I like when businesses advertise their Christianity. It let's me know right up front to avoid them. Remember 'Christian ethics' is not an oxymoron, the modifier is there to let you know that their ethics is different from real ethics.
Yes. The dead giveaway, at least here in the Bay Area, is when their signs or web sites have those little fishes. There aren't many of them, but it gives me info to avoid them. When I was a kid, businesses owned by catholics would advertise in the church bulletin and the weekly newspaper that the diocese published, and people were admonished at mass (and kids at catechism classes) to patronize "good catholic businesses." This was in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Same scam, different era.
No doubt you would get a 'discount' if you mentioned the Church, you would actually be charged more, and the priest would get half of what you were overcharged as a 'finders' fee.
No idea. I was just a kid. But I do know that one of the mainstays of our parish was a guy with a small business who advertised all the time in the bulletin, put advertising flyers in the church vestibule every week, *and* was the head of the Knights of Columbus chapter. It wouldn't surprise me if there was payback going on. I don't know if he ever did anything overt, but most of the parish kids were afraid of him and his K of C buddies. His house was a block from the church and kids would avoid walking past his place if they could. I even remember one of my younger siblings having a meltdown in the back seat of the family car when we *drove* by his house.
If your only option for what you need is a business that has "Christian" in their advertising, get it in writing, have an attorney check the contract, and count your fingers after the handshake.
I wonder if anyone has ever analyzed whether businesses advertising their Christianity is a net gain or loss to sales. I’m sure it would vary by region but I’m not sure how. For example, it might provide almost no benefit in the rural south because it doesn’t distinguish you from almost everyone else. And it might remind some potential customers that you are the wrong kind of Baptist. On the other hand, suppose most businesses put the little fish in their ads. Failing to do so could be conspicuous.
End of September I will head out for a month in Thailand and she is coming back with me. As for my brief absence, I am in a new group at work, and as a senior software engineer had to do my part to be professional. As the LA Beast says, "The only way I know how.....like an absolute boss"
"If you're doing business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing; his word isn't worth shit, not with the good Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal."
-- William S. Burroughs, "Advice for Young People" September 28th, 1993
I never do business with any company trumpeting their Christianity as a good reason to patronize them. Some are straight up scam artists, but the true believers are worse. When people convince themselves they're operating under divine sanction, they can rationalize an excuse for anything.
OK, I understand that I'm supposed to be a lot more sympathetic to the victim here than I am going to be. But as someone already noted, even Jesus can't fix stupid.
There is car repair and then there is repairing transmissions, engine blocks, drive trains, and so on. Car repair maybe you can do with the toolbox or two. Repairing transmissions and other things like that requires a shop as far as I can tell. How is somebody even going to get a transmission out of a car if that's what it needs While working in someone's driveway? What relevance does being a Christian, or even a "Christian", have to anything-- except that the scam operates in a similar way. Pay in advance, or tithe, for unspecified services and unguaranteeable results?
OMG, I just proved the truth of everything with the phone call that happened while I was typing. The call was from an organization which didn't sound like anything in particular, telling me that I could get $26,000 for every employee I had during the pandemic. It's not a loan, you don't have to pay it back, all you have to do is demonstrate that you have three or more employees during the pandemic, and you were going to get a pile of money. We just need some information, and the money is yours. Money From whom? Why? (Because you had more than three employees during the pandemic). They needed to ask my name. They didn't seem to know the name of my business or whether I even had employees or an open business .
I let the earnest young man with the Indian accent – they all seem to be either Indians, or at least Filipinos on occasion-- talk for a little bit, and then I asked him what I always ask these scammers: "do your parents know that you scam people for a living, and are they proud of you?" For some reason, he hung up, just like they always do.
I would have had to be very stupid indeed to start handing information to some guy calling me up who didn't know anything about me and who is promising me free money from something that happened three years ago. But that level of stupidity is not some thing that's easy to achieve, and I am afraid I am a miserable failure at it..
So, yes, I feel a little bit sorry for yet another person who fell for a religious scam. But I don't feel incredibly sorry, because I doubt that she will be asking any questions at all, and certainly not why she would assume that this was a valid repair business when it was simply something so blatantly obvious.
To me, this is the problem in our country right now: tribalism, and it's bastard cousin of cousin fucking iggerunnce and lack of any critical thinking faculty.
Maybe I'll think differently when I have my 3rd cup of coffee.
Precisely. I always ask this question. There are so many scammers.
Twice, they have insisted that they're not scammers. My response has been, "if you don't know that you are scamming people, then you are even stupider than the people that you are trying to scam."
Hanging up isn't my goal. I can do that. Do they call again? Because 'Ellie' has called me thousands of times trying to sell me a home security system. I already have ADT and primarily for fire protection for the cat when I'm not home.
I have accidentally left my garage door open overnight and everything was still there in the morning.
Hanging up isn't my goal either. My goal is to maybe plant the seed of a tiny doubt in their minds that this is a proper way to behave. I know I'm probably wasting my time, because they already know they are scamming people and they don't care.
What's even worse is the calls I've actually received from the hospitals/doctors regarding my upcoming procedures and appointments. They call me and ask for insurance information as well as personal information, and tend to get snippy when I'm not terribly inclined to give it to them. They seem to think nobody would ever run such a scam.
Sure he can. Thomas was stupid enough to be one of his followers. Then he came to his senses and started have healthy doubts. And J-boy fixed his wavering stupidity, all right.
As for telephone scammers/solicitors, I use one of two strategies, depending on my mood. 1. I tell them heartily "I'm glad you called today," then give 'em a spiel about collecting money for the fight against chastic paralysis, a disease that strikes thousands of cute little ducklings every year. "When we send your envelope, can we count on a small donation?" Or if the caller is a young guy 2. I honeyfogle them into having phone sex (which I'm pretty good at doing). I often get them to the point of unzipping their fly before they realize what I'm doing and hastily hang up. I is de wickedest fing!
I would not stop you or even dream of stopping you. But while we're bragging, can I tell you about the three-way I had with Ryan and Ryan? you know which Ryans I'm talking about. Afterwards, they said they were both ready to leave their wives for me, it was that good.
We should offer support and sympathy because if we don't they won't come forward, and the criminal will not get caught.
This is not about excusing stupidity, it's about preventing crime. To do that, we need to incentivize victims to come forward. And to do THAT, we have to make it socially acceptable and not shameful for them to admit they got scammed. "Sorry, but you were an idiot. Try to be less of an idiot next time" is a great response if you want to keep the con artists in business.
As long as the victims are "people pf faith," I really couldn't care less if they get fleeced. Such people are born to be fleeced, and even if we put all the pious scammers in jail, the suckers will still get fleeced every Sunday anyway.
Semi OT, mini rant. Maybe it's just me, but I don't have much luck finding services on line. Recently I needed to find a roofer. I found a couple on line, left contact info on their websites, and never heard back. Finally, I went up to the local lumber yard and asked if they could recommend a good roofer. Got a couple of names, called the first one, left a message, and had my call returned later that day. That guy has no web presence at all and relies on quality work and word of mouth.
Same thing happened when I needed a tree service a couple years ago. The one callback I got from on line was a guy that did tree trimming as a side hustle. I went with an outfit that my insurance guy recommended. He had worked for them as a summer job when he was going to college. Again, no web presence and relying on quality work and word of mouth.
I also have an auto mechanic that has no web presence. It seems to me that businesses that have web pages spend more time maintaining their social media than they do providing their services.
Well, the rental I’m driving now is an Escort. Don’t care for it at all.
I can’t wait to buy the new vehicle once insurance pays out. Probably another Durango. We actually paid off the car the same day as the accident, we were hoping to go a year or two before having to make car payments again, but that’s just not gonna happen.
We're looking at a new car, just got a newly licensed driver in the family. Will probably sell them mine (10 yr old CRV w/115K miles and in great shape). Just not sure what I want to look for yet.
A lot of it depends on your driving habits. I drive less than 20 miles most days, so a Plug-in Hybrid works really well for me. I can go a couple of months on a tank of gas. OTOH, it sucks for road trips. It only gets about 250-300 on a tank of gas and unless you have a tail-wind about 23mpg. If it's a commuter car an EV works really well, but if it's your only car, you'll have to rent for road trips.
I love the feel of my Lincoln Corsair. I like that I don't bump my head getting in and out and I don't have to climb to do so either. About the only things I don't love about my car are the color and the payment.
My wife suggested a plug in hybrid and is now trying to talk me out of it. I haven't really even looked yet. I mostly commute ~10 miles total, with fairly regular longer trips. We'd have her car for long family trips back home, although it doesn't get the best mileage either.
Well, there is the $1500-2k expense of the charger and the 240V dedicated line to it. Though mine will charge on a standard 15-20amp circuit, it's a difference between 3 hours and 11 hours. The one Lincoln gave me also has a 5 inch vertical transformer on the plug, so it's hard to find a usable outlet. Extension cords are a no-no they get extremely hot very quickly.
My hubs decided on the Durango in 2018 because he had rented several of them and liked them. He travels a lot for work and likes trying out the different vehicles.
Some folks think my Durango had a lot of issues, but the fire was a result of an aftermarket add on. It did have an initial issue with a cracked manifold, but that isn’t a problem others have had, I may have just gotten a fluke. Other than that, it served me well for five years.
We've had a couple Toyotas, I decided to go with the Honda because it was supposed to have better mileage and it was a pretty good deal. I really didn't like it and the mileage wasn't great. We don't rent much, but I usually discover what cars I don't like. No Nissans.
I don't remember why (accident maybe?), I had to get a rental when I was 18 or so. They guy at the rental place told me if I had been there about 15 minutes earlier, he would have given me the Mustang convertible. I ended up with something boring and nondescript.
Yeah, I generally get the boring nondescript ones. When I went to Charleston for spring break with my daughter I got a full sized four door pickup truck. It was monstrous and I didn’t really care for it, it didn’t fit in the smaller historical streets I spent most of my time driving.
The escort is supposedly an suv, but it feels like a go cart, and it’s too low. I feel like I’m practically scraping my ass on the road. I liked my minivan for how much I could load it up, and I think the Durango always a good size for my needs. Aside from having to be a bit creative on packing for road trips with the kids.
I usually suggest taking a peek at Consumer Reports when someone's in the market for a new car. They've recommended some vehicles that have worked out very well for me over the years, and I'm still buying Toyota thanks to them. Good luck in any event.
My neighbor had a tree blow over onto the fence between our yard. I don't know how many people he called, even had several over to do estimates, but never could get anyone to do the work. Finally he and some of his friends did it themselves.
20 years ago, I could have done the roofing myself. Not as good as the pros, but good enough. 10 years ago, I could have done the tree work (minus stump removal). Not any more.
The only experience I've had like that was getting my bathroom painted. I wanted the guy to come out for an estimate (he gave a preliminary based on pictures, but it's an odd shape and I didn't trust the pictures gave him a good idea of the job). I told him it wasn't a high priority, but he twice said he'd come by and didn't and after 4 weeks, I called someone else.
I've gotten lousy work from people who responded to home advisor, but I've gotten responses. But I've found good luck with companies that have real websites, not facebook or a wordpress blog. I found both my tree service and house cleaning service with a google search.
Similar. For both shelving installation and plumbing, my experience with the 'put your job in here!' websites is that they simply hand over your info to data scrapers with little likelihood of response. You'll get emails forever, but no actual work done. I've had much better success using the web to get phone numbers, calling them, and only hiring companies where a human answers and discusses the job.
That wasn't this guy's issue though. He answered the calls. The personal response was there. He just demanded the money up front and then left.
Here's the real kicker in my book: the local Christian community probably won't do a thing about the situation. The completely undeserved reputation Christianity has in the US of A means that this mechanic was trusted with a prepayment because it was assumed he'd be more honest with his work due to his faith, and when that didn't happen, Christians just don't do anything about it. Local churches should be arguing over who gets to help these people first, not pretending the problem doesn't exist.
Finding a good, reputable car mechanic is hard, and it's even more difficult when the mechanic is actively trying to scam people on social media. It'd be nice if we could get mechanics like this guy out of the business on a long term basis, and ideally it'd be nice if we could remove that undeserved reputation Christianity has, too.
As I've observed many times before, businesses, christian or otherwise, NEVER call out other businesses in the same line of work. No oil company ever accuses any other oil company of being a polluter. No cigarette maker ever calls another cigarette maker's products carcinogenic. And no church, i.e. christian business, ever calls out any other church or christian business for fraud. After all, once you get people thinking about your rival's business claims, they might start thinking about YOURS, too. No company wants that. It would be tantamount to suicide.
What needs to happen, one way or another, is to tie that lack of performance to the professed Christian faith. Hitchens talked about this on multiple occasions. The problem is that such an observation almost certainly will NOT come from within the Christian community and isn't likely to be well accepted from an external observer.
Probably the same thing that happened to Monica Cole. Hemant stopped writing about them when he stopped doing 4 or 5 stories a day. But for some unknown reason still does monthly stories on Ham's folly.
She still gets an occasional shellacking from the tell-tale guy. Still going strong apparently. Ah well, there seems to be a never-ending supply of the gullible.
I like when businesses advertise their Christianity. It let's me know right up front to avoid them. Remember 'Christian ethics' is not an oxymoron, the modifier is there to let you know that their ethics is different from real ethics.
Yes. The dead giveaway, at least here in the Bay Area, is when their signs or web sites have those little fishes. There aren't many of them, but it gives me info to avoid them. When I was a kid, businesses owned by catholics would advertise in the church bulletin and the weekly newspaper that the diocese published, and people were admonished at mass (and kids at catechism classes) to patronize "good catholic businesses." This was in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Same scam, different era.
No doubt you would get a 'discount' if you mentioned the Church, you would actually be charged more, and the priest would get half of what you were overcharged as a 'finders' fee.
No idea. I was just a kid. But I do know that one of the mainstays of our parish was a guy with a small business who advertised all the time in the bulletin, put advertising flyers in the church vestibule every week, *and* was the head of the Knights of Columbus chapter. It wouldn't surprise me if there was payback going on. I don't know if he ever did anything overt, but most of the parish kids were afraid of him and his K of C buddies. His house was a block from the church and kids would avoid walking past his place if they could. I even remember one of my younger siblings having a meltdown in the back seat of the family car when we *drove* by his house.
If your only option for what you need is a business that has "Christian" in their advertising, get it in writing, have an attorney check the contract, and count your fingers after the handshake.
And people call the Ferengi scammers.
Well, to be fair, there are several Rules of Acquisition that boil down to ‘Scam every way you can”.
At least they are honest scammers.
I wonder if anyone has ever analyzed whether businesses advertising their Christianity is a net gain or loss to sales. I’m sure it would vary by region but I’m not sure how. For example, it might provide almost no benefit in the rural south because it doesn’t distinguish you from almost everyone else. And it might remind some potential customers that you are the wrong kind of Baptist. On the other hand, suppose most businesses put the little fish in their ads. Failing to do so could be conspicuous.
Never pay in advance. That's a sure sign of a scam.
Come to think of it, tithing falls into that category.
Prepaid God. Jesus now accepts Bitcoin.
Taking a person's money and giving nothing in return is the very definition of Christianity.
It happens every Sunday across the country.
Fake consolation is "something". It is just a feigned thing though, like when a psychopath simulates emotions they do not possess.
Welcome back. Missed you.
Work, work and work
Not vacations with your fiancée ? That's really too bad :(
End of September I will head out for a month in Thailand and she is coming back with me. As for my brief absence, I am in a new group at work, and as a senior software engineer had to do my part to be professional. As the LA Beast says, "The only way I know how.....like an absolute boss"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEkHA3isi00
I actually thought of that as soon as I wrote it. Me and you are in complete sync.
"He may actually be a Christian mechanic! But it doesn’t explain why he’s cutting and running in the middle of a job."
Yes it does.
"If you're doing business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing; his word isn't worth shit, not with the good Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal."
-- William S. Burroughs, "Advice for Young People" September 28th, 1993
Not sure a contract written by a scammer has more value than a restraining order for an abuser.
The Earl solution may not be the best ethically, but it is the best tactically.
I debated, but just in case someone doesn't get the reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw7gNf_9njs
That's a quote worth remembering.
Reminds me of the quote from Brave Heart"
"The Lord is pretty sure he can get me out of this, but you are fucked"
A reputable mechanic will never ask for money up front.
To be fair, a reputable mechanic wouldn’t have to advertise their Christianity for business.
I wouldn't think you pay before a service, especially a garage service.
Jesus, take the wheel! And the cash!
The cash is all they ever care about.
Depends on how nice the car is. 😏
How many altar boys can you fit in the trunk.
I never do business with any company trumpeting their Christianity as a good reason to patronize them. Some are straight up scam artists, but the true believers are worse. When people convince themselves they're operating under divine sanction, they can rationalize an excuse for anything.
OK, I understand that I'm supposed to be a lot more sympathetic to the victim here than I am going to be. But as someone already noted, even Jesus can't fix stupid.
There is car repair and then there is repairing transmissions, engine blocks, drive trains, and so on. Car repair maybe you can do with the toolbox or two. Repairing transmissions and other things like that requires a shop as far as I can tell. How is somebody even going to get a transmission out of a car if that's what it needs While working in someone's driveway? What relevance does being a Christian, or even a "Christian", have to anything-- except that the scam operates in a similar way. Pay in advance, or tithe, for unspecified services and unguaranteeable results?
OMG, I just proved the truth of everything with the phone call that happened while I was typing. The call was from an organization which didn't sound like anything in particular, telling me that I could get $26,000 for every employee I had during the pandemic. It's not a loan, you don't have to pay it back, all you have to do is demonstrate that you have three or more employees during the pandemic, and you were going to get a pile of money. We just need some information, and the money is yours. Money From whom? Why? (Because you had more than three employees during the pandemic). They needed to ask my name. They didn't seem to know the name of my business or whether I even had employees or an open business .
I let the earnest young man with the Indian accent – they all seem to be either Indians, or at least Filipinos on occasion-- talk for a little bit, and then I asked him what I always ask these scammers: "do your parents know that you scam people for a living, and are they proud of you?" For some reason, he hung up, just like they always do.
I would have had to be very stupid indeed to start handing information to some guy calling me up who didn't know anything about me and who is promising me free money from something that happened three years ago. But that level of stupidity is not some thing that's easy to achieve, and I am afraid I am a miserable failure at it..
So, yes, I feel a little bit sorry for yet another person who fell for a religious scam. But I don't feel incredibly sorry, because I doubt that she will be asking any questions at all, and certainly not why she would assume that this was a valid repair business when it was simply something so blatantly obvious.
To me, this is the problem in our country right now: tribalism, and it's bastard cousin of cousin fucking iggerunnce and lack of any critical thinking faculty.
Maybe I'll think differently when I have my 3rd cup of coffee.
Shortly after I reach retirement age, the phone rings. I answer.
“Hi, I’m calling about your lower back pain.”
“I don’t have lower back pain.”
“Oh, we can help with your digestive problems, too.”
“I don’t have those, either. Do you think your mom would be proud of the way you’ve chosen to make a living?”
* click *
Precisely. I always ask this question. There are so many scammers.
Twice, they have insisted that they're not scammers. My response has been, "if you don't know that you are scamming people, then you are even stupider than the people that you are trying to scam."
Then they hang up.
Hanging up isn't my goal. I can do that. Do they call again? Because 'Ellie' has called me thousands of times trying to sell me a home security system. I already have ADT and primarily for fire protection for the cat when I'm not home.
I have accidentally left my garage door open overnight and everything was still there in the morning.
Oh no, don’t take all the crap I’ve been trying to get rid of for ten years!
I know, we keep a lot of useful, needed and desired stuff in the garage, but there’s also a lot of junk we’ve been trying to get rid of too.
There's also no lock (well, it's been drilled out) between the garage and the house.
Hanging up isn't my goal either. My goal is to maybe plant the seed of a tiny doubt in their minds that this is a proper way to behave. I know I'm probably wasting my time, because they already know they are scamming people and they don't care.
What's even worse is the calls I've actually received from the hospitals/doctors regarding my upcoming procedures and appointments. They call me and ask for insurance information as well as personal information, and tend to get snippy when I'm not terribly inclined to give it to them. They seem to think nobody would ever run such a scam.
Pardon me, my head hurts now.
"even Jesus can't fix stupid"
Sure he can. Thomas was stupid enough to be one of his followers. Then he came to his senses and started have healthy doubts. And J-boy fixed his wavering stupidity, all right.
As for telephone scammers/solicitors, I use one of two strategies, depending on my mood. 1. I tell them heartily "I'm glad you called today," then give 'em a spiel about collecting money for the fight against chastic paralysis, a disease that strikes thousands of cute little ducklings every year. "When we send your envelope, can we count on a small donation?" Or if the caller is a young guy 2. I honeyfogle them into having phone sex (which I'm pretty good at doing). I often get them to the point of unzipping their fly before they realize what I'm doing and hastily hang up. I is de wickedest fing!
You young people. Always bragging about your sex lives.
I have so little. Let me brag.
I would not stop you or even dream of stopping you. But while we're bragging, can I tell you about the three-way I had with Ryan and Ryan? you know which Ryans I'm talking about. Afterwards, they said they were both ready to leave their wives for me, it was that good.
Judas was one of Jesus' followers. Look how he ended up. Two different deaths, both nasty.
Someone gets me going on phone sex, that zipper would be down at lightspeed and Mr. Happy would be greeting one and all "hello!"
That second one sounds fun, wish I had the honey tongue to pull that off.
We should offer support and sympathy because if we don't they won't come forward, and the criminal will not get caught.
This is not about excusing stupidity, it's about preventing crime. To do that, we need to incentivize victims to come forward. And to do THAT, we have to make it socially acceptable and not shameful for them to admit they got scammed. "Sorry, but you were an idiot. Try to be less of an idiot next time" is a great response if you want to keep the con artists in business.
I don't disagree with you, and sociologically, you are quite correct. However, and you knew there was a however...
I still don't have a lot of sympathy for her.
As the Mahvelous Mr. Crystal said, it's not how you feel, it's how you look. Look sympathetic, baby. ;)
How is this?😳
Or maybe this? 🥲
As long as the victims are "people pf faith," I really couldn't care less if they get fleeced. Such people are born to be fleeced, and even if we put all the pious scammers in jail, the suckers will still get fleeced every Sunday anyway.
How shortsighted. You think a con artist preying on Christians today isn't going after your grandma tomorrow?
[I have no idea why this is double posting, but last time this happened, I could not delete one without deleting both. So apologies...]
DM and me used to be harassed 2 or 3 times a week by scammers/telemarketers. We finally unplugged our phone and it stayed that way since.
Another Christian business that's oily?
Carrie and Freda can't be the only victims of these tools. How many other wrenching stories are out there?
(I know. Those puns were ratchet of me. Guess it's too early for a screwdriver)
It's holy anointing oil, blessed by Jesus himself. Heathen!
Too early? Not me. I'm Old Fashioned... 😁
It's nearly 5:30 pm here. Have mine.
You don't have to hammer it in, do you? Or are you determined to be a tool?
You want I should put a sock-et in it?
"There's a sucker born every minute" 2 Corinthians, 45:2024
Semi OT, mini rant. Maybe it's just me, but I don't have much luck finding services on line. Recently I needed to find a roofer. I found a couple on line, left contact info on their websites, and never heard back. Finally, I went up to the local lumber yard and asked if they could recommend a good roofer. Got a couple of names, called the first one, left a message, and had my call returned later that day. That guy has no web presence at all and relies on quality work and word of mouth.
Same thing happened when I needed a tree service a couple years ago. The one callback I got from on line was a guy that did tree trimming as a side hustle. I went with an outfit that my insurance guy recommended. He had worked for them as a summer job when he was going to college. Again, no web presence and relying on quality work and word of mouth.
I also have an auto mechanic that has no web presence. It seems to me that businesses that have web pages spend more time maintaining their social media than they do providing their services.
YMMV, end rant.
"I don't have much luck finding services on line"
Are you kidding me, escorts are still out there.
Well, the rental I’m driving now is an Escort. Don’t care for it at all.
I can’t wait to buy the new vehicle once insurance pays out. Probably another Durango. We actually paid off the car the same day as the accident, we were hoping to go a year or two before having to make car payments again, but that’s just not gonna happen.
Canyonero?
We're looking at a new car, just got a newly licensed driver in the family. Will probably sell them mine (10 yr old CRV w/115K miles and in great shape). Just not sure what I want to look for yet.
A lot of it depends on your driving habits. I drive less than 20 miles most days, so a Plug-in Hybrid works really well for me. I can go a couple of months on a tank of gas. OTOH, it sucks for road trips. It only gets about 250-300 on a tank of gas and unless you have a tail-wind about 23mpg. If it's a commuter car an EV works really well, but if it's your only car, you'll have to rent for road trips.
I love the feel of my Lincoln Corsair. I like that I don't bump my head getting in and out and I don't have to climb to do so either. About the only things I don't love about my car are the color and the payment.
My wife suggested a plug in hybrid and is now trying to talk me out of it. I haven't really even looked yet. I mostly commute ~10 miles total, with fairly regular longer trips. We'd have her car for long family trips back home, although it doesn't get the best mileage either.
Well, there is the $1500-2k expense of the charger and the 240V dedicated line to it. Though mine will charge on a standard 15-20amp circuit, it's a difference between 3 hours and 11 hours. The one Lincoln gave me also has a 5 inch vertical transformer on the plug, so it's hard to find a usable outlet. Extension cords are a no-no they get extremely hot very quickly.
My hubs decided on the Durango in 2018 because he had rented several of them and liked them. He travels a lot for work and likes trying out the different vehicles.
Some folks think my Durango had a lot of issues, but the fire was a result of an aftermarket add on. It did have an initial issue with a cracked manifold, but that isn’t a problem others have had, I may have just gotten a fluke. Other than that, it served me well for five years.
We've had a couple Toyotas, I decided to go with the Honda because it was supposed to have better mileage and it was a pretty good deal. I really didn't like it and the mileage wasn't great. We don't rent much, but I usually discover what cars I don't like. No Nissans.
Accord? Jesus didn't speak of his own.
I don't remember why (accident maybe?), I had to get a rental when I was 18 or so. They guy at the rental place told me if I had been there about 15 minutes earlier, he would have given me the Mustang convertible. I ended up with something boring and nondescript.
Yeah, I generally get the boring nondescript ones. When I went to Charleston for spring break with my daughter I got a full sized four door pickup truck. It was monstrous and I didn’t really care for it, it didn’t fit in the smaller historical streets I spent most of my time driving.
The escort is supposedly an suv, but it feels like a go cart, and it’s too low. I feel like I’m practically scraping my ass on the road. I liked my minivan for how much I could load it up, and I think the Durango always a good size for my needs. Aside from having to be a bit creative on packing for road trips with the kids.
I usually suggest taking a peek at Consumer Reports when someone's in the market for a new car. They've recommended some vehicles that have worked out very well for me over the years, and I'm still buying Toyota thanks to them. Good luck in any event.
Links or it's not true!
Hey, not sure I want you intermingling with my escorts. I've heard rumors about you.
I think we live far enough away. And the rumors aren't all true, especially the ones I started.
My neighbor had a tree blow over onto the fence between our yard. I don't know how many people he called, even had several over to do estimates, but never could get anyone to do the work. Finally he and some of his friends did it themselves.
Sounds like sappy work.
Went out on a limb for that one.
His neighbor was just trying to get to the root of the problem.
That "leaves" much to be desired.
If it had been me, I'd have kept bark-ing until I was heard
Don't be too bosky
20 years ago, I could have done the roofing myself. Not as good as the pros, but good enough. 10 years ago, I could have done the tree work (minus stump removal). Not any more.
The only experience I've had like that was getting my bathroom painted. I wanted the guy to come out for an estimate (he gave a preliminary based on pictures, but it's an odd shape and I didn't trust the pictures gave him a good idea of the job). I told him it wasn't a high priority, but he twice said he'd come by and didn't and after 4 weeks, I called someone else.
I've gotten lousy work from people who responded to home advisor, but I've gotten responses. But I've found good luck with companies that have real websites, not facebook or a wordpress blog. I found both my tree service and house cleaning service with a google search.
Similar. For both shelving installation and plumbing, my experience with the 'put your job in here!' websites is that they simply hand over your info to data scrapers with little likelihood of response. You'll get emails forever, but no actual work done. I've had much better success using the web to get phone numbers, calling them, and only hiring companies where a human answers and discusses the job.
That wasn't this guy's issue though. He answered the calls. The personal response was there. He just demanded the money up front and then left.
Here's the real kicker in my book: the local Christian community probably won't do a thing about the situation. The completely undeserved reputation Christianity has in the US of A means that this mechanic was trusted with a prepayment because it was assumed he'd be more honest with his work due to his faith, and when that didn't happen, Christians just don't do anything about it. Local churches should be arguing over who gets to help these people first, not pretending the problem doesn't exist.
Finding a good, reputable car mechanic is hard, and it's even more difficult when the mechanic is actively trying to scam people on social media. It'd be nice if we could get mechanics like this guy out of the business on a long term basis, and ideally it'd be nice if we could remove that undeserved reputation Christianity has, too.
Christians refuse to take responsibility for their own actions or the actions of their brethren.
Why should they? The devil made them do it.
How conveeeeeeeeenient.
why should they take responsibility when this is all part of god's plan.
As I've observed many times before, businesses, christian or otherwise, NEVER call out other businesses in the same line of work. No oil company ever accuses any other oil company of being a polluter. No cigarette maker ever calls another cigarette maker's products carcinogenic. And no church, i.e. christian business, ever calls out any other church or christian business for fraud. After all, once you get people thinking about your rival's business claims, they might start thinking about YOURS, too. No company wants that. It would be tantamount to suicide.
What needs to happen, one way or another, is to tie that lack of performance to the professed Christian faith. Hitchens talked about this on multiple occasions. The problem is that such an observation almost certainly will NOT come from within the Christian community and isn't likely to be well accepted from an external observer.
OT : if DM can find a nurse she should be discharged on Monday.
And she found one.
🎉🥳🐶
That's great! Glad DM's going home soon!
🎉
👍👏🎉
Great news.
🥳🥳🥳
✔
At first I was wondering what god needs with a mechanic. Then I realized that someone has to fix the tractors so that the cows can drive.
Which reminds me: what's happened to Kat Kerr? Did one of those tractor-driving cows run her over? EEEEK! 😱
Probably the same thing that happened to Monica Cole. Hemant stopped writing about them when he stopped doing 4 or 5 stories a day. But for some unknown reason still does monthly stories on Ham's folly.
She still gets an occasional shellacking from the tell-tale guy. Still going strong apparently. Ah well, there seems to be a never-ending supply of the gullible.
Some of the blobs of jell-o were actually Gelatinous Cubes?
I think that's the claim of Leather Vampire (Robin Bullock).
She suffocated in all that Jell-o.
Oh, gee ... DID she? What a shame ... 🤣🤣🤣
Yes, very sad.
ANYWAY!
Look! Lackadaisycats plushies!
https://www.backerkit.com/c/iron-circus-comics/lackadaisy-bookset-and-plushes