My older sis had one of these:

Hard to believe, but we actually had a Renault dealership in my small hometown at one time and my Dad bought this when my sis turned 16.  Or was it 17?  I vaguely remember a green Ford galaxy somewhere in that mix…

Anyhoo…this car popped into my head recently.  I loved this car.  My other sis loved it, too.  They got the nice cars.  By that I mean they got cars that were either: a) were running more than a week, or b) cool to drive and they ran more than a week.

When it was my turn to drive, I got old Plymouths that had sawdust in them.  Yeah, it ran for about a week and died on a highway miles from home…

But I digress..

So…my sis comes home one day and we lived down a small embankment with three huge trees on the front lawn.  (You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?)

She parked the car on the incline and ran into the back yard to tell Dad something.

All of a sudden, we hear this ‘BOOM’.

We ran into the front, where car and tree had it out.   Tree won.

That poor car.

I can’t remember much of the incident, other than the boom, but since the engine was in the back, surely it was okay…but I imagine with these little cars, the frame was probably bent.  End of story.

And all these years, my sis claimed that she had put the brake on.  We thought she just *thought* she put the brake on…

But when I was reading some websites featuring the Renault, a former owner said that they were notorious for having brakes that didn’t quite grab.  Which is why there aren’t too many of them around.

It was evident reading the blogs that there is quite a few people who also loved these cars.

Hint to Renault. Hint to Renault.  Resurrect the “10”  or even the “8”….

Here’s another video of one that shows the tiny, tiny, and probably very fuel efficient, engine:

Anybody believe this guy just happened to burn suitcases and a PLANE SEAT without regard for the reason they were all showing up on the island??  Me either.

It’s especially telling when the reporter asks him to describe the seat and how many seats have turned up on the island.  You can tell he’s lying by his noncommittal answer.  If he were truthful, he would have been more definite.

This is starting to smell…

And, oh, yeah, Reunion Island just “happened” to have a suddenly active volcano.

This poem is so beautiful, I wanted to share with you all. Peace to all of us that feed the Light.

A drone was flying over this man’s property, so he shot it down.

And he was the one arrested!

He sounds like a reasonable person to me.  He didn’t shoot it down when it was farther away…but after it crossed his property lines, he felt within his rights to shoot it down.

Merideth told WRDB: “Well, I came out and it was down by the neighbor’s house, about 10 feet off the ground, looking under their canopy that they’ve got under their back yard. I went and got my shotgun and I said, ‘I’m not going to do anything unless it’s directly over my property.’

—————

Notice how the writer characterizes his method as “draconian”.  Since when is protecting one’s family draconian?  It wasn’t like he shot a person.

And homeowners do own the airspace above them…so yeah, he was well within his rights to defend his family and his property against privacy violation.  This is another reason to fight for the 2nd Amendment:  the right to bear arms.

In other regards to the Fourth Amendment–

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Yesterday, I saw a clip on a nooz show where an officer was being interviewed about what a persons’ rights are when they are pulled over by police.  This was in reference to the shooting of another unarmed black man, Samuel Dubose .

He was stating that you HAD to get out of your car and you HAD to give them your license and registration.

Okay, I’m not a lawyer, but I have a paralegal certificate.  We were taught in class that our clients did not have to give out any information when they were pulled over.  The attorney teaching the class said that all one had to do was ask if they were under arrest, and if the police put them under arrest,  they would have to produce identification.

What the officer on the TV said is a violation of illegal search and seizure.  If you have done nothing wrong, the attorney said that you do not have to give them your ID.  This is what leads up to a police state.  Some say we’re already in a police state.

I know how I felt with the incident in Fort Wayne when a fire fighter called the police because I refused to give him my birth date or social security number!  Three FW police cars showed up and they insisted that I give up the personal information.  I refused, saying I had done nothing wrong.  They stood there, arguing with me for an hour.  It was intimidating and I was in tears over the violation of my rights under the Fourth Amendment.  One of the police officers seemed to be satisfied when I finally broke down in tears.

And for what?  Did I start a fire? No.  Did I block a hallway so that people could not escape in case of fire?  No.

I was an innocent bystander.  I was the building’s fire captain and I answered the call when the alarm went off.  We had really sensitive smoke detectors that went off A LOT.

So…on this particular day, it went off three freaking times.  Each time, I inspected the apartment and called off the fire dept., which was what I was supposed to do.

The last time, however, they showed up for some reason.  I was already back in my apartment when this fire fighter showed up, demanding to see me.  One of the residents came and got me.

This guy immediately lit into me asking why so many alarms were going off that day and how he was going to shut the building down.  I had no idea why this guy was going off on me and then he demanded my social security number. I refused.  Then he demanded my birth date.  I refused that, also.  He went off on me again, and frankly, I thought he was a little unhinged, so I started to walk back to my apartment.  He told me to stop or he would call the police.  I kept walking, and he in fact called the FW police.  I was stunned.  I had nothing to do with the alarms going off and I had no obligation to give this irate man my personal information.

Thankfully, one of the housing employees was there and witnessed most of what occurred, because this guy began lying through his mossy green teeth to justify going off on me.

And he also gone off on another resident of the building just the week before.

One of the fire fighters, which were a good group of guys, quietly thanked me for standing up to this loose cannon.

The fire dept. did apologize the next day.  They also said this guy did not have the authority to shut the building down.

But they asserted that they had every right to demand my personal information, in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment.  They already knew where I lived, and they had my name.  That was all that I should have had to give them.

I had not committed a crime, and yet I was treated like a criminal and intimidated to the point of tears.  All that time I was insisting that I was just doing my job.  Didn’t matter.