Grand Torino

Welcome.

In reality I wouldn't have even thought about an escape route. That's all I'm sayin'.

I remember those.

After 26 years in the military they decided for me that I'd take every pill/shot/ vaccine under the sun and I can honestly say nothing gave me side effects. I get a flu shot every year and yeah all the supplements known to man that would help me. I'm 71 and am a quad bypass survivor for 12 years now. I'd take anything they offered as a cure...even that stuff that Trump has spoken of if would get people out of the house and back to work before we end up a damn banana republic. While not working myself I'd gladly take it anyway to make sure I couldn't possibly effect the working man with a mortgage, wife and four kids depending on him. I'm sick of the Constitution and Bill of Rights being trampled.

Rant on.... I'm pissed about the government trampling our rights into dust by deciding who is essential and who isn't. They are destroying businesses, lives and so on. When crap likes this happens the government seldom if ever returns your rights as I see it. That being said I'm disgusted by Americans that don't appear to have an ounce of common sense when it pertains to personal behavior. If people would do their job for example and not an bit more instead of doing stuff half -assed just think how wonderful the world could be. People that have the "entitled" view of everything get on my last nerve. In reality one is entitled to very little but Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is among them. The government in these trying times should provide us with the best information on protective equipment, facts about how it spreads/transmitted and so on. We have a Constitution and Bill of Rights to guide us but with society the way it is people are either stupid or lazy and seem to need government to make even the simplest of decisions for them. It's why half the people in the country think socialism is this wonderful damn thing. Yes I'm old and yes I think personal responsibility for the most part is a thing of the past as I look at today's society. I am for now entitled to an opinion and apologize if I've offended anyone....well not really. Rant off...

I stay home most all the time anyway. I have plenty of stuff to keep me busy. I have ventured to the store one or twice for stuff but usually go during old folks hour in the morning and with gloves, a mask and anti-bacterial wipes and of course my glasses. Things down my way aren't terribly crazy yet so I'm usually in and out in a few minutes without much contact. If things keep getting worse I won't be going out at all. For me we have plenty of stuff so it just isn't worth it. I know if we don't get people back to work soon there won't be an economy worth re-starting. My heart goes out to everyone that has lost a job or watching their business crumble because of some lying, communist assholes in China....pardon my French.

We finally got good news today. The missus tested negative for CV. She still has has that pesky mid range fever that comes and goes though. The doctor prescribed a ZPAK and something else that I picked up this morning. She already says she is feeling better.

I've got a million bucks worth off booze, smokes, TP and bullets so I think I'm set for trading if need be.

I hope everything turns out great for all concerned.

Not really...but not any worse either so I guess it's a plus. Still haven't heard a damn thing about her test results yet which is a PITA but oh well. She still has a mid grade fever that comes and goes. Fees great when it's gone and poopy (her words) when it returns. She is eating and sleeping well so that's a plus. I don't know what she has but she has something for sure. The waiting for an answer is the worst I guess...at least for me.

We moved into a bigger house. The last time I was back there was 1995 and the house was still as pretty as a picture.

The house I came home to as a baby was a kit house from Sears. We lived in that house till 1959.

So this is a post I saw on a blog and there no references to back it up but I was wondering what you guys think of it.

I don’t trust the government to distribute the supplies effectively. Now these guys are assholes but the fact remains the stores and local governments could have implemented limits on those items, but they didn't. So when CV devolves society further will the government come rob everyone that prepared next for the greater good? I’m sorry, I thought this was America. Besides...If you bought hand sanitizer for 70$ you deserve to be gouged. This is wrong on so many levels: fear buying in desperation, cut-throat exploitation during a pandemic and government theft of private property.

What to do with 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer.... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-amazon-sellers.html

Thanks but hopefully we will be fine.

So my wife is an insurance agent and woke up with a fever of 101 this morning. Drove herself to Maury Regional and got tested for strep, flu and CV. She was negative for strep and flu. Doc told her they had to call "someone" to administer test for CV and surprisingly they were told to test her. Doc said she was the first person there to be tested. Apparently it will take a couple days for result of CV test. Note..... my wife is a germaphobe and for the last few days has worn gloves, mask and even goggles at work and they have been constantly wiping down and disinfecting every damn thing in her office and hasn't gone anywhere else yet here we are. Needless to say she won't be going to work on Monday. She should have listened to me right? She's home quarantined upstairs. I'll keep you posted.

On March 8, 1971, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier meet for the “Fight of the Century” at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The bout marked Ali’s return to the marquee three-and-a-half years after boxing commissions revoked his license over his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War. It was also Ali’s first chance to win back the heavyweight championship, which had been stripped by the WBA (World Boxing Association). Both Ali and Frazier were undefeated and had won Olympic gold medals and multiple Golden Gloves championships, but their personalities were vastly different. Ali was a showboat, and his mastery of the media, his improvisational poetry during interviews and his debonair good looks separated him from every other fighter, and every other athlete, of his generation. Much to his opponent’s dismay, Ali successfully painted the less popular and more reserved Frazier as an “Uncle Tom” and an instrument of the establishment. Leading up to the fight, the national press fawned over Ali, heralding “the hero’s return.” Ali played right along, while doing his best to knock Frazier off his game through mental intimidation. He even went so far as to repeatedly call Frazier a “gorilla.” On the night of the fight, celebrities filled Madison Square Garden. Miles Davis was resplendent in a red suit. Frank Sinatra sat ringside, photographing the fight for a Life magazine article. It was said that billions of people were following the fight in person, on TV or on the radio, and most of them were cheering for Ali. The fight lived up to the hype. Ali initially landed more punches, gliding about the ring as light on his feet as he was in the prime of his career. Frazier’s punches, however, seemed to have more impact. By the eighth round, Frazier was leading six rounds to two with each judge. In the 11th round, Ali staggered but fought back, forcing the action into the 12th and 13th rounds. The fight was already decided by the 15th, when Frazier landed a left hook to Ali’s right chin, knocking down the champ for just the third time in his illustrious career. Ali got up, but Frazier won the fight by unanimous decision, retaining his title and delivering Ali the first loss of his career. The two fighters would fight twice more, in 1974 and 1975, with Ali winning both fights. The rivalry was so intense that, 20 years after their final fight, when Ali carried the torch and lit the ceremonial flame at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Frazier said, “If I had the chance, I would have pushed him in.”

SAIGON, South Vietnam, March 7 — The United States continued widespread bombing raids today, sending more than 1,000 planes into action against enemy forces In Laos and Cambodia. Some of the raids were in support of two South Vietnamese operations in Cambodia. The first operation is a new move by 2,000 men near Kompong Trabek, along Route 1, in eastern Cambodia west of Saigon. The drive was directed against what were described as North Vietnamese and Vietcong sanctuaries. The second operation is the larger, continuing one by the South Vietnamese in the Chup Plantation‐Snoul area along Route 7 near the Fishhook area northwest of Saigon. American planes also carried out heavy air strikes around Tchepone, a major North Vietnamese supply shipment point about 25 miles inside Laos on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. South Vietnamese forces captured the town this weekend. [The South Vietnamese troops at Tchepone were reported to be consolidating their positions in anticipation of a possible enemy counterattack from the north.] Some Planes Held Back There are 1,200 to 1,500 American planes available for use in South Vietnam, Some were held in reserve, apparently for use against surface‐toair missile sites in North Vietnam should they threaten United States bombers attacking targets along the border. The planes also flew in support of Laotian Government troops fighting in northern Laos. The raids were mounted from at least four bases in Thailand, half a dozen bases in South Vietnam and frdm carriers of the Seventh Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin. Read more. https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/08/archives/1000-us-planes-bomb-foe-in-laos-and-in-cambodia-heavy-raids.html ADVER

In the year 2000, a new company called Napster created something of a music-fan’s utopia—a world in which nearly every song ever recorded was instantly available on your home computer—for free. Even to some at the time, it sounded too good to be true, and in the end, it was. The fantasy world that Napster created came crashing down in 2001 in the face of multiple copyright-violation lawsuits. After a string of adverse legal decisions, Napster, Inc. began its death spiral on March 6, 2001, when it began complying with a Federal court order to block the transfer of copyrighted material over its peer-to-peer network. Oh, but people enjoyed it while it lasted. At the peak of Napster’s popularity in late 2000 and early 2001, some 60 million users around the world were freely exchanging digital mp3 files with the help of the program developed by Northeastern University college student Shawn Fanning in the summer of 1999. Radiohead? Robert Johnson? The Runaways? Metallica? Nearly all of their music was right at your fingertips, and free for the taking. Which, of course, was a problem for the bands, like Metallica, which after discovering their song “I Disappear” circulating through Napster prior to its official release, filed suit against the company, alleging “vicarious copyright infringement” under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1996. Hip-hop artist Dr. Dre soon did the same, but the case that eventually brought Napster down was the $20 billion infringement case filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). That case—A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc—wended its way through the courts over the course of 2000 and early 2001 before being decided in favor of the RIAA on February 12, 2001. The decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected Napster’s claims of fair use, as well as its call for the court to institute a payment system that would have compensated the record labels while allowing Napster to stay in business. Then, on March 5, 2001, District Court Judge Marilyn Patel issued a preliminary injunction ordering Napster to remove, within 72 hours, any songs named by the plaintiffs in a list of their copyrighted material on the Napster network. The following day, March 6, 2001, Napster, Inc. began the process of complying with Judge Patel’s order. Though the company would attempt to stay afloat, it shut down its service just three months later, having begun the process of dismantling itself on this day in 2001.

Tensions ran high in Boston in early 1770. More than 2,000 British soldiers occupied the city of 16,000 colonists and tried to enforce Britain’s tax laws, like the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts. American colonists rebelled against the taxes they found repressive, rallying around the cry, “no taxation without representation.” Skirmishes between colonists and soldiers—and between patriot colonists and colonists loyal to Britain (loyalists)—were increasingly common. To protest taxes, patriots often vandalized stores selling British goods and intimidated store merchants and their customers. On February 22, a mob of patriots attacked a known loyalist’s store. Customs officer Ebenezer Richardson lived near the store and tried to break up the rock-pelting crowd by firing his gun through the window of his home. His gunfire struck and killed an 11-year-old boy named Christopher Seider and further enraged the patriots. Several days later, a fight broke out between local workers and British soldiers. It ended without serious bloodshed but helped set the stage for the bloody incident yet to come. On the frigid, snowy evening of March 5, 1770, Private Hugh White was the only soldier guarding the King’s money stored inside the Custom House on King Street. It wasn’t long before angry colonists joined him and insulted him and threatened violence. At some point, White fought back and struck a colonist with his bayonet. In retaliation, the colonists pelted him with snowballs, ice and stones. Bells started ringing throughout the town—usually a warning of fire—sending a mass of male colonists into the streets. As the assault on White continued, he eventually fell and called for reinforcements. In response to White’s plea and fearing mass riots and the loss of the King’s money, Captain Thomas Preston arrived on the scene with several soldiers and took up a defensive position in front of the Custom House. Worried that bloodshed was inevitable, some colonists reportedly pleaded with the soldiers to hold their fire as others dared them to shoot. Preston later reported a colonist told him the protestors planned to “carry off [White] from his post and probably murder him.” The violence escalated, and the colonists struck the soldiers with clubs and sticks. Reports differ of exactly what happened next, but after someone supposedly said the word “fire,” a soldier fired his gun, although it’s unclear if the discharge was intentional. Once the first shot rang out, other soldiers opened fire, killing five colonists–including Crispus Attucks, a local dockworker of mixed racial heritage–and wounding six. Among the other casualties of the Boston Massacre was Samuel Gray, a rope maker who was left with a hole the size of a fist in his head. Sailor James Caldwell was hit twice before dying, and Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr were mortally wounded. Read more. https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/boston-massacre

The larger-than-life comedic star John Candy dies suddenly of a heart attack on March 4, 1994, at the age of 43. At the time of his death, he was living near Durango, Mexico, while filming Wagons East, a Western comedy co-starring the comedian Richard Lewis. Born in 1950, Candy’s first professional acting work was in children’s theater in his native Canada. In 1972, he was accepted into the prestigious Second City comedy troupe in Toronto, where he would become a regular writer and performer for the group’s television program, SCTV, alongside other rising comics like Eugene Levy (later Candy’s co-star in Splash) and Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters). When SCTV moved to network television in 1981, Candy moved with it; that year and the next, he won Emmy Awards for writing for the show. Candy’s recurring (and most famous) SCTV persona was Yosh Shmenge, a clarinet player in a polka band. He would reprise the character in a mock documentary, The Last Polka, on HBO in 1985 and would also play a polka musician in the smash hit Home Alone (1990). Candy made his big break into movies with Splash (1984), in which he stole most of his scenes as the idle, high-living brother of the main character, played by Tom Hanks. The film, directed by Ron Howard, was a smash hit, jump-starting the careers of Candy, Hanks, Darryl Hannah and Levy. In one particularly memorable scene, Candy throws himself with abandon around a racquetball court, using his hefty frame to full comedic effect. Six-foot-three and weighing as much as 275 pounds, he struggled with dieting over the years, but his heft undoubtedly contributed to his success as a comic performer. After Splash, Candy was in high demand as a lovable oaf. He starred in a number of box-office hits over the next 10 years, including Spaceballs (1987), and collaborations with the writer, producer and director John Hughes in Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), The Great Outdoors (1988) and Uncle Buck (1989). A devoted sports fan and co-owner of the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, he was also part owner of House of Blues, with the actors Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi. In 1993, Candy won praise for his role as the sensitive coach of an unlikely Jamaican bobsled team in Cool Runnings (1993). At the time of his death, Candy had just completed his directorial debut, the Fox Television movie comedy Hostage for a Day. He had performed two-thirds of his scenes in Wagons East, which was finished after the filmmakers’ insurance company paid a reported $15 million settlement. Another recently wrapped movie, Canadian Bacon, was released in 1995. Candy was survived by his wife, Rosemary, and their two children, Jennifer and Christopher.

What a disaster.....seems like is was on the ground a really long time. Prayers to all effected.

At 12:45 a.m. on March 3, 1991, robbery parolee Rodney G. King stops his car after leading police on a nearly 8-mile pursuit through the streets of Los Angeles, California. The chase began after King, who was intoxicated, was caught speeding on a freeway by a California Highway Patrol cruiser but refused to pull over. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) cruisers and a police helicopter joined the pursuit, and when King was finally stopped by Hansen Dam Park, several police cars descended on his white Hyundai. A group of LAPD officers led by Sergeant Stacey Koon ordered King and the other two occupants of the car to exit the vehicle and lie flat on the ground. King’s two friends complied, but King himself was slower to respond, getting on his hands and knees rather than lying flat. Officers Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Ted Briseno, and Roland Solano tried to force King down, but he resisted, and the officers stepped back and shot King twice with an electric stun gun known as a Taser, which fires darts carrying a charge of 50,000 volts. At this moment, civilian George Holliday, standing on a balcony in an apartment complex across the street, focused the lens of his new video camera on the commotion unfolding by Hansen Dam Park. In the first few seconds of what would become a very famous 89-second video, King is seen rising after the Taser shots and running in the direction of Officer Powell. The officers alleged that King was charging Powell, while King himself later claimed that an officer told him, “We’re going to kill you, n*****. Run!” and he tried to flee. All the arresting officers were white, along with all but one of the other two dozen or so law enforcement officers present at the scene. With the roar of a helicopter above, very few commands or remarks are audible in the video With King running in his direction, Powell swung his baton, hitting him on the side of the head and knocking him to the ground. This action was captured by the video, but the next 10 seconds were blurry as Holliday shifted the camera. From the 18- to 30-second mark in the video, King attempted to rise, and Powell and Wind attacked him with a torrent of baton blows that prevented him from doing so. From the 35- to 51-second mark, Powell administered repeated baton blows to King’s lower body. At 55 seconds, Powell struck King on the chest, and King rolled over and lay prone. At that point, the officers stepped back and observed King for about 10 seconds. Powell began to reach for his handcuffs. At 65 seconds on the video, Officer Briseno stepped roughly on King’s upper back or neck, and King’s body writhed in response. Two seconds later, Powell and Wind again began to strike King with a series of baton blows, and Wind kicked him in the neck six times until 86 seconds into the video. At about 89 seconds, King put his hands behind his back and was handcuffed. Sergeant Koon never made an effort to stop the beating, and only one of the many officers present briefly intervened, raising his left arm in front of a baton-swinging colleague in the opening moments of the videotape, to no discernible effect. An ambulance was called, and King was taken to the hospital. Struck as many as 56 times with the batons, he suffered a fractured leg, multiple facial fractures, and numerous bruises and contusions. Unaware that the arrest was videotaped, the officers downplayed the level of violence used to arrest King and filed official reports in which they claimed he suffered only cuts and bruises “of a minor nature.” George Holliday sold his video of the beating to the local television station, KTLA, which broadcast the footage and sold it to the national Cable News Network (CNN). The widely broadcast video caused outrage around the country and triggered a national debate on police brutality. Rodney King was released without charges, and on March 15 Sergeant Koon and officers Powell, Wind, and Briseno were indicted by a Los Angeles grand jury in connection with the beating. All four were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force by a police officer. Though Koon did not actively participate in the beating, as the commanding officer he was charged with aiding and abetting it. Powell and Koon were also charged with filing false reports. Because of the uproar in Los Angeles surrounding the incident, the judge, Stanley Weisberg, was persuaded to move the trial outside Los Angeles County to Simi Valley in Ventura County. On April 29, 1992, the 12-person jury issued its verdicts: not guilty on all counts, except for one assault charge against Powell that ended in a hung jury. The acquittals touched off the L.A. riots, and arson, looting, murder and assaults in the city grew into the most destructive U.S. civil disturbance of the 20th century. In three days of violence, more than 60 people were killed, more than 2,000 were injured, and nearly $1 billion in property was destroyed. On May 1, President George H.W. Bush ordered military troops and riot-trained federal officers to Los Angeles to quell the riot. Under federal law, the officers could also be prosecuted for violating Rodney King’s constitutional rights, and on April 17, 1993, a federal jury convicted Koon and Powell for violating King’s rights by their unreasonable use of force under color of law. Although Wind and Briseno were acquitted, most civil rights advocates considered the mixed verdict a victory. On August 4, Koon and Powell were sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for the beating of King. King received $3.8 million in a civil suit against the Los Angeles police department. On June 17, 2012, King died at his home in Rialto, California.

The Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign began on March 2, 1965, partly in response to a Viet Cong attack on a U.S. air base at Pleiku. The Johnson administration cited a number of reasons for shifting U.S. strategy to include systematic aerial assaults on North Vietnam. For example, administration officials believed that heavy and sustained bombing might encourage North Vietnamese leaders to accept the non-Communist government in South Vietnam. The administration also wanted to reduce North Vietnam’s ability to produce and transport supplies to aid the Viet Cong insurgency. Finally, Johnson and his advisers hoped to boost morale in South Vietnam while destroying the Communists’ will to fight. U.S. Ground Troops Arrive The Operation Rolling Thunder campaign gradually expanded in both range and intensity. At first, the airstrikes were restricted to the southern portion of North Vietnam; however, U.S. leaders eventually moved the target area steadily northward to increase the pressure on the Communist government. By mid-1966, American planes were attacking military and industrial targets throughout North Vietnam. The only areas considered off limits for the bombing raids were the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong and a 10-mile buffer zone along the border of China. Shortly after the operation began in 1965, Johnson committed the first U.S. ground troops to the Vietnam War. Although their initial mission was to defend air bases in South Vietnam that were being used in the bombing campaign, the troops’ role soon expanded to include engaging the Viet Cong in active combat. As the North Vietnamese army became more heavily involved in the conflict, Johnson steadily increased the number of American forces in Vietnam.