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You are currently browsing the Six Meat Buffet blog archives for October, 2007.
Well, that is just a secondary fallout – how the Clintons betrayed and sunk Stan Lee Media.
The much larger point is a story of unprecedented campaign fraud. This 13+ minute video from Stop the ACLU will sicken you. But what will actually send you retching is the fact that nothing has happened in terms of consequences for this.
Greetings all.
To all my devoted fans and loyal followers, I must humbly apologize for neglecting my blogging duties over the past week or so. Unfortunately real life and work deadlines has gotten in the way of sharing my inspiring and witty commentary with you, the SMB audience.
By now I assume that most of you have heard that Cow-wee-fornia has become the third state in the union to ban smoking in cars if children are present. As a hardcore Conservative and freedom-loving American, this continued hand-in-the-pants role that we are allowing government to assume is quite scary. The relative ease with which basic liberties are taken from us is appalling and the apathy of my fellow citizens is even worse.
When trying to broach this topic in any forum, I am usually met with the most simplistic of rebuttals: what.. you think it’s ok to force children to breathe second-hand smoke?
Am I crazy? Is the larger picture really that hard to see? Where does it stop?
Every election season we hear from candidates who promise to invite themselves into our lives even more in the form of higher-taxes and socialized medicine. Sadly, a mind-boggling percentage of Americans simply nod their heads and lap it up.
Our country is barrelling down a dangerous course. It’s too bad that so many seem to be enjoying the ride.
Cars. There is a vibrant car culture in Romania. Here, BMW, Audi and Mercedes rule the roost.
As for American cars, Ford has a decent presence in the Romanian market. Chrysler, probably due to the Mercedes ownership is making small in-roads (Ha! Cranky made a funny). If you want a GM, well you can get one – sorta. Korean car manufacturer Daewoo is controlled by GM and is quite popular here.
What is suspiciously rare here is Toyota. The joke is that Toyotas are cars for Americans. I told them to go shove my Camry up their exhaust pipes.
French and Italian makes are by far the majority. Even Romania’s own car company, Dacia, is partially owned by Renault.
You’ve heard about the European trend towards small cars. Because of very high taxes and gas prices at about $5.50 per gallon, the small car rules here. There are no shortages of Audi A6s and BMWs here, but you know the drivers are paying dearly for it.
My collegue here (from the world-famous Deathwish in Romania video), loves cars. His ultimate would be the Mazda RX-8. But he seems to like the new Mustangs too.
So, without further ado, lets go to the pictures.
Cars:
This is Andrei’s Fiat.
The East German Trabant. Consider that while West Germans were perfecting engineering and quality, the repressed East was producing these. Now, go smack a Socialist on the head.
So we had a little roadtrip adventure last weekend. Into the mountains West of Iasi. The thrilling part was going to the top of the mountain and staying at the resort hotel there. Well almost.
This one lane dirt road connected the last town and the mountain top. Please note the 100% organic wash-outs on the side of the cliffs. These pics are taken on the way down. On the way up it was dark and foggy. It took about 2 hours to go about 20 miles including breaks to see how deep the puddles in front of the car were.
The Mountain Lodge
Inside the Hotel:
ps.
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Raise the white flag, you rough-and-tumble New Yorkers.
Nigel has the low down on NYC’s public shame.
You haven’t really seen the race card played until you’ve seen the race card played by a self-righteous, overly-enthusiastic hispanic soccer mom at a 5-year-old soccer game. Note to over-the-top soccer mom: Just because you are passionate to a fault about your kid’s soccer talents, doesn’t give you a green light to overstep the boundaries of acceptable parent behavior at a game where the score isn’t even officially kept. Wait until they’re at least 7 before you start screaming “discrimination.”
On the other hand, you can just bring your ACLU-provided attorney every Saturday morning to make sure everyone knows who gots the real power.
Buffet Friend, The Jawa Report gets some ink pixels in the Washington Times.
Why we love the Jawas:
“I’m just doing my part, but it’s also very exciting,” says “Mr. Shackleford” who claims to have destroyed 30 Web sites.
Information for contacting servers hosting this and other Web sites can be found at My Pet Jawa. [Why no link? Don't know]
So really, what is going on in the world that’s so important? Iran wants to go nuclear, politicians are crooked and Barbra Streisand still sucks. Oh yeah, and Fred Thompson was great at the debates, yes?
This lull in the news cycle presents a perfect opportunity to talk about me. You’re welcome.
The photos are actually hosted at Flickr to conserve precious 6MB bandwidth that we’re saving just in case Smantix comes out of retirement.
OK. Where did we leave off? Right the hotel.
The hotel is clean and formal. Like everything else, it is the differences you notice. For example, the music is Musak. We threw off the shackles of this aural oppression years ago. Believe me friends, you haven’t been through Hell until you hear the Bee Gee’s song, How Deep is Your Love played on pan pipes in a 30 minute loop.
Like most things around Romania, it doesn’t have the polish that the American counterparts have. And this isn’t necessary a bad thing. For example, at the Nashville Hilton this last summer, there was a Starbucks in the lobby. Convenient, familiar and branded. At the Hotel Europa, you have an urn of good, espresso-strength coffee made every morning. Sometimes that’s all you want.
This is one of the nicest hotel rooms at the fanciest hotel in Iasi (pronounced “Yash”).
Relatively Spartan, but that is something you get used to. This hotel does not have WiFi, but this is the exception, not the rule. I am currently using a cell-phone modem network which plugs into the USB port and works like a half-retarded DSL line.
Here is a street-level view of the place:
In Bucharest:
More to come. Got to get to work.
How did I miss that Judas Priest was not only gay, but fabulous gay?
Oh… it’s Dallas at Buffalo? Sounds like a bad idea for liveblogging. But that’s never stopped me before. So on we go. For the record, I’ve never heard of any of the players on the Bills, though, with those throwback uniforms, I expect to see Joe Ferguson and O.J. “I Like Hacking Off The Heads of White Women” Simpson. So far, no corpses.
My captors are treating me well and only ask that you Americans recognize the Glorious Republic of Romania. Oh yes, and send Ford Mustangs.
More to come, I promise.
ps. What is up with Preston, TinyE and annika is beyond me. I have an excuse.
Yes, that is what the headlines should read.
The way the liberals and media (is that redudant?) are milking this non-issue, one would think President Bush was personally traveling through elementary schools and escorting classrooms full of children into the gas chamber. The irony here is that if he were advocating aborting potentially uninsured children, then he would be lauded as a true compassionate human being and progressive thinker.
See.. occasionally he gets things right. A quick word search of the Constitution reveals nothing about providing medical care for citizens. Bravo!
Attention American people! I have a question for you: is it your priority to see to it that tax-payer funded medical programs include children of illegal alliens or fellow citizens with incomes of upwards of $80,000 per year?
Bam! Two in a row! Junior is on a roll!
Ladies and gentlemen, I work for myself. I’ve paid for my own insurance for well over 4 years. While it’s not the cheapest monthly bill, it’s certainly not the most expensive. It’s all about priorities and spending wisely. Many of those who do not want to pay to insure themselves are more interested in spending their hard-earned dollars on the “finer things” or they are simply too lazy to do a little homework to find out the actual costs.
They raise $5 million to ensure that the Federal government takes money out of your wallet. How’s that for patriotism!
Why doesn’t this coalition of liberal groups take that wad of money and put it towards actually purchasing medical care for those who truly need it instead of demanding that Congress pick your pocket?
Hmmmm?
It seems that ABC and the Desperate Housewives have offended our Filipino friends in a recent episode. Apparently Teri Hatcher’s character (Susan Mayer) wants nothing to do with Filipino medical care:
To find out how real Filipinos felt, I asked my beautiful and brilliant college-professor wife (who happens to be Filipino from her mother’s side) if she was offended by the controversial episode:
Now get back to work!
The Flight
Flew Lufthanza on coach. At first, I thought being in aisle “D” was a good thing. Until I found out about aisles “E”, “F” and “G”. I was between a retired gentleman and and an asian who spoke little English – or anything else for that matter.
I also was initially disappointed by not getting a nice fraulein for a flight attendant, but rather Gerhard von Schrudelstuffer.
Turns out the flight was better than I could have hoped for. Except for occasional outbursts of mass death, the Germans really have a knack for hospitality.
Free drinks, a hot meal and free in-flight movie. Wow. Not only that, the retiree turned out to have ten years experience in Romania in the 1970s and plenty of cool stories about being spied on by Commies and being de-briefed with the State department.
The Frankfort airport was the first place I ever touched European soil. OK, not soil – soiled linoleum. The airport was remarkable in its consistiency with every other airport I’ve ever been in.
Romania appears to still be considered Europe’s poor cousin. Going to the gate for Bucharest was a descent from Third Class to Third World. Even Lufthansa plays into this. When boarding was announced, I stood up, got in line, when through the gate and found myself on the tarmac in front of a bus.
We loaded onto the bus and cruised across the tarmac.
At the plane, the metropolitan nature of Frankfort gave way to a refugee scene from a bad WWII movie. Everybody looked like John Belushi.
But my judging on appearance turned out to be a big mistake. The large boorish, John Belushi sitting next to me was A PHd in something related to optical science. He was flying back from delivering a presentation at a conference in Chicago.
The country is beautiful. It looks like someone superimposed modern life on a rural infrastructure. Towns look similar to the eastern part of the San Joaquin valley in California. In all, it looks like a beautiful place in need of a good powerwashing.
The coolest part is the highways. One and one half lanes of sheer driving adrenilaine. Here, the definition of “defensive driving” is when your driver isconstantly explaining that he really is a safe driver.
Here is the view from the hotel. Note the mix of modern and run-down. Much like parts of Oakland, CA.
