Kei cars

 I may have written about this back a while, but Road and Track just published another article claiming that Kei cars are legal in Colorado. This is not so. The director of DMV is empowered to write "rules" that carry the force of statute law and remain in effect until he leaves. Way back when, one of them decided that Kei vehicles would NOT be recognized as motor vehicles in Colorado, which relieved the DMV of having to process paperwork on them. The biggest argument was that the 25+ year old kei cars didn't meet current safety standards.

Boo Hoo! I guess I'll have to keep riding my motorcycles.

Anyway, here's the article:

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a63228977/colorado-scraps-kei-car-ban/

The ban is still in place. The catch in this is that for a brief while, you could bring in a kei truck or car if it was over 25 years old, and get a title for it. If you did, and kept it up, you could drive it on the streets. I still want a kei truck.

Non Political Fun

 You get bored, you start cleaning out the garage, and you find a couple of parts, and next thing you know, you got a(nother) hare-brained project started:

It's intended to replace the sign twirlers you see on the sidewalks announcing sales or tax services. Powered by a windshield wiper motor it featured eyes made from motorcycle turn signals, and a skull made from a dog dish. eventually it should include arms to raise and lower a sign. I envision this as a terminator-like assembly, outside a Victorias Secret with a sign warning women not to let their men be seduced away by a robot.

Sorry for the cluttered background. Next update I'll have a cleaner one.

Fun With Lawn Signs

 First off I read that Warren Buffet, of Berkshire Hathaway fame, who usually puts out a simple white yard sign with a blue dot on it to encourage people to vote Democratic, has decided to do without any signs this year. I like his approach, so I tried making one myself, a blank white sign with a simple red dot. Problem with this is that it looks like a Japanese flag. Changing the dot to an oval solves that problem, as would changing the dot to a square box. Problem solved.

Meantime, up the block, someone got a very fancy yard sign, in pink, with lace and feminine script reading "Madame President". Beautiful sign, wonderful sentiment. Only problem is that Margret Thatcher isn't on the ballot. To clear up the confusion that might result, I generated a modification to the sign. See below:

The only improvement I could think of was to make the feet separate pieces, with springs between each foot and a clip to attach them to the sign, gibing the assembly a dynamic aspect. Making the feet easily removable would probably result in them getting easily removed though, so I'll just stop here. I get 2 reactions to this picture: Shock and horror, vs guffaws of laughter. The originators might have picked a better font, as I had to explain that it doesn't say Maclam.

The Ballot Truck Song

 Remembering all those trucks that showed up at the counting station with hundreds of unfolded absentee ballots, all machine marked for Biden, at 2:30 AM the day after election day?

"Day-O (The Ballot Truck Song)"

Day-o, day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Me say day, me say day-o
Daylight come and de truck gone home

Work all night on a drink of rum
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Stack dem ballots till de morning come
Daylight come and de truck gone home

Come, Mister tally man, tally all me ballots
Daylight come and de truck gone home
Come, Mister tally man, tally all me ballots
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot stack
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Shove 'em all in to de counter hatch
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Day, me say day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Daylight come and me wan' go home

A beautiful bunch o' pre marked ballots
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Hide the deadly one for Trump
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot stack
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Shove 'em all in to de counter hatch
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Day, me say day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Come, Mister tally man, tally all me ballots
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Come, Mister tally man, tally all me ballots
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Day-o, day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Me say day, me say day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Billll

Vote For The Crook! - Convicted Felon!

Back in 1991, Louisiana was a one-party state, the Republicans having gone moribund, and it was an election year. The leading Democratic wannabe for Governor was Edwin Edwards, who had just been released from the state prison after serving 5 years for official corruption. Challenging him for the nomination was KKK leader David Duke. Duke changed his party affiliation after losing to Edwards in the party primary, and petitioned himself onto the general ballot. Edwards and Duke finished 1-2 and moved on to the runoff.

Humorous unofficial bumper stickers were created in support of Edwards over Duke, despite Edwards' negative reputation. One bumper sticker read "Vote for the Lizard, not the Wizard", while another read "Vote For The Crook: It's Important."

FWIW, the Wizard was never really a republican and the “crook” won.

Trumps Staff

 A piece in the WSJ today announces that Trump may be considering  an advisory role for Elon Musk. This would be the first time in my memory that a president has brought on someone with actual knowledge of a topic to advise him.

Rumor has it he's also courting Vivek Ramaswami, who at this point is not terribly enthusiastic about joining the Trump team.

While he's at it, he might consider Christie Noem in a position relating to down sizing the government. This should work well and prove to be a fairly smooth operation as many government employees would take the hint and either resign or take early retirement.

Fun With Headlines - Lost In Translation

 From IOTW:

WLT Report: Drew Barrymore invited Kamala Harris on her show and made an embarrassing mistake.

During the show, Barrymore, in a soft emotional tone, told Harris, “We need you to be ‘Mamala’ of the country.”

Harris responded, “Yeah, I mean, yeah, no, I know.”

Barrymore was attempting to join the words mom and Kamala together, but in doing so, she called Harris “Mámala,” which, in Spanish, means “suck it.”

Robots On The News

 As I predicted some 8 years ago,  and again 6 years ago  TV stations have moved from hiring overpaid pretty faces to robots to read the news, weather, and sports. The only difference is that instead of complex animatronic faces on upper body models with changeable wigs, they're using full body AI generated 3D models that look and move like real people. Or at least mostly like real people. The examples here  have repetitive hand movements that need a bit of variation added to make them a bit more realistic.

Visualize 3 AI models: The news is read by a 40-some male with a bit of gray at the temples in a nice suit. The sports can be read by a blond haired white gut with a good outdoorsy tan, or a black fellow who can be wearing the hairstyle of whomever is leading the sports stories today. (Dennis Rodman today.....) The weather girl can be modeled after the one a channel in Mexico found who can give the weather in such a way that notice of an impending extinction-level meteor strike goes completely unnoticed.

Notice that this will do nothing whatsoever for the veracity of the output. The models say whatever they're told to say so that the anonymous fake news writers become more important than the fake news readers.

Max Headroom, call your office. Your full body upgrade is now available.

Sweeden Recognizes Sex As Sport

 Fun with headlines department:

Sweden recognizes sex as a sport; first European Sex Championship to take place on June 8

According to the report, 70% of the votes from the crowd will be included during the final evaluation, while the remaining 30% will come from the judges’ votes. The European Sex Championship candidates will compete in 16 disciplines, including seduction, oral sex, penetration, Appearance, and so on.

Rumor has it that teams from Afghanistan and Scotland have been rejected as the governing committee as yet does not recognize sex between men and either goats or sheep as legitimate. Both countries have appealed. 

U.S. teenagers eagerly anticipate formal recognition of the sport into high school sports. 

Fun With Headlines / QOTD - Elections

 Found at Newsmax. First the headline:

Musk Talks 2024: Want Someone 'Fairly Normal' for President

and the quote:

"I've said publicly that my preference — and I think it would be the preference for most Americans — is willing to have someone fairly normal in office," Musk said.

 Wouldn't we all. Note that he is not asking for complete normality, just mostly normality. In Washington, this may be a high bar, but certainly less so for the rest of us. Note as well that this plea is coming from a man who does not think it unreasonable to be planning to move to Mars. 

Trump/Gaetz

 At Scot Adams suggestion:

Usually Reliable Sources - Technology Theft

Today it is being reported by usually reliable sources that the Chinese government has successfully stolen American technology used by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to manufacture American Process Cheese. 

As is widely known, APC is a by-product of refined petroleum and is produced in large quantities by every refinery in the U.S. The final product is then sold to cheese users like Kraft to make their world famous Mac and Cheese food product in addition to thrifty citizens to help make fake meat burgers palatable. Excess production then goes into the National Strategic Cheese Reserve located in a large complex of refrigerated warehouses in Wisconsin. 

The Chinese have pilfered this technology, and are using it to produce cheese, under the name of Chinese Process Cheese, which will be used to alleviate impending food shortages being brought on by the Russian war in Ukraine which is expected to severely impact the global production of wheat and fertilizer.

Allowing the Chinese to build up a large Cheese Gap in this underhanded manner in unconscionable on President Bidens part and we all need to write him and our elected representatives in Washington and demand that the National Cheese Reserves be opened to alleviate hunger in the United States. Do it now! For the children!

Attention Writers, Film Makers!

Plot line anyway. I don't know anyone who normally writes this sort of thing but todays Coffee with Scott Adams included a tongue-in-cheek proposal from Scott that Hollywood might make a Bond movie based on a finding that Hunter was involved in creating the Covid virus in a Ukrainian lab, but had also developed a perfect antidote, the details of which were sent to Hunter at some point, and stored on one of the 6 or 8 laptops he lost as he traveled the world, visiting various dens on iniquity and hives of scum and villainy. 

Bonds assignment would be to find these places, visit them, kill anyone needing it, and retrieve the laptops. Sounds like a great idea. A G-rated version might be made of Harry Potter and the Seven Veils. Another version might closely resemble "Dude! Where's My Car?"

I thought the idea had possibilities. Any writers out there?

The War: Ukraine, Russia, Finland

 Finland recently donated some artillery pieces, complete with ammo to the Ukrainians. Predictably, this annoyed the Russians who issued a "strongly worded letter" condemning the action and hinting at "military consequences.

Finland responded with a print of their latest Captcha pic:

Sneaky, the Suomi.

QOTD - Ukraine

 Insty has this one, particularly apropos after reports of an entire Russian tank column getting lost and running out of fuel on a back road in Ukraine:

FROM A FRIEND: “Ukraine government asked citizens to turn in captured Russian tanks. Citizens replied the tanks were lost in a boating accident.”

Question: Do the Ukrainians also play the banjo? 

 

Kamala Threatens Putin!

 The news won't report this of course but I have it on the best authority* from an unimpeachable source** that Kamala will be meeting with Putin and laying down the law: "You call off the invasion of Ukraine and recall all the troops or you're sleeping on the couch for the rest of the month!"

*A small bird, chirped in my ear.

**I hold no office, therefore I can't be impeached.

If You Can't Beat "em... Trade

 The supply chain problem is now into it's perennial problem, that being that very little gets done in China (and a lot of the rest of Asia) this time of year anyway, due to Chinese New Year. This fest begins with abut a week to gather ones extended family together, a week to celebrate, and a week to recover, after which it's back to work. 

This year it might help by giving the SoCal seaports 3 weeks to try to process the backlog. Grace Meng (D-NY) is proposing that Lunar New Year be a recognized federal holiday as well, bumping the total to 12. 

While it's good to hear that all the really big problems facing Washington have been either successfully dealt with or swept under a rug, I have to add conditional support for the idea of another Federal day off. I will support Mrs Mengs bill if she includes a day in October to honor Octoberfest. This would combine support from both the Asian and Northern European communities into a veto-proof majority of national support. While we're at it, how about if we move the Super Bowl to the weekend of the week preceding Lunar New Year, and set Octoberfest Day as the weekend preceding Halloween. 

Realistically, the fall holiday should probably be set on the first Saturday following election day so that everyone, regardless of affiliation, would have a chance to celebrate (or mourn) the outcome.

Understanding Reality

Elon Musk seems to have tweeted this, which came out highly compressed and pretty much unreadable. Several others came up with larger, more readable versions, and I rearranged it into 5 pages which you can print in landscape format if you like, and read easily in any case. Click to enlarge the pictures and reduce your biases.

End Of Pandemic!

 Not only has our governor announced the end of the pandemic, but one (so far) head of state has joined the movement.

New Zealand PM Arden has issued a return to normal statement:

eTurboNews reported, in an article headlined, "Sex orgies of up to 25 people are OK now in New Zealand," that it was an "unexpected early Christmas present" when Ardern made the announcement.

the drawback is that getting into NZ in the first place may be difficult so allow plenty of time for a quarantine stay in a hotel which may itself permit up to 25 of its guests to pass the time in whatever manner they see fit. Call in advance.

Fun With Headlines - Viagra!

 Here's a noteworthy headline:

Taking Viagra reduces risk of Alzheimers by 69%

I told my wife about this. She was not impressed. My question is weather this is a cause or an effect. Does Viagra improve your cognitive abilities, or is it your cognitive abilities, reacting to some of the effects of aging, that drives you to Viagra?