If the GOP takes the House and Senate will it make any difference?

Unfortunately, I think it won’t.

I had hoped that it would put controls on the Biden Administration but now…

We’ve already seen what “accidentally releasing” a draft opinion on Roe v. Wade has done. I’ll grant you, the protests in the streets aren’t up to the par of our most recent “Summer of love,” but if the Democratic majority is tossed out on their collective asses as they well deserve, I expect the burning and looting to start all over again.

Republicans have been painted as sitting at the right hand of Satan. Conservatives are seen as racist minions of the Devil. Collectively, the two groups have been demonized as White supremacist domestic terrorists.

While to my knowledge, few if any of these assertions are true. There is a remarkably large group of people who believe it to be so.

Perception often becomes reality. Even when gravity doesn’t suddenly switch off on demand.

Those who believe Republicans and conservatives are terrorists, will require little to go back to rioting in the streets. I’ll not be surprised if we see people falling to their knees, rending their clothing, and crying as the election result are made known.

This poor individual. They’ve become the face of over dramatic stupidity.

I’ll be waiting for the tearful pronouncements, “Democracy is dead,” “NAZIS control Congress.”

I suspect that there will be a large number of saintly Democratic Candidates demanding recounts claiming that the demonic Republicans cheated at the ballot boxes or suppressed voters. Even in areas where the elections followed the same rules as the 2020 election.

They’ll trundle out the usual examples. People of Color, the poor, the sick, and you can bet there will be a trans person who won’t be able to vote “authentically as themselves” because their ID doesn’t match the name they give at the polling place.

I’m betting that first day with new members in Congress will be a circus. I haven’t figured out what kind of distraction the far left people within the Democratic Party will come up with, but I’m sure it will be amusingly transparent to everyone except the protestors.

There’s another problem though. Once all the protestors have gone home because it’s too cold to bother, the Republicans may choose not to take strong immediate action to curb the Biden Administration’s obvious screw-ups.

Why?

If I were running the Republican Party, I’d be inclined to let the current administration continue stepping on all the rakes they’ve left on the White House lawn.

They’ve pretty much looked like a bad combination of The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Abbot & Costello, and the Keystone Cops.

Were I thinking about maintaining Republican control for decades I’d let the administration continue to show just how incompetent they are. Let them destroy themselves, allow their policies and decisions to paint them as buffoons. Hey, I can be as much of a bastard as everyone else!

That would effectively gut any Democratic Party candidates for at least the next decade, possibly longer. Mothers who couldn’t feed their babies will have a very long memory. Truckers and commuters who lost their jobs due to gas prices will be unforgiving for a very long time.

Then at the last moment, preferably when Biden or Harris is on their knees before Congress begging for help. Only then does a Republican Congress roll out conservative, fiscally responsible, solutions to the Biden /Harris Administration’s self inflicted wounds.

The Biden / Harris Administration must be destroyed totally and shamed so throughly that none of the participants ever attempt to hold a political office again. The last thing I’d want (were I directing the Republican Party) is to allow the Biden / Harris Administration any room to say anything they did was a success.

Make sure that when the gas prices drop, The Country knows it’s the Conservative Republican Congress’s doing.

When the illegal border crossings stop, and the criminals who have used the open border to bring their crime, trafficking, drugs, and misery, are brought to justice. Make sure the Country knows who it was that took appropriate action.

When the shelves are stocked again, shipments are on time and under budget, driving cost of consumer goods down. Make sure there’s a (C) for Conservative visible on the shelf tags, to remind folks who actually does the job.

Then go after every single one of the former members of Congress who wrought this disaster. For those who lined their pockets from the misery of the American People regardless of their party affiliation… If the evidence supports incarceration, put them in the cells formerly occupied by the prisoners illegally held without due process or speedy trial in the Jan 6th riot.

To be clear, I don’t think the Republican Party or conservatives are saints. But I think they’d do a damn sight better than the current crop of morons running our country.

Sadly, it hinges on the newly elected officials in Congress putting the People first.

As I stated, I’m concerned that instead of taking action, they’ll choose vengeance. In their vengeance, the American People will still be pawns and suffer at the hands of power mad politicians.

I think, the only hope to rein in power mad politicians is the prospect of a very long prison sentence at hard labor, or hangman’s noose, if they’re caught.

When the presidential campaigns start up. I sincerely hope that Donald Trump has the good sense not to run. I don’t think he was a bad President. By comparison to Biden… He was awesome. Then again as Biden stands today, a psychotic monkey with a gun would be preferable.

Yeah I really don’t like Biden and haven’t liked him for as long as I can remember. I think maybe in the early days, he might have at least had his heart in the right place, but that faded very quickly.

I’d like to see pragmatic independent candidates who were unafraid to speak the truth. I’d like them to have a plan, and be willing to share their thoughts with the public during the campaign. Personally I eliminate candidates that appear to be pandering to specific groups.

I pay attention to candidates that have a consistent story, and those that say something like; “Oh, that’s an interesting point. I hadn’t considered that, you may have changed my approach,” to one of their competitors will have my full and undivided attention.

The last election, every candidate said something like, “We have to go totally green in energy production.” But few of them spoke about their vision for getting from where we are, to a green future.

I’d have asked, “Are you proposing using the advances we’ve made in nuclear reactors? Do you propose every roof of every home in America have solar panels? Is your proposal to create wind farms? Create more Hydroelectric power generation? What is your plan to achieve this goal?”

You don’t have to believe in climate change, to implicitly understand the less pollution we generate, the less we have to clean up. The less oil or coal we use, the longer those resources last. Everyone gets that. Even the most adamant Climate Change Denier won’t argue.

What they will argue with, is being told they’re going to have to use technology that isn’t adequate to their needs. For example, having to buy 2 pricey electric tractors to keep up their farm production where they only needed one 20 year old diesel tractor to do the job before.

Folks will balk at being told that fuel prices are going to be taxed into the stratosphere as an incentive to switch to inadequate technologies, by people who don’t have the sense to step around cow shit in a field. (No, Senator… That’s not a mud puddle! Those shoes weren’t expensive were they?)

Trust me, working folks will leap to demonstrably superior tools. Check out any construction site and you’ll find all the workers using battery powered tools all over the place. No cords, same capability, it’s a no brainer. Even nail guns are going battery. It’s nice to not have a compressor and a long assed pneumatic hose when you’re doing finish work.

A local handyman here, deploys solar panels across the hood of his truck to power battery chargers for his tools. He’s not high tech, he’s not a greenie, he’s just pragmatic. He works on vacation or rental homes that often have the power turned off.

The point is, instead of screwing with gas taxes and mandates, a politician should have a broad plan.

They should be able to say, “Yes, I want solar panels on every roof. During the day we should be able to direct excess power from the housing panels to power our schools or offices where we learn and work. Hopefully it would be enough that we could direct oil and coal generated power to industry during the day, increasing our GDP but overall reducing the fossil generated kilowatts those plants have to produce. At night, I’d like to have the ability to redirect oil and coal generated power to light and heat or cool our homes. We’ll use this system until we can bring new safer nuclear plants online. My plan is to transition in a logical, planned way. Along the way, I’m confident we will make new discoveries and those may make the transition faster, and more efficient. To that end, I propose that we fund as much energy research as possible. Not just power generation, but also power storage. I propose that we mine, refine, and produce the raw materials and finished products here in America. This provides jobs and potentially can increase our exports to other nations.

Every politician should be able to lay out various plans to address the issues of the day.

You don’t have to agree with the plan. But someone who lays out the broad strokes at least has thought about it. They’re not just pandering to activists for votes. The harder step is holding them accountable and calling them out if they haven’t delivered on their plan(s).

I use the same approach when reviewing all candidates.

It’s a given that no one candidate is going to embody every cause of the day. What I’m looking for is a candidate or candidates that at least are bold enough to speak their minds, honest enough to admit they don’t know everything, and smart enough to have thought about the issues.

Sadly, we’ve created a world where one misstep or poorly chosen word can destroy a candidate who would otherwise be the best person for the job. This allows only the pretty, the pandering, the disingenuous, and those driven by greed for money or power to hold office.

I don’t think that’s likely to change anytime soon.

This is why I think the Republican “Red Wave” in the midterms is going to be a big nothing burger.

The new boss will be exactly the same as the old boss.

For those of you who may be new to this blog…

First, by most accounts I’m nuts!

I don’t see it that way, but then if I was nuts, by definition I wouldn’t see it. So my self assessment is pointless. I’ll leave the reader to decide for themselves.

I’ve been writing for a long time, one way or another. It might have been technical manuals or instructional materials, but I’ve been putting thoughts into words on paper for a long time.

I’ve been blogging for a long time too. This blog had its original incarnation on Blogspot. I moved the blog here when Blogspot started making noise about censoring content.

Hey they’re a free site, and they can run that site anyway they want to. Since I was a free user, I had a choice. I could abide by their new rules, or I could go my own way where I made the rules.

I chose the latter.

I’m a major advocate of free speech and I wanted to be able to post pictures, comments, and thoughts where no-one could come along and tell me to shutup.

People can of course tell me to shutup in comments, they can tell me they think I’m a freak or a monster there as well. But mostly, if I’ve offended someone they usually just don’t come back to this blog. That’s their right and I’m fine with it. I’ll even allow some comments to show up even if they disagree with my opinion.

I am the sole authority and moderator for those comments, and to be clear, If I decide not to publish a comment… There is no appeal.

Re-Reading Opening Volley written in 2011, when I moved to this hosting site and set up this incarnation of the blog, I find that I’m not a whole lot different as a person. Some of my opinions have changed a bit. My approach is a little more moderated (not much,) and I still write what I’m thinking about life, politics, the world, and things that strike me as odd. I am not terribly filtered about what I say or how I say it.

I moved a bunch of older posts and images from the old blog that dated back to 2008 to this new site.

I noticed today that some of the photos from those older blog posts appear to have been unlinked. I remember moving the images and correcting the links at the time, but well a lot has happened since then. I’ll see if I can’t relink them when I have the time or inclination.

I also noticed while scanning the older posts that I was worried about censorship and what would become “Cancel Culture”, 10 years ago.

I could see the pattern of precursor events adding up even then.

People were starting to realize that “Flame Wars” which had previously only happened on sites with limited reach and a defined membership were beginning to explode across the infant social media sites and attracting global attention.

(Flame War – Best described as an escalating battle of words between two individuals over email or chat systems. These battles only ended when both participants were exhausted and devolved into name calling. Neither participant proved their point and usually other observers concluded that both participants were jackasses. See also schoolyard bullies.)

Social Media allowed Flame Wars to have global scope and like minded individuals were able to pile on in support of their preferred combatant. The global scope, finding supporters, combined with smaller secondary flame wars fed even the tiniest of narcissistic egos, turning them into full blown neurosis.

This blog is an exercise in narcissism. Really, who would, or should care about my opinions or thoughts? I could have the same satisfaction and writing practice with a simple journal. But there is a bit of pleasure to be had from seeing readership statistics. There’s a sense of satisfaction reading comments about a particular blog post.

So this blog is me paying my dues to limited narcissism. My hope is that by indulging in a little, I can avoid becoming a Kardashian.

In the 1500 or so posts contained herein are snapshots of life. You’ll find sex, thoughts on the day or year, good things and bad things, commentary from my perspective on what it is to be male and a man in this world.

You might find thoughts that touch you, anger you, please you, or that simply cause you to consider a subject from a different angle.

All of this is objectively good. Writing, like all art should engender a reaction. Mozart or Snoop Dog, Picasso or Rubens, Orwell or Shakespeare, Mapplethorpe  or Adams, they all have their place and affect the observer.

Uh no… I’m not comparing my writing to those folks. I’m not sure that my writing could be printed on their toilet paper.

What I’m saying is that some of what you read here, you may like, some you will not, reading what I write isn’t meant to make anyone into me. It’s offered as a thought put out into the world or the universe and it’s up to the reader to make of it what they will.

Huh? I’d really like some fact checking!!!

Caught a headline on Apple News+ from ABC News saying that the Covid Death toll had reached 1 million.

The article was apparently building on a statement from Joe Biden lamenting this milestone.

According to the CDC…

CDC DATA :

Total U.S. DEATHS ( ALL CAUSES ) :

2014: 2,626,418

2015: 2,712,630 : Increase – 86,212 – 3.28%

2016 : 2,744,248 : Increase – 31,618 – 1.16%

2017 : 2,813,503 : Increase – 69,255 – 2.52%

2018 : 2,839,206 : Increase – 25,703 – 1%

2019: 2,855,000 : Increase – 15,794- 0.55%

2020: 2,913,144 : Increase – 58,144 – 2%

It’s not unusual for nearly 3 million people to die per year. That number would naturally increase as the population does.

2021 and 2022 data wasn’t available when I checked. There have been some reports that the CDC is re-evaluating their data due to over reporting of COVID deaths and potential skewing of the numbers because death with COVID is different from death due to COVID.

Even in 2020 during the height of the lockdowns and with no vaccine really available the average death rate from all causes seems within normal.

Indeed there is an anomaly, a lower than average increase in death rate in 2018 and 2019.

I’m not attempting to minimize the pain and anguish of a loved one’s death, I’ve been through it.

What I am saying is if we’ve had a million deaths due to COVID are these in addition to the normal death rate, or did COVID simply push some people over the edge that were already “one foot in the grave”?

My uncle “Died of COVID” according to the family and death certificate. But he was in his 70’s, had already had bypass surgery, still had heart problems, was an asthmatic, and was exhibiting the signs of what the family used to call normal end of life for the men in the family.

72 to 75 is about normal for us, we wear out and kick off. The best we can hope for is that we kick off having sex. It’s shitty for our wives or partners but we go out happy. Typically we’re not laying in a hospital bed in our own poop. From a quality of life, (or death,) standpoint, I’d prefer to just drop dead or have a mind blowing orgasm, go to sleep and not wake up.

Did my Uncle die of COVID? Or did COVID just put a banana peel next to the grave he already had one foot in?

Death sucks, but it’s part of life. We gotta move aside to make room for the next generation so they can screw things up as badly as we did.

I’ve always been morbidly fascinated with the way we Americans address death. We keep putting our fingers in the dike trying to hold back inevitability and honestly I’ve questioned if in doing so we are causing more pain and suffering than is necessary for the person dying, and the family of the soon to be deceased.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t strive for healthier or longer lives. I’m saying that at some point, we each need to draw a line in the sand and accept the inevitable with some semblance of grace.

When you look at the numbers from 2014 through 2020 it’s 3 million people a year more or less. We’re not wringing our hands over those folks as a nation. But for some reason 500,000 additional deaths per year due to COVID merits a Presidential speech?

Honestly, I find it somewhat offensive.

It’s almost like The President is using those deaths for his own gains. If the President is so upset about it, then let’s do the investigation to find out where COVID came from and figure out methods to mitigate a similar future tragedy. No matter where such an investigation may lead.

Assuming that the one million deaths were solely the responsibility of COVID as a single factor, (Dividing the 1 million across 2 years,) that increases the annual 3 million natural annual deaths by 0.16 which is about on par with the expected increase in death shown in the CDC’s data above.

Were it not for COVID, that increase might well have gone relatively unnoticed.

It’s still tragic, it’s still a marker for all the people who lost loved ones in a year. But people die…

Again, not minimizing the loss for the families, I just think we should have context against which to evaluate the headlines. Let’s look at the big picture, and let’s look at it in the cold light of truth.

An impromptu Ode to cars…

I leased my vehicle 3 years ago. At the time I treated the car like a long term rental. I knew I loved the car, but was always worried that it would be taken from me.

I wasn’t really aware I was doing this, but I didn’t customize anything about it. The one thing I did was have the typical BMW chrome grill swapped out for a blackout version. It was cheap to do and I’d simply mentioned it during the leasing process. While we were wrangling with the finances, the service folks just did it.

Other than that, I didn’t really do much else. I barely customized the dashboard and didn’t program the seat position. The car remained exactly as it was delivered. (Necessary repairs even returned the car to delivered condition.) I didn’t even load any music onto the internal hard drive built into the car.

On HWY 2 near Llano, CA. It’s a nice drive if you’ve got the time.

I know all of these little things are fully programmable, and easily changeable but there was something about it.

In the back of my mind I was always thinking, “This isn’t really my car. I don’t want to get too attached or invested in customizing stuff because at the end of the lease I’ll just have to do let it all go anyway.

I’ve never understood why, when I get into a loaner car or a rental car there’s always a long list of other people’s phones programmed into the cars electronics. Why would you do that? Why take the time and then leave traces of your phone and/or call log in a car that’s not yours?

In my case I’d programmed my phone into my leased vehicle but there was only my phone and I always figured I’d wipe it when the lease ended. I even made myself a checklist in the “Reminders” app on my phone.

That checklist was to pop up on the day before the lease ended so that I’d have the time to systematically walk through all the things I needed to do and check them off, one by one. The thought at the time was, “I’ll do it all before I’m at the dealership and then it’ll just be handing them the keys, heartbroken.

The checklist listed things like;

Unpair the phone
Delete all call logs
Delete all Navigation records
Delete “Home” location. (As an aside the location was never set to my address, just the town. If you can’t find your way home in your own town, you should hand the keys to the nearest bartender!)
Remove anything of a personal nature, check glove compartment, under seats, map pockets, trunk, etc.
And on & on.

I deleted that checklist today.

I went to the store yesterday in my car. On the way home it occurred to me that now, it really was my car. After unloading the grocery items, I walked over to the CD shelf and grabbed a bunch of my favorites. (Yes, most of my music is digital and exists on my phone, but I’ve been loading CDs into the 20GB hard drive for music built into the car. )

Now that it’s mine, I’m not hesitant to start making it mine.

I removed the satellite radio option from the display (Sirius Satellite can kiss my ass!) $23 a month for what? They are out of their damn minds! Introductory offers be damned, If you can provide an intro offer for $5 a month, you can damn well offer the service for $5 a month. Frankly, that may be too high a price because you have to deal with Sirius Corporation and that is a freaking nightmare at any time.

If you assume from that statement that I don’t like Sirius corporate practices, You’d be right. It was a nice idea and worked well for a time. At the point that I terminated my subscription, I hadn’t spoken to anyone on this continent for years. Each time I had to speak to a representative, they inevitably screwed something up. Honestly, it got tiresome to have to spend hours on the phone over multiple calls to accomplish what should have been a straight forward task.

Besides, CarPlay works much better.

I’ve reconfigured almost all of the menus, and displays. I’ve programmed the seat settings. I’ve even started programming favorites into the radio buttons. (Although there isn’t much worth listening to on local radio stations. On a lot of the stations, I’m not even sure what language is being spoken. Maybe English?) I’ve set up the master key, and I’m considering other little things to add that fit me.

Generally speaking BMW fits me right out of the box, but there are always little things that make the vehicle feel more like home.

Now, I’m not worried about miles driven on the odometer. When looking at tires I’m thinking best value for the dollar, not just the cheapest Chinese brand that will fit. I am just as worried about rocks flying on the freeway, dents, and dings. That will probably never change!

I get in and really smile. I smiled before but it was always reserved because I didn’t know if I was going to have my heart broken when the lease ended.

I drove my 1 series for almost 10 years. It was in excellent condition right up to the day it was totaled, it made me smile every time I got into it. My heart was broken when it was killed by a stupid bitch running a red light. The only gratification was the stupid bitch didn’t get away with what she was trying to get away with.

There were a lot of witnesses that told the cops, She ran the light, not me. Once she heard what the witnesses were telling the cops, she stopped limping around and holding her neck.

Miraculously, she also started speaking and understanding English. Can you say insurance scam? She thought she’d blame me and get a big settlement, (after all I drove a nice car… Right?) That’s a laugh! She still tried to rake my insurance company over the coals and cause trouble for me. That fell apart pretty fast when the police report made it to my insurance company’s lawyers.

When I looked at turning the tables on her, I found out she was an illegal, had no drivers license, and had been involved in 5 other accidents in the last 2 years, all of which she got large settlements out of.

I remember asking the police several weeks later how it was possible that she was allowed to remain in the country when it was pretty obvious that she was committing crimes for her income. They just shrugged.

I’m glad I leased this car. I’m equally glad that the lesson I learned is that I don’t like leasing. I got lucky that this lease worked out to my advantage and I’m thankful that some higher power pulled a string or two for me. Otherwise, things could have gone very differently.

I had a 3 series for a while. It was a good car, it just wasn’t me. It’s odd, that car and I never bonded. According the the mapping and phone data that was still in the navigation system, it had been preowned by a Chinese person in Wisconsin. The voice actuation never worked right. I guess maybe the first language it learned was Chinese, and it didn’t do very well with English as a second language.

When I got the 4 series, I remember handing the 3 series keys to the dealership and felt nothing at all. I never looked back at the 3. That was weird for me. Once I bond with a car, it’s really hard for me to let it go. Usually, we’ve been through a lot together and the adventures are good memories tied to the car itself. It’s easy for me to forget about the 3 because we made no memories together. It almost felt like the car and I tolerated each other but I had no desire to cruise up the coast in it.

The 3 would often do something weird and fail with no warning at all. Invariably when it was most inconvenient (on the way to work at 4am, instead of on the way home from work at 2pm.) Maybe that’s why we never cruised the coast or anything other than drove to work and home. I never had confidence in the car.

My current car, on the other hand, we’ve been coast to coast. We’ve seen sights and cruised areas in this country that I’d never seen before.

We stopped in Amarillo, TX because it told me something wasn’t quite right 120 miles outside the city. We didn’t limp in to town, we drove in under full power. My car did me proud and I didn’t mind stopping to investigate the issue. As it turned out the repair was minor, the TX dealership didn’t have the part. Fortunately it was something that could be documented, and reset. The car was fine to continue the trip back to California, a permanent fix could be made once we got home.

I’d have happily hung out in Amarillo waiting for parts if it had been necessary and not grumbled about it at all.

I suppose the difference is that the 3 had been preowned. The 4 had been driven, but I was its first owner. We bonded at about 100 miles an hour on the 52 in San Diego. It was instant, and we were communicating with each other intuitively, and have ever since.

It’s strange but I remember looking out the big windows of the dealership in San Diego and of all the cars out there, the 4 felt like it was looking back at me. As if it was alive and wanted me to take it home.

The car looked like all the others but I could feel something else. I didn’t know it was a manual transmission until I sat down in the driver’s seat. It was sitting in a line of other 4’s they looked indifferent and cold, but my 4 looked warm, inviting, a bit cocky, and forlorn.

As I walked out the double doors I knew I should just wait for the loaner car so the 3 could be fixed again and shouldn’t be looking at another vehicle.

I went to my 4 and knew it was built for me, it had been waiting patiently for someone like me to find it. It was the only manual transmission in the row. When I got in and fired it up, the display showed it had been driven about 2500 miles. When I pulled out onto the road, I knew they’d been a rough 2500 miles. Probably some dealership salesman or various people who thought they’d like to try a manual transmission.

Either way, those miles had been rough, the good news was, they were few in number. When we hit the freeway I could feel the engine blowing out the bad shifts and the clutch opening up for me. When we hit 90, the salesman got nervous but kept his mouth shut. At 100 mph he started shifting around uncomfortably.

I wasn’t meaning to scare him. The car and I were talking to each other. I could feel the machine singing with joy at actually being driven the way it was supposed to be, by feel, not by someone watching a shift indicator on the dashboard.

We leveled the acceleration at somewhere over 100 mph, dropped speed, and turned around to head back to the deanship. I knew as I made the turnaround to get back on the freeway heading the direction we’d come, that neither I or the car could be separated. I hadn’t felt that good about driving since I’d lost the 1 series.

The lease was an option that worked for the moment and within a month I knew I’d found a worthy replacement for the 1 series. During the lease, I worried that something would happen that would make me have to give up the 4 but I promised it, and myself, that I’d do my best to keep it happily in my garage.

It wasn’t until yesterday that the reality hit me. I’d kept my promise, (some might say it was a selfish promise…)

I’ve always had a “feel” for machines. While most machines and I get along great, there are some machines that feel special, they feel like they have a soul. I’ve repaired machines that I swore were messing with me just for kicks and a little kind attention. Those machines became my favorites to service and repair. They usually made me smile with their improbable antics or malfunctions. Often, they just needed some tender loving care and I’d see them again in 6 months or a year.

I know a few folks who believe some machines have souls, so it’s not as weird as it might seem. We’ve all been in offices where one person couldn’t get a specific machine to work properly no matter what. The machine works fine for everyone else, just not that one person.

That’s a machine soul trying to tell everyone something. I noted years ago that machines with souls seem to know who the jackasses in a business are, and they’re not shy about broadcasting it to the rest of the company.

My 1 had a good soul and we went through a lot of crap together. No matter how bad my 1 was feeling it never left me stranded. It would get me someplace safe limping all the way if it had to.

The 3 was indifferent and cold, it was a common car just like a thousand others on the road. The 3 had no problems at all just stopping wherever it was.

The 4 wanted to be loved and driven. It wanted to have someone who appreciated it in the drivers seat. It has a good soul. I’m confident that it will always do its best to get me where I’m going, or warn me ahead of time that something is wrong. Even with its nose smashed up and a puncture to the floor pan caused by a semi tire retread in the lanes, my 4 yelped but kept on going. It got me home safe that night, and the next day we were at the repair shop.

I’m lucky the 4 picked me, (or caught my eye,) that sunny day in San Diego.

Maybe, depending on the cost of the registration, for Christmas I’ll give the 4 a proper name printed on a classic black & yellow California plate.

For the time being, I’m letting it know that now it is truly mine and we’ll take care of each other and be just fine.

I wonder if this is how people felt about horses?


Later in the day…

While loading CDs, I plugged one in from Rush. I couldn’t help but laugh when Red Barchetta, started playing. It reminded me that in California by 2035 all new vehicle sales are mandated to be electric only.

Just 13 years from now, unless Gov. Newsom decides to speed up the timetable. It will take some time for California to make all gas vehicles illegal to own, or operate. The legislature will probably get around to it by 2045.

It’s funny to think that I might live long enough to watch a song play out in in real life. I could survive into my 80s and watch high speed chases where the perpetrator is only guilty of joyriding in a gas powered automobile.

I hope that I’m watching it from an old folks home located in another state. The only problem I might have, is pissing off the other old folks by rooting for the gas powered vehicle to outwit and outrun the electric police cars.

What are they gonna do about it? Deny me my pudding?

Not to beat Roe v. Wade into the ground, but…

As the media, Hollywood, and politicians continue to bang on about just how awful overturning Roe v. Wade will be and their shrill demand My Body My Choice echos through the land. I got to thinking…

If they really mean “My Body My Choice” then shouldn’t they also condone prostitution?

Would all these Neo-Feminists be so keen to preserve Roe, if the ruling also said Prostitution is legal in all 50 states?

Is it fair that a woman can be arrested for renting her body? After all, a prostitute is still exercising autonomous control over her body isn’t she?

It’s hypocritical on its face that many of the same women demanding abortion be Federal, not in the hands of the states, typically take a very dim view of prostitution.

I’m not even going to point out the hypocrisy of those same women becoming screaming “Karens” demanding everyone get a COVID vaccine.

Then there was one shrew on a show saying that all boys should be subject to mandatory vasectomies when they reach reproductive age.

Her reasoning was “It can be reversed”. But that’s not entirely true in all cases. Norplant and IUDs can be reversed too, again not in all cases. However, she wasn’t calling for mandatory Norplant or IUD implantation.

Nope, for this particular shrew, it was only men that bore the responsibility for unwanted pregnancy. She completely ignored the fact that while some rapes result in pregnancy, the vast majority of abortions are performed on women who consented to sex.

Both men and women bear the responsibility for an unwanted pregnancy. Birth control is readily available to both genders.

Or are we to infer that women are too emotionally weak, inflamed by their passions, or irresponsible to tell their sex partner, “No, not without a condom,” when they know they’re not using birth control themselves? Where is the concept of My Body My Choice here?

I can’t remember if the shrew was Sunny Hostin or Joy Reid nor can I find the exact quote at the moment.

(I’m looking for it. I’ve been shocked at how many threads there are demanding forced sterilization of men. One could infer that women think forced sterilization is perfectly fine as long as it’s a man, and only women have the right to “My Body, My Choice“)

I wonder how they’d feel if Roe was modified and codified into the US Constitution as All Americans have the same right, “My Body My Choice,” allowing prostitution and the right to refuse any medical treatment, regardless of the situation.

How would they behave if, in the spirit of equity, the law applied equally to Women and Men.


Then there’s another hypocrisy surrounding the issue. I’ll grant you it’s an outlier but think about this. If an unmarried couple find that they’ve created a life. The woman in the couple under current law, can have the baby aborted without the male partner’s consent.

However, if the woman carries the baby to term, the father of record, is legally obligated to provide child support and pay all the fees the court may decide to saddle him with. Regardless of his desire that the woman abort his child. He might also be denied the right to visitation. This, even if the couple has broken up and the woman has found another wealthier partner and married him.

I’m not meaning to open the can of worms about child support per se, but I do ask the question; why in this scenario does the man have absolutely no choice?

Well, he does have a choice… There’s the phenomenon of solo sexuality.


This is where normal healthy young men chose to tend to their own needs exclusively so that they don’t risk being trapped into fatherhood or anything else by a vagina owner.

This logical response by men who wish to avoid complications, or entrapment, is technically under attack with anti-pornography laws. Laws which oddly are billed as protecting women from exploitation. Is it exploitation when the woman is exercising “My Body My Choice” and she chooses to perform in a pornographic film?

The anti child pornography laws, I’m totally on board with.

Young men who have made this particular choice are often viewed as abnormal by society.

Which is it ladies? You say you’re afraid of rape, unwanted pregnancy, toxic males, and all the other bullshit. But at the same time you seek to deny other women the right to sell their services either directly, or on film, and seek to deny men a non-toxic sexual outlet.


The last I read about the solo-sexual phenomena, it seemed that it was mostly confined to large urban environments and the young men in question were educated and had decent jobs. They’re simply making a choice that does not involve risking the rest of their future for a few minutes of pleasure.

After dealing with the Neo-Feminists at work over the last 10 years or so, I understand their point.

I’m very glad that I’m partnered and that I’m more gay than bi. Don’t get me wrong, a mentally mature woman that knows herself and takes responsibility is sexy as hell. Unfortunately, they’re becoming exceedingly rare.

Generally, the women I’ve encountered in the workplace have convinced me that:

1) I will not seek a hetro relationship if my current one ends. (For that matter, I’ll probably not seek a homo relationship. Gay men are often just as nuts as Neo-Feminists.)

2) If I find that I’m jonesing for the company of a woman, I’ll fly to Vegas and rent some professional time.

3) A lot of the women I’ve encountered in urban settings, are not people I want to combine my DNA with. There are tons of drop dead gorgeous women, but intellectually they’re not up to snuff. I’d be better off importing an uneducated farm girl from some 3rd world cesspool to make babies with. At least they’d be strong, healthy, have practical comprehension of the real world, and common sense. We all have an inherent duty to make better offspring, not doom the planet to idiot children who can’t command fire.

4) Avoid at all costs any woman with a goofy dye job, weird shitty tattoos, and so many piercings they can’t get through a metal detector. Think of them like brightly colored animals or insects. Typically if a creature has some kind of wild coloration they’re toxic. Think Arrow Frogs, Lionfish, Blue Ring Octopus, Gila monsters, or Coral Snakes.

5) Spanking the monkey is a much more efficient and pleasurable use of my time. To this day, nobody does me, like I do.

The problem with solo sexuality is that it’s likely to lead us to life imitating art.

If only the dumb, or irresponsible, are reproducing then we’re going to end up like the movie Idiocracy.

If you’ve not seen the movie, give it a whirl. Call it a dark comedy. Sadly, I think the fictitious president and cabinet from the movie displays more intelligence than our current administration. That’s another story…


A Neo-Feminist reading this post will probably have her head explode and fire off some diatribe about me being misogynistic.

Before she gets completely spun up, I’d ask her to consider this… I am exactly what you have made me. You have no right to complain. Take responsibility and change. It’s not just your body your choice, it’s also your mind your choice.


I’ve been amused that a lot of the main stream press photos of young protestors demanding Roe v. Wade are people, (Male or Female,) that I personally wouldn’t ever sleep with. No matter how much alcohol was involved.

Many of the females are so visually unappealing to me, I doubt they’re likely to see the inside of an abortion clinic.

As a man who respects himself, I can’t imagine being so desperate that I would risk putting my penis in any of them. I suppose there are men who don’t have my standards for potential reproductive partners. That’s totally on them, and god help us!


Saturday 5/14/2022

So now these people are protesting in front of Supreme Court Justices homes. Oh for fucks sake! First of all that’s illegal since there is part of the legal code that says attempting to intimidate a Judge, Witness, Juror, or officer of the court is punishable by 1 year in jail.

Peacefully Protesting in front of the Supreme Court building is. one thing. Disrupting the lives of an entire neighborhood and the life of the Justice by protesting at his or her home is another thing entirely.

These people in some of the videos are calling for mandatory vasectomies for BOYS! while at the same time carrying “My Body My Choice” signs…

Can you say hypocrisy?

Oh, wait, “My body My Choice” only applies if you’re a woman. But what is a woman these days? We seem to be unable to define that!

You men marching in solidarity for Roe v Wade… The minute you hear mandatory vasectomy for boys, it’s your fucking duty to switch sides or shut that shit down.

That vasectomy bullshit isn’t about abortion rights. It’s only about beating all men into submission and if you’re supporting that, you deserve to be castrated.

On it’s face that statement says women want to be in control not only of their reproduction rights but they want to control yours as well. If you’re that stupid, you probably shouldn’t reproduce anyway.

These harridans scream about bodily autonomy and in the next fucking breath say let’s subject all boys to un-necessary surgery. It sure feels like they’re trying to treat males like dogs.

“Oh look Marilyn-Moonrock, little Johnny is coming of age, pretty soon he’ll be marking the furniture… Better get him fixed as soon at possible!”

What’s next? Wait until a boy is 12 or so, take him in to surgery snip him, and circumcise him at the same time? That would cut down on the pubescent masturbation wouldn’t it? What will they call for after that? Mandatory, yet unnecessary surgery on boys genitals WITHOUT Anesthesia, a sort of pre-punishment for any ills the male might commit?

Then these… There is no other term for them, Vile Bitches could completely control all aspects of what coming of age as a male is.

From constantly telling boys they’re testosterone poisoned and violent, drugging them into submission in schools, complaining about their poor grades because they’re drugged into submission, then denigrating them for being stronger or wanting to test themselves, to making them ashamed of their natural development.

Good plan you vicious cunts! You know, a little female genital mutilation might also go a long way toward negating the need for abortions. Just sayin…

Figure 30 years of mandatory vasectomies, and we’d have women bitching and complaining that they can’t find a man committed enough to go through the surgical procedure to reverse the sterilization process. After all a man isn’t likely to want to relive the childhood trauma a bunch of nasty women imposed on him. I could just see that, a man telling a woman who wants children, “No, My Body My Choice.”

If this is what the majority of the liberals are like… I want absolutely nothing to do with any of them!

Joy Behar suggested recently that women go on a sex strike.

Guys… here’s a thought. Stop dating, or if you date, make sure the women pays the fucking tab.

If you end up in the bedroom, Make sure you wear a condom and demand that the woman has a diaphragm and spermicide in place. You can’t trust her if she says she’s on the pill.

Oh and to top things off… When you’re done, don’t worry about her orgasm. Pull your pants up and leave, dispose of the condom after you’re out the door.

Trust me a few months of that, and all the nice women, the good women, the kind women, the women you’d want to make a family with… They’ll hunt down and rip these liberal bitches limb from limb.

The liberals are very quick to call a man a misogynist…

I suggest to them, if you wonder why men seem more misogynistic…

LOOK IN THE FUCKING MIRROR!

I’d sooner get my jollies with rancid road kill than be intimate with most liberals

I know I sound pretty pissed off, and I am. The blatant hypocrisy these Neo-nazi, Neo feminists are displaying really fires up serious anger.

How about teaching fucking responsibility? Hey, there’s a concept. Oh right, no-one is ever. responsible for their own actions.

Yeah, I call bullshit!

I’m thinking it might be time for me to shift some of my retirement account into lifelike sex dolls… I think I see a ready to boom, business opportunity.