My car guy at the Restaurant, a part-time cook, gave me a lead on some new cars. His stepdad runs an auto salvage/garage, and is know about town as being scrupulously honest, and had some cars he’d repaired for sale. One of these cars was a 1994 Oldsmobile Delta 88, in good shape, for $1300.00. Yesterday, we went out and had a look at the Oldsmobile, test drove it, and decided we liked it. So, the fools at the bank gave me some money, and we bought it. Actually, I got a pretty good loan — 9.5% interest on a two year loan for $1500.00 (tax, title, plate transfer, etc, plus some extra for new tires for Art’s van). Not too bad at all — and on a signature loan, too, so I don’t have to keep full coverage on the car.
     Anyhow, pictures (and stuff):

     And, in other news, the House passed King Georgie’s torture bill yesterday. Here’s the roll call for the vote, so you can look up who in your state needs voted out. Heh. For Michiganders — Levin voted against, yay Carl, and I was told that Stabenow voted for the torture bill, but I don’t see her listed anywhere on this roll call. Am I missing her?
     The bill, text here (you’ll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read it), does some truly horrible stuff. I mean, seriously. This ranks right up there with the fucking PATRIOT Act, and y’all know how I felt about that. The NY Times has a great editorial about the bill, Rushing Off a Cliff. Here’s a bit of it:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

     In other, Michigan-related news, as much as it really, really sucks to say this, don’t vote for Dick DeVos for governor. I mean, I know. I hate Granholm, too. I was prepared to vote for damn about anyone to get Granholm out of office. Unfortunately, I just discovered that Dick DeVos supports teaching Intelligent Design in our schools (Source 1, Source 2).
     Dammit. I mean, not that I particularly liked Dick DeVos or anything, but this pretty much leaves me two choices: hold my nose and vote for Granholm, or toss my vote away on some Independent or third party schmuck who doesn’t have a chance. Dammit, dammit, dammit.
     Okay, that’s it, I’m out. In closing, I leave you with this, “Keep Your Jesus Off My Penis”, which is Not Safe For Work (so don’t say I didn’t warn you), but which is immensely funny, and made me feel a bit better, anyway. And now, I’m off to cruise around in my new car. And stuff.

Playing the Popularity Game:

This entry was posted on Friday, September 29th, 2006 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Politics, Real Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.