Mitt Romney only paid 15% income tax!

Of course that's 15% more than 49% of the country....

And $3 million to charity. What a greedhead.

In the last week, I finally discovered the reason that my serpentine belt on my Taurus would squeal embarrassingly, even tough it was a relatively new belt.

I say relatively new, because it was a couple years old and had been replaced by a new belt with the head gaskets.

A week or more ago, I pulled both the old belt (a Gates) and the new (USA, brand illegible) alongside each other and found that the newer belt was longer than the older Gates belt.

I did this because when I tried to apply more tension on it, nothing tightened.

So I put the Gates back on (after cleaning it thoroughly) and it stopped squealing, for a few days.

Then it started again.

With the engine running, I put a wrench on the tensioner and put more tension on the belt.

(Note: I am an idiot. Kids don't try this at home.)

Putting more tension on the belt only caused it to squeal more!

Taking tension off quieted it and as it got quieter I observed that it ran "truer".

So I did what anyone would do.

I removed the tensioner, put it on a steel plate and measured the difference in height from the table of four positions (compass points) on the pulley.

So it was forty thousandths of an inch out of alignment!

I found that hard to believe, but I went out to get a Gates tensioner ($55!) and when I measured it, it had five thousandths.
So I installed it, and the squeal is gone.

Today, my air compressor threw a belt.

Of all things, the motor has twisted over the years to be out of line with the pump.

Nothing a torch and a hammer couldn't fix.
Cheaper than the car.
 

In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation.

That's from Wikipedia.

I would say that treason is when someone sells out their country for their own personal benefit.

Think Benedict Arnold.

Think Barrack Hussein Obama.

The man wants to be re-elected.
That would benefit him personally, at the expense of the country.

But to further his chances of re-election, he has sold out the interests of this nation's security.
He has done this by refusing to allow the Excel pipeline.
He has done this by de-permitting offshore drilling.
He has promised to do this by neutering our military budget.

Will he be held accountable?

I went to see this movie tonight with friends.

We were among the few white people in the audience.

It started out with some weak opening credits and music that made me worry about my choice for our viewing experience.

I've read that it was predictable.

I kinda thought we were going to win the war.

That they'd experience racism.

That someone would die.

The audience applauded. We joined in.