God, but stupid people wearing their stupidity as badges of honour make me angry. “Global warming is a farce and a lie invented by doody-heads and mimimimimi” KILL YOURSELF

As a conservative, I am not opposed to change.

They’re just words. I didn’t mean anything by them.

New cars often face problems until the bugs are worked out, why on Earth should we pretend it’s a death knell for electric cars any more than the crappy ass Model T’s problems, which cause it to now be called one of the 50 all-tie worst cars and “the Yugo of it’s day,” were the death knell for internal combustion cars?

Love the commenter who claims electric cars can’t be popular because his local dealership has had one for 6 weeks, or the guy who doesn’t seem to know when peak electricity use is.

Conservatives are required by both law and custom to be belligerently ignorant about anything energy-related. They’re not sure yet whether heliocentrism qualifies – some think so, on account of solar energy n other librul stuff, so they feel compelled to go all flat earthy and shoot abortion doctors for some reason.

I was in a good mood until I read that.

F**k me. I leave for a few minutes and effing Dennis is back. I’ve banned him again, at least until the worm finds a new proxy or unplugs his modem.

I’ve asked conservatives why they are so attached to the internal combustion engine – it’s 100 year old technology, why do they think we can’t do better? None have given me a coherent answer.

This anti-electric trolling is just too wussy for MY blood.

Bring back the Golden Age of tiller-style steering sticks with REAL manual steering, no anti-lock brakes, no pussified airbags or safety-belts, plate-glass windshields … & best of all, no damn fascisto-communo-islamic guvmint speed limits & rules of teh road to limit our freedumbs!

Wingnut Darwinism: Survival Of The Luckiest!

at least until the worm finds a new proxy or unplugs his modem.

Oh fine, give him ideas. Oh well, the badgers dance frantically whenever he shows up.

As to the Volt, it has a higher overall reliability rating than the Mazda3, a car that we liked well enough to buy two of over the years. If the batteries turn out to be a concern after a crash, it’s not all that hard to remove them.

I’d also like to point out that there was a wreck recently in my hometown in which a car was rear-ended hard enough* that its gas tank ruptured, causing a fire that killed its two occupants. Therefore all gasoline powered cars should be banned. Right?

Also, global warming a hoax and a lie? Even conservatives are acknowledging the fact and are now fighting a rearguard action to cast doubt that it’s man-made.

Surber needs to go back to fucking tailpipes, it’s what he’s best at.

Electric cars are a hippy fantasy. Never have worked, never will. Better shut up liberals and stop criticicising the coal and oil industry, without which you would die, and stop getting in the way of new oil discoveries in the USA with your “enviromental” wack doodle.

The fact is, liberals, you are the worst enemy USA has ever faced.

Tesla’s electric car didn’t exist therefor the Volt is a hoax and the Leaf also, too.

The fact is, liberals, Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time.

I don’t know much of anything about automotive technology or energy poilicy, so I’ll rely on Sadlies who know such things.

In short, I don’t know watt is going on with electric cars.

Shalom, gentlemen.

They have difficulty supplying a coherent answer to “what’s your name?”

The truth, liberals, is that for the most part the Monkees didn’t play their own instruments.

Apart from the late-60s middle period of their career, when they got fed up and made a bunch of genuinely good albums under their own power.

In short, I don’t know watt is going on with electric cars.

Really? I’m shocked.

Sadly, unless some quantum development In batteries is made electric cars really won’t be all that viable. Not that I wouldn’t love having a Tesla but for most practical porpoises the current state of the art is shy of the mark. Hydrogen, fuel cell vehicles will, IMHO, be where the future lies.

Yes, I know those are electric vehicles as well, and the duel cells *can* be considered as “batteries” but STFU that’s why.

FYipad “fuel” cells

So I went mango hunting and was met by a brutal assault of parentheses. My eyesight has been damaged thereby. Following a most valiant struggle to read Don Bob’s typographical excretions i am suffering cognitive impairment. I shall sue.

Hello? Is this thing on? *tap tap tap*

Surber needs to go back to fucking tailpipes, it’s what he’s best at.

WC puts his finger* on THE TRUTH about why he hates electric vehicles, there’s no place for him to “plug in.”

*then scrubs his hands with steel wool because EW.

assault of parentheses

…who dashed forward in a futile attack. It was pointless.

It’s a weird thing to be gleeful about.

There was a time when conservatives had ideas that didn’t revolve around sticking it to liberals, right? Or just…had ideas? Right? Right?

Global warming is a hoax. OK. Is the sky blue in Wingnuttia?

Tesla’s electric car didn’t exist

But it does now!

Thomas Edison also had no idea how to create Viagra, therefore old men haven’t fucked in seventy years.

It’s not an all-or-nothing argument. Electric cars may never be viable for everybody.

That being said, a lot of two-car families could probably replace one vehicle with an electric car.

For example: my wife drives 17 miles each way to work every day. Well within range of an electric car.

In short, I don’t know watt is going on with electric cars.

You just haven’t kept current.

…who dashed forward in a futile attack. It was pointless.

Stop trying to short-circuit the electricity puns.

Edison’s inability to make safe, efficient distributed electricity generation work is why we all have to live within a mile of a power plant.

Also, thank you Tintin for making Pennis ohmless.

Ohm an, I was all amped over the lectrickity puns untim ZRM turned up.

To be Farad, those electrify theories are full of holes.

Don Bob simply doesnt have the capacitance to understand.

Ohm an, I was all amped over the lectrickity puns untim ZRM turned up.

I can generate more.

It would, however, be a good time for thunder to show, considering his close relationship to lightning.

Don Bob simply doesnt have the capacitance to understand.

He’s not well-grounded.

I need to insulate myself from your bad conductors,

However, Pennis should be sentenced to an electric chair.

After tsam slits his throat, of course.

zrm is a dynamo at electricity puns.

the puns stand a good chance of transforming this thread.

True, Pup, I am getting a charge out of these comments.

Don Bob once again rails against the stator.

Come on folks, why the reluctance?

Ohm an, I was all amped over the lectrickity puns untim ZRM turned up.

My conduct has been reprehensible. I hope you don’t have a short fuse.

But then, what do you expect from us IslamoLiberalFascistCommutators?

Stop resisting, everybody!

I hope you don’t have a short fuse

Always a problem with those who ride the short _bus_.

I was really happy to have skipped an entire modality of music sales (bought one CD from a store) and I’d like to be able to skip the first few kinds of lectric cars and get some kind of next gen thing. Sure, fuel cells, beta, with 68k on the clock, something like that.

But instead I’ll spend much of the rest of the day and early evening on internal combustion beaters (1964 Massey Ferguson 45, 1994 Melroe Bobcat skidsteer (4 cylinder Mitsubishi gas), Dodge 3500 (Cummins diesel)

Pup and I are alternating; currently it seems no one else wants to join in.

Tesla’s electric car didn’t exist therefor the Volt is a hoax and the Leaf also, too.

Neither did the Franklin Electric.

Erg, try as I might I am unable to make a pun with “coulomb.”

trying to get as many puns in as I can before someone puts me in a cell.

Is anybody here from DC?

I long faraday when I can short electricity puns.

Pup and I are alternating; currently it seems no one else wants to join in.

Of course, AC is usually two phase.

Well, no matter how it goes from here on out, I feel I have discharged my duty.

Don’t try switching topics, sparks.

There is the potential to turn this into a static situation.

I must excuse myself temporarily from this battery of puns.

I’m searching for a gem, I need a real Joule.

pun threads can be pretty polarizing, it’s true.

You’ll overload the thread, Pup, if you come up with a pun for photovoltaic.

Something something cat ions something.

Pun threads have been known to make commenters into jumpers.

Better shut up liberals and stop criticicising the coal and oil industry, without which you would die

Our bodies have not yet adapted to require fracking liquid, actually.

we should relay this into a thread on vision, so it won’t impede Smut Clyde.

I apologize for the frequency of my comments, but it’s not my fault.

Well I don’t know why Thurber and co. continue to ionize the captains of the coal and oil industry. You’d think they’d have the capacitor to recognize that times have changed. I would have expected him to conduct himself better.

There seems to be a disconnect here.

Well, I need to cutoff and get some work done today. Cu later.

With my EE degree, I should be all over these electric puns, but lack of sleep has short-circuited my humor circuit.

If God had meant for us to have electric cars, he wouldn’t have killed off all them dinosaurs and made all that oil out of them!

I guess this is square D action is in the main box today.

Well now I need to know which Beyoncé video us the best one.

Or is the best one. WHATEVER, YOU FUCKS!

Substance needs a comment fail-safe.

Sorry folks. I’m done now. that was just line noise.

OK, short_bus was good. Get a load of that line!

but lack of sleep has short-circuited my humor circuit.

Also made your redundancy repeat itself redundantly.

Watt’s going on here?

Hmm, to dive into the shallow pool, the bottom might scrape my palms…and compress my spine.

MANGOS!

Huh, I must have done some damage, because I swear the Charleston Shuffle logo looks like the one used for the Detroit Tigers.

Ok, let’s start…

Wow, okay, third sentence packs in so much wrong, I’m going to have to tackle it in pieces.

Chevy Volt recall? Sure, why not. This electric Edsel (Motor Trend Car of the Year — awarded before even one was sold)

It’s almost like reviewers get cars ahead of time to test and give opinions about and “recall” problems are things that pop up later when mass consumers find the little problems caused by bad design, bad construction work, or bad materials.

But luckily the pile on allowed you to wash the bitter taste out of your mouth when it turned out an electric car was performing better on all the “replacement penis” tests than the powerful gas guzzlers. It’s okay, the faggy car didn’t do better, it was a cheating deathtrap, gas-guzzlers forever!

And yeah, the irony of the group who has been whining about “safety” standards being an attack on freedumb and who whined constantly about how liberals were just making up stories of first generation SUVs flipping over at the drop of a hat to make them look bad now turning around and mocking a rather minor problem for a first-gen American line (those usually tend to have more horrifying unforeseen consequences) like they were the guardians of safety is not at all lost on me. Viva la run-on sentence.

is a bad idea (even Thomas Edison could not make a practical electric car)

Thomas Edison? Yes, Thomas Edison didn’t make a practical car, but Henry Ford, car magnate of the boom of the motor vehicle did. What with him being the designer of motor vehicles and Thomas Edison being in a completely different fucking field. Huh, I wonder if Kareem Abdul-Jabbar thought that Steve Jobs would be able to mass produce a computer small enough for mass home use?

Hell, the only reason our cars weren’t electric from the start, thus giving us the infrastructure to make it easy to switch to cleaner cars and not have spent nearly a century wasting the world’s oil supply, was that we found a major strike of oil in Texas, thus allowing oil to serve as the fuel standard.

Thomas Edison… I’m still boggling at that one. If Alexander the Great couldn’t have invented the trebuchet, no one could. If Genghis Kahn couldn’t invent practical gunpowder, no one could. If Jules Verne couldn’t design a practical space ship, no one could.

being promoted to fix a non-existent problem (global warming is a farce and a lie)

He links what else, Climategate. You know, the “blow the roof off everything” investigation that showed that scientists were human beings, thought poorly of the assholes shitting on their profession and understood how data worked and communicated like a human being to their fellow scientists knowing that they’d understand the “biz’s speech patterns” as they were. Or, hell, just the “investigation” that found no wrong doing and even if it had, it wouldn’t have erased the warehouses of information we have from about a billion different sources all reinforcing each other and would require a global conspiracy of every scientist everywhere in order for the Deniers to be accurate.

There is no comedy there other than the fact that he cited the Daily Mail in the UK showing that anything that calls itself the Daily Mail is useless.

the wrong way (half the electricity in the USA comes from fossil fuels)

Funny thing about electricity. You can actually change the source of it much easier than you can change a nationwide infrastructure of gas stations spread across the highways and roads of our nation. Hence why electricity from fossil fuels has been dropping here and even more dramatically world wide where they don’t think polluting the planet and using up the remaining non-renewable resources are God’s Commandment to His Chosen.

It’s almost like this is Step One or something.

by taking from the taxpayer and giving to the rich ($7,500 tax credits are given for cars whose average driver earns $175,000 annually).

Hey, if we can’t crush OWS like a bug, let’s just co-opt their message. No one likes the rich? Okay, those eco-friendly hippies are the face of the rich, so go and attack them and not at all the wealthy oil barons who have been crushing all potential origins of competition in order to have a full monopoly on the lives of the people.

Also, please forget that rich people who love gadgets are the early adaptors of every goddamn fad, both good and bad. They are the ones who drive the wind-fearing SUVs of the first generation and the first electric cars and the first iPods, and so on. Sometimes this is bad, like when they legitimize dangerous trends. Sometimes this is good, when they take the lumps while a product is perfected for mass consumption. And sometimes this is silly, like with Segways.

But acting like this is a new and isolated thing makes it seem like these arguments are bad-faith (I know who ever heard of a conservative arguing that) and are just the desperate spewings of a good little oil flak who is scared to death that faggy little electric cars are coming to steal his penis replacements.

And we all know that could NEVER be the case.

This thread is revolting.

Hmm, to dive into the shallow pool, the bottom might… compress my spine.

In high school, I worked with a kid who had that actual thing happen to him.

The Associated Press reported: “WASHINGTON (AP) — New fires involving the lithium-ion batteries in General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Volt have prompted an investigation to assess the risk of fire in the electric car after a serious crash, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday. One Volt battery pack that was being closely monitored following a government crash test caught fire Thursday, the safety administration said in a statement

Hmm, sounds like that’d be an investigation of risk. Looking to see if the fire after crash is a genuine additional threat requiring a recall or not. And yeah, let’s all forget the numerous death hazards involved in an internal combustion engine…especially, in the early days when they were first figuring it out (the early gas-powered cars were literal death traps). Hell, let’s forget the number of gas powered monstrosities recalled or left on market despite known problems far worse than “if the car gets totalled, the battery might catch on fire”.

Not defending the car, if there is a problem, it should get recalled, sorted out and rebuilt. But seriously, pretending like a recall is the death kneel of a concept basically means that I must be dreaming when I see a highway full of SUVs because I damn well know that took at least 2 product cycles just to keep them from flipping off the road and exploding after a sharp turn.

Gee, you think after the Bush and Obama administrations bailed out GM for $53 billion we can trust the federal government to be upfront and honest about the potential or probable dangers these machines may pose?

…

The government? The government testing facility that is reporting the dangers that they are only beginning to investigate allowing the Chairmandos to relieve their worried balls that their gas-guzzler penises aren’t going to be taken away by lesbians driving Volts? Yeah, they sure are being secretive and dishonest what with reporting the incidents of concern to the national press, announcing their investigation of the product for safety and even the location of the facility where the first incident was noted.

If they were any more transparent on this issue, they’d be joining the Fantastic Four as Invisible Woman’s replacement.

And yeah, the “potential dangers”? Yeah, they spelled it out. That’s what you’re using to bash the very concept of the electric car, you know, a PARAGRAPH ago.

Well, I shouldn’t be too hard on him. Of course he doesn’t remember what he was citing about a paragraph ago. He believes that every scientist is involved in a global conspiracy to manufacture data because a lab’s private emails were rude to idiots like him.

I’m not sure he knows how to read, seeing as he’s only a poorly functioning robot carefully programmed to repeat talking points and hate the correct enemies. Yet another Stepford Moron.

zrm-

Ouch, that sucks. Sympathy for your former coworker.

I was quoting The Faint song “Ballad of a Paralyzed Citizen” which is about that sort of thing and is a pretty great song overall.

He didn’t get paralyzed, quite luckily, but couldn’t turn his head anymore.

And sometimes this is silly, like with Segways.

Silly? Silly?! Fuck you, Cerebus. When I tool around on my Segway, wearing my mom jeans and my “Ask me about my Pomeranian” sweatshirt, I look fucking AWESOME.

You’ll have my Segway when you can get it from pry it from my Carpal-Tunneled, Kung-fu grip, motherfucker.

I’m getting sick to death of reading about this Kirchoff.

Thank God that in the first 11 months these moving money pits have been on the market, only 5,329 of these unintentional moving IEDs were sold. That will make the recall easier.

I’m not displacingly bitter and angry at anything that can be sold to me as remotely “hippieish” or connected however tenuously to the left or left ideals, looking for any sign of failure that I can clap gleefully to to make my own miserable and meaningless life however momentarily better! How dare you accuse me of such a thing!

As a conservative, I am not opposed to change.

Oh, sorry, jumped the gun. That was his actual fucking response. Score one for some level of self-awareness going on there. I definitely wasn’t expecting him to have enough processing power to go “huh, I sound like a bitter old man ranting against new technology like an idiot because I hate and fear all change, better throw up a disclaimer”.

And he probably is for changes as long as its changes seen as punishing the left or hippies for their beliefs. You know, like conservative support for nuclear power, unnecessary wars, making the inner cities less funded and harder to live in, slashing even more poverty relief and social safety nets, or instituting the fascist state of white male Christian 1%ers they’ve always wanted.

And then whining about how their shitty lives are due to those pockets of hippies roaming the countryside trying to topple the fascist regime.

I am opposed to change for change’s sake, especially when the government is dictating it for imaginary reasons.

The central hatred of the government on this one is just hilarious.

A private company is trying to make a viable electric car, what with squashing plans for one for decades, because people aren’t happy with them and they need a big win. Government safety inspectors raise a concern that they have only seen in their testing facilities and warn the public as they try and investigate further to see if this is a real threat or just something that will only occur with specific and unlikely events.

What’s the problem?

Gol Damn Government is hiding the saucers that probed me as they dictate my masturbation habits on behalf of their invisible God Kodos!

I mean, yeah, the government is noting a problem with the private company’s product, informing the public, before starting their own investigation. They weren’t ordering everyone on the planet to chop off their dicks with an electric car’s hood on behalf of “Global Warming”. They noted a problem with a first generation product (why that never happens!), informed the public, and is testing to see if it’s a real problem requiring recall.

But no, private industry good, government bad. Hippies bad, gas good. So we get this. Electric cars are impossible, government is bad and was the company trying to shove it down our throats.

I don’t know why he bothers to surf the internet anymore for things to support his delusions, because it’s quite obvious that not even basic level facts matter to his rants. Why doesn’t he just make things up completely? The Volt never existed and we only think it did because of alien mind-control rays! The government is poisoning our cheese to make us vote Democratic Party! I’m a space walrus, worship me as a God!

C’mon Surber! The skies the limit!

vs-

I had a physics professor in college who used a Segway every day to get to class. He always had this utter serene smile on his face every time. The unbridled joy it brought him (probably by demonstrating some principle he had devoted his life to) was truly something to see.

New fires involving the lithium-ion batteries in General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Volt

I live in fear of having a load of lithium-ion batteries catch fire back in the cargo hold.

UPS has had 2 inflight fires caused, most likely, by lithium-ion batteries.

They had a DC-8 barely make it into Philadelphia (they were minutes from structural failure) and one of their 747s crashed shortly after takeoff from Dubai when the smoke got so bad the crew couldn’t even see the instruments.

. The unbridled joy it brought him (probably by demonstrating some principle he had devoted his life to) was truly something to see.

See?

Segways=endearing

So the government bailout of General Motors is causing planes to crash?

half the electricity in the USA comes from fossil fuels

Not stated: nearly all the fuel used in American cars comes from fossil fuels.

No, but there may really be an issue with some types of lithium-ion batteries.

And since they’re used more and more these days, they’re getting shipped on aircraft a lot more than they used to.

Overall, what is there to say about the mangos. They are the product of a robot designed to hate anything “hippie” and “liberal”, so anti-anything tainted by that that they don’t know how to process any information or think for themselves, not even to find joy from sources other than trying painfully pathetically to tear down things they couldn’t even possibly hope to understand. It could be replaced with “I HATE HIPPIES SO MUCH!” and have just as much content and worth. It’s all just so sad, and I’d pity him if it wasn’t just this type of asshole who got us into our current state of affairs where we will endure any horror and are literally destroying the ecosystem we rely on to live because people like him think it’ll make hippies mad.

The comment tigers simply show that South Carolina has earned its reputation for stupid and demonstrates why Obama should have just taken over everything when he had the chance. These people believe that GM is government-owned, that all the businesses bailed out by the government are government-owned businesses. And if that was the case, then we’d have companies that were actually efficient and genuine competition in the private workforce forcing the others to adapt or die. Instead we get more idiots blaming the government for private industry being the same stale fail-factory it has always been.

And yeah, them all jumping on “ha ha, filthy liberal using your Volt, you are personally burning coal” forgetting that they just argued that coal and oil were great and hippie alternatives were evil a second ago.

Yeah, it’s what modern conservative is these days. Do I think it’ll make a liberal cry? I support it. Do I think it’ll make a liberal happy? Can I ruin it? If not, I strongly disagree and wish to promote things that make liberals cry again.

No wonder they believe that liberals only support things to make conservative lives more unpleasant and have nefarious intentions when they propose things. If I was that much of a deliberate asshole with no empathy, I’d probably assume everyone else was like me too.

Hopefully enough people are waking out of that coma of stupid to realize that hating hippies wasn’t exactly maintaining the 70 year old infrastructure that was keeping everything running.

They are the product of a robot designed to hate anything “hippie” and “liberal”

That pretty well sums it up. You’d think that electricity was something the hippies invented in the 1960s.

No, but there may really be an issue with some types of lithium-ion batteries.

Yeah. I remember when Dell laptops with early Li batteries would spontaneously combust and it’s not too surprising to find that there continue to be problems.

I can believe you’re concerned about flying with a load of those things.

Well, hippies did invent a lot of bands with the word “electric” in them. So maybe the wingnuts are just confused.

An inflight fire is your worst nightmare.

You have maybe 20 minutes tops to put it on the ground before the fire burns through something you can’t live without.

Major Kong-

Yeah, what with being, you know, not a crazy sociopath, I believe that they should be investigated and if they are a hazard, they should be recalled and replaced by a new alternative and I strongly suspect that Chevrolet cut corners because a) they didn’t really want this to succeed and b) they were rushed to repair their image after the bailout and show that they were willing to go in a “new direction” which is always bad for safety.

That all said, it’s also first generation. First generation everything nearly always sucks, because they are using the early adaptors to figure out all the bugs and dangers and fix them for the next run. It’s why it’s a pretty standard line that you want to avoid buying first generation anything if you can avoid it.

I imagine the electric cars we’ll be driving say 5 years from now will be pretty solid, much like hybrid cars are starting to be pretty damn good these days or like SUVs stopped rolling over and exploding on a stiff breeze.

The hardest part is going to come after we get that reliable when we need to start putting in the infrastructure to support electric car recharging stations.

I didn’t want to sound like I’m against electric cars.

I think electrics and hybrids are where the future is.

Major Kong-

That pretty well sums it up. You’d think that electricity was something the hippies invented in the 1960s.

Well, electric car got connected to environmentalist and since apparently wingnuts want nothing else but to breathe smog and choke on an oxygen free environment with nothing to eat, it must be destroyed like all environmentalist things.

I swear we are a matter of years before wingnuts angrily defend seal clubbing as a proper and manly way to get back at people who support wind energy.

Even the hippie socialists at the multi-billion dollar corporation I work for are investing in solar panels on top of our sort facilities and on hybrid delivery trucks.

Fuel costs are a big expense for us and they’re not going to lose profits just to piss off liberals.

Major Kong-

I wonder how those same corporations felt during the health care debate when the “pro-business” organizations rallied against the options that would have completely taken the ballooning health care costs off their hands as well.

Geez, I think Cerb grounded out the thread. And it had a real arc to it.

It really tubed.

So a failed American car company fails to make an electric car (despite the fact they made a really good one years ago then recalled them all) and Donbob thinks electric cars are impossible.

Nevermind that they work really well when made by car companies from socialist countries like Japan and Germany.

BTW, TinTin? The subject of the post CRIES out for the tail-pipe fuck photo.

New fires involving the lithium-ion batteries

Which will absolutely stop being an issue with the new water-based LiON batteries.

Yeah, okay, so Edison didn’t make a practical electric car. But Detroit Electric did. And so did Milburn. And so did Rauch & Lang, and so on and so on. (Source. The Milburns were so successful, General Motors bought them in 1923.

One of the Milburns could get 140 miles on a charge, which really isn’t all that bad. They weren’t overly fast, but no cars of that period were. Imagine what the state of the art would be if electric cars had continued to exist for the intervening 90 or so years.

No, but there may really be an issue with some types of lithium-ion batteries.

O yea, I get that. I was making a weak joke about Don Bob linking the GM bailout to battery fires in cars by a private company.

Apple also had laptop fire issues with one of the batches of batteries at one point.

I imagine the electric cars we’ll be driving say 5 years from now will be pretty solid, much like hybrid cars are starting to be pretty damn good these days or like SUVs stopped rolling over and exploding on a stiff breeze.

Anyone remember the three wheel all-terrain cycles?

The Owen Electric was even a (sort of) hybrid in 1921.

Electric cars were popular with female drivers before the invention of the electric starter.

Starting a car with a hand crank not only required a bit of strength – if it kicked back it could easily break your arm.

Ferdianad Porsche was such a hippie!

“Imagine what the state of the art would be if electric cars had continued to exist for the intervening 90 or so years.”

I’m afraid the problem of energy density is as big today as back then. We still use the same lead-acid batteries that Henry Ford did. Li-ions are better, but not by any practically-significant factor. There is no Moore’s Law for batteries. I read about a really neat idea from Stanford, but that was two years ago and nothing since. Molten salt batteries are pretty good, but not practical for cars.

Therefore an all-battery car will be range-limited, but it will also use less fossil fuel (through generation efficiencies) than a gas-powered car.

Ferdianad

But not as much as his brother “Gonad”.

Of course, you either believe in EEStor or you don’t. I will say this, all the idiots who say it’s a “scam” need to point to another scam in the history of scams that refused almost all offers of outside investment.

Lensman’s FAQ page hasn’t been updated for 3 years, but unfortunately not much has changed.

Well I don’t know why Thurber and co. continue to Li-ionize the captains of the coal and oil industry.

Better shut up liberals and stop criticicising the coal and oil industry, without which you would die

Where is this quote from, Surber or Dennis before he was rebanned?

In any case, Don or Den—Not all of us live in Bumfuck, West Virginia. Without the hydroelectric industry, I’d die. Without the oil industry, I’d be seriously inconvenienced, no doubt about that. Without the coal industry…meh.

Better shut up liberals and stop criticicising the coal and oil industry, without which you would die

With it we just die a bit slower.

An infrastructure where you could easily and automatically swap out batteries would revolutionize the electric car industry. Like a lot of alternate fuels, cab companies and delivery vehicle fleets could implement this system quickest, what with how centralized their activities are by necessity. And its not like similar systems aren’t in place already for things like propane gas cylinders.

Mr. Monotreme presents a good point. There are a few problems, neither of which seems unsolvable. One problem is standardization – it is completely unfeasible until every vehicle uses the same physical format battery and has an identical electrical interface. Another problem arises due to the less than infinite lifetime of the batteries. The difificulties of tracking the battery life and charging users appropriately would indicate some sort of rental situation. Like propane tanks, or oxy acetyline welding bottles, which must be inspected periodically. You pay for the gas and some amortization of the container.

Acetylene, dammit. It’s been so many years since I knew about such shit I can’t say for sure bu I don’t think there is, or could be anysuch thing as “acetylene.”

Of course, you either believe in EEStor or you don’t.

Naturally liberals will support anything involving high permittivity.

This thread needs mho puns and less nessman.

Funny, Surber’s blog allows dissenting opinions.

Also funny, he’s a Blogger that actually formulates an argument instead of doing a cheap PhotoShop and a one sentence goof on someone.

From the AP article Don quoted (emphasis mine):

New fires involving the lithium-ion batteries in General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Volt have prompted an investigation to assess the risk of fire in the electric car after a serious crash

…and from there he goes right to calling them “rolling IEDs” and what-not. So already it’s a strong case of InstaDisease – not even bothering to read the article you’re copying and pasting.

Additionally, though, I have a question for Don. Do you know what else catches fire, explodes, and generally does a pretty good impression of an IED after a serious car crash?

MOTHERFUCKING GASOLINE.

God, he’s just too stupid for living.

I wish killfile eliminated even the name of the poster.

Tintin, your roach is back.

Of course, you either believe in EEStor or you don’t.

Is that the EEStor bunny that has been hawking batteries on TV for years?

Vacuum, why don’t you go to Surber’s site and prove global warming by posting a link to a DailyKos diary?

And then sticking around to defend it.

Hmm, how about it, something a little different than the usual recipes and baby stories?

Anyone got a can of troll-be-gone?

The obsessed stalker thinks that scientific theories are proved by posting internet links in unfavorable areas and winning an internet debate with morons.

I’m suddenly much more informed on how the idiots of the world are able to internally dismiss worldwide consensuses of the world’s scientists to “nuh uh, a guy on my side says it’s just a worldwide hoax involving all the world’s scientists, why won’t you guys stop laughing at me”.

Yeah, global warming—pfhhht! The arctic ice cap disappearing, Northwest Passage opening up, polar bears becoming extinct, record-breaking heat waves every other year, more and increasingly violent hurricanes, forests dying as their comfort zone moves north on them… Nothing to see here, move along! It snowed in Boston in January! Har, har! Suck it, libs!

Yeah, okay, so Edison didn’t make a practical electric car. But Detroit Electric did. And so did Milburn. And so did Rauch & Lang, and so on and so on. (Source. The Milburns were so successful, General Motors bought them in 1923.

One of the Milburns could get 140 miles on a charge, which really isn’t all that bad. They weren’t overly fast, but no cars of that period were. Imagine what the state of the art would be if electric cars had continued to exist for the intervening 90 or so years.

I hate that I can’t edit my posts – I meant Detroit Electric in my post above, but Franklin was stuck in my mind from seeing one the other day. Back in the 1910s and ’20s, there weren’t a lot of paved roads between cities, and cities were smaller. Speed wasn’t so much a necessity. BTW, I’m pretty sure Zasu Pitts drives a Detroit Electric in the ’40s film Breakfast In Hollywood.

GM even made some (sorta) hybrid buses back in the early ’40s, and of course lots of cities had trolleybuses then.

Does this mean that we can now cut the Air Force budget by 90+% ‘cuz the Wright brothers were never able to construct an F-22, unmanned drone or stealth bomber? And don’t get me stahted on the Army.

Don’t forget Studebaker electrics. If only city and country could have been kept separate—let the farmers drive around in their Model Ts while city folk drive their electrics around town. Electrics would have spread out as cities did, and there would have been a lot of incentive to develop better batteries. I find it hard to believe there wouldn’t have been some improvement in 110 years.

It snowed in Boston in January! Har, har! Suck it, libs!

http://www.xoverboard.com/cartoons/2007/070212_immortal.html

Fuck, someone call tsam.

I believe There is a kill file that is completely eliminationist, vs.

Now if someone would do a little animated gif that did a throat-slitting, complete with spurting blood, I would use that one.

Substance, I believe we ARE all looking at you.

Something could be adapted from a Doom sprite without enormous effort.

lots of cities had trolleybuses then.

Yeah, until GM bought and dismantled them.

Ohio had electric interurban trolleys that were running 90 mph between cities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interurban

Too much violent rhetoric here.

You guys don’t allow me to post here, so I’m going to post here and complain about it.

(If that doesn’t make sense, it’s my iPhone’s fault as always.)

Seattle always had electric busses, or “trackless trolleys” as we called them, except for a brief period in the ’70s, after which they were brought back by popular demand. They finished rewiring the system just in time for a humongous lightning storm, when the new thicker wires conducted the lightning very efficiently back to the new substations. They went online a year late after that.

They really shine on hills, which we’ve got a lot of. Now we have a lot of what they miscall “hybrid” busses—the appropriate term would be “bastard busses”, I believe—with diesel in the back section and electric in the front of articulated coaches.

*And yes, loony libs—there is a double “s” in “busses”.

*And yes, loony libs—there is a double “s” in “busses”.

bussi

E.G. – “Look at all those Gary Bussi strutting about the park.”

-K

The real issue isn’t electric cars versus gas cars – it’s road versus rail for urban transportation. For decades, America had a dirt-cheap, monotonously reliable & squeaky-clean rail transit system in most major cities. Ye Olde Omnibus was so reliable that folks literally set their watches & clocks by them … until GM & Standard Oil killed the whole shebang in favor of getting everyone from A to B via dinosaur POOP. Of course, by now the suburban city-planning that was explicitly designed to make people dependant on their jalopy for getting to & from work or the mall has made the common-sense option much less appealing.

RUN SHOCKEDFACE.EXE

Decrepit though they may be, I’m pretty sure Vancouver still runs a fleet of hybrid trolleys (not 100% sure because I haven’t been to downtown Lotusland in ages) … hilarity occasionally ensues when one of the arms connecting it to the overhead trolley-wires pops loose & the poor beast immediately falls into a temporary coma. Also, they make very pretty sparks when they hit the junction points.

Personally, I think Americans should tackle both their oil-addiction & obesity problems simultaneously via the Fred Flintstone power-plant.

BEST. NASCAR RACES. EVAR.

Trolleys = trolley busses.

Toronto Leafs Suck has rail trolleys.

Yet another Stepford Moron.

That is so very tres. I heart it.

Calling a firm ‘Tesla’ kind of implies that it can do stuff Edison couldn’t—and dress snappier whilst being more paranoid and less predatory whilst.

Here’s a wild idea I came across a while back: a country that really wanted to do something about mass transportation would take one lane each direction from urban and suburban highways and install trolleys. In one stroke, you create a large capacity of rail while making traffic congestion worse, with no right-of-way purchase costs.

It’s never going to happen, but it makes a nice detail for some near-future sci-fi, no?

N_B

If your plan were implemented you would be able to hear the howls of right wing butthurt from orbit.

So much stupid it hurts. How does he expect people to read his parenthetically-poisoned prose?

In space, no one can hear your butthurt.

Ohm igod! The electricity puns crackled and sizzled!

See what I did there?

Pundits like Surber remind me of the army guy I pulled chow hall duty with in 82. He couldn’t count change. He tried to get me to take over the till for him, but after I saw him give an army officer a free lunch, the price of the free lunch, and twenty dollars back there was no way I was willing to pay for this guy’s mistakes. It made me kind of glad that the army was taking care of him (even as an officer let him rip himself off) because the streets would eat the man alive.

Wingnut welfare keeps Surber off of skid row where he and his whole family would quickly become a whole slew of statistics in victim-hood.

he and his whole family

Don’t tell me this yutz SPAWNED.

Please. Don’t.

Wire there so many electricity puns? I thought this was supposed to be a political humour blog, with snark about poles and electrons.

Seattle always had electric busses

I’ve done that to many a girl, shocked her with my kisses.

Wire there so many electricity puns? I thought this was supposed to be a political humour blog, with snark about poles and electrons.

YOu came up a little short. YOu missed the hot tub, a conduit that sparks much banter.

Resistance is futile.

But not as much as his brother “Gonad”.

I loved how Ahnuld portrayed him in the movies.

Hmm, how about it, something a little different than the usual recipes and baby stories?

It’s interesting that you presume the internal banter is somehow not contributing to the community.

But then again, you lock yourself away in mom’s basement, so…

I’m still not sure why you folks are down on LiON batteries when the solution to the fire problem is already here.

In fact, Time Magazine named it one of the top 50 inventions of the year.

Apple did not have ‘laptop battery fires’.

In 1995, two Sony L-ion batteries in Apple PowerBook 5300 laptops caught fire. One in an Apple lab, another before it reached a customer.

Apple had shipped about 3000 batteries worldwide at that point. They were all replaced with NiMH batteries before the laptops actually began shipping to customers, unlike Dell, who shipped for years with some of the same charging circuitry problems.

I wouldn’t exactly trust some of the other ‘technical’ posts here either, though your hearts are in the right place. Point being that we have to start somewhere, but there simply isn’t enough energy density in practical batteries of any type to replace IC engines for typical mixed-cycle, 300+ mile range vehicles. There. Just. Isn’t.

So, next time you hear me complain about the jackass doing 50 in the #2 lane of 101 in a Volt, looking for all the world like a shitheel for fucking up everyone else’s day with his need to feel awesome about getting the same mileage as my 500cc motorcycle from the 1980s, realize that there are very serious problems with electric and series hybrids – mostly due to the designed in drawbacks of our infrastructure, but also because the will to create something truly great just isn’t there. The 90s happened, and you’ll never get people out of 5200lb SUVs for good.

Surber is getting ready for mid-January, when he’s pencilled in to be the Republican front-runner for a couple of days.

Surber is getting ready for mid-January, when he’s pencilled in to be the Republican front-runner for a couple of days.

Or Feb 2 when he comes out to look for his shadow.

But then again, you lock yourself away in mom’s basement, so………

That’s Dennis all over, he can’t be bothered to start his own blog but feels like his input into this blog is somehow useful or interesting.

Spend some time with your kids, Dennis, dress warm for a cloudy but not chilly day in Richmond, VA and take them out instead of sitting at a computer making a fool of yourself like you usually do here.

I have been induced to recall that after Dennis’ tv interview with Bob Cost during Monday Night Football, most legal professionals advised him to lay low, sort of go to ground, as it were, as his path through the circuit courts would already have him megging for mercy.

Costas goddammit.

Edmonton still has trolley busses, with the overhead pairs of wire. No hybrids, though. So does Vancouver on some of the major downtown routes.

Toronto has streetcars, mostly running east-west. It feels very European to hear the ding-ding-ding on a quiet evening on Saint Clair West (yes, between Avenue Road and Bathurst, its pretty quiet).

Toronto head trolley busses, also, but phased them out in the 90s..

Ok, here we go into wingnut bizzarro-land.

Its a sign of major FAIL and foolishness of epic proportion when GM’s electric cars have technical issues and a sign that totally, those cars should be scrappd and the entire electric car idea be put to pasture.

“…you think after the Bush and Obama administrations bailed out GM for $53 billion we can trust the federal government to be upfront and honest about the potential or probable dangers these machines may pose?”

Yes, exactly because giving the car companies a loan means that the government now becomes the CEO of the company and simoutaneously works for the consumer protection agency (yeah the one that commie Warren wants to improve to destroy American business or something) and thus should have warned poor Americans about the disasters of the car — I suppose prior to production or something.

Any-hoo, I wonder why Mr. Don-Bob doesn’t feel the same way about the nuclear plants across the world, that last I knew, have a real serious problem about having functional problems that threaten the entire planet’s health and safety.

Oh, that’s commie-socialistic intrusion on big business which is run by the government, but has nothing to do with the government which is our enemy and never mind that the nuclear plant threats seem to span all economic and social systems — its still a socialistic plot to demand their regulation.

Just like global warming is, er, I mean the idea of global warming, because it really isn’t happening, nope, really isn’t.

Hey word press ate my fantastic comment! Give it back you SOB!

Anyway what I said in more elaboration than I’m interested in repeating is that it seems awful funny there that the wingnuts get their panties in a knot over electric cars, but nuclear plants not so much.

Even though nuclear plants meltdown and have problems all over the globe and threaten our entire planet.

But Obama should have warned us about GM’s impending electric car disaster because we loaned the car companies money and of course that makes us the de facto CEO and at the same emboldens the commie-pinko consumer protection agency to take up arms and stop this electric car injustice on our people!

Because the actions against nuclear plants are socialistic/commie anti-business propaganda, nevermind that nuclear power proliferation has come from the commies and socialists and the government is our enemy accept when they support things that make the rich guys richer, like nuclear power.

Which reminds Don-Bob again that these electric cars are so high priced that they are only available to the financial elites, who really are our friends but our bad because of this because populism is good except when anyone tries to use it to make sense.

Don-Bob also believes toilets are inferior and I agree since I have to change out at least one a month for being hopelessly clogged and that proves they are inferior and the government is a communist socialist entity because they allowed toilets and indoor plumbing to be foisted upon us.

There, I knew I could write wing-nut.

Toronto head

Yeah, pleasant memories…

Li-ion batteries are a plot to steal car-talk from American men by feminist-lesbian-probably-muslim-somehow-um-lesbians. Boston Power, Sakti3, and Prieto are all run by women, leaving the guy down at Planar as the last best hope to defend this last bastion of guy-dom.

In the grand scheme of things the Volt is barely a beta test vehicle. Its fairly radical series hybrid design was concocted out of state-of-the-day batteries from 3 years ago shoehorned into a Chevy Cruze. It weights about 3800 pounds, around 500 more than my ’91 Park Ave, yet it still moves that bulk with authority.

If this was a plane or a tank, it would have had several generously funded rounds of prototypes and pre-proiduction builds, but since oil dependency and greenhouse gases are not national security issues (I read on the net somewhere that they are, rather, hoaxes), this is what you get and the pace at which you get it.

Up early to watch the DinoPOOP-powered cars at Interlagos. My boy Vettel is now in sole possession of the record for most poles* in a season.

*Not intended to be a VPR but the thought of Vettel’s pole, or Vettel and pole, makes my naughty bits go tingly.

I got to watch the time trials for Monaco a few years back.

I only have so much attention-span for watching cars go around and around, even ones as cool as F1, but it was still pretty awesome. Those things sound like jets when they pass by.

Shorter John Hinderaker:

The hippies worried about the Mayan calendar are even stupider than “people” who “celebrate” Nigger Christmas. However, European debt might prove the Mayans right, which is why we need upper-class tax cuts.

OT and pretty damn cool

Since I went to the effort of figuring out how to copy and paste a URL on a D-roid, you’re all obligated to check it out, dammit.

Oh crap. I’m teary-eyed now.

Me too. Sniff.

This one had me crying my eyes out:

http://bestadsever.com/2011/10/sussex-safer-roads-embrace-lifealways-wear-your-seatbelt/

That ad from Oz has been getting a shit load of exposure at the gay sites this week.

connecting some rather obvious dots

I like ta link!

Erg, try as I might I am unable to make a pun with “coulomb.”

If you could induct Wolfowitz into the equation you might be on to something.
.

Wuh, HOE.

I just heard that Katehi lady for the first time on YouTube – damned if she doesn’t sound like Orly Taitz & Arianna Huffington’s love-child.

SPOOKY OOKY.

I like ta link!

Yer a regular snausage.

Erg, try as I might I am unable to make a pun with “coulomb.”

Coulombine.

Or if you want to celebrate diversity: Besa mi coulomb

My zed wants for an apostrophe up thither.

I saw the ads you guys linked, now stop it with your islamo-commie emotional logic stuff because a wingnut loses a neuron connection everytime they are proven to make no sense.

That Oz ad was heart-breakingly beautiful.

It’s also the reason that we get wingnuts arguing that gays out just living their lives in public spaces is somehow a direct attack against them. Because it’s really fucking hard to maintain a view of some group as demonic baddies, when you can see for yourself that they are just the same as everyone else, with the same loves and lives (well, maybe not to wingnuts whose lives are entirely centered around drowning out the misery of their lives with hatred and judgment for everyone else’s).

It’s why the biggest weapon against bigotry has always been that slow march of diversity, where not even a secluded child in a particularly strict church and suburb can avoid knowing someone who is LGBT or black or latino, or so on and so on.

It’s just harder to maintain ignorance and thus to maintain the fictional idea of a group that is necessary to hate like they do.

Exactly Cerberus, which is why most of the wingnuts bred today come from the enclosed, suburban model of McMansions where a road that goes to a dead end and turns around is built in a former hay field, with ten houses that all look alike on 3 acres each where children ride bicycles and play in a world completely secluded from the concept of sharing, diversity and community.

Alternative Shorter Hindraker-

Stupid fucking hippies believing in apocalyptic claptrap. Please allow me to instead spread fear in favor of my apocalyptic claptrap. Europe is going down, debt crisis, give us your Social Security now if you want to be saved!

If Surber didn’t bring enough stupid for you, toddle on over the George Fucking Will’s latest piece of bilge at the WaPo in favor of privatizing the post office. I’ve been abusing dumbasses in the comments over there for the past day. Among the objections to the current post office: I don’t use it, so even though I’m not paying for it, it shouldn’t exist as a public service; I don’t like junk mail and putting the PO out of business is the best way to stop it; it’s bloated and inefficient even though it delivers letters for less than 1/25th of any of its competitors; postal workers are overpaid (again, even though it only costs a lousy $.44 to send a letter) and so on and so forth.

At one point I made the comment that it probably didn’t matter if we do away with it, since judging from the comments Americans are becoming dumber at such an alarmingly rapid rate that within a few years everyone will be too stupid to read anyway, which will render sending written information through the mail a quaint bygone.

OT and pretty damn cool

That’s very sweet, but did anyone really think for even one second that this guy was straight?

connecting some rather obvious dots

Joshua Holland had a pretty good takedown of this at Alternet. It’s not that coordination is out of the question, just that Naomi Wolf is a hack. Of course, asking for evidence = Hitler if my Twitter feed is to be believed.

I’ve pooped enough for now.

GREEDO SHOT FIRST!

Kate:

Exactly Cerberus, which is why most of the wingnuts bred today come from the enclosed, suburban model of McMansions where a road that goes to a dead end and turns around is built in a former hay field, with ten houses that all look alike on 3 acres each where children ride bicycles and play in a world completely secluded from the concept of sharing, diversity and community.

And there we see the reason for the galactic level of butthurt as so many of them are losing their $400,000 crackerboxes (which they would have lost in the first stiff wind anyway). Now their kids will have to live in a normal neighborhood and see actual coons and fags, and god knows what other kind of vermin.

The people who sold them these ersatz “mansions” they couldn’t remotely afford convinced them that they were in the top 1%, so when the bubble popped it couldn’t be that they were taken in by flim-flam artists—no, it must be all those darkies that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped out qualifying for loans 1/3 the size of theirs. Never mind that those were just exactly the loans that weren’t a part of the great mortgage mixmaster crash—it just has to be the darkies! It has to be…sniff!

GREEDO SHOT FIRST!

Whelp, now I feel thoroughly informed on THAT debate. thx google.

GREEDO SHOT FIRST!

If he did, he was an ever worse marksman than the imperial storm troopers.

and see actual coons and fags, and god knows what other kind of vermin.

Zombies.

I lost a lot of respect for Han Solo when they tried to make it seem that he was defending hisself.

How badass can you be if you won’t turn an obvious mercenary into a greasy spot before he even gets his weapon out?

Ulysses S. Grant Endorses Newt!

Exactly Cerberus, which is why most of the wingnuts bred today come from the enclosed, suburban model of McMansions where a road that goes to a dead end and turns around is built in a former hay field, with ten houses that all look alike on 3 acres each where children ride bicycles and play in a world completely secluded from the concept of sharing, diversity and community.

I’d like to see two things:

Suburban enclaves should be taxed to pay directly for the construction and upkeep of the roads, sewers, and power extensions to their locations, and it should be cumulative to the suburbs that were built previously, so they have to pay an additional portion for upkeep to previous infrastructure. Directly, I mean, not shared to all the other residents of a region.

And purely single family zoning should be eliminated, modified in all cases to allow co-housing, duplexes and triplexes, and granny flats. Single family houses taxed at higher rates.

And as long as I am dreaming, I’d like there to be some kind of aesthetic certification for anybody designing the built environment, because, DAMN.

I lost a lot of respect for Han Solo when they tried to make it seem that he was defending hisself.

How badass can you be if you won’t turn an obvious mercenary into a greasy spot before he even gets his weapon out?

That was more or less every fan’s reaction. Including mine, and I never even saw Star Wars until after the re-edited version had already come out. I don’t even mind most of the changes they made, but that one was shit-stupid.

HAW HAW HAW Suck on that, Tom Brady. Iggles up 10 zip.

Lucas just can’t help making them worse and worse.
Example.

And there we see the reason for the galactic level of butthurt as so many of them are losing their $400,000 crackerboxes (which they would have lost in the first stiff wind anyway). Now their kids will have to live in a normal neighborhood and see actual coons and fags, and god knows what other kind of vermin.

Right. And it’s not even the racial stuff so much as the even more basic experience of living in close proximity to other people, rather than locking yourself in your own little cocoon where you can pretend other people don’t exist.

In some small way, I expect things like this reverse-white-flight could actually contribute to creating more liberals, just by changing the way people relate to society in their everyday lives.

I want beer. I hope the store on the corner has the seasonal Lakefront Holiday Spice Lager.

That being said, a lot of two-car families could probably replace one vehicle with an electric car.

A lot of two-car families could (and do) replace one car with a scooter that gets 60-100mpg.
.

Very sensible ZRM: DREAM ON.

To be clear I was referring to your suburban tax plan. Your schemes for beer are more likely to bear fruit.

In some small way, I expect things like this reverse-white-flight could actually contribute to creating more liberals, just by changing the way people relate to society in their everyday lives.

Maybe… but by forcing everyone else out of the urban cores, it could also further alienate the rich white yuppie liberals from everyone else. Right now the elites are at least split between the cities and the suburbs. Putting them all in one place may only reinforce the smug sense of superiority you already see in parts of the left.

A lot of two-car families could (and do) replace one car with a scooter that gets 60-100mpg.

You must live somewhere with better weather than Ohio. I don’t think they make snow tires in that size.

Your schemes for beer are more likely to bear fruit.

I am also listening to Yellowman, and have an insane urge for some appropriate substance. Likely to go unfulfilled.

It’s tsam’s Guardian link that caught my eye. Having DHS involved in the response to OWS (did they have a similar response to the teabaggers?) is disturbing as hell to me. That just screams dystopian police state. What’s worse, I can’t see a way short of violence or the threat of it (FY, Pennis, with your eliminationist rhetoric talk) of changing it.

In fact, I still maintain that the fear of violent revolution gave FDR the cover he needed to push through the Depression reforms that stabilized our country for the next 60 years.

Better late than never:
They Call me the Sparkle
If you want to make me flip, hit me with a microchip

And finally – a book I really liked – there is a connection, trust me

I am also listening to Yellowman, and have an insane urge for some appropriate substance.

Hi!

Lucas just can’t help making them worse and worse.
I only saw the first three and the first prequel. I find it painful to watch the first three anymore and I hated the first prequel (jar-jar anyone). BTW see Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking – she does a very funny bit about making star wars and there is a princess leia pez dispenser and sex doll.

in favor of privatizing the post office

What does Wills propose to do about Article 1 of your constitution?

What does Wills propose to do about Article 1 of your constitution?

Wipe his ass with it, like he does with amendments 1 – 10.

I will say this: hearing the phrase “privatize the post office” is the surest litmus test for determining that you’re dealing with a complete moron.

Get this – part of his great idea is that postal counters can be housed at Wal-Mart. Because we all know, that’s much more convenient and pleasant than waiting in line at the post office.

Found an instructional site for Don Bob.

Pup – I’m trying to wrap my mind around the fact that such a link even exists and contains not the slightest hint of irony.

I am also listening to Yellowman, and have an insane urge for some appropriate substance.

Hi!

Omg, Substance has a good twin!

I think we need to set an eHow page specifically for Don Bob, about how to properly fuck a tailpipe.

Smut knows where to get the lube.

Omg, Substance has a good twin!
If only there were a distinctive style of beard we could use to distinguish the good & evil versions.

I am also listening to Yellowman, and have an insane urge for some appropriate substance.

Hi!

INAPPROPRIATE.

how to properly fuck a tailpipe.

A considerate tailpipe-fucker will ensure that the car comes first.

Also, up-on-the-back-stroke technique.

Because we all know, that’s much more convenient and pleasant than waiting in line at the post office.

Post offices at least are mostly nice architecturally, at least they try.

If only there were a distinctive style of beard we could use to distinguish the good & evil versions

There should be a plac on the Internet where you could drag and drop such things. THAT WOULD BE SO FUN.

upshift on the back-up, Smut.

BAD NEWS EVERYONE.

The corner store did not yet have the Holiday Spice. I am bereft, and have to make do with Sprecher Black Bavarian.

how to properly fuck a tailpipe.

A considerate tailpipe-fucker will ensure that the car comes first.

With new cars you have to be gentle.

I wonder if surber is a tender lover…of cars.

There should be a plac on the Internet where you could drag and drop such things

So long as there are no potential misspellings of ‘goatee’ that the blogger might use to shock and disturb.

I wonder if surber is a tender lover…of cars.

I bet he doesn’t have much distance.

I’d hit it.

Fuuuuuuck

again…i would hit this. Meaning, I’d fuck it

So long as there are no potential misspellings of ‘goatee’ that the blogger might use to shock and disturb.

Noooooooooo, that would be inappropriate.

Well Zombie and Rev. , I think that there should be a moratorium any further construction, that agricultural areas should be considered protected ground, saved to feed our people.

People should be forced to live in the urban areas or wing it on their own in an old farmhouse the way they used to, living mostly off the land and the store in town.

Uppity leftists would be tested since they couldn’t just come in and gentrify an entire neighborhood and boot the poor into the older suburbs. They’d have to live side by side with the inferiors like myself who haven’t the luxury to buy their entire grocery stock at Whole Foods. They’d have to tolerate us making demands to expand public transportation and other working class tendencies that require mixing with the unwashed masses they portend to love and work to save.

In the Northeast the older suburbs from the fifties through the seventies, with aluminum sided ranch houses and split levels and car ports are becoming the new ghettos. Over the last two decades the workers who once made up the middle class there have died or moved to Florida to live off their union pensions while their children struggle to keep up appearances. Many are failing miserably judging by my last pass through such places.

Wait till gasoline hits 6 bucks a gallon, if no one in any administration has had the temerity or the foresight to get us on another energy plan or behavior shift, today’s McMansions will become the ghettos on the outskirts with the poor and the suffering middles tearing down the gazebo and the two-car garage to burn the framing for firewood and scrapping the stainless appliances for gas money to go into town to get feed for the chickens.

Just you wait and see.

As for Willie’s post office screed, I saw that this morning in the Sunday issue of the Union Leader. I skipped over it and the Joe McQuaid editorial endorsing Newticles, because I was eating and the Union Leader isn’t good for digestion.

I am forever reminded of the reporter who recounted her experience with him at ground zero during 9/11 — he was with her in a high-rise I believe. The town was locked down and he wanted to get the hell out (to Connecticut or Rye Beach NH I presume).

Anyway, she recounted how he just simply went to a nearby Jag dealer, bought one and drove home.

The man is 1%er and like the rest has no need for public services of any kind, he just needs the proletariat to shut up and stock taxing his mailbox money.

Krautcrammer in the column space below Willie’s crap, thank god I can’t remember what it is.

They get paid top dollar to write any bullshit to cover their one and only objective; to destroy anything that makes them squeeze one dollar out of their selfish assholes.

Once you see that, its not hard to understand why: 1) The Tea Baggers are shameless when they make absolutely no sense 2) Those like the Tea Baggers think making no sense makes sense and making sense in a real sense is a liberal-commie-islamofascist plot.

Uppity leftists would be tested since they couldn’t just come in and gentrify an entire neighborhood and boot the poor into the older suburbs. They’d have to live side by side with the inferiors like myself who haven’t the luxury to buy their entire grocery stock at Whole Foods. They’d have to tolerate us making demands to expand public transportation and other working class tendencies that require mixing with the unwashed masses they portend to love and work to save.

I think you are mistaking ‘liberal’ for ‘leftist’. I wouldn’t enter Whole Foods to piss in the carob bins.

I mean, yadda yadda No True Scotsman yadda yadda &ca, but it strikes me that when the defining element of your political praxis is ‘I must make the world a better place by spending money in a kinder, gentler way, on things I will eventually shit out’, you are part of the big-l Liberal consensus; as such, you are arguing with lib-cons (‘classical liberals’ as was, or these days the sort that argue you should Choose to become a billionaire instead of Choosing to be some jobless loser, you parasite you; add Jesus for leavening as appropriate) more over the details than the fundamentals.

What the fuck is an uppity leftist? How do leftists gentrify anything?

What the fuck is an uppity leftist?

Guilty! he admitted cheerfully.

Just you wait and see.

Oh, heck, it will all be part of the wasteland between urban settlements. Fortunately, reclaiming one of the ticky-tack y subdivisions will be pretty easy, those cheap fuckers will push over without a problem.

I think you are mistaking ‘liberal’ for ‘leftist’. I wouldn’t enter Whole Foods to piss in the carob bins

And what you said additionally.

I don’t identify assholes who go to Whole Foods, drive brand new $70,000 cars, live in McMansions or spend millions putting in commercial stainless fixtures in their uptown kitchens.

But I do know that many of them identify as liberal or leftist or whatever they think is cool at the moment and will look down their white-bread noses at my ugly, working class looking self and say,

“Oh we’re so glad we have people like you to fight down in the trenches.” with their plastic smile, “I think this Occupy thing is just fantastic — honey! Give me the checkbook, ‘now do you have a tax ID number?”

They are useful sometimes, but mostly in the way.

“What the fuck is an uppity leftist? How do leftists gentrify anything?”

Geez guys, alright alright, so you won’t let them own the leftist tag. Even my 1% dad will look me dead in the eye and say, “Well I think I’m more a socialist.”

Yeah and tell me in the next breath when we discuss inequality, “Well that’s the way it is, people are just going to have to accept it, can’t do anything about it.” while bitching about the gardner being late this week and not getting the peonies weeded again

They are useful sometimes, but mostly in the way.

And until either of us gets off our asses and starts hanging the fuckers in the nearest answer for Battery Park by the innards of their riot-geared catamites they’ll have to do, won’t they?

He also hasn’t stopped asking me every time I visit why I haven’t been able to get a dentist to fix my teeth, like the “I have no money.” thing is something I just make up.

Those damn hippies and poor people, having fun being poor while we work so hard at being comfortably rich!

Agreed Alec and yes, I’m working on that end, but its a slow process to get anyone to go with me.

Are catamites the ones that stick up from the cave floor, or the ones that hang down from the cave ceiling?

Soooooooooooooo we’re not talking about fucking cars anymore?

Sure I clammed up when the talk got somber. Fucking cars?

I write what I know, people. I write what I know.

Are catamites the ones that stick up from the cave floor, or the ones that hang down from the cave ceiling?

You’re thinking of catstalags, who are used by German war criminals, on the floor.

As opposed to etc, might be on the ceiling, etc. etc.

Sure I clammed up when the talk got somber. Fucking cars?

I write what I know, people. I write what I know.

I know car-fucking when I see it, in the words of the Supreme Court.

Are catamites the ones that stick up from the cave floor, or the ones that hang down from the cave ceiling?

Well, let’s see…”catamite” has a “c” so it hangs from the ceiling. “______*” has a “g”, so it comes up from the ground.

*I’m sure we uppity leftists can fill in this blank….

Soooooooooooooo we’re not talking about fucking cars anymore?

Whoever did this Transformers fan art would agree that sex with cars is a fascinating topic.

Whoever did this Transformers fan art would agree that sex with cars is a fascinating topic.

We laugh now, but this will emerge as a splinter group from the Furries in just a few short years.

Too late

vs – does it result in a special sheen?

From VS’ link:
Apparently there are people out there that actually fall in love with objects instead of people.

The poster has`only just grasped the central principle of the consumer economy.

I do like my cars, but at the end of the day, it’s just a piece of metal and it doesn’t love me.

Relevant

it’s just a piece of metal and it doesn’t love me.

How can you be so sure? Have you ASKED it?

Since when do sex and love have anything to do with each other?

Anyway, she recounted how he just simply went to a nearby Jag dealer, bought one and drove home.

I bought a used Jag a few years back. Beautiful car. Fast, comfortable, great handling.

Except every few months the “check engine” light would come on and I’d take it down to the dealer and end up writing a check for $500. By the time I decided to get rid of it, things were breaking faster than I could afford to fix them.

Luckily I got rid of it before the price of gas went up, because it got 15 mpg.

Except every few months the “check engine” light would come on and I’d take it down to the dealer and end up writing a check for $500. By the time I decided to get rid of it, things were breaking faster than I could afford to fix them.

I, uh, hate to be the one to break this to you, but even if you weren’t pirating the software (which reduces it by a factor of 10) the full kit for onboard computer checks – which you could do from a smartphone anymore! – is like half that, and you get to use it forever.

At least don’t go to the dealer, because dealership markup is around 100% if they’re nice people and fundamentally decent human beings.

Since when do sex and love have anything to do with each other?

I have to say I prefer that other Tina Turner song.

Ugh. This popcorn is awful.

It’s tough and unpleasant.

And there’s so little of it left.

At least don’t go to the dealer, because dealership markup is around 100% if they’re nice people and fundamentally decent human beings.

There weren’t too many places in Columbus, OH competent to work on a 1995 XJ12.

Likewise a mom-and-pop outfit I really liked messed up my 2000 A6 pretty bad when I tried to save a few bucks on a timing belt replacement.

And now I have no popcorn at all.

Once I wept for I had no pot; but then I met a man who had no popcorn.

Once I wept ’cause I was Dennis

Then I found I had no penis…

And now I have no popcorn at all.
IT’S ALL GONE

I thought Catemites were the aliens that wrote “To Serve Man”.

Speaking of cargasms, I don’t believe I’ll be rushing out to see the newest “Mission: Impossible” movie, considering the only draw appears to be the BMW that apparently stars in it. From the ads, it looks like that short Scientologist–whatsisname, y’know, the guy in the Beach Boys video, has some sort of supporting role or something.

It’s directed by Brad Bird, the director of The Incredibles and The Iron Giant.

That makes me curious about it, but the Tom Cruise/Scientology stench is just too strong at this point.

I love the Iron Giant.

OK, that DOES sound kind of weird.

It was a great movie. Even if it does sound weird.

It was a great movie. Even if it does sound weird.

I presume you meant the Iron Giant, which is an awesome flick. I also loved “The Incredibles”, and I was deeply happy they never made a sequel (at least so far).

The ads for MI:3 are pure product placement. The first movie was fine, whatever, I guess; the second one sucked balls. I can’t imagine the third being halfway watchable.

It’s like the ads for Jimmy Johns sandwiches. The only thing they can ever think of to advertise is how fast they can get them to you. I’m like, “you know what, I’m not in that big of a hurry–I think I’ll go get something, y’know, edible.”

“The most exciting thing about your new movie is, what? the car? Really? I think I’ll go see the Muppets or something instead.”

I’ve heard good things about The Muppets. I’ll try to get around to seeing it next week (and I usually avoid seeing kids movies in the theatre).

Has anyone seen Hugo? It looked interesting.

The ads for MI:3 are pure product placement. The first movie was fine, whatever, I guess; the second one sucked balls. I can’t imagine the third being halfway watchable.

I discovered the TV show about a year ago via YouTube and Netflix. This’ll be the first of the Tom Cruise movies I go see (yeah, I’ll go and see it anyway) since I’ve seen the original M:I, which will probably make me see it in a much worse light.

Kind of hoping they retire Tom Cruise and pass the baton to someone else, and maybe continue the movies but more like the TV show instead of centered around one action star. (And that action star being Tom Cruise).

How can someone so short be an action star?

He’s like a Muppet without the hand of a clever, talented person up his ass.

How can someone so short be an action star?

Ahem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy

Oh, Audie Murphy gets a pass cuz he’s a real, actual hero, doesn’t just play one in the movies.

THAT WOULD BE SO FUN.

The place is real … & some on the Intertronz have argued that beneath its bland exterior it is every bit as much a hive of scum & villainy as /b/ or Freeperville.

The place is real

(psst…jim. She’s referring to Substance’s wretched hive of scum and villainy)

I love the Iron Giant.

If anybody is considering forming a Steely Dan cover band, they can have the name “Iron Giant” for free.

*pins big glitzy medal on zrm for valiantly storming the perimeter of jim’s Clue Wall*

thanks, but I’m going with Steely Dennis.

sure, tsam, but what happens when you inevitably have to slit his throat?

Then we’ll go to Steely Dang.

well, I admit that’s a keeper. But only if you do the covers country-style.

sure, tsam, but what happens when you inevitably have to slit his throat?

Wouldn’t that be Steely Bris?

You know, that jazzy rendition of klezmer music with the warped and obscure lyrics?

thanks, but I’m going with Steely Dennis.

I’m not so sure.

Dennis is neither as reliable or as pleasurable.

a Steely Dan cover band
Needs moar William-Burroughs-influenced band-name jokes. And perhaps a 10CC reference.

thanks, but I’m going with Steely Dennis.
“Dead Fingers Talk” has the advantage of being moar ELIMINATIONIST.

thanks, but I’m going with Steely Dennis.
Shirley you can do something with Soft Machine.

I’m working on a design for a perpetual motion car, but only the fit need apply for ridership.

Black Meat Dennis would be a good cover band name.

–Ooops, bull limpet too (goddam foreign computer)

Jennifer-

It’s way late, but with regard to the George Will sonuvabitch I hate him (sorry).

Anyone who thinks that the Post Office is less well run, slower, less gentle with packages, or more of a hassle than their private alternatives is either an epic level idiot so dumb that it would be kinder to drown them in their own drool than let them live another day or someone so far out of touch with the rest of the world that they have never had to be personally responsible for their mail possibly ever.

Fed Ex required me to stalk the front door for one of their agents to knock once and run and if they can’t deliver in that narrow window of “stay home all day waiting by the door”, they ship it straight back. They are also the shipping method that is always the one it turned out to be when the glass objects ordered show up smashed or the box fragile contents were in look like they did a tour in Iraq.

Not to mention that if the Post Office stopped working tomorrow, there would simply be zero mail to anyone outside major metropolitan centers. Live in the suburbs? Probably not getting fuck all. And if you live in a rural area, say goodbye to seeing mail ever again in your life. Fed Ex and other companies actually use the Post Office for those last legs because that way they don’t have to build the infrastructure out there where there is less likely payoff. The Post Office has to be out there because they are a government service rather than a profit center.

And let’s be frankly honest, the post office is actually pretty damn efficient for all the traffic they receive (and yes they still receive tons of traffic, that’s what those lines are about). Compare that to a Fed Ex store where the one highly undermotivated staff member finds ways to dawdle on a single package before just heaving it into the back.

So yeah, fuck anyone who would even think of writing the lines “privatize the post office” because they have demonstrated that their connection to reality is completely fucking absent.

Bit late with this, but Phil Ochs had these guys number 40 years ago………

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don’t talk about revolution
That’s going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I’ve grown older and wiser
And that’s why I’m turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal

I don’t know much of anything about automotive technology or energy poilicy, so I’ll rely on Sadlies who know such things.

In short, I don’t know watt is going on with electric cars.

The 14th comment in the thread. I claim Eternal Fame and Sadlynaut Glory for instigating the electricity puns. Can I haz a Nifty Medal?

Why did ya’ll have to show me those commercials?! Why? Why? Why? Waaaa! I was having a good time. I was sitting on the couch watching “The Merchant of Venice” and hand-sewing a curtain. I was so happy. Now— waaaaaaa. I’m cryin’ and I’m so happy and sad at the same time that I can hardly stand it.

I gotta go get a hanky and a bucket to wring it out in. Waaaa….

Honestly, I’ve never understood the hatred of the Post Office. I’ve never had any mail-related complaints.

vacuumslayertse said,
November 28, 2011 at 14:23

I’ve never had any mail-related complaints.

What about male-related complaints?

Very few, actually.

Someone please revoke my Shrill, Man-Hating, Humorless Feminist card, pleeze.

The only complaint I have with the postal service is those goddamn rural delivery cars with the steering wheels on the wrong side. I DON’T TRUST THEM.

The USPS is an incredibly efficient, well-respected, and thoroughly unionized government operation, which is exactly why it is despised by the righties. They tried to destroy it with onerous revenue burdens, but the people still love it and it is absolutely necessary for the day-to-day operation of the nation’s business, private courier services and e-mail notwithstanding (and there’s that pesky constitutional requirement thingy…). One of the early brickbats used against healthcare reform was along the lines of, “Do you really want to see healthcare run like the post office?”, to which people were like, “You mean that government-run operation where someone will come to my house, pick up a letter, and deliver it to my sister 2,000 miles away in 2 or 3 days…for 44 cents? That government-run operation? Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be so bad…”

to which people were like, “You mean that government-run operation where someone will come to my house, pick up a letter, and deliver it to my sister 2,000 miles away in 2 or 3 days…for 44 cents? That government-run operation? Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be so bad…”

A stunningly high number of people prefer the piece of shit we have now.

FedEx and USPS are different services for the most part.

If you send something priority-mail it will most likely go on a FedEx aircraft. USPS doesn’t have a fleet of aircraft, so they contract out that sort of thing.

I only have so much attention-span for watching cars go around and around, even ones as cool as F1, but it was still pretty awesome. Those things sound like jets when they pass by.

Not as much as those STP Indy cars of the late ’60s.

GM (and others, through National City Lines) did much to ruin electric transit in our cities, including mine. One place they never got their way was San Francisco. The steep hills were murder on diesel buses and they were kept out of the difficult areas until the ’70s. They even put Jake brakes on an order of new buses. Imagine how much the residents liked that idea.

My postman stops by at nearly the same time every day, within the hour. FedEx and UPS, who the hell knows when they’ll show up? Usually it’s 6pm or 9am. Can’t ever tell which because the package is on the truck at 3am and that’s all the information I get.

That a government-run agency cannot possibly be more efficient or cheaper (let alone both) than a private company is an article of faith with these people. By that I mean it is an actual religious conviction, in every sense of that term. You cannot prove that there is any exception to this rule (let alone that the rule itself is untrue), any more than you can “prove” the age of the Earth to a Ken Hamm fundamentalist. The truth is what they have been taught, and any evidence to the contrary is by definition untrue. Period. End of discussion. My mind is made up, and it would be heresy to admit that you have even the slightest chance of being even partially right. LALALALA I Can’t hear you!!

PLAYING WITH POOPIES AGAIN! POOPY PLAYING!

In re: Tesla’s electric car — Tesla doesn’t count as he was a commie from an Eastern-ish part of Yurp who wanted people to have free electricity. Edison, OTOH, was a true ‘Murkin patriot who believed in making money and shameless self-promotion.

That a government-run agency cannot possibly be more efficient or cheaper

The most frustrating part of it for me is that most of them have a permaboner for the military. Our way socialist military is strictly government run, and it’s superiority is inarguable.

It’s just a matter of priorities. When the military isn’t out fighting somewhere, they collect paychecks to train and maintain equipment, and basically stand around and wait for the order to go. Health care is a full time job that benefits every person.

The most frustrating part of it for me is that most of them have a permaboner for the military. Our way socialist military is strictly government run, and it’s superiority is inarguable.

Blackwater or Xe or whatever it is called these days is the counter argument. I am sure that the reason that they were used at all has something to do with this argument. I am sure there was some think tank session somewhere ten years ago where a bunch of small government true believers decided it would be a great idea to reinvent the army along ideological lines. They are basically the army minus all of the extras that make the army expensive. They got rid of most of their training expenses, because they mostly hire veterans. They got rid of weapon design and development, because the army and the US government does it for them. They got rid of most of their logistics, by outsourcing and/or piggybacking with the army. Mostly they get rid of all of the really expensive pensions and veterans aid. Of course they also sidestep all of those tedious regulations about when and where and how the US military can be employed.

The most frustrating part of it for me is that most of them have a permaboner for the military. Our way socialist military is strictly government run, and it’s superiority is inarguable.

Actually, more and more of the military itselt is run by private contractors. Not only so-called “security” firms like Xe (nee Blackwater), Custer Battles, etc., but everything from transport and logistical support to food service and janitorial services gets contracted out to military contractors, who get sweetheart “no-bid” contracts, “cost-plus” guarantees to ensure they make a profit no matter how inefficient they are, and protection from scrutiny, safety inspections, financial oversight or meaningful competition. The military is the biggest corporate welfare scheme in history, and the revolving door between top brass and contractor executive positions ensures that it will continue that way for a long time.

The most frustrating part of it for me is that most of them have a permaboner for the military.

Shit! They were supposed to call a doctor after 4 years!

Great minds roll in parallel ruts, Tsam

@ Helmut and Antacid,

Pentagon’s War On Drugs Goes Mercenary.

An obscure Pentagon office designed to curb the flow of illegal drugs has quietly evolved into a one-stop shop for private security contractors around the world, soliciting deals worth over $3 billion. […] The Defense Department’s Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office has packed all these tasks and more inside a mega-contract for security firms. The office, known as CNTPO, is all but unknown, even to professional Pentagon watchers. It interprets its counternarcotics mandate very, very broadly, leaning heavily on its implied counterterrorism portfolio. And it’s responsible for one of the largest chunks of money provided to mercenaries in the entire federal government.

Called it.

It’s the inevitable result of America’s obsession with making more and more wars with less and less consequences. First step was substituting the All Volunteer Force for the draftee/citizen-soldier model… next is outsourcing wars to the private sector altogether. Which I suspect we’re going to see more and more of. Save the military for clean operations like Gulf War I, but in messy and murky situations without a clean exit strategy, just have the mercs do it for you and you won’t have to answer to the public for it.

The most frustrating part of it for me is that most of them have a permaboner for the military. Our way socialist military is strictly government run, and it’s superiority is inarguable.

Worse, the military, because it’s volunteer now, has become it’s own “1%” (as Stephen Colbert so nicely put it last week), totally disconnected from the reality of living in America. Yes, the actual warriors who were wrested from jobs and slapped down in a desert to fight only to come back to no jobs and no economy, those guys are fucked like the rest of us, but regular Army career Joes, those guys are instilled with a sense of superiority that will create an army that WILL overthrow the civilian government at some point.

Sooner than I would have hoped. It already began with the unrest under Bush and the downright insubordination from the general staff under Obama.

Read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine”. Spells out very clearly how virtually all functions of government–including governing–are being contracted out to private companies. The fact that these contractors ending up providing inferior services with less oversight and at a higher cost is irrelevant to the evangelists of the Friedmanite religion.

I’m working on a design for a perpetual motion car, but only the fit need apply for ridership.

And you call it The Flintstone.

Cerberus:

The obsessed stalker thinks that scientific theories are proved by posting internet links in unfavorable areas and winning an internet debate with morons.

I’m suddenly much more informed on how the idiots of the world are able to internally dismiss worldwide consensuses of the world’s scientists to “nuh uh, a guy on my side says it’s just a worldwide hoax involving all the world’s scientists, why won’t you guys stop laughing at me”.

Just thinking you deserve an award for this. Thanks!
.

Blackwater or Xe or whatever it is called these days is the counter argument. I am sure that the reason that they were used at all has something to do with this argument.

Except that they are better paid and get similar benefits.

They’re used for deniability.

Read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine”.

Or Chalmers Johnson’s Nemesis to see that our all volunteer, outsourced, and privatized military is the sign of end times for the American Empire.

I’m dreadfully late to this thread, and it is not my usual style to drag a thread back on topic and if anyone has already posted this, sorry…

Jay Leno might disagree with Surber. Yeah, Edison may not have invented the electric car but he did build batteries foe it.

Except that they are better paid and get similar benefits.

I didn’t think they did get the same benefits. And I thought I heard most of that extra pay got soaked up by the life and health insurance policies that they were required to buy at $30K-$40K a year? Which doesn’t make the bit about deniability wrong.

It already began with the unrest under Bush and the downright insubordination from the general staff under Obama.

Makes me wonder how the RTBA crowd would react to a friggin’ tank rolling down their street..

Makes me wonder how the RTBA crowd would react to a friggin’ tank rolling down their street..

It depends. If it was coming to bash hippies, they would probably greet it with cheers and ticker tape.

Makes me wonder how the RTBA crowd would react to a friggin’ tank rolling down their street..

No big deal.

I’ve never had any mail-related complaints.

Yes, but have you ever had any mail-related trauma? You may be blocking it out of your memory, which is typical of PSPTSD (postal service post traumatic stress disorder) survivors who have experienced PS related trauma and forgotten all about it. Sometimes a long line at the post office serves as a trigger to bring it all back. You might want to take a bunch of packages to the post office nearest you about a week before Christmas or X-mas, as the enemies of Christ are want to say, and see if it all comes back to you. Prepare for the worst.

Well, yeah, I’ve had that. But I figured there’s nothing to be done about. Also that kind of puts PAID on that whole “nobody uses the Postal Service anymore” BS.

OOH. The Air Force was involved in a raid in Las Vegas? I’m guessing some Air Force personnel (possibly MPs) stole a lot of weapons and stuff. I know if I had stolen a bunch of shit like weapons while I was enlisted that I could reasonably expect armed military personnel to show up at my hideaway.

My commander showed up to court after I got arrested for failure to appear in court. I was doing rotating shift-work and thought I was early. I went to ask a clerk where Judge Taylor was, and was told that I was supposed to be in court yesterday. Then they threw me in the slammer. My commander and crew were very relieved that I was just there for a traffic violation and was mixed up about what day it was and not being purposefully rebellious.

Great minds roll in parallel ruts, Tsam

NINE NINE NINE!!!

I just love that commercial where the dude says “There’s nothing worse than standing in line at the post office.” Yeah I guess even my ESRD falls short of that nightmare what with the standing and waiting and such.

I didn’t think they did get the same benefits.

Similar, not same. They don’t get TriCare and they are independent contractors so they don’t have withholdings and have to pay income taxes quarterly. That said, since they are almost always former SpecOps soldiers, they have full veterans benefits anyway.

Plus, they only have to work 275 days a year.

You may be blocking it out of your memory, which is typical of PSPTSD (postal service post traumatic stress disorder) survivors who have experienced PS related trauma and forgotten all about it.

*whew*

It’s a good thing the Sony Play Station doesn’t have a Postal Service game…

OOH. The Air Force was involved in a raid in Las Vegas? I’m guessing some Air Force personnel (possibly MPs) stole a lot of weapons and stuff.

I posted that link not so much for the Air Force participation but mostly to point out that SWAT teams around the country are already using tanks. As far as the Air Force, they issued a statement that there were items stolen from the Air Force involved but they did not include any weapons or explosives.

Worse, the military, because it’s volunteer now, has become it’s own “1%” (as Stephen Colbert so nicely put it last week), totally disconnected from the reality of living in America. Yes, the actual warriors who were wrested from jobs and slapped down in a desert to fight only to come back to no jobs and no economy, those guys are fucked like the rest of us, but regular Army career Joes, those guys are instilled with a sense of superiority that will create an army that WILL overthrow the civilian government at some point.

I’m not sure if this is the distinction you were trying to make, but I get the sense that the amount of smugness about their status as the Elite One Percenter Sword And Shield Of The American People is inversely proportional to how close they actually are to a combat zone.

My ex-Marine, enlisted, Korean War veteran uncle – pretty close to me in his outlook on life, if anything, even more liberal/radical.

My other uncle, the one I bitch about here from time to time – went in an officer, son of a West Pointer, did his time but never saw combat or lived anywhere harsher than West Germany – totally different mindset. And much closer to the one you’re describing.

My college acquaintance who’s spent the last couple years bouncing back between Pentagon civilian contractors, who ultimately wants to make a career working inside the Pentagon but who refuses to serve in uniform and adamantly refuses to go anywhere near a combat zone, though – she outdoes him in all respects. The contempt for political leadership (Obama’s weak!), for the rest of the government (lazy bureaucrats getting fat on her tax dollars!) and to quite an extent for the rest of the population (they’re only at peace because I’m at war!) is so thick it reads like a self-parody.

To be fair, I don’t see any of these guys actually overthrowing the civilian government. But I do see the “military-industrial complex” becoming harder and harder to control, though, especially if they start outsourcing more and more important work to the mercs.

“There’s nothing worse than standing in line at the post office.”

If YOUR life truly is that smooth, you may want to consider checking your wrist or throat for a pulse.

The fact that these contractors ending up providing inferior services with less oversight and at a higher cost is irrelevant to the evangelists of the Friedmanite religion. – Aunt Acid

Irrelevant? I’d say it’s a feature to them, actually. The “less oversight” part pretty much openly so. You’d need to give them more than a few drinks, though, before they’d cop to higher costs being a feature (or even admit that the costs are higher).

I get the sense that the amount of smugness about their status as the Elite One Percenter Sword And Shield Of The American People is inversely proportional to how close they actually are to a combat zone.

Memory of a dead millennium … (*breathes on lens*) … (*strums harp*).

When I was at the Vancouver Peace Camp protesting the Gulf War in 1991 (OCCUPY TEH ART GALLERY, LULZ) I had quite the illuminating dose of parlay with a US Marine, who thought our opposition was correct. Attitude & pride aplenty on that kid, but yeah, not a molecule of smugness to be seen.

Can’t say I was all that enthused about the Gulf War in 1991, but my options were pretty much to go when they told me or go to Leavenworth and make little rocks out of big rocks.

Oh, don’t assume that so many vets are right wing-nuts. Most of that is bullshit assumptions on the part of right-wing arm-chair warriors. When I was in the military, we LOVED Jimmy Carter because he raised our pay. People in the military are very aware of who is scratching their back in meaningful ways and who is blowing hot air up their asses and trying to cut their benefits.

I talk to lots of veterans at the v.a. hospital (I ride a shuttle up there and have hours with which to visit) and the views are pretty far to the left still. Most of the vets are still Viet Nam vets and there are still some WW II vets who are quite civic-minded lefties, for the most part. As soon as they’ve been screwed enough, the veterans of Gulf II and the War in Afghanistan are likely to start leaning left as well, and we’ve already seen Marine and Air Force veterans standing up at the OWS rallies and speaking out. So, instead of per-judging them, be ready to be supportive of veterans and to welcome them into the fold. The veterans of war and especially the veterans who did multiple tours in Iraq and/or Afghanistan because of stop-loss need more than just vocal support—they don’t need bumper stickers, at all—they need advocacy.

If you have a few dollars to spare, you might consider donating a few of them to the DAV (disabled veterans of america). The DAV does many things including lobbying on behalf of veterans and providing those free shuttle rides to the main hospitals in all fifty states. Veterans volunteer to drive the shuttles. DAV ladies make hats and blankets to give to hospitalized vets. I give twenty to sixty dollars to the DAV every time I schedule a ride to Portland. You can bet the money won’t be spent on anything decadent or frivolous.

Anyone remember the three wheel all-terrain cycles?

i remember flipping one over one time…

“There’s nothing worse than standing in line at the post office.”

If YOUR life truly is that smooth, you may want to consider checking your wrist or throat for a pulse.

To be fair, he may have been standing in the cock-punching line. Hint: get in the line WITHOUT the cock-punching!

Wiley – I’d venture that the officer ranks tend more towards the conservative than the enlisted ranks do.

It go so bad during one election season that I asked my commander if I’d mistakenly joined the Soviet Air Force and asked when the Political Officer was going to stop by to tell me how to vote.

It’s a good thing the Sony Play Station doesn’t have a Postal Service game,,,

d00d, Postal 3 on teh PS3 due out 2012! And I totes understand PS33rdUSPSPTSD. Game’s been in development for almost as long as Duke Nukem Forever. WHERE’S MAH BADGERSAW!

Funny, Surber’s blog allows dissenting opinions.

oh, ha, ha…i remember posting a dissenting opinion there once…the way they jumped on my ass maakes our treatmeant of pennis look like a tea party…pardon the expression…

and actually, most blogs do allow dissenting opinions…duh…

Oh hello: on a partly related note, anybody heard this? Senators Demand Military Lock American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define As Being Right Outside Your Window.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.

There’s more, but that’s the ACLU’s contention in a nutshell. Will see if I can find anything else on this subject because the premise is, indeed, freaking AWFUL.

Suber’s idea of a “dissenting opinion” is probably “I only hate Obama with the heat of 900 white-hot suns instead of 1000”.

To be fair, he may have been standing in the cock-punching line. Hint: get in the line WITHOUT the cock-punching!

But the cock punching line is always the shortest, and it moves faster too!

Wiley – I’d venture that the officer ranks tend more towards the conservative than the enlisted ranks do.

According to my dad, my grandfather (U.S. Army officer, Green Berets) refused to pick a political affiliation as long as he was in the service, because he believed it was the military’s duty to remain apolitical. From what I understand, that was the norm at the time (1950s/60s). I guess a lot’s changed since then.

It go so bad during one election season that I asked my commander if I’d mistakenly joined the Soviet Air Force and asked when the Political Officer was going to stop by to tell me how to vote.

LAWL. I’ll bet that made his day.

Major Kong, this is kinda off topic, but I have heard that in the Air Force and at the Air Force Academy specifically there has been a huge push to recruit people as born again evangelical type Christians. Did you see any of that?

A lot of it goes on at the pentagon. I mean I don’t know if there’s a lot out and out recruitment but there are more than few gawd-y types there.

I think that’s mostly going on at the Air Force Academy. Makes sense when you consider that Colorado Springs = Focus on the Family

The culture was definitely changing from the hard-drinking Vietnam era pilots who taught me to fly in the 1980s.

It go so bad during one election season that I asked my commander if I’d mistakenly joined the Soviet Air Force and asked when the Political Officer was going to stop by to tell me how to vote.

I know The Hunt for Red October was nothing but a right-wing wankfest (well, the book more so than the movie), but it was worth it to see Sean Connery break the Zampolit’s neck!

Get this – part of his great idea is that postal counters can be housed at Wal-Mart. Because we all know, that’s much more convenient and pleasant than waiting in line at the post office.

i would love, love, love to have to drive for over an hour to use postal services…great plan, george!

AROO AROO AROO!

Freeper/RedFaceTrikeForce/Dittohead Action Alert™!!!
SLEEPER-AGENT LESBIAN STONER COMMIE MUSLIM DETECTED.

( h/t The Rude Pundit)

A lot of it goes on at the pentagon. I mean I don’t know if there’s a lot out and out recruitment but there are more than few gawd-y types there.

When I briefly looked at the service academies during college applications, I remember it also had a huge sexual harassment problem.

Did a couple of semesters in Air Force ROTC though and am thankful to say that it was nothing of the kind.

I’m not sure if this is the distinction you were trying to make, but I get the sense that the amount of smugness about their status as the Elite One Percenter Sword And Shield Of The American People is inversely proportional to how close they actually are to a combat zone.

That is precisely the distinction, with some exceptions, of course.

To be fair, I don’t see any of these guys actually overthrowing the civilian government.

Methinks that as long as a profit can be generated, than overthrow talk is just that. They’re not so dumb to ignore that if you dispose your way of government, you risk altering the economic structure with it.

But if cash is no longer king, and ruling over the masses like Sauron is the way to go?

Can’t say I was all that enthused about the Gulf War in 1991, but my options were pretty much to go when they told me or go to Leavenworth and make little rocks out of big rocks.

You mock my hobby?

#heblowsalot update

18 year old Twilight fan: 1
Governor of Kansas: zero.

“There’s nothing worse than standing in line at the post office.”

? ? ð ? ? ?

Also too, teh reason for teh hour-long lecture and demand for written apology? Because certain actions were seen as an “embarassment” to Shawnee Mission East High School. IOW, embarassing the school is some sort of actionable wrong. It seems to me that Principal Karl Krawitz has got some letter writing to do.

Because certain actions were seen as an “embarassment” to Shawnee Mission East High School. IOW, embarassing the school is some sort of actionable wrong

Meanwhile, their assistant football coach is showering with students, I bet.

That actually looks like a fun show Thread Bear.

I’d venture that the officer ranks tend more towards the conservative than the enlisted ranks do.

No doubt. I forgot to mention that. You don’t see a lot of officers at the v.a. either. In active duty, I noticed the ineffective officers were the ones that assumed that because they had more formal education than the enlisted folks, that they were smarter. In the Air Force, we held open elections for The Officer Most Likely to Be Shot By His Own Men In a Time of War and let the bastards know when they won. We didn’t eat much shit in the Air Force. I have laughed in the face of an Army General, heckled my Commander in the field, sat a Lieutenant down and told him “NO. You’re not just handing that classified book you took without telling me back to me as if that were proper procedure. We’re going to sit down together and count the pages together.”, and I called in once and told them that if they wanted me to come to work they’d have to send the MPs to get me. They didn’t bother.

Some officers were really cool— I had loads of fun with a bunch of officers at a graduation party for NATO training pilots. But a lot of officer were dicks who weren’t nearly as bright as they thought they were.

OOOH OOOH OOOH OOOH! Is that “Going Postal” movie coming out this Christmas? I want to see the new Muppet movie on x-mas eve and “Going Postal” on x-mas day. Either one would beat “Avatar” with a stick— I’m sure of it. Note to self: have Clouds look it up and book tickets. I’ll buy.

Yeah, I’m actually not comfortable with that assumption. I think it’s more of a 50/50 deal.

Remember the officers tend to be better-educated.

Actually I have to clarify. Credit where due – Brownback’s apology is real and not a “I’m sorry you were offended” type of bullshit. He admitted wrong-doing on the part of his staff. Good on him. make teh score 1 for Emma and 0.5 for the Governor.

To be fair, he may have been standing in the cock-punching line. Hint: get in the line WITHOUT the cock-punching!

Package Drop-Off line: safer than it sounds.

I worked with some really sharp officers and some that were lucky breathing is an involuntary function.

A lot of pilots seemed to be jock/frat-boy types. I knew quite a few that never really grew out of the frat-boy phase.

A 20-year-old frat boy is bad enough. A 40-year-old frat boy is pretty pathetic.

Yeah, that is true of pilots.

“There’s nothing worse than standing in line at the post office.”

yes, there is…you could be standing in line at my post office where you have to listen to and witness the ineptness of one of their more recent hires…his wife is the postmistress of an area post office and i believe he had some veteran’s points which is the only way i can explain to myself how he got the job…he is a moron who does not ever fucking shut up…and it never fails that he has to wait on me and i get the ‘uh…i don’t know how to do that/know where that is/what to do and i’m the only one here…’ rigamarole…i will now only enter our post office if my main man brad is on duty…i will go postal if dipshit dave ever waits on me again…

also, too…my dad was a rural carrier for about fifteen years…it was a job that he desperately needed and worked very hard to get…started out as a sub out in the hill country of south dakota…continued as a sub until the local rural guy keeled over. the pay and the benefits were a godsend for him since he had pissed away numerous businesses due to rampant alcoholism and bad economy…long story short, he was working odd jobs trying to feed the remaining four kids who were still at home when he finally got full-time.

he was a democrat his entire life, until he became a rural carrier…oh, we had some good arguments!

anyhoo, he ended up with cancer and between his postal insurance and being treated at the v.a., medical bills didn’t eat up his entire savings…in the end he was able to save and invest enough for my mother to not have to work when he died…which she has now pissed away due to being self-involved and an incurable impulse shopper…

i will always have a soft spot for the postal service and their carriers (city or rural) who do yeoman’s work…i am whizzed however that my mother still gets his rural carrier’s insurance, not to mention his social security partly because she shouldn’t be getting the benefits he was working for since he’s no longer their, but mostly because she’s convinced obama is hitlersocialismcommie but don’t touch her postal insurance and/or social security!!!

also, the man made out like a bandit on holidays…especially christmas…we loved the folks who gave him booze for christmas…since he didn’t drink anymore, yay! partytime for us…also, all the old ladies that baked? o.m.g…

The reason “Going Postal” has become a meme is that the Postal Service is run like a wingnut’s wet dream—the pressure for “productivity” and the constant surveillance to make sure you achieve it is enough to drive a lot of people apeshit.

Of course, they do still get really good pay and benefits—that’s why they must be privatized. Keep the inhuman working conditions, but get rid of all those commie perks!

I worked with some really sharp officers and some that were lucky breathing is an involuntary function.

A 20-year-old frat boy is bad enough. A 40-year-old frat boy is pretty pathetic.

I can’t share your and Wiley’s experiences, but I’ve done one semester in ROTC at Georgetown (Army) and another two at Howard (Air Force) where I got to see some of these future officers being incubated.

They were polar opposites, and it was like living in two separate military cliches. The Georgetown cadets were the dumb-but-muscular, trigger-happy frat boys and jocks who couldn’t wait to get out there and kick some dune coon ass for AMURIKA FUCK YEAH (even if they weren’t going into a combat branch or even trying to). The Howard cadets were the competent people with a professional attitude, much less testosterone, who were there to learn a job and mostly looked like they’d be very good at it.

I was never sure if it was an Army vs Air Force thing, or Georgetown vs Howard, or white-dominated vs black-dominated culture, or socioeconomic backgrounds, or just those crops of cadets in particular. But the difference was incredibly striking. Good reminder that you get all kinds of different people in any profession.

I hope someone on Gov. Brownbeck’s staff is getting a severe talking to. Making a big deal about a high school kid’s lack of respect for a politician is lose/lose. If you get the kid to shut up and write an apology, you’re a big mean bully. If you don’t win, it looks like the Governor got schooled by a punk. How do you end up working for a Gov. with political instincts that bad?

waaaay ot:

omg…i want this dog

mostly because i think she would make a nice hunting dog for hubbkf and partly because she totes looks like this dog

Mmm-mmm. Fresh thread is now baking in a new post.

partly because she totes looks like this dog

I totes KNEW where you were headed with that, ’cause that was the first thang that entered my mind!
.

4 the fuck 00?!

I totes KNEW where you were headed with that, ’cause that was the first thang that entered my mind

right?!?

4 the fuck 01!!!

Going Postal was made for British tv and was not released in theaters. It is available on DVD.

In re Air Force religious extremism: http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/10/13/111125/16

That site, btw, is a trove of info tracking religious extremism in the US.

Making a big deal about a high school kid’s lack of respect for a politician is lose/lose.

And that (lose/lose) is STUPIDITY in a nutshell.

The evangelicals in the Air Force Academy started sometime after I got out. I served in nuclear force in Denver in ’79 through ’81 and reported to NORAD in Colorado Springs. The thought of having nuclear forces run by armageddon jack-offs is more than I can bear. I’m glad to see it being challenged in the Academy and would LOVE to see being an evangelical who believes that a nuclear war will herald the Second Coming of Christ declared as a complete disqualification to serve in nuclear forces. It is a conflict of interest. Our nuclear arsenal does not exist to notify God that the end is nigh so he can send his son back here (to be arrested, tortured, then sentenced to death by the most painful and humiliating method available).

I know there’s a new thread…but I can’t let this one go without:

George Lucas does to movies what Lucas Electric did to cars.

Since there is a new thread, I’ll leave this bit about the new Subaru I mentioned a few threads back here instead of polluting that one. Toyota confirmed some of the specs: (same car, built by Subaru, but will be sold as both a Subaru and a slightly-differently-skinned Scion here):

2.0 litre
197 hp
151 lb/ft torque
53/47 f/r weight ratio
RWD with limited slip diff

Final weight isn’t released, Subaru had previously said 2500lbs, Toyota says “around 2600lbs” — they could be somewhere in the middle, or each be different based on standard equipment.

I really hope all this is right, and it comes in at less than $30k…