Duly noted

Whilst driving to the glorious capitol city of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia, I came upon a bumpersticker with a ribbon of indeterminate color and a picture of a set of brains. The caption read: "Support zombies."

FRIENDS OF WHOM? There is a good op-ed in today's Charleston Gazette by UMWA official and state Delegate Mike Caputo.  It asks a very basic question: where are the so-called Friends of Coal when it comes to supporting real coal miners who are at risk of losing promised benefits from Patriot Coal.

To state the extremely obvious, it's one thing to kiss up to coal companies and quite another to stand with coal miners and communities.

DEFICIT HYSTERIA gets whacked here.

URGENT FISH EATING FLYING DINOSAUR UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Bumper sticker thoughts

In lieu of a real blog post, I'd like to report on some of the more interesting bumper stickers I've seen lately.
The first of these is on a topic frequently discussed here but one which, sadly, has been neglected lately: to wit, zombies.

In the parking lot of a Kroger store, I saw one that said something like "The hardest part of a zombie apocalypse will be pretending I'm not excited." I don't exactly look forward to one, but it would no doubt put a certain zest into one's days.

Another good one, which by coincidence or not was seen near where the WV legislature meets said "Come to the Dark Side! We have cookies." That would probably be all it would take for some folks. Probably for me too if it was in the afternoon and they had coffee as well.

Finally, I'm still trying to figure this one out. I saw a vehicle with a Dostoevsky bumper sticker, which is fine, AND a "Who is John Galt" Ayn Rand bumper sticker.

I'm sorry. El Cabrero is all about freedom of expression but you can't have it both ways. It's either got to be Dostoevsky or Rand but not both. One has to choose between being a real and compassionate person or a moral insect. Father Zossima and Alyosha Karamazov would be mortified.

Interestingly, the vehicle also had a 13.1 sticker, signifying the mileage a half marathon. The Spousal Unit and I are going to try to do one on trails at Babcock State Park tomorrow. I estimate that it will take me a week to finish. Don't wait up. And don't mix your bumper stickers!

KALOO KALAY no links today. We're cabbages and kings.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Bumper stickers

You can find the darnedest things on bumper stickers. Recently a friend sent me a couple that were pretty good. One went like this:

No, you can't have my rights, I'm still using them.

Another one went in the direction of theology and etiquette:

I'll be JESUS would have used HIS turn signals.

He probably really would have, you know.

Meanwhile, given all the coal rhetoric around El Cabero's beloved state of West Virginia the following bumper sticker sized slogan came to me:

Whale oil kept the lights on.

That, of course, is a riff on the ever popular "Coal keeps the lights on." I must say in my defense that I'm not trying to be a smartass about this. It is literally true. The whaling industry and the oil harvested therefrom was a major source of lamp oil in the early 1800s. As I understand it, Confederate commerce raiding during the Civil War helped put an end to whaling as a major US industry. Meanwhile other fuels became more practical.

The wheels kept turning. But they used different fuel. Like it or not, the same thing might be happening now. We need to tone down the rhetoric and start thinking about how to deal with this challenge.

LAST WORD goes to Ken Ward at Coal Tattoo.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Good question

El Cabrero is mostly off this week, but I will report on an interesting bumper sticker seen in Vermont. It said:

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?

They got me there.

FOR THE PERSON WHO HAS EVERYTHING, how about a flying car?

FINALLY, SOME COOL NEWS. Somebody found a feathered tyrannosaur.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED