Long Mike

Avid, I agree with everything you said, with one exception. The "Wildlife Refuge" where proposed drilling is to take place consists of nothing more than miles and miles and miles of swampland (when it's not frozen) It has the same topography as the Prudhoe Bay area. Yes, it is pristine, just the way Prudhoe Bay still is. I will grant that a few small spills have occurred, but they have occurred on such a small scale that the overall ecosystem was not affected in the slightest. Mind you, I am not talking about the Valdez incident. That catastrophe took place a thousand miles from from the drill site. As I mentioned in a previous post, the foot print of a drill site is very small, and any damage from a spill is very much localized.

Attaboy Tom! I *** you! As would most of us, I would do every thing but kill to land a DD. Based on your photo, you and I seem to be built alike. I'm 6' 3"" and weigh in at about 200. How about you?

As far as I'm concerned, Junior just made the best career move of his life. The world, and sponsors, await him.

Nice one Bucketmouth!

Jose and Manuel - Disney's Two Lazy Crows

With all due respect to those who know absolutely nothing about drilling for oil in Alaska, and its affect on the wildlife therein, I would cordially invite you to research the affect on wildlife that discoveries on the North Slope and the resultant Aleyska pipeline have had for the last two decades. Better yet, I would invite you to use Google Earth to find as many polluted and scarred areas as you possibly can. Trust me, you will not find any. For some reason, it seems that the great majority of opponents to drilling in Alaska live in New England. which must import every drop of oil/fuel it uses. Because many New Englanders HAVE NO CLUE about how the oil industry actually operates, this somehow empowers some to become very opinionated about the actual affects of drilling on the environment and to wildlife. This saddens me. I have worked in the oil industry for over thirty years, and all over the world. The foot-print of a drilling site on land is minuscule, maybe 200' by 200.' Even a giant offshore platform has an above water footprint of about the same dimensions. How is that going to affect wildlife in general? Answer: They will simply go around it. Take a good, hard look at the Gulf Coast. Drilling and production has been going on for fifty years, both onshore and offshore. Prudent measures minimize the possibility of pollution. A man can go fishing anywhere he wishes and will have the opportunity to catch any species he wants, without fear of contaminated fish or waters. Anyone who opposes drilling in Alaska is so ignorant about the oil industry that it is almost laughable - and that's why it saddens me. There are simply too many of you.

Good One Muddy!

Toodie & Muldoon: Car 54 Where Are You. Unfortunately, I am old enough to remember. Frick and Frack: A pair of swiss comedy ice skaters who performed in the thrities and forties. Fortunately, I'm NOT old enough to remember. I Googled that one. ;D

My Dream Babe was Rhea Perlman. I had vey low self-esteem back then. :'(

Muddy, it's time to put on your stethescope. Who knows, you might be able to listen to a Gene Krupa solo in a parir of 38 D's. Whould you call that bliss? ;D

Before anyone starts bashing the oil companies about their obscene profits, one must keep two things in mind. 1. The oil companies themselves have very little influence on the price of a barrel of oil or a gallon of gasoline. The price is determined by the futures traders at the Stock Market. Every time OPEC farts, a refinery has a problem, a hurricane hits the Gulf, or a piece of crap country like Nigeria as an insurgent problem, these traders bid the price up. 2. Instead of looking at the, say, $1 billion profit of an oil company and screaming that we are being raped, it would be much more prudent to have a look at the company's public financial statements. If memory serves, that $1 Billion is only a 15% PreTax profit. I would speculate that a 15% PreTax profit is about what Wal-Mart earns, but I hear very few people screaming rape. If anyone has done the research, I would be more than happy to be proved wrong.

Speaking of Twosomes: Anouncement from Apple Apple Computers announced today that it has developed a computer chip that can store and play music in women's breast implants. The iBoob will cost between $499 and $599. This is considered to be a major breakthrough, because women are always complaining about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them. Thanks to Apple, everyone is now happy.

IN THE GREAT SEARCH FOR BASS, I WANT TO BE TOP OF THE CLASS. BUT I'M STILL JUST A NEWBIE, AND THE BASS WHIP MY AZZ.

michbass, I don't want to hi-jack the thread, so I just wanted to say that I lived overseas for 11 years (not in the military) and have traveled to about thirty countries. It wasn't until I arrived in Scandinavia that a began to have problems with a certain part of my body. It kept wanting to stand up and salute the natives. To make matters worse, I found the natives to be VERY friendly.

Whit all due respect to you chefs out there, I have to agree with ghotti. On my Weber charcoal grill I build a HOT coal bed. by HOT I mean that if you can hold your hand over the coals at grill height for more than fours seconds, it's not hot enough. I then place a number of wet hickory chips around the edges of the coals. With all vents open and the lid on, I wait until the pit starts smoking up a storm. I then throw on some 1 1/2" thick steaks, put the lid back on, wait 6 minutes, then flip the steaks and wait five minutes. Voila! Medium rare, hickory smoked steaks.

That's a picture of Muddy and his buddy Ron. They're only doing about 7 mph. ;D

Glenn, a very timely post. I'm sure most folks are smart enough to realize that a one day boycott would mean absolutely nothing, but your post really drives the point home.

If you are afraid of bugs and snakes don't grow up in deep South Louisiana like I did. It seems that almost everything has a painful bite and most are poisonous. And then there are the gators. Kinda sounds like parts of Florida doesn't it? Although I miss LA at times, I'm VERY glad I moved to Tulsa.

Here in Tulsa we've had 6" of rain in the last two days and there is anothor big batch of the wet stuff moving in tonight. No major flooding yet, but all the rivers and streams are on the brink. One of the good things is that one of our larger lakes was 12' below normal last week. As of today, it is only 1' low. I figure by tommorow evening, that lake will be at full pool.

I agree with way2slow. The additional drag of the big motor is minimal when estimating battery life on the TM battery.

ATTABOY Keith

Muddy youse guys have fun. Give Ron my bery best wishes in his move to Florida.

Hey Muddy, just out of curiosity how long have you been using that pump?

Courtesy of my wife as a Birthday present, I've got a Makita hammer drill. It will drive a screw through a 4X4 like it was butter and will not try to throw you into the next county if it hangs up. It will simply hammer away. The really nice thing about it is that it is half the size of comparable cordless drivers. But it ain't cheap.

Russ, extract the files to c:/windows/fonts