Straight Flush

We've had to do a fair bit of maintenance lately, some of it expensive.  We had to replace almost the entire exhaust system on the Volvo after it rusted out (everything behind the catalytic converter).  We just re-seeded the front and side yards, bare since last fall's structural repairs to the house.  And we replaced both the toilet and stopcock in the second-floor bathroom after my attempts to replace a rusted-out tank-to-bowl bolt were thwarted by a crack in the bottom of the tank.

(The stopcock was actually among the biggest single headaches of the entire job.  I replaced it because it was leaking, but discovered only after cutting it off the water pipe to which it was permanently affixed that said water pipe was not any standard pipe size in existence.  To make matters more fun, the main house stopcock does not shut off fully either, so the cut pipe was dribbling water until I could come up with a solution.  Fortunately, it transpired the pipe was just large enough that I could solder a 2" stub of regular ½" copper pipe into it, after thoroughly scouring it clean, which the new compression-fit stopcock then went onto without the least hitch.)

Anyway, the replacement toilet we chose was one of these, a one-piece water-saving Aquasource model.  We chose it for two reasons:  It was on sale at $128 (regularly $168), and the one-piece construction meant I would never again have to worry about tank-to-bowl leaks in this bathroom.  The one reservation I had was that, probably largely due to being a water-saving model, it had the lowest "flushing power" rating of all the models on display — 2.5 stars on a scale of five.  Without going into details, let's just say that this middle bathroom has to date been by far the most troublesome we have in terms of failures to flush.

On the basis of experience so far, I needn't have worried.  If this toilet rates 2.5 stars, then a five-star-rated loo must just about be capable of flushing a live rhino.  The only concern now is that if somebody falls in, they may never be seen again.

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Furtiveness in government, redux

I am given to understand that our Glorious Leader has declared that ACTA, the so-called "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" (which I understand, from the little thus far leaked about it, is as much an organized attack upon fair-use rights worldwide as it is anything to do with product counterfeiting), is so important that it is critical that the details remain secret until it is passed, lest the public resist its passage.  (Now, let me see ... what else have we heard this about recently?)

I personally propose as a matter of principle, that any time a publicly elected legislator or executive asserts that any treaty or legislation must remain secret until passed lest the public resist its passage, then that legislator needs to either cease forthwith to support it, resign his or her office, or abandon any further pretense of being in office to serve the public good.

(The latter should be promptly followed, one would hope, by impeachment.)