Would you be interested in a brand-new, fully warranted, five-door crossover SUV built by a major, name-brand automaker that gave you 50-plus MPG with a gas (not diesel or hybrid) engine, that has a top speed around 125 mph, is capable of getting to 60 in 12 seconds (about the same as a Prius hybrid) that stickered for less than $5,000?
Yeah, me too.
It’s called the Renault Kwid (see here) and it looks kinda-sorta like a Nissan Juke or Kia Soul and is about the same size as those units.
It isn’t a latter-day Yugo either.
The Kwid comes standard with AC, power windows and a digital dashboard, a seven-inch LCD display in the center stack and most of the apps you’d find in a new Soul or Juke.
It also has a modern, fuel-injected engine and a five-speed overdrive transmission.
The difference is the Kwid costs about a third what a new Juke or Soul would cost you to buy: Its base price is just $4,700 (not counting taxes and tags).
Too bad we can’t buy one.
Not because such a vehicle isn’t available.
It’s just not available here.
Neither are other such cars, like the Suzuki Alto 800 (53 MPG and a base price of $3,870; $5,755 loaded) and the Hyundai Eon (50 MPG and $4,856 to start; $6,636 loaded).
Because Uncle.
His “safety” mandates make these vehicles illegal for sale in the United (at gunpoint) States. Even though the Kwid has an air bag – the main fetish item of America’s gone-off-the-deep-end Safety Cult.
It just doesn’t have enough of them.
Only one (for the driver) rather than the six or more that are now necessary in the U.S. to comply with Uncle’s nail-biting, neurotic – and very expensive – “safety” mandates. It also couldn’t pass current federal bumper impact or roof crush standards – notwithstanding that the Kwid is much more crashworthy than, say, a classic ’70s-era VW Beetle or (probably) even a Chrysler K-car from the 1980s.
“Safety” is relative.
The federal government says a SmartCar is “safe” because it meets the requirements for its class (subcompact). But see what happens when it gets T-boned by a ’70 Eldorado without a single air bag that would never pass the “safety” tests required of the not-so-smart car.
The Kwid is probably “safer” – as far as its ability to protect occupants in the event of a crash – than the federally approved SmartCar.
It doesn’t matter.
Nor the fact that the Kwid’s emissions are also a fraction of those produced by cars that were legal for sale in this country as recently as the 1990s. Unfortunately – for us – the Kwid doesn’t meet current federal standards, which ceased being reasonable back in the ’90s. Current federal standards pursue the remaining 1-3 percent of a new car’s exhaust emissions not yet “controlled” with an Inspector Javert-like mania – irrespective of cost and even when achieving compliance results in more emissions, grand scheme of things.
It doesn’t matter that the Kwid’s less-than-one-liter three cylinder engine produces a smaller total volume of exhaust – because it burns less fuel – which means that on the whole, its emissions output is lower than U.S.-legal cars with much larger (1.8-2.5 liter four cylinder, typically) engines that burn much more fuel overall and so produce a greater volume of exhaust gas.
And, therefore, more emissions.
Uncle knows all this, probably.
It does not – as the saying goes – take a rocket scientist. If idle my ’76 Trans-Am for five minutes, then turn it off – it produces fewer emissions than a Prius that’s run for an hour.
The problem isn’t the Kwid’s emissions – or its “safety.”
It is both reasonably clean and safe – as well being extremely fuel efficient (surpassing by at least 10 MPG the highest numbers achieved by any non-hybrid car currently available for sale in the United States).
It is that the Kwid is inexpensive – and that is a dagger aimed at the heart of the debt-financed Jenga castle that is the U.S. economy.
If this car were available here, people would once again be able to stroke a check for a brand-new car. No monthly payment for the next six years. They’d have money in the bank – rather be in hock to bankers.
The Kwid costs less than the options packages on many new cars. The Hyundai Eon costs even less.
The competitive pressure that the availability of such cars would put on the established automakers would be tremendous. They’d have to lower the cost of their cars, too, to remain in the game. People would realize that a decent new car, with more luxury amenities than most luxury cars had 20 years ago, need not cost $20,000 or even $15,000 – or even $10,000.
And they’d know exactly how much “safety” and “emissions” mandates emanating out of the various orifices in Washington have been costing them.
Most people are blind to it because these costs are very astutely folded into the cost of the car. There is no line-item for air bags, or the now-mandatory back-up cameras. Check Food Lion Ad and Fred Meyer Ad. Let alone the enormous costs imposed on consumers via the government’s various impact/rollover resistance standards.
When air bags were first offered as optional equipment back in the ’70s, the cost of the air bags was right there on the window sticker. Most people decided – reasonably – that the expense (at the time, back in the early ’70s, about $800 for just the one, driver’s side air bag) was simply not worth it.
Then government mandated the bags and this choice was taken away.
And so was the price tag.
Now – today – almost every new car has at least six air bags. Not only do the cars cost thousands more as a result, they also cost thousands more to fix (and insure).
They are heavier – and much less fuel efficient – than they might otherwise be. The Kwid and Eon and the Suzuki Alto are four-wheeled/real-deal proof of this. They show us what we could have – were it not for the effrontery (and cupidity) of the government (and the car cartels) who now work together to shear us like sheep, while telling us it’s all for our own good, to keep us “safe.”
If you value independent media, please support independent media. We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: EPautos stickers are free to those who sign up for a $5 or more monthly recurring donation to support EPautos, or for a one-time donation of $10 or more. (Please be sure to tell us you want a sticker – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
The Deliverator’s car we’re not allowed to buy, and how to avoid having a bad day because of it…
The Deliverator’s car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator’s car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters.
When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens. You want to talk contact patches? Your car’s tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator’s car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady’s thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta.
The Vested Oligarch Ancients need such confident, attitude-laden bits of entrepreneurial writing with phrases such as “starts like a bad day.”
Maybe you know the experience, the feeling that just waking up in the morning, things are already stacked against you, that the day has chosen to be a mess without ever asking you what you thought of the idea.
If so, you may have begun immediately reacting to that sense that things were going wrong, giving in to irritability or anxiety or depression out of a sense that a bad day was unavoidable.
I’ve certainly had that experience, but in the past year or so, with the topics from this site so often on my mind, I’ve realized the opportunity that those first moments of the day offer me.
If I can use one of the many tools at my disposal to turn the day around right from the beginning, then the world seems to transform to a much kinder place.
I often wake up feeling harassed by the swarms of idiocratic gnats sometimes, but by the time I eat breakfast I usually feel serene or enthusiastic or cheerful.
Here are some of the ways I’ve been able to take control of my mood first thing in the morning.
Meditation. If we’re uselessly dwelling on bad experiences or concerns we can’t affect, some types of meditation can help us relax, let go, and find some peace of mind.
Emotional antidotes. Negative emotions can often be washed away by deliberately conjuring up memories or ideas that make us feel love, hope, joy, etc.
Mindfulness. Moods like anxiety and irritability often feel like they’re coming from nowhere when they’re really reactions to some specific situation or worry. Reflecting on what our biggest worries of the moment can often bring those worries right into focus. Simply acknowledging those concerns can be a relief: the bad mood no longer seems to be coming from nowhere, and in being understood has done its job of bringing our attention to the problem. If more effort is needed to make headway against the reaction to a particular thought, idea repair can be very helpful.
Journaling. Writing out thoughts, feelings and hopes for the day can help improve awareness of what’s going on with us while providing direction and helping make emotional reactions more understandable and manageable.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson:
Science Fiction Inventions, Technology and Ideas
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorSpecAlphaList.asp?BkNum=21
Deliverator Car – Must have vehicle for bleeding edge emerging technological pizza delivery:
You want your pizza on time? Better give the Deliverator the right car.
As the pizza delivery guy scrunches to a stop, the electromechanical hatch on the flank of his car is already opening to reveal his empty pizza slots, the door clicking and folding back in on itself like the wing of a beetle. The slots are waiting. Waiting for hot pizza.
Smart Pizza Box
A container with microprocessor-based data processing capabilities built-in to the box.
Every aspect of the CosaNostra Pizza business has been optimized. Gone are the cheap cardboard boxes – how can you tell anything about the history of your order? If you’ve been guaranteed a pizza in thirty minutes, a guarantee that states that the company CEO (Uncle Enzo) will personally fly to your crummy little house to apologize, you need a box you can trust, a box with a smart microprocessor running a computer read-out and a time-stamp.
The pizza box is a plastic carapace now, corrugated for stiffness, a little LED readout glowing on the side, telling the Deliverator how many trade imbalance-producing minutes have ticked away since the fateful phone call.
There are chips and stuff in there. The pizzas rest, a short stack of them, in slots behind the Deliverator’s head. Each pizza glides into a slot like a circuit board into a computer, clicks into place as the smart box interfaces with the onboard system of the Deliverator’s car. The address of the caller has already been inferred from his phone number and poured into the smart box’s builtin RAM.
From there it is communicated to the car, which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display, a glowing colored map traced out against the windshield so that the Deliverator does not even have to glance down.
Isn’t America a kind of a failed company town. Filled with branded and fully enumerated debt slave stock.
Not even tolerant enough for Apartheid, which would be fine with me.
Let me do my thing, I’ll stomach the inequities and affronts to my “standing” in a heartbeat.
BrentP is all too correct here, I fear.
There’s never really been any home the last 500 years where buffalo freely roamed and deer and anteloped played once Queen Victoria’s Virginal Colonial Company Towns Chamber of Commerce landed in the 1600’s.
Such colonies commence once their straw bosses whip and compel enough wage earners to grow a single seasonal crop somewhere, and survive to harvest it and ship it abroad for heimat profit purposes.
Maybe I’m crazy, but if some skater punk hiphop tarzan dopeheads want to live amid the creosote alluvial fans and foothill playas around me, what concern of it is it to me.
All due noises and annoyances and threats of crime and mayhem and all negative impacts I hearby sign off on most happily.
I’ll privately contract with neighbors to assure my own gatekeepered community, believe you me. Or happily fail and die trying.
I don’t care to compare with anyone anywhere, except when and where I do want to transact and inhabit sundry individual company towns or freemen on the lands Snowcrashed Sumerian tongued villages.
http://www.viewzone.com/sumerian2.jpg
Just because one guy invents a wheel. Every single spear chucker and mud baker has to pack it in and sit on a mass produced polymer upholstered couch for the rest of his days.
Where the sense, equity, and laisez faire aggressionless in that?
(Rhetorical question for the collective we, most of whom I address in absentia of course.)
Just loaded sixteen tons to Morenci Mine :: Freeport-McMoRan and what did I get, another day older and deeper in debt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANjSGyDb1qA
Wait a tick, come to think about it, the straw boss did say: “Well, a-bless my soul !!”
http://www.fcx.com/operations/USA_Arizona_Morenci.htm
Call your congressman, or write him and send him a copy of the photo of this Renault. Tell him you want to be able to buy one, like next week, or his cushy job in DC will be terminated in November of next year. I’d even be happy with the right hand steering to get it that cheap.
Trigger warning. Tongue in cerebellum obtuse response…
Please sirs. Can we has deese cars? We’s be real law abidings, massas!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uydiHH9goGo
Slavery in Jamaica, Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=injqATWMRkM
Patrick, you’re actually onto something. If enough of his constituents(sic)wrote and said that very thing, wrote a letter, wrote an e and called, he’d have to consider it and consider it in depth. Yep, those $5K contributions(amazing how cheap they can be bought) from mega-corporations to get billions in contracts surely get his attention cause he gets that gratis, no record for the most part, no tax. But to think about enough people voting against him, enough to stop him in his tracks, now that does get their attention.
For reasons I have yet to learn and may never know but keep looking for some scandal to surface, my rep to the US congress has decided he doesn’t want to play any longer. We suspect he’ll be a Monsanto spokesman or the equivalent and make some real money but only a year and a half or so will tell.
My point is, I have written that SOB some scathing letters, called him and threatened to do everything I could to make sure he didn’t get the vote. Maybe enough others have done the same. His sins are public record.
Now I’m not stupid enough to think I won’t get something(again) worse than he gets but if, just if, enough people have written or contacted him to point out in detail how he’s done them wrong and how they intend to keep him from doing so any longer, he may just have seen the light. If there’s one thing politicians understand it’s not getting re-elected. Their worst nightmare. I’m guessing though he’s worked a sweeter deal……probably much sweeter. Great system eh?
Good one. Maybe if enough people call a new law could be enacted.
Hey Clover, why don’t you learn to read before you spout off. Eric never said he wanted one of these. He said he should be able to buy one if he did want to. And that there are a lot of people out there that would buy one, or at least seriously consider it, if it were an option. Which it’s not, because you and your ilk are ‘terrists’ who hate us for our freedoms.
Eric–this article our highlight today at Libertarian LIO Friends: https://www.facebook.com/LibertarianInternationalOrganization
Thanks, MG!
I spent a few decades as a car salesman. I was good at it, and I ranked in the Top 20 of all American salespeople for one import brand. I loved what I did. But I groaned every day at the choices that we Americans had and have; and the huge debt we consumers often burdened ourselves with. But at least for a couple of years I did get to sell brand new Suzuki Swifts – and that was fun. Looking back on that time, I wish I had bought a spare one for myself – but then I already owned one at the time and din’t need another.
Hi Kitty,
Ditto that!
My sense of things is that the people of this country would line up around the block for a car like the Kwid. A car they could afford, that had all the necessary amenities (AC, especially) and capabilities (enough power to keep up with traffic and maintain say 70-75 on the highway) even if it didn’t have half a dozen air bags and didn’t meet the current (insane) federal crashworthiness rigmarole.
Taos Pueblo, New Mexico ( tə̂otho – “in the village” in Tanoan language of the Northern Tiwas) is the oldest home in these forcibly united States.
http://www.archives.gov/research/ansel-adams/images/aaq02.jpg
It is not necessarily progress, when things keep getting easier and more abundant, if you are forced to exchange things and accede to conditions against your will.
Just ask the Northern Tiwas, who were free over 1,000 years ago, and now have police records, social security files, credit reports, and heap many felonies.
Gone are the days where a Taos Pueblan could leave one village named Drunken Sheep Dying, and build a canoe on down by the river and make his long distance getaway to Juarez Village, where now he goes by the name of Two Wolves Dining.
Sail Fawns are especially insipid, in that they are made exclusively by adversarial foreign workers. Workers whose lands are militarily occupied by the same tribe who claims our every last atom, as its sovereign domain and fee simple property.
A wrench is a tool, sure. Bury it in the backyard deep enough, it is probably safe.
Sail Fawns are vastly more complicated tools. It is not yet mutually agreed upon, just how risky and compromising such devices are.
Maybe you do like Cuba for instance, where you and your neighbors build your own towers and infrastructure, and make a local network, where then you at least know what it is you are giving up and at what cost. Where you at least understand, from hands on experience, what it takes to create and maintain them in order to use them to communicate, and get the benefit and access, which surely are immense.
Slaves are unable to make such important calculations. They do not understand or have access to the capital that determines their destinies.
They lack such things as privacy, self-determination, and property and tool control. Slaves puts the sail fawns against their ear’s skin, or else they gets the hose again.
http://www.screenplay.com/downloads/scripts/Silence%20of%20the%20Lambs.pdf
Speak up, do not join in wishful muddled silence with the sheeple winter lambs. Do not dally and bleat about which shepherd pipes you the finest tunes. Or where you’ve have supped on the choicest fields. Know your master’s ways. Where is there a breach and means of quiet exodus in the pastor’s fences?
Tell me, what is the Sail Fawn, Clarice? First Principles. What is it’s nature? Remember your Marcus Aurelius. Of this particular thing of which you speak, what does it do. What is it of itself?
http://www.bartleby.com/2/3/8.html
American Progress is no real natural human progress.
It is better referred to as a harsh spartan confining slaughterhouse defining: America is only – Slavery With Benefits.
September 03, 2015
“Missing” Stevensville man found safe in Idaho
Billy David Fox
http://missoulian.com/billy-david-fox/image_802a14e1-a9e2-52bf-a0af-4948752c0519.html
HAMILTON – A Stevensville man missing since July 23 has turned up in Idaho.
Law enforcement officials located Billy David Fox, 43, in southern Idaho.
The Ravalli County Communications Center was notified Wednesday morning that Fox had been located and was in good health.
Fox was last seen in the front of the St. Mary’s Motel at the Stevensville Wye on the night of July 21. Fox was the manager of the motel. He was riding a mountain bike at the time.
Family and friends put together a search of the area shortly after his disappearance, but found no sign of him.
Fox’s friend, Yvette Phillips, helped pull that effort together.
“This was a surprise to hear that he is in Idaho,” Phillips said. “It’s beyond good news. It doesn’t even matter what was going on. It’s a super day in Stevensville.”
Perry Backus, Ravalli Republic.
– – – –
Earlier News Story About “Missing” Man, with daughter’s comments
– – – –
July 30, 2015
STEVENSVILLE – The friends and family of a missing Stevensville man are planning a search Saturday around the place where he was last seen.
Billy David Fox, 41, disappeared July 21 after having drinks with several tenants of the St. Mary’s Motel at the Stevensville Wye.
At the time, he was riding a gray/black mountain bike.
Yvette Phillips of Stevensville is helping to organize the search, beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday at the motel.
“He was on his bicycle that night,” Phillips said. “We think he might be somewhere close to the motel. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Initially, Phillips said there was some speculation that Fox may have been with a man who died after his vehicle missed a curve on Ambrose Creek Road on the same night he went missing.
“Many of us spent many, many hours up there looking,” she said. “But there’s no evidence that’s where he was. Considering the time of night that he was seen at the motel and that he was on his bike, it doesn’t fit.”
Phillips said Fox is well-known in the community.
“He’s not rich or famous, but everyone knew of Bill,” she said. “He’s a good guy who mixed with every personality. You never picked your money up off the coffee table when he came by.”
“He drank, but he was never in a bar fight. He never argued,” Phillips said. “He’s just an all-around decent person.”
Fox is a white male, 5 feet 6 inches tall and 130 pounds. He has brown hair and hazel eyes. He has a large tattoo on his back that says “My Cemetery Gates” with a skull, another tattoo saying “CFH” on the back of his head and a toe tag on his left or right foot with his name, date of birth and Social Security number. He was last seen wearing light-colored swim trunks and a white-gray T-shirt with Dopey the dwarf on the front.
–
The friends and family of a missing Stevensville man are planning a search Saturday around the place where he was last seen.
Stevensville man missing since July 21
The Ravalli County Sheriff’s Office is seeking information on a missing 41-year-old Stevensville man.
–
“I think we’ll get in teams and walk, ride or horseback around the area,” Phillips said. “I think we’ll go from 8 to noon, but there’s nothing set in stone.”
Phillips doesn’t think Fox just up and left.
“Billy isn’t just someone who would fall off the face of the Earth,” she said. “That’s not the kind of person he is.”
2) Comments
RachelLeeFox
RachelLee – July 31, 2015 12:10 am
Please help find my dad
RachelLeeFox
RachelLee – July 30, 2015 11:14 pm
This is my dad. Please help find him any one who knows anything CALL
Sail phones are gifts from our Eastasian Zeus’s who be, which, whether you have one or not, are a real gamechanger.
The Pacific Rimjobbers design and produce the components of our village. We’re just the Ndugu’s who’re allowed to live and toil for them in their company towns.
Any fishwife wielding such tech is able to network with fellow landlubbers to outsmart and outmaneuver you and there’s little to be done about it.
Unless maybe you’re proficient in thumb-reading, and can figure out what she’s saying about you as she types it. Even then, who knows what the other harpies are saying.
If you’re able to declare Sail Fawns Haram in your household, and have it stand. Allahu Akbar to you and yours.
Not me. My take on the matter is, if you want to get inside your Pandora’s box, you’ve got to tolerate all the techno-pestilent baggage she carries around with her everywhere she goes.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/22/50/02/2250023bca29f254be588142311029d8.gif
– – –
The Creation of Man by Prometheus
Prometheus and Epimetheus were spared imprisonment in Tatarus because they had not fought with their fellow Titans during the war with the Olympians. They were given the task of creating man. Prometheus shaped man out of mud, and Athena breathed life into his clay figure.
Prometheus had assigned Epimetheus the task of giving the creatures of the earth their various qualities, such as swiftness, cunning, strength, fur, wings.
Unfortunately, by the time he got to man, Epimetheus had given all the good qualities out and there were none left for man. So Prometheus decided to make man stand upright as the gods did and to give them fire.
Prometheus loved man more then the Olympians, who had banished most of his family to Tartarus.
So when Zeus decreed that man must present a portion of each animal they scarified to the gods ,Prometheus decided to trick Zeus.
He created two piles, one with the bones wrapped in juicy fat, the other with the good meat hidden in the hide. He then bade Zeus to pick. Zeus picked the bones.
Since he had given his word Zeus had to accept that as his share for future sacrifices. In his anger over the trick he took fire away from man. However, Prometheus lit a torch from the sun and brought it back again to man. Zeus was enraged that man again had fire. He decided to inflict a terrible punishment on both man and Prometheus.
To punish man, Zeus had Hephaestus create a mortal of stunning beauty. The gods gave the mortal many gifts of wealth. He then had Hermes give the mortal a deceptive heart and a lying tongue.
This creation was Pandora, the first women. A final gift was a jar which Pandora was forbidden to open. Thus completed, Zeus sent Pandora down to Epimetheus who was staying amongst the men.
Prometheus had warned Epimetheus not to accept gifts from Zeus but, Pandora’s beauty was too great and he allowed her to stay.
Eventually, Pandora’s curiosity about the jar she was forbidden to open became to great. She opened the jar and out flew all manor of evils, sorrows, plagues, and misfortunes. However, the bottom of the jar held one good thing – hope.
Zeus was angry at Prometheus for three things: being tricked regarding sacrifices, stealing fire for man, and for refusing to tell Zeus which of Zeus’s children would dethrone him.
Zeus had his servants, Force and Violence, seize Prometheus, take him to the Caucasus Mountains, and chain him to a rock with unbreakable adamantine chains. Here he was tormented day and night by a giant eagle tearing at his liver.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6127/5937699225_72d9042ba0_b.jpg
Zeus gave Prometheus two ways out of this torment. He could tell Zeus who the mother of the child that would dethrone him was. Or meet two conditions: First, that an immortal must volunteer to die for Prometheus. Second, that a mortal must kill the eagle and unchain him. Eventually, Chiron the Centaur
http://imagehost.thaibuzz.com/ie/evo65.jpg agreed to die for him, and Heracles killed the eagle and unbound him.
It is worth repeating that “safety is relative”. How safe is a motorcycle? How safe is living in Obama, the race hustler’s previous Chicago neighborhood?
RAMROD, “It is worth repeating that ,safety is relative’”.
I know I am preaching to the choir here but what infuriates me is who the hell is someone else to tell me how safe I have to be?! I hate these godamn contemptible busy bodies more than any “terrist”.
Make mine a double, skunk!
No uuulating Abdullah has ever taken away any of my freedom.
But Clovers – most of them white and Christian – have.
The most aggravating aspect is that it’s never generally applied. For example, Clover feeeeeels it’s “unsafe” to drive a car without air bags, so everyone must be forced to buy air bag-equipped cars. But he also feeeels that his skiing isn’t “unsafe” – notwithstanding my (and perhaps others’) feelings to the contrary. He’d resent my insisting (at gunpoint) that he be required to buy special Skiers Insurance to cover the “risk”…. because he feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeels differently about that risk. But he feeeeeeeels no compunction about threatening violence to force people to wear seat belts, say. Because he feeeeeeeeeeeeeeels that risk is excessive.
The bastard can’t abide the idea that he has no right to parent other adults and that other adults have every right to do whatever the hell they like (to use his phrase) provided they don’t cause a tangible harm to others in the process.
Driving unbuckled or in a car without air bags causes no harm to others. Therefore, it it (morally) no one else’s business.
Remember when ‘the Shrub’ said, “They hate us for our freedoms.”
If that doesn’t describe Clover, I don’t know what does.
OK Eric. You say that you have the right to drive in a car without airbags and unbuckled. I have no problem with you doing it. I have no problem with libertarians doing it. I do believe that if someone else hits you and you are injured do to your right to be unsafe then you are responsible for all of your hospital costs. If you cause the accident and you do not have health insurance and you can not afford the bill then the hospital sends you home and charges you for the transportation if you can not furnish it. If you do have health insurance then your premiums need to go up to compensate for the added risk you wanted to take. If you want to die or have serious injuries then go for it.
I don’t “say” I have the right, Clover. I have the right. Everyone has the right. We each have the right to live our lives as we see fit – without being coerced by others to live as they decree we should.
I am glad you are beginning to comprehend.
Also: I allowed this post through because it was semi-literate and (for once) free of personal attacks.
@clover youre already responsible for all the costs moron. Unless the person is an illegal alien. Then you sure are paying for it.
“But Clovers – most of them white and Christian – have.”
By far, nearly all of the “elites” who control the major organs of propaganda such as mass media and Hollywood, who fund both wings of the Republicrat party, and who run the usurious, fraudulent, debt-based money system (arguably the single most insidious instrument of the tyranny which confronts us) are not Christians.
Indeed they hold traditional Christianity in contempt.
Nor do they self-identify in their own circles as “white,” their distant ancestry being Central Asian with recent East European admixture.
To paraphrase Voltaire…to ascertain who your rulers are, ask whom you are forbidden to openly criticize.
“I hate these godamn contemptible busy bodies more than any ‘terrist’.”
I think they are terrorists!
Dear Phil,
Actually, you’re on to something there.
1. They [the terrists) hate us for our freedoms.
2. Home grown clovers are the terrists.
3. Home grown terrists were behind 9/11.
Private enterprise and consumer choice are slowly being choked to death in the US by the ever-thickening weeds of regulation and control. How long can the economy survive on the goodwill of foreign nations buying up dollars?
Hi Escher,
Not long, I expect.
Also: As a nation, we may already have passed the event horizon of economic sustainability. For example, how many people out there can genuinely afford a $30,000 (average price paid for one) new car? What if debt-financing went away?
What happens when it is necessary – to keep the music playing – to extend car loans to seven, then eight years?
The system worked as long as a critical mass of people could keep up. But for most people, income has declined in real terms (purchasing power) while the cost of things in general (other than consumer electronics, for the most part) has gone up.
Now add in extortionate (and mandatory) “health care” costs, mandatory (and extortionate) car insurance costs… taxes… etc.
Dear Eric,
As soon as the SHTF, which according to libertarian oriented financial gurus, will be within a year or two, the Yankee Dollar will cease being the world reserve currency.
It will then become worthless, or nearly worthless.
The bad? Innocent people will suffer.
The good? The US imperium will be rendered bankrupt, no longer able to wreak havoc the world over, from Ukraine to Diaoyutai.
It’s not supposed to survive.
One world company town.
BrentP, your comment was dead on, with no reason to be verbose. My reply “Exactly” was too short for wordpress, a real problem I have with WP. Go fuck yourself wordpress. Now, is that an acceptably long reply?
BRENTP, perfectly understood and stated. Well done.
Calling this a “company town” is VERY insulting to company towns. I reside in one of the last company towns in the USA (Morenci, Arizona).
In this company town I enjoy freedoms that few other communities enjoy – no municipal government, no HOA, no city sales tax, minimal intrusion by law enforcement from the next town over, cheap rent and a 3 minute commute. We even have 2 of the three traffic lights in the whole county. Virtually no crime rate, because you don’t live here on welfare. Either you are an employee, or you live somewhere else. No emission testing, no inspection stations and other than a few idiots on facebook, no groups of busybodies.
I am referring to the classical company towns of the utopia building industrialists. The kind where the executives of the company micromanaged every aspect of your personal and financial life type company town. The kind that deliberately put employees into debt slavery. The control freak’s paradise. Where you lived to the rules they set for everything or else. If the company rule was to eat fish on tuesday you ate fish on tuesday.
The first attempt to build the world we live in now and beyond was done privately. People revolted against it. The company towns failed. But our dear utopia builders didn’t give up, they refocused their efforts doing it through government. Not that they didn’t have those efforts all along but now they focused on working through the state exclusively. Plus this way they wouldn’t have to spend so much of their money, they could spend ours on the project.
These stories get me more pissed each time I read them. They hypocrisy is maddening.
– I can have a 1978 Trans Am on the road today, more polluting, less efficient, heavier and less “safe” than any other car today. Why can’t I have this efficient city car?
– Also “official” vehicles like cop cars, fire trucks and ambulances don’t need to meet the same regulations. (Or the presidential bullet proof limo that gets 4 mpg). Screw that!
The haggling over what amount to INSIGNIFICANT details (for the sake of control) is astounding.
Why isn’t this enough to mount a revolution? Burning of the stakes?
Oh, yeah – I remember (something called “Bread and Circuses” which distract the masses into oblivion).
Hi Mrk,
I wonder about that, too.
For all the chest-beating and flag-humping, Amnericans – in general – are an incredibly passive people who will tolerate literally anything, it seems.
Meanwhile, the French – derided by these same American blutos – will take to the streets at the least provocation. The French government actually seems to fear the French people. The American government has nothing but contempt for the American people.
Understandably so.
One of the vendor visits I did early in my career was to place that also made parts for the military. They got to use processes that the EPA had banned for the military parts. The military didn’t want the new the environmentally friendly processes because they deemed the result inferior so there was a wavier or something allowing the old process for the military parts. The vendor of course had to keep two sets of equipment and so on.
The military is free to guzzle as much gas as it wants, pollute the environment in multiple ways (including with depleted uranium ammunition that condemns the recipients of “democracy” to high cancer rates for generations) and burn through as much taxpayer money as it wants. EPA regulations are a minor irritant to them at best. Unfortunately Volkswagen does not have this latitude.
Exhaust volume is irrelevant as far as fedgov’s standards are concerned. No matter the displacement the standard in g/mi is the same. All the additional volume must be CO2 and H2O.
On another note it’s not only keeping the cheap cars out but there is now an effort that shows up now and then to keep cars deemed totaled in the USA until they are crushed. Someone figured out that all these cars that get technically totaled for airbags or flood damage or whatever can be shipped over to Africa, reconditioned well enough to run and drive, sold for a price people there can afford and make a profit. The control freaks are upset these “unsafe” cars are being sold. So long as the buyers know what they are getting there’s no problem. People are happy to have cars they can afford.
Yup.
If the wife and I can’t figure things out, I am going to need a vehicle (she’ll get our truck). I do not want an air-bagged/computer-controlled vehicle. I will be looking for something prior, from the ’70s or early ’80s… like a mid-late ’70s El Camino (I need to be able to haul stuff).
I’ve not had an “accident” in 30 years. I am quite willing to assume the “risk” of driving a car that does not have the got-damned bags… or the got-damned ABS or the got-damned traction control and all the rest of it.
I wonder how easy it would be to have some of these shipped here in a few pieces, then put them back together and make a taxi fleet out of them…….left hand drive models of course.
You’ll make fedgov every angry doing that. People have done it before as I recall to import cars from other markets and got caught. It’s just too easy to get caught when the cars are on the road and tattle tales are around.
Agree –
Such a car would get noticed – and it’s a certainty some Clover would pick up the phone to report you.
Remember the SWAT-style raids on people who had gray-marketed Land Rovers?
I must have missed that. Was that recent? An east coast thing?
In Idaho, I see Japanese mini-trucks(KEI) on interstates and state highways all the time. I guess it’s just small enough population that people don’t care. I see them pass state pigs and nothing happens. On paper, the law states that they can’t be driven on State highways or interstates.
I drive on county roads with my three wheeler and no one seems to care much because of the agriculture culture of the area.
I think I could get these cars by, but by the time you pay for the “gray” market risk on shipping and what have you, it probably wouldn’t be any cheaper than used first gen scions, which would now be considered gray market by today’s safety standards.
We used to be able to buy grey iron construction equipment up until about 8-10 years ago. It is getting harder and harder to come by. There is still some stuff coming into Washington state from Japan, not sure how. I know it’s damn near impossible to get it out of Canada now.
They were basically sold on ebay and according to the owners, registered for what they were and legally as far as they knew. And nobody probably knows if they were legal or not but some self-appointed keeper of everyone else got the feds involved who decided these cars were “evil” and came after them exactly as Eric said, SWAT style.
Land Rover Discoveries (I think that was the model) are parts swappable across decades of production. (of which very few model years were sold in the USA by the manufacturer) So many of them that are older than 25 have had things swapped out, upgraded, etc. The importer would fix rust by just changing out panels, doors, dash boards, etc with brand new ones. Why screw around trying to find classic doors when new ones fit and work perfectly? I think they even replaced rusted frames with new fully galvanized ones. Of course running gear upgrades were likely also popular. It takes a geek for these vehicles to know what is what.
All of this deeply confused the regulators and bureaucrats at fedgov. So what was their conclusion? The vehicles had falsified VINs. Not the obvious, that these were old trucks repaired in a way that was economically viable for an importer and desired by probably 95% of his customers. So what does fedgov do? Violently raids the customers’ homes and takes the trucks. Except unlike some 23 year old with a Skyline these people had money. They got together and sued fedgov and I think most if not all got their trucks back because there was nothing illegal.
The car industry could have and should have followed how the computer industry history went over the last three decades (it was doing that somewhat up the 1960’s). As time goes on, cheaper and better.
Imagine had cars gotten both better and cheaper instead of just better and much more expensive. There would be lots of new cars in the $5000-$15,000 range. In fact we don’t have to imagine it, just look at these cars outside the US of A.
Granted, comparing the two industries isn’t the best example. But had computers got more expensive over that time, they never would have the market penetration they do today. They aren’t saddled with the the massive regulation the auto industry has. If it had there wouldn’t BE a computer industry, it would have killed it.
So what other new things , could we have, that we don’t know about because they have been regulated out of happening? Probably more then we imagine.
I found the window sticker recently, for the 1976 Chevy I had back in the 1990’s (grandpa bought it new, and he quit driving about the time I started). He bought a brand new full size four door car with V8 power for $4600. He added dealer installed air conditioning for an additional 300 bucks. He had set money to the side to buy this car, so he paid cash for it, even though I doubt he ever made more then $25,000 a year. He also had a paid off house, got my mom and uncle through college and grandma never had to take a outside paying job. Most people today making $60,000 a year cannot do that anymore. But this is a whole other issue we have.
The thing not seen, per Bastiat.
A ’76 model Chevy with add-on a/c. By ’76 we didn’t even remember add-on a/c in Texas. We didn’t still use those plastic seat covers either. Curb feelers never caught on nor water bags hanging on the front end.
We had northern friends who showed up with these big cylinders jammed between he windows and door frames that were wind driven swamp coolers. We were amazed since our cars had factory a/c, power steering and auto tranny’s. We knew water was really available anywhere so we had no need of waterbags(youngsters won’t remember these or even know what we’re speaking of)hanging on the front of the car. Yankees came to Tx. and expected a cross between cowboys, Indians, pump jacks and Lawrence of Arabia.
I recall asking my dad why they had those big waterbags hanging on the front of cars. He’s just shake his head and say I guess because they’re yankees. But what do you do with them i’d ask. Carry your water he’d say. Why don’t they just stop at a station and get some cold drinks? He’d just spin his cold iced-tea glass and say I don’t know.
Yankees would come through our very small rural own we lived near(major east/west coast highway that ran through it)
and look at us like we should be on a postcard. We’d look at them and shrug our shoulders and wonder why they’d smother and use all sorts of things to simply survive when all they had to do was hit the Coke machine……anywhere and trade their car for one meant for the conditions.
In the heat of winter, they’d come through with deer, elk, antelope, etc, roped over the hot hood of their even hotter car. Why don’t they just butcher it and put it on ice if they’re going to hunt in the heat daddy? Son, I don’t know, I guess so everybody will know they shot one.
But grandpa just hit one in the head with a cast iron skillet that was eating out of the chicken scratch??? I guess he forgot to take his gun to feed the chickens.
My father-out-law moved his family from WI to TX in 1968, driving a midnight blue 66 Olds w/o AC. Lasted for 2 weeks, then went out one night after work and traded it in. Next day he gets a call, “Why didn’t you tell us this car had no AC?” “You didn’t ask.”
No problem believing that. An Olds…..without a/c…..a ’66 model at that. Who’da thunk it? BTW, that was a nice color…..but just as hot as a black one with no a/c.
“Father-out-law?” you say. What a great verbal obtusion. Love it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX3lWmZnTjA
The prettiest girl. I ever saw. Was sippin’ ψder thru a straw…
I told that gal. I didn’t see how…
Then cheek to cheek. And jaw to jaw…
And now and then. That straw would slip…
And now I got. A mother-out-law. And 19 kids that call me “Paw…”
The prettiest girl. I ever saw. Was sippin’ ψder thru a straw…
– – –
cRap Battle: Trump v Scrooge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP6VqB4klpQ
Is “I Did the Best I Could” An Ethical Defense Of A Man’s Conduct?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wYqtCNUsx0
Tor – He was my ‘father-in-law,’ but his daughter divorced me, so …
He’s gone now, and I miss him more than her.
Good share, friend. Some Gerbitz Day, maybe Eric arranges a meet up and we donk our wheestles in the troughs and we’all discuss about the such like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBynhWDXgds
– – –
Myself, I’ve been in No. 4 antipatory grief mode about everyone’s Granmaw(72yrs) and Papa(75 yrs) for a long time now. I hope to endure this malaise for many more years tho, of course.
– – –
Thank Spider Grandmother for Sprint Airlines and their $46 fares. The sister wives’ll never let me move to Houston to be close for them and my little sister like I’d prefer.
It’s VLV for life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOoKzw3JSCM for me, unfortunately.
1 Abbreviated
Abbreviated or short-lived grief occurs when a person finds it necessary to ‘move on’ swiftly due to, for instance, a remarriage where the now ‘absent partner’ is replaced and a new relationship is established. Grief might be shortened because the attachment or connection to the deceased was not particularly strong.
2 Absent
Sometimes a person shows no evidence of grief because they have put aside their own need to grieve. For instance, an adult male whose father has died may have absent grief because he is preoccupied by his mother’s needs.
3 Ambiguous
Sometimes a loss may not appear to be valid to others, making it difficult to express one’s grief. For example, it may be the ‘mistress’ who sits quietly at the back of a chapel, alone and unacknowledged in her grief; or the estranged child who was never acknowledged by his or her parent.
4 Anticipatory
When a person has suffered a prolonged period of illness, such as cancer or other disease, their loved ones frequently grieve in anticipation of their death.
5 Chronic
For some individuals, their grief continues to feel as intense over time as it did in the first weeks. People may be able to return to normal daily functioning; however, time does not dissipate their grief’s pain or intensity.
6 Complicated and Traumatic
In complicated and traumatic grief, a person’s ability to cope with daily life diminishes over time. Their ongoing grief is so painful and overwhelming that they become debilitated, experiencing prolonged agitation, suicidal thoughts or numbness.
7 Delayed
Delayed grief is grief postponed. For instance, a mother might delay her grief to care for her children; however, it is only for a time. Delayed grief eventually will be expressed.
8 Disenfranchised
In most experiences of grief, others acknowledge your loss, giving you a sense of comfort and support. Disenfranchised grief goes unnoticed and unacknowledged by others, making it an even more isolating experience. This includes experiences such as people undergoing in vitro fertilization waiting to get pregnant, miscarriage, abortion, or having the HIV virus.
8 Faces of Grief
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYDuy7wM8Gk
Tor, PtB, I just got back to this since I can’t get updates due to some email problem.
Hit home with me though. 4 Anticipatory grief is certainly a waste of one’s stress. It is what it is with my MIL at 92 talking all night, screaming in her sleep and just being on the blitz but very sane at times. And she feels guilty in her times of lucidity for stresses the rest of us, something we all try to relieve her of since we don’t blame her in the least. Shit happens, to all of us, and to her. it’s the human condition.
Her daughter calls and says I’ve been very good to her mother, keeping her vigil, sleeping in her bed and being a good guy since I am great at back rubs that help her greatly, with me getting this second hand as I roam the lease roads of west Tx. being lost to the world all night. Well, I’m glad to be of comfort to someone.
And her ex, a second husband, a great guy who she ended up hating and I ended up loving, something he never got enough of his entire life.
5 and 6 complicit in ending my oldest sisters life along with auto-immune problems all us children inherited.
8, what I saw this past week-end with my cousin and good friend I bore to the grave with his disenfranchised children suffering on their on, and me wanting to help but they didn’t know who I was or what the relationship was so I could only look on with sympathy.
7, the very thing that always ends up kicking my ass as it takes me a while to catch up to grief.
Well, there ain’t no easy ride here, never has been and never will be.
As an aside, I’d like to kick ZZ’s asses but that’s another story.
Yep, I’d like to sip one with both of you. It would probably be better though if I just guzzled like normal….or not. I haven’t tried sipping in a while.
On that note, I think I’ll have a shot(another) of Larceny and ease MY pain.
1963 Studebaker station wagon with small block V8, auto trans, and sliding roof over the wagon area for $2300. 1972 Valiant, 225 slant 6, auto trans, bought for $2400. Both new. Valiant got 33 mpg.
1973 New Yorker, 2 doors, 440 V8 with auto, all power accessories, bought used in 1975 for $2400. 1973 Newport, ex cop car, 440 V8 police package, 17 mpg on highway, really fast hauling ass, bought used for $1800.
Well, I had a ’73 Fury 111 with a 440, ex-DPS narc car(baby shit yellow with a 8′ whip, spot light, not hard to knock off but just what I needed since I drove uber speeds, and depended on blending in with the piggies which I did so well I never got stopped as I dressed like one of them down to the mirror sunglasses, long sleeve white western shirts and the requisite hat) and it got maybe 8 mpg at times, sometimes less, much less. I liked that you didn’t need to turn off the a/c when you tromped on it as it did it automatically, similar to a ’66 Le Mans with the OHC 6. I always wanted one of the New Yorker DPS captain’s cars but never got it at auction.
BTW, JA, not too long ago, several months ago, I saw what appeared to be a civilian car from the side 1/2 mile away and then got closer and noticed its stance, a Lincoln in silver stopped behind a car on the loop around Midland and Odessa with a big fat DPS uniformed porker giving the other driver hell. The road was under construction and I had used the entrance that had been used the week before but was closed off so I just drug a load of rock in a belly dump behind my Pete over the concrete divider but he never noticed nor the other driver who was following me doing the same.
For the life of me I can’t imagine what he was pissed about since there was no correct way to drive that route and no correct speed since it was posted 55 in a 100 mph zone.
Is it not ironic that choice in some areas is deemed ok (Which sail fawn to choose; Which laptop to choose; A woman’ right to choose an abortion {regardless how one thinks about abortion}) in this country
yet in other areas (buying a car that best meets one’s needs based on the individual’s criteria) no choice is permitted because (Uncle says so)
When the Yugo was offered for sale, the price ~$4000 was intriguing. The quality and features lacking was enough for me to look elsewhere. It was not just me either. After a few years, the Yugo was no more in the US. Other options were more appealing to those looking for transportation.
Outlawing cars similar to the Kwid or Alto just prices (some) people out of the new car market.
The question about vehicle pollution is a fair and legitimate concern. My question is at what cost and who bears that cost. It would be easy for me to demand (at gunpoint) that everyone only use cars w/4 or less cylinders, has zero emissions, consume less than 1.5 gal fuel / 100miles (3.5l/100km), and be able to survive a 40mph collision with a brick wall.
It is another matter to force someone else to buy such a vehicle or do without any vehicle. (This tends to affect less affluent people more, since they are less able to devote more money to a new car without really affecting their life in other areas.)
I suspect that the cost for such a vehicle (assuming it was possible to build) would be many times higher (probably ~150k or more — I am guessing here) than the Nissan Versa (or other economical vehicle)
Traveling at speeds 30mph or less would be safer than traveling at 60mph. Would people be willing to travel at slower rates? A look at the average highway (absent draconian measures) indicates that people will travel as quickly as they can as long as they perceive it is relatively safe. On local interstate highways, under ideal conditions, this is about 70-80 mph.
Sorry for my ranting, but I prefer having more choices when feasible. I think it helps to keep prices in check.
Mith,
You nailed it. It is crazy that many of the very same people who think it’s fine to suck the brain out of a mostly developed fetus are appalled at the idea that one should have the choice to drive an “un-safe”, “dirty” car. Why, that’s just dangerous! We need to be “safe”.
“Is it not ironic that choice in some areas is deemed ok (Which sail fawn to choose; Which laptop to choose …”
See, there’s the rub. The ‘choice’ you are offered is “Which sail fawn?” not “Sail fawn or no sail fawn?” etc., etc., etc.
Hi Phillip,
I’m under all kinds of pressure to get a sail fawn. Basically, because “everyone” has one. But I have no desire to bury my face in a got-damned phone all day long. Nor be “reachable” everywhere I am and go. I like to not be reachable.
Now, I realize one can elect to turn the little bastard off, not talk on it all the time. But other than having it for emergency situations or those times when I really do need to be able to make a call or receive one… which is not often… I just don’t feel the need.
I feel the same about air bags, about park assist, about all kinds of things that most seem to think they can’t live without.
Makes no sense to me.
But then, I am just visiting this planet!
I first had a sail fawn back in the late 1990’s. I hated it, didn’t actually use it enough to spend that money on it. I only kept it until the two year contract ran out. Cancelling it was a nightmare, even though I was supposedly out of contract. The company I had the phone with got bought out by Verizon right as the contract ran out, and Verizon thought it could scam a early cancellation fee out of me. Nice try, I refused to pay, but they managed to annoy me about for 6 years over it. I should have sued them over it. I wasn’t even a customer, and I will never ever be one.
I managed to hold out without another one until 2006 when I started to sell real estate. Even though people had managed to sell real estate for centuries without cell phones (or land line phones for that matter) it was not possible to be without one.
So I get one, first just a flip phone, but then the iphone came out, and we had to “move up” to “smart” phones. It was costing over two grand a year!!
So I had to figure out how to cut costs, because it wasn’t worth 2 grand. When the contract ran out, I went to a no contract phone, which is under 400 a year (still too much but better). Frankly there is no advantage to consumer to have a contract phone, none. Most people get sucked in by the “free” or nearly “free” phone. It’s hardly free….. No contract cell phone plans don’t include a “free” phone, you have to bring your own.
At least with a no contract phone, if they suck too much you can fire them on the month rather then having to wait two years. Though getting a number ported is a major pain in the a**. Since I went out of business I really don’t need one anymore, but the no contract phone is the same price to have phone service as to just have data. I use it more as a handheld computer then a phone.
But its nice to set the phone down in the house now, the ringer is turned down, and it only gets checked once in a while. I hated having to answer that stupid thing all day when i was in business. Now it’s more like a small ipad and camera. If your not a friend, it doesn’t get answered anymore.
I have found selectel wireless to be pretty good if you have to have a phone. Month to month. If you don’t need to make many calls, they have $12 plan with a few texts and 1200 minutes or something.
I have a $40 per month plan with 3 gigs of data so I can use waze, listen to Jango radio and use the voxer walkie talkie app. I don’t answer any phone calls that don’t have a ringtone for the specific caller–a great feature of phones. If it’s a song I like, it’s someone i may want to talk to. If it’s a generic ring they can leave a message. I leave the damn phone in the car when I go into stores, restaurants and whatnot. People look at you like you’re crazy when you leave your phone. The crazies are the ones that have to have it. If I’m eating dinner and having a conversation, I don’t need a phone.
I hear you on the ipod and camera thing. It’s handy having a camera in my pocket, no advertising during my music and the ability to point out cops and see where others have pointed them out via waze.
I have Republic Wireless. I only have data service where the phone can link to wifi, but unlimited talk and text – $10/mo. My wife’s plan adds unlimited 3G data via either wifi or Sprint – $35/mo. Had to buy the phones, but Motorola is ‘relatively’ inexpensive.
For nearly everybody I knew, cell phones were bought for business and saving a great deal of time and fuel, hence money. They were expensive but not as expensive as driving another 120 miles for no other reason than you didn’t think ti spend a bunch of coins in a MaBell phone…..on a pole. I guess if your world is fairly much contained in a 10 mile radius, a cell phone isn’t that big of a deal. But when you leave work and get home 150 miles away and find out what your should have brought and then have to return that 300 miles to pickup whatever it was you didn’t know you needed, cell phones made a lot of sense. We didn’t burn one up back then simply making bs calls either since they charged 50 cents a minute and when somebody like Verizon dropped it to 35 cents and then ATT responded with 25 cents a minute, we knew why we had them for certain.
For decades I ‘d get a call(expensive too)and turn around and go back and buy another part or more of those parts I was already loaded with. It beat hell out of all that time, fuel and money burned up on the road. That expensive things went on way too long…..because it was worth it to us and then carriers realized a much cheaper option would result in everybody wanting/needing one.
The new smart phone I bought not only let’s me check email(business), look at radar or weather forecasts, access GPS to get directions and satellite photos of any oil lease I desire but keeps me in touch when otherwise I’d be lost all night unless I wanted to tote a big Garmin(and that’s a good idea even when you have cell phone)but isn’t that great to change from vehicle to vehicle and same for Sirius radio that you can almost duplicate with Pandora and the GPS is more sophisticated than the old style Garmin Pilot I have. I have it all in one small device. I would have used one in 1960 had they been available.
I have yet, and won’t, use Facebook, or twitter or any other social network, probably 90% of what people do with cell phones now….. count me out.
I commonly get text messages and pics of places, things, equipment, loads, etc. from people that lets me know what I’m dealing with. I could sent a message to you right now that wouldn’t mean crap to you but i can include a picture and some info and you’d know everything you needed to about it for that specific purpose.
It’s nothing more or less than new technology to make life more productive and easier. I could just spend a huge amount of time communicating with thousands of “friends” as some do who actually can’t name more than a few dozen friends. It has all to do with priorities.
Yup – cellphones are useful tools, and to be treated as such. Others are welcome to waste their time forwarding silly pictures and videos and writing descriptions of their lunches on Facebook.
Re: social networks, Linkedin is very useful for those of us working for the man.
Re: LinedIn, I finally realized what a good thing it could be. Now I get job offers while I’m off working. I don’t see how that could be a bad thing.
Eric,
When you have a sail fawn and are reachable, as soon as you don’t take it with you and aren’t reachable, you could end up like the poor sucker in my are this past weekend. He left his phone at his house, hopped in his pickup truck and drove off. His adult–clover–daughter found his phone on the counter at his house after she couldn’t get a hold of him…..then all hell broke loose. She sounded the siren and had everyone in their dog looking for the guys pickup. After a day, his pickup was spotted and reported to sheriffs deputies in an area in the mountains about 100 miles from his home.
All the poor sucker wanted to do is be unreachable and just disappear for a couple days in the mountains. But you can;t do that in the cell phone era. If you don’t tell someone where you’re going, you’re a missing person after a few short hours. It’s ridiculous. Thinking back just 15 years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for people to not have a cell phone. 20 years ago, it was uncommon for anyone to have one.
If you have made it this long, keep it that way. You can disappear and not be considered missing after half a day.
Hi Ancap,
Yup!
I have no interest in becoming a member of this “social media” hive thing being constructed. I am not a bee – or an ant.