The Dump (Part II)

Another Day.  Another Dump.

As discussed in yesterday's edition of 'The Dump (Part I)', my Dad would often take my Black Lab, Maxie, with him when he made the weekly trip to the local 'Dump'.  In the spirit of full-disclosure, my Dad would actually ALWAYS take Maxie on the weekly pilgrimage to our local landfill.  It made her incredibly happy from the time she was old enough to jump in and sit unassisted on the front seat of the Plymouth Duster until years later when she required help getting into the Chrysler New Yorker. 

Through the years, Maxie learned the sequence of events which preceded each trip:  

1.  My Dad would sleep a little later than normal on Saturday mornings. 
2.  He would NOT wear a tie. 
3.  He would walk into the backyard where twin garbage cans were hidden behind the hedge next to the shed.
4.  He would emerge from behind the shrubbery with a galvanized steel can in each hand.
5.  He would be smiling.  

In essence, my dog learned to PREDICT the future by LEARNING from the past.  Why can't people be this smart? 

Maxie watched.  She waited.  She'd work herself into an agitated state of frenzy while 'The Man' executed the ritual which brought her complete and unbridled joy.

On Saturday mornings Maxie was WIRED as she paced the house and yard waiting impatiently to hear the words which brought her to an indescribable level of bliss, "Hey Maxie, you want to go see the birds?"

Yes, once again Maxie was going to see the birds at the dump.  And the birds?  They would learn that the 'Dark Terror' was back.  Week after week she would tell them (the birds) exactly what she thought about them.  

Oh yes, the birds the birds would pay for their insolence...   They would pay for digging through her garbage and pooping on The Man's car as they took flight as the trash was dumped...

This above segue is my way of letting you know that there is more trash ahead. 

Prepare to shovel.  The cans are preparing to move.  The birds are airborne.  

The Dump begins anew...   Part II

THE WASHINGTON POST ONLINE, JULY 13, 2012: 
San Francisco eyes law requiring some buildings to install reusable bottle filling stations

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco, the city that regulated Happy Meal toys and banned plastic grocery bags, has a new target in its health-conscious, eco-friendly crosshairs: plastic water bottles.

City officials are considering an ordinance that would require owners of new and renovated buildings with water fountains to install special bottle-filling taps. The law’s designed to encourage thirsty people to refill containers instead of reaching for another bottle of Evian or Aquafina.

“This is the appropriate next step to make it easier for San Franciscans to get out of the bad habit of using environmentally wasteful plastic water bottles and into the good habit of using reusable water containers,” said Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who introduced the legislation in June.

Bottle-filling taps like the ones that would be required if Chiu’s measure passes already are found at San Francisco International Airport and at some city parks and schools. Installed behind a drinking fountain’s regular faucet, they dispense chilled water in a quick-streaming vertical jet that is high enough to accommodate most water containers.

...

Chiu’s ordinance calls plastic water bottles “bad for the environment,” unnecessarily taking up landfill space and causing greenhouse gas emissions when cheap tap water is available. San Francisco city departments have been barred from buying plastic water bottles since 2007.

Chiu said he considered other aggressive measures to curb the bottle, including a fee and an outright ban. The proposed ordinance is less severe and is meant to raise awareness about drinking tap water as an alternative, he said.

Environmental groups are supportive of efforts to wean San Franciscans from plastic water bottles.

“San Francisco has among the best drinking water in country. It’s ridiculous that people would go out and spend their now very limited dollars to buy bottled water,” said Mae Wu, an attorney with the National Resources Defense Council.


Moos Note:  The city which loaned America their Number One Gal (Speaker Pelosi) to preside over our National Economic Recovery sets the tone for the rest of us by acknowledging that the economy is SO BAD that people need to use their "limited dollars" for things other than bottled water. 

Hey San Francisco, I got two words for you (no, not those words)... 

Garden Hose.

You want to save the Earth - install garden hoses all over the city

 

And while you're at it, your little, bag-carried, butt-ugly yippy dogs are thirsty too.  You need to protect them from the upcoming 'bottled water' ecological Armageddon also. 

Why don't you legislate a couple-thousand of these bad boy Pet Fountains prior going Bankrupt with the rest of your State?

NOTE:  NOT Nancy Pelosi's Dog.
It's her sister...

Not wanting to leave the Left Coast - yet another smokin' nugget of political malfeasance from San Francisco:

CBS 5, SAN FRANCISCO ONLINE:  SF Considers Strict Outdoor Smoking Ban – Except For Medical Pot

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) – Smoking anything other than medically-prescribed marijuana at San Francisco street fairs, festivals and other outdoor events held on city property would be banned under new legislation before the Board of Supervisors. 

Supervisor Eric Mar said he introduced the proposal because of the health impacts of secondhand smoke when people light up in public.
 
“It’s widely known that secondhand smoke is responsible for as many as 73,000 deaths among non-smokers each year in the United States, and there is no safe level of exposure,” he said.
...

“It’s carefully crafted also to exclude smaller neighborhood organized events such as block parties. And also, importantly, it does not prohibit the use of medical cannabis,” Mar said.
 
Event sponsors would be required to post “No Smoking” signs and make “No Smoking” announcements, but Mar said he does not foresee the city being able to actively enforcement this tobacco ban if it becomes law.

Moos Note:  I believe this second news item regarding 'medical cannabis' almost completely explains the first one...

What it does NOT explain however, is how politicians continually get away with hypocrisy like this...

Excited MoveOn.org Supporters (wearing really bad hats and
'Terminator Glasses') want to know!!!  - Photo AP
"Ladies, I'll show you mine if you promise NOT
to show me yours", Love Moos

BostonHerald Online.com, July 20, 2012: 
Nancy Pelosi dismisses idea of Congress releasing tax returns
WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders were defiant Thursday that Capitol Hill lawmakers should not release their tax returns — even as Democrats kept demanding Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney release his.

"When I run for president of the United States, you can hold me to that standard," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who refuses to disclose her returns, told reporters during a tense news conference.

A day after McClatchy Newspapers reported that most members of Congress refused repeated requests to release their tax returns, Pelosi talked at some length about why Romney, who has released 2010 returns and says he will release 2011 data when it’s ready, should release even more returns.

But she reacted testily when asked whether she and members of Congress should abide by such rules.
 
"There are no rules. There are no rules. There’s no rule about releasing his tax return, so what rules are you referring to?" she asked, growing clearly frustrated. Asked about the standard she had cited for a presidential candidate, Pelosi said: "It’s up to the American people. The American people are the judges of that."
 
After being questioned about why her demand for more transparency from Romney shouldn’t apply to Congress as well, she briefly changed course and said the issue of tax returns was not important.

"Now I’m not here, this is not important to me, let me
say this: What’s important to me are jobs and the rest..."
Photo credit - AP

"The tradition that was honored by this same person’s father," Pelosi said, recalling how George Romney released several years of his tax returns when he ran for president in 1968.

"Now I’m not here, this is not important to me, let me say this: What’s important to me are jobs and the rest," Pelosi said. 

(Okay, everybody 'got that'?  Nancy Pelosi is NOT here, this is NOT important to her.  Pay no attention to anything she says as she is focused 'like a laser' on job creation.  OMG!!!  WE MUST TAKE THE SENATE BACK!!!)

Moos Note:  "The tradition that was honored by this same person's father..."  Is Nancy Pelosi physically incapable of saying Mitt Romney's name out loud?   Is she afraid that she'll burst into flames if she speaks his name?  Is she THAT afraid of Romney?

I certainly hope so.

Could someone please get Pelosi a nice icy cold drink?  Could one of her handlers sho her where to stand to make the water shoot up after her sister is done 'hydrating'...

"Patches Pelosi" - last seen next to Michelle Obama's organic garden -
Then, suddenly, she's 'not here' either...
And Barack is no longer hungry.  Hmm?

Have a nice weekend folks - see you around...

  

The Dump [Part I]

When I was a kid growing up on Long Island, my Dad would load up the trunk of the _______________ (insert model of Chrysler vehicle here) with a week's worth of trash. 

The garbage would be stored in galvanized steel cans with matching lids held held in place with bungee cords. 

He would drive to the local Town Dump, back to the car to the lip of the landfill, get out of the car, walk back to the open trunk while the swirling vortex of sea gulls took flight.  

Then my Dad would...

Dump. 

All trash accumulated during the week was released into the open maw of the landfill. 

Ownership of this trash was transferred from my Dad to the 'Dump'.

WIN : WIN

The empty cans would find their way back into the trunk, the car would start, and with a wave of recognition to the half-drowsing bulldozer operator, my Dad, and his co-pilot, my dog Maxie, would be on their way home again.

Dad was happy.  The dog was happy (a.k.a.:  'Barking Maniacally' at sea gulls).  The gulls were happy.  Most happy of all was the bulldozer operator knowing that he could go back to sleep beneath the large blue-striped canvas cover which protected his balding head until the next trash-dumping interloper arrived. 

Week in, week out, 52 weeks a year.  For years.

Yes.  This is 'The Dump' I remember from those trips I took with my Dad, and my dog, to 'go see the birds' at our friendly neighborhood Dump.


Of course, the above is not the ACTUAL Dump I'm talking about today.

The subject of today's post - the 'Dump' begins now...

Over the past several weeks there have been quite a few things I wanted to write about but never found the time.  Some of the items below were not suited to being the subject of a stand-alone post.  

For others, if I started writing about them individually I'd never end them because there's just so MUCH to comment on.  If you've been reading my posts for a while you already know that I do tend to RUN ON, and on, and on, and on...   Yeah, see what I mean?

And so, the Dump begins:

THE DETROIT FREE PRESS ONLINE:  Does GM's Chevy Volt ad signal return to advertising toward gay and lesbian buyers?

Gay and lesbian consumers prefer fuel-efficient cars, account for 5% of new car purchases and have average household income in the six figures -- more than that of heterosexual households, according to a recent marketing survey.

So it's little surprise that General Motors ran a gay-themed advertisement last month for the Chevrolet Volt, the type of car studies show gay and lesbian consumers tend to like.

GM didn't count on the ad drawing national attention.

First published for $750 in the Motor City Pride edition of Between the Lines, a Michigan gay and lesbian newspaper, the ad ended up being viewed 11 million times through social media.

...

"If it's a manufacturer's desire to bring in wealthier, better-educated, younger customers, then the lesbian and gay market would be an avenue to that demographic," said Chris Travell, vice president of consulting for Maritz Research, which surveyed 200,000 consumers in 2011 and found that gay and lesbian households made 10% more money.

The Volt ad "told us that this was something worth undertaking when the opportunities present themselves," said GM spokesman Tom Henderson...


[Moos Note:  The circle is complete.  GM, bailed out by ALL US Taxpayers, is using your tax dollars to subsidize the sale of GM Volts to "wealthier, better-educated, younger customers" who also happen to be a Democrat Party voting block.  Why?  Because they are smarter than you AND they don't need the back seat of this little POS electric car to haul kids around.  Oh, and they make 10% more money than you.  Not that there's anything wrong with that...  Oh my, I'm starting to think like a Democrat!  Somebody help me...]

USS Nimitz

CHICAGO TRIBUNE ONLINE:  Senators gird for fight over U.S. Navy's "Green Fleet"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senators who support the Pentagon's push to expand its use of biofuels said they have a plan to answer critics who argue the fuel is far too expensive to help develop at a time when the military faces massive cuts.

The battle on Capitol Hill comes as the U.S. Navy's "Great Green Fleet" prepares to run military exercises in the central Pacific that will, on Thursday, feature its first operational test of biofuels.

The U.S. military is the world's largest single buyer of oil. The Obama administration has argued "Green Fleet" spending on biofuels could help boost production to commercial levels, eventually lowering prices for alternatives to oil, and reducing dependence on supplies from the Middle East.

For Thursday's demonstration project, the Navy paid more than $26 per gallon for the fuel, made from renewable sources like algae and chicken fat, a $12-million outlay that sparked congressional anger.
[Moos Note:  Traditional fuel?  $3.80 per gallon.  Renewal fuel?  $26 per gallon.  ANY idiot can plainly see that spending 6+ times MORE to use chicken fat to fire the 'Engines of Freedom' is the ONLY way to go.  And given that this Administration is chocked to the brim with 'any idiots', how could we rationally come to any other conclusion than using a nice algae / chicken broth blend to fuel our naval fleet? 

A couple of questions remain, however: 

Can chickens be successfully bred at sea to be skinned and run through the fuel tanks?   

And, if you're trying to 'sneak up on someone' (while aboard your aircraft carrier), wouldn't you worry about bad guys sitting on deck at night, sniffing the air and racing to the gunner and saying, "Omar, I smell KFC - there is big ship nearby.  Shoot gun where you hear seagulls..."]         

The Dump continues...  Later.