Well…got a bit of bad news this morning when I got a text from M saying his parents house burned down last night….I had that happen to me when I was 12 and I can still smell the smoke and remember the sound of the flames when I ran upstairs to wake my brother up…..I feel so bad for them since it was the home that M grew up in. Kind of makes the rest of this post pointless in comparison….so I’m going to end this here and reflect for a while…..
Okay…back to work….it was kind of a nice day yesterday with not much to to…how many times have you heard that? I do have HBO for free for the weekend so that helped to pass the time…and it was a cocktail night which helps even more….I did get the brakes fixed and the pedal feel really hard again but I still need to take it out on the e-way and bed them in….today is going to be okay with the Wings on at one and then races later in the day….will probably just veg today and take it easy but maybe clean the bathroom…not sure yet…and maybe a Wings update after the game…..more later….
Well….it has been an interesting day today that has taken me quite far out of the normal routine…so I don’t think there will be any political comments, at least right now since the papers are only a distant memory and I don’t know if I want to go back and re-read them right now…so, I’ll just give an update of the morning and the wonderful weirdness that has happened. As you know, if you look down at the mornings first one, I was planning on working on the brakes on the wreck…and I did go out and get the parts, but broke my lug wrench jumping on it to get the tires off….so I had to go back and get a socket to fit them and use my breaker bar to get them off. After that, the brakes actually came apart pretty easily and things were going well until I installed the wrong pad in the back of the driver’s side and then the other side wouldn’t go together…took quite a while to figure out I had made a mistake and had to take both sides back apart and install the pads in the right places….this still only took a total of about 45 minutes so I guess I shouldn’t bitch too much….but I get to since this site belongs to me….and it was a good idea to to get this done today since the thinnest pad had less than 1/8 inch left on it…way too thin for the brakes to be effective. This should be the last time I do brakes since the car is just rusting away and I think I may wake up some morning, go outside, and the car will be gone…leaving just a small rust pile where it would have been….
Well….Tuesday was Thursday yesterday and it was pool day…I did win but Tom did a lot to help me so I’m not that happy about it….okay, a win is a win so I’ll take it. The brakes on the wreck need to be replaced and I’m going to see if I can get it apart here in the lot….they’re not grinding yet so If I need to take it out to Tom’s to do it Monday I can….it will give me something to do today and with the grocery shopping this morning, it is going to be a busy day….other than that, not much to do today….I am going to take it easy once I get everything done with a Neflix movie coming today and cocktails tonight….I did have some dreams last night…yay…but they were kind of disturbing with T in them….well…not disturbing just strange with 28th street and Indiana Jones in it…told you it was weird….I will have topics for later and a brake update once I get into it..hope it doesn’t rain….
Well…I don’t know if my lucidity has come back to me…probably not, but I’m going to write this one anyway. It was another bad start for the Wings last night, going down 1-0 in the first and looking like they were not awake yet. Not unusual for them if you’ve seen any of this season but still frustrating as heck. They did come awake in the second and took the lead and then poured it on in the third but let in a goal to make it a final score of 4-2. I was ready to have Jimmy Howard replaced after the first goal since it was a soft one, not unlike quite a few he let in during the regular season. But, he stood up in the 2nd and 3rd and looked okay….and we even got goals from Hudler and Frantzen who have been in slumps for more than a month. So, what do I think of the Wings chances? I filled in the survey on the Wings site the other day that the Wings will win it in 5…and I think that’s as good a guess as any….it will probably go 6 but I’m hoping for four….
One last thing, the game was supposed to be on Versus and that was the reason I went out and spent some money…but when it started, it was on FSD with Ken and Mickey…strange….okay, it looks like they’re all on FSD except for sat on NBC…coolness…
Well…if you’ve been here before, you know one of my favorite, recurring targets is Nolan Finley, who writes a column for the Detroit News….the right wing leaning newspaper I read every morning…yeah, I know, you ask yourself why, why do I read this paper when you know that I am a progressive? Look, I need to know what the repub talking points are and I can be sure that the point of the day will be in the News…usually led by brother Nolan. This mornings’ column is a screed that goes off on Obama’s speech yesterday that proposed letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those who make over 250 K a year, and he goes on that it would be unfair since the top 1% already pay 30% of the taxes paid in the US. He continues that the top 10% pay 73% of the taxes paid and it is unfair for them to pay more when 47% of the filers pay no taxes at all. Nolan, Nolan, Nolan….you do forget to mention that the top 10% get over 90% of the total income in this country…do the math….that means that the rich are not paying their fair share but are finding ways to buy a favorable tax code through donations to the repubs…..and to your second point, the reason that 47% of the people pay no taxes is the repubs policies from Saint Reagan to now have decimated the middle class and incomes for all of the middle class and poor have dropped to the point that they are now approaching the poverty level.
I don’t think Nolan and his repub cronies will be happy until they steal all of America…it is a question of fairness and of vision, what kind of country do we want? Where the repubs can excoriate the middle class for becoming poor and not paying taxes while our richest corporations use their power and money to do the same? Geez….I may be back to add to this one later…but I am so irritated by this idiots ramblings that I am having trouble being lucid….
Well…a kind of fun night last night…went out with G for a few and to watch the Wings…they had me a little concerned after the first perlod with the lack of work from the whole team but once the second started, the real Wings showed up and we scored the next 4 goals. Even Hudler got one….crap, this is supposed to be a sports post later…so no more Wings now….must have sent and gotten 50 texts…it is kind of weird to watch the game with the group by text. I didn’t sleep all that well last night but there were vestiges of dreams that I can remember so maybe they are coming back….that would be great. Just took a look at the radar and it looks like there is rain coming so maybe no bike ride today…just when I am getting over the hump with pain and my lungs are getting better..oh, well…I’m already 130 miles ahead of last year so I guess I can take the day off. Not much to do today..don’t think I’m meeting up with K today so I might write Tom and see if today could be pool day….who knows? I will have at least two more later…the Wings one, of course, then I’m sure I’ll have comments on the Obama speech…more later…
Well….I know this is kind of obscure since not many of you know who Senator John Kyl is…oh, you do? Good, that might put this more in context….okay, a couple of days ago Senator Kyl went on the floor of the senate and made the assertion that 90% of the funding that Planned Parenthood gets is used for abortions; no matter that the the real number is around 3%, since you know that facts don’t mean much to the repubs…but, the breathtaking part is not the lie…nope, even better than that, the statement that his office put out later is….they put out a press statement saying that what he said on the senate floor was not meant to be factual…not meant to be factual? Then what was it meant to be? A recipe for cornbread? C’mon senator Kyl….at least try to hide your lies for a little while longer…you can use page 84 of the repub playbook, chapter 15 entitled “Say anything, it doesn’t matter”. Geez….
Just a short one for the other stuff….read an article this morning that dissected the Ryan budget proposal and it’s fiscal effects on the national debt…and compared it to the effect of ending the Bush tax cuts…guess what? Ending the Bush tax cuts has the same effect as all of the cuts that Ryan proposes that will fall on the middle class and the poor. Is there any question the Ryan has an ulterior motive? Reward the rich Ryan….has a nice ring to it doesn’t it? geez….
Well..another day of being good an I am almost used to it…but that will end tonight with the first Wings playoff game…feel okay this morning and slept pretty well but I’m still wondering where the dreams went…I kind of miss them…love to be entertained when I’m sleeping….watched ‘Unstoppable” yesterday and I think it was one of the first times I was bored with a Tony Scott movie….it was nice to get my workout and the bike ride in before lunch yesterday but is still pretty damn cold….where is the April warmup that is longer than one day? There may even be frost and snow later in the week and that is really depressing…..oh, well….not much to do today…I am going to meet up with G later for a couple and the Wings, of course…can’t wait to see which team comes out tonight….have to get the gear out and show the winged wheel for at least the first one….more later…
Well…just a couple of things today…I haven’t been able to come up with a really coherent set of thoughts, so I’m just going to kind of let it loose and see what happens….first…with the anniversary of the Civil War’s start, I find it so odd that there is still an ongoing effort by some folks on the right and in the south to obscure what the war was about; they have been floating the whole states rights malarkey as a replacement for the real reason…the south wanted to keep slavery plain and simple. I wonder at the reason for these efforts, after all, it’s been 150 years. What benefit is there to be gained by trying to change the reasons? Just another episode to me where people on the right can’t accept facts and are intent on using one of their favorite tactics to change the truth; that is repeating lies until people say “oh, I’ve heard that somewhere” and then saying it must be the truth.
On other thing that I want to talk about is the lack of fight coming out of the White House in the budget battle which truly are struggles for the soul of this nation….why can’t they just stand up and compare what the US looks like now, and how it will look if the Ryan proposals are enacted…starting with the windfall the changes in Medicare would be for insurance companies…c’mon Obama, if you can’t make insurance companies look bad by just citing their actions, you’re just not paying attention..stop being so afraid of looking partisan and get to this whole tax cut nonsense for the rich…call the repub idiots out to prove that these cuts create jobs…which they don’t. How can you fumble this when all of the facts are on the side of the moderates….what does cutting funding for Planned Parenthood do to create jobs? Geez….I came up with these two by myself without much thinking, get off your butt and start working for us….and remember, crazy ideas from the right need to be called crazy…stop being so nice to these idiots and slap them with their lies, it is not partisan to call out idiots…I think you are allowing America to be hijacked by the tea partiers because you don’t have the guts to stand up and put them in their place…I for one, don’t want to have my life dictated by the 15% fringe that is the tea party…
Well…home for another night…it seems my schedule is undergoing a bit of an upheaval and major changes are in store for the near future…I knew this was coming at some point but it doesn’t make it any easier…I’ll share more about this later but I don’t really have it straight in my head yet so I don’t want to comment. Pretty much a bore of a day yesterday since the wind was blowing so hard I didn’t want to take the bike out and with G canceling, my Monday could not pass too quickly. I did sleep okay, which I didn’t expect, and with being good, I feel okay today and hope to continue the cleaning process here; catching up on things that I have been avoiding for a while…could this be spring cleaning? Kind of a cliche, I know, and my life is turning into one so maybe it’s a good fit. Not much to do today….might be having Monday on Tuesday if I meet up with G tonight…no pool today since Tom has some work to do and we are moving that back to thurs or fri…..hoping to have some topics for later if I can keep the dogs of doubt at bay for a little while longer….