This is a rant!

Having been a mechanic for about four years I think I know a little bit about cars and how to treat them and the customer. After being a mechanic and finding out that working on other people's cars wasn't as fun as working on your own, what with the customer wanting it just right and right now! and dealing with bosses who want you to be a wizard with a wrench and be able to diagnose a problem using just touch and smell, I quit to go to the university and get a less demanding career. Yeah teaching. So much less demanding, right...

Anyway I can fix most things on my car myself, but for anything major, I hire a mechanic since I want it just right and right now!













Breaker Bar

A couple of months ago I had the rear struts replaced by a mechanic since I didn't have the tools to do the job myself. Today I rotated the tires and found that the lug nuts had been torqued down so tight it took a breaker bar and a cheater pipe to break them loose! For those who don't know, a breaker bar is a solid bar, about 18 inches long, that attaches to sockets when you need the extra leverage a ratchet wrench won't give you. If you really need extra leverage, you "cheat" and put a piece of pipe on the bar to lengthen it for even more leverage.










Woman using an air impact wrench













Air impact wrench

The problem is that when you have a flat or blowout on the highway, very few people have more than the lug wrench that came with the car. For most people, the only time they ever change a tire themselves is when they have a flat. So unless they have a good mechanic who torques the lug nuts properly, anyone who has a flat finds that the tire is impossible or nearly impossible to remove. I've been reduced to standing on the lug wrench and jumping up and down on it to loosen overly tightened lug nuts before. This is nonsense! When mechanics take those high powered air impact wrenches and hammer those lug nuts as tight as they'll go, it shows how ignorant and stupid they are.










Woman using a torque wrench










Torque Wrenches

I think from now on I'm going to tell them I want a torque wrench used on them and have them torqued to factory specifications so I can be sure it's done right. You can tighten them properly with an air impact wrench if you're careful. I do it. If you stop almost as soon as the impact wrench starts to chatter, they're tight enough. Simple!

Richard's main page

If you're seeing this blog in a frame click here to see it without the frame

Fixed the link!

I fixed the tag below so that when you click on "If you're seeing this blog in a frame..." It actually works when you click it and will actually take you out of the frame!

Richard's main page
If you're seeing this blog in a frame click here to see it without the frame

Sarah Palin's speech

The speech! Home run!

Full remarks as prepared for delivery and provided by the McCain campaign of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as she accepts the 2008 Republican vice presidential nomination on Sept. 3, 2008, at the Xcel Energy Center in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accepts the GOP vice presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. Palin and Sen. John McCain will face Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden in a battle for the White House.

(The Associated Press)
More Photos

Mr. Chairman, delegates, and fellow citizens: I am honored to be considered for the nomination for Vice President of the United States...

I accept the call to help our nominee for president to serve and defend America.

I accept the challenge of a tough fight in this election... against confident opponents ... at a crucial hour for our country.

And I accept the privilege of serving with a man who has come through much harder missions ... and met far graver challenges ... and knows how tough fights are won - the next president of the United States, John S. McCain.

It was just a year ago when all the experts in Washington counted out our nominee because he refused to hedge his commitment to the security of the country he loves.

With their usual certitude, they told us that all was lost - there was no hope for this candidate who said that he would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war.

But the pollsters and pundits overlooked just one thing when they wrote him off.

read the rest here: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Conventions/story?id=5720910&page=1

Richard's main page
If you're seeing this blog in a frame click here to see it without the frame

National Review article on Obama's Disturbing Connections

What a disturbing article! The following is a National Review article reprinted, with the unflattering smoking picture added, in the Information Vault way back in April of this year. It points out that Obama hates his country and his wife is a racist. Obama should be judged by the company he keeps and that company ain't pretty!

Obama's Disturbing Connections

Friday April 25, 2008 22:09

The Company He Keeps Meet Obama’s circle: The same old America-hating Left. By Andrew C. McCarthy National Review Why is Barack Obama so comfortable around people who so despise America and its allies? Maybe it’s because they’re so comfortable around him. He presents as the transcendent agent of “change.” Sounds platitudinous, but it’s really quite strategically vaporous. Sen. Obama is loath to get into the details of how we should change, and, as the media’s Chosen One, he hasn’t had to. But he’s not, as some hopefully dismiss him, a charismatic lightweight with a gift for sparkling the same old vapid cant. Judging from the company he chooses to keep, Obama’s change would radically alter this country. He eschews detail because most Americans don’t believe we’re a racist, heartless, imperialist cesspool of exploitation. The details would be disqualifying.

The rest of the article is here: http://theinformationvault.com/politics/campaign-08/obama/37-obama/59-obamas-disturbing-connections.html

Richard's main page

If you're seeing this blog in a frame click here to see it without the frame

Michael Moore does it again!

Michael Moore believes that he is so important that God will smite innocent people just so he can smirk that hurricane Gustav has ruined the Republican convention! I've known for some time that he is an arrogant blowhard, but this is beyond anything he's said before. Now he did apologize, but is he sorry for what he said, or sorry he got in trouble?



DNC national chair Dan Fowler was also amused that the hurricane was disrupting the Republican convention, but his comments were overheard on an airline and the video was apparently taken without his knowledge so I'm not posting it here.

But this is typical of the Democrat party. They are hateful and vindictive. There were no Republican operatives with feces and urine arrested trying to disrupt the Democrat convention, but there were Democrat operatives with feces and urine arrested trying to do just that at the Republican convention.

I keep pointing out to people that we have two parties in this country, the evil party and the stupid party. The Democrat leaders are evil and the Republican leaders are stupid for not recognizing they're evil. They just keep trying to get along with them.

Richard's main page

If you're seeing this blog in a frame click here to see it without the frame