Tuesday Tidbits

China has announced that it is outlawing the practice of forcing internet addicts to undergo shock treatment.

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Sarah Palin said in her resignation speech that "In honor of the american serviceman (the press should) quit making things up." Talk about wrapping yourself in the flag. Where is the connection between her and the military and what has the press made up? Samuel Johnson warned that Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. She plays the poor victim card to the end and her constituency laps it up.

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I was listening to the Los Angeles sports radio station 570 the other day with hosts Steve Hartman and Petros P. and a caller called to take umbrage with the negativity and censure of Michael Vick. Vick ran a cruel dog fighting operation and went to jail. The caller was disturbed that people cared about animal cruelty while abortion was tolerated. Rather than swatting the caller away, for talking politics on a sports show, the hosts meekly submitted to the guy's rant and even appeared to condemn choice in this country. It seems like concern for whales or dogs or the environment creates a lot of rage in the pro life movement, where all sympathy is reserved for unborn humans.

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I leave for Albuquerque and Santa Fe next week. Couple of shows. All of the power locks have stopped working on the van. My Chrysler dealership went out of business. I took the battery cable off and the locks worked again for a while but then stopped. My mechanic says that my software has to be rebooted and they want a hundred bucks at the dealer. I am going to rough it like our hardy ancestors and open my doors manually. Soon cars will have a wifi port for software updates. Unless they have them already. I think the car of the future should have a skin that operates like a computer screen so that we can give each other little messages about our driving manners. And a roof mounted rocket. But you can only vaporize two opponents a year. You get a quota. Either Harlan Ellison or Roger Zelazny wrote a great short story once about road warfare. Can't remember which of them.

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According to a new study, texting while trucking gives you 23 times the danger charted by normal distractions in your rig like nose picking, sexual stimulation or listening to right wing talk radio. Be careful!

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Three more posts to go until one thousand and I take my extended vacation from the blog. My wife doesn't think I can stop writing. We will see. I want to write a few short stories and concentrate on making a living for a while. I really appreciate all of the support I have gotten from all of you casual and rabid readers alike and hope that we can meet again, in cyberspace or otherwise. Thank you for making this such a fun experience for me. Special thanks to commenters CR, NYSTAN, MMWB, Vern, Sanoguy, KBG, Island Guy, Barbara, Shawn, Wave Man, Grumpy and Millard. And to all my faithful readers who have enjoyed the blog. Especially want to thank my conservative readership. Those that disagree with me. By and large, you folks write better than the liberals.