2002 GeekLog Archives

3/4/02    It's Log! Log! It's better than bad- it's good!

Nope, still no time for a real post, but as you can see, there's a lot more to read now. For years I've been keeping several differrent logs for the various web sites I maintain. Most have to do with various Volkswagens I've owned, and most are very infrequently updated.

I've kept them all sepperate, since I figure those who come to this page may not care to read about the gritty details of auto mechanics, and those who visit my car sites may not care to wade through my highly opinionated political commentaries.

On the other hand, none of my sites have been getting much updating, and all of my logs tend to be filled more with my ranting than usefull information... What the heck; I've decided to merge my other logs into this one, with differrent colors and fonts to keep things sepperate, and links to the original sites, for those who want to see it all. The entries that would normally appear here will be white/arial, the rest (like most things) I'll figure out as I go along.

FBI Breaks Up Terror Cell in Kansas

By Josh W
Disassociated Press Writer
Tuesday, February 26, 2002; 3:52PM

Topeka -- Federal agents, backed by Kansas National Guard troops and attack helicopters, stormed the compound of a terrorist group, known only as the SCCA¹, in suburban Topeka today. Sources inside the Department of Defense indicated that this cell had recently relocated to Kansas from its mountain stronghold in Colorado, in an effort to better position itself for a nationwide rain of terror.²
          Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters that an anonymous tip had led them to the group. "A patriotic individual, who identified himself only as 'The Flying Kiwi'³ sent an e-mail to Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, outlining the SCCA's foundation of an 'Evil Empire'⁴ in the heart of America. Of course we acted upon it immediately."⁵
          The joint FBI/National Guard force was apparently able to catch the terrorists off-guard. The SCCA was almost completely un-armed at the time of the raid, though several had to be beaten off with batons when the agents discovered a large room, marked "Local Homologation Fees."⁶ "It was amazing," one agent on the scene said, " the room was stacked floor-to-ceiling with bags and bags of cash!"
          "Make no mistake, this money was intended for terrier porpoises," stated President Bush, in a hastily called press conference. "We must continue to be ever-virulent in our pursuit of terrorist organs."⁷

Copyright 2002
Unified Press

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jens Larsen" 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 3:44 PM
Subject: RE: [R] Re: Please read this-Rally related


>
> I've been let back into Special Stage as of today.
>
> I'm going to miss referring to "The Thought Police Channel".  I had grown
> rather fond of that ;-)
>
> But this "Evil Empire" / "Axis of Evil" thing might be fun.  Just think of
> it:  The Evil Empire (SCCA) is moving to the geographic center of the USA,
> Topeka.  Hence Topeka becomes the center... or.. Axis of Evil.
>
> I like it :-)
-
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Footnotes: ¹Sports Car Club of America; the sanctioning body for most U.S. Rallies.    ²The SCCA recently moved from Boulder, CO, to Topeka, KA.    ³Jens spent much of his life in New Zealand, and his rally team name is Flying Kiwi Racing.    ⁴Jens refers to the SCCA as the Evil Empire, due to many real and perceived injustices they prpetrate from afar.    ⁵A frequent complaint is that the decision makers at the SCCA are out of touch with their membership. Emails are said to be ignored, and a comon refrain is that emails mean nothing; you have to send paper letters to get anything done.    ⁶The SCCA has adopted FIA homologation rules, which define what cars are legal to compete in what class. Since the FIA is based in Europe, most of the cars on the homologation list aren't available in America, so the SCCA bends the rules a bit by allowing "local homologation." The trick is, the rules for local homologation are not printed in the rule books (or anywhere else, as far as I know), and only competitors with the right friends or sponsors end up with local homologation papers. ⁷Bush is a nimrod. Both of them.

So here's something I picked up on the Rally-L. Seems like the guy is mimicking my 31337 mechanical skillz:

Hi guys,

Last weekend I spent two days wrestling with my GT-350 replica, which you may recall is now running after a one-year period of dormancy while the motor was in pieces. While dealing with some subsequent problems, I learned some lessons that can all be directly applied to working on our cars.

* Upon startup of a new engine, if you hear a distinctive tic-tic-tic sound from your header-to-cylinder head junction, you will be told by all your friends that it is an exhaust leak caused by using the cheap manifold gaskets which come as part of the entire engine-overhaul gasket set, and you should have opted for high-quality $35 Fel-Pro header gaskets instead. The only solution is to remove and replace the lame gasket with a quality unit.

* The header bolts which didn't allow enough clearance to get a wrench or socket on them when you were installing them, haven't shrunk any, so removing the eight bolts will take an hour.

* Your hopes of simply backing the header away from the head, slipping the two-week-old, cheap gasket out and installing the new, $35 gasket will be dashed when you realize the existing gasket has adhesed itself firmly to the head. It will need to be scraped off.

* Immediately after commencing the scraping activities, you will be struck with both a revelation and a recollection. The revelation is that the header-to-fenderwell interference won't allow you enough clearance to scrape the entire gasket, so the header will have to completely come off the car. The recollection will be that you were smart enough to trash the cheap gasket that came with the engine rebuilder kit, and the $35 Mr. Gasket like-new gasket you forgot you had installed, and have now just destroyed, is of similar quality to the new $35 Fel-Pro gasket you bought to replace it.

* Spray-on gasket remover is highly effective stuff, but it is also highly democratic in its application. In this instance, it will make no differentiation whatsoever between the like-new $35 gasket you're trying to remove, and the new Ford blue engine paint you're not trying to remove--both will fall away from the motor in equal amounts.

* In order to remove the header so you can scrape the gasket, you will have to disconnect it from the collector. The collector bolts which were too long when you installed them have, like the header bolts, failed to shrink any in the ensuing two weeks, and the mechanical locking nuts (stove nuts) have, if anything, increased their tenacious grip upon the too-long bolts. Furthermore, the inadequate clearance to swing a wrench hasn't grown any either, meaning that you will be able to turn the nut about 1/32nd of a revolution before the wrench strikes something solid, and needs to be removed and flipped around for another swing. The upshot is that it will take about 15-20 minutes to remove each bolt.

* After the header is finally removed, while lying underneath the car and scraping the gasket, when a piece of gasket-remover-laden gasket falls onto your forehead, you will instantly determine that the democratic nature of the gasket remover extends to human flesh as well, and the forehead is particularly sensitive to extremely caustic chemicals.

* When extremely caustic chemicals are suddenly applied to a large section of your forehead, the result is an instant and involuntary muscle contraction in the torso, causing you to suddenly sit up, normally about 24 inches or so.

* The average Mustang chassis, when raised on jackstands, is approximately 22 inches off the garage floor.

* The sudden and violent application of 2900 pounds of steel to a burning forehead does not, surprisingly, lessen the effect of the extremely caustic chemical reaction taking place, but instead augments the pain with a deep pounding inside the skull as your brain takes a good shellacking from the inside.

* When it comes time to open the exhaust gasket package, the expeditious way is to use a screwdriver to make a small tear in the plastic, then run your finger along the underside of the gasket, neatly opening up the package from one end to the other.

* Exhaust gaskets are made of various layers of fibers and steel, and as you're opening the package, an exposed and sharp steel wire will neatly open up your finger from one end to the other.

* 1966 Mustang Red and Human Blood Red are remarkably alike when the blood is wet and liberally sprayed across the top of the fender. However, when it dries it darkens considerably and thus can't be used as touch-up paint as you had perhaps hoped.

* Gasket remover is remarkably resilient stuff, and although you took great pains to wipe down the cylinder head with lacquer thinner before installing your new gasket, the forgotten gasket remover still coating the flange of the header will immediately go to work the minute the header is placed against the gasket. Fortunately the gasket makers are thoughtful enough to include a pair of gaskets in each package for just such contingencies.

* As you are holding the gasket-remover-soaked header in your hand and removing your now-ruined new gasket, you will feel that the skin on your fingers isn't nearly as sensitive to the effects of extremely caustic chemicals as the skin on your forehead. However, when you have sliced your finger open and the gasket remover gets in the open wound, the effect is much the same.

* Once the second new gasket is in place, the header bolts and header-to-collector bolts will be just as difficult to install as they were to remove, as they were to install the first time, as they were to remove the first time.

But the final, and undoubtedly the most important lesson learned from this two-day exercise is this:

* A clever engine-building trick is to loosely install the spark plugs on a new motor; if the head gasket leaks into the cylinders, this will allow the water to leak and spray past the threads on startup instead of potentially blowing up the motor with hydrostatic lock. However, if the engine builder then forgets to tighten the plugs once the engine has successfully started, then exhaust gasses may leak past the threads, making a distinctive tic-tic-tic sound from the neighborhood of your header-to-cylinder head junction. You will be told by all your friends that it is an exhaust leak caused by using the cheap manifold gaskets which come as part of the entire engine-overhaul gasket set, and you should have opted for high-quality $35 Fel-Pro header gaskets instead, and you will spend the next two days removing and replacing a perfectly good exhaust gasket when all you had to do was simply tighten the spark plugs!

Sigh.....

Yes, folks, an '88 Fox Wagon. Slow, boxy and Brazilian. Four-speed transmission, 13" steel wheels, solid front rotors and rear drums all standard. Does it run? Hell-no! But it will, and when it does, I'll have me a bitchin blue battle-wagon. If I wasn't so sick, I'd have spent all weekend playing with it.

Click on the picture for more details.

A big thanks goes out to John for giving me something to think about besides the Middle-East:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Josh" 
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 9:50 AM
Subject: Re: TownHall.com Conservative Columnists Pat Buchanan>

>>>>
A few years back, a survey of obituaries 
in the homosexual press found the
average age of out-of-the-closet male 
homosexuals at death was 39 for those
who had died of AIDS and 42 for the rest.
<<<<

2) I think you'll find that the short average life-span has a lot more to do with drugs and suicide than anal sex. (it's depressing when 80% of the world hates you)

3) How many gay men over 50 would be out of the closet, given that it only became common recently?

4) In typical Buchanan style, he completely ignores women. Though in this case it's because they would kill his stats, as opposed to the norm of them being out-of-sight in the kitchen.

>>>>
How can a practice that, if universally 
indulged, would lead to the extinction 
of the species be normal and moral and 
good...
<<<<

Homos pay the same taxes and healthcare insurance rates as breeders, why should they be denied the same benefits? Married couples get tax and insurance brakes for filing jointly. Gays (and we single folk) are subsidizing the breeders self-indulgent lifestyle- heck, married couples are only a half-step better than welfare mothers, in that respect! Want to make the issue go away? Abolish tax deductions and discounted health insurance for married couples. That would also make me happy.

Sepperation of Church and State - you don't like it, move to Afghanistan - whoops, make that Guantanimo Bay.

Josh
www.geek-out.com

----- Original Message -----
From:John W.
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 7:50 AM
Subject: FW: TownHall.com Conservative Columnists Pat Buchanan

Some people get all pissed off at the truth, and I'm having a hard time figuring why that is..... I wonder how many can get past their problem with who wrote this and look on to the statistics.

-----
Town Hall

Pat Buchanan (archive) (printer-friendly version) January 16, 2002 Mainstreaming deviancy in California

While Americans remain focused on the war on terror and the doings at Enron, a decisive battle in the culture war will be fought out this month in the California State Assembly.

At issue is Assembly Bill 1338, which would extend all the benefits of marriage to the pairings of homosexuals, known as "civil unions." To Ken Connor of Family Research Council, AB 1338 "is the most serious threat to marriage since the states foolishly embraced no-fault divorce in the 1960s." That is no understatement. For here is how the bill's crucial section reads: "Any statute or provision of California law that applies to marriage, marital status or a marital relationship shall apply in the same respect to civil unions."

An up-or-down vote on AB 1338 must come by the end of January, and FRC and Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family have thrown all their reserves into the battle. To defeat this revolutionary law will require the votes of all 30 Republican members of the assembly and at least 10 Democrats. That such a bill could become law in a state that not long ago was the bastion of conservatism should send a sobering message to the Right. Those who told us that we had won the cultural war were whistling past the graveyard.

But why is the counter-culture of the 1960s succeeding in its overthrow of our traditional Christian-based culture, when all our great religions and all our sacred books from the Torah to the New Testament to the Koran teach that homosexuality is unnatural, immoral, and ruinous to body, soul and society alike? Why is the gay rights lobby succeeding in California, where 61 percent of the electorate and over 70 percent of Hispanics voted, in Proposition 22 in 2000, to affirm that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.

Why are so few willing to fight when the awful consequences of the homosexual lifestyle are before our eyes every day? Not only are all-male couplings inherently barren, male sodomy has been the principal means of the transmission of the virus that causes AIDS, which has taken the lives of as many Americans as World War II.

A few years back, a survey of obituaries in the homosexual press found the average age of out-of-the-closet male homosexuals at death was 39 for those who had died of AIDS and 42 for the rest. This is what the Pope means when he speaks of a "culture of death."

How can a practice that, if universally indulged, would lead to the extinction of the species be normal and moral and good, as the state of California may now be about to declare urbi et orbi?

Just as the correlation between heavy smoking and early death from emphysema, lung cancer and heart disease has been established beyond refutation, so too, has the link between male sodomy and a short life. Yet, that deadly sexual practice is the very sacrament of the civil unions the California Assembly is being asked to sanctify.

Meanwhile, as the assembly confronts its moment of truth, San Francisco's public schools are instructing first- graders in the propagandistic lie that homosexual unions are as good and natural and normal as marriage. The Jesus of the Bible is a loving God, but he promises harsh judgment upon these corrupters of children:

"But who shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Why are traditionalists, who remain America's majority, on the defensive on this issue? The answers lies in moral confusion and fear. Politicians fear being branded a homophobe or a bigot by a powerful and vengeful homosexual lobby, and its fellow travelers in the press. Second, conservatives feel uncomfortable arguing moral issues. Their attitude often runs something like this: As long as the homosexuals do not bother me, why not give them what they want, so they will leave us alone and we can get on with the business of cutting taxes?

What the "It's the Economy, Stupid!" conservatives fail to recognize is that the end result of the triumph of the cultural and moral revolution underway in America is a decadent dying society and nation. For a house built upon a moral lie cannot stand. With their country is at risk, they cannot declare neutrality.

The truth must be spoken again and again. All lifestyles are not equal. And by the way in which they define themselves, male homosexuals are killing themselves. The state of California may declare otherwise, but that will not make it true.

Contact Pat Buchanan
©2001 Creators Syndicate, Inc.