Some of you may remember when – as if on cue – the media pirouetted like a Bolshoi ballerina and began talking up Iraq (and Saddam) as the Enemies of Freedom rather than Afghanistan and the Taliban.
At the time, I was an editorial writer at a big city newspaper, so I had what amounted to a front-row seat for the show. It was extremely interesting to me then – and still is, today – how the Party Line just changed, as if an order had been given. And how everyone fell into line – and no one raised a hand to ask why all of a sudden the war drums were being thumped over a country that hadn’t attacked us, wasn’t harboring the characters who supposedly did.
But they had “weapons of mass destruction,” you see. Except of course, they did not.
This preface is revelant in terms of understanding a similar shift that’s happening right now.
President Trump is apparently considering a dialing back of federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations – which I’ve italicized for a reason which will shortly become very clear. These CAFE regs specify that every car company’s entire lineup p of vehicles must collectively average “x” miles-per gallon and if they don’t, fines are imposed. These are passed on to buyers of the not-efficient-enough (for the government) vehicles, with the implicit idea being to make them increasingly unaffordable, so as to discourage people from buying them and thus, the car companies from making them.
During the last few months of the Obama presidency, the CAFE mandatory minimum was almost doubled – by fiat – to 54.5 MPG, effective beginning with the 2025 model year. In between now and then, the standard was proposed to rise to 46.6 MPG by 2021 – which is less than three model years from now.
But here’s where it gets . . . interesting. In the same way that the light switch shift from Afghanistan and the Taliban to Iraq and Saddam was . . . interesting.
CAFE – remember those italics – is about fuel economy. Has been, since these regs were first imposed way back in the bell bottomed ‘70s.
But suddenly – as if an order had been issued – these fuel economy regs are being talked about by almost every media organ as being an assault upon pollution standards. Here is a sample quote:
Trump’s action “… promised to erode the government’s single-largest program to tackle pollution from the top source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country.”
It’s as halting as the sudden Saddam talk, 24-7, after 911.
CAFE has nothing to do with “tackling pollution,” in the first place. It was an outgrowth of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) of 1975, which was written in the wake of the energy crisis (OPEC oil embargoes) which had crippled the country with gas shortages. It had – and has – zip to do with pollution standards, which are the EPA’s fief.
Second, carbon dioxide is – suddenly Susan – a “pollutant”? How?
When?
Says who?
This is new – but goes unreported. 
Yes, of course, carbon dioxide which results from the combustion of gasoline in cars is asserted by the Climate Change Cult to be . . . changing the climate (how it is being changed, exactly – in a way that can be scientifically as opposed to politically quantified is never precisely explained). But the fact remains that carbon dioxide is not considered a pollutant in the legal sense; there are no CO2 tailpipe emissions standards in the United States and CAFE regs say absolutely nothing about C02 or any other exhaust byproduct.
CAFE is strictly about fuel economy, period.
Whether the government has any legitimate business decreeing fuel economy standards is something which can and should be debated. But conflating gas mileage regs with emissions regs – and then creating authority to regulate these “emissions” out of thin air is breathtakingly audacious.
Because it’s spectacularly lawless.
Remember: CAFE is a law about fuel economy. Nothing else. It has not been amended to regulate anything that comes out of the tailpipe. It applies – as a matter of law – only to the rate at which fuel is consumed.
Yet all of sudden – and without any regulatory rule change – the entire media is chorusing about CAFE being about curbing “emissions” and characterizing Trump as a planet rapist for dialing back fuel efficiency regs.
Shouldn’t this at least be put up for debate?
No, of course not.
The same parties which were determined to regime change Iraq found it convenient to throw the switch – and just like that, all the talk was about “Saddam” and his confected Weapons of Mass Destruction – have now decided among themselves that the best way to get what they want as regards fuel economy standards is to characterize them as emissions standards.
Public health – the planet! – is at risk, you see.
This sells better than bullying people for buying an SUV, pick-up truck or large sedan or minivan because government bureaucrats believe these vehicles use “too much” gas – even though you’re paying for every drop that goes in the tank, plus the vehicle itself.
But just as Saddam didn’t have anything to do with 911 – and had no Weapons of Mass Destruction – so also this business about carbon dioxide as pollution is politically contrived bunk, calculated to scare people in order to ramrod an agenda down their throats.
Will it work this time around? Again?
Probably.
PT Barnum should have worked for CNN.
. . .
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Trump should have left the CAFE standards alone and let the Big 3 go bankrupt. Fate and the Market would catch up to auto sales as no one wants an EcoBoost or Ecotech engine or will quickly not buy one after reading about new fangled tech in the engine crapping out way before the already aged pushrod V8 passes it in the left lane.
Brazos, the average person today is so car-illiterate, and so deprived of common sense, that they just don’t get it. Instead of not wanting these delicate, expensive, planned-obsolescence Rube Goldberg contraptions….they think that all the high tech is wonderful, and will even pay extra for it.
Don’t believe me? Just look at how long this has been going on!
The 6.0 Powerstroke was such an abortion…and yet people are still buying them used; then the engines that came out to replace them, were just as bad…and the same people who got screwed over on the 6.0’s were snapping them up…and ditto with their successor.
Whatever the car companies put out these days, the fools will buy, gladly, for tens of thousands of dollars. Throw in a turbo or TWO; and all sorts of electronic gadgets and gizmos; touchscreens instead of simple switches, etc. People eat it up….and complain if something doesn’t have “the latest feature”.
Cadillac has made nothing but crap for the last 30 years….and people still buy ’em…
And now these stoopit electric cars!
Heck, even if we were free and they could start making good old simple durable cars again, I’d bet few would buy THEM.
People don’t think like you and I do. Whatever makes sense…just think the opposite, and THAT will be the sentiment of the average person today. The world has gone crazy. Every time I go to buy gas, I see morons buying lottery tickets…they think if they could just fill their lives with all of this “wonderful” modern crap, that their lives would be great.
Sell ’em a new “truck” by giving them a tiny over-worked engine with a turbo and an aluminum body, that get’s .5MPG more than their old truck- and even though it costs more to insure; will wear out or break in short order; will cost a fortune to repair…hey, it’ll save ’em $40 a year on gas…so they eat it up!
These vehicles aren’t being made for people like you and I- ’cause we ain’t gonna go out and take out a loan for $40K to drive some POS that we can’t even work on ourselves, and then do the same thing again 3 years from now…..
Americans either don’t know or want to know that the US is collapsing or think that nothing can be done to save the USA. Any plans or ideas to slow or escape the decay are quickly shot down as unworkable.
Instead of demanding that minimum wages be repealed or checkpoints be ended, Americans would rather beg for their chains by asking for more laws.
Insanity.
https://forum.full30.com/c/general
Hi Free,
I think it’s worse than that. I think most Americans endorse coercive collectivism; they differ only in its objects. What is the difference between liberalism and conservatism? They are both coercive collectivist ideologies. They agree on that fundamental.
The good news is that most Americans who endorse coercive collectivism don’t really comprehend that they are endorsing coercive collectivism. Many can be reached. If they are shown that (as an example) the theft which they agree is morally obnoxious when practiced by an individual is exactly the same – and just as obnoxious – when it is performed by a collective, or by individuals acting on behalf of one… they sometimes see the light.
That’s what I hope to accomplish with my writing, at least.
It may be pointless, I realize. But it’s worth a shot, eh?
It’s a form of collective insanity- keep doing the same things over and over which led to this state of dysfunction [or even pursue them more vigorously!] and somehow expect different results. But they’ll keep persisting in those dysfunctional ways because what they are practicing is essentially a religion; an ideology based on beliefs and values, which were inculcated by emotionalism- as opposed to logic or revelation. -A false and dysfunctional religion.
This is why I disagree with Eric about reaching people. One either loves freedom or not. One either detests coercion, and respects the absolute right of their neighbor to make choices as he sees fit in his own life and over what is his, even if we may disagree with what he is doing…or not.
In my opinion, we can only help those who love freedom and hate coercion to see the light and aid them in more fully realizing the nature of the problem and how to at least extricate themselves from it. The others are lost- and one can ply them with all the facts, logic and appeals to morality in the world- it does no good, because such things can not overcome the emotionalism and religious sentiment [statism; patriotism; colectivism..] with which they have been indoctrinated from infancy, and everyone else around them -those to whom they look for acceptance and justification- believe and practice the same.
It’s like when you’re in a discussion with someone and you make a point which is irrefutable, and you know that you’ve gotten through to your opponent because they go silent for a while and then have no response. You win the argument….but they never change their opinion/belief….because they WANT to believe what they believe- and it doesn’t matter to most if they are made aware that their belief is not supported by reality, logic, morality, whatever- they keep on believing it because it is predicated on emotion- and we can neither change their emotion, which in most cases has been carefully cultivated by the very government whom they worship, and the media, and those around them- nor should we really want to, as that would be just as coercive as what we are fighting.
This is why I believe that preaching to/supporting the choir is about all we can do. And those who may join us as a result, are those who possess that spark of liberty and honesty and decency already.
Fact is too, this collective insanity has progressed to such a level, it is now stark raving mad! I mean, when you see businesses which don’t make a profit, but rather lose hundreds of millions of dollars per year, and their CEOs are heralded as “visionaries”, and their impractical products are sold for ridiculous sums and bought by the rich; and people pay absurd amounts of money for what should be penny stocks in companies which are headed for bankruptcy, and whose practices are based on ideologies and philosophies rather than economics….. you stand no more of a chance of bringing such people in from the ledge than one does of walking into a loony bin and talking sense into a raving lunatic.
The disease has progressed too far. There’s no fixing it. If we can manage to save ourselves and secure a location from which we can watch the loony bin go down in flames, THAT will be a grand accomplishment.
But Brawndo has what plants crave!
But Brawndo has what plats crave!
There’s so much tyranny, who can even keep track?
I just read that Craigslist shut down their personal ads, due to new federal regs which hold the HOSTING party responsible for any misuse of such a service- supposedly to “prevent sex trafficking”.
Where does it end??
We ARE North Korea.
NOTHING is safe from these monsters anymore. Cops- domestic and even foreign, can access “the cloud” and other electronic storage withour rhyme, reason or warrant…..
We have ZERO privacy; zero autonomy.
And all in the name of nanny-state-ism, to “keep us safe” and “prevent crime”….
It’s way past time to get out of here….
Nunzio,
Craigslist is removing personal ads due to the recent atrocious spending bill that Trump signed into law. The amount of money didn’t bother me so much as all the hidden crap that was inserted into the bill that will become permanent law. Such as the NCIS now having access to VA and Social Security disability rolls.
While I understand it would have been worse under the hag, I can’t get over the feeling that Trump is a switch and bait con artist.
Trump’s statism is was evident throughout the last 30+ years. Those surprised by his actions as president only have themselves to blame for it IMO. Trump portrayed himself as the statist that would work for the people but its turning out the same as it has every other time someone has done that.
Anyone who didn’t see that coming in Trump just was not paying attention.
Trump thinks only of Trump. Anything else is just a tool (in several senses of the word). Whether the “change” from stump to office is inherent in The Donald’s persona or whether the Shadow Government told him to make the change is irrelevant.
Turning on a light now shows that Amazon is evil. Surely the business of government and presidents, right? Who will save us from this troublesome company? Super Don!
Actually, NoneYa, yet another bill, “FOSTA” has been passed, specifically about “sex trafficking”-(Even though I don’t watch TV or any “news”, I’m aware that the term “sex trafficking” has been being bandied about for years….part of the usual ploy of convincing the sheeple that there is a problem, which the government then steps in and “solves”- instead of just announcing that they are usurping more liberties and creating more injustices).
Trump; The Hag, what difference does it make? They each speak words that appeal to the ones who will vote for them, and throw their “side” a few little crumbs- but they ALL do the exact same things. The wars, welfare, and erosion of liberty/progress of tyranny continue unabated…it makes absolutely no difference who occupies the position.
I did have a shred of hope that maybe Trump might do a hair of good, seeing as the insiders hate him so much…but I’m sure glad that I don’t vote! I like how, despite all the rhetoric, the Clinton crime family is still free as a bird, and probably always will be- with the one who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past to The Bitch, being president now. (That alone proves what a mercenary he is!)
That early tiny glimmer of hope was dashed even before the election though, just by the people he was picking to surround himself with, and by his proclamation of being “the law and order” candidate.
I said to myself, “Either this guy is very stupid, or else he is disingenuous”. And the things that he says, and the way he acts…he is proving to be an embarrassment. The liberals could not have done as much damage as he is doing.
The sad thing is, that a lot of non-liberals, seeing him as their only hope, just keep making excuses for him (It’s like i always say: It’s usually better if the worse candidate wins, because then the good people are more diligent and rebellious. When they think one of their own is in, they just go along quietly, no matter how badly they are betrayed).
Ya knew when Ron Paul showed no support for this buffoon, that there was nothing to hope for.
The sad thing is, next election, the commie-leftist candidate is going to win by a landslide. The Repjublicans will be so divided… those who voted for Trump having been so betrayed, that they will never vote for him again; other Republicans being equally or more repugnant; and a lot of former Trump voters opting for some third party, which will probably magically rise up just absorb their votes….the Dems could run Hitler at this point and probably win…unless Trump starts WW3 or initiates some large-scale false-flag, which will make his Naziism popular, like it did with GWB.
Either way…the US is done. It’s over. Time to get while the getting’s good. Tyranny is increasing exponentially now, on practically a daily basis. Imagine the next round?
Are the faggots and pervs even complaining about the CL personals? (I hear that they were the biggest users). If CL had nixed the personals of their own volition, I would have thought it a good thing…but to think, that in the US of A, legislation so onerous and unconstitutional quietly comes to pass, which makes a mere venue responsible for the conduct of it’s anonymous users…is truly of Hitlerian proportions.
Where is the outrage?! Where is the protest?
The law holds the website owners accountable for illegal activities users of the website facilitate through it in this ‘sex trafficking’ area. CL’s format of course does not lend itself to policing that. Some say it’s not as bad as CL thinks the law is, but I haven’t looked into it. Dating websites haven’t apparently reacted so who knows.
CL personals were quite worthless for the last dozen years or more. The spammers and scammers had long since taken over. Any thing that wasn’t a scam or spam would get flagged for removal as people wanted to limit the responses to increase their odds.
Yeah, Brent, I would normally think that the abolition of CL personals was a good thing- but not when it comes about as a result of censorship/tyranny/injustice.
I mean, what kind of precedence does this set? Hold websites and other venues responsible for car ad or employment ad scams/abuse? Bad enough, that through the legal liabilities imposed by such BS, that you can no longer post a “GIRL friday wanted” help wanted ad; or a rental ad specifying “single man” or “single woman” or “no kids”, etc.
Basically, it’s just a way of the government making websites and venues self-censor or self-regulate…. a round-about way of abolishing freedom of speech; freedom of choice and freedom of association, and imposing thought-control.
Truly mind-numbingly terrifying that this is happening…and with virtually no resistance.
CL is just quick to respond. Other sites may not do anything until there is some litigation- or someone is made an example of.
Actually it’s nothing new. I used to sell real estate, and doing ads were a mine field of you can’t or you shouldn’t do things. This kind of regulation is coming to all advertising at some point.
Basically the lawyer or at least the managing broker had to eyeball every ad or marketing material for “fairness”. Because all involved would be held “responsible”. The agent, the supervising broker, the company, even the newspaper your ad ran in, or the billboard company etc (doesn’t matter they are a vendor) all get in trouble if there is a problem. So all those things are run past various people who could veto anything. So you self censored, then your company would, then the newspaper would too. Even wonder why real estate agents pick their words carefully? That’s why. You give up free speech when you sell real estate.
For example, I had a listing a block from a church. Naturally you would think, people that go to that church would be more interested in that house near their church then others. But if I put up a flyer at that church, but then not put them in other local places, I would be seen as favoring people from that church over others. And I could still get in trouble, if for some reason the flyer got ripped down in one place but not the other. I would have to be able to prove that I had marketed to everybody, not just a certain group.
Oh by the way, the evil of redlining. It was done not by the evil marketplace, but the government, mostly the feds. Real estate agents and bankers and the like are still blamed for red lining, but it was the government that enforced redlining for decades. Funny how the government isn’t punished for its enforcement of this racist policy. People also forget that white people couldn’t get mortgages in areas that had been set aside for blacks. Happened to my grandparents, they had wanted to buy the long time family home, but the neighborhood was becoming a black one.
Oh, I know that has been the case for decades now- my bad- I just meant to draw an analogy of how they are now expanding that to a broader scope.
Redlining? How about actually destroying entire neighborhoods by building housing projects…errr…I mean “low-income housing”, and subsidizing private rentals, and demolishing private homes to make way for expressways and such?
We have truly lived in and are living in the most tyrannical times the world has EVER seen.
“Don’t Vote” lol. Voting is misdirection. Instead of keeping track of what the political class is actually DOING and holding THEM to account for it (I.E. pitchforks) We direct all our anger with Government at …. wait for it … OUR NEIGHBORS because they voted wrong. Best scam ever invented.
Exactly, Johnny. But imagine the feelings of consternation that someone who believes in voting would be feeling about now, had they thought Trump was actually going to be their salvation, only to see him betray them at every turn! (But most people don’t want to face that, so they make excuses for “their guy”).
Our neighbors are culpable though, for obeying and participating in the machinations which government erects- from sending their kids to their schools, to dutifully reporting all of their financial transactions to the IRS, to manning the positions of cop and soldier and government agents, at all levels.
No tyranny that has ever existed on this earth would ever be possible without the active participation of a good percentage of the population, and the passiveness of the rest.
Voting is just the charade which keeps the masses pacified, and makes them think that they have a say, and even accept blame for “not voting for the right candidate” [no matter who is in]. The constant quibbling over and participation in the charade, ensures that those who are so occupied will never come close to addressing the real issues and problems, or cease from participating in THEM.
Just keep voting for the better of the two slave masters, who may make your life a little better or at least speak words which are more palatable to your ears.
Although, with this most recent election, I can understand how even non-voters may’ve been tempted. To keep the most evil woman since Bloody Mary out of power, while electing someone who though certainly severely flawed, did appear to be the enemy of many entrenched hacks. (At least until he started surrounding himself with mainstream Repugnantcans and Neocons…)
Way, waay, back … in the last millenium, actually … I was clued-in to a magical, mystical thing called VMT (Vehicle Miles Travelled).
Ceteris paribus, when average MPG increases, VMT increases in a roughly 1:1 fashion. That is, people drive as much as they need to regardless of MPG; and, in addition to what they “need” to drive, they will drive as much as they can comfortably afford to. If an individual, or family, typically allocated “X” percent of income to fuel purchases, that “X” percent does not change if they acquire a vehicle with better fuel economy. So, doubling fuel-economy generally leads to people driving twice the distance.
The cost of fuel is the “ceteris” that must remain “paribus” for this equivalency to hold true. In other words, the only thing that reduces VMT is the price of gasoline per gallon.
If (while holding gas prices constant) doubling average fuel economy merely doubles the number of miles driven; then neither energy “conservation” nor “pollution” reduction is a result of increasing CAFE.
I assure you that both EPA and NHTSA are aware of this fact. I’d love to provide citations and such; but, to be honest, I am too lazy to research them. Maybe something has changed this state of affairs in the last 20 years, but I tend to doubt it.
In any event, if TPTB know that increasing CAFE does nothing to either conserve energy or to reduce pollution; then one would surmise that they must have another reason.
In the 1970’s & 80’s, “technology-forcing” requirements were considered by the automobile manufacturers to be horrible, unfair, and unreasonable impositions. But, after the first round or two of CAFE “improvements” the auto industry noticed something important, … their revenues and profits were massively increased.
You see, if you add enough environmental and safety features; you can double the cost of the vehicle. This has the effect of more than doubling the price of the vehicle. Because your profit MARGIN (%) does not decrease, this more than doubles your profit.
Hope that helps leads someone in the right direction to try to verify what I’ve just claimed, because, Lord knows, no one’s paying me to research it.
That’s pretty much true of any energy consumption. The rise of the McMansion has as much to do with high efficiency HVAC systems as low interest rates. When you have a super-insulated space and a furnace that operates at 98% efficiency, who cares if it costs an extra $20 a month to heat up 2X the volume?
Wow. I actually never thought of it that way. If $10 of gas gets me twice as far – then yeah, I’m going to drive twice as much.
I can see that on the road on which I live.
When gas was near $4/gal, ya’d see maybe three cars an hour go by, even if ya were down by the road for a few hours working on the fence or something… Now that gas is cheap again….I just walk down for the mails, and in the 2 minutes I’m down there, 5 cars go by….
In my market, SLC Utah, gas prices went up 22% in the space of a week, from $2.15.9 to $2.65.9 between the Monday before Easter and the following Friday – It cannot be anything other then collusion, or it would not have happened to all the different chains and even the independent gas stations.
I did notice that Scott Pruitt is supposedly going to drop the current CAFE standards, announced officially this afternoon – 3 PM EDT. That would be a good thing.
DROP the CAFE standards…or just lower them?
Always seems like just before “we” bomb/invade some hapless oil-rich country, the price of gas goes up….
Another great piece, well done Eric.
Off topic, I wanted to drop this off right here (comments in quotes are mine):
“Ha ha, meatbags.
Thought your self driving people pods would be outside the reach of Officer Friendly?
Think again.”
Self-Driving Car Ticketed; Company Disputes Violation
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/03/27/self-driving-car-ticketed-san-francisco/
By Jackie Ward March 27, 2018 at 6:43 pm
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — A self-driving car was slapped with a ticket after police said it got too close to a pedestrian on a San Francisco street.
The self-driving car owned by San Francisco-based Cruise was pulled over for not yielding to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Cruise says its data shows the person was far away enough from the vehicle and the car did nothing wrong.
Surprise surprise, well, not really. They need the revenue. We are the customers no matter……
They are going to use ANY reason to oppose rolling back the CAFE standard. The elites hate that we drive SUV’s and pickup trucks instead of the little electric turds they wish we would all buy. They never note how your supposed to get a family around in a small vehicle, something NEVER discussed. Back in the day, the folks of a friend, when large station wagons were no longer available replaced that one big car with THREE cars! So how is that better for mother earth? I am sure they weren’t the only ones that did that.
The biggest irony is that it probably wouldn’t have happened to the degree it has, if it hadn’t regulated away the large cars most of us once drove. A large car would be less hard on the “environment” then that SUV or when you have to replace that one large car with two or more smaller cars.
They will assume most people will think, burn more gas in a bigger engine, make more pollution. Guessing that is not true either, as its turning out those overburdened little 2.0 liter engines aren’t so great in the pollution department either. I am guessing a vehicle that really should have a V6 actually “pollutes” less then a harder working turbo 4 banger that is really too small.
While I agree that car design or fuel economy is none of the govt’s bidness, I’ve yet to recall finding a single instance of a car that has non-turbo 4 cylinder and V6 engine options, where the V6 had higher or even equal mpg numbers than the four banger.
What we consider under-engined is because we are fortunate enough to, at least temporarily, be able to buy family cars that perform that muscle cars of several decades ago. If you look at a Model T, it had 20 hp and a top speed of 45 mph. The environmental radicals would love to foist that upon us as an intermediate step to outlawing IC cars altogether.
If you look at how big rigs are designed, 18 wheelers and whatnot, they have incredibly underpowered engines relative to passenger cars. Basically, if such a truck is intended to go 70 mph at most, then it will get an engine that will have a tiny reserve such that its top speed is, say, 75.
Ran a fleet of Chrysler minivans some with non turbo 4’s and others with 6’s. The 4’s mileage in real world conditions were no better then the 6’s, saved no money. And people complained about the 4’s all day long and beat the crap out them. An under engined vehicle won’t be an economy car by any means. If we had been saving money on gas we could have ignored the complaints, but since we weren’t, we stopped buying those slow poke vans.
A truck driver knows he won’t be first off the line. A person driving an employers fleet vehicle is going to pound the hell out of a slow underpowered vehicle. Its human nature, if they wanted to save money on gas, we needed to have smaller vehicles not smaller engines.
Biggest scam they ever came up, that smaller injun=better MPGs!
Small engines always have to work near the top of their capacity, which is wildly inefficient. An engine that’s big enough to only have to work at 25-35% of capacity most of the time, is most efficient.
The other big scam is that weight matters. myeah….only if it’s thousands of pounds. a few hunnert pounds doesn’t make a hill of beans worth of difference in MPGs.
My 6.8 liter V-10 almost 8K lb. excursion is the most fuel efficient vehicle I’ve had in 15 years…not by a lot…but it is…and would be more so if it weren’t geared so low!
A big enough engine, and proper gearing (and aerodynamics) are where the meat and potatoes is for MPGs …but as usual, Uncle has his head up his rectum while making his dysfunctional dictates which shouldn’t even be any business of his, and has us on a wild goose chase, chasing a few pounds to shave and a few electrons and rube goldberg contraptions to eek out 0.1MPG more, when we could easily get 10MPG more by addressing the real issues, which of course, is not possible with Uncle in the way.
Because the epa mileage tests are conducted on a dynamometer, where real world influences are left out or programmed out of the equation.
I once drove a Mazda 121 to work for 2 years. Took me an extra 20 minutes each way because I had no power to pass cars. Also on a windy day, driving into the wind, my top speed, pedal floored was 10 km below the posted limit. So I went back to driving my 3.8 L GM V6 and gained 40 minutes of my day back, and less wear and tear on my vehicle. Plus I could safely pass clovers and large trucks, easily.
It’s the extra power available in the bigger motor that makes it the better choice. I’m sure a V6 running at 2200 rpm will last longer than a 4 that runs at 5200 rpm just to maintain a sub par speed and running at WOT on the open road.
My big old v8 Ram experiences no difference in performance whether or not it has 1500 lbs of coal in the back, other than the ride is smoother if it does.
JIm out here in Oz where the truckers run the Nullabor from Perth to Melbourne, the trucks are capable of 160+ km even though the posted limit is 100. And with a load. That’s from a truckie himself, now retired.
Freakin douches who ruined Aussieland! 100Km limit? That’s 60MPH! Trucks doing 160? Now THAT’s more like it- that’d be about 95MPH. Are they triples?
I agree with you Jim about trucks being severely underpowered relative to cars. The old-timers used to tell us about driving 100+ mph in western states back in the ’70’s when I was a kid. Back then they had bias ply tires too. Modern radial tires are far safer. I am sure that there are still 100+ mph trucks around, but I have never driven one. I once had a KW with a 500 hp CAT engine in it that pulled great, but was governed at 75. Indeed, most trucks that I have driven _would_ go up to around 80-90 mph if they were not governed. Thanks to the clovers in the insurance agencies; most trucking companies are required to govern the max speed of trucks to 65-68 mph in order to get the cheapest rates. Castrated trucks increase stress to the drivers of those trucks and to the 4 wheeler drivers trying to get around them as well.
I have seen both diesel train engines and fracking pump engines, both of which are gigantic, but check out the picture of a container ship 6 cylinder engine within the following article about 7/8ths of way down: https://gearheads.org/king-diesel-cummins-duramax-or-power-stroke/ . The 14 cylinder version is described as thus:
The Wärtsilä RT-flex96C is a two-stroke low-speed diesel engine designed for use in large container ships. The largest 14-cylinder version is 44 feet high, 87 feet long, weighs over 4.5 million pounds. The massive diesel generates 107,390 horsepower and 5,608,310 ft-lbs of torque (at 104 rpm!). With a 38 inch bore and an 8.2 foot stroke, a full grown man could easily hide in one of the cylinders. Now THIS is truly the king of the diesels!
Good thing it’s a 2-stroke! Ya’d probably need a few swimming pools worth of oil to do a change if it were a 4!!!!
Two-stroke diesels still require a crankcase, but wiki doesn’t mention its capacity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%A4rtsil%C3%A4-Sulzer_RTA96-C . The cylinders are lubricated with consumable oil. I presume that the crankshaft and cross head bearings gets lubricated by oil in the crankcase, but I can’t find any information on the oil capacity. Obviously, NAPA will not carry the oil filter for it, but I am curious about its design as well. The following page says that oil is squirted onto the underside of the pistons, but here too the oil capacity is not given: http://www.emma-maersk.com/engine/Wartsila_Sulzer_RTA96-C.htm Here is a Youtube of one being built: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=mR3Yf_1qXfA .
Oh, and the 2nd link mentions that gas engine cylinders can become oval-shaped over time due to side-thrust. I distinctly remember somebody in this group (probably Bill) ridiculing me for saying that.
Brian, you’re correct about side thrust which I know I don’t need to verify. It’s the reason over-square engines tend to have a longer cylinder life than strokers(unless the block is specifically made for a stroker as in truck blocks or tall blocks). While using a 400 SBC crank in a 350 block results in a hard pulling engine it also drops the piston skirt down below the point it was designed to go allowing the piston to move around and increases side load as well as “slop” at that point which tends to let the piston “wander” a bit when it should be perfectly aligned and on it’s way back up.
I recall diesels in trucks back in the good old days and while they didn’t necessarily have the torque available at quite the low rpm of today’s diesels they did make plenty of power if that’s what you wanted.
I know of a guy with a two turbo Cummins, not stock, in a Freightliner XL(the ext. hood version appearance wise of a class 379 Pete) that was tested and turned in 145 mph top speed. That includes load and wind resistance for the bull wagon he pulled. He got stopped pulling those hills going into Cloudcroft at 101mph by a DOT who, after 30 years, said he’d never seen such or even knew it could be done. He wrote the guy a warning.
Another old-timer used to run a 359 Pete with a 2 cycle and locks on the hood. One day a group of truckers talked him into opening the hood. It had the old(not at the time)12V 71 Detroit with 4 blowers instead of 2. It was said to be a 160 mph truck and probably was.
This was back when some of us would get on a jag due to no “enforcement” out there for a while and run nose to tail with several rigs at 90mph……loaded. It would be gitty-up go time as Red called it and often have a mile of 4 wheelers along for the ride. Of course this would just scare whee out of the average 4 wheel driver now and get you installed in the iron bar motel if caught.
Ah, the good old days with double sticks and 16 to 30 gears. You’d be hard pressed to find somebody who could shift one now.
Seems natural to me- side thrust. I mean, the sides of the cylinders perpendicular to the force of the connectin’ rods, are gonna take a beating from having more force exerted against them….while the sides perpendicular to the pins are basically just there to seal, and are basically only getting wear from friction.
If people deny it exists with gas injuns, it’s likely because they ain’t never messed with a gas injun what’s been put under heavy loads routinely, or that had enough miles on it….whereas anyone rebuilding a diesel is going to see injuns what were used over the long-haul in heavy service, and therefore exhibit more obvious signs of ovalling.
(I think I caught 8’s Texas accent… “exhibit”!)
I assume it was built by Europeans.
There are reasons they give for CO2 driven global warming. The problem is they were debunked if I recall correctly over 100 years ago. But that was countered with amplification.
CO2 can only trap the light energy of the sun in a certain band of wavelengths. At 300ppm it has trapped nearly everything that can be trapped. From there doubling and doubling again does approximately nothing if we were to round it off. It’s a very tiny amount of warming. What is claimed by the warmists is that this tiny amount will then be amplified by other things reacting to it. For instance, releases of methane gas.
But here’s the rub, the data, the actual measurements don’t show it. Only through the magic of adjustment by experts does the warming signal appear. Ok so they have reasons for adjusting the data. But as they adjust differently over time we find that adjustments are a near perfect fit with CO2 concentration. Now if this were honest science this sort of thing would cause alarm. There would need to be very well reasoned, supported, and transparent reasoning for adjusting the data to fit theory. But well, it’s not all that well reasoned and supported and it’s about as transparent as lead.
There is a simple test of the adjustments. Do the adjustments push the result outside the error bars of years past? The answer is yes. This means the underlying measurements are garbage or the adjustments are. Warmists have long argued that the measurements were accurate. That was their position up to the mid 1990s before the adjustments really began in earnest. But as time went on they weren’t getting their signal so well…. they made it.
But here’s the problem, once they adjusted one set it went out of agreement with other sets. So one by one they adjust various data sets to match the first they adjusted.
It’s not real science.
Great article Eric:
I also read a recent article exposing the fact that the well-known “urban heat island” effect had them actually adjusting recent temperature UP, and older temperatures DOWN. This is the very opposite of what should be done to compensate for the fact that as fields are replaced by concrete and asphalt, the thermometer readings will always increase.
So they should have adjusted recent temperatures down, not up, to compensate for the urban heat island effect. The older temperatures should not have been “adjusted” at all.
What always amazes me is this:
The climate alarmists (rightly) point out that Exxon Mobil might have a biased view of reporting the effects of burning fossil fuels.
One should always ask who pays for any “study.”
However, these same people cannot fathom that a bunch of “climate scientists” have no bias to maybe report that this is a very big problem in need of a LOT more research.
What exactly do we expect when we, quite literally, ask a bunch of scientists whose very living depends on government grants: “Should we fire all you guys today, or not?”
This, plus the horrific track record of East Anglia Climate Gate (“hide the decline”), the “pause” in AGW that then wasn’t, the bogus “hockey stick” that disappeared the medieval warm period, and failed predictions x 1000 should have killed this thesis long ago. But no. It remains like a logic-devouring zombie.
Government should have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with science. It perverts it always and everywhere. This applies to the NIH, the EPA, NHTSA, the CDC, NASA, and every other “scientific” government body.
When people actually look at stations it is found that UHI adjustment (cooling) is very under done. They warm recent temperatures for other factors, not UHI as I recall.
As to cooling the past they do this because of TOBs. Time of Observation bias. They make big corrections for this but examination shows there is little difference between stations that are adjusted for TOBs and nearby stations that are not.
But let’s say its all justified. Here’s the big problem. They don’t adjust the stations once and say it is fixed. They adjust and readjust and readjust again little by little over the course of many years. Now in 2018 some stations, over all results, and so on have been adjusted outside of their error bars when they were first published. Or what was first published is outside of the error bars claimed today. In either case it means the data is garbage or they don’t know what they are doing or fraud or some combination there of. Something is seriously wrong even if we say corrections are justified and there’s no way to get a reliable answer out of it.
IMO the measurements without adjustments are just fine. There are errors here and there but the dataset is enormous so they fall out. The pluses and minuses cancel each other because its random error on the level of the entire dataset. There may be systematic error for certain stations but if a station is high or low is random and there are lots of stations or well there used to be. Without adjustment the stations match proxy records. But when proxy records don’t match the adjusted temperature record they have to do things like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BQpciw8suk
BTW, Briffa’s tree ring paper’s divergence goes away if using the actual surface temperature measurements.
Back in the real world
http://www.investors.com/po…
“At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
and
http://www.cfact.org/2017/0…
“Ottmar Edenhofer, lead author of the IPCC’s fourth summary report released in 2007 candidly expressed the priority. Speaking in 2010, he advised, “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth.””
The scary thing is, it’s not just environmentalism that is designed to destroy capitalism- but so many programs which the government is already pushing, and so many popular ideas, are all also part and parcel of their plan to destroy any vestiges of free-market capitalism, and to replace it will collectivism.
For instance:
The now-common sentiment that it is the government’s prerogative/obligation “to create jobs”.
Local governments building infrastructure and even “spec buildings” while handing out tax breaks to cronies who partake in the unholy alliances of state and free-market, just for the “benefit” of providing a few low-wage low-skill or no-skill jobs for the local community.
Community colleges and various other gov’t orgs providing *free* training in specific skills needed by a local employer.
Local governments acting as an employment agency, so that when one needs a job in many small cities and towns, they must apply through the local government’s office of [whatever they call it in their locale].
Even laws governing the relationship between employees and employers; and state and federal agencies acting as binding arbitors or courts to control who may be hired and fired, and what must be done for them, etc.
Etc. etc.
More and more, EVERYTHING one can do is under direct or indirect control of the state.
I’m not sure what their goal is and not sure what they think their goal is.
Surely one doesn’t see something like socialism as a way to save mankind….or even a way to make an economy viable. I simply don’t understand how anyone can think the guarantee of everyone being paid some sort of “equal” amount….or a living wage, can be a viable alternative to simply “making a living”.
Hup hup hup, she said as she garnished the wages of those who actually produced.
Hi Eight,
The goal is power. To run the collective they intend to establish. To be the masters.
These people are all psychologically the same as Stalin, just varying in degree.
8, I think the goal is to destroy the sovereignty of nations (and individuals) by destroying the free-market, and establishing some form of socialism so that essentially all people the world over will be totally dependent upon a monolithic world government, and be virtual slaves.
We’re practically to that point already. The infrastructure for such has been established over the last hundred years, so that now, in virtually every first and second-world nation, things are pretty much the same: Property and income taxes; police state; nanny state; government the sole builder of infrastructure; gov’t the sole or major determinor of economics/”education”/healthcare/etc. Welfare state; etc. etc.
It’s come about so slowly [Just as they planned] most people have hardly noticed…but this is not the way the world has always been… it is the way a few isolated city-states had been here and there in the past….and has only been established on the scale we see it now for the last few generations- and really, it’s only in the last few years that their sick plan is really starting to come together, and they’re tying up all the loose ends, so that the plan can be fully implemented on a more consistent scale.
Of course no one who is “in on it” would be so stupid as to believe that socialism is the salvation of humanity or even economically sustainable- no one in their right mind would believe that someone who cleans toilets can make the same as an architect, who makes the same as a professional couch-sitter/baby-maker- only fools who have been indoctrinated by the state and soothed by the emotionalism of the media would believe such clap-trap…but the thing is, by promoting socialism, *they* get the masses onboard with being the enemies of capitalism, AND get them to willingly and peacefully accept things [and yea, even demand and fight for those things!] which they would never go for if they felt that those things were being dictated to them.
If you told people that they aren’t allowed to buy a single-fambly house or have a garden or had to work in some cubicle all day and let strangers raise their kids, and have no choice but to participate in a state-controlled allopathic medical system, etc. they would riot faster than a stadium full of soccer fans…but tell them that their inability to satisfy their wants and desires is the fault of productive people, rather than their own or the constraints imposed on them and the free-market by government; and that you are from the government and here to help them by providing wonderful things to them at little to no expense or effort- such as a nice apartment to live in, and “free” medical care, and “free” child care….and that they will make these “evil productive people” pay for all the goodies by imposing confiscatory taxes and regulations on them, to make it “fair”, and suddenly 90% of the world’s population are socialists, and the sworn enemies of the productive.
Their plan seems to be working perfectly. It’s amazing just what has transpired in the 30 years since I started becoming aware of this crap and studying it. The freedoms we have lost since then have been massive (and not just since 9-11), and the attitude of the average person… 30 years ago, the Christian ethic was still somewhat a part of our culture; and socialism and communism were still taboo, and guarded against- at least in name. Now by contrast, we have at least half of the population (and even more among the young) openly advocating socialism/communism; and even more advocating it in principle/practice without even realizing it.
This is how the noose keeps tightening though- circumstances are made a little harder every years, while more free shit and forced “equality” are proffered…..and the masses eat it up; and then the noose is tightened, so that those of us who don’t go along voluntarily, are more and more forced to comply- and there is no one with whom to join to help fight it, because the majority have already gone along and now think it’s “normal” and “the American way”.
This is why any who care about preserving any personal liberty must abandon these countries for a forgotten place well off the beaten path of the rest of the world, ’cause our options have just about run out here.
These are points I have tried to make to my peers, customers, employers, employees, college professors, and even my parents and siblings. It is as though no one wishes to actually engage in the very act that was instilled in me by nearly all of them, which is, critical independent thinking. I seem to be marked as a ranting reactionary only capable of stirring up dissent. Well, there sure is a hell of of a lot of crappy shit that everyone seems willing to put up with. Yes, a lot of it is outside of our immediate realm of control, but do we need to just passively accept it all and move on? The residual fallout from such behavior will ultimate fall on the shoulders of our children, but is already taking it’s toll on us as well, whether we choose to rationalize it all into the background, or not. Those who are tired of “hearing” it will often retort “then why don’t you do something about it”. Well, voicing dissention and openly engaging in critical deconstruction of the accepted bullshit,
IS the first step toward resolution, not open armed conflict, although that may be inevitable. And the “shut up or put up” argument is as about productive as “mass suicide just to make a social statement”. The ideology, nay the very attempt to stack up humanity like a can of Pringles should reprehensible to citizens of a free Nation, an the very fact that it doesn’t seem to bother 90% of them, is, well, abominable. You reap what you sow, or in this case, what you enthusiastically let some other fat-ass sow for you!