The Imbecile Tax

By
eric
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Grown-ups used to appreciate being treated as grown-ups, especially by other grown-ups. How is it that today’s grown-ups demand that they be treated like not-too-bright children?

This manifests all over but one obvious area is new cars. The latest example being what Nissan just announced it will be installing in at least one of its 2018 models – the Pathfinder SUV – and probably, inevitably, the rest, too:

“Rear Door Alert.”

Its purpose? To remind Moo or Duh (or both of them, together) that Baby Finster is strapped into his seat back there and not to forget and leave him to roast like a pork loin while they go shopping for a new sail fawn.

This is apparently necessary to “tackle the problem of children dying of heat stroke in vehicles.” Expect the Feds to make this the next mandatory saaaaaaaaaafety feature you’ll have to buy along with your next new car, whether you have kids or not.

Back-up cameras were made mandatory for exactly the same reason. A handful of adult imbeciles backed-up over babies – who were left on the ground behind a parked car and forgotten about until  . . . squish. The parents of the squished could not, apparently, be expected to account for their kids before driving off or even to use their mirrors. Solution? As always. Everyone must be presumed a moron, no matter their age or their personal conduct (including whether they have run over a tot or not) and albatrossed with another piece of electronic centrifugal bumblepuppy that makes noise and annoys and also costs.

Call it the Imbecile Tax – which is to be levied upon all, imbecile or not.    

Does it not make your teeth ache?

There is even an outfit devoted to pushing this – NoHeatStroke.org – and it probably provides full-time paid gigs for a small army of professional Moos who, in a better time, would have found an outlet as substitute librarians.

And what is the extent of this crisis? It must be extensive, given the existence of a national organization to combat it and a new annoyance certain to be mandated as an electronic prophylactic.

Thousands, surely.

Hundreds?

How about 29.

That is the number of toasted tots, nationally, so far this year, according to NoHeatStroke.org. Over the past 20 years, the total is 730. Which works out to about 36 per year out of a nation of 310 or so million people, of whom several million are tots.

Cleft palate is a greater menace and yet no one speaks urgently of it. Probably more fingers get jammed in closing car doors in a month than broiled babies in a year.

No doubt, there will soon be NoJammedFingers.org as well, with paid staff, lobbyists – and soon thereafter – a federal mandate that car doors be fitted with a soft-closing mechanism or some kind of object detection gadget that prevents their being slammed shut if a finger or some such is in the way.

Such a thing already exists, in fact. Many SmooVees have rear liftgates that cannot simply be heaved open or slammed shut. You push a button and then – accompanied by a chime – the liftgate oh-so-gradually raises (or closes) itself. It feels like it takes a geological epoch for this process to complete.

Most new cars will insolently turn down the volume of the radio whenever the car’s gear selector is put into Reverse. Some won’t let you reverse at all, if a door happens to be open (which is sometimes necessary, in order to see what might be behind you, in order to not run over it).

Put a laptop on the otherwise unoccupied passenger seat and the seat belt safety buzzer will go nuts until you either buckle up the laptop (or bag of groceries) or put them on the floor.

It is apparently too much to expect people to occasionally check something as critical to the safe operation of their car as the air pressure in each tire. Solution? Fit all cars with notoriously inaccurate electronic tire pressure monitors. This way, they can say it’s not their fault when they wreck due to a near-flat tire that the sensor didn’t sense.

The culture has gone moonbat. Idiocracy as policy.

Whenever anyone gets hurt – especially if it’s a child, children having become the secularized Western world equivalent of a sacred bull in India  – the first reaction is not to ask whether the responsible adults were the cause – having not acted as adults or responsibly – but whether some law can be passed or gadget imposed on everyone, in the manner of spraying DDT on crops.

The startling thing is – from what can be divined via the public reaction – few people seem to object to this. Despite the grossly insulting nature of the thing and leaving aside the cost. It was not too very long ago that adults got mad when talked down to. There was an expectation that a grown-up had a right to be treated as a grown-up and not like an idiot child – at least until he gave reason to be so treated.

Today, grown-ups beg to be treated like idiot children. Want – apparently – to be parented.

Why are such people even allowed to have children? Is it not the logical end-of-the-road? If a person cannot be trusted to remember what he did with his kid – to not leave the kid to roast to death in the back of the fambly SmooVee – shouldn’t this person have been sterilized to prevent such tragedies from even being possible?

Probably, it will come to that.

Spaying and neutering are, arguably, the ultimate “safety” measures.

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Related posts:
  1. 55 Percent Estate Tax on Deck
  2. IRS has no legal basis to collect Affordable Care Act tax
  3. The Chicken Tax
  4. The Second Income Tax
  5. Gas Tax Gouging

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

131 COMMENTS

  2. Jason,
    Chrome has a proprietary kernel, not a hacked one. Hacking is beyond Google’s control, especially if the user is operating a Chromium rather than Chrome OS. All of the shells are standard Linux shells that will work the same on any Linux OS on the same hardware. All of this is common knowledge among anyone who knows almost anything about Linux.

    • Yeah, Bill. It’s also common knowledge in the linux world that Chrome is a loaded trap for the unwary user….like you. I’ve been using linux distros since ’06 and I won’t use one that isn’t open source. You love your chromebook, so stick with it.

      It’s just funny that you would say that windows users deserve what they get by connecting with a windows box, but you’re safe and secure with your chromebook. That’s funny as shit, even though you might not have meant for it to be.

  4. The revised social contract is all about duties and obligations for the productive man

    This is true in all facets of their Darth Vaderian deal
    http://www.redstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/greece-vader.png

    Police chase down citizens that can afford to drive and issue them tickets.

    They’re not out in the muck and grime of the yards, clearing the empire of violent vermin. There’s no money, power, or status in that.

    Endless rules accost nice neighborhoods. Functioning business districts. Any where they can make some shekels and strut about in their cod pieces. They so strut. As Mel Brooks once said, “It’s Good To Be The King.” (Or even to work for the king.)

    Some of the neighborhoods I’ve lived in, a guy is literally fucking some chick against the side of a dilapidated building. No one dares say a word there’s no one to call when he gets done and makes a run at you next.

    You can pull over and take a piss anywhere you please, and I often have. Especially when I see some unattended public building or other.

    They’re miles away writing up some yuppie schmuck with three mortgages because his sprinklers came on an hour before the legal watering window. He pays and pays.

    The wise guy see this and so he plays and plays. Immune to the reeees and condemnations of his debt rich neighbors who pay for all his infrastructures and protections.

    The comeuppance tag day may der kommt cometh. But it will come for the wrong ones, like it always has before.

  5. Living in a building makes a man soft I suppose.

    Wean yourself off uncles titty grids by living in a van. Then camping with a motorcycle. And finally just sleeping rough.

    Start off in places with a mild climate. Then try hot places and finally cold places.

    Then when you move back on the grid. You aren’t beholden to it. You start life as a plucked Stalinesque chicken. But unlike poultry, you have the capacity to regrow your feathers if you choose.

    Look at how happy everyone was in the 1960s and 1970s. Hell, none of them lived in a building. They were having a heckuva good time.

    California 1967
    http://cicero.de/sites/default/files/styles/cc_980x550/public/migrated_images/hippies_0.jpg?itok=kvI26qlh

    • I see the value in the meaning of what you say, but the application of that anymore is not possible. Meaning to say, police, federal land agents, conservation agents (game wardens), zoning and county regulation inspectors…etc are ALL SKULKING about in the countryside looking for people doing exactly what you recommend. It is ILLEGAL to be SELF-SUFFICIENT and really, ‘off grid’. Places have made it illegal to even own a stupid “tiny home”! How will things work for motorcycle campers?

      Review what police to do indigents, homeless, vagabonds, and so on. Often they are summarily executed, “dey had sumting in dere handzzz” so then you get shot by the Gestapo.

      • Trump is unwinding that somewhat. Or at least trying to. Check out the new D.O. Interior cowboy.

        I’ve seen first hand dozens of times what the heroes do to indigents, homeless, vagabonds, and so on.

        They gang up on them. Always at least two. They accuse them of all kinds of crime. Of needing to see their IDs or know their SSNs so they can run them in their computer.

        They mock them, sing song talk like they are their to help. Sometimes they seem to sincerely be saying, we don’t like having to do this, but we have no choice.

        Every time they start digging at their bags and carts. Knocking over any kind of sheltering lean to’s. Making sure to spoil things enough that they’ll have to start all over again. Causing the old, and the stupefied young, and the unfuckable dried prune ladies to mentally curl up in the fetal position.

        If they manage to get one of them to start barking back. Or trying to walk away from the stop or do anything furtive that’s where the real fun starts.

        I usually seem to have a cell phone camera running on the down low from inside my vehicle just to keep them honest.

        Its bullshit of course, all I have in my vehicles are a few old cell phones that haven’t been charged in years because nothing is more daunting than a watchful SWP in his comfortable hero compliant working vehicle, and a deadpan are you kidding me look on his face.

        I only stay a few minutes if any of them look like the gun me down buzzcut types which many of them are. But I can at least fantasize that it made the jackboots a little lighter on the necks of the meek, poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and oblivion, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and pieceofshitmakers, and those humble men of principle are persecuted for righteousness sake, who refuse to do aggression unto others for a 30 silver shekels.

        I don’t expect to be blessed when these heroes revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

        Instead I eat drink rejoice and be merry and glad, for my reward in spirit is great, for so they persecuted the SWPs who threw down before you.

  6. Jason,
    RVs frequently have much larger issues with sanitation than I ever have had. I have no plumbing. Number one goes in a repurposed liquid laundry detergent bottle, effectively a urinal with a lid. Number two goes in a 5-gallon “pickle bucket” with a Gamma Seal on top, directly into nested 7 gallon kitchen trash bags.
    One should not consider living in a van if one cannot live without staunch climate control. I have been through a half-dozen Wyoming winters in the last decade. Staying cool is much harder than staying warm. I’m becoming a snowbird again now that my income is stabilized by Social Security.
    There was no “reply” to click on, so my reply went here.

    • Yeah, there’s a limit to the reply depth on this site. Usually I just go back up to the most recent reply button.

      I’ve thought that the snowbird idea would probably be the best approach to dealing with climate extremes as long as there is enough gas money. Maybe figure out a flea market route where one could make a few bucks while traveling. Sounds like you have the sanitation issues pretty much taken care of, though a camper’s chemical toilet might be another approach.

      I have been trying to give thought to low-cost living scenarios for when even the current debt-free situation can no longer be maintained. If sufficient funds were available, a trailer or “tiny house” in a low-tax rural area and off the grid might be the ticket but that would take more than I’d likely have available when the time comes.

      • Jason,
        Chemical toilets are as nasty as is possible when they don’t work perfectly, and they have to be dumped like holding tanks, which can be difficult where there are no RV dump stations. To empty mine, I simply tie off each of the nested garbage bags separately and throw the bundle in a dumpster. I pioneered the number one situation when I was longhaul trucking with a 32 ounce Gatorade bottle. The laundry detergent bottle works much better without abrading any of my body parts:-)
        I have a decade of experience in telecommunications and broadcast engineering. I sold Dish Network and DirecTV to snowbirds for three winters. I can probably find work anywhere they need a competent technician other than software. I have a 27-year clean CDL with experience driving everything up to belly trains, so if they need a truck driver…
        As the economy gets tighter, people will be moving to the cities to find better jobs, which may leave the smaller places in a lurch. If I can get by on my SS, spot cash situations will appear. I can drive to Arizona and back on what an unfurnished section 18 apartment would cost me a month here, the there is no sign it won’t be available any time I want it.
        Although I’m at the top of a 32-year learning curve in vandwelling, I’d recommend it to anyone who is willing to be their own MacGyver as needed, especially if they are capable, at least, of honey doing. Sufficient funds is a very flexible and subjective thing.

      • Couldn’t possibly be for a multiplicity of reasons, starting with an inability to throw a ball. That van is a cop magnet, for many reasons. Mine isn’t, tested and proven.

        • Hi Bill,
          When you stated that you live in a van I can’t help but think of that movie (Napoleon Dynamite), one of my favorites!

          • Adam,
            I’ve never heard of it. Just the silly skit on SNL, which was brought to my attention when someone asked me if I lived down by the river after I’d stated that I lived in a van. I hadn’t watched SNL in many years, but I have spent nights down by rivers in Jackson Hole and outside Idaho Springs.

          • Ah Adam, Napoleon Dynamite, a chuckle a second. The wife and I watched it again recently.

            It’s one of those that grow on you a bit more with every viewing.

            For simple outrageous fun with no particular message The Hangover Trilogy is good for many laughs also. Hangover 4 should be along soon. The weak part of the premise is age. That sorta thing would be more believable if the characters were 20 years younger.

  7. The issue that causes this to go by unseen is the shear number of people who no longer really BUY their car. A large part of the population does leases now and those who don’t get a 6 year note. Because of that the real cost seems to get lost in the mix.

    No one really sees the added expense of these items because it is so small in the whole scope of things. I suspect the backup camera started off as costing no more then a buck or two a month more when it was optional. When everything is a monthly payment you can hide the cost quite easily.

    It is people, like me, who buy things outright that notice the added costs. 2K difference between price tags (when the equipment was optional) led us to really evaluate if it was worth the expense. For me it never was and I live in a state that does not require you have safety equipment checked.

    • Hi Matt,

      Amen. It is debt financing that allows the government to get away with mandating all this stuff – and the car companies to get away with doing effectively the same, by making the item standard when it ought to be optional. If it were optional, its true cost would be obvious and it would also fall entirely on those who want it or need it (or think they do).

      Without the ability to finance all this, most people couldn’t afford it.

      With debt financing, they are able to delude themselves that they can!

    • Most college graduate professionals have never paid for a car because they have traded their old one in on their new one, never paying off a loan. Leases are but a variation on this, with a shorter horizon.

  8. I barely remember the tire underinflation scandal that caused the introduction of the TPMS.
    It is obvious that they aren’t going to introduce any of the alarms that I would mandate:
    A klaxon that sounds when both the accelerator and the brake are pressed while the vehicle is moving forward at cruising speeds.
    An increasingly unignorable turn signal clicking audio level, coupled with a comparable annunciator when lane control sucks or is ignored.
    A back up alarm, long overdue in non-commercial vehicles.
    A no hands on the steering wheel when the vehicle is moving alarm.
    A riding the clutch alarm (if clutches continue to be available).
    A nod-off alarm to wake up the driver when s/he does.
    A VORAD for non-CDL passenger vehicles that interoperates with the cruise control.
    A audio signal that indicates that the driver’s door lock has been overridden because the keys are still in the ignition after the car has been parked.
    A near field communication device that would prevent the driver from answering or making a call or a text when the vehicle is moving, or would notify their insurance company if they do.
    And, since I’m in wild, windy, Wyoming, a system that could damp the rapid opening or closing of all of the vehicle’s doors in a sudden gust of wind.

    • And what about a Resume button that actually results in a printed sheet of paper with my work history materializing in my car? The Resume button in my car is crap, and has had absolutely no effect on my employment!

  11. I would love to see the face of my U.S. Rep when I ask them “Why does the Govt give me a $5000 tax break when I buy a hybrid, but throws me in jail when I drive my electric golf cart to the beer store?”
    Of course a good politician would answer with 15 minutes of B.S. that has nothing to do with the fact that the goal is Government control of industry – not the environment.

    • I want an electric car maybe hybrid next time. Glad for the back up camera esp for women drivers and old folks, but other stuff annoying like mentioned in article. We just got a 2018 Sorrento, everything on it except a flush toilet.

      • Hi Laura,

        Be sure you’re well aware of the limitations – and expense – of an electric car before you buy in. Hybrids are much better because they are not functionally impaired; but you may not save any money and might end up spending more than you thought.

        Happy to help with any specific questions you may have!

  12. The sound of applause you hear is Americans approving of an endless stream of gadgets and gizmos in their cars. They don’t ask whether they need such things; if it can be done, it should be done, and then it will be mandatory for everyone to do.

    Dozens of Three Square Market employees in Wisconsin voluntarily got their hands chipped because–ta dah!–it’s a convenient way to bypass all those passwords, physical money for vending machines, and the like. Convenience uber alles. It’s voluntary now, but wait. It’ll likely be required to enter federal buildings, fly in airliners, transact bank business, and so forth in the not-so-distant future. The American public will eat it up.

    • Even if people fight it, like everything there will be push after push after push until people accept it or are just exhausted.

  13. makes you wish for the hydrolically operated windows and trunk lid of a 600 Pullman:
    press the button, and whack, lid closed.
    if you can’t resist putting your finger in there, whack, there it goes.

    an oh that HORN!

  14. Make this an OPTION that people could choose to buy, and I would strongly recommend any parent of a toddler buy it. It’s way too easy to get distracted and forget a kid is in the back. I had a close call myself once.

    I’m with you on being utterly opposed to making them mandatory. It’s a complete waste of money if you don’t have kids in that narrow age range.

    • Sir!
      I have custody of a 18 month old child. He is my Great Grand Son. I do not need back up cams to know his location. I do not need sensors to know if he is in a car. However, I do know I am not stupid.

      What I find incredibly stupid is that a person over 12 would allow a child to play outside unsupervised. Think about that. I, an adult, gets into a vehicle KNOWING a child is outside, but does not pick up the child and take them inside or tender them to someone responsible? Well, HELL, my take is they wanted to off the kid. Think about it! The, I am incompetent to be a parent, screed. I agree off with their head and feed it to the FEDs.

      NoneYa

  15. If we cared about our species, we would allow the children of stupid parents to die to put an end to that hereditary trait instead of making endless and ever-more-complicated efforts to save them from the very people who, above all others, are supposed to love, care for and protect them. (There, I said it. Heartless bitch am I.) I assume in the Stone Age, the children of dumb parents were eaten by saber toothed tigers, trampled by mammoths, drowned in rivers, frozen or starved to death because their parents were too moronic to take proper care of them. Therefore, their hereditary line died out and the overall species was improved, intelligence-wise anyway. Hmmm … this explains a lot.

      • I love how I can say things like that on here. In 99% of the situations where I communicate, emotions are more important than science, feelings overrule facts and I’m required to be NICE (I hate nice!). And, worse, I’m informed that I would FEEL differently if it were my kid and anybody can make a mistake, blah blah blah. They call them mistakes, I call it survival of the fittest, evolutionary biology.

            • Now, I have to wonder if there may be the possibility of a blooming romance between the site’s esteemed author and an ardent female lover of sanity and logic not to mention liberty…

              NoneYa

        • Me too Amy. I have said the same thing before publicly and received the same reaction. I also like the fact that people here understand what anarchism actually means here in this group.

        • Me too Amy. I have said the same thing before publicly and received the same reaction. I also like the fact that people here understand what anarchism actually means here in this group.

        • People don’t only simply feel they feel the way they have been told to feel. Say or write something out of line with the grade school conditioning and look out.

          Then there is that all these people to who’s feelings we are supposed to be concerned about don’t feel any obligation to be concerned about ours.

      • Eric, I usually enjoy your Posts, but this one runs off the tracks. I Agree that the State has no Duty/Right to protect us from ourselves, but Nowhere did I read where this was made Mandatory by the Government. If Nissan wishes to do this, why should you Complain. If you don’t want it, don’t Buy it. That is how the Market works. Why an article referring to “toasted tots”. I’m glad that Amy, Heartless, Stupid Bitch that she is, Admitted who she is. You go Too Far on this one.

        • Hi GC,

          Well, here’s the thing:

          First, Nissan will not be offering this as an option. It will be included as standard equipment, folded into the price of the vehicle. The cost of this crap has to be spread around; those who have no use or need for it will be made to subsidize the cost for those who do want or need it.

          Like air bags. They would be cost-prohibitive if offered as options. Which they originally were – and failed. The Clovers who wanted them weren’t willing to pay for them. So they were made mandatory. So that everyone had to pay, to subsidize the Clovers’ desire for them. It’s been the pattern ever since.

          The government will almost certainly mandate this crap, too. As it has all the rest of it.

          The Safety Cult’s power is strong.

    • Amy, you just outlined the basis of the Darwin Award, people so incredibly stupid they remove their DNA from the gene pool. ?

    • It’s called Natural Selection and we have legislated it almost out of existence. Damn shame, we need it back badly.

    • Amy: gotcha, lots of stupid moronic parents for sure. Some of these stupid parents are still “raising ” offspring past college age, and even in their 30’s come home to live with parents. Too lazy to work. Glad I never raised a family. These loser parents are supporting their slacker adult kids and even their grand kids when parents are over 70. I have zero respect for these losers.

      • LA,
        I have equal amounts of disdain for those who will put up with any job, no matter how poorly they are treated, just to keep that sorry job, to the detriment of all of their fellow workers who will be treated like slaves as well. Likewise those who have never been laid off in their lives and think that anyone who is unemployed is lazy as opposed to unlucky. Once a young adult goes off to college and demonstrates that they can function on their own, it is not for anyone who isn’t supporting them to judge their parents, since this is the personal version of nanny-statism. In many cases, the parents benefit from the presence of a responsible adult that can aid them in unfortunate personal and/or economic situations.

  16. Of a piece with this is the disgusting mandatory child seat laws for kids up to their teens, when they can then be forced to wear seat belts. This sh@t has to be rolled back hard.

    They no longer even bother to pretend that this isn’t one gigantic plantation and that they believe we’re all their property.

    • It’s in the news…. ‘such and such costs companies X billions a year in lost productivity’ while this and that cost society Y billions a year in government services/payments/whatever. It’s been clear what it is for decades.

  17. Can’t back up with a door open? Countach owners will really be in trouble, as that’s the only way to do it without running into something (the Lambo having famously bad rear visibility).

  18. There are two very effective, and relatively cheap safety measures that could be implicated for cars in the USA:
    1. Mandatory alcohol breathalyzer/ignition interlocks on all new cars
    2. Mandatory wearing of crash helmets for occupants of all cars

    • Back in the days of bicycle helmet wars motorists who wanted foam hat laws were argued against by pointing out motorists would benefit more from helmets than bicyclists. Of course the control freaks didn’t like that much.

      • This is a Ted talk about why we shouldn’t wear bicycle helmets. Obviously they (and most likely the speaker) have their own agendas. He is obviously pro-bike (at least for large urban centers) but I’m not sure if that makes him anti-automobile necessarily. Anyway, he talks about the culture of fear we live in (which Eric touches on a lot here as well), why we shouldn’t wear bicycle helmets, and how the auto industry is the biggest advocate for bicycle helmets. Oh, and there is a cameo for the Thudguard.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY

        • One of the sane members of online bicycling groups was a guy who would write something along the lines of bicycling is not dangerous and does not do us any good to pretend it is.

          All crap of the last two decades to supposedly make bicycling safe makes it more dangerous IMO. It doesn’t show up in statistics because bicycling is so safe to begin with and as the groups that keep the data claim more bicycling they can dilute them to a tiny increase and then say ‘but more people are bicycling’.

          As to the video, all injury reduction due to bicycle helmets was achieved from reducing bicycling.

          • That is true Brent. It boggles the mind to think that people think those foam hats do any damn good. As the guy touches on in the video they would only help if the person landed on the crown of their head. There is no protection for the face at all. If people want to wear a helmet when biking and have protection they should be wearing motorcycle helmets. Either full-face or motocross-style helmets. Still seems like overkill for most forms of bicycling in my opinion but at least those helmets would make sense from an efficacy standpoint.

            Now as for any kind of bicycle racing, yeah, it would make sense to wear one. But again, they should be using motorcycle style helmets.

    • Not that I agree but you’d have to do your mouthwash thing after starting.

      I absolutely love the idea of full face helmets for everyone in the car. God only knows what sort of laws would arise after the badged crowd couldn’t help but make peepee every time they stopped a car.

      • cagey, got a better idea to get the sheeple to finally get their pea brains to say “enough goddammit, we won’t take any more ” ?

        You get what you allow.

  19. There are two very effective safety measures that COULD be mandated but never will:
    1. Mandatory alcohol breathalyzer/ignition interlocks on all new cars
    2. Mandatory wearing of crash helmets by all persons in cars

    • The first is the basis of my argument that DUI laws are strictly for profit and the ability to pull over and search anyone at any time. An interlock on all cars would 100% eliminate drunk driving and take with it the millions in revenue.

      • Ever the contrarian here: what is to prevent the right front seat guy from blowing? Car starts, drunk at wheeel, what’s the problem?

        those things are pretty easy to wire around, too…. I had to remove one from an old truck I bought….. could not start it, opened up the dash to find the “open” and began finding the various components, all sivertaped with “Intoxalok, do not remove”. Took me ten minutes to trace out all the interconnections, short past the bypasses, and remove the whole shabang. Truck starts and runs just fine now. Id they mandated one, I’d do the same to that one. I do NOT drive when I’ve had more than I should…. so WHY should I serve the sentence of they who do?

        • Tionico, a friend once had a court mandated breathalyzer. It was hard for him to break the mouthwash habit. You were screwed at that point. Then he remembered his son and would haul him out to blow. The kid was proud to be of service.

        • Well the passenger starting it is a silly argument, if they are sober enough to blow why wouldn’t they drive instead? But to answer your query (right word here?) they have video monitoring of who blows and some face recognition software that only the person in the drivers seat can blow, it also has you blow again and again throughout the drive to ensure you haven’t found a bystander to start the car. Also Eightsouthman is correct, toothpaste also does it, two beers the night before without breakfast AND time for it to digest will also trigger it and I’m pretty sure it is triggered at name calling. I don’t agree with them being installed but if it really was about safety it’s a no brainer to use them.

      • You don’t have to tell BrentP about the vortex that’s eating the world, much like that scene in 2001 Space Odyssey.

        He’s in Rahm Emanuel land. All he needs do is lower his drawbridge, unlock his triple redundant front gate, and look out into the blasted heath.

        Some of us play a few hands of poker at a time. And maybe an ongoing game of chess or two as well.

        He can 80% do only for himself. And 20% do for his fellow Windy White Walkers of the North. Or whatever ratio he deems appropriate.

        Most of us aren’t going to KISS it to the point of driving off into the sunset and off the grid in the Galtian Mystery Machine.

        We’re going to keep at this Rube Goldberg Puzzle Factory as long as we can. At least until it drives us completely mad.

  20. Don’t forget it was in order to meet government regulations that the rearward view out of automobiles got much worse in the first place. Although there were many examples going way back with poor rear visibility, but government practically mandated it.

  21. Cut cut cut, lemme leave this set. This is the scariest Outer Limits episode ever.

    I remember spending more time sitting in a car with the radio on than riding.

    Sure, we kids entertained ourselves in myriad ways. And I often refused to go into stores with my mother even staying by myself. I knew the owners manual from front to back…..on lots of cars. I’d ask my dad why he didn’t do certain things. He’d laugh knowing I’d been reading the owners manual.

    It was sometimes a drag to have a pedestrian stop and converse but mostly not. If you wanted the downlow on my parents I’d spill my guts.

    Of course not have much of anything except my cap guns sometimes the car was the best toy……but we knew not turn the lights on since batteries were iffy back then. I knew the difference between an alternator and a generator long before I could drive. I really don’t recall kids getting backed over, possibly because my parents knew how many kids they had and even our names. What a deal.

      • Roland, thanks for the kind words. I expect to get a new computer tomorrow so the plethora of spelling, syntax and grammar errors should decrease. Virtual keywords and the tip of my forefinger really suck.

        Can’t believe I’ve gone so long with a phone and no Bluetooth keyboard.

        • 8, I haven’t bought a new computer since about ’04. There are so many great deals on computers on ebay that I’ve never seen the need to buy a new one since about ’06 or thereabouts.

          I started using puppy linux way back then as my o/s for web use. You can buy a good desktop system made for XP or win7 with 2 gigs of RAM for about $75 on ebay and install Puppy Slacko at no cost and that thing will out-process just about any new computer that runs win10. Windows uses practically all of a computer’s resources just to run the o/s. Their constant updates can wipe out software you’ve bought and the new machines are worse about crashing than the old computers were.

          Used laptops are about as cheap. I got my current one for $100 and it runs XP, which I set for no updates and disabled flash and java. I can use it as a windows machine for doing things that are not accessible with linux, but those things are becoming fewer all the time.

            • Because microsux will update you to win10 if your o/s checks for updates and they detect XP, or at least I was told there was a danger of that. Anyway, I always set a windows machine to no updates mainly just because I can.

              Setting java and flash for no updates is also best, IMO.

              • If you put a MIcrosoft OS online you deserve what you get. There are lots of XP users that don’t have any problems waving Microsoft off, because they won’t upgrade anything unless you pay for it. The first device I surfed the Internet with was a Palm Pilot and I had to give it up when it got so infested with fancy software that I couldn’t find text on the screen. Fortunately Google has their own highly compatible versions that run smoothly on my Chromebook.

                • I had a Win 7 laptop that I primarily used to do my taxes since all of that tax software that I know of won’t work with my main Linux laptop. I had to reinstall 7, but couldn’t because the embedded OS installation software no longer worked. I suspect that Maxosucks purposely corrupted that software so that I could no longer use it. I was forced to either upgrade to 10 for free or buy a 7 install disk. Next time I am going to try to install a pirated 7 OS on a virtual machine within my Linux computer to see if that works.

                • I don’t use windows for internet, I use linux. You’re one to talk, running fucking Chrome, on a chromebook, no less. If I didn’t have any better sense than that, I’d STFU about what other people do online.

  22. About the pictured adult imbecile.

    That guy is on SSDI. The social safety net is paying him well enough to roleplay as an adult baby. Hire a mommy figure. Run a website. Go on TV shows.

    ‘Adult Baby’ Cleared of Fraud, Still Getting Social Security Checks
    http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2011/10/20/adult-baby-cleared-of-fraud-still-getting-social-security-checks/

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051012/Adult-baby-Stanley-Thornton-Jr-cleared-fraud-STILL-getting-disability-benefits.html

    Adult Baby defends his reasons for being on disability in a website post:

    “I am not getting disability because I am a Adult Baby. No one can get on disability because they are an Adult Baby. I am on disability for legit, tested and well documented illnesses such as PTSD, ADHD, depression, bipolar 2, spinal injury, and heart problems.

    My role playing is a way for me to relax, not a disability that is being claimed for a disability.”

  23. 1. Mom needs a break from the damn kids, leaves them in the car to fend for themselves for a few minutes.
    2. Power windows are now the standard so no way to open a window
    3. some busybody spies the kids and, instead of telling them to open the door if they’re hot, calls the police/some authority
    4. what was once a simple matter of kids fending for themselves now is a federal case.

    We were left in the car all the time. We could play games or talk or listen to the radio or whatever. If we got hot we’d crank down the windows. If we were adventurous we’d get out of the car and sit on the hood.

    As much as I’m a gadget head, crank down windows are pretty nice compared to power windows. If you want to open them a crack, a 1/4 turn will do it. The power windows are either too fast to get a good crack or take forever to lower, and the auto-up/down just means they tend to go binary all up or all down, not in-between without a lot of finesse. Sure, you have to reach across if you want to lower the passenger window but so what? How often do you need to?

    • I guess step 3 might be impossible for the kids because of child-proof back doors and incredibly high front seats that can’t easily be climbed over.

    • Second that on the crank windows, power windows are impossible to fine tune to where you want them, plus if you want to roll them down to air out the car on a nice day you don’t have to go hunting for the keys. Plus if it starts raining with the windows down you don’t have to run into the house and back out with keys all the while the seats are getting wet.

      • I got these dandy rain guards from Weathertech that install in the window guide. I bought the smoked models since in Texas you can’t get enough tint.

        I like the window can be down an inch and a half but still above the level of the bottom of the guard. Barring a hard wind rain neither rain or ol Sol gets in.

          • Uncle’s aerodynamics too, since they might increase drag enough to effect fuel economy. Need every last little bit you can get!

            • I despise the GM pickups from 2000 to whenever they got boxy again. My frickin Z71 curves in so much it has bug goo on the side windows.

              I can handle bug goo getting splattered off big side mirrors but being so slick to collect them sucks.

              Lots of things on that truck suck,like a floor pan molded to the drive line so the front passenger floor board only has enough room for children legs….or dogs (not mine, he’s a seat kinda guy ).

              I have to turn to an angle in the seat to have a flat floorboard and that sucks.

              Nothing like knowing exactly where the transmission and transfer case is located.

              Always ride in the passenger seat before buying.

  24. Let’s just go to the next logical step and let the OSHA/MSHA nannies regulate every aspect of life. Let’s see how quick things change when the safety Nazis have to find some steel toed Birkenstocks and some zero-peripheral vision safety glasses just to get through the day.

    • Hi El Guapo –

      It is coming. No Swift-esque parody will be too extreme for our reality. With “health” now being the government’s business on top of “safety,” there is literally nothing that isn’t arguably Uncle’s business anymore.

    • It’s always about power. But people in general want it that way.

      As I think about it, consider this:
      ~6% of people want to be free. This is pretty clear. This is about where it caps out time and time again. If we consider nature’s mirroring then we can assume that there is about ~6% of people who want to control everyone else. This leaves 88% wanting to be told what to do, lead, and managed.

      I’ve noticed the great offense so many have to freedom. I’ve looked at history. Why does serfdom and slavery in all its forms last so many thousands of years? Why even after people reject it they simply allow its re-establishment so long as it avoids the physical symbols of it?

      I often myself asking people who think libertarians so vile why they feel so threatened by such a tiny percentage of the people that simply want to be free and left alone? I never get an answer. They are quite accepting of the exploitation despite complaining loudly about it constantly, accepting of the system but to be free of it offends them greatly.

      The ridicule and worse that is reserved for libertarians has to have an answer. People say libertarians will allow us to be dominated by robber barons but then these same people want an all managing government controlled by robber barons. I can only conclude that they don’t want freedom. They are scared of it. They don’t like it. They want to be managed.

      The only trouble is most people who want to manage others are not good people.

      • Hey BrentP! “I can only conclude that they don’t want freedom. They are scared of it. They don’t like it. They want to be managed. The only trouble is most people who want to manage others are not good people.”

        YES! Well said. Time after time I find that MOST people, if you ask them “what is the purpose of government” will answer “it is there to keep us safe!” Watch the shock on their face when you tell them, “NO! Government’s purpose is to keep us FREE!”

        (I do not intend to argue minarchism vs anarchism vs any other ism, but my point is that most people do not even have liberty and freedom on their conceivable list of positive attributes.)

        • What is even worse is how US amerikans think they are “free” when it is quite clear that they are not. The best slave is one who does not know he is a slave.

                • I’ve been living in a van, sometimes down by a river, for almost 32 years. I’ve got 6 months of expenses covered by cash reserves. The duration of my PM reserves is in continual drift.

                  • Any tips on van living? I can definitely see that possibility coming in the future, not only for myself but I think others are going to find themselves in that position.

                    • Jason,
                      I could write a book about it, but most people would think it is about a dead comedian, or be disinclined to live in a van, period.
                      The KISS principle is a good starting point.
                      If you are in debt, get out of it as quickly as possible, which is facilitated by not having to pay rent, mortgage, property tax, utilities, or anything else necessitated by living in a building.

                    • No debt here, no mortgage, no credit card debt, no car payments. However taxes, utilities, and upkeep are killers.

                      Some of the challenges I see with the van scenario would be not freezing in the winter or broiling in the summer, and obviously sanitary issues (unless maybe the van is actually an RV).

                  • I agree.

                    Used to be in a family business where lots of residential property was owned and rented out.

                    The evil bastards get even more grabby when they know you own a portfolio of properties in one of their tax prisons they call cities.

                    I hoped for better out of Bill.

                    I would think being so conspicuous as to live in a vehicle instead of in a lawfully approved residential prison cell.

                    He would be so gung ho about piling on even more mandates.

                    • Enough of it is to finance getting to the vast majority of it, in case I have to replace a drive train to do it.

                • Tor, trouble is, if you own property, even after you’re out of debt government will continue to exact payments with a vengeance. We’ve had our mortgage paid off for a long time, but if we fail to cough up thousands of dollars at the end of each year to school other people’s kids (many of whom never crack a book and sleep through every class), they will literally sell our home and land on the courthouse steps to get the loot they think they deserve. Evil bastards.

                  • Ditto Roland…

                    I could survive decently on what I earn, were it not for the extortionate taxes I am compelled to pay, including taxes on my land/home.

                    It’s a major bur in my saddle. To me, the tax on homes/land is far more vicious that the tax on income because the tax on property renders the idea of owning property a sick joke.

                    We literally own nothing more than the clothes on our backs and whatever other small items are not yet subject to eternal taxation.

                    • Eric, about a year ago I had a running battle with some government schoolteachers on Facebook. I wrote that when I drove by the small rural elementary school that I attended almost 60 years ago, I counted 25 cars in the parking lot. When I was young, it had a staff of four teachers and a part-time janitor and cook. Why so many now, when enrollment (112) is slightly less than it was six decades ago?
                      A friend who has lots of teacher friends “tagged” them all and asked them to answer my question. I assumed they would explain that the reason for the bloated staff was additional requirements mandated by government, but no, they all lined up to attack me.
                      Then I suggested that there’s no reason education shouldn’t be completely private, with parents paying for it themselves. The services of a teacher constitute a good, I wrote, which behaves no differently in the marketplace than other goods like the aircraft parts that I produced every day or microwave ovens. “But children are not microwave ovens!” they shrieked. Some of them became so livid I think they would have strangled me with their bare hands if we had been in the same room.
                      When teachers can’t reason any better than this, is it any wonder that schools turn out pliant little robots who are putty in the hands of politicians?

                    • Hi Roland,

                      Exactly. I have witnessed and dealt with the same. Florid, vein-popping fury at the suggestion that someone else’s decision to have children does not impose a moral obligation upon other people to educate the child any more than it imposes an obligation to house and feed the child.

                      Having children is not something that is imposed on people. It is a voluntary choice. I like kids. I wish I’d had them, sometimes. But that doesn’t mean I feel obliged to accept indentured servitude for the sake of other people’s kids.

                      This makes me a bad person, I suppose.

                    • They’ll get angry, they’ll be insulting, they’ll invoke the social contract, but they will never ever answer the questions or address the points made.

                      It is often demanded of me, no matter what the subject at hand, because I reject the government imposed solution to produce a fully formed method of managing society. No matter how much I explain that society should not be managed the demand persists. People cannot even conceive of not being managed by so-called betters.

                      I guess maybe because it goes alright for them. Then they don’t have to deal with the people who produce. The government just takes from productive for them. As a result they no longer need to include such people in the society. There need not be any equitable arrangements.

                      This is how society ultimately fails. The productive at some point simply stop producing and universal poverty results.

                    • Brent, we are indeed entering into the critical stage of societal failure due to the parasites out breeding their host. We are way past the point of no return. There is no hope in trying to fix the situation. Us Liberty minded people should not even try. We must concentrate our energies only into surviving the collapse.
                      Throw US amerika into the woods.

                    • It’s not so much out breeding the hosts but the altering of the deal.

                      They blather on about this unwritten social contract but always about the duties of the productive never about the society’s duty _to_ the productive.

                      The revised social contract is all about duties and obligations for the productive man but not a damn thing to make being productive worth wild. Worth the effort. It’s not just the fruits of one’s labor taken away it is the respect, the social position, and so forth that came from being productive.

                      Now the respect is the same as shown a beast of burden at best.

                      Even if parasites were few the fact that what is produced can be taken without any reciprocity would still push society to failure.

      • Brent, like the border guard in No Country For Old Men asking Llewellyn who he thinks gets into the US,Lewellyn says “Americans “to which the guard replies “Some Americans “.

        You see one sort, and it’s probably accurate of your part of the world, but people where I live have no love for Obamacare and fairly not much for government at all.

        Oh, there’s enough dumbassas to go along with local prosecutors but without that stupid bunch of queef most don’t subscribe to government mantra.

        Recently a tiff over increasing courthouse workers pay went unresolved. A commissioner lamented nobody else was seeing a pay raise to which one employee said she and cohorts busted butt, her words. Wish I’d been there since every time I’m there they’re screwing the pooch.

  25. The Thudguard helmet is ideal for babies who are still less than sure-footed when developing their newfound mobility. Learning to walk on hardwood floors, tiles, patios or near hard furniture can cause painful accidents. The helmet is lightweight, sturdy and comfortable plus has been impact tested and endorsed by emergency and medical experts. The Thudguard hat is designed to absorb and reduce the impact of head injury due to fall or collision from a child’s own height. It has an adjustable soft elastic chinstrap and is made of ultra lightweight foam and materials to avoid pressure on developing neck muscles. .75 inch thick impact tested foam to absorb severity from bumps. A comfortable stretchy circumference band allows for growth and holes and air channels on inside of helmet for ventilation. One size fits all. Helmet design eliminates the need for sizes S/M/L. (16″ circumference plus 4″ provided by stretchy band.)

      • Good thing Jered’s wearing his helmet. Jered is about 6-7 months old.

        Location: Cabo, Mexico at a time share. (home is not baby proof)

        Purpose: More floor time instead of being in a walker and to increase confidence of his stability and center of balance.

        Length of use of helmet 3 months. He started walking at 9 1/2 months.

        Result so far: Little bit of a dare devil, he doesn’t cry when he gets scrapes &/or bruises, he breakdance (half flares, 2 second hand stand, etc), beat rides, he loves riding his scooter and he is in Gymnastic class.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54XC693XLcw

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