Well…have been taking it easy today and doing some reading…came across an article from Washington state where they are having hearings on whether or not to approve a new oil train terminal to allow Canadian oil to be exported from there. One of the selling points that the oil industry is using just made me shake my head when I read it…while they admitted that an oil spill would have negative impacts, they also proposed that a spill would have “positive economic impact” by the people that would have to be hired to clean up the spill and the money that would be spent on equipment to help that. Yep, they actually said that oil spills are a good thing due to the economic activity they bring….never mind that the estimated cost of a spill in the area they propose could cost up to 170 million dollars in environmental damage…but, hey….we’ll hire hundreds of people to clean it up so that’s okay. They go on to assert that when a spill happens it is actually beneficial to wildlife and fisheries since they would have to close the hunting and fishing seasons if there was a spill…keeping lots of fish and other wildlife from being hunted and killed….yep, they actually said that, too….Mr. Orwell…they have stolen your doublespeak….geez…
All posts by James DeVol
July 16th
Well…it was an okay and long day yesterday with all of the stuff I had to do for my birthday…and I feel pretty crappy today since I was on the go from noon to 7…slept okay last night and the weird thing is that I am still not sore anywhere this summer and I should be with going hard on the bike every day….but, I am not going to complain….the damn squeak is still in the bike so I need to try something else this morning…will probably go back to the stinky gear lube since that worked last time….not much to do today…need to run an errand this aft and I am going to make a little cash so that is cool…more later….
July 15th
Well…it was an okay day yesterday and I got a few things done so that was cool….slept okay but have been up since way too early so I think I’ll take a nap after the bike ride…was going to take the day off for a maintenance day but it has cooled off so nicely that I should go…and I don’t want to deal with the guilt that comes with taking a day off….had to repair the top on the car yesterday since the abrasion had worked it’s way through and it came out pretty good so that was cool, too…got it washed and waxed, too so it will look good on the run out to pool…..the damn bike was squeaking again yesterday but I splashed some water on the swing arm bushing and that stopped it so now I know where to lubricate….not sure how I feel about it being my birthday today…was pretty depressed last night but today seems better…not much to do today…pool, of course, and maybe lunch with T but that is about it….more later…
Things are shaping up…
Well…have been sitting here trying to think of something to write about when the news came over Twitter that it appears that Trump has picked Mike Pence of Indiana to be his VP. The repubs in Indiana are cheering like crazy today since Pence was behind the LGBT discrimination bill that has cost Indiana tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars and had made Indiana the laughingstock of the country. Now, they can run someone for governor that has a chance of winning…and the business community will have a chance to get the law repealed. But the stink of this discrimination will waft right along with ole Mike as he rides into Cleveland but the christianist right will think it’s perfume since hate groups like Family Research Council have succeeded in getting rabidly anti LGBT planks put into the repub platform. The only thing that ole Mike brings to the table is that he has actually been in government….shitty government that gutted education in Indiana while giving tax cuts to the rich…as all of the repub governors do….but for those supporting Trump, that’s a great thing since they think cutting education only hurts the teacher’s unions that they hate more than anything. The one thing I don’t understand about this whole election is how the Clinton e-mail “scandal” is equivalent to the serial bankruptcies, lies, and hate that come out of Trumps campaign….I fear for this country if the media continues to let all of Trumps transgressions go…geez…
July 14th
Well…it was an okay day yesterday and I got a few things done so that was cool…slept okay last night but I am a little sore today and I can’t figure that one out….haven’t done anything different over the past few days so that is weird….and the squeak came back in the bike yesterday so I had to take the seat post out and clean it since it was full of sand and dirt from riding in the rain the other day…used up all the grease so I’ll have to get more to do the caliper pins on the car next week…no close calls with cars on the bike yesterday and that was welcome…I really don’t like having to pay attention for everyone…my bike time is when I can zone out for the time and think and I get pretty irritated when that is interrupted….not much to do today…I do have to repair the top on the car since last years repair of the abrasion on the drivers side is looking pretty bad…and I want to wash it, too since I was out in the rain yesterday and it is looking kind of crappy….more later
A victory for the 4th amendment…
Well…going to stay away from politics for the day…unless there is a ruling in the Trump U. case….and there was a good ruling from a federal court that I wanted to talk about. As you know, the 4th amendment sets out that the government needs a warrant approved by a judge to search your “person, places, or things…” and you also know that police across this country have been violating the 4th amendment at will when it comes to modern day electronic devices such as cell phones since the law has not caught up with modernity…well, now it has. A federal judge has ruled that information gathered by the so-called “stingray” cell phone tracker that has been used for years now without warrants across this country is a violation of the 4th amendment. What this stingray does is “spoof” a cell phone tower…in reality creating a fake tower that all of the cell phones in the area will talk to and recognize as a real one…essentially allowing the police to track a persons movements or the movements of his phone to be accurate, with the judge saying “Absent a search warrant, the government may not turn a citizen’s cell phone into a tracking device.” This is good new for those of us that believe that the 4th amendment has been eroded over the years to allow the police to violate it at will….now, we need to have this ruling used as precedent across the country since there are over 200 organizations who have these tracking devices and are using them without warrants on a daily basis…..
July 13th
Well…getting to this one early again since I don’t know when the internet service is going to be out today….it was an okay day yesterday and I got a few things done so that was cool…slept okay last night and feel okay today but I do know that I need the ibuprofen before the bike ride…in much pain on the ride yesterday and don’t want to repeat that…cars had in in for me yesterday on the ride and I damn near hit two of them when they pulled out in front of me…will do one on that later today….there was a strong storm that came through here yesterday with 70 mph winds that just trashed the complex here….there is a 30 foot maple that was broken off at ground level lying in the street and the tops of a bunch of pine trees were sheared off…it looked like a tornado with the winds coming through….can’t wait to see what the trails look like…not much to do today….just the normal stuff and some cleaning…way too many spiders in the bathroom that need to go…more later….
The Republican platform…
Well…needed to get on this one early today with the cable going to be out later today….have been reading about that hoary old practice that happens before the political conventions of putting together the party platforms that consist of the promises of what the parties will do if elected in the fall….and when looking at the shape repub platform is taking, all I can say is we’ve seen all of this before…more tax cuts for the rich…more hate for LGBT people…more “clean coal” and the rest of the nonsense that has shown to never work whether it is economic or social…do they really think they can get a constitutional amendment to make LGBT citizens second class again? Do they want to turn the entire US into Kansas which is imploding from repub tax cut policies? Sadly to say, they really do believe this stuff and will continue to push it if elected….they just love to trash this country and anyone who is not rich…after all, in the greatest country in the world, if you are not rich, it’s your fault…that’s implicit in their platform, too….what a bunch of asses…geez…
July 12th
Well…it was an okay day yesterday but I still didn’t get anything done…other than spending 2 hours trying to get the squeak out of the bike….finally did it but the bike was covered in every lubricant I have so I had to clean it so I didn’t have the smell of gear lube in here…so, I’ll have to start from scratch today….hope it’s easier….need to get out early today since it is going to be 92 later…..was going to go to the beach today but the water temp is only about 60 and that is too cold for me so I guess I’ll wait til next week…slept okay last night and had some psychedelic dreams…as T calls them…that were all over the board….I do hurt this morning but I think it’s from working on the bike…but, I did have cramps in my calves last night that I can’t figure out….not much to do today…just the normal stuff and maybe some cleaning but I’m not sure about that…..more later….
This is bravery…
Well…just had to do a short one on an article I just read out on Kos…over the weekend, an Iraqi man recognized that a suicide bomber was trying to get into a shrine to detonate a suicide vest….this brave man, Najih Shaker Al- Baldawi hugged the suicide bomber and detained him while he set the vest off…killing Mr. Al-Baldawi and the murderer….but saving hundreds of lives….this is bravery….RIP….