Our Idiot Government Strikes Again

[SteveHGraham]

And why would the government want to sell them to that type of people?

You really don't know? I think you do, but I'll say it. For the same reason it permits the sale of weapons. The Founding Fathers wanted us to have the ability to defend ourselves from tyrants, and good politicians respect that.

[ronm]

Yep, I know...hence the
And I'll wager you know that "good politicians" are getting scarcer & scarcer...

[SteveHGraham]

It may even be an oxymoron.

Oddly, I just learned I may get to do some legal work for a guy who is buying MRAPs. So weird.

[GlennW]

Oddly, I just learned I may get to do some legal work for a guy who is buying MRAPs. So weird.

Are they bringing back the old "Miami, see it like a native" campaign showing a picture of a guy driving one through town?

[SteveHGraham]

I don't think I should say a whole lot about it, but sadly, they are not destined for Miami. I would love to have one when signalling to pass on I-95, although my ridiculous Dodge diesel does a reasonably good job of inspiring fear. I mean courtesy.

Supposedly there will be some stateside test drives. I wonder if I can justify horning in on those. There has to be a way.

I am told they're useless at a drive-through, because you can't roll down the windows.

Crime here really isn't as bad as it used to be. It's not like the Eighties, when they used to shoot up the malls with automatic weapons. I don't think people are buying houses with briefcases full of cash the way they used to.

[GlennW]

I was looking at one (MRAP) earlier this month and they are rather large! You wouldn't have a problem merging into traffic getting on I-95.

[MasterMaker]

All the above is sad but true. I have a friend who was a garbage man in Olympia, Wa. for many years. Near the end of each state budget period the dumpsters around the capitol of Wa. would be filled with unused paper material, reams of new printer paper, new or lightly used furniture, the list goes on and on. The reason was, if the budget office found that if a dept. didn't use all that was allotted to it their budget would be cut for the next period. Gee, I wonder if this maybe happens all over his country.

Jack.

I do believe Parkinson's law applies to this thread on several different levels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law

[steamin10]

Having lived and breathed in Maintenance my working career, we always tended to be short on parts. If at teh end of any budget period there was spare cash, soem went into a shop tool alotment, and other items of disposable nature like lifting straps, and bolts, and shop fluids were replenished with a vengance, sometimes overbudget to push the ceiling. We made sure we never had enough money, and kept things running smoothly with ample spares.

As far as biological contamination, in Chicago they enjoy the Asian Empress Beetle taking out whole blocks of trees. Tehy have no predators here and are about the size of a cicada, boring half inch holes into live trees, leading totheir death in just a few seasons. Another Freeloader is the spiney Gobey, and the Zebra mussles, introduced in balast water dumped form ships from Europe. Ship Masters are supposed to flush fresh water ballast at sea, to kill and remove any viable flora and fawna, and then dump the sea water into the Great lakes, where sea life will not survive. Well now we enjoy limited hatches of natural fish, because the Gobies destroy the egg nests, and are too small at 6 inches to be of any value, and dont forget the Asian Carp that threaten to invade from the Mississippi side here at Calumet Harbor. Efforts are made to keep them out with electronic means and electrocutions. Some Chicago rivers are actually dangerous to motor on, as the Carp, big and small, will leap clear of the water, and smack the unwary at speed. There is some small industry here, that nets these undesired fish, and takes them to Asian markets in Chitown, where they are welcomed, but mostly they go for fertilizer. A really bad deal. There is the Lampray Eel, that appeared in the 60's by following the St Lawrance river system, and decimated the Lake trout and larger fishes of the great lakes, being they transitioned and spawn in fresh water from salt water environments. They attack introduced Salmon too. Hatching stations in Central and Northern Wisconson and Michigan, seed the great lakes with perch, trout, and other panfish to make up for the poor (it is thought) natural hatching rates, by Dept of Interior resorces.

In the former Gulf wars, many trucks and tractor backhoes were simply lined up and burned, along with transporters and recovery vehicles, to demilitarize them to be left for scrap in the desert holding areas. This caused a storm of protest from many small towns stateside, that depended on military earth moving equipment to supplement their meager budgets for infrastructure repair. But it made sense in that no contaminations, biological or otherwise, could be shipped back. (think Camel spiders, diseased fleas, and a host of microorganisms). It is why native dogs are banned from US entry from that part of the world too.

It is very true about the dangers of of infestations in foreign lands, as I had a freind that succumbed to liver worms from South America, after a Dream vacation. They were only found after an Autopsy reveled that intestinal worms were not the only plague he visited. Any one visiting Mexico can tell you of the discomforts of Montezumas revenge there. Nature is truly the Mother.

[Harold_V]

Any one visiting Mexico can tell you of the discomforts of Montezumas revenge there.

Been there, done that, got the T shirt.

Harold

[JackF]

Thanks MasterMaker,

I knew there was a logical, scientifical, reason for it.

Jack.