Good News

Two good pieces of news to start off our day:

  1. The New York Times has officially walked back its support for marijuana legalization.
  2. The government is preparing to revoke the mandate on stop-start engines in cars.

These are great things that should be celebrated.

21 responses to “Good News”

  1.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Oh, yay. The longer the stop/start thing held, the more it was going to distort the used car market down the road, with everybody trying to avoid those.

    -ethyl

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Clarissa Avatar

      The bastard who invented that evil contraption is a total evildoer.

      Like

  2.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    what is a start/stop engine?

    Amanda

    Like

    1. Clarissa Avatar

      A start/stop engine is an evil invention that wears out the engine in a gesture of planned obsolescence that enriches car manufacturers. It’s justified as environment ally friendly when it’s the exact opposite.

      Like

  3.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    When you stop at a stop sign or a light for more than a moment, it cuts the engine. Then, when you hit the gas to move, there’s a momentary pause, when it chugs to turn over. The pause and the chug can be annoying, but it boosts fuel efficiency and cuts down on the pollution that comes from idling cars.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      It switches off the engine creating extremely dangerous situations and damaging the environment.

      Like

    2.  Avatar
      Anonymous

      Most pollution from automobiles comes from the manufacturing process.

      No amount of fuel efficiency makes up for manufacturing cars that will never reach 20yrs or 300k miles on the road.

      -ethyl

      Like

      1. Clarissa Avatar

        Exactly. This is terrible for the environment, as any planned obsolescence measure. Plus, it’s dangerous.

        Like

        1.  Avatar
          Anonymous

          yeah, every time you turn a car off, there’s a miniscule chance it’s not going to turn back on. When you’re doing that a couple of times a day, from a safe parking spot, no big deal, starter lasts a long time, etc.

          What were they smoking to think it was a good idea to make the car stop and start again at every stop sign and traffic light? Did they redesign the starter to last 10x longer, or does it need replacing annually now? Now your miniscule risk of car not starting again is multiplied by however many times a day you roll to a stop anywhere, and your odds of getting stuck *in the road, in traffic* just went up by a zillion.

          These are features that are only cool for people who buy a new car every five years.

          To hell with everybody else, I guess.

          -ethyl

          Like

          1. cliff arroyo Avatar

            “every time you turn a car off, there’s a miniscule chance it’s not going to turn back on”

            I still have…. very bad memories about the sound of a car not starting (or straining to start). Whoever created that is a sadist….

            Like

            1. Clarissa Avatar

              I’ve never driven such a car myself but I have been in intersections where I expect the car in front to start moving and it doesn’t. There should be no unpredictable situations on the road that are purposefully manufactured to be unpredictable.

              Like

              1.  Avatar
                Anonymous

                Plus, there’s the implicit assumption:

                “If you can’t afford to buy a new car, why are you even driving?”

                I am not, and never will be, a fan of this attitude: willfully not understanding the secondary market for cars. The reason you can get a good trade-in for your 5yo car, is because somebody else is willing to buy it and drive it after you. Even if you do new cars, this should matter to you. Because most of the emissions happen in manufacturing, the longer you can keep a car running, the less pollution-per-mile happens, even if you’re no longer the one driving it. Amortization!

                If you start making cars that aren’t worth buying used after 5 years, your trade-in value goes to $350, which is what you can scrap it for.

                -ethyl

                Like

            2.  Avatar
              Anonymous

              last year I had to drive a rental car with that feature. In a large urban metro area. Have seldom had a normal car feature induce panic like that. Same car had electric parking brake that took me 10 minutes to locate. Because it was a tiny thumb switch. WTF?

              -ethyl

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Clarissa Avatar

                Yes, it’s particularly punishing to people in residential areas where there are endless stop signs. I call it “a mom penalty” because a woman driving her kids around will have this happen to her constantly.

                Like

          2. Clarissa Avatar

            This is absolutely meant to force people to buy new cars every few years. And to use repair shops so much more often

            That people who are not extremely rich and profiting from the industry would defend this daylight robbery is shocking. This is designed to make you and me poorer. Why defend it?

            I’m seriously not getting this.

            Like

            1.  Avatar
              Anonymous

              Safe assumptions to make about people who approve of this stuff:

              -they are rich

              -they are dumb

              -they don’t know anything about cars.

              -ethyl

              Like

              1. Clarissa Avatar

                I love the childish naiveté on these people. It’s for the environment!

                Dude. Meet capitalism. Capitalism, meet sweet, childish dude. It’s all for profit. It exists to enrich the already very wealthy people at your expense, you absolute baby.

                Like

            2. PaulS Avatar
              PaulS

              It’s been well known for years that the Japanese system forces people to buy new cars every few years. How else are you going to support domestic manufacturing but to make people buy more stuff.

              https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/1998-06-14/why-the-japanese-dont-keep-their-cars-for-long-intl-edition

              Like

            3. PaulS Avatar
              PaulS

              The SA government totally understands this stuff. That is why there is so much love for the USSR, Venezuela, and Cuba.

              Like

              1. Clarissa Avatar

                Coprophilia is definitely a thing. 😆😆

                Like

  4. Stringer Bell Avatar
    Stringer Bell

    As if it were even possible, Bondi further embarrassed this administration over Epstein.

    In other news, the people screeching here over how venezuela was about “drugs” can post their apologies underneath this post.

    Like

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A conservative literary critic and college professor