aubreyturner.org

I heard about this yesterday morning on the local news.  I had no idea that such a device existed (although it’s probably fairly simple once you think about it).  What is it?  It’s a device that disables the starter system on a car unless the payment has been made.  It’s installed at the time of sale and programmed with the payment schedule (weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, etc).  Three days before the payment is due a red light starts to flash.  On the fourth day the starter will be disabled.  Upon making a payment, the lender gives the buyer a code that is entered into the system using a keypad, which resets it.

I know it sounds intrusive and annoying (I certainly wouldn’t want to have to deal with it), but it allows the dealers to sell to people whose credit wouldn’t have allowed them to obtain a car in the past.

It’s Monday, so a bit of levity is needed.  I squirreled this link away last week and found it again this morning.  At the end of the Dave Barry column on telemarketers, I found this bit about September, 19th.

IMPORTANT REMINDER—Mark your calendar with a big ‘‘X’’ on Sept. 19, which is the second annual National Talk Like A Pirate Day. This is the day when everybody is supposed to talk like a pirate for very solid reasons (see www.talklikeapirate.com).

Last year, the first National Talk Like a Pirate Day was a huge success, as measured by the number of messages on my answering machine consisting entirely of people going ‘‘Arrrrr.’’ So if you’re feeling depressed—if you think the world is in terrible shape, and one person like yourself can’t make a difference—remember this: You’re right. So you might as well talk like a pirate. It’s easy! For example, when you answer the phone, instead of ‘‘Hello,’’ you say ‘‘Ahoy!’‘

Then you hang up. Scurvy telemarrrrrketers!

I got back early this afternoon, but I’ve been trying to catch up on email and get a feel for what’s going on in the world (and trolling my way through the blog roll; up to the Friday Lileks now—wonder what brand of tiny evil cigar he favors as I’m partial to Macanudo Minatures myself).

Centered around my grandfather’s services, the weekend turned into something of a family reunion, with people coming in who I’d never met before, including my great uncle (my grandfather’s younger brother).  I think my grandfather would have been pleased by it.

I also learned some more about the family, including the revelation that I have several more cousins than I originally knew about.  I asked one of my aunts, who is researching the family tree about it when I saw that the obituary listed 27 grandchildren when I was only aware of 20.  It turns out that one of my uncles (who is something of the “prodigal son”, he’s currently in Kuwait working for an oil company) had a family while he was living in Mexico (which accounts for some, but not all of the additional 7).

My aunt is talking about having another family reunion to try to bring all these people together again, since it’s been quite a while since there’s been one for my grandfather’s side of the family (the one I went to in June was for my grandmother’s family and their descendants).  I hope this comes through, since I’ve got a lot to learn, having been pretty much separated from them since I was about 7.

My grandfather passed away this morning.  The funeral will be Saturday in Rosenberg (about 30 miles southwest of Houston).

Most people refer to their grandparents by family name because they grew up with a set of grandparents for each of their parents.  In my case my father was so much older than my mother (he was 58, she was 22 when I was born), that I never had a chance to meet my grandparents on my father’s side.  So for me, Grandpa always meant one person.  Most of my memories of him are from when I was young.  Until I was seven we lived in Houston, which let us see my grandparents on a regular basis.  Unfortunately we moved 300 miles away and I rarely saw them after that. The same goes for all of my cousins and other relatives (and there are quite a few, my mother is the youngest of eight children, and I have 18 first cousins).

He wasn’t a terribly demonstrative man.  I think that was just a trait of his generation.  But you always knew he cared and that you were welcome at my grandparent’s house.  It was just something that came across somehow.

I’ll be driving down there tomorrow and coming back on Sunday.

Stephen Green says something that’s been rattling around in my head for the past two years now.

But are you terrorized?

Do you live in constant, unalterable fear?

For me, the answer is: “Hell, no!”

Dread is for the weak; defiance is, perhaps, the American virtue.

Defiance is the word that I’ve been searching for.  I’ve gotten really tired of the way we’ve been using the word “terror.”  Perhaps it fits into the worldview of the chattering classes, who might live in terror, but I think that’s a signal of their helplessness.  They’re used to living under the protection of others and taking no responsibility for their own safety.  The rest of us are more angry than anything else, and we’re ready to take it out on the first Islamofascist nutbag who tries something stupid.

For me, September 11, 2001 began much like any other day during that year.  I was on my way to work (stuck in a traffic jam) at 7:46am CDT, when the first plane hit.  It was a bright, clear morning.  I was listening to the radio when they interrupted the music for breaking news.  They said that an airplane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center.  A woman was reporting via cell phone and I remember wondering why she was so hysterical.  The possibility of a plane hitting a tall building in New York was always there (like the one that hit the Empire State Building), so I thought it was just an accident.  By the time I got into the office, though, we were getting reports that a second plane had hit.  We didn’t have a TV, so all we had to go on were second-hand reports from others, the radio, and the internet (which wasn’t much use, since the big news sites’ servers were melting under the load).

I just remember that day being a series of surprises and revelations.  I remember thinking that an airplane couldn’t bring down the building itself (somewhere I’d heard that they’d planned for this possibility during the design of the towers), then being surprised when the first tower collapsed.  We later learned that it was the fire that did it.

My most vivid memory of that day was returning home after work.  I had stopped at a light and had the windows down.  Something felt strange and it took me a few seconds to realize that it was too quiet.  We work in the flight path of DFW airport and there are always planes overhead.  This time there were none and their absence was noticeable.

After the initial shock came the crash course on militant Islam as well as the PC brainwashing about the “religion of peace™”.  It took a while to get past that to understand the truth.  At the time I was a pretty hard core libertarian, leaning towards being an anarchocapitalist.  But as I came to learn more about the sick culture that spawned this attack, I came to realize the futility of anything other than a robust military response.  We could withdraw all our forces back to our borders, but we’d still be attacked.  There was nothing to gain from trying to be nice.

Further, as more stories came out about the victims of the attacks my anger grew.  The thing that did it for me was the picture of that little girl who was killed along with her parents on one of the planes.  I kept wondering what kind of sick bastards would view her sacrifice has somehow acceptable.  What kind of disgusting pigs would deliberately target people who were doing nothing more than going about their daily business, harming no one?

I have no intention of “moving on”, or accepting it, or any of that other psychobabble bullshit.  I no longer care about the opinion of the “Arab street” or what the Islamofascists think of us.  Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about them anymore.  And the Palestinians can forget about any kind of support anymore as well.  Those rat bastards cheered in the streets after September 11, 2001.  Before then I thought that they perhaps deserved a chance.  But 9/11 shined a spotlight on their disgusting culture of death and opened my eyes.  Anyone who engages in attacks against us, who encourages those attacks, or who provides any kind of support for those attacks deserves nothing less than death.

I don’t care if they like us or not.  I just want them to understand that attacking us will only get them killed.  Let them hate, so long as they fear.

I was all worked up to post my September 11th rant here, but my hosting service is being DDOS’d.  It finally seems to be recovering (the post below was written a few minutes after the one before it, but I was just now able to post it), but I’m in no mood to write it now.  Perhaps I’ll do it in the morning.  I’ve been in kind of a belligerent mood of late, so perhaps I’ll still have something left to say then.

I came across this article by Walter Williams today on the craptacular federal “Click it or ticket” campaign.  If you want to see me unleash a cloud of profanity, you should be around when one of their asinine commercials comes on.  The city of Dallas has been touting its 90% compliance rate, yet at the same time it’s suffering from a rising crime rate.  Maybe they could put their resources to better use?  And perhaps the federal government could butt out and quit wasting my money for this ($4.2 million according to the Dallas Morning News article).

I’ll be the first to admit that wearing a seat belt is a good idea, but it’s not a matter for the government to decide for us (no matter how altruistic it may be).  Seat belts have saved my behind twice in the past.  But I’d prefer to have been treated as an adult and given the information, rather than forced to wear them at the point of the government’s gun (and I’m not exaggerating here, just ask that woman who was arrested for a seat belt violation).  Anyway, I know the standard argument: people who don’t wear seat belts cost us all money because we have to treat them.  Williams phrases the response to that better than I could.

Some might argue, but falsely so, that the problem with people exercising their liberty to drive without seatbelts, ride motorcycles without helmets or eat in unhealthy ways is that if they become injured or sick, society will be burdened with higher health-care costs. That’s not a problem of liberty but one of socialism. (emphasis added)

There’s no liberty-based argument for forcing one person to care for the needs of another. Under socialism, one is obliged to care for another. A parent-child relationship emerges between the citizen and the government. That was not the vision of our Founders.

Eugene Volokh points out that Neal Stephenson’s latest novel, Quicksilver will be available on 9/23.  I put the book on order, and while I was there I got to wondering about some other upcoming releases that I’ve been interested in.  Barenaked Ladies will release their new album, Everything to Everyone on 10/21, and I put that on order as well.

I also found that Sarah McLachlan is releasing her new album (Afterglow) on 11/4 (although it’s not yet available for order).

My mother and one of my aunts sat with my grandfather last night and there were several rough spots.  It was very sad when we had to leave.  After we left, my aunt called to tell us that he’d improved later in the morning.  He has always been a very robust man, and even in his current state he’s got some of that fight left.  They’ll probably move him out of the hospital in Houston soon and send him back to Richmond so he will be closer to the family (most of whom are in Rosenberg).  But at this point, it’s only a matter of time and they’re just going to try to keep him comfortable.

Maybe later, when I’m not so tired (I’ve been on the road most of the day), I may have more to say about my (unfavorable) thoughts on the doctors who have been involved with my grandfather’s care.