalypse basic theme.
Basically, the zombies are “predatory mobs who cannot be reasoned with.”
A perfect description of “democratic majorities” in an Idiocracy, if you ask me.
Bevin, “why didn’t you arm yourself with a gun?” is always the elephant in the room. It’s on the tip of my tongue always. Gee, the entire situation would be a no-brainer if you’d just had a gun and used it, my philosophy on many solutions, obvious ones to boot. There’s a line in Zombieland I have often thought meant different things to every viewer. When Woody Harrelson comes on a Yukon loaded with lots of high capacity automatic rifles he says “God, I love rednecks”. Well, I am a redneck and take that as a compliment. I suspect many people laugh but in a denigrating way about it since they haven’t a clue as to how to survive anything but the next yoga class or trip to the mall(they might want to rethink this one too). Back when I grew up it wasn’t this way. We were well armed and nobody thought anything of it, just natural. We didn’t even lock our cars, left the guns in the racks on the pickups and didn’t even lock our doors. Nobody ever shot anyone else, or on that very rare occasion someone did, there were always some peculiar circumstances that polite people didn’t speak of since it was probably justified. Here’s the life I grew up in, an exact copy of what Fred writes about: http://www.fredoneverything.net/Surrender.shtml
Now this doesn’t mean I won’t or haven’t taken up arms against someone, just a good recipe for civil life with everyone respecting every other persons rights. I know a great many people can identify with this.
@Bevin – Lest we forget the first rule of Zombieland – double tap.
Cool photo from Fred’s blog, a.k.a. girl with limited zombie repellent:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/AGA.jpg
Dear Eight,
Right on.
“Back when I grew up it wasn’t this way. We were well armed and nobody thought anything of it, just natural.”
I mentioned a few months ago how as late as the mid 60s, I was in high school in Eric’s general neck of the woods, outlying the DC area. In my case, MD rather than VA.
I was a member of the high school rifle club, and took my .22 bolt action on the school bus on practice days. it was nothing. Nobody gave it a second thought.
Now, kids get arrested for pointing a finger and going “Bang!” The totalitarian clovers have brought us to the Kafkaesque Twilight Zone realm we inhabit today.
Eric Holder openly admitted the agenda:
Morning, Bevin!
I will “second” your recollection – updated a few years.
I was in high school in the early-mid 1980s. In Fairfax County, just outside DeeCee. Several guys – that is, 16,17 year-old high-school kids – drove trucks to school with shotgun racks, which not infrequently had shotguns and rifles mounted. No one gave it a second thought. All of my friends had ready access to guns of all types. Nothing ever happened.
There were no metal detectors, no cops in the school.
It proves it’s not the guns.
It’s the people.
Deal with them – the ones who abuse the right.
Not the guns. Nor the rights of those who don’t abuse their rights.
Dear Gary,
Absolutely!
If memory serves me, Jeff Cooper, the godfather of combat pistol shooting sum it up.
“Two in the belly, one in the head, guaranteed to leave ’em dead.”
@Bevin That is it. Once you get your chance you don’t want them getting back up. I am drifting into the “kick-em-while they are politically down” mode these days.
@Downshipt said “Cool photo from Fred’s blog, a.k.a. girl with limited zombie repellent:’
Dude, you are one sick puppy. 🙂
Garysco, yes, after I posted the link I could just imagine all the clovers gasping and saying just that.
Why, how dare I think a photo of a country girl with a gun is cool?
How-Dare-I.
hmph.
Of course it would be nice if we lived in a world where zombies don’t prey on little girls and boys,… but, we don’t.
Dear DS,
What’s not to like?
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”
– Richard Henry Lee
signatory to the Articles of Confederation, author of resolution of June 1776, signatory to the United States Declaration of Independence
Especially when young!
That comment made my day, Bevin.
Thanks for that.
Dear DS,
Sure thing!
I happened to recall it from some “Founding Fathers on Guns” type page.
Sick Puppy, Carl Hiaasen….good book.
“If Hemingway were alive, he’d take a flame-thrower to Duval Street” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_Puppy
…Psft, if Hemingway were alive, I hope he’d be a freedomista and have to fight every urge to do so.
Again, que Jean.
“If Hemingway were alive, he’d take a flame-thrower to Duval Street” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_Puppy
…Psft, if Hemingway were alive, I hope he’d be a freedomista and have to fight every urge to do so.
Again, que Jean.
Dear Eric,
Right!
The bumper stickers that say “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” are undeniably right.
Political Class victim disarmament advocates can sneer all they want. But it is what it is.
re: Bevin @ :
The Ugly Truth? Even the sheeple sense at some subliminal level that “democracy” is nothing more than the Law of the Jungle beneath the ever so thin veneer of civilization.
Yeah, uhh… I disagree. The Sheeple think they’d be the Bad-Ass Survivors. they don’t realize they’re the FIRST to die.
I’ll use ME as an example – no one can get offended.
I’m immune from the virus, we’ll say – so while alive, won’t just deteriorate.
I have no guns.
I do have swords, and knives, and knowledge of how to “use” both. (Use in quotes, because most people outside of regimented training don’t understand the crap in TV/Movies is just crap. And who knows the differences between a chappa, katar, naginata, parang, machete, court sword, broadsword, rapier, cutlas, etc, etc, etc? Not even an expert fencer, to be honest – their best hope is to know Saber, which is different from even a cut-and-thrust rapier of the type used by the Musketeers.)
ANYWAY – Initial onslaught. I’m as I am now. I can walk all day, I can hustle – but let’s be honest, I’m 240#, 5’9″, carrying about 40-60 pounds of ugly body fat. Best bet? Find a place to hole up, and last as best I can. Running is NOT an option. STARVING is not an option, but not likely, as my body can cannibalize the fat.
So I have a bunch of decent blades – which require LOTS of physical strength and knowledge and ROOM TO WIELD.
Might last a week, if I’m lucky. MIGHT.
It just requires too many other things be in the right condition: A place to hide, running water, access to all my blades, someone ELSE to watch while I sleep, and if I make it that week? then there’s all the practical problems – including RUNNING, which is an automatic fail for me. (I couldn’t run for shit when I was skinny, after two years of trying. Right now? Yeah, right, a decent jog for about 2-3 blocks, and I’m sucking wind already. 😛 Talk about Darwin in action – or NOT in action, as we are now.)
(And I’m trying to control the problem, but the better I eat? The more weight I gain. Being strong enough to jackass aroudn a 400# UPS – lead-acid battery – doesn’t mean much, if you’re carrying around 60# of blubber every day. that’s as much as a medeival suit of plate armor! though gothic plate would hit 100#, but still, it’s a LOT to carry around on a daily basis.)
Dear Jean,
Re: sheeple awareness of the problem
I probably should have been more precise in my wording.
What I was getting at, was that even the sheeple don’t feel safe. Even assuming they think they’re badass, the Zombie Apocalypse resonates for them.
The reason it does, is that everyone, no matter how confident they might be in their own survival skills, senses that danger lurks ahead. The ZA movies and TV shows would not be such hits otherwise.
I’m not saying that the sheeple realize the problem is democracy specifically. I’m saying that even they, clueless as they are, realize something is amiss.
When I mentioned democracy as the cause, I was saying that it was the objective cause. Not that the sheeple realize it is the cause.
DS, if Hemingway were alive, he’d be in hiding most likely. Jean, I think eric nailed it when he said yankee was a state of mind. When I was 21 I met some guys my age who were in the Air Force, air traffic controllers, all from Queens, Brooklyn or Harlem. One guy decided to stay in Tx. after his stint and became on the best friends I’ve had, passing away a couple years ago. He fell into hunting, fishing and hell-raising like a duck to water. You never had to guess if Steve had your back, he did. One of the best “Texans” I’ve known. A guy I grew up with married a girl I grew up with and joined the Army. They live in Virginia and are part of the problem, the military problem, both living yankee existence. It just goes to prove once again what eric said is true, it is a state of mind.
If Hemingway were alive……He’d be old as a motherfucker. Shit, if Hemingway was alive he’d probably drop dead.
Ed, if Hemingway were alive, he’d be the oldest drunk you knew of. And I wish I had one of those new Tesla’s. I could trade it for 2 good late model crewcab pickups, a his and hers if you will. And when I came down the highway pulling a trailer, I’d stop and load the Tesla on it and take the occupants to the nearest town where they could get a charge or call a wrecker. Hell, I’d even haul it back to KaliforNia for a fee.
Eric,
I am jealous. You have clear space to pass these people. Around my area the two lane roads rarely have passing opportunities, and then I have to be damn sure I can take ’em if they accelerate to block, which they do very frequently. They’ll try to keep someone passing them in the oncoming lane. They’ll act to cause a collision because they refuse to be passed.
I know!
That’s one reason we moved to “the woods”!
But, it’s changing. Clovers are abounding. Five years ago, I encountered them only intermittently. Lately, it’s a daily thing. I typically have to execute maneuvers as in the video 4-5 times on each leg of the journey into town. Somnolent, addled – entitled – Clovers… they’re everywhere!
Nice videos. I passed a clover this morning and he honked at me. WTF does that mean?
dom, don’t know how many times that’s happened to me. Back during the height of CBism, clovers would double up on the interstate so you couldn’t get around. Some people were killed outright over this as in pull up behind them and blast their ass. I never could figure it and would point at the signs that are replete in this state that say Slower Traffic Keep Right. It doesn’t say Keep Right unless you’re doing the speed limit. Obviously doing 90 with someone behind doing 100 you need to move to the right. I do, and 90 is not an uncommon speed for me or didn’t used to be. I quit riding my racing cart on FM roads because the oil field traffic would often be doing 100mph, too fast for my cart.
Ditto, Eight – I remember that, too.
The solution – then and now – is a speedy motorcycle. Few Clovers can outmaneuver – or block in – a bike. Most of them – not being riders – have no idea just how quickly a bike can jump from say 55 to 90 MPH. A feint to left, then a roll right – throttle wide open – and you’re gone, son. Before that sumbitch even has time to think about reacting.
eric, preaching to the choir here…..but…..one of the main victims these dicks target are 18 wheelers, heavy trucks and pickups pulling big trailers. I don’t recommend it but I have used the chrome horn and bright lights many times. If you’re really so stupid as to enjoy a big rig 3-4′ behind you then be my guest, block it. Exchange on the CB: Hey Deadman(my handle), you gonna breed that 4 wheeler or what? Hell if I know, I lost sight of him a couple miles back, you know you can’t see a car that close to you.
I’ve ridden all over America on three different bikes bought there, (two Yamaha FJ 1200’s and now an Aprilia Tuono) and I lane split everywhere I go.
That has led to some interesting reactions,especially from some SUV and pickup drivers.
At various times,they’ve wanted to kill me,literally murder me because I’ve dared to pass them.
Here’s a good article
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/08/19/growing-up-in-america-paul-craig-roberts/
Klavdy, that was a good article. Remembering those old cars, I was reminded of an uncle who bought a brand new 1958 Nomad. Gee, you could have lined the streets of town with the chrome on it and with a 348, four barrel, dual exhaust hooked to a 4 speed Hydramatic tranny, it would haul the mail. I don’t know if I’m remembering the dash correctly but seems like it had a roller speedo and wowed everyone by spinning up to 80 seems like in a heartbeat. I still remember that exact shade of blue. God, what a pretty car that was.
“they’ve wanted to kill me,literally murder me because I’ve dared to pass them.”
That’s a really weird thing about some of these bad drivers; they really seem intent on forcing other drivers to drive as THEY see fit. I wonder how much road rage is caused by that kind of control freak driving behavior.
When I read about somebody being assaulted at a red light, or rammed in traffic, the thought occurs that maybe they were deliberately aggravating another driver for whatever strange reason they have for wanting to control others.
Their reasoning is as Mark Twain said “for some devilish comfort it gives them”.
@Klavdy Absolutely. It sends clovers over the top because of your total disregard for an orderly world. And it sends them straight to the Prozac bottle because they can’t catch you and tell you so.
Brent, it does seem like some places are really bad on bikers. Reminds me of a guy 30+ years ago who had moved to Florida. Doing about 40 and got taken out by a blue hair, big Caddy barely scratched while he ate bars, Caddy, pavement, curb, etc. Nearly removed his “junk”, lots of reconstructive surgery, clavicles, shoulders, chest head. A couple years of rehab and lucky he was so young and tough.
Lane discipline broke down with Nixon’s speed limit and Claybrook attitude of anything that slows others down makes the roads safer.
I’ve seen way too much trucker blocking of the interstates though. There is a sign that is often disobeyed: “TRUCKS RIGHT 2 LANES” In discussion groups they give the clover excuse for not keeping right, it’s too much trouble to deal with merging traffic. Which of course is a condition caused by clovers who turn the right of way rules upside down.
In Texas the inside lane is for cars only on some roads but trucks can use it to pass, something that can take quite a while sometimes. If you’ve never operated a big rig you’ll find out a grade to an operator is not something you notice in a car. One truck moving up fairly fast on another will sometimes result in a neck and neck situation if you encounter a slight grade due to one truck pulling better than the other. It’s maddening no matter what vehicle you’re in. If I’m stacking cars up I’ll just back off and pull back behind the rig I’m trying to pass….most of the time. Sometimes you know if you don’t pull off the pass in a certain area you’ll be relegated behind the slower rig for countless miles and that’s when everybody gets pissed off. You can blame this on fleet operators who don’t really know trucking and think they’ll save money by buying the small cam motor with less power. It doesn’t work that way unless you have a flat track to run circles on. It’s impossible to get over to a pencil pusher who orders the drivetrains with 0 practical knowledge.
Here on three lane expressways the truckers generally won’t use the right lane (clover excuse) and thus block the left two. So what happens is a trucker comes along who is using the right lane, trucker #2 pulls along side, and trucker #3 wants to pass…
Then there are the expressways with more lanes than 3 in each direction where truckers will be in the left two lanes ignoring the right two lane restriction.
I don’t see this as much on the toll roads. Almost always going through Chicago.
BrentP, I’ve experienced this countless times and it’s almost always going through a big city. Seems like the outer 2 lanes are filled with people who are driving erratically for whatever reason. It’s just a safety thing for most truckers to want to avoid what the hell ever it is those other two lanes are doing. I’ve seen some of the damndest things in those lanes on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s people who don’t know where they’re going and sometimes you’d be hard pressed to figure why they drive like they do. I hate to get in those lanes where you don’t know what will happen next, somebody shoots across a couple lanes for an exit and then back on before exiting, makes it mighty exciting. When your above everyone you get an idea of what’s going on further down the road and just naturally move away from it, not really a conscious decision to stay in the fast lane. Anything you can think of is being done in a car out there every day. Putting on makeup, shaving, changing clothes, cooking speed in the back of the van, everything is going on out there.
I don’t have much of a problem in the right lanes. That’s normally where I am. It’s not only the truckers that keep left, but the clovers as well. A few merge impaired drivers and an ‘oh my exit’ diver is a problem for every lane. Even the left most lane because the diver usually starts out as an left lane blocker.
With you there Eight, the slightest grade makes a huge difference to trucks and is completely unknown to the clovers. They’ll drive you insane by braking on the downhill to stay on the speed limit and gimp back up the grade because they’re simply useless. They’ll try and pass you and hit the brakes in front of you for an amber light, practically begging to be run over.
I drove plenty of Army road trains and I know what you’re on about.
Revolution, they do BEG to be run over. Why in hell would somebody run around an 80,000 lb. rig, cut in and stand on the brakes if they didn’t have a death wish? God save me from 5 pm Houston rush hour where no matter what type of gap you leave, some dick will fill it just as 5 lanes all stand on their brakes at the same time. I learned very early in life to avoid rush hour traffic no matter where. It ain’t worth it, especially since you can be drinking a cold one in a bar just as easily. It’s also a good time to get some rest if you can find a spot.
@8 – I know. It took me a year after leaving the Los Angeles freeway daily grind of “god hates a a lane vacuum” to realize that. Now when I go back (only if I must) I marvel at the fools doing the Mad Max to get in front of me only to tailgate the guy I was following at the same speed. Frigg’en sheep (clover) mentality.
Rev, Garysco, I know. I sound like it’s that time of the month.
@8 – We are living in a time of frustration and “road rage” for everyone. In a land far, far, away I drove for a company taking permit loads of 120,000 LBS mining drilling machines special built by Gardner Denver to the desert mines out through the L.A. freeway system. The experience made me quit and get an easy cop job because they got better pay and they got guns to play with.
Garysco, I’m amazed a man of your intellect would be a cop. I could do the job of the sheriff I grew up with, a guy who didn’t even wear a gun but to enforce so many laws that are simply immoral in these times is not a job I’d relish. I’ve spent enough time at the cop shop to understand the mindset of too many of the people I’d have to work with too. Well, I hope you selectively enforce the immoral laws, most of them. And BTW, thanks for the link to the Fourth Turning. I’ve read some of it and it’s fascinating to say the least. I’ll be reading much more and will hopefully be able to sort it out in my own mind. I minored in sociology and find enlightenment in documenting social trends as well as understanding differing philosophies and how that affects societies also. Thanks again.
Eons ago, before I went to college, I briefly thought about becoming a cop. Like a lot of 17-year-olds, I thought it’d be a manly way to live. Going after thugs, the bad guys. If only.
In a way, I pity the guys who did become cops. What a shitty, degrading way to make a living. I’d feel like a pederast, almost, if I had to do the sort of “work” they’re called on to do.
28 – Funny you should say that. That is why I joined “Oath Keepers”. I was a sort of a “Don Quixote of La Mancha” kida guy in L.A., and did my best for the “prols”. There are some still out there, but the current DHS propaganda training is thinning them out, and the new ones don’t know any better. That is why I never rose in rank, although qualified on paper and testing many times with two big departments. Not the least was getting “asked” to go to SWAT with San Diego Co. Sheriff. Prilosec and Prozac is what most of the administrators take, because they are living the lie, and are in it for the retirement and the prestige. And that is the truth. Ask one of any one of real rank, after you get them drunk, if you should find one.
Garysco, Priolosec and Prozac, two drugs designed so you can never kick them. A crime against humanity but they aren’t on the “war against some drugs” list. I have no reason to doubt what you say. I know too many people who can do without one or the other or both of those drugs. I took my cousin to Mexico where we stayed for a while. He left his Prilosec so every time he’d complain of stomach pain I’d give him the equate equivalent of Pepcid. By the time we got back his stomach wasn’t bothering him. I didn’t point that out to him either. The power of mind over matter.
Hahaha!
I’ve had even better reactions from the gay Pirates on cruisers, fuck me but they are funny.
In Colorado a few years ago on the “Million Dollar Hwy” twixt Silverton and Ouray,the road was being resurfaced, beautiful new, smooth hotmix just made for riding had been laid and the work crews were stopping traffic one way, then letting them go, no pilot cars or anything, a ten minute or so delay and you could see new road for miles across this valley, motorcycle nirvana.
Anyway, there’s a real long tailback of cars, trucks etc at a stop point and a whole heap of these gaudy jukebox joke harleys, complete with dress up riders in idiotic badge bedecked vests , chaps and beanies clogging up a big part of the parade.
The usual scowling ,try to look like outlaw types,but too scared to commit to that 1% lifestyle.
So, of course I rode through and past all the cluster fuck and while going past this cabal of spastics on the harleys, some started hooting and gibbering at me like enraged apes, fuck ’em, I just kept going up to the head of the line and stopped.
The traffic controller dude was goggle eyed at this, so I switched the bike off, doffed helm and started talking to him.
He was stoked, had never met an Aussie before and came around to seeing that it just makes sense and is safer for bikes to lanesplit or go to the front at long delays as they’ll never hold any one up and would no doubt pass the slow traffic anyway once moving.
We’re getting along famously when he says “uh oh, here come yer buddies”
It was a posse of the pirates who’d been passed a little further back,huffing and wheezing at me in the blustering manner of fat bullies everywhere, this time about how they ought to do this or do that to me, should call the cops and disrespect and other shit.
I burst out laughing,asked why a whole bunch of butt hurt “Bikers” couldn’t take care of a lone disrespectful Aussie tourist on a jap sportstourer and what exactly the cops were going to do,rub the sand out of their manginas because someone passed them?
Then I laughed some more.
This has Erich Von Zipper gaping like a swole up toad, literally lost for words, his bluff had been called.
They stomped back down to their hogs, the traffic controller just gawped at me and then the road opened.
I’ve often wondered since just what those clowns thought was going to happen?
@Klavdy – Your disrespect of their religion knows no bounds. 🙂
@Klavdy – almost forgot the video.
Dear Klavdy, Gary,
I’m not a biker. I am a cyclist, as is bicycles, with pedals.
In any event, I’ve never understood the attraction of Harleys.
Leave aside the fact that HD went to DC and demanded that the IRS and cops rob me to bail their company out.
Mechanically, technologically, what’s the attraction?
I stumbled across this. The guy sums up my feelings about Harleys.
http://www.goingfaster.com/angst/hdlclarence.htm
Quality of the ride?
What quality?
Oh, you’re talking about the all encompassing Harley Experience(tm) which includes the not-trademarked-yet-but-still-trying Harley sound (aka noise pollution). The ride hasn’t changed in decades. Do you mean the vibration and the rumble of that tired old tractor motor trying to beat itself to death in a spastic imitation of the bare minimum requirement to be considered to be undergoing the process of internal combustion? Your definition of quality and mine are far different, I’m afraid.
Bevin, I was kind of a puny bicyclist for a little while there. Still have two Treks in the garage, but only ride the Navigator a few miles at a time, if that. The 4300 hasn’t been out of the garage since ’09. I’m just too old and stove up to pedal and the roads are just rough as a cob way out here.
Ah, well. the only way to keep from gettin old is to die young. I missed my shot at that a long time ago.
@Bevin You are fairly close to why. Back in the 50’s returning WWII veterans had no one to fight anymore, and they liked to fight and ride bikes. The only available were the cheesy British stuff and Harleys. Fast forward to the 60’s and along came Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels, who put a brand name on it. They are referred to as the 1%. Those guys and the lifestyle are for real. The frustrated cubical bound salesmen and office workers felt life envy and needed an ego boost so they started their weekend fantasies when Harley’s finally became close to a reliable machine in the late 70’s and 80’s. Now they have enough credit to buy new ones and all the clothing, chrome and … that goes with the image. Funny thing is Sonny Barger and his crew always stripped their bikes down to the bare bones, with some personalized touches, that no cubical dweller would dare ride.
The unique sound is the result of the two cylinder V engine offset a certain amount of degrees on the crankshaft. No one else does that because it is a throwback to the early and mid 20’th century, and there is much better engine design today. Problem for Harley is that is what their buyers want, so they really can’t modernize without offending them. They have tried with the Buel and now the German designed Night Rod, but with limited success.
Klavdy, I was speaking to some friends about getting a new(to me) bike. The wife said “Harley?” I said A cold day in hell. I won’t ride anything but a Harley she says. I’ll remember that. Ok, I’ll bite, Why not? Because, they’re the only bikes that are cool. Ok then. I got that from several women, dumbasses they are. If you want to ride a Harley, be my guest or rather Harley’s guest or not really a guest. I have many friends who ride them and to be truthful, while they’re waiting on parts or saving up the big bucks to fix something, I’m riding. I may be burning rice but I burn one hell of a lot less of it than they do. I’ve known guys who had small tanks and knuckle-heads and could barely get from one town to the next. No thanks. I like that ultra=smooth ride, crisp handling and power v-twin guys could only dream of. Not to mention just putting gas in, changing the oil and filter every now and then and simply riding the whee out of it no drama.
Ditto that!
Now, to be fair, I have never owned a Harley myself. But I have owned a lot of Japanese bikes. Not one of them has ever been anything less than as reliable as a well-oiled 1911. Even the two-stroke I recently put back together. Fires on the first or second kick even after sitting for weeks. Hasn’t let me down once so far. I’ve got an almost 40-year-old Kz900 I would not hesitate to ride across the country. Ditto my ’83 Honda. Every once in awhile, one will need something like a clutch cable or maybe new brake pads. But other than that – and oil/filters – they just go and go and go and go.
Back in the 80’s I bought a brand new Jap bike, a Suzuki GS 1000. A friend bought a 1000 Yamaha. All our friends rode Harleys and had always given us fits for not riding them. He was a machinist and enjoyed finely tuned machinery, a perfectionist if you will. He confided in me one day a revelation. He said Man, do you realize those things(Harley’s)fire on 90 and 270 degrees? as if this were heresy. I nearly fell out laughing. Yep, I realize that.
I don’t think I’ll ever pick up motorcycling riding. The clovers kill and maim motorcycle riders around here at far too high a rate. However, the only motorcycles that interest me are ancient things. Old Indians, Harleys, whatever so long as it’s old.
Oh I showed my ’97 at a car show a couple weeks ago. A guy had an old BMW motorcycle there. Dog rode in the side car. Something like that would also work. I don’t know German bikes well enough to date it. Was fairly old. Probably 1950s. Judging by google that seems right. Number plate was in english so it was made to export to the USA or another english speaking country. Looked like drum brakes, shaft drive, with a huge transmission that seemed share a casting with the crankcase putting the cylinders near the rider’s leg…
anyway I am digressing. The only motorcycle I would ever want would be some sort of living mechanical antique decades older than me.
Brent,
I think you’d get into bikes like that in a big way – and encourage you to check into it/give it a try!
’70s-era BMWs are an excellent choice. They are rugged, durable – and just modern enough to be absolutely viable for everyday use, anywhere you’d like to go.
Ditto the Japanese stuff.
Plus – extra bennie – they are (mostly) very inexpensive. $5k or so will buy you a mechanically excellent/cosmetically presentable bike you can ride with confidence anywhere.
You’d enjoy the almost endless customization possibilities, too – everything from aftermarket bolt-on stuff to stuff you design/install yourself.
Dear Ed,
Yeah, bad roads are a REAL problem.
Some idiots here have paved certain areas with glazed ceramic tiles for chrissakes.
The front wheel on my bicycle slipped sideways and dropped me on the hard pavement a couple of years ago, My left knee swelled up like a cantaloupe. My left shoulder bone showed a hairline fracture.
If only we had bike paths like they do in Denmark and Holland. I realize they have them because their gubmints opted for them.
But I suspect we would have them in other countries if we had free market road systems.
Dear Gary,
“Problem for Harley is that is what their buyers want, so they really can’t modernize without offending them.”
Yup. Sorta like actors who get typecast. Good news and bad news.
Good news? Ya always got work.
Bad news? Yer always playing the same goddamn role.
Morning, Bevin!
Metric and Harley people live in two separate (and non-overlapping) worlds, so I am (as a Metric bike guy) just opinionating here, based on anecdotal evidence:
The Harley people I see around here (which is a lot of them, because we’re two miles away from the Blue Ridge Parkway, a major draw for the touring bike crowd) seem to be mostly – almost entirely – well into middle age or older. Other than Dom, I don’t know anyone under 40 who owns a dresser Harley. The typical HD dude I see is a guy in his 50s or 60s, who rides with other dudes in that age bracket. I know there are still 1 percenters out there – but I suspect (would bet) they are a small percentage of Harley’s new bike sales. I bet many of them ride old Harleys.
So, I agree with the poster who observed that Harley may find itself in real trouble about 10-15 years from now – when a large portion of its current customer base has grown too old to ride.
It occurs to me that big Harleys are not unlike classic muscle cars. Both are, increasingly, graybeard hobbies. Just as very few guys in their 20s today are either interested in or can afford a classic-era muscle car, so also (it seems to me) not very many guys in their 20s today are either interested in (or can afford) a new Harley dresser. Why spend $25,000 on a Harley when you can get a damn nice Yamaha or Suzuki for $10k less?
People my age and older buy/own classic muscle cars in part because these cars bring back the memories of our high school years, when muscle cars were the only real performance cars around.
I suspect the 50-something and up guys who are the typical HD demograqphic buy their bikes for similar reasons. Guys that age grew up in an environment of “Jap crap” attitudes – a time when the “real” bikes were Triumphs, Nortons, BSAs… and Harleys.
Not Japanese.
People – as any marketer will tell you – get hard-wired as far as brand loyalty is concerned. They get emotionally invested with “x” as an adolescent – and it stays with them for life.
They’re going crazy building bike paths in my city, Bevin.
The newest paths run parallel with the street, like an extra wide sidewalk, with yellow dotted lines down the center.
Some clover must have saw that and freaked out about the invitation that presented to, ‘just ride’ so now they are placing mini-stop signs on both sides of every street it crosses, and at every business entrance, those that don’t have stop lights already anyway.
It’s the ugliest thing, mile after mile of these min-stop signs. Clover heaven I think. …tickets for running them is next I imagine.
@Bevin Ha ha too true. Give Harley another 10 maybe 15 years, when the boomers can’t ride anymore, they will be an India / Chinese based company catering to oriental nostalgia freaks and American parts buyers. Like the current Indian Motorcycle company trying to resurrect itself (good luck with that $32,000.00 leather fringed 2 cylinder looser) but who never knew how to manage itself or keep up with technology.
Dear Eight,
The architect and designer in me can’t tolerate certain fundamental design defects.
Harley’s unique sound goes back to the beginning
http://www.examiner.com/article/harley-s-unique-sound-goes-back-to-the-beginning
The 45° cylinder angle design of the V-Twin creates a firing order that is, first cylinder fires, then the second cylinder fires 315° later, then a gap of 405° until the first cylinder fires again. This causes the distinctive Harley sound.
In short, this “virtue” is the product of an obvious design defect!
And of course, the ultimate absurdity:
Harley-Davidson Motor Company filed an application for a sound trademark in February, 1994 for the distinct sound their engine produced. “The mark consists of the exhaust sound of applicant’s motorcycles, produced by V-twin, common crankpin motorcycle engines when the goods are in use”. The application was opposed by nine of Harley’s competitors who filed comments which argued that other manufacturers of the cruiser style motorcycles also use a single-crankpin V-twin engine which produces a similar sound. These objections were followed by litigation which went on until 2001 when Harley-Davidson stopped all labors towards a federal trademark on the sound. Harley-Davidson’s attorneys still claim Harley-Davidson still holds the sound trademark regardless of the registration.
Another reductio ad absurdum instance of “IPR” controlling people and violating their genuine property rights.
Another is the 90 degree V-6 engines Detroit made by lopping off two cylinders of a V-8.
To me, that was just callously slapdash “ghetto modding.”
Dear DS,
I guess it’s the Watermelons. Green on the outside, red on the inside.
Problem is under maxarchism, even the “right” solutions are botched.
Market solutions are optimized according to consumer demand.
Gubmint “solutions” are maximized according to bureaucratic single-mindedness or pressure group fanaticism.
@Downshift
You can believe “their” total lying crap double-speak:
“Does ICLEI work behind the scenes in cities and counties to implement or impose a secret agenda?
There is no truth to this conspiracy theory. ICLEI is a nonprofit with no authority over its local government members whatsoever, and we do not work in secret or in any way circumvent public input in decision-making processes. We do not mandate, impose, or enforce any national or international policies or initiatives. All ICLEI programs and projects are voluntary, and local governments decide for themselves which programs they wish to participate in; they define their own goals depending on local circumstances, interests, and abilities.
At ICLEI, we believe in the power of local, bottom-up innovations to solve global problems. We also believe in deep collaboration with our local government members to develop programs and tools to meet their needs.”
Or know their intention is already in motion to force cities into the communitarian utopia of no cars and everyone on bicycles and public transportation. That is who (defined as “stakeholders” which does not include you) is behind the bicycle paths and community redevelopment.
Look up (the US tax payer NGO funded United Nations Agenda 21) ICLEI and their antics. But get a couple of beers first. You will need them.
They can build All the bike paths they want, and dream All they want, but nobody, and I mean, nobody, is going to use them in the deepest of Winter. I don’t care how much they spend on snow sweeping machines (not blowers, sweepers!) it’s just too dang cold to ride in the Winter here. Most days, anyway.
I still can’t get over the fact they sweep those bike paths clean long before the roads. The roads can be Really bad, but those bike paths are clean as a whistle.
And the new bike paths are made of concrete, not cheap asphalt.
Also, Garysco, it’s tequila, not beer. We’re Primal here.
@Downshift Go ahead and drink that Mexican dirty plant growth stuff. I am Libertarian and will never tell you to stop.
Ha, Garysco. Haven’t you heard? Dirt is good for you.
Pray tell, do you have a favorite flavor?
Myself, I prefer the non-GMO beer from Europe (dead bugs and all) but it’s gotten too pricey. A bit like motorcycles, but someday I’ll find both on sale on a day when I have the FRNs.
…Maybe.
If I could quit saving,… as savings is the source of all wealth.
[Everybody knows that, right? ..Right!? Ha.]
How-freaking-ever; beer is tough on the waistline, and as eric’s woman might tell you, motorcycles are tough on living. …Still, I like ’em both.
Actually, I’m Trying to save, while paying for my dentist’s dental assistants tile floor, And donating to ericpetersautos, And maybe getting a t-shirt.
…I may have to stop drinking.
Ha. And eating.
At least I’m comforted in knowing.
Better to know, than not.
I am a Rothbardian.
A,k,a, an Anarcho-capitalist.
@Downshift- Isn’t amazing how these posts drift off topic.
That being said, I have a nice recently scored bottle of Johnnie Walker green label 15 year old scotch. It is right here in my hide-hole with me and I am not going to share. Well,,,at least until my attitude improves.
Ha! my comment is awaiting moderation, DownshitFast5to1 is not the way it’s spelled. Well, unless you’re being chased by cops it’s not.
Fucking back hurts like a MF’er, but this is what I wrote that will appear double time when first shift gets here:
Actually, I’m Trying to save, while paying for my dentist’s dental assistants tile floor, And donating to ericpetersautos, And maybe getting a t-shirt.
…I may have to stop drinking.
Ha. And eating.
At least I’m comforted in knowing.
Better to know, than not.
I am a Rothbardian.
A,k,a, an Anarcho-capitalist.
Re: “posts drift off topic.”
Yes they do, and no they don’t, but It Is interesting how they waver.
Haven’t we been discussing, ‘clover rule’ this whole time? …Or at least the main theme: automobiles, motorcycles and libertarian topics (politics?),… like chicks and alcohol and other substances? And of course, freedom and liberty.
Anyway, I’ve heard/read that whiskey is the same today as if it were 100 years old. Is scotch not the same?
…Also, you’re attitude might not improve until you share?
@Downshift Thanks for relating everything together. It makes me feel better about hogging the bandwidth.
Well that was a good question that actually made me do something to answer.
Ha. The answer includes a good old church friar as the originator. That fact certainly won’t set well with some denominations.
Scotch whisky, often simply called “Scotch”, is malt whisky or grain whisky made in Scotland. Scotch whisky must be made in a manner specified by law.
All Scotch whisky was originally made from malt barley. Commercial distilleries began introducing whisky made from wheat and rye in the late eighteenth century. Scotch whisky is divided into five distinct categories: single malt Scotch whisky, single grain Scotch whisky, blended malt Scotch whisky (formerly called “vatted malt” or “pure malt”), blended grain Scotch whisky, and blended Scotch whisky.
All Scotch whisky must be aged in oak barrels for at least three years. Any age statement on a bottle of Scotch whisky, expressed in numerical form, must reflect the age of the youngest whisky used to produce that product. A whisky with an age statement is known as guaranteed-age whisky.
The first written mention of Scotch whisky is in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, 1495. A friar named John Cor was the distiller at Lindores Abbey in the Kingdom of Fife
Once it is bottled it doesn’t spoil.
Dear eric,
Absolutely. It’s about the “lifestyle” and all the emotional baggage.
I’ve never been a motorcycle rider. Just a lookie loo.
But even back then, before the Japanese bikes made their debut, I was far more impressed by British bikes such as the Triumph, BSA, and Norton, by Italian bikes such as the Ducati, or other American bikes, such as the Vincent Black Shadow.
The Harleys reminded me too much of the old Cadillacs. Bloated and overweight.
Again, I hasten to add that I was never a owner or rider, merely a window shopper. I was merely interested in them as mechanical designs.
A word or two on this:
“I was merely interested in them as mechanical designs.”
Imagine it is 1973. You are at the press reveal for the new Z1900 Kawasaki.
Aluminum-alloy DOHC engine with a 9,000 RPM redline. 12 second quarter mile. 140 MPH top speed. Stone stock, mass-production bike.
Not a hand-built race bike.
And that was 40 years ago…
* Errata
Just ran a search.
Apparently I “disremembered” the genealogy of the Vincent Black Shadow.
Sorry.
Klavdy – from one Toe Cutter to another – you just made my ff’n day!
I swell with happiness….
Dear Eric,
Gotcha, loud and clear.
Really, aside from nostalgia, there’s simply no way to justify the primitive mechanical features of the Harleys, along with the price.
I for one, have never been willing to pay through the nose for such intangibles.
Eric, a friend of mine’s brother is currently fighting for his life after a clover turned left in front of him. Just the most recent. Even the corner to the arterial road by me has had a motorcyclist killed by a clover. Just too dangerous for me around here. If I were out in the country I probably would try. Not here. I was nearly offed by an old clover turning left back in august when I was bicycling.
I followed the old clover into a parking lot to give him a piece of my mind when some bystander started yelling at me threatening to beat me up because I was ‘going to yell at an old man’. An old man that nearly killed me. He wanted me to get off the bike so we could fight. I told him I’d go home and get my car so he could understand the situation better 🙂 Then I left.
I hear you, Brent.
When I lived in Northern Virginia, I was almost offed several times by similar Clovers. I had one guy in a truck (oncoming, opposite lane) suddenly decide he needed to turn left. Directly into my path. The only reason I’m not dead or crippled is I have learned to ride Conspiracy Theory style – I assume every vehicle in my orbit is driven by someone who wants to kill or maim me and is going to try to do so. Thus, I was prepared in that I was able to jerk the bike hard over to the right, where I knew there was still enough room to go without him hitting me or me hitting someone (or something) else.
Then there was the time a Clover in a Camry blew threw a red light that had turned red 15 seconds, at least, before she got to the intersection. I saw her coming, though – and so did not proceed through the intersection, even though I had the green.
Guy behind me got pissed – until he saw the Camry blow the light..
Excellent Klavdy.. from one Aussie to another 🙂
@Dom – because you scared the zombie out of his trance.
I live in the Central Cal. Sierra mountains and in the last year or two 1/2 of the assholes won’t dim their brights at night. Especially the little dicks in 1/2 ton trucks jacked to the moon with aftermarket HID lights. I guess it is for the same reason I described above to Eric. Do-nnn-aaa know for sure though.
It means he’s outraged that you dared to drive faster than he thinks you should!
Aw common’ Eric. His wife picks on him, his boss picks on him and the ATM machine picks on him. So this the only “I’m in control” moment of his day and he wants to make the most of it. And/ or he is on prescription meds because eveyone picks on him and he can’t sleep..
I’ve been through more of that than I care to remember. It’s not too hard to find one these days but nothing like older times. There must be a couple dozen cars in Texas now, everybody and their dog drives a pickup, generally, a really big pickup for reasons known only to them but they seem to have gotten in step and drive the whee out of them. I keep saying I’m going to install a couple of rear view burners in the front to speed up those recalcitrants that are left. I was thinking something that would burn paint at 50′ or so.
That’s why us Californians gave them a Stetson and sent them there.
We spot yankees w/o even trying, ridiculous hat, real pointy cowboy boots and high-water jeans, too good….and all too often, that almost Hitlerian mustache….what’s up with that anyway?
Yep, the “all hat, no cattle” fake rancher type, with more bullshit inside his boots than outside. That bunch kept Cutter Bill’s in Dallas alive for awhile after the oil bust.
Yes, Ed is right Eightsouthman. There are way too many disturbing discrepancies in the official story, the father of an allegedly slain child seen on camera laughing and then going into character when they started “officially” filming, a woman who is supposedly a Sandy Hook parent that looks suspiciously like James Holmes’ attorney out in Aurora, CO. As Jon Rappaport points out, there always seem to be reports of additional shooters in these cases, but the official report ends up “Lone nut; open and shut case.” Remember the OKC bombing? Way too many discrepancies there as well (John Does 1 & 2, seismographs recording multiple events, cutting charge sheared columns, Andreas Strasmeir, Carol Elizabeth Howe, etc.). How about Waco? They went in to “save the children” and burned them to death. More and more of us don’t buy the official BS anymore. They burn the Reichstag periodically in an effort to stir up the masses, but it isn’t working too well. Time for a major EMP event to shut down the Internet so they can finish off what’s left of the republic and our rights with it I guess.