"I looked to the stars, tried all of the bars, and I've finally gone up in smoke. Now my hand is on the wheel, of something that's real and I feel like I'm going home".
My Oldsmobile is still in the shop. They couldn't get the cable off the mechanism without damaging it. It takes awhile to get the parts for 16 year old cars made by a failing U.S. automaker. I'm really glad that they are replacing the cable, it could be another cause of the problem. What I am really happy about is that I realized this was a job I didn't want to get into. As one of my mentors once told me "you will never get in trouble for getting a consult". I'm glad I didn't attempt this "knuckle buster" and end up carrying in a box of parts. If I ever get the car back from the Hospice I'll apply the parking brake with a Q-Tip.
In the "Odd Couple" Oscar Madison states, " getting a clear picture on channel two is not my idea of whoopee". The current season of "Ice Road Truckers" has concluded. This program really captured my interest. Perhaps, because it's just refreshing to see some Americans still working. Maybe it reminds me of my commute over Mount Storm in West Virginia. Last week was the first episode of this season's "Project Runway". It is a reality show where amateur designers compete for $100,000 to start their own clothing line. These are about the only weekly programming I watch, and they couldn't be more different.
Too bad TV has become so sedentary. When I was a child watching TV kept the kids hopping. One of us had to stand by to constantly adjust the horizontal hold to keep the picture from rolling. Every five minutes a nor-easter snow storm would white-out the picture and require one of us to jump up, run to the TV and give it a good slap on the side. The rabbit ears required constant attention. One kid's job was to turn the rabbit ears with all the finesse of a a navy sonar operator. I always felt that knob on the bottom of the rabbit ears did nothing at all; like the knobs on a Fisher-Price radio. There was one channel that only came in if my mother sat on a folding chair in one certain spot. I'm not sure if we were trying to reproduce the cinema experience but my family watched TV in absolute darkness. Maybe it helped the anemic image on the tube. You walked into the living room with a slice of pizza and a Coke and started tripping over people. I'm not sure if getting a clear picture on channel two was equal to whoopee, but it was exciting.
I hate parking brakes. What I really hate are parking brakes on disc brakes. Over the last 80 years car makers have pretty well got the mechanism perfected for drum brakes. Usually just grease the adjustment fittings and tighten the cable once a year and that's it. Occasionally a cable will bind up and have to be replaced; no big deal.
The first unusual arrangement was on my 88 4-Runner. The 4WD models had this complicated arrangement with cams and release springs and a double cable that always hung up. Every year I had to take the drums off and clean and grease every thing and after a month only one rear wheel would hold with the parking brake. Now my 93 Olds has the parking brake built into one rear disc brake caliper. This 16 year old caliper has gradually got more and more bound up till finally it took so much force to apply it that I bent the parking brake pedal. So I straightened it out with a pipe wrench but I broke the mechanism so the pedal doesn't engage the cogs to tighten the cable.
Now I like to have a working parking brake. One reason is that it's a requirement to pass inspection and also my driveway is on an incline and small children play in the area. Finally, a reason I like a working parking brake is that I first started to drive at a time when brake failures were a seasonal occurrence. I had the sequence of responses always ready: downshift, hold the parking brake release up and apply the parking brake and look for a way around whatever is in front of you. My best brake failure happened when exiting a parkway in an MG. I popped the curb and drove around in circles on the grass till the combination of shrubs, small trees and parking brake brought me to a stop.
So my 93 'beater" is getting a new parking brake mechanism from G.M. I figure I couldn't sell someone a car that couldn't pass inspection. Hopefully my mechanic will also fix the rear mechanism that caused the problem. I'm happy I have a mechanic that can fix my old "beater". When he asked me if I knew what the problem was I said "sure I do, I broke it".
Now, can we all agree this poor fellow has a pre-existing medical condition? He would have trouble getting insurance because he's dead. However, you don't have to be this jacked up to have trouble getting Blue Cross to cover a pre-existing condition.
Consider your average 60 year old guy. He weighs 230 lbs. , he has adult onset diabetes, hypertension and a little depression with erectile dysfunction. His medications cost $500 dollars a month, every three months he sees his internist for $240, has $400 dollars worth of lab tests and his diabetic testing supplies cost $80 per month. Now if all these conditions remain controlled, his normal health costs are about $780 a month. Heaven forbid he get the flu, or some chest pain or breaks an ankle, then we are talking really big bucks. This fellow can get insurance to cover all his conditions. It would cost him about $2,000 a month. That is why insurance companies don't cover pre-existing conditions, because the premiums would be exorbitant. Basically the healthy have to support the sick. The trouble is the number of sick is overwhelming the ability of the healthy to support their costly care. Don't blame the health insurance companies. If the motorcyclist with his head in the rear door of the semi wanted to buy some life insurance he would have trouble finding an agent to write him a policy. The best he could hope for is a bailout at the Pearly Gates.
Yesterday there was an amputation on the surgery schedule. According to our President the surgeon was going to pocket $40,000 for a one hour procedure. I asked him about that $40,0000 figure. In the real world the surgeon gets about $750 for the procedure. This includes a pre-op consultation, the surgery, and about seven follow up visits. The surgeon can't charge Medi-Care again for anything he does for the patient related to the original procedure for six months. The idea that doctors are mismanaging their diabetic patients poorly in collusion with greedy knife happy surgeons is worthy of the Area-51 late night radio crowd.
Our President is dumb; there, I said it. Health care problems will never be solved. There are too few dollars chasing too much technology. Rationing is going on now and will continue. The malpractice costs are a big contributor to lack of availability. Ten million illegal aliens are a drain on our system. Twenty million of the uninsured are uninsured by choice. Ten million are eligible for an existing program but can't get themselves motivated enough to apply. If they keep targeting the doctors there will be more rationing and shortages. In Canada towns have lotteries to see who gets to see the doctor this month. If the government pisses off the doctors they are going to work less, retire early, and not be available on weekends. Already the government mandate that Medical Schools graduate 50% woman has worsened the crisis. On average women physicians work 30% less hours a week and will spend 10 years less in practice over their career than male physicians. Now if you get a brain tumor and can't find a neurosurgeon what good will your new government insurance be? You can take that insurance card and hold it against your forehead and hope for a cure.
Captain Obvious says "you can't get blood from a turnip". He also says "you can't legislate away death and disease".
According to Obama the Federal Government will compete with private health insurance the way the Post Office competes with UPS and Fed-Ex. Obama is so dumb he doesn't realize he is making an argument against the Federal takeover of health care. The post office is a bloated money losing, subsidized dinosaur. Fed-Ex and UPS actually make money.
Example: United States Post Office Flat-Rate Shipping Box
The feminists grabbed our women, The liberals banned our guns, The health cops snuffed our cigarettes, The bailout has our funds, The laws of Breathalyzing Put an end to our roadside bars, Circle the Fords and Chevys, boys, THEY'RE COMING FOR OUR CARS
P. J. O'Rourke
Another $ 2,ooo,ooo,ooo for cash for clunkers. Another band-aid solution that just moves the problem down the line six months. What other industry needs stimulation? How about cash for old homes, cash for refrigerators, cash for air conditioners or cash for guns. The gun industry is the only one that is prospering today, but they still bring out this gun-buy-back canard every few years for a photo op.
It all started with seat belt laws. Helmet laws came next, followed by state inspections emissions testing etc. I am amazed that motorcycles haven't been banned along with buttered popcorn and chain saws. The average step ladder comes with 4 warning stickers and one of them says don't stand on ladder. You should always use safety goggles while clipping your toenails and don't use this toaster in the bathtub. The radio station reminds us to wear a coat if it's ten below zero, coffee is hot, ice cream is cold and slow down driving in snow. The result of all this lunacy is that we have a generation of people that are really "too stupid to live". All this has the effect of fostering dependency and passivity. Before we euthanize our auto industry through regulation let us not forget what the American automobile industry did for American prosperity.
You can help the environment, the deficit and health care if you just trade in Grandma. Any Grandma over 7o, with chronic illnesses who requires Ensure to get her motor running is eligible. The decrease in carbon dioxide emissions alone makes this an eco-friendly choice. You can take this $4,500 and get an abortion, a wind turbine or some solar panels. Act quickly because like Cash for Clunkers this program may be bankrupt in three days.
This is my baby; how dare the Car-Czar call this a clunker? It's got 169 K miles on it, and it averages 20 mpg and gets 28 on the highway. I fill it up once a month and it has only had one major repair (blown intake manifold gasket). I keep it because I'm a CB. If it got 2 mpg less I could go down to the Hyundai dealer and have it euthanized. Then for only 11K I could get a Hyundai Sonata that would avg. 28 mpg.
Why do I think this is this dumb? We are taking good cars and pouring lapping compound in the engines to destroy the motors. Then the car goes to the crusher where its parts value is destroyed. Then it's off to the scrap yard where it is recycled and the rubber, plastic and steel shipped to China. Now the effect on the environment is about as negligible as an aborted bovine fart. Any fuel cost savings will be eaten up by higher registration taxes and insurance. The poor recession-whipped working class dog now has a car payment. In a few months you will see a lot of small cars for sale in the Penney-Saver; if you're looking for your clunker you may find it has reappeared as a toaster in Wal-Mart.
I'm glad to see our central government is helping to foster restraint and frugality during these tough times. Larry Burkett always said that "the cheapest car you can buy is the one you already own". The auto bubble was fed by easy credit and people loving that new car smell. Today's cars can last at least 200K miles. So what is government doing but promoting consumerism, irresponsibility and a throw away society? Just wait until you see the fraud discovered in this scam. Maybe, if I had an 88 Suburban with 250k miles on it that was rusted away I'd go down and get me a deal on a new "rice-burner". But I would pay cash and not get stuck with interest charges and fees and taxes that eat up the any cash incentive from Obama. I'm not going to have anyone tell me what to do with my Oldsmobile; especially when he's sitting on my lawn, drinking my beer.
