Saturday, June 04, 2011

Oh, this ought to be on video

Sheriff's deputies, movers, and the Nyergers' attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to to remove desks, computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller's drawers.

After about an hour of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.
See, Bank of America filed foreclosure on a house. Problem was, the people didn't owe any money on their house. To anyone, let alone BoA. So they went to court and the judge said "BoA, you owe these people their legal fees." And BoA dicked around for five months and wouldn't pay the fees. So they filed foreclosure on the bank.

I just freakin' love it. Every dirtbag bank out there that's screwed with people who didn't actually owe them money should have the same thing happen to them.

Looking for a place/way to help out the troops?

Airborne Angel Cadets of Texas; go check it out.Link

A while back I got into an argument with some people

over the WMD in Iraq question; their side basically "I can't believe anyone still believes in that!" This despite the recent news of the last of more than 500 TONS of yellowcake uranium being removed from Iraq(you know, the stuff we'd been assured by that clown Wilson that Saddam didn't have?). I gave up on it; they were stuck in the "BUSH LIED!!!" theme.*

Well, ran across this today at Theo's place: Historical Revisionism, parts 1, 2, 3. Including
When former [Iraq Survey Group] weapons inspector [David] Kay reported to Congress in January [2004] that the United States had found "no stockpiles" of forbidden weapons in Iraq, his conclusions made front-page news. But when he detailed what the ISG had found in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last October, few took notice [my emphasis].

Among Kay's revelations, which officials tell Insight have been amplified in subsequent inspections in recent weeks:

• A prison laboratory complex that may have been used for human testing of BW agents and "that Iraqi officials working to prepare the U.N. inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the U.N." Why was Saddam interested in testing biological-warfare agents on humans if he didn't have a biological-weapons program?

• "Reference strains" of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents were found beneath the sink in the home of a prominent Iraqi BW scientist. "We thought it was a big deal," a senior administration official said. "But it has been written off [by the press] as a sort of 'starter set.'" [again, my emphasis]

• New research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin that were not declared to the United Nations.
Yeah. Bush lied, etc. Uh huh.

I once told my daughter(and later a friend) "Someone wants to bitch and yell about Bush, fine; there's some things over which I'd like to kick him in the ass and ask "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" But if you're going to bitch, at least bitch about real things, not made-up bullshit." Problem is, the lies and revisions took hold so well that an awful lot of people just don't know that some of what they're yelling about is bullshit(kind of like what's been done to Palin, for that matter).


*They didn't want to worry about that probable(we now know it was) nuclear site in Syria the Israelis bombed; "Gee, I wonder where the stuff came from; could it possibly be from-" was obviously a distraction from "BUSH LIED! For HALLIBURTON!!!" type stuff.

If I were a Jew I wouldn't be concerned:

I'd be worried as hell. This is the kind of crap going around San Francisco supporting the proposed ban on circumcision:



C'mon, the Nazis couldn't have come up with much worse than this: Armed Jews, halfway zombie-looking rabbi, a head Jew thirsty for blood... I'm surprised they didn't say something about him drinking the blood(maybe that comes later?)

This is nasty shit, it really is.

Friday, June 03, 2011

But Britain is Brady Paradise!

From An NC Gun Blog:
Two men are still being questioned after a man was killed in an apparent ride-by machine gun attack near Stockwell Tube station in south London.

Sadiq Adebiyi, 25, who lived nearby, was murdered by two men who approached on a motorbike as he stood on the pavement in Clapham Road.

Yeah, this is the kind of dumbass that would love Weiner

The politician, that is; the other I can't speak to. Looked at the screenshot of the students page:
Seattleite. Type A. Undergrad Journalism Student. Progressive. Humanitarian in the Making.
Jeez, she's like a Democrat wet dream. Apparently literally, for some.

June 4-7, 1942

Midway.

Somehow it seems inevitable: a place becomes socialist,

it wants to crap on Israel.
Recently several districts in southwest Scotland have expanded the boycott on Israeli products, and are now barring stores from carrying English translations of Israeli books. Shortly after Operation Cast Lead, the West Dunbartonshire Regional Council, located west of Glasgow, approved a bill that called to boycott goods produced in Israel. After the raid on the Turkish Flotilla to Gaza, the boycott included "a ban on the purchase of English translations of Israeli books and the distribution of these books in public libraries throughout the council's jurisdiction." The Scottish city of Dundee also joined the West Dunbartonshire by distributing "posters...calling on some 150,000 residents to refrain from buying Israeli goods." Israeli products will also have a special mark placed on them to make them more identifiable. No other country's books are being boycotted.

It is expected that "ten more Scottish councils may join the boycott."
Hmmm, wonder if they're using a yellow six-pointed star as a 'nasty Jewish product'?


TV clowns hate people of conservative belief? And use the shows they control to whack at them? Only surprise here is that they actually admitted it, and you'll notice they only did to what they assumed a listener who'd agree.
When Shapiro tells Fred Pierce, the president of ABC in the 1980s who was instrumental in Disney’s acquisition of ESPN, that “It’s very difficult for people who are politically conservative to break in” to television, he responds: “I can’t argue that point.” Those who don’t lean left, he says, “don’t promote it. It stays underground.”

Another video rolling out soon has House creator David Shore acknowledging that "there is an assumption in this town that everybody is on the left side of the spectrum, and that the few people on the right side, I think people look at them somewhat aghast, and I'm sure it doesn't help them."

"We're VERY tolerant and accepting. Except to those nasty people."


One or more burglars bashed in a steel door at the Sooner Tea Party’s Oklahoma City headquarters over the Memorial Day weekend and escaped with donor records, photocopies of checks, blank checks and other items, the leader of the conservative political organization said Wednesday.


Criminals in Wisconsin can turn to family members to hide murder guns, bloody clothes and other evidence, and prosecutors are powerless to punish those family members under current state law.
...
Krusick had difficulty getting a hearing for the bill when her party controlled the Legislature.

Rep. Robert Turner (D-Racine), former chairman of the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice, scheduled a hearing last year only after a Journal Sentinel reporter contacted him. Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee), former chair of the Judiciary, Corrections, Insurance, Campaign Finance Reform and Housing Committee, refused to hold a hearing or discuss her objections with the newspaper
.
Isn't that just wonderful? Good progressive values, that.


First off: Corporal Dipprasad Pun, if we ever meet the drinks or dinner are on me.
Second: YOU FORGOT YOUR KNIFE? Grandpa and dad must've been pissed when they heard.


And something from Theo:
A man was riding his Harley along a California beach, when suddenly the sky
cleared above his head and in a booming voice, the Lord said, 'Because you
have tried to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish.'

The biker pulled over and said, 'Build a bridge to Hawaii so I can ride over
anytime I want.'

The Lord said, 'Your request is materialistic. Think of the enormous
challenges for that kind of undertaking; the supports required reaching the
bottom of the Pacific and the concrete and steel it would take!

It will nearly exhaust several natural resources. I can do it, but it is
hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more
time and think of something that could possibly help mankind.'

The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally, he said, Lord, I wish
that I and all men could understand women; I want to know how she feels
inside, what she's thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, why she
cries, what she means when she says nothing's wrong, why she snaps and
complains when I try to help, and how I can make a woman truly happy.'

The Lord replied, 'You want two lanes or four lanes on that bridge?'

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Such wonderful people working to take over in Egypt


Jihad and slavery of the infidel. Those you don't kill.

Yes, the Gunwalker investigation- and the stonewalling

by ATF and DOJ- is still going on. Thanks to Sipsey Street found a link to this story; here's a few bits:
Here’s the problem

First, no one seems to know if Fast and Furious was, in fact, a legitimate operation, one built and played ‘by the book.’ No one at ATF, or anywhere else, seems to have any paperwork (that they want to share) on the operation.

Second, if one of the weapons that made its way into the hands of a Mexican gunman via the ATF operation was the same weapon used to murder US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, killed last December on US soil, it suggests that, at a very early stage, ATF lost control (to the Mexican military? To Federal Police? To the cartels?) of the operation. Why and how?

Third, if ATF Agent John Dodson had not blown the whistle and revealed that an ATF operation called Fast and Furious was in play, no one could have linked the weapon found at Terry’s murder site to an operation that had to have been initiated and approved by high-levels officials at ATF and DOJ—and that story would have benefited not just Mexico, but proponents of stronger gun regulation here in the US, and in the US government, as well. Win-win.

The straw that broke ATF Agent Dodson’s back? Why he ‘blew the whistle’?

The realization that the weapon used to kill a fellow agent had fallen into the hands of his murderers via an operation sanctioned and implemented by US authorities.
...
CBS News reports that Dodson was not the only ATF agent worried about Fast and Furious:
One agent called the strategy “insane.” Another said: “We were fully aware the guns would probably be moved across the border to drug cartels where they could be used to kill.”

On the phone, one Project Gunrunner source (who didn’t want to be identified) told us just how many guns flooded the black market under ATF’s watchful eye. “The numbers are over 2,500 on that case by the way. That’s how many guns were sold – including some 50-calibers they let walk.”
But here’s what’s really amazing: as much testimony as we have, and despite threats by Representative Issa (R-Calif) to cite principals at ATF and DOJ for ‘contempt,’ the investigation into Fast and Furious seems to be going nowhere.

Senior ATF officials, Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, and, most importantly, President Barack Obama have discounted the need for Issa’s subpoenas, contending that an ‘in-house’ investigation by the Office of the Investigator General within Holder’s Department of Justice is all the situation warrants.
...
Calderon blames cartel violence in Mexico on 1) Washington’s lack of financial support and inadequate sharing of US intelligence, 2) the US government’s lax attitude toward cross-border arms trafficking, and 3) the drug habits of the American people.

In other words, send more money south, reinstate the ban on the sale of assault rifles in the US, and give America’s eight million drug addicts what they really need most–treatment and prevention (as opposed to prosecution and jail time).

Hmmmm . . .where have we heard this before? Could this be what they call ‘the intersection of politics and policy’?
...
Mexico’s president, says the WP article, was dead-on in his criticism of Mexico’s arrogant partner to the north, and it’s time for the US to eat humble pie—after it apologizes to Mexico and toughens its gun-control laws.

ATF, led by senior officials who, along with Eric Holder, share a predilection for tougher gun laws, also fell in behind Presidents Calderon and Obama when the report about Fast and Furious broke, presenting a strong and very silent front to the public.

Let’s not forget that one former ATF Acting Director, Michael Sullivan (an on-the-record advocate for stringent gun control) claimed his investigators were able to trace 90-95 percent of guns found in Mexico to the United States. (Note: the only ‘guns found in Mexico’ to which ATF eventually gains access are weapons we know can be traced back to the US, because they are cherry-picked and hand-delivered to US law enforcement by the Mexican authorities themselves.)

Another of Obama’s erstwhile nominees for ATF Director, Andrew Traver, who has headed ATF’s Chicago Office, is also an on-the-record spokesperson for tougher gun legislation. Speaking to Traver’s nomination, a few months ago, Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA) said, “You might as well put an arsonist in charge of the fire department.”

And where this crap may well have been intended to lead:
But let’s say Agent Dodson hadn’t talked.

Let’s just suppose.

The AK-47 used to gun down fellow federal agent Brian Terry, once recovered, would no doubt have been identified by ATF as a weapon recently purchased from a US gun dealer on the southwest border (ATF would have had, after all, the serial numbers and other identifying documentation).

There would have been no need to mention the existence of any ATF ‘secret sting,’Operation Fast and Furious, or any links between these ATF endeavors and the movement of the weapon used to murder Terry across the US border and into the hands of his Mexican assailants.

Instead, the discovery and identification of the AK-47 used to gun down a US agent as one sold by a US gun dealer and then trafficked ‘illegally’ over the border into Mexico and into the possession of the cartels might have created a ‘perfect PR storm,’ neatly reinforcing the arguments put forth, first, by Mexico’s government, which contends there would be no gang violence in that country if the US didn’t supply gangs with guns; second, by higher-ups in the US government who favor tougher gun-control laws and non-intervention in Mexico (DOJ and the Obama Administration); and, third, by the public anti-gun lobby in America.

Indeed, here’s how that story would have read: Mexico’s claim re the US fueling cartel violence is right, and worse yet, weapons trafficked from the US are no longer being used just to murder Mexicans, but to kill Americans as well.

We’re killing our own guys.
Anybody doubt that this was the real intention of Fast & Furious? I don't, not anymore.

Traffic stop, 0100 hrs

An elderly man is stopped by the police around 1 a. m. and is asked where he is going at this time of night.

The man replies, "I am going to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body."

The officer then asks, "Really? Who is giving that lecture at this time of night?”

The man replies, “That would be my wife.”

What? The enviroweenies and alarmists were wrong?

Wow.
What if the conventional wisdom about the energy future of America and the world has been completely wrong?

As everyone who follows news about energy knows by now, in the last decade the technique of hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," long used in the oil industry, has evolved to permit energy companies to access reserves of previously-unrecoverable “shale gas” or unconventional natural gas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, these advances mean there is at least six times as much recoverable natural gas today as there was a decade ago
.
Which is why we've got Obama & Co. sending Empty-Hat Salazar out to put as much area as possible off-limits for drilling; they don't WANT us to have that energy.

Without massive, permanent government subsidies or equally massive penalty taxes imposed on inexpensive fossil fuels like shale gas, wind power and solar power may never be able to compete. For that reason, some Greens hope to shut down shale gas and gas hydrate production in advance. In their haste, however, many Greens have hyped studies that turned out to be erroneous.
Yeah, kind of like the crap on globular warmering from the CRU. And the Robert Howarth study they note.

One of the best things about this story? It's in that nasty, right-wing, Gaia-hating publication known as Salon. Which means lots of their readers are trying to stuff their brain cells back through their ears.

One of the things this means? We really could tell the oil ticks in the mid-East "Hey, guys, we don't need much of your oil anymore; so go screw goats." If Obama & Co. stopped trying to bury us in a 'green energy' hole.

Terrorists in Gaza who had links

to the 2006 abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit are "dying in unfortunate accidents," Homeland Security Minister Matan Vilnai said in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
...
"Many of them are no longer with us. [They are] unfortunate ones, all sorts of accidents [are befalling them]," Vilnai added.

"Everyone who was involved in the kidnapping won't need to worry about an old age home. They won't get there."
Awww, isn't that just terrible...

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

I don't care what the calendar says,

it's summer. 90's and humid here, friend in Waco says 100's.

And I think the squash bugs are attacking in the garden. Since I love squash, this will be responded to by chemical attack later this evening when the wind drops.

By the way, considering the displays of Professionalism in Molestation and Idiocy displayed by the minions in TSA, doesn't this project of DHS just FILL you with confidence?
Planning a sojourn in the northeastern United States? You could soon be taking part in a novel security programme that can supposedly 'sense' whether you are planning to commit a crime.

Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programme designed to spot people who are intending to commit a terrorist act, has in the past few months completed its first round of field tests at an undisclosed location in the northeast, Nature has learned.
Hmmm, y'know, in other circumstances these same clowns have derided that idea as 'profiling' and racist and bigoted and all... But then this is New and Approved(unlike that nonsense the Israelis use tha- oh, wait)
Steven Aftergood, a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, a think-tank based in Washington DC that promotes the use of science in policy-making, is pessimistic about the FAST tests. He thinks that they will produce a large proportion of false positives, frequently tagging innocent people as potential terrorists and making the system unworkable in a busy airport. "I believe that the premise of this approach — that there is an identifiable physiological signature uniquely associated with malicious intent — is mistaken. To my knowledge, it has not been demonstrated," he says. "Without it, the whole thing seems like a charade."
Or something to do, instead of actually doing something, maybe?

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Well, I guess it would count as evidence...

DHAKA, Bangladesh - A 40-year-old Bangladeshi woman cut off a man's penis during an alleged attempted rape and took it to a police station as evidence, police in a remote part of the country said Monday.


Speaking of evidence,
ONTARIO (KTLA) -- Murder charges have been filed against a woman accused of bringing a trash can containing the partial remains a deceased man to an area home and pushing it through the surrounding neighborhood Sunday, officials said.
They may have a clue as to who(whom?) the deceased was:
But detectives are looking into the recent disappearance of Montenegro's ex-boyfriend who disappeared May 1.


Never been to a Ikea store; apparently I should take earplugs:
Small explosives concealed in alarm clocks detonated at Ikea furniture stores in Belgium, France and The Netherlands, Belgian authorities said Tuesday.


And, for your dose of "Well, yeah":

Something on the Erik Scott case

that'll make you either stare in disbelief or get pissed beyond measure.

Probably both.
Since that post, additional interesting facts have come to light regarding former officer Thomas Mendiola, the Metro officer who contributed four of the seven shots fired into Erik Scott. Mendiola, as those who have followed this series will recall, fired those shots at close range into Scott’s back as he was falling, face first to the pavement. Mendiola also testified that he did not actually know if Officer William Mosher—who fired the two shots that began the barrage of fire in the midst of a crowd of shoppers that Metro caused to simultaneously leave the Costco—fired the shots he heard or if Erik Scott fired, but this did not prevent his firing into the back of a man who he could not positively say actually presented a danger to himself or others, though he certainly came to appreciate the necessity of saying that at the Inquest.

Want a professional breakdown/opinion of what we know

on the murder* of Jose Guerena? Go here. Breakables alert in effect.

Couple of things in particular that bother me. As in Piss me off Mightily. One is that Guerena was hit 22 times out of more than 70 shots fired; I wonder if these clowns had any freakin' idea where all those bullets were going?

Second, (9) The shooting begins with 4-5 evenly spaced shots, apparently on semi-automatic. Those shots are quickly joined by a wild melee of fire which lasts about eight seconds, followed by a two second silence and one final shot. According to media accounts, the SWAT team “leader” said that the officers involved exhausted their ammunition. That’s not at all hard to believe, and it is possible that more than 71 rounds were fired.
Am I the only one who's bothered by that sequence? Especially that final shot?

Every officer on that team ought to be held personally liable for their actions. And Dupnik, as well, since he authorized this travesty.


Added: over at This Ain't Hell, all his posts on this mess

*No, I do not use that word lightly.

Note to whoever: if you call someone for help

("My tire is flat! I can't get to my spare! Do you have a air pump?"), there are certain things incumbent upon you:
First, Be where you say you are. For instance, "In front of Bed, Bath & Beyond" does NOT mean "In front of the store TWO PLACES OVER IN THE SHOPPING CENTER."
Second, if you do have to move the car for some reason, it might be a nice idea to go to the front of the STORE YOU SAID YOU WERE IN FRONT OF to wait for the one coming to assist.
I'll probably think of something else later, but I'm hot, tired and thirsty. And finding out she didn't know how to use a bloody tire gauge didn't help my mood.

Sometimes they slip up and tell you what they really think

And then they realize, and try to hide it.

Of course, they flat-out lie, too.

Comment against the BATFE long-gun sale reporting

scheme: go here and fill it out.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Point this out to anyone who thinks getting rid of guns

is some kind of cure-all:
The attacker used a kitchen cleaver to kill the school's owner, Wu Hongying, and five boys and two girls on Wednesday morning before returning home and committing suicide, state media said.

The school owner's mother, who was wounded in the attack, later died at a hospital, Xinhua said.

Eleven other children from the attack remain hospitalized, including two with severe injuries, according to Xinhua
.

What the hell's going on in the PRC?
It was the sixth such attack in China on schoolchildren since March.

Memorial Day




There's a Corries song Liberty, I think I remember the lyrics:
By the cross our Andrew bore
By the sword our William wore
By the crown our Robert swore
To win our Liberty
Call the falcon frae the glen
Call the eagle frae the bend
Call the lion frae his den
To win our Liberty

By the man whose faith was old
By the man they sold for gold
By the man they'll never hold
To win our Liberty
Call the thieves o' Liddesdale
call the spears of Annandale
Call the brave of Yellowvale
To win our Liberty

By the arm that bends the bow
By the arm that plies the blow
By the arm that lays them low
To win our Liberty
Call the banners frae the west
Call the raven frae his nest
Call the clans that dance the best
To win our Liberty

By the field that once was green
By the shield that's silver sheen
By the sword in battle keen
To win our Liberty
Bless the man whose faith we hold
Bless the man in chains they sold
Bless the man in cloth o' gold
Wha won our Liberty
Bless the man whose faith we hold
Bless the man in chains they sold
Bless the man in cloth o' gold
Wha won our Liberty


And from Rod Stewart

If you've never seen the original video, it's worth a look

MAIG stuffs the ballot box

In the aftermath of that cyber-battle debacle, onlygunsandmoney.blogspot.com rooted around a bit for an explanation. And found one. “Examining the comments that have been made available on the ATF’s Freedom of Information Act page, it quickly becomes evident that most of the pro-reporting comments were form letters sent by a bulk mailer program. The comments are identical and just strip in the sender’s name and address.” And the group responsible for winning the cyber war is . . .

Mayor Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG). Of course, all’s fair in e-politics, right? Our industrious fellow firearms blogger seems to think so. Ish.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Yeah, it's a holiday; crap like

this shouldn't be overlooked:
An astounding Department of Justice threat to cancel airline flights to and from Texas, in addition to underhanded lobbying by TSA representatives, has killed efforts in the state to pass HB 1937, a bill that would have made invasive pat downs Linkby TSA agents a felony.

HB 1937, a bill that would have made it “A criminal act for security personnel to touch a person’s private areas without probable cause as a condition of travel or as a condition of entry into a public place,” was headed for an imminent Senate vote in Texas having already passed the House unanimously 138-0, before the federal government stepped in to nix the legislation.

In a letter sent to Texas lawmakers, including to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Speaker Joe Straus, the House Clerk, and the Senate Secretary, U.S. Attorney John E. Murphy threatened to cripple the airline industry in the state if legislators did not back down.

“If HR [sic] 1937 were enacted, the federal government would likely seek an emergency stay of the statute,” Murphy wrote. “Unless or until such a stay were granted, TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.”
Let's see, number of terrorists actually caught by TSA(zero last I heard) compared to number of people felt-up/molested/mistreated by TSA(God only knows how many)...



Most of you know this, for those who don't: bad humans are not the only reason to carry.
But the three suddenly came back – and this time they attacked both the German shepherd and the owner.
Lewis, a legal gun owner who has a concealed weapon permit, pulled out his handgun and opened fire at that point, shooting one of the pit bulls and scaring away the two others
.


But I'm sure Obamacare socialized medicine will be just WONDERFUL for us...
Doctors are prescribing drinking water for neglected elderly patients to stop them dying of thirst in hospital.

The measure – to remind nurses of the most basic necessity – is revealed in a damning report on pensioner care in NHS wards.

Some trusts are neglecting the elderly on such a fundamental level their wards could face closure orders
.


Why does anyone not a left-wing "We can use her" squirrel pay any attention to what comes out of Meghan McCains' mouth? Especially as she can't seem to put two sentences together without saying 'like'?


Camp of the Saints has a piece comparing Obama to Netenyahu(guess who loses out), and has a new flag to put up:



Freedom of information laws are being misused to harass scientists and should be re-examined by the government, according to the president of the Royal Society.

Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse told the Guardian that some climate scientists were being targeted by organised campaigns of requests for data and other research materials, aimed at intimidating them and slowing down research. He said the behaviour was turning freedom of information laws into a way to intimidate some scientists.
Obviously, the other answer, that people want to know what the hell these so-called climate scientists are actually doing, what the raw data looks like, what they are doing with the data, how they are coming to conclusions, etc and so on, is would be silly.


Apparently the Italian government is staffed by ignorant fools.
Italian government officials have accused the country's top seismologist of manslaughter, after failing to predict a natural disaster that struck Italy in 2009, a massive devastating earthquake that killed 308 people.

And now, I'm off; that's enough catching-up for now.

It's not a long trip, but it's the first Updated

I've taken on this bike, and I found out a few things.
Speed-wise, at 75 this bike(VFR800) is turning a grand total of 5000rpm, and feels like it's just loafing along. Considering it doesn't redline till almost 12k, I guess it is.
I've been getting around 40mpg, in town and some highway; on the trip down I got just over 48; steady highway speeds make a difference(I'll add the mileage for the trip back when I tank up)(update: trip home, 56mpg; a horrendous crosswind/sort-of-quartering-in-places wind instead of a headwind made a helluva difference).
That Throttle Rocker works. Bad thing: you can't take your hand completely off the throttle to rest it. Good thing: you can just add or reduce pressure with your wrist to adjust speed. For longer trips(say 200 miles or more) I think I'd like a throttle lock, but this does work quite well.
This was a 'wind sweeping down the plain' day; I can't remember ever spending that much time in a constant lean before. Not in one day.
The weather weenies called this: right about the time I passed out of the 'high wind warning' area, it really did ease off.
I'll add a bit later; right now I think the bike has cooled off, so I'm going to wash the bugs off it.