RowdyRebel

Last I checked, extortion was a crime...yet the person who committed the crime is celebrated as a hero while the victim who paid with his own money is persecuted. The offense? An embarrassing indiscretion between two consenting adults. I guess that's par for the course, though, considering the victim was impeached for merely suggesting an investigation ought to be undertaken for a crime his eventual successor openly bragged on camera about committing with taxpayer money. He's also the only guy in history who has ever been impeached again for instigating a riot by telling his supporters to make their voices heard by peacefully urging their elected representatives to fight for him. They've had it out for him since he announced his candidacy for his 1st term. The fact that after all of this time and the countless "gotcha" investigations that've blown up in their face and the best they've got is at most a misdemeanor offense typically punished by issueing a small fine that they're trying to inflate to a felony indictment proves they still have nothing on this man. If they aren't careful, their attempt to disqualify him is going to do nothing but guarantee his reelection. Swamp needs draining, and swamp-dwellers are going out of their way to show exactly who they are.

Article said he was only there for a few seconds before the train triggered the gates...not much time to do anything. ...and depending upon how good this driver's lawyer is, the railroad might just be cutting him a check for the damage to his truck, trailer, and load. I remember reading an article a few years back that explained it...gotta try & find it again. The tracks are not supposed to be more than 3" higher than the road surface 30' away from the crossing...and if they are higher, a sign must be present indicating a danger for low clearance vehicles. If the tracks do not meet this requirement, the railroad is liable.

Standard is the gates are supposed to be fully lowered 20 seconds before a train reaches the crossing. If a lot of high speed trains come through, the gates will be triggered far enough away to ensure the lights flash, gates lower, and that they make it all of the way down at least 20 seconds before the train arrives. If the crossing is set up as a distance trigger based upon the speed limit of the line, a train moving slower will have the gates down longer than the 20 seconds.

Yup. Unfortunately it seems "Idiocracy" is following not far behind "1984" on a journey from fiction to reality.🤦‍♂️

"The 59-year-old pickup driver from North Chicago told investigators the last thing he remembered before the crash was opening a beer." https://www.kfvs12.com/2023/02/28/deputy-seriously-hurt-crash-with-driver-opening-beer/

And here I am thinking we DIDN'T get enough snow! I mean, I've only had to throw iron on the work truck once this winter, and that was just to back up an icy hill about 40 feet to make my delivery, then I pulled them off again. Tire chains for my open diff "1-wheel-peel" Ford Ranger haven't even been needed at all this year. Hell, haven't even had to lock the hubs on the old Suburban, either.🤷‍♂️

Yeah, I moved a couple round bales from my buddy's farm up to the farm I've got my boarded at on Tuesday because they were calling for rain yesterday & I was figuring they'd need another bale put out today...and it's kinda hard to move a round bale with a motorcycle. Turned out they had enough to get them into tomorrow so I didn't need to set one of them out today after all...but if I HADN'T trucked them up the other day, you damn well better believe they would've had the hay ring picked clean by today & I would've had to go home, get the truck, go back to the farm to grab the hay dolly that we store there, turn around & go down to my buddy's farm to get the bales, go back up to the farm to drop 'em off...would've been a lot of running around & made for a really late night. Just gotta plan ahead.👍

Hell, I'm planning to ride the Harley to work tomorrow...going to be 70 & sunny here.😎

This has been refuted by every member of the previous administration who would've been "in the know" ...unless, of course, there were some in the Pentagon who thought it was better to keep the Trump administration in the dark about these foreign incursions, thereby allowing the spying to occur unabated. This sort of action (or willful inaction) is addressed in Article 3 Section 3.

The clutch safety switches used to only disable the starter unless the clutch is depressed...even my '86 Ranger was like that. You're saying it disables the ignition, too? I guess that makes sense given all of the electronics on today's vehicles. Friend of mine had a Nissan Maxima with a manual and it wouldn't crank one day...so his wife let it roll down a hill & let out the clutch. Got it started...and fried the computer. Guess there was a bad ground or something preventing it from cranking, and bump starting it defeated the anti-self-destruct nature of the vehicle's computer.

ROTFLMFAO...Dodge...so we got some sleet & ice around here (couple inches of sleet with a good icy crust on top for good measure), and at the farm where I've got my horses boarded there's a pretty good hill up to the barn. My little 2wd Ford Ranger (V6/5-speed) has been making it up there all week...sometimes a couple times a day checking on the horses & resolving any issues that have been coming up this week. Friday night, I was about to go down the hill when I saw a white Dodge Ram getting ready to start up....so I waited. He made it about 1/3 of the way up, stopped, and backed down. So I went down. Turns out, it was my friend's hired hand trying to make it up there to the dumpster. I asked if he needed a ride up. "I only had it in 2wd. I would've made it if it was in 4wd." He says. "I've only got 2wd, and I've been making it up there all week." So he puts it in 4wd and tries again. I wait at the bottom. He gets about half way up & stops...then backs back down again, pulls off to the side, and waves me over. He takes the trash out of his truck, tosses it in mine, and asks for a ride up. So I drove him up the hill. Then I had to listen to him blame the traction control for his failure to get up the hill.🙄 Nope. It's because you don't know how to drive and the truck you're driving sucks.😂

Friend of mine's niece just had an issue with her Ford Focus...started & ran, but couldn't get it out of park. Turn knob computer controlled transmission. Haven't remembered to ask him what the issue ended up being. Had to have a wrecker go get it because there was no linkage to disconnect to manually shift it to neutral to roll it up onto a trailer. Stupid. You couldn't pay me to own a car like that.

Even then, though, it can & will override your decision to shift if it doesn't think it's the right decision...sort of like those run-away toyotas a few years ago. Push-button on/off (no key to physically kill the ignition) that wouldn't "allow" the car to be shut off while it was in motion, turn-knob fly-by-wire transmissions that wouldn't "allow" the driver to select neutral under WOT conditions, and a fly-by-wire throttle that was stuck wide open. My desire for a vehicle to override my decisions on when/where/how to shift is lower than my desire to have a vehicle shifting for me...and that was already lower than the wind chill on Mt Washington the other night.

Every truck & trailer built since '94 (I think...I'd have to look) has been required to have the auto-adjusting slacks. If you have to adjust them between brake services, there is a problem that needs to be corrected. DOT will ding you twice for any out-of-adjustment brakes these days...once for being out-of-adjustment, and once for a malfunctioning auto-slack.

Meh. Whuddaya need brakes fer? Alls they do is slow ya down!😜

I have yet to find an automatic that shifts the truck when/where/how I want it to shift...and it ends up aggrevating me more than it's worth. Either it shifts when I don't want/need it to, holds a gear when I want/need it to shift, or it selects the wrong gear & wastes time searching for the correct gear. The newer ones I've driven are too slow getting going, holding onto the lower gears far longer than necessary & revving the engine much higher than I prefer to run it...then they have to wait for the revs to drop before sliding into the next gear. Progressive shifting I can run a manual up through 4 or 5 gears before the automatic has completed it's 1st shift. The older 3-pedal ones I had the displeasure of driving for a couple months 2 years into my driving career (why I left the company I started with) would downshift until the point where it'd need the low range...then float in neutral until you gave it some throttle. Never seemed safe/legal to me, as you were coasting & not in gear. If you were trying to time traffic to make a left w/o stopping, when you'd get on the throttle to go it wouldn't...until it decided you should be in 2nd gear (I would've had it in 4th). Engine would rev to damn near redline, it would realize it screwed up & pull itself back out of gear to wait for the RPMs to drop before hitting 4th. Meanwhile, you're looking out that passenger side window eyeballing oncoming traffic hoping this thing gets its act together & finds a gear soon because you've still got 53' of trailer to pull across the lanes before that traffic gets to you. No thanks. I'll keep driving vehicles that are in the gear I need them to be in when I need them to be. If i can't, it'll be time to hang up the keys & do something else.

9/16" won't do you much good these days, unless you're pulling an older trailer that's still got manual slacks. Better off these days with a 7/16" socket on a ratchet or a 3/8" box wrench & either a claw hammer or flat screwdriver to pull out on the pawl...but then you'd better know what you're doing or you'll end up like that blonde chick on Ice Road Truckers who decided to adjust her brakes on the side of the road, tightened 'em down, and couldn't figure out how to back them off again...😂

You can have my stick shift when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.😎 Been slow up at the feed mill, so I've been helping out driving deliveries for the retail store. Folks at the store want to keep me there full time. Told 'em it'd be a cold day in hell before I went to work full time & had to drive automatic trucks all day every day. Feed trucks still have manual transmissions. Boss had me spec a new straight truck for him & corporate & the salesman tried talking him out of many of my specs. When he told me the changes they wanted, I explained why I spec'd what I spec'd, and why THEIR preferences wouldn't work. Allegedly, my boss stuck with my specs. We'll find out later this year. Truck's scheduled to be built in March.

What's worse, is that Trump (as president) had the Constitutional power as top executive to declassify anything & everything he so desired, for whatever reason he wanted, at any time, with no formal process, no requirement to "notify" his underlings, and no requirement to remove markings indicating their former state of classification. It would be a prosecutor's job to prove he did not declassify those documents (impossible to do), NOT his job to prove he had. Biden, neither as VP (or worse) Senator, had that power. Any & all classified docs he removed from secure facilities is a criminal act. Same goes for Hillary, as Senator & later SOS. FBI raids where no crime can be proven, yet looks the other way when crimes are blatant. All depends upon whether the individual involved identifies as an "R" or a "D".

Nah...just gimme a 2-stack Mack with a window in the back & I'm good. If I need to spend a night out on the road, I'll stop at a Holiday Inn Express (or nicer) & be comfortable. If the run ain't profitable enough to house me comfortably outside of the truck, it's not profitable enough to keep me away from my own bed at home. Haven't slept in a truck in almost 20 years. Don't have plans to start again any time soon.

I was out in the driveway wrenching on the Suburban several years ago...had the intake manifold off doing something (can't remember what). Anyway, I'd hear a shotgun blast...then I'd hear the little lead pellets raining down on my roof, vehicles, etc. So, I jumped on the Harley & took off toward where the shots were coming from. Start to pull into a driveway to head back by some grain bins (where the shots seemed to be coming from) and an old man steps out of the house onto the porch & asks if he can help me. I not-so-politely informed him that whoever was doing the shooting was doing so in my direction, and that I didn't appreciate the lead shower they were bestowing upon me...and that if it continued I'd be returning fire, but it sure as hell wouldn't be birdshot coming their way. Shooting stopped & I've never had that problem again.👍

Psssh...🙄 Backing up is easy.

Happened again. Answered a knock on the door and it was another dumbass wanting to buy my truck. Told him it's not for sale, NOTHING around here is, that I'm getting tired of dip$#¡ts like him showing up thinking it might be, and that he needs to get the f*** off my property. Walked back inside & the look on my mother-in-law's face was priceless.😂

Biggest difference between Trump's allegedly "classified" documents and Biden's & Hillary's actual classified document problems is that as President, Trump had the power to declassify anything he wanted to declassify, at any time, and without requiring anyone's prior approval or even knowledge...which he says he had done (which means none of the documents *marked* classified were *actually* classified. Biden (as VP) and Hillary (as SOS) did not have that power. Any declassifications they sought had to be run through the proper channels. The other difference is Trump had an (R) next to his name, and Biden & Hillary have that (D) by theirs...which means the deep state & national media will come after Trump with everything they can, while sweeping whatever they can under the rug for Biden & Hillary. If it weren't for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.