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Here’s a nice story about the emerging awesomeness of my new ‘hood:

A growing group of residents and business owners – new and old – wants to uncover Claymont’s built-in beauty, revive its flagging spirit and improve its sagging property values.

The goal is daunting, but the coalition has not recoiled from the fact that its community needs a lot of work – inside and out.

“If you can’t handle honesty, you can’t live in Claymont,” said Ellie Kwick, who has lived there all of her 63 years.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was fraught with obesity! I ate so much that I did not have to eat again for roughly 14 hours. (Given that I’m usually rustling through the pantry every 30 minutes, that’s a major accomplishment.) Note that I said I didn’t have to. That didn’t stop me from doing so: there was pie, you see. I had four pieces!

In the interests of goodness and kindness in this holiday season, I want to share with you a blogpost that every American should have to read. It is entitled: People Who Back Into Parking Spaces Can Kiss My Ass. And every word of it is true. Please retweet, or whatever.

For Veterans’ Day, here’s a Denver Post piece detailing a young man’s struggles with the military and his own life as a reporter and photographer followed him for 27 months during basic training, advanced infantry training, and a tour in Iraq. It’s really spectacularly done, and the photography is revealing and often heartbreaking.

Saw this quote today:

Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: “Because the animals are like us.” Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: “Because the animals are not like us.” Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction. – Charles R. Magel, professor of philosophy

I can’t say he’s wrong, but here’s my question: what would Professor Magel have scientists experiment on? Hobos? I guess you could say “paid volunteers,” but if you have to test, say, a pediatric cancer treatment, is there a large pool of children whose parents are willing to try a completely untested-on-any-living-creature treatment? I’m not saying we need to scoop the eyeballs out of a chimpanzee and rub lipstick and rouge into the sockets, but I have no problem with medical tests on mice and pigs. Partly because I hate mice (and have been waging a one man, two cat war against them in my new home [the cats are next to useless]) and because perhaps after the tests are done I might be permitted to eat parts of the pigs.

Richard over at Honest Hypocrite tweeted this gem from Roger Ebert. Ebert had previously blogged on the rational reasons for universal health care, and used his platform to lay out the moral imperative for it, as well as respond to some commenters. A few good quotes:

Many of my readers opposed the Obama plan… here, in broad outline, are some of their most common statements, and my responses:

It is “socialized medicine.” Yes, it is. The entire society shares the cost. It does not replace private medicine. Just as in the UK and Canada, for example, we would remain free to choose our own insurance policies and private physicians. But it is the safety net for everyone… The word socialism, however, has lost its usefulness in this debate. It has been tainted, perhaps forever, by the malevolent Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who succeeded somehow in linking it with the godless Commies. America is the only nation in the free world in which “socialism” is generally thought of in negative terms.

A quick dig:

One reader said that the only things the Constitution guarantees us are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and Congress should enact no laws about anything else. Actually, it’s the Declaration of independence that mentions “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but never mind. Some might believe universal health care would be of great assistance in enjoying life and the pursuit of happiness. It is a peculiarity that some of those happiest to cite the Constitution are the least interested in its Bill of Rights.

And the real zinger:

The nearest thing we have to a death panel in the United States is an insurance company claims adjuster.

Maine is the latest battleground for marriage equality, because of Question 1, a referendum to repeal a bill signed into law in May that legalized same-sex marriage. Recent polling seems to indicate that Mainers are on the side of equality. One Bangor newspaper editorial made what should be an obvious point:

It is hard to see how allowing more people to marry will weaken marriage. Instead, it seems the strong desire of gay and lesbian couples to be married, rather than declared domestic partners, shows the value and importance of marriage.

I now know far more than I really wanted to about my oil boiler. (Who am I kidding? That thing is fricking PIMP. It’s apparently the best boiler that money can buy, and it’s built like a brit shickhouse.)

After running it out of oil the other day and suffering through a night where the temperature in the house hovered at 56 degrees Fahrenheit, Burns and McBride came out this morning to fill it, but were flummoxed by the fact that there seemed to be two delivery connections. I pointed out that we have two tanks, and they pointed out that there’s only one vent, so it’s possible that only one of the connections works, and the other is vestigeal. They said they’d send out a Delivery Manager to take a look.

I met him at the house, and he turned out to be a nice gentleman, who confirmed that there are two delivery connections, one for each tank. He only filled one tank, because we discovered that the air vent seems to be partially clogged (something else I’ll have to get fixed), and he was afraid of building up too much pressure in the tanks. He said that the boiler might have difficulty starting up, because of air in the line, but showed me how to bleed that, and went on his merry way.

And of course I couldn’t get the damn boiler to fire. It’s heavily computerized, and has logic to prevent it from running if it realizes it’s only spraying air. So it’ll try for a bit, and if it doesn’t get any fuel, it turns off, and starts flashing a little green LED. There’s a button on the front to reset it and try again, so I figured I’d bleed out the air, then hit reset, and everything would be gravy.

I loosened the bleeder screw, which I expected to work like the one you find on automobile brake calipers; you have somebody press on the brake, you loosen the screw, and air and fluid comes pouring out. In this case, the oil only dripped, which I thought was strange. Anyway, I hit the reset button again, but nothing happened; the little green light kept flashing, and the motor on the front didn’t turn on. I tried switching off the power to the system, tried messing with the thermostat, but got nowhere. After 15 minutes of frantic googling, I discovered this handy online manual, which explained that to prevent fuel oil from filling up the burner, you can only reset the system three times before it goes into “restricted mode.” Getting it out of restricted mode just involves holding the button down for a long time. No problem. I figured if I could just get the motor to kick off a few times, it would eventually pump all the air out, and start getting good oil.

After resetting the system 9 times, I started to rethink my strategy.

I realized that the reason that brake fluid comes pouring out of the caliper when I bleed the brakes is that someone is pushing on the brake pedal, producing pressure in the system. The only pressure in the system was being provided by gravity, and it apparently wasn’t enough. It occurred to me: what if I reset the system while the bleeder valve is open? Every time I reset the system, it ran a motor that I assume must be some kind of fuel pump. Would this pump the air out? I loosened the bleed screw a turn, and hit the button.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

Oil/Air foam came spraying out of the valve. This was a positive development. The motor eventually turned back off without firing the burner, but I figured it just needed another go. That didn’t work, but one more round of bleeding the air and one more reset led to:

WHOOOSHclickclickclickWHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

Amusingly, no matter how new it is, any oil-fired boiler is instantly “Old Girl.” The instant the boiler fired, I yelled “That’s it, Old Girl! Hell yes!” A few moments later, when “she” coughed and sputtered when another little air bubble hit the burner, I coaxed “No, no, Old Girl, stay with me STAY WITH ME!”

In the end: she was busily heating up the water for the radiators, and I smell like a damn refinery. I had to return to work afterwards; I’m surprised my coworkers didn’t insist on burning my clothes and hosing me off outside.

Here is a short list of talking heads that I trust:

• Jon Stewart


• Rachel Maddow

That’s about it. I kinda trust Keith Olbermann, but let’s face it, he’s a blowhard. He talks a lot of smack, but I’ve noticed that only Rachel has people on that actually disagree with her. Who do you trust, if anybody?

From the Coming Out marches on Sunday, courtesy Andrew Sullivan:

Brilliant. In fact, I think it’s time to enact a basic rule: if you’ve ever been divorced, then you are not allowed to say anything negative about gay marriage, and how it’s a “threat” to family values. Same goes if you’ve conceived a child out of wedlock or committed adultery. I’m not saying I should be allowed to judge someone if they’ve done any of those things; while I’ve never done them myself, I’m certainly no saint. I’m just saying that if you broke up a family, I’m not putting up with your hypocrisy.

The study actually has so many caveats that it’s almost useless as a predictor of anything, but the headline sure is eye-grabbin’: Teen birth rates highest in most religious states.