“No Idle” Zones… and Auto Stop/Start

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Have you heard about “no idling” zones? Places where it is verboten (and punishable) to leave your car’s engine running?Idle zone pic

Sounds silly, I know. And it is silly – because it’s not 1970. The stuff coming out of the tailpipe today (and for the past 20-plus years) will not make your eyes water, nor chafe your lungs – much less smogify the sky. Because it is almost (upwards of 95 percent) water vapor and carbon dioxide.

Al Gore may not like C02 for “global warming” reasons –  but carbon dioxide is a chemically inert non-factor as far as air quality goes.

Ditto water vapor. (Just don’t call it dihydrogen monoxide.)

These are facts, but the government-school-addled populace does not comprehend. “Moms” (my teeth ache) worry about “pollution” hobgoblins – and politicians are more than ready to “help.” Efforts are afoot across the land to create a nexus of “no idle” zones.

See here and here to get hip to what’s up.

So far, these have been proposed in the vicinity of  where “the children” congregate; that is, at and around government conditioning centers (i.e., public schools). But as “the children” are everywhere – or could be – and must be kept safe from all dangers, no matter how attenuated or exaggerated – it’s inevitable that “no idle” zones will be expanded. Just as “no smoking” zones now constitute the entirety of the external world outside of your own home or personal vehicle – and even that is under assault (the argument being that the slightest chance a whiff of “second-hand smoke” might caress the nostrils of a nearby child is sufficient reason to forbid smoking within one’s own home or in a vehicle a child might occupy at some point in the future.idle 4

Don’t laugh – because the joke’s on you.

I can remember laughing about the “buckle up for safety” estrogenated hysteria back in the ’80s.

I’m not laughing now.

Neither are smokers – who might as well be child molesters, given the societal hate (and sanctions) heaped upon them.

These “no idling” zones are serious business. And I can see the pincers lining up.

On the mechanical front, we have the Auto-stop/start systems very suddenly being fitted to a growing number of new cars. Almost every new (2015 model year) high-end car already has it as standard equipment and within a year or two, it will be as common in cars generally as LCD screens and GPS are right now.

Are you hip to Auto-stop/start? In vehicles so equipped, the computer cuts the engine off automatically whenever the vehicle rolls to a stop, as when at a red light – restarting it just as automatically when the light goes green and the driver takes his foot off the brake or applies pressure to the accelerator. Ostensibly, the object is to lower fuel consumption by not having the engine wastefully burn it while the car’s not moving. That sounds ok, but there are several immediate and potential down-the-road not-so-goods that aren’t touted – for reasons I’ll get into right now.start stop pic

One, while it’s true that an idling engine isn’t working to move the car (so why idle the engine?) it is working to power engine driven accessories such as the air conditioner and alternator. With the engine turned off, these accessories are off, too. The car heats up (if it’s summer) and it will take more energy to cool it down – probably negating whatever fuel was saved by not running the engine.

A way around this would be to power accessories electrically rather than mechanically. This in fact is already happening. Many new cars (including all hybrids) have electric-assist power steering. AC can be powered the same way. But there must be electricity to power things this way. That includes the car’s headlights (even in daytime, since virtually all new cars now have always-on Daytime Running Lamps) as well as the stereo, the power windows and so on. With the engine not running, the battery is draining.

Heavier-duty batteries will be needed. These will cost more and inevitably require replacement more often due to the greater loads (and repetitive charge/discharge cycling).auto stop 2

Auto-start/stop requires super high-torque starters, for near-immediate re-starts. These will also drain the start-up battery sooner, which (again) will have to be made stronger in order to deal. Ditto the car’s charging system (alternator) which will – which does – need to be able to produce a lot of juice to keep up with the repetitive stop-start-stop cycling. Engine wear and tear could be accelerated, too – because most wear and tear occurs guess when? When the engine is started – because it hasn’t yet built up oil pressure.

A turned off engine also builds up heat – because a turned off engine is a kind of heat sink when the oil (and coolant) isn’t circulating.

Another thing that hasn’t been much talked about is the effect of turning off the engine on automatic transmissions – which depend on the running engine to circulate hydraulic fluid and dissipate heat. If the fluid runs excessively hot, it breaks down… and inevitably, so will your transmission.Ford auto stop

The above issues could be crutched by electro-hydraulic accumulators – devices that would maintain oil pressure, or even circulate oil while the engine itself is not running. And fans. More (and higher capacity) fans.

These will not be free, either.

But the farther-off danger is that Auto-start/stop will eventually be mandated – justified first as a fuel-saver and then for the sake of (cue Al Gore) “clean air,” with “the children” serving as the backdrop.

“No idling” zones will proliferate as the number of Auto-stop/start-equipped cars does. And cars without Auto-start/stop will effectively be banned from operating in and around a growing radius of “safe” areas across the land.

This is exactly what’s already happened in several Western Europe countries, the front line in the war against the private car. They call them LEZs, or Low Emissions Zones. Anything with an internal combustion engine, period, is prohibited. You may have noticed that in many U.S. cities, life is being made as difficult as possible for the car by replacing roads with “pedestrian only” areas and other such measures.car hate pic

Some are cheering (see, for example, this).

It’s on, folks.

Five years from now, those of us who “cling” to our non-auto-stopping (and perhaps even internal combustioned, period) vehicles will find ourselves pariah-ized like the smoking untermenschen, the unsafe seatbelt scofflaws, the “health care” refuseniks.

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86 COMMENTS

  1. Speaking of legislative overkill, here’s a new article at LRC.

    A Different Kind Of Distracted Driving
    http://alerts.motorists.org/nma-email-newsletter-issue-32/

    Excerpt:

    A few years ago, all regulatory traffic signs were removed from the city center of Drachten, a Dutch city with a population of about 50,000. Demarcations between roads and sidewalks were also stripped. Despite the free-for-all design, the steady stream of vehicular traffic flowed smoothly, and pedestrians walked the streets safely. “Right of way” became an instinctual process between motorists. Their collective sense of responsibility and consideration created a safe environment.

    Der Speigel noted in 2006 that the number of accidents in Drachten “declined dramatically” after the open traffic design was implemented. Other European cities similarly minimized their traffic control systems with positive results.
    – See more at: http://alerts.motorists.org/nma-email-newsletter-issue-32/#sthash.KJHdTWuw.dpuf

    • “The more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished — The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be.”
      — Laozi, ancient Chinese anarchist philosopher

      • Indeed Bevin. There’s too many. I’m forming my own independent social protest group and splinter societyt…

        DDUI. Deadbeat Dads United International.

        Go ahead western statists and pass all the feminizing laws for safety and control and plunder for your cuckolded children as you dare.

        I’ll comply with them, how ever much I have to, to survive. But that’s it. I’ll work just enough on the books to eat and live. I’ll do nothing for any woman or child who so much as says the words “it’s the law” or “safety” or any of that. A Deadbeat Dad turns his back on a society run amuck and declares you all Dead to him.

        Not going to listen to HER offspring. Or talk to them. Or care about them. SHE’S the one who demanded to be in charge. So be in charge, just don’t expect me to be nice to you, or do anything for you.

        I won’t tell you anything. Help you with anything. Protect you from anything. Educate you about anything. Listen to anything. Share anything. Create or maintain anything. Comply with anything. Be civil about anything. Not until you relent and come to your senses.

        In my case, I’ve managed to find a few good women who are the exception. But in the majority of cases, where they are typical statist broads. F ’em and Feed ’em as many fish heads as the stipulation and order demands you provide. And nothing more. At all.

        If you’re not DDUI or otherwise vetted as law ignoring non compliant human beings, I got nothing for you.

      • Hi Bevin – recently saw your comment on Robert Higgs’ article re: Chinese leaders being more ‘market friendly’ than those of the USSA.
        Too bad he’s right.

        • Dear Phil,

          It’s incredible isn’t it?

          As a former hardline Cold Warrior who cackled with glee when Reagan joked about “We begin bombing in five minutes” it’s hard to believe the role reversal.

          Russia and China are now, relatively speaking at least, the “good guys”. They are making win/win market oriented deals with other nations in Central Asia, Africa, Latin America. They have little if any military presence in other nations.

          The USSA, by contrast, has imperial outposts in over 100 foreign nations, and has murdered millions of people since 9/11.

          I never thought I would see the day when America came to this.

  2. Hey Eric – did you catch this on Lew Rockwell? ‘My’ Maryland came out even worse than ‘your’ Virginia. Of course I don’t know how – or if – they factored in the 81mph felony law.

  3. Nearly all Americans are niggers. Mostly poor, a few still rich, but in decline. But almost no Americans have lasting wealth any more.

    Difference between being rich and having wealth – Chris Rock
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m37JkkGjAY

    Wealth such as it persists here, is held in abstract entities and various fictions. Not personally. Such wealth can be confiscated or redistributed at any time, via Mad Max type economic arenas like New Wall Street. A fool and his life’s work are easily parted, for any number of trivial reasons and trumped up confiscations and co-owner disputes.

    If you have wealth, you have it as part of a bidness. And bidness is cynical motley mobs of liars and fools who timidly produce a good or service, all the while looking over your shoulder and scurrying into dark corners to escape all the unknown towering figures up above the rat maze moving cheese to and fro. Closing off one path and opening another.

    To buy and sell bidness of importance, means appearing in a battle royale zone of crony capitalist gladiators all slugging it out in the bread and circus arenas of pull.

  4. Today, I have now lived long enough to have heard it all. After today, I will never underestimate the stupidity of bureaucracy and of clovers in general.

    I live in Utah. Most of Utah doesn’t require emissions testing on vehicles, but some of the counties around Salt Lake and Provo do require emissions testing. These areas get temperature inversions for most of every winter, which traps air pollution in the cold layer of air near the ground, causing some pretty bad smog. Because of the smog, the EPA has browbeat the state into mandating emissions testing on cars in certain counties (by threatening to pull certain federal grants). I recently moved to one of these counties.

    My wife and I are both working right now, and it has been inconvenient with one aging car that is about ready for a comprehensive rebuild (its an Explorer with a truck frame–something you never junk unless it is totaled–always rebuild or sell for parts ’cause with a custom powertrain and custom suspension parts they make awesome off-roaders).

    Because I’m tired of the one car issue, on Saturday, I bought an older Jetta GL for cheap. The car is nearly flawless inside and is mechanically flawless, despite 180,000 miles and a fading paint job. I figured it should pass emissions and safety inspection without a problem.

    On Monday, I took it into a locally owned quick lube place that does the inspections. It passed safety without a hitch. When they did the emissions test, it failed the visual emissions inspection. The tech looked at the vacuum hose routing sticker for the emissions equipment, but couldn’t find the “air injection pump” (aka smog pump) that was shown on the sticker, nor could he find the hoses that connected the smog pump to a non-existent valve or a non-existent hose bib on the air filter box. They suspected an “illegal” after market engine change. The tech called the county health department’s air quality division, which runs the testing program, but because it was President’s day, nobody answered. The tech sent me home with a fail on the i/m and a number to call.

    Today I called the number and talked to a friendly bureaucrat (Utah seems to have a lot of those) that is also an i/m inspection tech. He said to bring it in and he would check it out personally in a way that regular repair facilities cannot (blech). So I take it in and he inspects the car, pulls the vehicle’s history, checks in books, and checks out everything he can think of. I even overheard him call the local Volkswagen dealer and he had them run a VIN check on the car.

    After he was all done, he comes out, hands me some paperwork and tells me, “I’ve found your problem. You have the wrong stickers on your car. Your car was made to meet the Federal emissions standards, but was labeled as if it met the California emissions standards. The dealer’s VIN check confirmed that the car was originally built without an air injection system at all.” So my car failed inspection because of the wrong stickers that some poor Jose at the Volkswagen factory in Mexico put on my car.

    The bureaucrat went on to tell me that he went ahead and did a full emissions test. He had found that the catalytic converter and O2 sensors were replaced recently enough that the engine computer was still showing a “Not Ready” state for them. He told me to remove the “faulty” stickers, drive it around for several days for the ECM to complete the testing on the new O2 sensors and catalytic converter, then take the emissions paperwork back into the place where I did the original test and they can finish the job. He said if an inspection tech ever complains that I have no emissions labels, the Volkswagen dealer could get me the right ones for a nominal price.

    So, my car failed emissions testing because of a “faulty” sticker–as if the sticker changes how the car emits.

    Even worse, “Air Injection systems,” which are standard fare for California cars, only run for the first 20-90 seconds immediately after a cold start with a cold ambient air temperature. They inject fresh air into the exhaust manifold, which allows unburned fuel from a cold start to burn off as it travels down the exhaust system. They do absolutely nothing the rest of the time. In most of California, smog pumps hardly ever even run at all because most of California’s ambient air temperature is warm enough that most cars don’t run rich when they cold start.

    One more level of lunacy is that these systems often break down easily as exhaust gasses leak back into the pump and valve, foul them, and ruin them.

    To top off the lunacy, the valve that controls the system costs around $270-$300 and the smog pump that runs for 20-90 seconds, but only on cold mornings, costs around $600-$700.

    To summarize, we have a state (California) that mandates an expensive, failure prone emission control system that is not needed and seldom used to control non-existent emissions in a location where the system will almost never actually operate. The road to hell really is paved with good intentions.

    • My guess is that the tech read the stickers wrong or what they are attached to was replaced in the car’s history. Sometimes the stickers are universal. Another possibility is replacement with the wrong ones in a body shop. As far as the fail, that’s how bureaucracies work. However you did at least find someone who could ask and get questions answered. That’s simply amazing.

      The ‘not ready’ state is troubling that usually goes away very quickly.

    • Oy vey!

      But, no – I am not surprised.

      I’ve personally dealt with several instances of a car failing emissions not because it failed the functional smog test (i.e., is it actually emitting beyond the standard?) but solely because of some pedantic “visual” issue such as you’ve described. The law is set up this way. Just as with “drunk” driving – where faultless actual driving is no defense – it is immaterial whether the vehicle’s exhaust tests within parameters.It must also pass “visual” – which encompasses idiocy such as you’ve described.

      I may have to do a rant on this!

  5. Ronald Reagan 1948 Campaign Speech For Democrat Harry Truman

    Liberal Democrat Reagan Transcript:

    “This is Ronald Reagan speaking to you from Hollywood. You know me as a motion picture actor but tonight I’m just a citizen pretty concerned about the national election next month and more than a little impatient with those promises the Republicans made before they got control of Congress a couple years ago.

    I remember listening to the radio on election night in 1946. Joseph Martin, the Republican Speaker of the House, said very solemnly, and I quote,
    “We Republicans intend to work for a real increase in income for everybody by encouraging more production and lower prices without impairing wages or working conditions”, unquote.

    Remember that promise: a real increase in income for everybody. But what actually happened?

    The profits of corporations have doubled, while workers’ wages have increased by only one-quarter. In other words, profits have gone up four times as much as wages, and the small increase workers did receive was more than eaten up by rising prices, which have also bored into their savings.

    For example, here is an Associate Press Dispatch I read the other day about Smith L. Carpenter, a craftsman in Union Springs, New York. It seems that Mr. Carpenter retired some years ago thinking he had enough money saved up that he could live out his last years without having to worry. But he didn’t figure on this Republican inflation, which ate up all of his savings, and so he’s gone back to work. The reason this is news, is Mr. Carpenter is 91 years old.
    Now, take as a contrast the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, which reported a net profit of $210 million after taxes for the first half of 1948; an increase of 70% in one year. In other words, high prices have not been caused by higher wages, but by bigger and bigger profits.

    The Republican promises sounded pretty good in 1946, but what has happened since then, since the 80th Congress took over?

    Prices have climbed to the highest level in history, although the death of the OPA was supposed to bring prices down through “the natural process of free competition”.

    Labor has been handcuffed with the vicious Taft-Hartley law.

    Social Security benefits have been snatched away from almost a million workers by the Gearhart bill.

    Fair employment practices, which had worked so well during war time, have been abandoned.

    Veterans’ pleas for low cost homes have been ignored, and many people are still living in made-over chicken coops and garages.

    Tax-reduction bills have been passed to benefit the higher-income brackets alone.

    The average worker saved only $1.73 a week.

    In the false name of economy, millions of children have been deprived of milk once provided through the federal school lunch program.

    This was the payoff of the Republicans’ promises.
    And this is why we must have new faces in the Congress of the United States:

    Democratic faces…….

  6. Don’t like sail fawners. Wait until you’re surround by Sony and Googul glass-holes next year.

    Tens or hundreds of millions of Sony knock offs of Googul glasses will be flooding the world markets next year.

    Sony Smart Specs for $840 use ‘holographic wavelength technology’, to superimpose information onto the wearer’s field of view—’without any half mirrors that may obstruct the user’s vision

    A separate wired controller clips onto your jacket or shirt collar and houses the battery, speaker, microphone, near- field comms, and touch sensor.

    Early application concepts include a step-by-step guide on how to assemble an engine, scrolling in front of the mechanic’s eyes as they work.

    Sony also suggested an app to share player stats for viewers watching a sports game, and displaying sightseeing information for visitors of a tourist attraction.

    Early developers will have access to a handful of SmartEyeglass apps—available in the Google Play store—which enable access to Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, RSS, calendar, and voice control.

    Sony will release its SmartEyeglass headset to consumers sometime in 2016.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2957556/Sony-reveals-840-Glass-rival-Google-admits-smart-specs-don-t-work-sends-version-drawing-board.html

  7. It’s so cold here today even the interweb is running slow.
    Started the TDI (after a longer than usual glow plug delay) & the dashboard readout said 3. By the time I got to I-70, it was up to 4, and now at work it’s reading a whopping 8. That’s F, not C.

      • Re: Bruce Jenner – I can understand that being married to someone like Kris Kardashian could be emasculating, but claiming he’s been that way since he was 5? How did a “woman” manage to win the men’s Olympic decathlon?
        Oh well, at least Kris made good use of his genes while she had access to them.

        • PtB:
          I cannot answer for Jenner.

          But the mind and body do not need to match. This is the wrong forum for details, but:
          – Many “women” are genetically male.
          – They are sterile.
          – Gynecologist wouldn’t know; requires you check the DNA.

          – Nature can produce hermaphrodites, siamese twins, chimeras, and Mosaic humans and animals – and one species of newt reproduces without males, period. The entire race is female, and they lay eggs which are clones of “mommy.”

          If the mind is Female, the body can run on “diesel”. It’s more analogous to running a car engine on jet fuel, though. The mind isn’t working correctly; the body is burning up and burning out.
          The body adapts to the mutagen (hormones), so it’s masculinized – changes length of limbs, levers in the body, etc. But the mind is screaming the whole time.

          And if you realize the mistake and drain the jet fuel, you’ll still have the after-effects: Might need a ring job, or a whole new engine, even (high incidence of suicide in this sub-group of society; 98% effective or so. You try to live up to the birth Ideal… the engine isn’t revving right, so you put the pedal to metal – and reduce the engine to slag. Sometimes you’re not even in “drive” yet…)

          Just be glad you DON’T understand this one…
          Imagine a Ferrarri engine and tranny on an Elio frame… What happens when you drop the hammer there? Especially if you fueled with jet fuel…?

          Ain’t no happy ending, only more or less ugly…

          • Martine Rothblatt – an American lawyer, author, and entrepreneur.

            Founder and CEO of United Therapeutics Corp. Creator of GeoStar and Sirius Radio.
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martine_Rothblatt

            4 Things To Know About CEO Martine Rothblatt – Out Mag
            http://www.out.com/news-opinion/2014/09/08/4-things-know-about-ceo-martine-rothblatt
            – – –

            It’s hard to deny that trangender or gay culture, feminist statist culture, and patriarchal tribalist culture are all in conflict. And only one ring will rule them all. Or is it. Is the binary dichotomy dilemma a false choice fallacy. Is there really always far more than one acceptable solution to any given problem.

            Under problem reaction solution. Must there be only one dominant reaction. And one dominant solution. Or is mankind capable of something greater than that.

            – is General Patton truly a hero. Or is he a pathetic cartoonish ape. A risible cretin that only a drooling dullard could idolize and call a hero.

            – if Might Truly Makes Right, then why not form an Equinocracy. Aren’t horses far more powerful, noble, and better bred than scrawny weak humans. The weak mammals must know and occupy their rightful places. So the best bred can thrive and fastest and most power survive.

            – All Hail Dear Leader Ed. Stay the course with the Firstling Horse. Of Course. Of Course.

            • Land of the Houyhnhnms?

              As far as “gender variant” or “other” categories, there have been means of dealing with the outliers for centuries. Every culture has had them.
              Only in our “modern, enlightened” world (of Christians) has it really become an issue – most of the condemnation, in fact, is found in the OLD Testament, and is tied to differentiating the Isrealites from the “Other” tribes of the area. Creating the “US” vs. “THEM.”
              As far as the reactions? Most of that is the same Busybody Cloverism, and in direct opposition to Christ’s message of forgiveness.
              And I knwo this all too well, as I could never talk to my parents about ANY of my concerns… always a Religious answer, and I knew where _I_ fell on the “continuum of force.”

              Which is why I will stop before this becomes a rant.

              Back to horses: They ARE stronger, more powerful, and we attribute to them noble characteristics (based on lines of geometry and symmetry.) One would even imply that horses are smarter than ALL humans…
              You put horses in a race, hundreds of people come to see it, place bets, and enjoy the spectacle.
              Put 100 humans in a race, not ONE horse can be bothered to watch… 😉

  8. Get vaccinated, or don’t. It’s your choice under Galt’s law: I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
    – – –

    Polio vaccine comes full circle

    Controversy: After years of debate, experts choose safer injections over oral vaccines. Baltimore Sun article from 1999.

    A generation after children lined up for sugar cubes that promised protection from polio, doctors are returning to injections to prevent rare cases caused by the oral vaccine.

    It’s a move that might well have outraged the father of the oral polio vaccine, who argued bitterly against the injected vaccine championed by his scientific rival, Dr. Jonas Salk.

    Authorities say the time has come to move away from the oral vaccine in the United States. This call says as much about the vaccine’s success in subduing polio as it does about its little-known danger.

    Since the late 1970s, fewer than 12 cases of paralytic polio have occurred each year in this country, a testament to the oral vaccine’s ability to control a disease that crippled a president and put thousands of victims in leg braces and iron lungs. But in a cruel twist, the few cases that still occur are caused by the vaccine itself.

    Doctors for many years accepted the risk because the vaccine prevented so many more cases than it caused. When tragedy struck, however, parents were dumbfounded.

    “It was devastating and frustrating and ultimately caused me a lot of anger,” said the parent of an 8-year-old boy who contracted polio from a vaccine when he was an infant. “It was like a dirty little secret: Nobody told you there were going to be sacrificial lambs.”

    New recommendations have been published, calling for a sequence of two injections followed by two doses of either vaccine. But it is expected the recommendation will soon be an all-out switch to injected vaccines

    The injected vaccine is a strengthened version of the original Salk vaccine, hailed as a miracle of science when it was introduced in 1954 — two years after the nation’s worst polio epidemic. Made from killed virus, the vaccine is incapable of causing infection if made correctly.

    In contrast, the oral vaccine contains a live, weakened virus that boosts immunity in virtually everyone but, in an unlucky few, triggers the disease.

    Polio is a viral infection, spread largely through the intestinal tract, that attacks the nerves that control muscles. In most victims, it causes flu-like symptoms and sometimes a temporary paralysis of the legs or arms. In severe cases, patients are permanently paralyzed.

    A half century ago, the merits of injected and oral vaccines were debated, but Salk’s injected form was available first. Almost overnight, the disease that filled hospital wards began to retreat from the U.S. landscape.

    The number of new cases declined from more than 50,000 when the vaccine was first introduced to less than 1,000 by 1960. The injected version was replaced in 1962 by the oral vaccine, which held several advantages.

    The first was obvious: Children hated shots, but didn’t mind a vaccine that came on a sugar cube or in a squirt of sweet liquid. To scientists, a second reason was perhaps more compelling. People who took the oral vaccine harbored a protective virus that could be passed to others through the environment. As a result, someone who never took the vaccine could become immunized through contact with somebody who did.

    But there would be victims.

    Vaccination, fast paralysis

    David was 6 months old when Salamone and his wife, Kathy, took him to a pediatrician in 1990 for his second polio vaccination. They had no reason to believe the vaccination was anything but routine, even when David developed a fever and a rash two days later.

    Two weeks after his doctor’s visit, David woke up one morning paralyzed from the waist down. “He couldn’t turn over,” Salamone said. “He could only move his head back and forth.”

    His doctors in Washington were stumped, saying only that he suffered from nerve damage of unknown origin. David’s mother was first to suggest polio; the sequence of events couldn’t be ignored, and David’s symptoms were classic.

    “The doctors pooh-poohed her,” said Salamone. “They said it wasn’t possible. They said that because they had never seen a case.”

    David regained the use of his left leg but not his right, which became withered. He was fitted for a leg brace, and learned to walk with a wobbly gait that resembles that of “a drunken sailor,” his father said.

    Aside from his paralysis, David developed arthritis and an unending series of infections. He lived on antibiotics. Doctors discovered he was born with an immune system disorder that left him defenseless against ordinary viruses. That, they concluded, made him vulnerable to live vaccine.

    Only one in 12 million children who take the oral polio vaccine develop the disease from it. A quarter of the unlucky victims are, like David, born with immune disorders that take about a year to emerge. Until then, parents and doctors have no reason to believe the children are at risk.

    Vaccines: The real issues in vaccine safety
    http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110525/full/473436a.html?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews

  9. I see problems with road rage when the car shuts down on a hot day in city traffic sitting at a stop light for 2 minutes, leading to overheated motorists. Also increased maintenance costs, as batteries die after starting the car so many times in just a short time. Bigger batteries mean less space under the hood, or in the boot. More problems with cracked aluminum heads as the heat overwhelms them. Inability to move your car after a small accident, such that after such an accident, you won’t be able to move your car out of the road……..

    Hell who thinks about shit like this on a hot sunday morn…………………

  10. Just a bunch of mentally retarded public school monkey-children who are told to fear everything including oxidized hydrocarbons…Which is water and CO2…Fear that water and CO2 plant food, fucktards! What did you think Democracy would produce? Just look at the retarded monkey-children in Greece – for it is your future.

  11. Fumiphobia noun: Intense fear and/or hatred of smoking, primarily from cigarettes, cigars and/or pipes.

    The fear that smoke is polluting the air, in nearly all cases a limbic system logical hijacking of questionable rationality.

    This cloverian terror can be also be triggered by non-tobacco smoke (e.g., vehicular exhaust, bonfire smoke, marijuana smoke, etc.).
    http://www.burnasone.org/fumiphobia

    A History of Blood and Smoke: The anti-tobacco movement makes a lot of money. They’ve cost thousands of lives over the centuries. Their Orwellian war has cost science its integrity and they have economically crippled empires. For more on the movement, check Wikipedia.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_control_movement

    In Germany, Hitler funded one-twelfth of his war machine using tobacco taxation, banning its use on any government property and rationing smokes to soldiers (after the ban didn’t work).

    In the Ottoman Empire, tobacco was banned alongside alcohol and coffee. The Sultan personally executed any offenders. His weapon of choice was a mace. Centuries later, smokers would name a brand of cigarettes after him—Murad.

    In Russia, the patriarch forbade the sale of tobacco and sentenced men and women who flouted the ban to have their nostrils slit and their backs whipped until skin came off their backs.

    In China, tobacco consumption was considered a more heinous crime than that even of neglecting archery.

    The Catholic Church threatened excommunication for anyone who took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose.

    In modern America (the new Ameri-Reich), tobacco wars are at an all time high, and with matching U.S. tobacco taxation and regulation.

    In academia, if a scientist produces any tobacco-findings that are positive, they are attacked on a personal level instead of scientifically rebutted.

    Wherever tobacco is banned or where taxation has been too heavily levied, black markets form to supply tobacco… bringing with them gangs, weaponry and every other sort of crime.

    The modern anti-smoking movements is nothing new. This latest socially acceptable form of racism and injustice has been practiced for centuries. History doesn’t repeat, but it always rhymes.

    We are smokers.
    http://www.burnasone.org/fumiphobia
    We are one in six living humans on this planet. For centuries we’ve been persecuted. Yet, despite the efforts of institutions, governments and religions… we thrive!

    After hundreds of years, it is apparent that the fiends behind the anti-tobacco movement are more dangerous to our health and to the health of the planet than the tobacco itself.

    Sadly for these tyrants, we smokers have a tendency for defiance. And we just so happen to be “cool” and have less sexual inhibitions. Needless to say, more smokers are born every day. What sets us apart is our unity as we bum each other smokes and huddle together for warmth or over a cup of coffee. We stand in defiance against those who abuse our rights and the rights of others. We burn as one!

    • I have never smoked. I find it disgusting. I never had the slightest desire to set something on fire and put it in my mouth.
      But I get the addictive component that makes it difficult to stop once you have started, for whatever reason. “I feel their pain.”
      That said, has anyone ever seen any confirmed scientific/medical evidence that 2nd hand smoke is harmful. I know it still smells bad, but so does horse manure. Deal with it. I mean something verifiable, not Cloverian hyperbole?
      I support the right of property owners, such as restaurant/bar owners, to allow or deny smoking on THEIR property. And I DENY the right of gunvermin to make such decisions.
      If Clover and her cousins don’t want to eat in a restaurant that allows smoking, they can go somewhere else. Their RIGHTS are NOT being violated.

      • I’ve never smoked tobacco even one time in my life. Both my parents smoked. Both my younger sister were zero tolerance complainers against even the fleeting smell of tobacco, much less being around my parents, friends, or family when they were actually smoking.

        I don’t care about smoking per se. But I greatly care about primitive animal solutions to human conflicts. The idea that it’s a binary problem with one side being right and one side being wrong, also known as a contest of aggression and politics, is just plain wrong and inhuman.

        The preferred solution would be for my sisters to use their human reasoning faculties to come up with some kind of arrangement that respected both sides and reflected the wishes of the entire phylum.

        Maybe ever hour or so, the parents go off, put on some kind of smokers windbreakers, and enjoy their nicotinamide vapors somewhere in a “smoking chamber” where they keep their tobacco. I’m not sure of the specfics, but I know they exist.

        The way forward, is to mitigate and transcend conflicts. To apply free market principles to real life struggles and increase overall prosperity by normalizing a far larger box for us all to think and act inside of.

    • Wow Tor; gun-vermin and churchian intervention with attendant gangs, oppression, violence, black markets? Surely you jest… What will they go after next? Alcohol perhaps? Oh, that’s right, we already saw that movie. Maybe other pain relieving or mind altering substances? Been there and done that and how’s that working? Oh yeah, that’s right, higher substance abuse rates than when you could legally buy Bayer brand Heroin over the counter. Go figure.

      Can’t have grown ups deciding for themselves what they grow in their own back yards or put into their bodies now can we? After all the boys in blue can’t steal from us with impunity if whatever “it” is we’re doing isn’t “against the law”; whatever that “it” might be.
      This whole nanny state, bubble wrapped, mothers against anything that can even be remotely construed as risky, limp wristed, politically correct society makes me want to puke.

      But worse, the same gun-vermin scoundrels who carry on and on about the safety “the children” to make political hay, conveniently ignore the blood of Afghani, Iraqi and other third world children that stains their own hands. Many of whom privately enjoy a “doobie” or “blow a line” themselves, in the company of prostitutes no less! But just like prohibition when Canadian whiskey flowed like rivers in DC, these laws are only for the unwashed masses not the masters. The hypocrisy of this system of “just us” is mind boggling.

  12. Eric, I think the no idle zones could be due to your Environmental Protection Agency Nazi socialists wishing for a new law, and the “moms against everything” got wind of it. It’s all about “carbon” causing asthma etc, etc.

    • The UNECE Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedures (WLTP) define a global harmonized standard for determining the levels of pollutants and CO2 emissions, fuel or energy consumption, and electric range from all light-duty vehicles worldwide.

      The procedures are being developed by experts from the European Union, Japan, and India under guidelines of UNECE World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations, with final version expected to be made binding on manufacturers by October 2015.

      Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedures
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwide_harmonized_Light_vehicles_Test_Procedures

      Idle reduction
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idle_reduction

      US DOE Reduction Related Links
      http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/related/Idle%20Reduction
      – – –
      Goods Containing Chemicals Labels – Globally Harmonized System of Classification
      http://www.unece.org/trans/danger/publi/ghs/ghs_welcome_e.html

      Chemicals, through the different steps from their production to their handling, transport and use, are a real danger for human health and the environment.

      People of any ages, from children to elderly, using many different languages and alphabets, belonging to various social conditions, including illiterates, are daily confronted to dangerous products (chemicals, pesticides, etc.)

      To face this danger, and given the reality of the extensive global trade in chemicals and the need to develop national programs to ensure their safe use, transport and disposal, it was recognized that an internationally-harmonized approach to classification and labelling would provide the foundation for such programs.

      Once countries have consistent and appropriate information on the chemicals they import or produce in their own countries, the infrastructure to control chemical exposures and protect people and the environment can be established in a comprehensive manner.

      While governments, regional institutions and international organizations are the primary audiences for the GHS, it also contains sufficient context and guidance for those in industry who will ultimately be implementing the requirements which have been adopted.

      – Get a GHS booklet for you kid’s health certified lemonade stand today. Only $85 in the off season, rather than the usual $115. Get two for $150 if you act now.

  13. I bet the Moms who are extremely worried about exposing their children to exhaust from idling cars are the very same ones who joyfully stick toxin laden measles vaccine needles into their babies’ arms.

    • And cheer that their water supply is fluoridated – for the children’s teeth.
      No wonder they’re brain dead. Hitler lives.

    • I guess all those state worshiping folks behind this, will happily tell their precious little darlings that they should walk to school so mommy does not have to kill the planet driving them there too? Right?

      Thought not.

      • No, of course not – because it’s not saaaaaaafe to just send them. She would have to walk WITH them – and then back home.

      • I’m a mere PA of journalism; not a full-degreed Quack. But, I suspect the problem is chiefly the preservatives (mercury, apparently) used in some vaccines and this business of hitting a small kid with multiple shots/vaccines all at once or in quick succession.

        Something sure seems to be wrong, at any rate.

        Autism (and allergies to everything) were uncommon to nonexistent when I was a kid – or so I seem to recall. Now it seems that every other kid is allergic to something – and every third or fourth has Autism.

        • When it comes to allergies, there’s a theory that too many antibiotics too early in life that upset our “good bacteria” may be to blame:
          http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn5047-antibiotics-linked-to-huge-rise-in-allergies.html

          Not sure about autism, but I wouldn’t be surprised there either.

          Allow me to present a theory about the rise in autism diagnoses: People now diagnosed with autism were always with us in some way, shape or form. At the high-functioning end of the spectrum were the loners, the strange kids, eccentrics, the bookworms, the “yeshiva buchers.” At the low-functioning end, kids were diagnosed as “retarded” or having “childhood schizophrenia” and sent to asylums. “Retarded” covered everything from Down Syndrome to dyslexia.

          The high-functioning autistic people took jobs as librarians, accountants, curators, etc. Not to veer too far off track, but looking back on my Catholic upbringing and Jewish ancestry, quite a few of the priests, monks, nuns and rabbis I bumped into could fit the diagnostic definition of autism.

          What’s happened is that many of the jobs these people held have been automated or offshored, even many of the decent paying jobs, so there’s no longer any place at the economic table for them.

          Kinda like how ADHD wasn’t as much of a problem when boys who were active and not academically oriented were still a big help on the farm, and in the city, they could get decent jobs in factories even without a high school education. But now that you supposedly need school for success, it’s a big problem.

          And kinda like how the grocery baggers at your local grocery store are no longer people with mental disabilities, but illegal immigrants.

          And on top of that, every kid with a diagnosis means more money for your school district.

  14. Besides my same-old commentary:
    I wouldn’t mind if HPVs (Human Powered Vehicles) were made to be decent. I grew up in a time where HPVs were being touted as a wave of the future, and the cool shells and varied designs would be OK.
    There are REAL limits, however:
    -Heating
    -A/C
    -Cargo carrying
    -PET and CHILD transport

    Until these are addessed – say, making a huge wheel like the old bicycles had (E.G., Pennyfarthing High-Wheel Bicycles, see http://www.worksmancycles.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/high-wheelers.html) – the entire “Zero Emissions” and “Stop-Start” is a NEGATIVE.
    Not that the sort of parasites who live in cities understand that; they don’t mind the squallor, the noise, the encroachment of other people. E.G., getting home last night… 15 minutes waiting for the train – which really means, TWO TRAINS that were supposed to come through, failed to arrive.
    After that, I had a nice young woman feeling up my @$$ for the trip to North Station. Meantime, I was dry-humping three people in front of me. On the train this morning, I ended up feeling some woman up, because I couldn’t move my feet… And grabbed for the support bar. Now, I could go to PRISON for that – keep that in mind!

    WTF is wrong with these city-folk? Beatrix Potter wrote about it with the country mouse / city mouse story; things have NOT improved since then, UNLESS you count the advent of the automobile. The CESSATION of the need for Pubic Transport (typo intentional).

    In the latest storm, the newly-elected asshat, I mean mayor, told everyone to NOT drive, take public transit.
    For the last two weeks, it’s been a crapshoot to get a train – and the house has loaded dice. Further, you get to the platform in sub-zero temperatures, and THEN you get a text message the train is delayed… Half an hour. then an hour. then 75 minutes. then it’s cancelled.

    Shit for brains! SOME of us actually GO TO WORK!!!
    And in sub-zero temperatures, the risk of frostbite and even death are VERY high. As in, uncovered skin will freeze in as little as 15 minutes. And that means blood clots are forming, too, which then can migrate later in the day to your lungs and heart and brain – and cause death and stroke.

    For comparison, Mr Shithead Mayor cleared the Patriot’s Parade route – but didn’t clear the areas around the hospitals or the roads to the hospitals. These are level-1 Trauma centers for the area – who would EVER need to get THERE?

    And BTW, this is BOSTON, again. BOSTON!!!!! NEW FUCKING ENGLAND WITH HUGE SNOWFALL EVERY F*CKING YEAR!!!!
    New Jersey handles snow better. WTF?

    If “the ter’rists” nuked every city in the U.S., I think it would be a blessing. (And I’m inside the blast radius of any nuke, so I have a lot to lose. DILLIGAF? As long as the rats are vaporized, it’s a trade I gladly make.)

    Funny, though: Greenies (“Watermelons”) are allies of the ter’rists; so are our elected Panders, I mean officials; and there are millions of AMoronCons who support both…. (As well as foreigners, but we’ll leave them out – if we could clean up here, we could deal with those parasites, too. We need cleanup HERE, first.)

    They all want to be managers, while we continue to work…

    And as IO posted to Facebook today – Americans will wait, and wait, and wait: we have jobs to get to, work to do, and if we don’t go, we don’t get paid – meantime, TPTB ensure the debates are scheduled while we work, in places WITHOUT public transit – de facto denying “the common man” a voice, while ostensibly making it an “open forum.” (But you KNOW they bussed in their “experts” and “common man who supports common sense {whatever} regulations.”)

    If we don’t follow my “refrain” SOON, we’ll look up and see that boot in our face…. But by then it will be too late.

    “Eckheardt! think about the future! ” -Batman, 1989

    Well, Jack Napier and his cronies are running the show, and forcing you out. When you going to take a stand? (and tell me where, offline, so I can be there and help out! But no word of it any other way, or we’ll be infiltrated before it gets off the ground.)

    • Slightly off topic, but I remember when someone first explained the idea of condominiums to me (circa 1980 IIRC). My response was, “They are SELLING you an apartment? An apartment is where you live when you can’t afford a house. Why would anyone BUY one?”

      • Heh – Why would anyone buy a HOUSE these days?
        Since I have one, I can tell you it’s VERY costly…
        In the last year, we had two MAJOR plumbing problems (due to the tenants in our house right now); Two events with the A/C, including a replacement; the refrigerator quit; we’re working a THIRD problem with the plumbing now.
        Which actually isn’t that bad, but the total cost is something like $50K, I’d wager. Fridge was $1200; plumbing was $1,000 each; A/C was like $20K. Ok, I over-estimated. but the third plumbing item is still TBD…

        If we were personally living there, there would also be maintenance costs up the wazoo… And I don’t want to think how much work re: Snow removal they’ve had to do…

        • I’ve thought seriously about bagging it and downsizing to a small house. I mean like 1,000 sq. feet with most of that being space for my bikes and muscle car; maybe a garage with a loft apartment above it.

          I’m just getting tired…the cords are starting to show through…

      • The few advantages to owning a home include – if you can swing it – distance from neighbors and the freedom to do more of what you want on your own land, in your own place. Though of course, even those freedoms have been greatly curtailed and when you factor in the endless rent to government (property taxes) it seems like less and less of a deal.

        • I have a bit over 4 acres, but wish I could afford more. At least I can’t see the neighbors when the trees are in leaf. It’s zoned ‘conservation’ which means I can’t cut down any trees unless they are dying anyway. Between the zoning and Maryland’s “Right to Farm” act, no one can give me grief about having critters about. But EVERYWHERE these days you need to be careful about the PETA types.

          • Ugh… at least here in The Woods, they generally leave you alone (and I can cut down my own got-damned trees if I like). Still, the thought of “going deep” and seriously into the woods has been on my mind lately. Small place in the middle of 20 acres or so would be ideal. Then pretend the outside world doesn’t exist at all for as long as is possible…

            • Eric – “Small place in the middle of 20 acres or so would be ideal.”

              Maybe. I have more land than that and it still is not even close to enough IMO.

              It’s not the amount of land really, just the distance to the nearest neighbour. A clover WILL move in beside you eventually.

              Being a good distance from any sort of utility services is good too. If nothing is connected to your property, the world tends to forget about or ignore you as long as the property taxes get paid. Though I suspect the ‘sun tax’ and ‘wind tax’ can’t be far off for the off-grid folks.

              Also, beware pending development encroachment. Years back the road my Dad’s place was on had a new municipal water line installed. His place had been on a well for 35+ years and was not connected, yet his taxes on the property increased about 300%.

              • Actually, I’ve seen stories about those living off the grid being FORCED to hook up to public utilities and pay for them.
                Despite being self-sufficient.

                The house was condemned….

                Also of note, there are fines for collecting rainwater on your property…

                The arrogance (hubris) of these pricks is unbelievable. Keep in mind, napalm is easy to make, and can be dropped by drone… Cheap, commercial-grade recreational drones….
                Let alone home-made radio drones… 🙂

              • Me2 – Of COURSE his taxes increased. Now that it had a reliable source of fluoridated water, it was worth more – NOT.

            • Too bad we can’t afford to do like the Rockefellers and such did back at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries – buy thousands of acres of land, build a really nice place, then donate most of the land to the gunvermin to become a park. Keeps the riffraff out, don’t you know, but you don’t have to pay taxes on it.

            • My ideal situation would be at least 40 acres (I will pass on the mule) wooded, probably in a hilly or mountain area (for the view or god forbid defendable high ground), with its own natural gas well. Power almost everything with the gas, heat, major appliances, electric, maybe a liquidifier to power locally used vehicles.

              The hardest part would electric generation. Most house sized natural gas generators aren’t designed for continual operation (would have to be rebuilt too often to be practical), so a battery system like one for solar would likely be necessary. Hopefully fuel cell systems will become affordable or practical.

              Solar unfortunately is too finicky, hard to maintain, and unless you can afford enough panels and batteries, requires a downgraded lifestyle. So I would rather have natural gas then solar. A well would be easier to mask then solar in the SHTF situation too.

          • PETA?
            People for the Edible Treatment of Animals…? 😀

            I know hoe to deal with them. AND the Vegan inbred cousins.

            After all, I like my vegetables in PROCESSED form…. And blood makes the grass grow green.

    • “In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”

      “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

      “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”

      “Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”

      “The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”

      “Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.”

      Everything burns: the psychology & philosophy of the joker

      “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”
      “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
      “Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
      “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
      “You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”
      “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
      “As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know.”
      “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
      “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.”
      “Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.”
      “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”
      “There’s no coming to consciousness without pain.”
      “Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not. ”
      “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.”
      “Whatever is rejected from the self, appears in the world as an event.”
      “Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.”
      “We cannot change anything unless we accept it.”
      “The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.”
      “The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ — all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself — that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness — that I myself am the enemy who must be loved — what then? As a rule, the Christian’s attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us “Raca,” and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves.”
      “Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.”
      “Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. ”
      “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. ”
      “There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”
      “The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.”

  15. I object strenuously to auto-stop. Sometimes my commute is trouble free, but on other days (like when the ‘instant idiots’ come out) I end up making frequent stops, often very short, as in a few seconds, on the INTERSTATE for goodness sakes. W/o some way to override this feature, I will NOT purchase a vehicle so equipped.
    BTW, never call it a freeway. It’s not free, someone’s taxes paid for it.

  16. Here ya go…

    Colorado “Puffer” laws:

    http://enginesoff.com/2_7_laws_ordinances.htm

    “In addition to the laws and ordinances listed above, Colorado Revised Statute 42-4-1206, more commonly known as the “puffer” law, allows law enforcement officers across the state to immediately ticket individuals who have left a vehicle running unattended for any period of time.”

    This isn’t just a car parked in a public space. Police can, and do, ticket people who have their car warming up in their driveways, open garages, etc. My boss, who lives in Denver (where all these screwy laws originate), was given a warning after his wife went back inside because she forgot something. Her SUV was parked in the garage with the door up. The cop just walked up to the front door and started lecturing him, ignoring his explanation.

    The original reason given for the law is because there was a rash of car thefts on cold mornings. Instead of going after the criminals, the legislature decided to make everyone who needs to run the defroster a criminal.

    Of course, Uncle gave his boys an exception: “The idling restriction in subsection (a) shall not apply to emergency vehicles; to vehicles engaged in traffic control operations…”

    • Of course it doesn’t apply to cops and the rest of government. Back in the 1970 and 80s I wouldn’t see cop cars just idling and idling. Today they are left idling while cops are eating lunch. The excessive idling seems to be becoming another way they project power, same as how they drive 100mph and then ticket people going much slower.

      • Hell Brent, the other week I watched a police car sit and idle while getting gas! The nozzle was in the tank, the pump pumping and the cop inside the Zippy Mart getting a donut. I watched this for a good 5 – 10 minutes while I filled my truck, took 28 gallons so you can figure how long I was there.

        • And with all the surveillance, you can’t do anything without comitting a crime….
          Funny – most places i’ve been, there’s no way to lock the fuel pump “on.” You must sit there and hold the GD thing for the whole process of filling… Because “SAFETY.”

          Like the idiocy of “No Cell Phones!” near the gas pumps, you’ll get a spark, you’ll light the gas fumes!
          1. Cell phones don’t spark. You could get a better spark scraping the door against the concrete pillars all over the place.
          2. Not enough fuel / too much oxygen: Can’t get a flame propagation, regardless of what the movies show. (Like, “It MUST be true, I heard it on the internet!” Movies were mass indoctrination 70 years ago…. Haven’t gotten better at telling truthful stories…)
          3. Open-air station: WHAT gas fumes? Tied closely to #2, but even if you poured gasoline on the floor, it won’t have enough fuel to burn much or for long, and the station is OPEN – LOTS of ventilation to evaporate spillage. And without an ongoing supply of fuel, things burn out…

          But no – turn off the engine, because it might spark and ignite the gas fumes!
          Turn off the cell phone so it doesn’t spark an explosion!
          Discharge your static electricity…!!! (It’s actually posted as a warning… WTF?)

          While Porky, who cannot be trusted with a gun, rides around with tools of state oppression in his car – and with his bad aim and itchy trigger finger, he might squeeze one off into the fuel tank, “by accident.” That’s how he shoots innocent bystanders, after all….

          • couple of weeks ago I was filling the TDI, and called the wife to update her on my progress home. Station attendant came out, got my attention, and pointed to the “No Cell Phone Use” sign. Huh? I’m pumping diesel. It does not explode unless highly compressed. If the cell phone DID make a spark, so what?

            • The only spark a cell phone will make may be in the electric motor that was once (maybe still is) used to make the phone vibrate. Which of course would be a moot point because that would be an incoming call alert. Maybe if the battery is removed during high current draw…. it’s hard to get a spark out of hundreds of mA at 5V but it might be possible. Enough to ignite gasoline vapors? Probably not.

              Perhaps they are concerned about interference with the credit card authorization system and other ‘radio’ communications? (ever notice the dishes on gas stations?) Now our dear leaders supposedly make sure such interference doesn’t happen, but you never know.

              • Easiest way to scare the HELL outta fuel station attendants is to start filling with a smoke in your mouth – unlit.

                I often walk around malls with one in me gob. It’s not long before some “concerned”, panic-stricken parent blubbers to security, which do all they can to pretend they have authority.

                “Excuse me Sir but.. you can’t smoke in here.”

                “It’s not lit ya moron..!”

                “Uhh.. Make sure you don’t.”

                “Get back in yer box! Stop harassing me.”

    • Eric G,

      You could place a small orange magnetic light on top of your car. Then you are engaged in “traffic control” or are “an authorized vehicle”.

  17. It is coming…..

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjjNvjURS-s

    “Red Barchetta”

    My uncle has a country place
    That no one knows about
    He says it used to be a farm
    Before the Motor Law
    And on Sundays I elude the eyes
    And hop the Turbine Freight
    To far outside the Wire
    Where my white-haired uncle waits

    Jump to the ground
    As the Turbo slows to cross the borderline
    Run like the wind
    As excitement shivers up and down my spine
    Down in his barn
    My uncle preserved for me an old machine
    For fifty odd years
    To keep it as new has been his dearest dream

    I strip away the old debris
    That hides a shining car
    A brilliant red Barchetta
    From a better vanished time
    I fire up the willing engine
    Responding with a roar
    Tires spitting gravel
    I commit my weekly crime

    Wind
    In my hair
    Shifting and drifting
    Mechanical music
    Adrenaline surge…

    Well-weathered leather
    Hot metal and oil
    The scented country air
    Sunlight on chrome
    The blur of the landscape
    Every nerve aware

    Suddenly ahead of me
    Across the mountainside
    A gleaming alloy air car
    Shoots towards me, two lanes wide
    I spin around with shrieking tires
    To run the deadly race
    Go screaming through the valley
    As another joins the chase

    Drive like the wind
    Straining the limits of machine and man
    Laughing out loud with fear and hope
    I’ve got a desperate plan
    At the one-lane bridge
    I leave the giants stranded at the riverside
    Race back to the farm
    To dream with my uncle at the fireside

    • I’m becoming that white haired uncle, Sic….

      I have a nice old Trans Am in my garage; also a couple of cool old bikes from that better vanished time…

      I feel as though I am preserving bits of the past for a future that may never come. Or a worse one that will.

        • Fifteens, too.

          Pretty much the only option for an old muscle car with 15×7 wheels is the BFGoodrich Radial TA. A mediocre all-season tire – not a performance tire.

          • Just for grins, I went to the Tire Rack website. The BFG Radial TA is the ONLY “performance” tire they list in that size – as opposed to all season or studdable light truck tires.

            • Yup – it’s a hassle.

              I’d love to be able to put a decent set of tires under my TA, but the only way I can would be to lose the factory wheels, which I do not want to do because they’re cool-looking (and uniquely “Pontiac”) and because aftermarket large diameter wheels look (to me) all wrong on classic muscle cars.

              I’m just surprised that Coker (or someone else) doesn’t make an H or V rated performance tire for classic muscle cars… there are a lot of potential buyers out there, I suspect.

              • Look at the Pirelli P600 (W speed rating) or the Maxxis Ma-s1 Maurader (H rated) in the 235/60-15 size. Will fit nicely on a 15 x 7 wheel.
                Assuming a stock tire size of 225/70-15, the speedo will read 5% less than actual.

          • The availability of 14″ tires has gotten so bad that I converted my car to 15-inchers using some compatible rims salvaged from a junkyard. Those are getting a little thin on the ground now as well, but are still generally available for garden-variety, non-performance tires.

            There’s always Coker, but there you’re talking serious $$$ for a set of tires!!

            • Yup. Another issue is finding a decent raised white letter performance tire for a 14 or 15 inch wheel. Classic muscle cars need raised white letter tires; it’s part of the vibe. Blackwalls don’t look right…

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