Wednesday ORT: Beer Hall Putsch, Scotty's Racist Fantasy, Aqua(naut)man, Plastics, BYDorks

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let’s see the takedown notice on this one

Housekeeping: We are a little short of conventional automotive topics today, so if you know of one worth discussing, I’ll pin you immediately. Alright, my dudes; it is Wednesday. Let’s ride

It’s not a dog whistle if everyone can hear it

Tomorrow night our friend Casey is holding… a Beer Hall Putsch! I’m sure someone told him this was an edgy way to get publicity for his joke of a gubernatorial run, and Casey was too big of an idiot to understand that this is not the right kind of publicity.

I encourage all ACF readers to catch up on my Tales of Casey. In the meantime, spare a thought and/or prayer for Ohio. Our choices for leadership are:

• a scumbag “car guy” grifter who is running as a cosplay patriot;

• a scumbag “billionaire” who, unsurprisingly, made his money by having his mother “study” his “life-saving medicine”, and who once elected will no doubt load the state apparatus with subcontinentals while stealing everything that isn’t bolted to the ground;

• a crazy COVID lady who doesn’t even pretend not to be an authoritarian nightmare.

My choice of the three is the crazy COVID lady. At least she will have to fight the legislature, rather than merely competing with them to strip the cupboard bare for personal gain. The obvious future governor, Jim Tressel, who could have the position as a write-in if he decided to on the morning of the election, has apparently already satisfied his personal greed via other avenues.

Speaking of crazy old white ladies…

The blacker/Hispanic-er/female-er-LGBTQ-er the berry, the sweeter Scotty’s juice

Almost a dozen of you sent me this post in which notorious do-nothing moron advertorialist Scotty Reiss is… uh… looking to “make a connection” with someone who is Black, Hispanic, female, or LGBTQ. The purpose of this connection is unspecified, so just for fun let’s assume it is some sort of trailer-park porno film.

Let’s consider the fact that her post is somewhere between cringe-inducing and flagrantly bigoted, yet she will absolutely get away with it and it will never cost her a dime. That’s the “white privilege” about which we’re always hearing. Spoiler alert: only white women have it. If I went on LinkedIn and called her out, I would be the one suspended.

It’s interesting to see the negative space cut out by Scotty’s race-based requirements: no white men, no Asian men, no… Pacific Islanders? Not that she put a lot of thought into it. She was looking to get some Social Media Brownie Points and everyone knows that shitting on white men is the fast track to that. She might have meant to add Asian. We will never know. The wild part remains: she felt comfortable saying this in public. She doesn’t even say “I’m trying to do a story about the challenges faced by people on the margins.” She just assumes that cutting white dudes out is Always A Good Thing.

Even wilder than that: the fact that she thought a picture of her piggy face scrunched into a loaner helmet would somehow attract positive attention. The self-deception of some people knows no bounds. You know why this Substack isn’t filled with pictures of my face? Because I’m hideous-looking. Scotty Reiss is also hideous. The difference is that no one has told her about this. Or maybe they just didn’t say it loudly enough. She must have had a different kind of elementary school than I had.

While I have daily conversations with two exceptional female race drivers, I can’t say I would encourage either of them to waste a minute with Jabba the Hutt up there. No doubt most other “marginalized” people in the track community will have a similar opinion. Believe it or not, Black people don’t sit around dreaming about the chance to talk to someone like Scotty Reiss. Which no doubt would come as a huge surprise to Scotty Reiss.

you just gotta imagine her fatter. like, a lot fatter.

There’s a meme out there in the left-leaning community that goes something like “Give me the confidence of an unqualified white man.” That’s a deception. The most unwarrantedly confident people are often white women. Especially old, loud, and fat ones. There was even a TV show about one…

It is an ill wind that blows no one good

Polyethylene had been in a post-Covid slump because of overproduction and ebbing demand, but the Iran war changed that equation almost overnight.

The conflict’s geopolitical ripples have brought a lucrative reversal of fortune to U.S.-based chemical makers, which in recent years have been some of America’s most downtrodden companies. Their share prices have rocketed up, reflecting the advantage they gained after bombs began to fall in the Middle East and Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz.

“In my career of almost 30 years of covering chemicals, I have never, ever seen price hikes this steep and this quick,” said Hassan Ahmed, a partner at Alembic Global Advisors.

Let me get one thing straight for everyone: there is only one company that deserves the name Alembic, and it’s the guys who make Stanley Clarke’s bass.

Paid subscribers will get another Iran War Thunderdome this week, since there’s so much news to cover — but it’s worth taking a moment here to look at the many economic implications of the war, not all of which are negative on this side of the Atlantic. European plastics manufacturers are cutting production rapidly. Why? They can’t get petroleum. Much of the bleating regarding the strategic necessity of the Strait of Hormuz¹ really only applies to Europe. The initial refusal of the EU/NATO partners to get involved in this Iran thing gave President Trump carte blanche to structure all future actions in a way that asymmetrically benefits the United States.

Frankly, I was surprised that there even is a European plastics industry. I really thought they were getting it all from China at this point. I suppose someone has to supply the raw materials for Swatches.

I’m not suggesting that any aspect of this war has been “4D chess”. Far from it. But it’s worth noting that Europe stands to lose much more from conflict in the region than the United States does. For the last eighty years, the USA has stood in loco parentis to Europe. We’ve basically been like Tad and Loreen in Girls. We have this kid at Oberlin, experimenting with communism and deviant sex at our expense while we work extra shifts and stave off retirement to make it possible. We give the kid a little allowance, make sure they have a safe place to live. We sort out their disagreements, ensure they don’t have to worry too much about the basics.

Then we sit back and watch this degenerate tramp revel in her moral superiority in between demands for funding.

Listen, I adore going to Europe. It’s a beautiful place, a lot of fun, although less so every year. But it’s a theme park, the same as Disneyworld. When you visit the Reedy Creek Improvement District, you’re looking at a place that only exists because of external subsidies. Europe is like that. They’ve relied on the United States for defense and China for currency-adjusted goodies. It’s been an eight-decade Timothy Leary LSD party on Mom and Dad’s dime. But that wasn’t enough for the Europeans. They also shitcanned their own future for the short-term feels of playing Great White Savior to fifty million demons.

All bills are coming due now. Germany just told its military-age men that they must secure the draft board’s permission before leaving the country for more than ninety days. That permission is automatically granted… for now. What happens when “Wir schaffen das” involves dealing with the Houthis? I’ll tell you what the native-born men of Germany should say to the women who got them in this mess: Have your new pets handle it; I have video games to play.

Patek should mail one of these to every watch nerd in America

Over the winter I found myself having a conversation with a pretty well-known jeweler and watch collector in downtown Columbus, regarding the Patek Philippe Aquanaut.

“It’s an ugly watch,” he scoffed, “and anyone could get one in the beginning. Now they are three times retail. And for what? For this ugly watch? Why not get a Nautilus? Why not get anything else?” I nodded along because I have long been mystified about Aquanaut mania myself. The retail for a plain steel Aquanaut is $27,257, which is already a lot of money for a basic three-hand watch, but if you could buy one at that price tomorrow you could make $50,000 worth of markup in the afternoon. The rose gold with chocolate strap version, which retails for $53,614, regularly fetches $145,000 in the aftermarket. We are in the grip of Aquanaut mania to an unimaginable extent.

Therefore, when Watchdives offered me an Early Bird price of $109 for their rose gold Aquanaut clone, I was easily able to justify the purchase despite being largely unemployed. I figured it would be fun to wear on a trip somewhere; there is a certain class of airline passenger who will crank his neck into a painful angle just to determine if the ugly fellow in the Gustin T-shirt is really wearing an effing rose gold Aquanaut.

It showed up pretty quickly. I set up the cut-to-fit rubber strap, which almost perfectly replicates the $1800 Patek OEM strap, and wore the watch out to move some race cars. “Ha ha, look at me wearing my fake Patek to operate a ratchet strap,” I chuckled to myself.

I haven’t taken it off since, because the Patek Aquanaut is the most comfortable dress watch in human history. The scales have fallen from my eyes. I now understand why people are paying the price of a new Corvette ZR1 for an unassuming little gold watch. It disappears on the wrist. Yet it is astoundingly legible and usable. If you’re used to telling time with something like an original Speedmaster Moonwatch… this is basically a large print book by comparison. It is readable from any angle. During the day you can easily see the numbers, but it is also loaded with a ridiculous amount of lume for night time use.

Strictly speaking, the Watchdives WD008 isn’t a fake Patek, because Watchdives uses their own logo in place of Patek’s, but that won’t insulate you from the contempt of people who see you wearing a fake Aquanaut. There are several additional differences between the WD008 and a real Patek:

• It’s not rose gold, it is PVD-coated stainless steel.

• The deployant clasp is a beautifully made, but generic, double-latch squeeze latch in the same coated steel. Patek gives you a gorgeous solid 18k gold deployant with the lovely “Calatrava Cross” logo.

• The Watchdives has a solid steel back; the Patek has a sapphire glass display window.

• The Watchdives uses a Seiko VH31 “sweep quartz” movement that moves the hand four times per second. It has two jewels for durability on moving parts. You can buy a VH31 on the open market for about thirty bucks. The Patek uses the 324 S C movement which moves the hand eight times a second, has 29 jewels, a 21-karat gold self-winding rotor, and is Geneva Seal certified. Which means that it has been finished without regard to cost or convenience, and made entirely in the vicinity of Geneva. Some Aquanauts are Patek Seal, meaning they meet higher standards set by Patek themselves.

• The real Aquanaut has more polishing, and to a higher standard.

• It also has real 18k gold hands for hour, minute, and second.

• The Patek Philippe Aquanaut is made in Switzerland of locally sourced parts. The Watchdives is made in China, using a bulk-purchased Seiko movement that could be made in Japan but is not guaranteed to have been made in Japan.

Yes, it has a real-world price a full 1,200 times that of the Watchdives, which is kind of breathtaking to consider, but the Patek Aquanaut makes a strong case for being worth some kind of multiple over the Chinese “tribute”.

The effect of Fakeqanaut ownership on your humble author has been twofold.

0. I’m thinking that if Watchdives made this thing just a bit visibly different from the Patek, just enough that it wasn’t a direct copy, it would stand alone as a really desirable piece for moderate-income watch enjoyers. Just do something to take it from “tribute” to “derivative”. The core VH31 is a pretty accurate movement, although it loves to eat batteries every couple of years. If you can see it as something other than a copy, it’s a legitimate piece in its own right. Or it could be, with some changes.

1. Patek should mail one of these to everyone on the Aquanaut waiting list, because nothing makes you want to enjoy a real Aquanaut like wearing this excellent tribute. I am now quite personally interested in having my own Aquanaut. Don’t get me wrong; when I become unaccountably successful in one of my several doomed business ventures, I will get a Lange World Time before a Patek… but man, I could see buying a rose gold Aquanaut now, and before I never could.

I am sure that eventually this infatuation will wear off and I’ll return to wearing my “real” watches. This one isn’t real, just like some women aren’t “real” under their sportsbras, but — like is often the case in the aforementioned situation — the WD008 is real nice.

BYD sued the Instagram star

Our friends at The Autopian are making hay this week of a random kinda-sorta threat by BYD to sue them over Instagram, followed by BYD using “copyright strike” provisions to remove a post they’d made about the Daniel Craig ad campaign for BYD.

First things first, as J Cole would say: the Daniel Craig ad campaign is deeply embarrassing. If I want to see a short man in a bad suit joylessly endorsing Chinese junk, this is available elsewhere on the Internet, I’m sure. I cannot say enough to disrespect the whole idea of Daniel Craig as Bond. He is awful and always was. James Bond was supposed to be some suave killer with a deeply polished presentation. Daniel Craig looked like a refugee from a Guy Ritchie film. He had all these psychological issues. I ask you, did Sean Connery’s Bond have psychological issues when he was letting women get hit in the head with hammers? Did Roger Moore need Wellbutrin before he seduced Grace Jones and saved the world through the sheer persuasive power of his todger? Of course not.

Craig’s Bond was all upset because some woman he knew turned out to be a lying whore. He had to disappear for years from the workforce as a result. God help us if that happened in real life. You wouldn’t be able to find a club DJ, a Ford mechanic, or a sandwich artist. And he only came back because his mommy, played by Judi Dench in her least charming role ever, told him he had to.

You get the idea. Let’s talk about the “lawsuit” threat. As you might imagine, I’ve been sued before. It never happens over Instagram. It happens via certified and/or registered mail… assuming they don’t care enough to send the sheriff. Even a credible threat of lawsuit, like the one made to me around 2006 by the now-deceased (lol) Dean Rosen of “1g Racing Noble/Superformance”, generally arrives via certified mail. And not from the dude who’s “gonna sue you”. It comes from an attorney whose law firm has co-signed on the issuance and stands ready to prosecute the case.

Everyone on the Internet is always about to sue you for something, the same way they are about to shoot you directly in the heart for offending their narcissistic self-image. In general, unless the entity in question has a demonstrated record of suing and/or shooting in the past, these threats can be 100% ignored. They aren’t even worth repeating. They certainly aren’t worth self-crucifying on the Internet over.

What we should be worried about: BYD using copyright protection to “chill” public criticism. Cory Doctorow is (to my annoyance) right again this week:

The fact that copyright — nominally a system intended to protect creative workers — is weaponized against the people it is meant to serve is ironic, but it’s not unusual. Copyright law has been primarily shaped by creators’ bosses — media companies like Viacom — who brandish “starving artists” as a reason to enact policies that ultimately benefit capital at the expense of labor.

When BYD uses it to remove even the mildest criticism, that is sufficient cause to speak out against BYD in the strongest terms. That’s the problem, not a vague “legal action” IG message. I love Matt and Torchy, but what they are doing here is tantamount to writing “Some dude walked up and set our car on fire — and then he said he was gonna give us a bad Yelp! review, so we wrote an article called ‘Some Dude is Gonna Give Us A Bad Yelp! review’.”

If you ask me, it looks like BYD is the modern General Motors: they make trash and they’ll break their necks trying to suppress legitimate criticism. On the other hand… they never tried to make us watch “The Volt Dance”.

1. There is nothing I hate more than having “of” in a sentence three times, but it’s the Wednesday Free thread, I ain’t editing it.