Used Car Salesman Of The Year

Who remembers Ralph Williams in SF area? Big time car salesman. This is one of the greatest commercials ever seen and it only aired once. During the late 60s, most television programs and commercials were live. There were no "pre-recorded" programs. There were some obviousproblems with this method. No "retakes" and "bloopers" were a regular occurrence. He quit right after this commercial. This is no blooper. This guy was just upset with his boss and told it like he thought it was. What a great job of ad-libbing. He never misses a beat, if you listen carefully, you'll hear the cameraman and soundman lose it.The commercial got on air, but only once.

I seriously doubt this commercial was ever aired. Contrary to what the accompanying blurb has to say, there was extensive use of videotaping in the sixties. The technology was first developed in 1951 and was first used on The Jonathan Winters Show on October 23, 1956.

Apparently this was a gag outtake made by the salesman during the commercial's videotaping ... how else would it have been been saved? 

It's Magic

There Is A Cure For Stupid

Tag 'em. bag 'em, notify the next of kin that while he was turning his life around he hit a tree.

USA in FIFA Sweet Sixteen

Okay. So maybe I'll watch.

Got nothing better to do anyway.

Public Sector Unions Slapped by Supremes

The legislators who passed these laws should aso be forced to pay restitution and interest for the dues forcibly removed from these health care workers paychecks.

From the Washington Free Beacon:

The Supreme Court ruling that struck down coercive union membership among Illinois home health workers could cost unions tens of millions of dollars, according to labor observers.

The court ruled 5-4 that Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D.) violated the First Amendment when he forced home health care workers, many of whom were caring for sick family members, to pay union dues. The ruling will impact the SEIU and AFSCME, the two unions that earned millions from the scheme, according to Paul Kersey of the Illinois Policy Institute.

“There’s $20 million a year they are used to getting from home care people and [home] daycare people and they won’t be receiving that soon,” he said. “This should bring an end to that.”

[...]The decision could strike a devastating blow to national labor groups, despite the fact that home health care workers in Illinois paid as little as $30 a month to the unions, according to Semmens.

“We’ve estimated that there are as many as half a million people who aren’t state employees being called state employees for the purpose of paying dues,” he said.

The National Right to Work Committee said that the Harris fight was the beginning, rather than the end of its push to end coercive public sector unionism.

Welcome Home Master Sergeant

Master Sergeant Jacinto Bernardo, an Iraq war veteran who recently retired after serving 21 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, asked his old Marine buddy Jeremy Epperson to watch his new home in Suisun, California, while he was stationed in Japan with his family. The home was a “major” fixer-upper because it was all the Bernardo family could afford.

Epperson gladly agreed to watch his Marine brother’s home, though he had much bigger plans in mind.

While Bernardo was away, Epperson raised money and support to do roughly $70,000 in renovations to the Marine’s house. He’s named the renovation program “Homecoming Heroes.”

Story here.

Make A Soldier Out Of This Freak

Pvt. Johnson  reporting to install wax toilet seal.

From The WSJ:

More than two-thirds of America's youth would fail to qualify for military service because of physical, behavioral or educational shortcomings, posing challenges to building the next generation of soldiers even as the U.S. draws down troops from conflict zones.

The military deems many youngsters ineligible due to obesity, lack of a high-school diploma, felony convictions and prescription-drug use for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. But others are now also running afoul of standards for appearance amid the growing popularity of large-scale tattoos and devices called ear gauges that create large holes in earlobes.

When our daughter joined the Army in 2008, the recruiter told us then that only about 30% of the population was eligible for recruitment. At the time I thought he was exaggerating...

New recruitment bonus! Join the military, get a free set of steak knives!

Nasal sharpener not included.

That's How You Do It

The FBI has 80,000 emails taken from company email servers

Rupert Murdoch faces trouble on both sides of the Atlantic today following claims the FBI has 80,000 News Corp emails in their possession while a corporate probe into the company continues to gather pace.

According to reports, the FBI has copies of at least 80,000 emails - all of which are said to have been taken from the servers at News Corp, Mr Murdoch's parent company, in New York.

The messages were not included in evidence submitted during the British phone hacking trial - and so could not be reported until the jury reached its verdicts, it is claimed.

Yet the IRS insists that months of email messages were"accidentally" destroyed when Lois Lerner's hard drive crashed. I don't know of  any corporate email system that stores or archives emails on the users' PC. It is just unworkable.  These files are maintained on servers and if the server crashes then there is backup software that is used to restore it. The IRS has an IT budget of over $1.2 billion a year and they can't do this?

IT professionals must be having a major fit over this ridiculous claim, and they are:

Were Lois Lerner’s allegedly lost emails actually destroyed? An Ohio-based trade association, the International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers (IAITAM), isn’t so sure, and they don’t find IRS commissioner Koskinen’s explanation of their loss very plausible.

IAITAM administers internationally accepted certifications for information technology professionals. According to the group’s standards, if Lerner’s supposedly malfunctioning hardware was properly destroyed, there would be records of it.

Anytime I dispose of IT equipment in my office I need to complete a disposition sheet indicating the make, model and serial number of the item, it's location and whether or not it is still functioning. Granted, I only manage a little over 100 users in my office but our county domain covers about 4,000 users and the same standards apply to all office managers.

Having been trained in digital forensics (I set up the county crime lab's computer forensics section years ago) I also know there are ways to obtain information from a malfunctioning hard drive. There is highly specialized equipment  and software (i.e., EnCase is where I received my certification) available. To believe that all the resources of the federal government were inadequate for his task as the IRS maintains is beyond the pale. There must be hundreds, if not thousands of certified federal computer forensic examiners who would be able to retrieve this information.

If the IRS wanted to get into the storage media of a company that was accused of  tax evasion, you can bet your bottom dollar that this conversation would not be taking place.

The A-10 Warthog Will Fight On For Awhile Longer

This photo taken above the holy city of  Shiite Ur Pantz, Iraq

From the Arizona Daily Star:

The U.S. House on Thursday overwhelmingly adopted an amendment to the 2015 defense appropriation bill that would prohibit the Pentagon from spending any money to retire the A-10 Thunderbolt II jet — a mainstay of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

But the fate of the venerated “Warthog” close-air-support jet remains far from certain, as the Senate still must act, and the issue will likely be hammered out in conference committee.

The amendment’s bipartisan adoption was a victory for Rep. Ron Barber, a Tucson Democrat, and other A-10 supporters, who were chagrined when the House Appropriations Committee left A-10 funding out of its version of the defense spending bill.

“This is a victory for those brave men and women in our armed forces and engaged in ground combat who depend on the A-10,” Barber said in prepared remarks after the late-evening vote. “I am fighting for the A-10 to remain in service because there is no better and more effective aircraft for close air support of our soldiers and Marines on the ground.”

There is no other craft proven to be better at what the A-10 does than the A-10. It is a marvel of Close Air Support (CAS) and to throw it away without replacing it (the F-35 is yet unproven) is a crime. The A-10 has a dry weight of 12 tons, yet it can carry 13 tons of weapons into combat.

We can throw a quarter billion dollars of international welfare at Central America without batting an eye ... how about protecting our troops until a new weapons system is ready to replace a tried and proven one?

ODE TO A WARTHOG

I think that I shall never see

A plane so deadly, so ugly

A plane that's built around a gun

A plane that excels at a bombing run

A plane that's designed as a flying club

That surrounds its pilot with a titanium tub

He's safe as a babe in his mother's arms

Shielded from the enemy's deadly harms

A plane that sets the Hellcat loose

Like a thunderbolt hurled from Olympus by Zeus

Stupid poems are created every now and then

But only Fairchild Republic made the A-10

More here.

No American Soldier Left Behind

Except for this one.

Maybe if Sgt. Tahmooressi had been taken prisoner by Mexican police while in the act of deserting his unit he would be home by now...

Fox News tells us:

A Florida lawmaker Friday criticized President Obama for apparently not mentioning the jailed U.S. Marine who has been since March in a Mexican prison during a meeting with his counterpart in the country.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said "it's pathetic" that the mother of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi has to plead for her son's release from a Mexican prison while Obama apparently did not address the issue earlier in the day while meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto

"It is inexcusable, it is inexplicable, it is obscene, it is horrific," Ros-Lehtinen told Greta Van Susteren on "On the Record."

Tahmooressi, who suffers from PTSD and served in Afghanistan, has been languishing in custody since he was arrested in late March after he accidentally drove into the country with three legally purchased guns in his truck.

The Pope Made An Offer They Couldn't Refuse

Looks like Vincenzo Frogiero, AKA "Vinny Carwash," will need to look else where for a church to host his daughter's wedding.

SIBARI Italy (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Saturday took on one of Italy's most dangerous organised crime groups, calling it an example of "the adoration of evil" and saying Mafiosi "are excommunicated".

The pope, speaking about the 'Ndrangheta crime group during a mass in the southern Italy, issued the strongest attacks on organised crime since the late Pope John Paul lambasted the Sicilian Mafia in 1993.

"Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated," Pope Francis said in impromptu comments at a mass before tens of thousands of people.

He told the crowd: "This evil must be fought against, it must be pushed aside. We must say no to it."

He branded the 'Ndrangheta as the "adoration of evil and contempt of the common good" and said the Church would exert its full force in efforts to combat organised crime.

"Our children are asking for it, our young people are asking for it. They are in need of hope and faith can help respond to this need," he said.

More here and here..

Urban Legend ... But A Funny One

Thought I'd check this out. Seems a shame it isn't real...

On July 20, 1969, as commander of the Apollo 11 lunar module, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon.

His first words after stepping on the moon,"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," were televised to earth and heard by millions. But, just before he re-entered the lander, he made the enigmatic remark "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky."

Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some Rival soviet cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs...

Over the years, many people questioned Armstrong as to what the 'Good luck, Mr. Gorsky statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled.

Then, on July 5, 1995, in Tampa Bay, Florida, while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26-year-old question about Mr. Gorsky to Armstrong.

This time he finally responded because his Mr. Gorsky had just died, So Neil Armstrong felt he could now answer the question.
Here is the answer to "Who was Mr. Gorsky".

In 1938, when he was a kid in a small mid-western town, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit the ball, which landed in his neighbor's yard by their bedroom window.

His neighbors were Mr. And Mrs. Gorsky.As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky, "Sex! You want sex?! You'll get sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"

NASA does not give this urban legend any credence as voice recordings of Neil Armstrong's messages do not contain any reference to Mr. Gorsky.

All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way;

Yessir, just like it says in Isa 53:6, like butt humping, panting, nasty sheepsies. The US Presbyterian church leadership has gone astray; it now endorses unholy same sex union.

In honor of the occasion, Satan is throwing a coast-to-coast fecal sex party.
From the Ecumenical News:

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has voted to allow its pastors to perform same-sex marriages and has approved the definition of marriage as between two persons as well as between a man and a woman.

The largest Presbyterian denomination in the United voted Thursday to change its definition of marriage allowing its clergy to solemnize same-sex ceremonies in states where gay marriage is legal.

The vote was passed by 429 to 175 votes by the delegates from the 1.76 million-member Presbyterian Church (USA). It makes the church the first big American denomination to unequivocally allow clergy to officiate at gay marriage ceremonies and to define marriage as between two persons.

Of course the next step is to loosen up the definition of personhood....

Hey! cows are people too!

Rehab Is Progressing Nicely

It's been a week since the knee surgery and my recovery is proceeding well. I took the six month period between knee operations to strengthen my legs and it has paid off handsomely. I still need to use a cane but I took a walk down the block his morning. There is still a long way to go before I can say I am fully healed - it takes about a year for that - but my therapist says that I am way ahead of the curve compared to my last surgery. The last dressing comes off next Monday but the support hose stays on for another four to five weeks.

My goal is venison. Only five months to go.
Can't wait to ge back into the woods.

Also found a family in our new church that runs a beef farm. They are harvesting this September and I got my order in for a quarter steer. They're all grass fed, no chemicals, no growth hormones. It should average out from about $3 to $4 a pound, that includes butchering and wrapping. My SIL ordered a half cow; with six mouths in the family that'll be about 220 to 245 pounds of beef or thereabouts.

It's Because You're Irrelevant, Stupid!

Some knot head muzzie law student tries to hijack a political discussion and gets hammered for her efforts.