The Mike Hirsh Reagan thread

Tue Jun 8 10:28:40 EDT 2004

Mike and others,

I'm always ripe and ready for a Bernie Benz diatribe, especially
as they are always relevant to the business of our site--20 valve
3b's. Mike-- I would be most grateful if you'd redirect your
political ramblings to a more appropriate forum. This one clearly
isn't

Richard E. Berlin. Jr.
(978) 548-3737 Direct
(978) 766-7700 Cell
(978) 535-3715 Fax
mailto:rberlin at feltonberlin.com

-----Original Message-----
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Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 9:17 AM
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Subject: 200q20v Digest, Vol 8, Issue 7

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Stereo Wire HELP! (Bernie Benz)
   2. Re: G-60 Caliper pins (Bernie Benz)
   3. Fw: Reagan the Overrated By Mike Hersh (Steve Scalmanini)
   4. RE: Reagan the Overrated By Mike Hersh (Henry A Harper III)
   5. Reagan the Overrated By Mike Hersh (Steve Scalmanini)
   6. Re: G-60 Caliper pins (Kneale Brownson)
   7. Re: G-60 Caliper pins (Bernie Benz)

------------------------------------------------------------------
----

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 19:20:55 -0700
From: Bernie Benz <b.benz at charter.net>
Subject: Re: Stereo Wire HELP!
To: Grant Dion <g_dion at adelphia.net>
Cc: 200q20V mailing list <200q20v at audifans.com>
Message-ID: <BCEA7096.3176%b.benz at charter.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Grant,
I'll fwd to you the switching source info.  This is not the 12V
power
source, which should be obvious.

> From: "Grant Dion" <g_dion at adelphia.net>
> Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2004 18:51:06 -0600
> To: <200q20v at audifans.com>
> Subject: Stereo Wire HELP!
>
> Hi
> I installed an aftermarket stereo in my 91 200TQ. (Stereo in and
sounds
> great! 2 amps located in rear deck, 4 speakers and a SUB.) I am
looking for
> a good 12 volt wire to connect to that has NO power with the
ignition off. I
> have found some wires that are switched, but they don't seem to
have a full
> 12 volts. If anybody can help me locate this unicorn, I would
appreciate it.
>
> Grant in Colorado Springs

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 20:32:54 -0700
From: Bernie Benz <b.benz at charter.net>
Subject: Re: G-60 Caliper pins
To: Kneale Brownson <knotnook at traverse.com>
Cc: 200q20V mailing list <200q20v at audifans.com>
Message-ID: <BCEA8175.3178%b.benz at charter.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

> From: Kneale Brownson <knotnook at traverse.com>
>
> The right front brake has been binding up the last couple of
days.  I got
> the caliper off and the top pin has a definite looseness.  I can
wobble it
> back and forth inside the bracket even when the boot is fully
compressed.
> Is this the likely source of the binding?  The bottom pin is
snug in its
> hole.  Both were lubed within the last eight or nine months.  I
bleed the
> brakes every time I switch from summer to winter tires or back,
so I don't
> think the fluid was bad (except now, of course, after the
overheating from
> the binding).  I'm going to replace the bracket and pins, but I
just
> wondered if the looseness could cause the pin to not slide
properly and
> release the pads.
Kneale,  G60s or UFOs?
With either, the guide pins should be "snug", not "sloppy loose"
within
their bushings in the pad carrier.  Don't judge the pins by their
appearance, inasmuch as they have 3 flats on them over their full
length to
allow for the escape from the blind hole of air and excessive lub
upon
assembly. Excessive pin/bushing wear could occur only if the
protective boot
were compromised over a long period of time, not just in one
season, IMO.
Apparently at one time, Audi had a "pad carrier cap repair kit,
443 698 470"
for G60s which I assume is for the pin bushing within the pad
carrier?  No
BTDT.

Bernie

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 00:32:10 -0700
From: "Steve Scalmanini" <sscalmanini at yahoo.com>
Subject: Fw: Reagan the Overrated By Mike Hersh
To: "Richard & Sue Leamon" <leamon at sonic.net>,	"Jerry Krantman"
	<jerry at tech-support.biz>,	"Chris Gatt" <gattwired at hotmail.com>,
	<200q20v at audifans.com>,	"John O'Neal" <jonone at pacbell.net>,
"Lanny
	Cotler" <lcotler at saber.net>,	"Susan Brooksbank"
	<sbrooksb at sbcglobal.net>, "Tom Wodetzki" <tw at mcn.org>
Message-ID: <037a01c44d2a$b73a4130$7e765142 at BYDESIGN1>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cole"
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2004 9:06 PM
Subject: Provocative Title

Reagan the Overrated
By Mike Hersh, Apr 5, 2004

http://www.mikehersh.com/printer_Reagan_the_Overrated.shtml

Let's begin our examination of the real Reagan Legacy by taking a
look at myth number one: Democrats dominated Congress all through
Reagan's terms, and called all his budgets Dead On Arrival.

That's numerically and historically false. Reagan's people shoved
his program through the Congress during the early Reagan years.
James A. Baker, David Stockman and other Reaganites ran roughshod
over Tip O'Neill and the divided Democrats in the House and
Senate, and won every critical vote. This is because of the GOP
majority in the Senate and the GOP-"Boll Weevil" (or "Dixiecrat")
coalition in the House.

Phil Gramm was a House Democrat at the time, and he even sponsored
the most important Reagan budgets. Only after the huge Reagan
recession -- made worse by utterly failed Reagan "Voodoo
Economics" - did Democrats regain some control in Congress. They
halted some Reagan initiatives, but couldn't do much on their own.
That was a time of gridlock.

Six years into Reagan's presidency, Democrats retook the Senate,
and began to reverse some of Reagan's horrendous policies. By that
time, Reaganomics had "accomplished" quite a bit: doubled the
national debt, caused the S&L crisis, and nearly wrecked the
financial system.

Which brings us to myth number two: Jimmy Carter wrecked the
economy, and Reagan's bold tax cuts saved it. This is utterly
absurd. Economic growth indices -- GDP, jobs, revenues -- were all
positive when Carter left office. All plunged after Reagan
policies took effect.

Reagan didn't cure inflation, the main economic problem during the
Carter years. Carter's Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker tried
when he raised interest rates. That's the opposite of what Fed
Chairman Alan Greenspan has done to keep inflation low.

Carter's policies and people fought inflation, but maintained real
growth. On the other hand, Reagan's policies helped cause the
worst recession since the Great Depression: two bleak years with
nearly double-digit unemployment! Reaganomics failed in less than
a year, and it took an entire second year for the economy to
recover from the failure.

Carter didn't cause the inflation problem, but his tough policies
and smart personnel solved it. Unfortunately for Carter, it took
too long for the good results to kick in. Not only didn't Reagan
help whip inflation, he actually opposed the Volcker policies!

Another major myth: Reagan cut taxes on all Americans, and that
led to a great expansion. Here's the truth: the total federal tax
burden increased during the Reagan years, and most Americans paid
more in taxes after Reagan than before. The "Reagan Recovery" was
unremarkable. It looks great only contrasted against the dismal
Reagan Recession -- but it had nothing to do with Supply Side
voodoo.

With a red ink explosion -- $300 BILLION deficits looming as far
as the eye could see -- GOP Senators, notably including Bob Dole,
led the way on tax hikes. The economy enjoyed its recovery only
after total tax increases larger than the total tax cuts were
implemented. Most importantly, average annual GDP growth during
the Reagan 80s was lower than during the Clinton 90s or the
JFK-LBJ 60s!

Enough about the economy. Here's the biggest myth of them all:
Ronald Reagan won the "Cold War". In reality, Reagan did nothing
to bring down the Soviet Union.

By 1980, the Soviet Union was trying to cut its own defense
spending. Reagan made it harder for them to do so. In fact, Reagan
increased the possibility of a nuclear war because he was --
frankly, and sadly -- senile. He thought we could actually recall
submarine-launched nuclear missiles (talk about a Reagan myth),
and bullied the Soviets to highest alert several times.

Critically, Reagan never even tried to bring down the Soviet
Union. Blind hero worship of Reagan - which ignores the facts and
spouts pure fantasy - is a testimony to the great Reagan public
relations operation. Reagan's handlers were among the best at
putting the best spin on events, and in Reagan they had a trained
actor able to hit his mark and fake any emotion they needed at the
time.

Reagan clearly did NOT win the Cold War. It's foolish to claim
that anything he did decisively undermined the Soviet Union. In
fact, Reagan lifted crushing sanctions Carter put on the USSR,
enabling them to stave off their hard currency crunch. Reagan
rhetoric aside, he actually made the USSR stronger than they would
have been.

Reagan's aggressiveness undermined Soviets with a cooperative bent
like Gorbachev and empowered hard-liners in the USSR. Reagan's
"jokes" about attacking the Soviets nearly provoked WW III as
Andropov put their nuclear missiles on the highest alert - closest
to launch.

Reagan didn't "win the cold war" - in fact he didn't even try to
defeat the USSR. Reagan claimed the USSR was a threat to attack
the USA, and even insisted the Soviet Union had a more powerful
military. Reagan called this "the Window of Vulnerability."

After Reagan left office, he visited the USSR where he said it was
no longer "the Evil Empire" and predicted his "friend" Gorbachev
would continue to lead the USSR for many years to come.

Mere months later, a surprise kidnapping / coup swept the Soviets
from power. Nothing Reagan did made that fluke more likely and
nothing Reagan did made certain that the hard-right conspiracy
would fail when Boris Yeltsin stood up to the tanks.

It could have easily turned the other way, with a junta of
generals prevailing and heating up the Cold War. Reagan didn't win
the Cold War, we're lucky he didn't start WW III. The bravery of
Yeltsin and Gorbachev, rather than anything Reagan did, brought
about freedom in the former Soviet empire.

Wasteful overspending on defense didn't end the Soviet Union. In
fact, it played into the hands of authoritarian "Communist"
hard-liners in the Kremlin. Reagan thought the Soviet Union was
more powerful than we were. He was trying to close what he called
"the window of vulnerability."

This was sheer idiocy. No general in our military would trade our
armed forces for theirs. If it were to happen, none of the Soviet
military command would turn down that deal. We had better systems,
better troops, and better morale.

Here's the truth: we'd already won the Cold War before Reagan took
office. All Reagan needed to do was continue the tried-and-true
containment policies Harry S. Truman began and all subsequent
presidents employed. The Soviet Union was Collapsing from within.
The CIA actually told this to Reagan as he took office.

Here's an example: the Soviet Union military couldn't deal with a
weak state on its own border, the poor, undermanned Afghanistan.
Most of the Soviets' military might had to make sure its "allies"
in the Warsaw Pact and subjects along the South Asian front didn't
revolt. Even Richard Nixon told Reagan he could balance the budget
with big defense cuts. Reagan ignored this, and wrecked our
budget.

We didn't have to increase weapons spending, but Reagan didn't
care. He ran away from summits with the dying old-guard Soviets,
and the new-style "glasnost" leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev
baffled the witless Reagan and his closed-minded extremist
advisors.

Maggie Thatcher finally cajoled the Gipper into meeting Gorby, and
Gorby cleaned Reagan's clock. Reagan's hard-right "handlers"
nearly had to drag Reagan out of the room before he signed away
our entire nuclear deterrent. Reagan -- and the planet -- was
lucky Gorbachev sought genuine and stable peace. Had Yuri
Andropov's health held, Reagan's "jokes" and gaffes might have
caused World War III.

Eventually Reagan even gave Gorbachev his seal of approval.
Visiting Moscow before the August Coup, Reagan said the Soviet
Union was no longer the "Evil Empire." He predicted his friend
Gorbachev would lead the Soviet Union for many years to come.

As usual, Reagan was wrong. A few months later, disgruntled
military officers kidnapped Gorbachev, throwing him out of power
forever. Reagan remained disengaged: nothing he did caused the
coup, and nothing he did made the Soviet military support Boris
Yeltsin over their superiors. We're all fortunate things happened
as they did -- but once again, Reagan did nothing to make this
fluke more likely.

All this is vintage Reagan. Reagan took credit for others' hard
word and hard choices, and blamed them for his failures. Reagan
even blamed Jimmy Carter for Reagan's foolish, fatal, and reckless
decision to leave 243 Marines stationed in Beirut, helpless and
unguarded.

Reagan hired over 100 crooks to run our government, and broke
several laws himself. His policies were almost uniformly
self-defeating, wrong-headed, immoral and unfair.

Reagan was an actor playing the part of the president. He was
style over substance; lucky, not good. And once the myths are
stripped from the "legacy", the truth becomes obvious: Reagan was
by far the most overrated man in American history.

) Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004 by MikeHersh.com

MikeHersh.com invites you to reproduce, reprint or broadcast any
material at this site, provided you identify the source as
www.MikeHersh.com. All Internet and email summaries, excerpts or
other written reproductions must include this blurb and a link to
http://www.MikeHersh.com.

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 01:43:02 -0600
From: "Henry A Harper III" <hah at alumni.rice.edu>
Subject: RE: Reagan the Overrated By Mike Hersh
To: "Steve Scalmanini" <sscalmanini at yahoo.com>,
<200q20v at audifans.com>
Message-ID: <MPBBKALDIKKLPMJCCALLMEGOBKAB.hah at alumni.rice.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

I'll bite...where's the Audi content in this little diatribe?

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 04:16:25 -0700
From: "Steve Scalmanini" <sscalmanini at yahoo.com>
Subject: Reagan the Overrated By Mike Hersh
To: <200q20v at audifans.com>
Message-ID: <03cc01c44d4a$0a786ec0$7e765142 at BYDESIGN1>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

Typed the wrong first-few characters for an address in Outlook
and it auto-completed the rest, and I didn't notice the error;
sorry.  (And I'm not aware that RR ever drove an Audi.)

------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------

I'll bite...where's the Audi content in this little diatribe?

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 09:00:24 -0400
From: Kneale Brownson <knotnook at traverse.com>
Subject: Re: G-60 Caliper pins
To: Bernie Benz <b.benz at charter.net>
Cc: 200q20V mailing list <200q20v at audifans.com>
Message-ID: <4.1.20040608085400.00b23820 at traverse.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

They're G60 calipers.  I have no idea of their history in the
car's first
140k miles (now something like 215k).  I never noticed the pin
looseness in
the past, but, of course, I had only checked them when I relubed
them and
didn't look for something that might cause misbehavior because
there was no
hanging up in my experience with them.  I understand that they
should be
"snug" but slide easily.  I've used the ability of the rubber boot
being
able to move the pins from either extended or compressed position
as my
guide for being sufficiently slippery.   I understand about the
pins having
flats on them.

So, would the extra looseness possibly cause the hangup?

At 08:32 PM 6/7/2004 -0700, Bernie Benz wrote:
>
>> From: Kneale Brownson <knotnook at traverse.com>
>>
>> The right front brake has been binding up the last couple of
days.  I got
>> the caliper off and the top pin has a definite looseness.  I
can wobble it
>> back and forth inside the bracket even when the boot is fully
compressed.
>> Is this the likely source of the binding?  The bottom pin is
snug in its
>> hole.  Both were lubed within the last eight or nine months.  I
bleed the
>> brakes every time I switch from summer to winter tires or back,
so I don't
>> think the fluid was bad (except now, of course, after the
overheating from
>> the binding).  I'm going to replace the bracket and pins, but I
just
>> wondered if the looseness could cause the pin to not slide
properly and
>> release the pads.
>Kneale,  G60s or UFOs?
>With either, the guide pins should be "snug", not "sloppy loose"
within
>their bushings in the pad carrier.  Don't judge the pins by their
>appearance, inasmuch as they have 3 flats on them over their full
length to
>allow for the escape from the blind hole of air and excessive lub
upon
>assembly. Excessive pin/bushing wear could occur only if the
protective boot
>were compromised over a long period of time, not just in one
season, IMO.
>Apparently at one time, Audi had a "pad carrier cap repair kit,
443 698 470"
>for G60s which I assume is for the pin bushing within the pad
carrier?  No
>BTDT.
>
>Bernie
>

------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 06:13:41 -0700
From: Bernie Benz <b.benz at charter.net>
Subject: Re: G-60 Caliper pins
To: Kneale Brownson <knotnook at traverse.com>
Cc: 200q20V mailing list <200q20v at audifans.com>
Message-ID: <BCEB0995.3189%b.benz at charter.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

> From: Kneale Brownson <knotnook at traverse.com>
>
> They're G60 calipers.  I have no idea of their history in the
car's first
> 140k miles (now something like 215k).  I never noticed the pin
looseness in
> the past, but, of course, I had only checked them when I relubed
them and
> didn't look for something that might cause misbehavior because
there was no
> hanging up in my experience with them.  I understand that they
should be
> "snug" but slide easily.  I've used the ability of the rubber
boot being
> able to move the pins from either extended or compressed
position as my
> guide for being sufficiently slippery.   I understand about the
pins having
> flats on them.
>
> So, would the extra looseness possibly cause the hangup?
I doubt that it would.  Have you ever overhauled the calipers?  If
not, I'd
start there.  Frequent fluid changes since your ownership will not
correct a
previously abused caliper.  You need those under sized calipers to
be in the
best of condition on a 200-20V.

Bernie
>
> At 08:32 PM 6/7/2004 -0700, Bernie Benz wrote:
>>
>>> From: Kneale Brownson <knotnook at traverse.com>
>>>
>>> The right front brake has been binding up the last couple of
days.  I got
>>> the caliper off and the top pin has a definite looseness.  I
can wobble it
>>> back and forth inside the bracket even when the boot is fully
compressed.
>>> Is this the likely source of the binding?  The bottom pin is
snug in its
>>> hole.  Both were lubed within the last eight or nine months.
I bleed the
>>> brakes every time I switch from summer to winter tires or
back, so I don't
>>> think the fluid was bad (except now, of course, after the
overheating from
>>> the binding).  I'm going to replace the bracket and pins, but
I just
>>> wondered if the looseness could cause the pin to not slide
properly and
>>> release the pads.
>> Kneale,  G60s or UFOs?
>> With either, the guide pins should be "snug", not "sloppy
loose" within
>> their bushings in the pad carrier.  Don't judge the pins by
their
>> appearance, inasmuch as they have 3 flats on them over their
full length to
>> allow for the escape from the blind hole of air and excessive
lub upon
>> assembly. Excessive pin/bushing wear could occur only if the
protective boot
>> were compromised over a long period of time, not just in one
season, IMO.
>> Apparently at one time, Audi had a "pad carrier cap repair kit,
443 698 470"
>> for G60s which I assume is for the pin bushing within the pad
carrier?  No
>> BTDT.
>>
>> Bernie
>>
>

------------------------------

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End of 200q20v Digest, Vol 8, Issue 7
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