We’ve all heard it a thousand times, maybe a thousand and two. When it is said a tire is flat, someone else says, “Only on the bottom.” I guess that makes it not only an old joke but an old tire(d) joke.

I do find it interesting that after over a hundred years of building cars, they have improved the reliability of about everything but the tires. To wit, when a nail punctures a tire, it flatens. Actually, it’s not just nails that will do it. The last flat I had was due to a piece of rebar that was sticking up out of the parking lot. What really hurts is that I saw it. I just forgot it was there. That little slip of memory cost me about $60.

I find it interesting as I think back over the decades. Tires have changed a lot and the way we deal with them. The first time I replaced tires, they cost me $20 each for 2 and that included mounting. That was a long time ago.

Way back when, they had tires that had tubes in them. When they had a flat, they took them off, put a patch on the tubes and put them back on the car. It generally took a little over an hour because of the time to put the patch on. As far as I know, it lasted just fine.

On the other hand, if the tube couldn’t be patched, they replaced it. Much less expensive than replacing the whole tire. The fact that the tire had a hole in it was not even considered. It didn’t have to be airtight.

I guess on or around 1950, they came out with the tubeless tire. They tell me that they have many advantages. My guess is that the one of the biggest advantages was for the ones selling them. For a while, they still sold tubes for the tire that had a hole in it. It was the fast and inexpensive fix. Don’t have a clue as to why, but they stopped doing that. At first, they tried fixing the tires. That kind of went the way of the dinosaur when they came out with steel belted radials. I’m told they can’t do that anymore.

So, as you go down the road and that front tire sets that nail up strait and the rear tire rolls over it, it’s going to cost you some money. No patches. No tubes. You will have to take the wheel in and get a new tire mounted on it. If you have a regular car, it’s going to be about $60. If you have a big pickup, you’re going to have to shell out about $160.

I think it is a conspiracy. Why can’t we go back to the $20 tires. Okay. They don’t stop as good and they don’t corner as good. Generally, the new ones do last longer, unless you poke a hole in them. Sorry. Even if the tire is one day old, it will have to be replaced

Until recently, when you bought a new car, you got a spare tire with it. It was the same as the other four. The neat part was that if you included it in the tire rotation, your tires lasted longer. Sorry. Can’t do that with radials.

Those that made the cars decided to change things. Their logic was that the spare tire on the vast majority of cars never touch the road. That was how they explained it to me. So, instead of a real wheel for a spare, the put a toy wheel in the trunk. It works good, but the driver is warned to watch the speed and range. It is, so to speak, an emergency spare. It is designed only to hold up long enough to get a real tire.

When I bought my Nissan EV, I figured that it was what was in the trunk. It did make sense to me. Well, a few months after I bought the car, I was poking my nose around in the trunk and discovered, there was no spare. There wasn’t even one of the toys.

Now that was a surprise. It was also pretty disappointing. I even thought about taking the car back to the dealer and demand a spare, even if I have to pay for it. I still might do that. Fact is, I don’t even know if they have them. I might have to pay for a full extra wheel and tire.

Then, after I got to looking around in the trunk some more. I found a pump that could be plugged into the cigarette lighter.” In addition, there was a small bottle. The instructions were, “put the bottle in a hole in the pump and turn the pump on.” The liquid would, hopefully seal the tire good enough to last until the tire could be replace.

Now that was a surprise. I got to thinking about it and I guess it does have an advantage. I am 76. Those wheels are big. I actually might need help lift the things. I mean, when I was a 22-year-old marine, no problem. Not so much now.

Suddenly, just hooking up the pump and sealer to the wheel started sounding much better.

Then, on the other hand, the big question, what do I do if I am out on some lonely road and the sealer fails to seal? Those old tubes are starting to look really good. Even if they would not be a long range solution, it might get me home.

It would appear Kamala really made a mistake in the choice of her running mate. Then I got to thinking about it. It might not have been a choice. It just might be she couldn’t find anyone else who would be willing to be associated with her. I mean, I think I wouldn’t want to hang around with any woman who has a voice like that; certainly not the cackle.

I can’t blame them. They found out it works with Old Joe. Why not stay with something that works. I guess this is especially true with Kamala. I heard her oration about modern computing and how we don’t store our personal papers in cabinets and drawers. We store things on our laptops and the cloud, which is not stored in a physical place but in the clouds above us.

Not even close. With her lack of knowledge as this, the dems would be better off keeping her in a large closet and have her meals sent in to her. Every now and then, they can have her read something that has been group tested and then release it, with all the cackling striped out.

Just for the record, the “cloud” is a physical place, or more accurately multiple places. That way, if it lost in one place, they can provide you with a copy from the other places. It is definitely not above us someplace.

As an aside, I don’t use the cloud. If I lose my internet, I would lose my backup copies. Instead, I keep several copies of my important documents in many places. If my life depended on the data, I would place copies in multiple places miles apart. That way, should I lose the internet, I still have my documents. My two sons, each, have copies of all my books and they both live a long ways from me.

To be sure, the cloud does have advantages, none of which benefit me one bit. However, when I bought this computer, I spent a good two hours disabling the cloud so that I could store my photos, music and documents without the use of the cloud. They at MS seemed to want to make the decision for me. It is the nature of MS to try to run my computer for me. I guess that’s okay if I am like everyone else, but I’m not. I do not want to be that dependent on the Internet and I don’t want MS making decisions for me as to where I store my data. If someone upsets me, I want to be able to just unplug it and go on.

As I watch the news, especially the main media, one thing that really sticks out is that the dems seem to be talking much faster. On all the talk shows, it would seem they are being paid by how fast they talk and not necessarily by their accuracy.

I suppose things have to change but when I was a young fella, I had learned to be suspicious of the fast talker, especially the salesman. Maybe someone figured out that people who can talk at a hundred and ten miles an hour are somehow more believable.

They keep saying that illegal aliens crossing the border now is less than when Old Joe took over. They say it very fast. It takes about a milli-second to get the words out. Their lips and their tongues move very fast. I guess they expect the words will be more believable when spoken so fast that I have difficulty following them. First, they are outright lies; regardless of the speed of the words. In case you wonder how I know, I still have a memory. I saw what the border was like when Trump was in office and I see what it is like now.

Moreover and more important, I know that it was by design. Having a flood of people cross the border was exactly what the dems and Old Joe wanted. Old Joe did not and does not need any new legislation to stop people from crossing the border. All he need do is to enforce the current law. Their fast talking won’t change that. The fact is that Old Joe is doing all he can to stand in the way of enforcing the law.

One, they want to claim that Trump stands in the way of fixing the border. Two, the law they want will only increase the problem all the more. Three, when Trump gets back into office, he will not be able to stop the flood at the border because of the very law they say will stop it.

It is the same thing that both dems and rinos have been doing ever since the Regan days. They keep trying to push this thing they like to call comprehensive immigration laws. That is a code word for allowing more people across the border. That is a way of tying the hands of the executive branch to keep them from enforcing border control. They want to destroy the laws that are now effective.

The border issue is but one of several of their fast talking goals, such as higher taxes and tax breaks for their friends in NY,NY that no longer can take huge benefits from paying huge city and state taxes. If you don’t remember it, look it up. When Trump passed his tax plan that decreased taxes, those in NY,NY with big houses or penthouses started yelling like a cat whose tail was stepped on. They were losing a big tax write off.

To put it another way, we the common folks were helping to pay for those expensive homes. Trump’s tax bill stopped that and those millionaires and billionaires didn’t like that so much. The governments of the city and state of NY,NY didn’t like it because they started losing revenue. People started moving out of NY,NY and that decreased their tax revenues. They had less millionaires paying taxes in New York and the expensive property values started taking nose dives. Remember the big problem that U-Haul had keeping up with the trucks leaving the state.

There are many other thing too. You know that. Only thing is, at some point this is no longer a post but a book.

Just remember, as I was taught in my youth, look out for those fast talkers. They are talking fast for a reason, you know.

I expected it. I knew it was going to happen. It was as if I could tell the future. I knew once the dems decided on Kamala being the candidate, everyone in the news media world would jump on board.

However, I must admit, even I was amazed at how fast everyone was on board with Kamala. In just about one day, everyone started telling how wonderful Kamala is and suddenly Old Joe wasn’t so good after all.

Can anyone spell c-o-n-s-p-i-r-a-c-y?