wolfriverjoe

You're forgetting a very important part of the whole situation. They're stupid. They're REALLY fucking stupid. Seen elsewhere: "If Taylor Swift is what it's going to take to defeat MAGA, then sequin my butt and call me a Swiftie."

Do you have pictures of the cut loops?

Like most of the garbage that they spew about EVs, this is also a lie. And even if the EV is powered by coal generated electricity, it's cleaner than an ICE car. Mostly due to efficiencies of scale of power production and propulsion efficiency of an EV vs thermal efficiency of the ICE. Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2020/03/30/yes-electric-cars-are-cleaner-even-when-the-power-comes-from-coal/?sh=b95728e2320b

Seen elsewhere: 'Me too' has grown a bit. Now it's 'Me 83 Million'.

Well, more 'Quentin Tarentino' than anything else. It wouldn't happen. Biden is actually a pretty decent man. And the public reaction would be pretty severe.

Personally, I'd love to see Biden debate Trump on stage, and when Trump says something particularly obnoxious (like maybe a minute or two into the debate), or when he refuses to shut up, Biden just pulls out a pistol and personally puts a bullet into Trump's head. But I'm not a very nice guy about this sort of thing.

We elected a racist con-man sexual predator rather than having to stomach a woman president (although she won the popular vote by 2 million votes).

For whatever reason, the format won't let me put text below the pic, so I get to double post. There have been claims that EVs are so heavy they destroy the roads. Well, my Bolt goes 3500#. Which is about 200# more than the 928 pictured above. And about 2200# LESS than the Cayenne it replaced. I've received my electric bill for December. My utility's website allows me to see the previous 2 years of bills. My electric use for any given month varies very little year to year. So I've got a good baseline, and can make a decent estimate of what charging the car is costing me (I have only charged at home so far). $35-$40 per month. Compare that with ~15mpg (premium) in the Cayenne. I was paying ~$150/month for gas in the winter when I only drove that (928 & motorcycle get put away in the winter).

I'm there. I got the Bolt back in November. My 'fun' car is this;

Oh there you go again. Using facts. Data. And you think you can counter bigotry and prejudice with THOSE?!?! I just went through my first major snow and cold snap with my Bolt. On the snowy & slushy roads, I used a fair amount more power. The extra rolling resistance takes power to overcome. No different than with an ICE car, but I get instant feedback and accurate measurement. In the serious cold (highs single digits above, lows down to about ten below), I used more power. Part of that is the battery doesn't do as well in the cold, part of it is that the car was heating the battery, part of it was that I was using the car's heater to keep from freezing my butt off. Until last week, I almost exclusively used the heated wheel & seats, with the HVAC on very low just to keep the insides of the windows clear of condensation. In any case, the driving I did came nowhere near running the battery out. The worst day (both quite cold and crappy roads) used about 18kWh for a trip that was taking 11 or 12 in warmer weather. Battery holds 66, but I only have 55ish available (I only charge to 85%). I was a bit anxious about how it would work in that sort of weather. Not really worried, but I'm glad I have hard data now.

True, if there's adequate battery available to both get you there and heat the battery. Tesla has that part of it figured out fairly well. Other independent apps aren't so good.

The Tesla has a battery heater, which is needed to get the battery up to proper temp to charge. The battery can be damaged if it's charged too fast when it's too cold. If the battery is depleted (below 40% IIRC), the heater is disabled. So, when it was super cold, the battery wouldn't heat itself. So the charge rate was throttled back. The heater would come on once the car was plugged in, but with the very low temps, it wouldn't bring the battery up to temp very fast. So some people had to wait. Not a whole lot different than all the folks that had to wait for a tow truck when their car was too cold to start due to weak battery, thick oil, or gelled up diesel fuel. Last week was a real pain for the refrigerated trailers that I pull. The shop guys were really overloaded with trailers that wouldn't start. No, frozen freight wasn't going to thaw, but it's technically 'temperature controlled'. There are a variety of things that need to be kept from freezing. A truckload of Snapple in glass bottles makes a REALLY big mess if it freezes.

Yeah, but as John Bigbooty pointed out, that overthruster is for shit.

I would be very surprised if ANY of the attorneys representing Trump aren't demanding pay in advance. "You give me $100k. When that runs out, you give me more. I'm not doing shit for you if I don't see the money up front." Maybe the money ran out and Trump didn't pony up more. Maybe he just got tired of Trump's shit. The unhinged rants at the judge. Both the one inside the courtroom, pretending to be 'closing arguments' and the ones outside. Both in person and on social media. He had asked for ANOTHER delay in the trial. Claiming he had to go to Melania's mom's funeral. The judge refused, partly because he's sick of Trump's stupid games, partly because Trump didn't need to be there for that part of the proceedings. So, of course, when the day of the funeral that Trump HAD TO BE at, where is he? Campaigning in New Hampshire. Judges tend to take a dim view of that sort of behavior. They tend to go after the attorneys, telling them to make sure their client understands and obeys the rules. Or maybe he just finally decided that Trump wasn't worth the damage to his reputation, his career, his future. In any case, Trumpty Dumpty is in deeper shit. Which is fine by me.

Back on track, there are reports that Ukraine has downed a Russian A-50 radar surveillance plane (equivalent of US AWACS) and damaged an IL-22 command & control plane. Both are quite valuable, and neither is something Russia has a lot of. https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-russia-war-plane-shot-down-a50-il22/ One more thing that Russia doesn't have a lot of is... Troops. There have been rumors that they don't have much (if any) reserves left. If they need to reinforce a position, they have to pull troops from somewhere else. They've tried to take Adiivka, but have basically repeated the battle of Bakhmut all over. Human wave attacks that gain a little bit of ground at the cost of hundreds of soldiers. Repeat this a bunch of times and thousands of soldiers are dead. Slim was touting the fact that Ukraine had made little advance over summer and fall. While he's correct in that respect, he conveniently ignored the reality that Russia has tried a LOT harder and done virtually nothing. At huge costs in men and equipment. So they're almost out of soldiers, and Putler doesn't want to have another draft call up with elections close (not that he has any chance of losing). https://www.gbnews.com/news/world/putin-russia-troops-running-out-ukraine-war

If he doesn't get what he wants, yes. You know, just like the congressional Republicans.

Yeah, don't bet on it. "I got mine, Jack. Keep your hands off my stack." And this is the same sort of person who pretends 'white privilege' doesn't exist.

I'm not sure I'd call them 'reasonably smart'. They want Trump in power. They think he hates the people that they hate. That he'll hurt those people while favoring them. Remember the shutdown in 2019? There were people who were surprised that Trump's actions hurt THEM, when he was supposed to hurt 'the other people'. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/8/18173678/trump-shutdown-voter-florida The reality is that Trump is a narcissistic psychopath. He uses people and then throws them away. All those idiots who participated in the insurrection. He called on them to 'fight like hell'. He told them he 'loved them'. Now they're sitting in jail or prison. Anyone who thinks that they'll be in a position of privilege or power because they're Trump supporters is a fucking idiot. They might be able to beat up minorities, they might be able to shove their Trumpty Dumpty flags in people's faces, but they will be just as vulnerable to his whims as everyone else. They'll be just as exposed to his idiotic decisions. Fortunately, I don't agree that he has much of a chance of winning (not zero, but pretty low). One thing I don't see this time around is all the flags and lawn signs. There are still some out there. And usually in a yard that is full blown cult behavior. But the huge numbers aren't there. Not like last time.

The entire "Buick Lineup" is FOUR Vehicles. I highly doubt there are any 'stand alone' Buick dealers. So they decided to sell one less brand of car, rather than put a huge investment into a marque that is likely not going to survive.

Actually, he was REALLY smart. Smart enough that I knew, even as a teenager, that he was smarter than I was (really). There were things we didn't agree on, but I almost never thought his opinion or position on something was 'dumb'.

To be fair, most of them know exactly what they are doing. The surprising thing is that they admit it.

And how little they actually utilize those capabilities. When I was in my teens, my family had a little 'lake house', and a boat. We normally towed the boat twice a year. Once in spring to take it to the lake and put it in, once in fall to get it out and bring it home. The Buick LeSabre that was the family car did an adequate job. I asked my dad why we didn't get a better tow vehicle for the boat and he responded that 'We only tow the damned thing twice a year, why should we spend money on a bigger car that will cost an arm and a leg to fuel for that?'

And knowing this, Ukraine changed the date they observe Christmas. From Jan 7 (Russian Orthodox) to Dec 25th (just about everywhere else that celebrates Christmas). https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/29/europe/ukraine-christmas-date-change-intl/index.html

With a boat, you definitely need a tow vehicle. I had a pickup for a while (a long time ago). The number of times it was more than 'just a big, cool vehicle' was pretty small. For the gas I burned 'just driving' it (alone with nothing in the back), I could have rented a truck to use a BUNCH of times. I had a Porsche Cayenne SUV for 8 1/2 years. 7700# tow capacity. As I noted above, I can count the number of times I towed a trailer on one hand. And it was usually a really small utility trailer, pulling a roto-tiller or some building materials.

There's no car more expensive than a 'cheap Porsche' (or other expensive exotic).