A Victory for American Manufacturing

Score one for the Americans, in this case the team at Ford. They've topped Toyota.

What's this, you say, it must be an anomoly. Nay, nay.

The Ford Fusion Hybrid has outperformed the Toyota Prius, the (until now) champion hybrid car. Since it's a foregone conclusion that gas prices won't stay under two bucks forever, the gas/electric pairing is going to be part of our future, sooner or later, and in these dreadful economic days, Ford is a ray of hope for the American future.

Who's made this wild declaration of American superiority, you may ask. USA Today said so, and then Car & Driver magazine did an extensive test and came to the same conclusion.

USA Today said": "OK, let's just get it out there: The 2010 Ford Fusion hybrid is the best gasoline-electric hybrid yet. What makes it best is a top-drawer blend of an already very good midsize sedan with the industry's smoothest, best-integrated gas-electric power system. It's so well-done that you have to look to the $107,000 Lexus LS 600h hybrid to come close."

Then Car & Driver put together a test group of the Toyota Camry hybrid, the Nissan Altima hybrid and the Ford Fusion hybrid. Their statement: "Ford has pulled off a game changer with this 2010 model, creating a high-mpg family hauler that's fun to drive. Nothing about the leather-lined test car, optioned up from its $27,995 base price to $32,555, seemed economy minded except for the mileage readings. On that score, the Fusion topped the others, turning in a 34-mpg score card for the overall 300-mile test run."

At the Pizza Planet, we buy Fusion twin Mercury Milans for part of our fleet vehicles. They''ve been reliable and durable and the drivers like them. Next time around, we'll probably try the hybrid models.

So there.

Today is for You, Donna Kiebawls

Today, a salute to our friend, Donna Kiebawls.

BTW, don't you think that Dion could have played Barney Fife?

The song -and this particular setting - is great fun. Dion did a terrible job lip synching, and from what might this set have been left over?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aub5Rp_hdBg

Yar! Now We're In the Pirate Business

The anti-pirate business, to be clear.

The pirates of the country of Somalia (whose tourism slogan is "Government-free since 1991"), who have reaped a bountiful harvest robbing ships and kidnapping the ships' crews, have some new boat pals to play with as the United States Navy is in the house.

By the way, Mr. and Ms.American taxpayer, can you hear the chorus of thank-you's from the nations whose cargo you are paying to protect? Anyway...

The 2008 numbers are in from the Pirate Statistics Bureau, Johnny Depp, President, and there were 49 ships hijacked last year and 889 crewmembers taken hostage. In response, the USA has sent warships, as have the navies of India, Britain, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea.

I never imagined that Saudi Arabia had a navy, they having been blessed with such an abundance of sand. The vessel pictured here is a Saudi frigate, the Al Riyadh, that is one of three that the Royal Saudi Navy had built for them. Frigate, by the way, is an encompassing term that can refer to a variety of warships, so you may now confidently toss about nautical terms with your friends from the yacht club.

The week of January 22 appears to have been the kickoff of the '09 Pirate season (thanks to the NFL playoffs, we missed all the pre-season shows on ESPN Pirate Channel), as 22 ship attacks resulting in 3 hijackings have been recorded since then. Nice weather in the area was given credit for the early flurry of activity.

There ae some carry-over storylines from last season, too. The owners of the MV Faina paid a $3 million ransom to get their Ukranian crew released after four months. Oh, yes, lest we be misled into thinking there was an overriding humanitarian motive, the ransom also secured the return of the cargo: 33 Russian tanks and crates of small arms that were headed for Kenya.

The Russian navy has a fun toy in the area: the nuclear powered heavy missile cruiser Peter the Great. The ship had "detained" ten pirates in an action the other day. If the contemporary Russian definition of detained is similar to the old Russian definition of detained, the detainees won't be a problem for quite some time.

I have detected a hint of the problem in the language that is being used to describe these police actions taken in response to the pirates. There are words of" arrests", people are "detained", they are "held for questioning", etc.

I propose that all the joint naval forces agree that the new course of action, as commissioned by PFOS, American Blogger, is that heretofore all Somalia pirates or scumbags who look like Somali pirates or any dumbass who wanders into the area with his rocket launcher that he uses for recreational purposes, all of those people be blown right off the face of the planet. The winning navy, the one with the most confirmed pirate eradications each year, gets a handsome gift pack at the World Anti-Pirate Banquet that will be held in Champaign, Illinois, the weekend after the state high school football championships.

It's such a feel good story, eh?

Friday the 13th

So which is the worse, the Friday part or the 13 part?


I'm referring to the legend of the unlucky on Friday the 13th. It is an apparently recent superstition, as these things go, having its origins in the 19th century, when somebody linked up unlucky 13 and unfortunate Friday.

Friday is definitely the weaker in terms of negative vibes. This may be that it's worn out, as we have one every week, a Friday that is.

BTW, my dog when I was a little kid was a cocker spaniel named Friday. There is no connection, just sayin'.



So Friday has been negative connotations, e.g. the day of the crucifixtion, the day of the arrest of the Templars, the day of the stock market crash. Friday has a lot of things going for it, too. It's Stop For a Drink After Work Day, Start the Weekend Day, First Day of the Baseball Homestand Day, Day to Call In Sick and Have a Long Weekend Day, Get Out Early and Head for the Lake Day, and some others which I invite you to submit.


Thirteen, on the other hand, has some issues, generally stemming from the fact that 13 isn't 12. Twelve is "completeness": 12 months, 12 hours, 12 Days of Christmas, 12 Signs of the Zodiac, 1212 is when this missive posts each day, 12 apostles and some other 12 stuff that's good and wholesome and remind me, please, of what I've missed.

So, 13 is shunned because it's irregular. Clearly a case of number discrimination. 13 is a prime number, too, always a troublesome thing, and the multiplication tables that kids don't learn anymore stop at 12, so there's another anti 13 bias. Builders often skip numbering the 13th floor, furthering the superstition. The Munsters lived at 1313 Mockingbird Lane.


The fear of 13 is triskaidekaphobia.

There is one verified Friday the 13th problem. Writing up a bunch of facts, and having no punchline or big finish.

That is all.

Valentine v. Claudius

Two days until Valentine's Day. In ancient Rome, February 14 was the holiday to celebrate Juno, queen of the Roman gods and godesses and women and marriage. On Feb 15, the feast of Lupercalia began. Lupercalia is a whole separate topic. Anyhoo...on the 14th, boys and girls would be paired up to enjoy the festival.


At relatively the same time period, Emperor Claudius II, a.k.a. Claudius the Cruel, was in the habit of engaging in a series of nasty wars. As an aside, I am considering changing my nom de plume to "Purple Flag on Saturday the Cruel". Has a nice ring to it, no? Back to Claudius, he was having trouble finding enough soldiers for his armies, and he figured that it was because the fellas didn't want to leave their significant others, so he canceled all the marriages and engagements. It may also have had some connection to the fellas not wanting to get killed, but Claudius was a make war not love kind of guy, and he was the emperor, so he got his way. Go figure.


Now, back to Valentine, a priest, who was way into love not war, and was secretly performing marriages to hitch up all those Roman GI Joes and their nubile babe pals. Claudius found out about Valentine's righteous peace gig and, being a rather impatient sort, had Valentine arrested. Valentine was convicted (like there was any doubt about how that would turn out) and sentenced to being clubbed and beheaded. In that order, apparently, as clubbing a beheaded fella would be cruel and unusual.

The photo is the reliquary of St. Valentine. It might not be "the" Valentine, but the church that's showing this very weird stuff is happy with it, and I think it's pretty cool.

Now the pastors in Rome were trying to S.O.P.--stamp out paganism. What they did to further that was to use saints as the new headliners for the old pagan feasts. The new Christian martyr, Saint Valentine, thus became the poster boy for the former feast of Juno.

Goes around comes around: Marcus Aurelius Claudius, a.k.a. Claudius Gothicus, a.k.a. Claudius II a.k.a. Claudius the Cruel, ascended to power in the year 268 and croaked just two years later, probably from smallpox. Turns out that Valentine just had bad timing.