The Imperial City Council has decreed . . .

The Portland City Council went all in, declaring that no retailers can offer plastic bags, and all must offer paper bags.  The mayor says that this is because the plastic bags get into the ocean, citing no evidence of any kind. 

I don't know anybody who disposes of plastic grocery bags in a way that's gets the bags into the ocean -- unless the trash collection companies are sneaking trash containing plastic grocery bags into the ocean, and if that's the case it seems to me that the point of the solution is to deal with them.  Not that I think that's what's happening.

I just wonder how it is that the grocery bags get to the ocean, as the mayor has noted.  For that matter, I wonder what color the sky is in the mayor's world, and can he hear it when the butterflies blink.

Anyhow, paperbags are only somewhat recyclable and much of them end up turning into a nasty substance in permanent landfills.  When they get recycled, you get paper stuff.  Plastic bags are also recyclable, and require less energy to do so, and there's lots of high-value products made from the plastic.  For that matter, the plastic bags could be, themselves, a product of recycling.

Anyhow, I, for one, think plastic grocery bags are superior to paper grocery bags, and I think that the Imperial City Council of Portland is populated by morons whose egos have sucked their brains dry.

But you know what? 

I'd be perfectly okay with a ban on plastic bags in favor of paper bags, if the matter could be put to a vote, and the majority of us citizens voted in favor of a ban on plastic grocery bags. 

In other words, the issue isn't just the relative merits of paper or plastic.  The other, greater, issue, is who is the boss of you.  And I've got a good idea how the city council thinks about that.

Always listen to the man with a badge and a taser, boys and girls, for he is your friend and will save and protect you . . .

A clear case of contempt of cop.

Pinellas Park, Florida -- Daniel Jensen wasn't running from the law, he was trying to protect his home from burning up. Yet, Pinellas Park Police tasered him in the process. Jensen and his attorney say it's an excessive use of force.
Jensen was still shaken and visibly emotional as he retold what happened last Thursday evening. He said being tasered by police has not only impacted him, but it also impacted his children, who saw it all happen.
He described the Pinellas Park Police officers actions as "brutal." He said they showed "no compassion."
"All I remember is laying in water, being electrocuted for saving my home," said Jensen.
Four days later, burns on Daniel Jensen's body still mark where the stun gun's probes hit him. He says they tasered him for doing what any father and husband would do protect his family's home from an out-of-control grease fire.
The 42-year-old father of two recalls his wife waking him around 6 in the evening, saying there's a big fire at his neighbor's house.
"I could hear it, I could feel it," he explained.
He ran outside and grabbed a fire extinguisher. He sprayed it until it was empty.
"I was calling for my daughter and getting no response. I came out, grabbed the hose and sprayed her room until I heard she was out. I was always taught to help when you can; help is what I tried to do," said Jensen.
He continued to recount the events. He said he then took the garden hose and started watering down his fence and the back corner of his rooftop, trying to prevent the fire from spreading to his property. But with each attempt, Daniel said Pinellas Park Police kept pulling him back... even though firefighters were not in sight.
"They kept telling me, 'Let it go, that's what insurance is for.' That's not acceptable to me," said Jensen.
Captain Sanfield Forseth with the Pinellas Park Police Department said officers could have charged him with obstruction for not listening to an officer's orders.
"I wasn't doing that. What I was doing was what any home owner would do to protect a family and home," said Jensen.
Captain Forseth said the department will not be charging him.
When Jensen saw the fire jump on to his back roof, he again grabbed the hose. That's when he said -- unknown to him -- a police officer pulled out a taser and fired it at his back.
"As I went to grab the hose, I hear an officer on this side. There was a boat here; he was just behind it. He said, 'Hit him, hit him! Take him down, tase him!'" explained Jensen. "I didn't know they were talking to me, or about me. I was concerned about putting water on the fire, and the next thing you know I'm being tased."
Daniel said a Sergeant ordered an officer to tase him, but the officer never warned him as department policy requires.
According to Pinellas Park Police policy, an officer will use a taser when "other control techniques" would likely result in a "physical confrontation" that may cause injury to the officer or person. But the officer must first give a "verbal warning" that he is going to use a taser.
After tasing Daniel, he said several officers picked him up, carried him to the front yard, threw him on the ground and handcuffed him.
Daniel says he's very disappointed in the police department.
"They should have more tolerance with the public, to exhaust all options before firing electricity into somebody, handcuff them instead of tasering them."
Daniel said about the experience as he fights through tears, "It was horrible. I was laying in a puddle of water being electrocuted here by the people that are supposed to protect us. I'm trying to protect my family, my neighbor, and they bring harm to me. I don't understand."

Captain Forseth with the Pinellas Park Police Department said they exhausted all other options, and that their goal was to keep Daniel and the officers safe from the fire.

 

 The cops are supposed to  be law enforcement.  To you and me, and most cops, that means, they have special powers of arrest in aid of enforcing criminal laws and they have a duty to do so.  But some cops . . .

Here, cops ordered this guy to stop doing what any normal person would do in such an emergency -- he wasn't committing any crime.  No crime, no special cop powers.  But he ignored their orders.  So he had to be tased.  For his own safety.  And this was probably an "obstruction of justice" according to the chief cop, because he wouldn't stop doing what he had a legal right to do, at the command of a cop, based on the cop's uninformed and untrained opinion -- backed up by a badge and a taser.

What about the election . . .

I'm supposed to comment on the election?  Okay.

It's about hand.  The issue is, are you willing to dump devotion, reverence, reliability, and competence in order to get the upper hand? 

You know the answer.  The entire steady march of 19th century Marxism through the 20th century is all the proof you need.

It's a mystery . . .

Since the first 9/11 Al Qaeda has been reported to have been in recession, as its various participants periodically blew themselves up, or got shot, or were vaporized by a drone. 

The economy of the U.S. has likewise been receding. 

Now, with the second 9/11, it seems that Al Qaeda has revived itself a lot more successfully than our economy.

And I say . . . hmm.

The regime abides . . .

The regime abides.

When Charles Woods, the father of Tyrone Woods, one of the Navy SEALS who died fighting in Benghazi, met with Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State assured him that, “We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.” And they got him, officially on charges of violating parole, unofficially on charges of violently offending violent Muslims.

The woman whose policy had overthrown the Libyan government and then placed a barely defended consulate in the middle of a city of Jihadists, did not promise the grieving father that his son's killers would pay. She promised him that the man who offended his son's killers would pay. Not only would his son be the first casualty of that appeasement policy, but the Constitution that his son had sworn to support and defend would be the second casualty.

Read the whole thing. 

I remember being very, very troubled by Watergate.  This is worse.

Paper or plastic, revisited . . .

Once again, I enjoyed carrying a paper bag full of groceries through the rain, as the bag dissolved in my arms.  Once again I thought of our local Portland government masters who righteously decreed that plastic bags filled with groceries are hereby declared to be  unsustainable, unmoral, unattractive, unpatriotic, ungreen, unhygienic, and ungood and anti-social, and are therefore not to be tolerated in the land of Port.

Buttholes! 

There used to be a choice; the checkout people would say, "Paper or plastic?"

Progressive politicians just hate it when people can choose.

The other day, I was in a store when I heard, but did not see, a gentleman in the adjoining aisle loudly say, "Ah, Portland.  Land of the Lost!"  I don't have any idea what happened that made him speak those words, and I don't actually know what he meant by those words.

But I understand.

French youth's declaration of war . . . .

This is an interesting event.  I'm not sure what to make of it, but then, I'm not of the same culture nor the same age.  By a bunch.

Nevertheless, I understand the frustration with the "hippie" values which have infected the political landscape.  They got that rejection of responsibility thing right, I think. 

Everything was "groovy" for the youth of the late 60's while the grownups were still in charge, even as the youth of the 60's aged into their forties and even fifties.  But now, when the youth of the 60's have become the grownups in charge - not so much. 

You still see self-congratulatory bumper stickers announcing, "War is not the Answer." 

Well, maybe not.  But the answer sure as hell isn't the "flower power," "love is all around,"  "if it feels good, do it,"  cheery optimism which rejected the values and life strategies which saved western civilization in the first half of the 20th century.

The message is that things aren't free just because you don't have to pay for them.  Somebody else is getting stuck with the bill.

The bitter consequences of voter suppression . . .

So there's a report around that the NAACP has a delegation appearing before the United Nations Human Rights Commission, asking for an investigation into voting in the United States.  It seems that the NAACP's constitutuency is being shut out of the election process.

There's some arithmetic involved in their complaint.  You know that convicted felons are barred from voting.  That's one of the consequences of committing a felony, the same as fines and incarceration. 

About 20% of convicted felons are black, but blacks only amount to about 12% of the population.  Thus, suppression of voting rights falls disproportionately on blacks.  Got that?

Oh, the humanity!  Convicted felons sobbing themselves to sleep in their cells over not being permitted to vote while locked up.  And the horror continues even after release from the penitentiary, because even while the term of incarceration is completed, the individual remains a convicted felon who can't vote.  Quite understandably, in consequence of the sense of loss and incompleteness that comes when a felon can't vote, felons turn to drugs and violence as a distraction from their bitter disappointment at having the ballot box slammed shut on their fingers.  Metaphorically.

Oh, if only someone older and wiser had taken these young felons aside when they were but mere delinquints, and had explained that wandering from the path of righteousness leads to loss of the right to vote, why, the crime rate would surely have been reduced. 

Just imagine. If only people had had "that talk" with the young delinquints, perhaps America would now be treated with the sight of younsters wearing Boy Scout neckerchiefs, where today you see them sporting a droop with their pants permanently around their knees and their ass in the breeze.

Pay no attention to that pollster behind the ribbon, for I am the mighty Oz, comming atcha

It's one disaster followed by another, to the point where there is hardly any effect at all.  None of the following disasters matter, if you monitor media reporting.  What disasters?

The economy keeps getting worse, not better.  They are talking about another round of "quantitative easing" of our money.  This would be like the third dose of a big-ass shot of adrenalin directly into the heart of the patient. "Quantitative easing," is an extreme last-chance operation intended to blast a heart back to life.  Or else.  Note well, it didn't work the first two times. 

By the way, "quantitative easing"  is really some fancy-pants politician's deceptive use of language because he doesn't want us to know that what they are really doing is inflating the money supply radically, but just making it all up as they go along, printing notes and contracts and calling it money.

It isn't real value, folks.  Oh, and by the way, if the price of goods goes up with inflation, and it does, if your income doesn't go up to match the inflation, and it doesn't, well, that's basically the government way of raising money at your expense.  Another name for that is taxation. 

More and more people are out of work, or working at some sort of survival job because that's all that's left, and the unemployment insurance ran out some time ago.  The housing market sucks, despite experts saying it's getting better.  Very many businessmen, you know, the ones who pay money to people for working, are just hanging on, if at all, to the point where half the businessmen say that they wouldn't even start the business they are presently in, if they had to start it fresh today -- not worth it.

The middle east, what can I say?  It's kind of like the notion of voting took hold, there, but the majority invariably votes in favor of barbarism and bloodshed. 

And there's a war on young women.  The country is sticking young women with impossibly huge student loan debt to fund degrees in sociology, and dance movement, and women's studies, and journalism and communications, and aroma therapy, for shit's sake, with the promise that some crude and abusive businessman, somewhere, will be unable to prevent himself from hiring such independent and capable young women and paying them $85,000, plus benefits, a year, in return for their showing up and wearing suits and heels.  (That's the businessman who, as a sole proprietor, must be rich, and so must be taxed.  Eat the rich.)

And not only that, but the nation cruelly denies such women free birth control, a necessity in a society that highly values hooking up before names are exchanged, or perhaps only moments thereafter.  It's an option.  Or if women choose not to use birth control, it is only their natural function and right to be mothers, with or mostly without the committment of a father.  Not only that, but there seems to be a grave shortage of drone-men who are so in awe of unmarried motherhood that they welcome the chance to support any women who bravely has another man's child without bothering to have the other man.  Oh, the humanity!

But as I say, none of that matters.  In place of things that make a difference, we have polls.  We have local polls, phony polls, national polls, push polls, private polls, secret polls, and polls about polls.  They call you at home, at work, they e-mail you.  They will give you free stuff at the restaurant if you will just answer a few questions about the quality of your dining experience with them.

And the results of the polls are reported as if it is news.  It isn't.  Poll results are what lazy journalists do when they have to fill up broadcast time, or journalistic white space, and they don't actually have anything. 

It's like, "Nothing happened today, as far as I know, but some guy telephoned some poll results, so here ya go.  Based on a recent poll of some people in a park right here in Estacada, Oregon, 14% of all Americans ever born deny masturbating in the shower.  Oh, and 12% of them who didn't indulge in such conduct volunteered to start if there was any money it in, and the rest of them were Republicans.  Back to you in the studio."

I don't think you can trust polls.  I think people tell lies to poll interrogation.  And I know people mess with pollsters -- 'cause I!m pretty sure I'm not the only one. 

And I'll do it again and I recommend you do the same.  You already know the language of the interrogated man in the street.  Use phrases and expressions like, "rich and robust," "sustainable,"  "naturally sweet," "people who care," "people like us," "dependable," "improved," "margin of error," etc. 

It's just a poll.

How can it be that intelligent women . . .

can ever be found crying their lonely selves to sleep?  Maybe it's because . . . 

It's a good thing the Democrats are united because . . .Well, just because.

So here's what happened.  Always before, as far as I know, the Democratic Presidential Election platform has had some language in it saying something nice about God and Israel.  Not this time.

People noticed and started yelping about the platform never even mentioning God.  I suspect God is neither surprised nor hurt, because, as far as I know once again, He or She is not a clingy, needy sort of a deity.  But still, even if any particular Democrat remained unaffected by notions of piety, would it have killed them to pander to those who believed?

The big problem was Israel, because the Democrats get a lot of campaign contributions and support from American Jews who by necessity feel kinship with Israel.  And if we don't support Israel, there's a good chance Israel would be erased as a necessary first step to the establishment of the Caliphate.  Not a good thing in my opinion.

Anyhow, many Democrats thought once again about the platform, and there was a motion to amend the platform, to restore God and Israel to the platform language.  Evidently it takes a 2/3 vote to amend the platform at this point.  So a voice vote was taken.  All in favor, say aye; all opposed, no.  It sounded evenly spread between the ayes and nos to me and I think it sounded even to the chair as well.  But without blinking an eye or a blush of a cheek, the chair announced that the ayes were 2/3rds of the votes and the motion passed.  (I'm pretty sure the motion didn't pass, even at a simple majority, because I don't think there was a majority.  It sounded 50/50 to me.)  Anyhow, all the no-sayers instantly turned to boo-sayers.  Loudly.

But here's the thing.  If I were wealthy, and Jewish, and believed in big cradle-to-grave government, I still would be disinclined to give the Democrats any money.  Why?  Because about half the assembled convention loudly voted against supporting Israel.  If I were Jewish, I'd uncomfortable with that.

Follow up . . . Social Security Administration, too?

The Social Security Administration wants to buy 174,000 rounds of .357 pistol ammunition.

This bears repeating.  The Social Security Administration wants to buy 174,000 rounds of .357 pistol ammunition. 

What, they want to get prepared for when us geezers, codgers and coots get unruly?

Wonder if it is possible to mount a rifle scabbard on an aluminum walker, kind of like they mount saddle rifles?  Maybe crosswise, like in the back window of pickup trucks?

I don't, myself, own a gun.  Sarcasm has always been my weapon of choice.  But . . .



























































?

Does hollow point ammunition expand upon striking paper targets . . . and other interesting questions.

Here's something interesting, and by interesting, I mean alarmingly peculiar.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wants to buy 46,000 rounds of handgun ammunition, the kind that expands when it hits somebody.  Also, a thousand paper targets. 

Originally, this was published as being for the National Weather Service part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and then people started wondering why those boys would need bullets, so a correction was issued, stating that there was a clerical mistake.  It isn't for the weathermen at all; it's all for Fish and Wildlife. 

Well, okay then.  I guess that means that they plan on missing all the paper targets altogether up to 46 times before actually hitting one of 'em.  And just how many Fish and Wildlife guys do they have, guns blazing away?

But hey.  Aren't handguns all about shooting people?  Nobody goes hunting for deer or elk or bears or just little varmints with handguns; they use rifles.  Right?

And what people?  Certainly the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration isn't contemplating using all those rounds of ammunition just on a thousand paper targets, which would be absurd.  And they certainly aren't going to use them on fellow government employees. 

I think that means that some of us are anticipated to be the targets.

Oh, and relate Fish and Wildlife ammunition purchase to the recent riot control training given to some United States military personnel, and things are looking increasingly spooky.

At this point, leaping to conclusions would be paranoid, recognizing that all that ammunition could be intended either for offense or defense, or maybe just for sale to some fast and furious drug cartel, which, given recent history is not that far fetched.

Nevertheless, can you say Second Amendment, boys and girls?

Tunnels into Israel -- the ones that are underground . . .

Israel is asking Egypt to destroy all of the "underground tunnels" used to circumvent Israeli security. 

I've always believed that pretty much all tunnels are underground.  That's the whole point of tunnels. 

Ah, reporters! 

And their editors, if any.

But I'm sure this little language flaw provides absolutely no insight whatsoever into the mental quality of the writer. 

Just because a person needs to unburden his shriveled soul in a comment to a news report does not create any obligation on anybody else to read the damn thing, and other similar thoughts . . .

I read all over the internet various news and opinion articles, most of which, whatever point of view is espoused, are reasonably articulate and thoughtful even if I find I disagree.

Then I read the readers' commentary that inevitably follows.

Great Glory Be, there's boatloads of stupid out there!

And it's not just stupid, but positively, proudly, assertively, aggressively and ungrammatically stupid.

It's like -- they had teachers and parents who decided that self-esteem was more important than information.

It's like -- they all got trophies for showing up.

It's like -- the jobs they had suited to their skills and intellectual abilities -- you know, picking up an item and placing it in a different location -- got outsourced when their employer got tired of spending $32.00 an hour to pay $12.00 an hour to employees when the same work could be done in West Buttcrackistan for $4.00 an hour, plus $3.00 an hour in "incentives" to government officials, to pay the employee $0.80 an hour. 

So, being otherwise not occupied, they decided to share their stupid with the world.

When a person is like totally under-employed and it's hard to fill up the empty hours of the day, but you're not yet at the point where there's nothing left but to get yourself tatood, a person will naturally turn to expressing one's self on the internet, no matter how pathetic and embarassing that self may be.

And that's why  -- hey, why are you looking at me that way?  What's that look supposed to mean?

Expecting a display of identification to support a claim of the right to vote, is discriminatory and racist, and you should be ashamed to even think it . . .

I went to the Texaco station to fill up the gas tank.  I offered my Texaco gas credit card to pay for the gas.  The attendant wanted to see some indentification so I showed my driver's license.  He explained that he had to ask for proof of identity because his boss insisted that all the rules be followed.

Okay, I showed my identification; this isn't a big deal.  I had to show it to travel by air, and I have to show it if I want to pay for things with a check.  Sometimes we have to show a driver's license to rent a video.  Us law abiding citizens frequently display our drivers licenses in order to obtain wanted goods or services.

What I don't understand is the fuss raised by certain political observers (communists) at the idea of requiring government identification for purposes of voting in government elections.  They argue that requiring a person to show identification is inherently biased and unreasonable, or racist. 

Why is it unfair to require a person to confirm identity to vote, but it isn't unfair to ask for identity to board a plane or buy something with a credit card?

Why it's almost as if they (fascists) were personally offended by the idea that voter fraud should be suspected, detected, and prevented. 

Hey, nobody said it was the liberal political commentators (socialists) who were cheating.  But I think that describing the requiring of proof of identity in order to vote as being somehow racist or unfairly discriminatory constitutes probable cause to believe that those self-same liberal political commentators (traitors) are encouraging and profiting from voter fraud.

Either that, or Texaco is subjecting me to racial discrimination. 

All of a sudden, I feel so violated!

In keeping with 21st century American social mores, I therefore claim victim status.

So, when do I get paid?

Michelob message

I see that Michelob Lite has a new pretty boy illustrating the life you think you could lead with beer. This pretty boy does't shave, just like the previous beery avatar. Grooming isn't important if you drink the right beer, right?

Altruists and weasels . . .

How come people are so hard on one another?  T. S. Eliot said, long ago: “Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” 

I pulled the quote from http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/304288/legislative-dishonesty-thomas-sowell. 

Oh.  The other half the harm that people do comes from pure malice. 

As between the two, I'll choose to deal with a malicous weasel before I want to hang with a self-congratulatory altruist.  They're both evil but you'll meet a higher class of evildoers among the weasels.

Mannies, of all things, wierd and wonderful . . .

Last night my bride and I finished watching the monster historical mini-series from the 70s and 80s, Winds of War and War and Remembrance, about World War II.  If you want to watch it, it's available for rental but plan on using two or three weekends and staying up late to watch 'just one more disk'. 

Anyhow, now, while steeped in WWII, my parents' times, I happened to see the front cover of a magazine where one of the articles was "We love our manny."  The article was about "mannies," that is, the increasing frequency of males being nannies, nurturing other people's children all day.  You know.  Drawing daffodils, telling stories about pastel colored families, and singing songs of unicorns. 

Looks to me like males like the resolute and deadly American males of WWII, and their glorious women, are certainly an endangered species.

No doubt those who own up the title, "manny," are thinking that by doing so others will think that they are admirably secure in their woosie-tude.  (I made that word up but you know what I mean.)  But we don't think that at all.

They're just everyday woosies.

Little voices .. . .

There are leaf blowers going on outside.  I mean, THERE ARE LEAF BLOWERS GOING ON!!!!.  These are being operated by lawn care service employees, who, being employees covered by Worker's Compensation and OSHA work rules, are required to use hearing protection devices.

But what about the rest of us?  We aren't issued hearing protection devices; we just have to muffle our ears in our arms and hope the bastids finish soon.  I already have a permanent ringing in my ears from seventy years worth of the unrestrained noise of civilization gone mad with the power to industrialize the processes and procedures of noise making to an unnatural level.

Hey, how tough would it be to muffle engine noise?  Answer, it isn't that tough. 

On the other hand, there is a large subclass of subhumans who evidently like noise in all its forms.  How else can we explain why many people will prefer a big, throbbing, loud Harley to a well-muffled, big Honda, purposefully humming along?  Why else will the big Harley hog rider sit waiting for a green light, twisting the throttle repeatedly while going nowhere?  Why else do some children completely ignore the colorful and expensive educational construction toy purchased by an aunt, in favor of vigorously and repeatedly pounding a four dollar sauce pan on the bare kitchen floor?  Producing loud noises fulfills some atavistic need; it makes them feel good about themselves? 

But even if production of noise for its own sorry sake isn't a motivator for all of us, there remains many of us who tolerate noise, who live with it comfortably.  I have  theories.

One theory is that the absence of random, intrusive noise permits a person to hear the background "om" of the universe, causing one to contemplate both one's place in things, and one's naked insignificance, a notion which is discomforting to undeveloped egos. 

Okay, well, maybe it isn't the background noise of the universe; it's just your own blood circulating in your inner ear.

The other theory is that we all grow along the way a little interior voice based on our experience, that serves to guide us past points of difficulty.  You know.  That little voice that you want to ignore, that tells you that you are about to screw up, bigtime.  Again.  The noise helps a person ignore that little voice, so that they can go ahead and screw up bigtime. 

When a woman is saying to herself, "He said he's sorry and if I take him back he'll never do it again, and I know he loves me in his own way,"  she must not be hearing the little voice that's saying, "You've been through this before, try to catch up." 

When a man is saying to himself, "So all I have to do is give them my credit card number and they will send me, with free shipping, a three month supply of Ecuadorian batshit beetle bark to rub on myself in the privacy of my own home, and my manhood will swell to legendary proportions and all the girls in my keyboarding class will want me," there's a little voice he isn't hearing that is saying, "You might want to do something about that fat ass and those skinny arms, and lose about forty pounds first, there, Sparky."

When a doctor is saying to himself, "All my friends say that they've made alarming amounts of money, and Bernie says he can't promise anything but he's never made less than 30% a year before, but we have to buy in before all the wall street crowd finds out about this and the more I put in, the more I'll get out, and I'm really tired of working fifty-five hours a week to make a lousy two hundred grand a year," there's a voice in his head that says, "If it sounds too good to be true, it damn sure is too good to be true.  Do you know the expression, 'Sucker bait'?"

Why do otherwise smart people screw up?  It's because they can't or won't listen to that little corrective voice in their head.  And why won't they or can't they hear that little voice?  It's because of the DAMN LEAF BLOWERS AND HARLEYS AND ASSORTED OTHER INSTRUSIVE NOISES.

There's a little voice in my head right now, saying I should just give this up because I'm looking like a nut case.  But I can't hear it.