Your Government InAction

Friends are scheduled to leave for an international trip this week. Friends sent in passport applications (renewals, I think) more than 14 weeks ago.



Friends do not, as of this moment, actually have passports in hand.



10 Hours in line on Friday in a building where no food is allowed, the guards are well beyond rude, and they still have nothing to show for it. With any luck, after a return trip to the office today, they will get what they need.



This is a basic document here, folks. I can't imagine any way this entire transaction should take more than an hour and a half. You should walk in the door with two passport photos, a birth certificate, proof of current residence within the US, and walk out the door with a passport. You could build a house in 14 weeks if you needed to - you can't print up a document in less time?



I'm telling you - they should have just gone to Tijuana and entered illegally - they'd have been welcomed with open arms by our federal government. Actual citizens? %$#@ you, get in line and wait like the losers you are.

MIT

AKA, Moron-in-Training.

After the school thing, my folks came over and spent time with us. I also had my dad listen to the attempt to start Mrs.' minivan.

Why, might you ask?

Well, someone I am related to either by birth or blood seems to have left one of the lights on in the van all Shabbos. Naturally I couldn't turn it off, so it stayed on. Right after shabbos I went and turned the light off and the car on, and it started right up. I should've left it running, but I didn't, turning it off after a minute or so. Yesterday morning, rushing to get to school... tick tick tick tick.

We take my car instead, and when I get home I ask dad to take a listen to make sure it's not something more serious. It is, as you car people know, just the battery. The car had been to Honda a few weeks back, and the guy told us there was a battery problem. He jumped it enough so we could pass inspection, but I told Mrs. not to have him change the battery - there's no point in letting them charge me $95 labor when I can do it myself. Incidentally, the terminals were crusted with crud - I don't understand why the Honda guy couldn't take two minutes with a wire brush to clean it off, but I guess that would've been another $95.

So off to AutoZone, where as it turns out I had bought the thing originally. He tests it, and I don't know how many amps it is supposed to turn out, but near as I can tell it was actually producing less than one. He checks the record, and the battery is about 2 1/2 years old. Not new enough for complete replacement, but enough that they gave me $30 off the cost of a new one. Went home, got the battery in, and then skinned several knuckles trying to get the stupid hold-down bar thingy into position. I've done this replacement several times in the past, and this part is always the one I hate. It always comes off easy enough, but never back on.

Thank the Lord for barbecue tongs - I had to use them several times to retrieve various bits & pieces that fell into the engine compartment. I'm clearly not cut out for self repair of major items. I had enough trouble with the minor ones. The other dopey part is Honda's security code for the radios. Like a lot of others I imagine, they protect the radios by requiring a security code before it can be used. Naturally, every time the battery is disconnected, you have to reset the radio. No problem, as I wrote the code down on the computer somewhere.

Didn't I? Wait, I know it was in this file? Or this one? Where is the &*^%$ thing?

Happily, it was still buried in the back of my head, and on the third try I got it right. I am going to write it down again, but we'll have to see if I can keep track of it this time.

More on Kerry

[This started out as a comment to Terry's long post on the subject, but I think it's just gotten too big.]

I find it very instructive to judge people by who they consider important, or worthy of admiration, or who they want to model themselves after. The yokel who considers white trash pop stars as examples; the thug wannabe idolizing the rap stars; the hollywood groupies enraptured by a heartthrob or babe of the week - at best these people lose my respect, and at worst I have contempt for them. You have to set your sights higher, on the kinds of people that represent the best in human action and behavior, not the lowest & most meaningless we have to offer.

So what to make of a political party and its supporters that thinks a man like Kerry deserves the highest office in the nation? That a man that can casually insult the most honorable members of our citizenry (not to mention the rest of us who disagree with his politics) should be given the right to decide and direct national policy?

I recognize the reality of Kerry's presence in presidential politics. Many within the party do not idolize Kerry - he appeared at the right time for many to be the best option to win the White House. Most, I suspect, would have chosen a better candidate if they could have. The fact that Kerry is the best they had to offer is frightening - no one serious, with respect for the citizens of this nation and the tasks ahead of us was available to them? There are practical political factors behind Kerry's standing within the party and the left, I grant you. And, naturally, the Bush Hatred Factor contributes mightily to every choice made by the left.

And yet...

There is a noticeable group of people who truly respect this man. And Harry Reid, and Ted Kennedy, and the rest of the lefty "leadership." This is what they idealize. The old saw is "judging a man by the company he keeps." I think one can also judge by the leaders people follow, and the examples they hold up to the rest of us to follow. Needless to say, Kerry is a fool. A wealthy, privileged fool lording over the plebes and promising panem et circenses for all, never mind the higher taxes we shall have to pay to accomodate the circus clowns. A fool without the sense to keep his mouth shut, especially when his foot is zeroing in on his perfectly whitened teeth.

This is what you hold in high esteem? Think carefully, voters, if this ideal matches what you truly respect. What's worse? The fool, or the fools who put him in power?

Oh, this made me laugh

I think "[Kerry] has basically radiated himself with the isotope Asinine-90" is my favorite line.

UPDATE: Oh, Lordy! Goldberg is firing on all cylinders when it comes to Kerry. A later post:

And a fair-minded person might expect him to apologize for any unintended offense. Kerry refused because Kerry has the self-awareness of carpet mold.

And now...

the anticlimactic answer to the question one of you is desperately bored enough to wonder about if nothing else is pressing on you. Like the need to floss, which would be far more entertaining than...

MORONITUDE REVEALED!!!

[please hum suitably dramatic music]

This [representative image only] has been replaced by this.["]

Yes, I have pulled the trigger on my longstanding desire to replace my 1996 Civic with a newer car. Moronic because there wasn't really anything wrong with the Civic. The engine ran fine, I wasn't having any major issues with the car, and we owned it outright. It was, in fact, bought with cash, back when we had such things available to us.

But (and I may have talked about this before) I was tired of the car. It had next to no pickup, to the point where I routinely turned off the AC if I wanted to accelerate onto the highway. It should be noted that unlike some other places, onramps in the NY metro area are somewhat shorter than elsewhere. The average entrance ramp is somewhere between the length of a ruler and that of a yardstick. No pickup is thus something of an issue. And the car was ten years old, and we've had it for 7 of those ten years.

So the question came down to this. Was I prepared to live with this car, with only 94,000 miles on it, and drive it until it died? Or did I want to trade it for something I was happier with while there was still some resale value? Trade full ownership for car payments? Spend money or don't?

Obviously, the moron side of my brain won out. I didn't need to spend money, the Civic worked, all I really need is a commuter car, and I did it anyway. I'm still torn about the choice I made because I'm cheap. I didn't have a love affair with the Civic, after less than a day with it I'm happy with the Accord, so this wasn't an emotional decision about the car. But I HATE, I repeat, HATE spending money. I come from a long line of cheap SOBs. And yet I pulled the trigger anyway.

The buying itself was fairly straightforward. I've been talking with Mrs. about this for a while, so we just decided last week we'd go looking this past Sunday. So we head off to one dealer, and the guy just acts like he can't be bothered to talk to us. He hands us a shopping list of what they have, says "what do you want to see", he can't find the keys to the one we're interested in, and I said "just pull something around so we can try it." One dopey around the block test drive, and we say "we'll let you know."

On to the next, which is the same dealer we got Mrs.' car from four years ago. She suggested I try the new Civic just to see - the engine's bigger, and maybe for the same price I can have a new car, not a used one. So we get a salesperson (skinny, attractive, not very talkative or salesmanlike) and we take a spin in the new Civic. Definitely faster, nicer, digital display doohickies, but kind of uncomfortable - the headrest was poking Mrs. in a very rude way.

So we head over to the used, and I tell the guy there I want to look at an Accord. So we get in the nice blue one, and drive it around, and its not bad. We start haggling, and I get some heebie jeebies. What if that's not the right car? Mrs. says "look, there's the gray one we peeked into, take another drive & make sure." He pulls it around, we take another spin, and I'm sold on this one instead. It's cleaner inside, 12,000 fewer miles, just feels better. Back to the table, I say I'll make a deal if he'll give me the same price on the gray one, and we're done.

I feel like I did a pretty good job negotiating. We got the sales tax included in the price, and knocked that down to $2,000 less than their original absolutely rock-bottom asking price. Did I rob them blind? Not likely. Did they rob me blind? At least it was only in one eye. Add the lojack and the bumper to bumper warranty and I didn't end up off quite as cheap as I wanted, but I would have paid for those anyway even if I didn't knock the price down.

So I am the proud owner of a 2003 Accord LX. I'm not sure I made the right choice about doing this or not, but I like the car a lot and I would have had to do this eventually. I was bargaining from a position of relative strength, in that I had a car. I could walk away no worse off than I was before. The cost is an issue, and I still feel like I was being selfish wanting something else when the other car still worked fine. But as the great Hebrew sage Hillel is reported to have said, "Ve-im lo achshav, eimatai?" - "And if not now, when?"

I doubt the sage had in mind buying Hondas (used or new), but the choice is made and I'm pretty happy with the result. Considerably cash poorer, but happy.

[Incidentally, my hint yesterday said "round things are involved, but not the sum total of the story." I will remind car people in particular that there are numerous round parts on cars that should have given away the answer. Washers, air vents, knobs, etc. Maybe even one or two things on the outside of the car. I thought it would be obvious if you're a REAL car guy.]

The conversation

regarding my Moronitude has taken a definite turn to the absurd. Considering where it began, a few more turns and we might almost hit normal.

I wouldn't count on it, though.

Moronitude

comes in all shapes and varieties, as do the morons that effect the moronitude. I have, I suspect, dived headfirst into the moropool. Unlike the usual suspects ::cough cough::Terry::cough cough::, mine does not involve a project at all.

It does, however, involve gobs and gobs of cash, was likely unnecessary, is more than a bit selfish, and is entirely self inflicted, which are the other key parts of moronitude.

Details will follow, most likely later this week when the point of no return has been surpassed.