The Ramble for 08/01/11

College Point, NY— I’m across the water from Manhattan, with Laguardia between myself and there. It’s a pretty sight in the early evening, at least from this distance. I’ll be back here tomorrow morning,  with another load of drinks. Apparently the hot weather is good for someone’s business, anyway.

I have an older truck today,  because my usual truck… the blue one I’ve been driving, is having a problem with the emissions systems and needs repair.

My little Hotrod Truck

Just for laughs, I’ll show you my usual rig….255

It’s an ’06 International 9400-i Eagle, with a Cummins ISX engine and a 13 speed tranny, 300 gallon tanks. With around 500 horsepower and a torque rating of just under 1900 ft lbs, it’ll move right along, even with a serious load.

It’s all leather inside,  (yes, heated seats!) grade one stereo system, and is complete with a fridge, microwave, coffee pot and slow cooker.  I also keep a charcoal burner on the back porch.  I have it equipped with mobile internet streaming, (with internet radio who the bleep needs XM?… It also allows me to write to BitsBlog…) and a killer CB…(A Galaxy 929) and  about a week’s worth of clothing and food.  Lots of storage space in this thing.

It also has an auxiliary power unit, which runs when the truck isn’t moving, to generate AC power, heating and cooling, as well as the ability to run AC powered stuff, like power tools and whatnot.

With 300 fuel gallon tanks, I have an effective range of about 1500 miles, or two or three days worth of driving, depending on load and hills. I get compliments on the thing all the time, on the road. A real sweet truck to say the least. I’m working on polishing the aluminum and touching up the paint where needs be. It’s starting to really look good. Yeah, maybe there’s a lot of effort involved, but I have to spend days at a time in this thing; I may as well have some fun with it and be comfortable.

A spare truck I'm driving for now

The one I’m using to get me by for the next day or two ( i hope) is not nearly as nice, of course.   Here it is; It’s a 1998 version of pretty much the same model. Cummins N14-425, Super-10 tranny…(Which I like).Double sleeper. Huge inside, but with a million and a half miles on it, we have to sell it as a used truck. (grin) Actually, it drives OK, (The tranny shifts smooth as glass!) … and doesn’t look bad after I gave it some serious TLC. I won’t deny I’ll be happy to get my truck back.

It turns out the issue with my truck was a bad EGR sensor, and a bad EGR valve. The sensor was masking a real issue with the valve and made it hard to diagnose.  I had initially thought there was a problem with the turbo, and so did the wrench, as I gather it.  The actual problem cost a little less, but not much. The electronics in these things are even more complex than what you’d find in your car.  OK, lots going on, lets get to it:

• IT’S POLITICS, PURE AND SIMPLE: If anyone doubted that the Democrats are in a political battle, doubt no longer.  First,  Byron York points out….
  

  “The pattern of Reid’s and Durbin’s voting is difficult to miss: If Republicans control the Senate, they vote against raising the debt ceiling. If Democrats control the Senate, they vote in favor of raising the debt ceiling. It is a fact of life on Capitol Hill that the party in control of Congress bears the responsibility of raising the debt ceiling. That can become a difficult task when control of the House and Senate is split between Republicans and Democrats, as it is now. One might think it would make leaders who have voted along strictly partisan lines think twice before denouncing the other party as partisan. But it has not prevented Reid, Durbin, and Obama from doing just that.”

  Exactly so. But, there is more, of course, in the way of indication.  Example: When they start objecting to their own debt bill…. you know there’s something more than reality, afoot here.

  And here again, we see where the Democrats are unwilling to compromise. Yet, we see nobody in the press, and certainly very few in the sphere, willing to insist that the Democrats are the cause of the lack of compromise. It’s as GOP CHair Steele says:

  “For the second time, the House has passed a reasonable, common-sense plan to raise the debt limit and cut spending and, for the second time, Sen. [Harry] Reid [D-Nev.] has tabled it,” spokesman Michael Steel said in a statement. “The responsibility to end this crisis is now entirely in the hands of Sen. Reid and President Obama.”

  Indeed so. The fact is that for the blame for this crisis has always been there and there alone. I have long since begun to suspect that the reason we are in crisis mode right now is the Clintonian axiom, about how one should never waste a good crisis.  I suggest that the left has created this crisis, because it will provide them cover for increasing taxes ; an action which they would never be able to do without such cover as a crisis would provide.  It would certainly explain all of their actions in this matter to date, no?

  The American voter apparently is not convinced of the value of the deal they’ve coughed up.

  Oh… and , um, gang? Lets remember that Obama still intends to raise taxes regardless of any deal here. And, you can forget about any actual cuts. Remember, Congress does not operate in a zero-base budget world like everyone else. Rather they assume 8% growth per year, and anything less than that 8% growth of spending, they call a “cut”.  The Democrats have never actually cut any program other than defense. Never, Never, Never… and they’re not about to start now. Further, let’s recall, that the expiration of the Bush Tax cuts is looming. The Democrats have no intention of letting that stand, regardless of what damage is caused by it’s removal.

  So what, then was this all about? Well, let’s try it this way; Look at the amount of sound smoke and fury over getting the Democrats to agree to even consider a miniscule cut in the growth rate of government spending, and the growth of government itself, and you’ll begin to see what the American people are up against, with Democrats in any kind of position of power.

• • IT’S THE SPENDING, STUPID: Continuing this discussion on the debt deal;  Ira Stoll makes a rather important point:
    

    You can fool around with inflation and with the percentage of GDP and with the revenue side of the equation, but the bottom line is that the federal government is spending about double what it was at the end of the Clinton administration. For all the clamor on the left to bring back the Clinton-era top tax rates, there are few, if any, politicians in Washington talking about bringing back the Clinton-era spending levels.

    Well of course not. That’s because the Democrats are still in power. You’re never going to get spending cuts with ANY Democrats in power, or even so called ‘moderate” Republicans. It’s never happened, and never will. I say again, as I have on this site and other countless times….what we need s real conservatives in an overwhelming number.

    If this is, as the charge goes, a made up crisis, , then it was made up by the Democrats, who recognized early on that they would not be able to slip a tax increase by the American public in any other way. Even with that as a crutch, it’s very questionable as to whether they’d survive any tax increases at the next election I suspect they will not. But as I suggested above that’s what they intend to do.

    The spending the Democrats and centrist GOP types have done has done us in.  What we are now engaged in is an argument as to whether not we can hide the consequences of that spending, with more spending, and more taxes.   We cannot.  Let’s be clear, here….The debt the Democrats have forced on us, will crush us, regardless of what anyone does now.

    The fact is, we can either face cuts now, or after the default.  Either way, the default is coming, because with the tax increases the daeconomy won’t be able to continue gathering revenue.  But either way cuts… and huge ones, must happen. The spending is so large that we are not on a path we can sustain even assuming the unlikely scenario that they could take in taxes 100% on every dollar earned. It’s that simple.  And as I say, this economy will not withstand tax increases. You increase taxes, you lower tax revenue.   You may recall Obama saying you don’t raise taxes in the middle of a recession?

    In August 2009, on a visit to Elkhart, Indiana to tout his stimulus plan, Obama sat down for an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, and was conveyed a simple request from Elkhart resident Scott Ferguson: “Explain how raising taxes on anyone during a deep recession is going to help with the economy.”

    Obama agreed with Ferguson’s premise – raising taxes in a recession is a bad idea. “First of all, he’s right. Normally, you don’t raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven’t and why we’ve instead cut taxes. So I guess what I’d say to Scott is – his economics are right. You don’t raise taxes in a recession. We haven’t raised taxes in a recession.”

    But that’s exactly what  the left is proposing… raising taxes.  It’s popular with the usual suspects.  Why they don’t just send in their money without being forced to by law, is a mystery to me, really. That aside, lets get back to reality; What we have, is spending problem. It’s time the credit cards were cut up. And yes, I can hear the usual suspects already…. it is so immature of us not to write a blank check to allow  Obama to continue spending us into oblivion, huh?

    And listen, gang.. the only people who are desperate to raise the debt ceiling, are the Democrats, particularly the Obami. We have serious damage that’s been done by this spending. The only way to cover the Left’s backside on this ….they suppose…. is to get more money into the coffers so they can avoid the consequences of the unsustainable spending path they have us on. Or, so they think. It won’t work, of course, but that’s what motivates them. The Republicans are fools if they let the Democrats up from the mat, now.

• THOSE POOR POLAR BEARS:
  

  JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) —

  

  "That poor polar bear will drown!" "Um, no, they can swim about 60 miles at a go."

  Just five years ago, Charles Monnett was one of the scientists whose observation that several polar bears had drowned in the Arctic Ocean helped galvanize the global warming movement.Now, the wildlife biologist is on administrative leave and facing accusations of scientific misconduct.

  Ah, well. Live and learn. Our global Warming fanatic made a pretty good living off of propagating lies that supported the leftist myth of global warming. The facts are now in and they do not support the myth of global warming. Will people who were swayed by his fraud change their minds toward the truth of the matter?  More importantly, will our policies change, and will we end this war on reliable energy? In the short term at least, I tend to doubt it. In the longer term, say after the next election? Another matter.  I suspect that the groundswell of anger about the left in general will take over, about then.

• GEORGE WILL FINALLY GETS IT: I’ve said it often enough; the man needs watching. But now at last, hes starting to understand:
  

  

  George Will

  America is moving in the libertarians’ direction not because they have won an argument but because government and the sectors it dominates have made themselves ludicrous. This has, however, opened minds to the libertarians’ argument.

  Every once in a great while a crack of light shows through the stupidity of the man. Gives one hope he’s finally awakened to reality. Don’t worry, though, he’ll be back on the GOP establishment bandwagon next week, if past be prologue. Which means that as usual, he’ll be trying to get along with the left again instead of confronting them.

• OBAMA CONTINUES GUN COVER-UP: Time someone started investigating this.  Time to frog-march Obama administration in front of the cameras over this one. It’s that bad.
• OBAMA NOW AT LOWEST APPROVAL RATING IN HISTORY:  Gee, I wonder why, huh?