Get Well Felipe

I want to see you back racing soon...

Photo by ph-stop

During qualifying for yesterdays Hungarian GP Felipe Massa was unlucky enough to catch a one pound spring off of Ruebens Barichello's Brawn while traveling close to 170 mph. He was kept in an induced coma for two days but it sounds like as of Monday he is awake and responding favorably. They still are unsure of the damage that he may have taken to his eye.

Jalopnik has a picture of his helmet and an embedded video here. Watch the video quickly because F1 is pretty quick about getting videos pulled.

Basically that spring had been bouncing on the track for four seconds before Massa hit it. Just about any other piece of a car except a wheel would have settled on the ground and been only a hazard to the car (puncture, broken body work). The odds of his head and the spring being at the same point at that moment are huge, but it happened. From the picture on Jalopnik, it looks like Massa was very close to being hit directly through his visor. We are talking another inch and almost certain death. This incident is remarkably similar to the incident that killed Henry Surtees, the son of former F1 champion, John Surtees. He was hit in the head by a wheel that had broken away from another car.

Massa has been the driver I love to root against ever since he put on the Ferrari red. But you never want this. Hopefully we will see him flying around the track in that Ferrari again. I will definitely be cheering loudly for him.

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Thats Right!

I can across this tonight on Gunslinger's Journal via Cold Fury and it just clicked with me.

Health care is not a right. Why? Because it requires the labor of others. Same with a right to housing, education, or even a good beer. I'll let Gunslinger explain.

Anything that requires the labor of someone else cannot be a universal human right.

Our Constitutional, Natural Law rights require only that others leave us alone. They require no labor, action, payment, participation or sacrifice of anyone else on our behalf.

We have the right to NOT be interfered with when we speak, practice religion, gather, or bear arms. We have the right NOT to be imprisoned without due-process, to be searched without cause, to be made to testify against ourselves.

See how that works?

But the "rights" that the Progressives pretend we have, like health care, education, food, housing and jobs...all require the participation of others.

Health care requires the labor of doctors.
Education requires the labor of teachers.
Housing requires the labor of builders.

What if doctors quit? What if teachers quit? What if builders quit?

To provide YOU the "right" to healthcare, doctors would be forced to labor.
To provide YOU the "right" to education, teachers would be forced to labor.
To provide YOU the "right" to housing, builders would be forced to labor.

If you take any supposed "right" and you push it to its logical conclusion—and the only solution would entail the coercing of any individual—it's not a right at all.

It's just a greedy, selfish Want.

In a nutshell—nothing that demands the labor or sacrifice of another is your right.

This simple formula can be used to determine the truth about all those supposed "rights" the Progressive/Fascists are trying to sell us.

They, it seems, are perfectly willing to use government force, and confiscation to make sure somebody get's their Wants fulfilled.

Well put.

What if doctors were like the public schools.

Sure there are many great teachers, but there are some crappy ones too. Which one you get is the luck of the draw. You, are in Mr. Crappy Teachers class this year. Sure if you have money you can put little Billy in a private school, but that is a pretty expensive option.

Just replace teacher with doctor...

Hmmm.

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Walkie-Talkie

This post is probably of no interest to most of you, but it brings up something interesting to me.

Calling All Agents: Kilometers Long Remote Camera Shutter Trigger

As a kid I was fascinated by walkie-talkies. Mind you this was way before the days of twitting-via-your-iPhone-while-getting-your-kids-picture-in-mail-and-SMSing-your-boss-that-you-are-going-to-miss-the-meeting-cause-your-stuck-in-traffic days.

I too dreamed of walkie-talkies as a kid. How cool would it be to be able to talk to my buddy hiding out in fort from my fort. (reminder: this is a kids dream, I also liked forts.) Magical! Now I have a phone in my pocket that can do that plus take pictures, send pictures, GPS, texting, internet, games, etc. Pretty much everybody has a phone that can do most of that now. We take it for granted, get pissy when a call drops.

So sad that kids of today won't have that dream. Then again, that is probably what my parents think about color moving pictures in our houses (TV's). ...And our grandparents think of indoor plumbing... What is it that today's kids are dreaming of that will become commonplace by the time they are adults?

I want to know!

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So Sorry

What, they welcomed Obama with the same excitement that they welcomed Bush?

Funny stuff when Mr. Lemon finds out the 'one' didn't get an unprecedented welcome. No bias... heh.

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Sore A$$

Took the new Stumpy out for a spin today on the BG. I actually survived an 11 mile out and back. It felt great to get out there and ride again. Already though my rear is hurting.... I'll take tomorrow off, but ride again Wednesday. Like they say, no pain, no gain. Just got to push through it.

Here is a shot of the rig after the ride. No dirt yet, but it will come. (Can you tell this wasn't taken with my SLR?)


Yes, I bought a hell of a bike for a fat guy that hasn't ridden regularly in eight years... I was pretty sure that it was a good bet when I got it Sunday, I am positive that it was a good bet today. The high I was on when I got home cemented that.

Ride on!

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No Diving!

It was pretty warm yesterday and we couldn't go to the park, so we set the kiddie-pool out for the beast. He likes it.

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Ancestry

For whatever reason, last night I got a wild hair and signed up at Ancestry.com. Five hours of research and I found an ancestor in the 1300's. Crazy!

Granted, the big progress that I have made was on the backs of others. You can search public trees and bring others research into your own. There are a few lines that I am going to have a hard time getting to the mid 1800's. You have to search old records, all handwritten, to find clues. It is pretty exciting to make a match when you put two and two together.

Today being the Fourth of July, it was neat to see that I had a few ancestor in the states in 1776.

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Karl Malden

Today, Oscar winning actor Karl Malden passed away.



Why do I mention that?

Because, no joke, this morning at 4:45 am, his name (and nose) popped into my head. I have no idea why, I haven't thought of him or seen any work of his in quite awhile. It was just out of the blue.

Do I have psychic powers?

Developing...

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