As someone who did an honors history degree, specializing in economics of the post-Civil War period, this destruction last October and the earlier vandalism and removal of the fallen lion of the Confederacy at the Oakland Cemetary in Atlanta fills me with anger. Was in Vegas for SEMA, very happy to have been on US soil to enjoy the victory in real time.
I'm very much looking forward to saying "Elections have consequences" for every single shuttered department and federal job lost for the next four years. This was petty and destroying history.
We're I alive in the latter half of the 1800's, early 1900's I would have held my nose and bent over backwards to put up with what was necessary for reconciliation, the honoring of the dead with relatives in living memory, the stuff of nation building.
In the 2020s, it is time to think of them for what they were. People who put their own pride above all else, and were willing to kill for it.
We know what the main issue was, and there is no argument for it.
The side issues never would have risen to the level of bloodiness that occurred.
Lee and his peers are the most at fault. They knew better. I have no idea what motivated each private from nowhere Louisiana, and assigning individual moral culpability to them is harder because of that. But we know what motivated their leaders.
It isn't applying modern morality, they were traitors then too. What was remarkable was the capacity to forgive on one side, and the immediate need to create a narrative absolving themselves on the other. Again at the time I would have gone along with it readily. No reason to now.
The notion that modern people are more morally enlightened than our ancestors comes primarily from the fact that most people today view racism as vile.
Unless of course, they're black, Hispanic, asian, Indian...
But truly, modern people are morally disorganized.
This one one spot where there is a good chance that people are not 100% crying crocodile tears. If I were to channel Atticus Finch and try to walk a mile in a (current preferred term)'s shoes I can see how serving at a base honoring a person literally guilty of a real deal treason, motivated by the enslavement of others, could be off putting, and perhaps a wound that is still open.
this guy buys gt3s with less enthusiasm than i do buying na miatas
i do not feel bad for him whatsoever
"Sixpack Chargers should have 550hp and 521lb-ft"
i am curious to see if these new hurricane engines will displace 2jz engines in drift cars in the future as theyre already quite powerful and will hopefully be plentiful but theres still a huge draw for the naturally aspirated hemis that someone will eventually make a swap kit for the new chargers
also as far as paint goes does anyone have a suggestion for a kind of durable light grey paint for the engine bay of the miata because that might make it easier to see leaks or dirt like you would on a real racecar
I don't know if this guy is a douche canoe or not. He does kind of seem like one from his writing but he bought a porsche, drove it on a track, and crashed it. Doesn't sound like he was being reckless, just a bit naïve. Maybe I'm a softie but I feel for him.
i suppose id feel bad for him if the gt3 was a retirement gift that he bought himself but he didnt seem to be all that bothered by binning one other than the inconvenience it brought him
maybe hes in way over his head with that level of car or not i dont know
I'd like to coin the phrase "Thurman Munson Syndrome" to describe people who abuse money to short-circuit their skill progression.
Named after Canton, Ohio native and Yankee catcher, who, per Wikipedia:
"In August 1979, Munson had been flying airplanes for over a year and purchased a Cessna Citation I/SP jet..."
ONE YEAR, not full-time, and he's already into a JET?!
"It was his fourth airplane in less than a year and a half."
Time In Type is a very important metric in aviation.
"His flight instructor Dave Hall spoke well of his ability: "From the onset to completion of training Mr. Munson displayed well above average skills and judgment as a pilot. However, in a 2022 tribute piece for his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast, sports commentator Keith Olbermann recalled that four months before Munson's death, he was told that Yankee executives were terrified Munson was "not as good a pilot as he thinks he is" and that they were attempting to get owner George Steinbrenner to trade him to Cleveland to get him to stop flying, afraid that he might "wind up killing himself.""
The end result:
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation into the crash stated that the probable cause was "the pilot's failure to recognize the need for, and to take action to maintain, sufficient airspeed to prevent a stall into the ground during an attempted landing. The pilot also failed to recognize the need for timely and sufficient power application to prevent the stall during an approach conducted inadvertently without flaps extended. Contributing to the pilot's inability to recognize the problem and to take proper action was his failure to use the appropriate checklist and his nonstandard pattern procedures which resulted in an abnormal approach profile." Munson was not wearing the available shoulder harness restraint, only a lap belt, which contributed to the severity of his injuries.
EDIT: My mother pointed out that JFK, Jr. was another example.
Possibly, but the phenomenon is real and potentially avoidable.
Part of why my first bike was a humble G310R was that I an article by Chuck Hawks[1] and the analogy to military flight training resonated with me.
I played hockey with a surgeon who spent three years going to public skates weekly (if not bi-weekly) before starting to play. I learned a lot by NOT following his example.
It would be interesting to talk to DHH about this; perhaps he practiced extensively each year and thus rapidly built up experience.
I started on a 300, was on a 675 within six months and had a liter bike within the next 2 years. It's easy to be rational when you don't have the means to be irrational.
Thurmon may have been born in Akron but he was raised in Canton and with all his money wanted to raise his family here. His widow never remarried and still lives in their home about 2 miles from me. He may have gotten in over his head with airplanes but he was a good man. Keith Olbermann on the other hand......and don't get me started on LeBron.
Apropos of nothing other than seeing the words “Keith Olbermann” I saw a tweet today styled like a Trump appointment announcement that said “Keith Olbermann has been appointed the ambassador to Fagistan” and thought it was hilarious.
I would normally have some empathy in a situation like this, but the “humbling experience” of driving *his own* minivan bugs me. Most of the cars I have owned were humbling experiences. It wouldn’t bother me if he stuffed GT3 #2.
I'm not about to go read it again but from my initial skim, i got the idea he was embarrassed to crash in front of everyone and leave in the minivan instead of his own car. He'd have been embarrassed if it was a Honda pilot too.
I suspect douche canoe. If he was simply embarrassed at not leaving the event in the car he drove in, he could have said that. He thinks he's above a prole mobile like a minivan. Then he spends words telling us that not only can he absorb the financial hit of binning an uninsured GT3 but he casually buys another one. The same way the rest of us might talk about replacing a broken toaster.
Mopar will be offering the T6 as a crate motor too (Hurricrate... they'll never stop with the cringe naming), so that will help the restomod crowd develop swap parts for old cars. As far as these being viable junkyard swaps for us poor people, I'm not so sure. It remains to be seen how many will be built, how durable they'll be in the real world especially after some tuning, and also how much aftermarket support they'll have from Holley et al. The gen 3 hemi only recently got to 90% of the support LS has, after being available for over 20 years. I want to lay my eyes and hands on a T6 before making any major speculations about them though. I just have a feeling they'll be harder to deal with than other options for a while. I heard David FriedBurger say the new Charger is made to have a v8 bolted back into it, but again, I'll believe it when I see it.
As far as your durable grey paint, Steelit might be your ticket.
I think they make a top coat of some kind. LZ uses it a lot, makes a nice interior and cage paint. The version I've seen him use dries to a semi-gloss, looks nice.
Yeah, a lot of us off road guys use Steel-It (prob thx to a pretty targeted marketing program a few years ago). That said, it does seem to hold up pretty well.
The naming may be cringe to some, to me it's fun in the same way microbrews name their beer. I'll take it over the convention, for example, the camaro had with the lt1 and 1lt. I have to look up what they mean every time.
Paint suggestion...some kind of catalyzed system so that it's chemical resistant. Traditional auto paints are mixed & sprayed with a gun, and traditional spray can paint isn't really chemical resistant (carb/brake cleaner removes it easily). But most auto paint stores should have 2 part spray cans that have an activation feature to mix the 2 components. You can then spray/tag whatever you have in mind and the paint will be fairly tough. But you need to use the paint "soon" after you activate it.
Look into an epoxy paint with the appropriate epoxy primer. I buy it at the local pro auto paint store. Use a cheap-o DeWalt brand LPHV spray gun I bought on Amazon. Have to mix the paint with an activator and something else, but it’s super easy and gives a bulletproof finish. Use it for painting heavy equipment undercarriages and it holds up great to that abuse.
FWIW, Weigh Safe ball mounts are made in the USA as well. I've had one for 3 years now. Having a built-in scale to quickly measure tongue weight is a real game changer, IMO. It takes the guesswork out of how to configure a new or unfamiliar load, especially if you're pushing the limits of your equipment.
Roll your own for locks. I have Paclock. For trailering that's the locking hitch pin, tongue lock, and coupler lock. For storage, I have a Proven Industries tongue lock, but I'm using a Paclock puck. The nice thing about Paclock is that you can order everything keyed alike. All of this (Paclock and Proven) is also USA-made.
Sure thing. If you need tie downs, I've had great success with PowerTye in similar conditions (rain, snow, mud, etc.).
I could put some of this into a digestible format for Jack to post here if he thinks its worthwhile. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to find USA-made trailer accessories. There's a ton of imported junk out there too, but quality stuff isn't too difficult to find. Most of what I listed can be bought on Amazon if that's your thing.
Weighsafe also has options for keyed-alike locks. *Don’t stand on the tongue coupler lock when crossing over the trailer or you’ll be buying another one.
There is no LAW that says 'Congress MUST SPEND THIS MONEY'. Nope, Congress can spend whatever the hell they want, that's why there's a budget. It's only 'mandatory' because they're afraid it'd cost them votes to cut it. If it's not in the constitution, it ain't mandatory.
Side note: Remember when it was AGAINST THE LAW for military equipment to use FOREIGN parts? (I actually suspect it still is, but our government likes to look the other way a lot nowadays - take employer medical benefits - Ocare outlawed those, yet... no one is enforcing that law - funny that).
I can only dream that somehow Trump or one of his appointees has enough power and clout to go full Javier Millet on our bloated, ridiculous DC gov't. It would be glorious to behold, and brighten our futures immensely.
I could be wrong, but I do not believe these two want to be on the wrong side of history. Reputation and appearances matter to these pseudo elites.
There will be an appointee who does not follow Trump’s direction or slow walks something, and I pity that person. This will be a “Go ahead, make my day” moment.
The overriding theme of the next 4 years is FAFO, and I’m guessing most people in the US and in foreign countries do not want to “find out”.
Tapping Rubio for figurehead State removes him from Senate Intelligence AND opens his Senate seat to someone less foam party-ish to be appointed by Desantis. 5-D chess?
Hmmmm. Gaetz for AG and Gabbard for DNI. Interest piqued.
I think people are missing the point of Rubio. You want a war hawk on the front lines of diplomacy. What you don't want is a war hawk signing money over to the DoD or a War Hawk as president. I also don't quite think he's an interventionst war hawk either.
Back when I was in, I knew a guy (my sister's best friend's husband) he ended up working for a guy in the pentagon (he was an officer) that was in charge of overseeing the quality on all of the stuff they were buying for uniforms and that guy really went after the manufacturers. It was nice that for at least the rest of the time I was in, the uniforms didn't suck. The mess dress was still incredibly expensive - but at least it didn't suck.
I have an iraq era Army surplus manual air pump ~ it was new in the box and oh so obviously not made anywhere in the U.S.A. ~ it didn't work out of the box, I can't even inflate a beach ball with it .
But I am posting now, just to make sure that everybody knows that the US firm "Kaman" on the Defense-Contractor Infographic is almost certainly the nice folks who gave Glen Campbell that funny acoustic guitar with the black rounded so to speak rear end--the Ovation Balladeer.
Pauline Kael, the 1960s 1970s film reviewer for The New Yorker, once famously blubbered that she had no idea how Nixon had gotten elected; she was sure that NOBODY she knew had voted for him! And of course she was roundly ridiculed, and for a while her name was a fixture in popular culture.
In much the same way, I am pretty sure that I don't know anyone who is not aware of Ovation guitars. So I have no idea what Heather and Jason and all their friends know or don't know about Ovation guitars.
Well, the steel-string wood-top Ovations do have a distinctive sound. I owned a nylon-string model. If you can find it on whatever streaming service you use, I'd recommend checking out John McLaughlin's solo "Goodbye Pork-Pie Hat" from his 1970 album "My Goal's Beyond."
Yeah, it's the same Kaman, he invented a lot of stuff.
I've played a LOT of gigs with Ovations. Until the carbon-fiber guitars arrived, it was the only way to do a live performance without fear of feedback.
Charles Kaman's company, founded in 1945, was the first to make an electrically-powered drone aircraft, in 1953. His company made the "Husky" ("Huskie"?) helicopter for the Air Force and the Marine Corps. His work in composite panels for helicopter bodies led him to experimenting with guitars, because he was a guitarist.
" They say that your testosterone will improve if you put your shoulders back, level your head, and walk like a gorilla. In my case, it caused me to walk right into a testicle-crushing parking post, which reduced my testosterone, but I digress."
This actually made me laugh out loud.
Also, what a moron, whoever this Porsche owner is..
Pretty sure this is just Trump and Musk trying to profit on a hoard of dogecoin they got squirreled away. Get your commemorative Donald/Elon dogecoin with 3 special gifts if you act now!
The LB Charger in the current form was originally slated to get the 2.0L turbo from the Wrangler as it's base engine, but that was shelved to save complexity. Should the regulatory environment support a new generation of Avis grade Dodge cars, that'll be the engine.
That tech makes a lot of sense for trucks and utility vehicles but less for cars that don't haul and can achieve significant range. I doubt they'll port it over but doesn't mean they won't. That powerplant is a Pentastar.
Similar. The Alfas have a variable lift function on their version called Multi Air while the Jeeps have fixed lift and variable timing. Multi Air is a brilliant idea that never really delivered due to high complexity and some hydraulic limitations.
1) The new Charger looks neat. I would like to say I'd be in the market for one, but I struggle to imagine it starting anywhere near my price range. $45k and up feels appropriate? Hopefully I'm wrong, but I doubt that.
2) The idea of an efficiency department isn't bad, but Musk* is among the last people I'd want heading it. He's a guy with numerous government contracts with both this country and others across the globe. Why would I EVER trust that guy to make careful and considerate suggestions? The conflicts of interest are just far too many. On top of that, making it a meme off the bat says that it'll be treated as a joke. It's taking a serious issue and ruining it for the sake of making some rich dipshit laugh.
*And Vivek. Why does the "Department of Government Efficiency" need two leaders? It's so clearly set up to fail and/or make suggestions of gutting social programs rather than anything else.
I think it looks okay, but it could use a little more panache. More Duster profile, or more rear overhang, or more surface excitement around the wheel arches.
It combined two individuals with two different skill sets, Musk is an idea man with no tolerance for incompetence, just look what he did at X, he fired how many people and as far as I know the website still works. Vivek, is a communicator that can present what is happening to the public with a positive outlook. Sometimes you need a front man and an operations man running an organization.
“Musk is an idea man with no tolerance for incompetence, just look what he did at X, he fired how many people and as far as I know the website still works.”
Gonna stop you right there. Musk has driven Twitter right into the ground lol. It’s valuation is down at least 50% since he bought it (can’t remember the exact number), it glitches frequently, the algorithm is hopelessly broken, and there are MORE bots and spam now than ever.
Yes it technically, sorta, works. But it’s a shell of its former self (which wasn’t that great either!)
“valuation is down at least 50% since he bought it “
This may be nominally true for purposes of repayment of the loans Musk used to acquire it,
But Twitter, however glitchy, is on net less worse than it once was. Under Vijaya and that hilariously goofy Indian idiot CEO it had simply become a Threads style echo chamber for libs.
In terms of valuation, it’s literally priceless as it is software capable of steering the ship of state, by steering the Upper Midwit Class. It’s also a military intelligence honeytrap/dissident identification machine and censorship machine. In a sense Twitter is _worth_ almost any price you could conceive of.
Sucks for Elon that he paid too much (based on totally bogus financials + post-acquisition bullying from ADL and SPLC) but he should have seen that one coming a bit more.
Given the walking and talking recruitment poster he tapped for SecDef, I'm guessing they want recruitment and Pentagon spending to go up for another war. [guitar riff] DANGER ZONE!
As for DOGE, I'm going to send Elon the address of the deadbeat relation of mine who suckered them out of SSDI.
By this time next year, the majors will all be saying 'EV? What's an EV?'
From your lips to God's ears, but to succeed with mass firings of fed employees, Trump will need an ARMADA of Lawyers who want this to happen.
Everyone who gets fired is going to sue. One suspects there will be class actions against the government for wrongful termination, with billions on the line.
I bought a new Charger RT in 2014 and a new Charger Scat Pack WB in 2022. But I have zero interest in the new one without a V8. Very likely Ford will be getting my money next.
Just give them a minute, I would not be surprised if the architect of the chassis will allow you to pop out the sux and drop in a crate 392, image that…. The Dodge Boys always have a trick up their sleeve (gee lest see if a Hellcat will fit in a Durango, oh surprise it did….
Amazes me that people take expensive cars like GT3s to track events without a truck and trailer. I suppose they’re channeling their inner ‘50s road racer, but if you’re really going to complain about riding home in a minivan, maybe invest in a tow pig before before plunking down the money for a second GT3.
I have also looped a car at a wet track day. But I know exactly what happened: long, fast turn (turn 4 at Putnam), car got a little out of shape over a rough patch and I jumped off the throttle, which unloaded the rear and around we went into the grass. Car was undamaged and I drove the rest of the sessions that day. I learned a lot doing that.
I think it is more likely that the average GT3 owner is unaware that they could or should buy a truck and trailer to take their GT3 to and from the track with. I'd wager that most of the GT3 set were convinced to buy one by their peers during bonus season, and before delivery knew very little about what a GT3 is or track days. Only after the purchase would they realize the intended purpose after being woefully disappointed in its driving characteristics at road speed and no more than 25% throttle application while driving their wives to dinner.
A roommate of mine back in the late 00s worked for Skip Barber at Lime Rock and watched a similar situation unfold after a new 997 GT3RS owner failed to recognized the correct braking marker and parked his barely broken in Porsh on the back side of the turn one tire wall. My buddy reported that the guy was on the phone with the dealer ordering a replacement before the wrecker even had the car in the air. So this has happened at least one other time, my guess is it's pretty common.
'Amazes me that people take expensive cars like GT3s to track events without a truck and trailer. I suppose they’re channeling their inner ‘50s road racer, but if you’re really going to complain about riding home in a minivan, maybe invest in a tow pig before before plunking down the money for a second GT3.'
I'm of the opposite opinion, namely: if you have a truck and trailer, that means you could get an actual fast car, like a Stohr or Formula Continental, instead of driving a porky pig with its Euro-emissions-compliant six hanging off the anus.
You make an excellent point. I used to race karts with a guy that ran Formula Fords and Continentals. He had no interest in driving street cars on a track whatsoever.
I still contend if you can afford to write off a GT3 and buy another, a support vehicle makes a lot of sense.
If I were spending my own, imaginary, GT3 money, yeah, real race car all day long. But I also get some people have dreams of driving a Porsche on a race track.
Either way, truck and trailer will get you home when you break something.
To me a truck and trailer are a must. Ive also enjoyed just putting some spare wheels with 888Rs on my little na elsie and trundling 45 mins up the road to lrp. Drive to the track may mean you just get some extra low impact days in here and there.
For any distance to a track, why would you want to be driving home in the car you just spent days in on track assuming its still going. Plus I hear a Gt3 is not really drive tot he track as you need some sort of 300FTlbs wrench to remove a wheel. I hear youre not supposed to drive them at all because the nut holding the wheel on is prone to cracking and there is a "recall".
The thing about the porche GT3 though is it really can hack it on track without fading and at 3200lbs is for a street car light. Plus with a new showroom stock car it really is turn key for a few years, unless the wheel falls off. Thats quit a contrast to a BMw M4 which i think weights 4000+lbs.
At least the dude was actually taking his Gt3 to the track, more than we can say for most ferrari or lambo owners, but then those cars would last but a few laps.
Reminds me of the person who told me had to have a motor, (face palm) and was looking for a Gt3 cup car. I suggested getting a fully track worked Cayman that someone else had spent 250k building for 80k and learning to really drive that first, he didn't listen.
Yeah truck trailer something durable, easyish and economic to fix that can still smoke a Gt3 in the right hands. 2200lbs 360ish toyota hp.
Theres quick drivers, theres fast, theres really fast, and then there are the very few who are in a whole other orbit. Follow them into a corner and revel in watching greatness.
they say the answer to every car question is usually miata, there is a reason they are 50% of the worlds race car population. I Honeymooned for a week in a rented NA miata all those years ago. Keep seeing nice ones on BAt and keep thinking just buy it, that's a car thats a keeper.
I saw a really ratty looking NA this summer at the glen that was going like the clappers, he had done some sort of acura v6 engine swap. What was neat about that was it kept the transmission and rear end.
These days mostly live in FL,(still have the lotuses up north for summer) so a miata here prob should be a flyin miata, and so it goes down the what if, I need, rabbit hole. According to my long term first wife, if i get another car or bike or small 2 stroke outboard boat, will need to get a new wife. That would really blow the budget though, Ill juts have to wear her down again.
Miatas tend to multiply too. I’ve had three of them: an ‘06, a 1.8-swapped ‘90, and my current ‘94. If I wasn’t kind of attached to the current one, I’d be looking for a fourth.
Did you drive an Elise? I lasted 6 years driving my it to and from three tracks, but one is only 20 minutes from my house. It would have been nice to have towed it, but I was never that serious. Knock on wood, 15 years in and never had to call a tow truck.
After some skippy schools and some minor skippy races bought an Elise so I could get track time in on my schedule, ie didnt need/have the time commitment to race.
Tracked that car mostly at lrp, thompson and the Glenn for 6 years. Along the way rotors some ohlins this and that and align for track. Ended up with a car not that great on street and still not an ideal track car. It always felt quick if you don’t slow down which is the art of it. Got a lightweight open trailer a few year in and used wife’s suv.
It did get tiring at places like the Glenn just pointing those high hp cars by down the long straights on to hav then stuck in the windshield elsewhere. .But I always loved the lightness and purity of the Elise. Still have that car and have returned to stock trackback shocks rode height etc for mostly road . I found the car I spent a lot of track time in I wasn’t really road driving and that where the Elise really shines
Through. Series of various car trades ended up with an additional
Lotus an exige v6 cup which I’ve honed between 17 and now. It has the sledgehammer power of a different marque, great ap brakes ohlins springs etc yet is still turn key. Its very different to the Elise more a broadsword than a rapier and you arrive at each corner 20 mph faster and can brake later. It’s far far from being street legal or street useable and has full cage fire etc.
That all being said I still take the Elise to some small tracks a few times per year, this past summer LRp and Thompson. It’s just so sweet and has this fantastic balance of forces. It’s also my metronome because if you wnat to be quick in an Elise then like a Miata it’s all about momentum.
The exige v6 is at least 15-17 secs faster than the Elise at the Glenn. There are places like turn 10 at the Glenn where data indicates I’m quicker in the Elise which makes sense because there is no way you are touching the brakes in the Elise there it’s just turn and go. Whereas in a faster car where you arrive at a corner so much faster there is always the inclination to over brake.
Through the esses though the exige is pretty much faster than anything. If there is a well driven gt3 behind then between turn 2 and 4 the exige just puts so much distance that all the porche hp can’t make up the difference down the back straight.
However a well driven cayman gt4 clubsport is a different animal.
It kinda highlights the difference between a pure track car (Gt4s clubsport) and a street car(gt3).
There is also my favorite bone to pick with so called fast cars. I’ve seen Ferraris and mclarens come out. That 700+ hp will savage down the straight but after 3 laps those cars are fading. The exige it simply does not fade, well tires do a bit after 10 laps but not much. I’d love for magazines that do the lap tests to tell us what lap times are like on lap 10 that time is a far more important metric.
Both lotus have always just worked. I change fluids every 4 days on track and use good stuff. So far neither burns oil. Toyota motors.
The Elise has maybe 8k track miles and the exige 10k. The Elise has used 2 sets of rotors and pads last 14-20 days the exige is on its 3rd set of rotors and pads are about 8-10’days. Good rotors do cost $ as do pads, after tires theyre the big expenses..
More expensive to run than a Miata but way less than anything of comparable performance, and as close as you’ll get to the feel of a single seater in a closed car.
In each car elise and exige v6 quick as I get, i always know that driven better the cars could have done better. So while its tempting to add some aero and maybe hp to the Exige I always resalize there is a much better way to get quicker, and thats the driver improving.
I have a few nice cars, if there is one id sell last its the elise. Its simply sublime on backroads and tremendous fun on track. I always say if you only ever had one sportscar in your life and it was an else, youd have missed nothing. Yeah something sle might be fancier, sound better or faster down a straight, but then compared to an elsie you're also giving up a lot in term of size weight feel. Overall and Na else is to me the essence of everything great. Now if were talking one of the new Gordon Murry cars, yeah if I won the lottery thats where id blow the first 4 mill.
The newer cars get faster and faster, so the game moves on. This winter I put solid bushings in it, which was a great upgrade, all those micro steering adjustments now, , but then required fiddling with the alignment Still got another second out the car.
I can't agree about Ferraris and Lambos not lasting. The modern cars from both companies are dead nuts reliable at pace. The Huracan especially. That's a very hard car to damage.
I can only coment on observation not having driven either at pace. But those cars after 3 or 4 laps seem to really fade out and head for the pits, as did the few c7 zr1s I saw. Maybe it’s just tue owner driver profile, or maybe the weight cf rotors with road pads etc meant that after 3 or 4 laps pace really slackened. I know that’s also endemic to the homda ctr even the new version.
On the mclaren front one guy showed up a few years back with a 765 in a magnificent trailer rig. He told me to keep the warranty there was Mandatary pre and post track servicing at the dealer dealer and it came to 15k, so that alone could slow it down lol.
I’ve driven a factory 570 gt4 car for 12 or laps at lrp. It was quite quick with very accurate steering but not really that much fun. You could floor it off each apex secure in the knowledge the computer would sort it all out for max power and not let the car get out of shape at all. I’m sure in a race that’s effective but truly it’s the car not you. Couldn’t wait to get back in the Elise that day.
A freind. a hired gun to race one of those, they could never really get it to work because the systems were so intrusive although I hear the Ferrari challenge cars are way better, but then we’re talking Factory track cars not road cars. The 296 race cars are not hybrid, so that’s a whole other topic for another day,
There’s a reason those with the $ who are inclined to track their cars use gt3s and gt4s even though there ferraris notionally faster.
Would love to try a hurricane love the looks sounds and pure rawness of the cat, something the others have lost.
I’ve only seen them over polished and posed on the road though.
For a raw but useable road car today, the new aston vantage seems to be getting its game on at least from pictures and what I read.
Gotta say on a track driven in anger in practiced hands the new z06 is not slow, nor for that matter was the recently departed zl1 1le, in the 21st century pigs can dance, Iapl
For what it's worth: I have worked extensively with the EXR/SpeedVegas and XtremeXperience crews and have a lot of detailed information about the reliability and continued performance over time of pretty much the entire "exoticar" segment.
Rather than bore you with it in a comment, however, I'll write it up as part of Sunday's post so it's generally available. Short version: a Huracan is not one bit less reliable than a GT3.
A wise man once advised me to "Never leave pit lane in a car unless you are willing to bring it back in a gunnysack."
Whether it is your race car or your daily driver (or the wife's...!) and particularly someone else's race car, make absolutely sure everyone is clear of the consequences if you return it as a forcefully disassembled pile of bits.
I have occasionally had to load my mistakes back on the trailer with a front-loader.
And sold it at a recycling yard by weight - $5.43 - It happens.
I insure my car valued at 25k for about $225 for a 2 day event. That's from the automotive lifestyle brand. That's the approximate cost of 1 tire for my car. I just consider it an operating expense.
You guys elected an orange clown to be your Emperor, ahem, sorry, President, so you will get a circus of clowns. It's funny how some are still trying to persuade themselves that it would be a great thing, that your lovely band of Trump henchmen plus his owner (WTF is Musk on calls with foreign heads of state?) will induce some Ayn Rand paradise.
I'd very much love to be wrong, but it seems that the USA as a whole will turn into a clown circus (with a gorilla here and there) in the eyes of the rest of the world. And no matter what MAGA people may think, much larger part of what makes America "great" in the world is the diplomacy (supported by military) and the fact that it was always a power you could reasonably depend on.
If the clow party destroys that plus starts trade wars, which both seems likely, your position as the world's superpower will vanish – and I suspect a lot more of your prosperity than you think vanishes with that. Once you stop being the "shining city on the hill", attracting people from all over the world to the "centre of the free world", you stop being best at inventing things.
You might get back American jobs in making things, but that won't make you rich again any more than it made Mexicans rich.
What you needed was probably another Bill (not Hillary) Clinton, or maybe some modern day Reagan... or even Jimmy Carter, for that matter.
Well, in his first term we had energy independence, rising wages versus inflation for the first time in like 30 years, burgeoning peace in the Middle East, and zero aggression from the usual suspects. If this is the "clown show" we can expect in the sequel I'll take it.
If all you're getting is information from mainstream news sources, ESPECIALLY European ones, you're doing yourself a serious disservice.
... which was, in part, a result of a prosperous time in the world in general. Plus, the first time around, he at least started with an administration full of smart, experienced people who shaped much of his policies, especially those he didn't give a shit about.
This time around, Trump himself is 8 years older and showing alarming signs of dementia or something like that.
But what's worse, there are no "adults in the house" anymore. He appointed some guy who he liked on Fox News to be Secretary of Defense. And Vivek with Elon as two-headed Doge of government budget cuts.
I can understand being bored by Democrats and woke people and seemingly unchangeable government... but what you decided to do is to give it all to a crazy man to totally destroy and hopefully rebuild. And I fear that will not have the outcomes you hope for.
Especially not on the economic front and especially not if he starts trade wars that you can't win.
"Hegseth, 44, is an infantry officer in the Army National Guard who previously served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay and was awarded two Bronze Stars for his service." But sure, he's on Faux News, right? ZING
You are obviously a thoughtful guy who is taking all of this very seriously, so I would just offer one piece of advice: Make your points without invoking "Orange man crazy!" every time. It dulls the impact you might otherwise have.
You might be mistaking my views for politically motivated. I don't really care whether Trump is a Republican or a Democrat (he used to be both) and I care even less about what he does with immigration or your healthcare system.
What I care about is whether the most powerful man in the known universe is someone competent enough to do the job, which includes one very direct and several indirect avenues towards the end of the civilization as we know it and potentially of all human life.
You, as a nation, chose a man, who is, very obviously:
- Of a dim intellect. I have never ever, not even once, saw Trump talk about any complex topic in a way that suggests he is really able to grasp is on any deeper level. In 2015, he didn't know what a nuclear triad was and wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't know still. I'd be willing to bet a large sum of money that he never read the US constitution, let alone study it in a way that would enable deeper understanding of its principles. And so on and so forth.
- Of a terribly bad impulse control. I don't think I have to explain this one.
- Of a deteriorating mental condition. His speeches lately not only make no sense on a deeper level – that's a long-standing issue – but they don't make sense grammatically. He apparently can't keep his thought for more than one sentence, if even that.
- With a tendency to hold grudges and act on them.
- With a tendency to see his country, his generals and his military in the same way a Roman emperor would. As truly HIS. Which is a little problematic especially together with the previous point.
- Who's a famously bad businessman in debt to who-knows-who, with those unknown entities possibly being from countries with, say, adverse stance towards Western Democracy.
- Who, completely in line with several previous points, apparently chooses his aides on basis of perceived loyalty (which in his case means "defending him on Twitter or TV) with little to no regard to actual skills and competence.
I would react in exactly the same way to the victory of a Democratic (or Independent or Libertarian or whatever) candidate with similar issues.
I can even understand the disillusion with woke politics and other aspects of Democrat rule, but I can never understand choosing someone so incompetent just due to perceived closeness on left-right scale.
Absolutely. Mr. Hegseth has identified the prime issues causing the institutional rot in the US military, and he has the mandate to fix it. Defense lobbyists have already weighed in that they hate him, so that’s an excellent sign for world peace.
The US has a 240 year history of CIVILIAN control of the military. a) the Sec Def should be a civilian, not a junior grade veteran b) he has zero experience running any kind of organization at all, let alone one with a million plus employees.
He is also a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, a New York Times bestselling author, and a decorated warrior whose interest lies in keeping our young men out of war.
I try so hard to listen to opposing opinions but when you wrote we need someone like Jimmy Carter back you abandoned all credibility.
All those people criticizing Hegseth for a cabinet position were perfectly fine with a VP candidate who is a poster child for stolen valor and bailed on his unit so he wouldn’t have to deploy.
Many of his first-term cabinet appointees were yes-men to his face who ended stabbing him in the back when he wasn't looking.
There never were "adults in the house." You think there were "adults in the house" during Biden's "administration?" Adults who botched the Afghanistan pullout and droned birthday parties? Adults who let Putin walk all over Ukraine (and Obama was pres when he took the Crimea and part of Georgia)? Adults who advocate stuffing innocent kids full of puberty blockers and use tax dollars to do so? Adults who can't even say what a gosh darn woman is? There probably haven't been "adults in the house" since Clinton was president (someone had to balance the budget).
Trump's not the crazy clown the media portrays him as. And the "adults" are a bunch of incompetent morons who shouldn't be trusted to babysit or run a little shop selling t-shirts. Anything being reported by big-name media sources should really be regarded with, at the very least, healthy skepticism, although they really should not be trusted at all, especially if the message they keep sending is that Trump is crazy, he's going to appoint himself God-Emperor, and he's going to bring the world (or at least the USA) to annihilation.
I agree on the Obama and Ukraine part, that was pure Chamberlain-style fail. Biden on "letting Putin walk over Ukraine" is a huge oversimplification. For one, Putin didn't "walk all over" anything. He was kicked out of Kyiv with his tail between his legs, he gained some areas in the East, but at terrible price, and he managed to lose a part (albeit small) of Russia to Ukraine.
Still, I agree that the West should've given Ukraine much more and much sooner, preferably in 2014, so we would avoid all this shit.
As for the Trump, listening to him speak, I honestly believe he is crazy and mentally deteriorating – in a way that would raise questions about him living alone anymore if it was anyone else.
And I don't think it's very probable he will bring the US to annihilation. The risk of doing so by the means of nuclear war or something like that is non-zero, but probably not very high. Still much, much higher than I would like and that it would be with a sane POTUS, but low.
The risk of Trump burying your economy through trade wars, destroying your diplomatic power in the world by stupid decisions and therefore leaving China to be the leading superpower, that's quite high.
And it got much higher with the clown circus he's now selecting for his cabinet.
If you can't see how close the previous administration, of which the losing candidate was a part (and who even bragged about being "the last person in the room" before the Ukraine war started) took us to nuclear WWIII, there's really no hope for a reasonable discussion.
HINT: There were ZERO North Korean troops on active duty ANYWHERE in Europe for the ENTIRETY of Trump's first term. You can look it up!
That hasn't even close to have happened yet. Plus if we played the commie-capitalist role with a few nation-states using full IP-theft and brutal Foxconn type industrialization we could become a Romanesque empire
But we actually are at this point in time. Unless nukes then no one has power. Your continued arguments from a European slant really don't play to this crowd.
I want to respond to this one point-by-point because you're a great writer and very persuasive.
'And no matter what MAGA people may think, much larger part of what makes America "great" in the world is the diplomacy (supported by military) and the fact that it was always a power you could reasonably depend on.'
Our record of diplomacy is pretty shameful. We bullied the Japanese into WWII. We've toppled nations, subjugated peoples, abetted dictators. I think we could do with less of that.
We're no longer a superpower in the 1980 sense, because we're bankrupt and dependent on non-Americans for much of what we do. We are Rome 50 years before the Vandals show up.
'Once you stop being the "shining city on the hill", attracting people from all over the world to the "centre of the free world", you stop being best at inventing things.'
I don't care if rich, rootless cosmopolitans would rather live in Singapore than NYC. Those people are, at the minimum, not good for this country. Americans invented a ton of stuff when the country was a backwater joke. We will again, when we are again.
'You might get back American jobs in making things, but that won't make you rich again any more than it made Mexicans rich.'
Men don't need to be rich. Men need jobs. A job defines who you are, what you do. Men need that. Being on welfare or UBI turns us from men into nothing at all.
'What you needed was probably another Bill (not Hillary) Clinton, or maybe some modern day Reagan... or even Jimmy Carter, for that matter.'
Maybe... yeah, probably... NO. Carter almost lost the Cold War, he emboldened the enemies of freedom, and he murdered the American economy. He was a wonderful, decent, man of God who ran our nation face-first into the ground.
I strongly disagree that you are like Rome 50 years before the Vandals. That's an old and tired comparison and, most importantly, it ignores the whole post-Republic era of Rome.
You might be further gone than Rome was when the Republic ended, but not by much. I think you still can have a few centuries of world dominance (especially if China ends on in some economic crisis, which seems likely). What I don't believe is that you have that much of a true Republic in front of you.
And as I already mentioned earlier, I don't even fear the birth of an "American Empire" or "American Kingdom" as much as I fear that you started with a Caligula or Nero instead. The whole DOGE thing is actually a nice parallel to that whole "horse as a consul" business. It would probably be better to start with some Octavian Augustus instead, so your Imperial phase is not built on meme dogs, former Fox stars and Universe knows what and who else might Trump yet find to appoint. I suspect that once he starts to have falling outs with this batch of guys, it will, once again, get progressively worse.
Which means going from the clown circus to a freak show.
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But to the second one.
You don't need to care about rootless cosmopolitans and you are wise not to. Fuck them. The guys you need are the guys that invented those great things in the centuries before. Great many of them were first or second generation immigrants, who came to the USA as the "land of the freedom and opportunity", the place everyone aspired to, the American Dream.
And you still have that. USA might not be the best place for a working class or even a middle class guy who wants to lead comfortable, safe life with not stress from being bankrupted by education or healthcare, but it's still the best or one of the best places for guys who want to invent things and make things and change the world. One you lose that, you're fucked. No more Elons for you.
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As for jobs – yes, men are thought to need jobs. They actually don't, because a "job" is a relatively new invention and there were times people did not have that. Or when most people did not have that.
But it's hard to create something to replace jobs when most of them goes away, which they probably will over the course of this century. And it's good to make things in your country, I agree on that.
However, no matter what you do, you won't bring back the USA of 1960 when factory workers had middle-class lifestyles – especially as that "middle class" lifestyle of the 1960 USA was equivalent to an upper-class lifestyle of an European.
The manufacturing will, by the way, come back – even the Chinese are starting to make things in Europe or America, because with heavy automation and expensive Chinese labor, it doesn't make sense to ship stuff around the planet anymore.
But I don't think it will bring what MAGA thinks it will.
Also, even in those golden years, not insignificant part of the American wealth was that you were able to buy stuff for other countries cheap, which was at least partly caused by the rest of the world being in debt to you for the WW1 and then WW2 and the dollar being the reserve currency of the whole world etc.
It also probably doesn't matter that much whether you have ten guys making sledgehammers or one Jack consulting for the same money and nine guys making coffee and tailoring suits for that one Jack, as long as you can sell the consulting work to a company in Asia and in exchange buy the work of 20 Chinese guys to make your sledgehammers.
It's nice to have an American sledgehammer, I like buying European or preferably Czech clothes etc., but I'm afraid that those don't have as much effect on the overall prosperity as we tend to think.
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As for Carter, there was a reason I mentioned him last and in the "even him would be better" fashion.
I'm afraid that the change Trump brings might be catastrophical. It might not, of course, and his clown circus might succeed.
But it seems more and more like that "infinite number of monkey writing Shakespeare" situation. I would rather not go fast and break things when it comes to ruling the most powerful nation in the world – even if it was a 1:5 probability of them doing something really fucking crazy, I wouldn't bet that much on a single dice roll. With these guys, the probability might be much worse.
"The guys you need are the guys that invented those great things in the centuries before. Great many of them were first or second generation immigrants, who came to the USA as the "land of the freedom and opportunity", the place everyone aspired to, the American Dream."
WHERE did those inventive immigrants come from? HINT: not Venezuela (IQ 82.99 IQ), India (76.24 IQ), Somalia (67.67), or Nicaragua (52.69).
90% of them came from Germany. The biggest change in American history before the low-IQ immigration firehose of the last 40 years was the change from being a majority English country to a majority German one.
I'd say 90% underestimates the contribution from Scotland / Northern Ireland. To your point, despite their names, Claude SHANNON and Walter BRATTAIN both had German mothers. I would Brian Wilson KERNIGHAN and Dennis MACALISTAIR RITCHIE were not straight German.
To the remainder, Kelly JOHNSON was Swedish, and the Ashkenazim punched above their weight.
Except the people who are campaigning for mass immigration, who want them from the worst possible shitholes to approximate slavery as closely as possible.
We were still rich when we made everything here though. Now maybe our richest of the rich got richer when they offshored everything but America was the most powerful country in the world when I was a kid. Is it still? At a minimum, we have competition now. And it isn't Europe.
“Men don't need to be rich. Men need jobs. A job defines who you are, what you do. Men need that. Being on welfare or UBI turns us from men into nothing at all.”
Even though I essentially make a somewhat favorable observation re UBIs earlier, I feel the above in my bones.
Or maybe it's the kind of thing you can tap into X number of times over your lifetime, but isn't lifelong cash welfare.
For many people, it just takes one "VERY BAD DAY" to pull the rug out from under them. A little bit of money at the right time can change or save a life.
Germany didn't run out of money and replacing government mid-term is a thing that happens every so often in most European countries.
France is doing French things, surprisingly they are not torching cars at the moment, so things have to be going swell.
Britain, same as Germany, PMs get replaced, it happens.
Sweden – I always hear about their no-go zones from people who haven't been there, though it's true that they probably fucked up the immigration a bit. Like French, in which case it was the problem of making Algeria a part of France and therefore Algerian French.
Netherlands has a "far right" PM who would probably be a moderate Republican in today's US.
You can also add us, who have reasonably functional government right now, after 8 years with a babbling tycoon asshole and will likely elect the same idiot the next time around. However, he can't do as much damage as your orange guy, so we'll be okay when he goes away finally.
The troubly with Trump is that half of your country is so pissed off at the other half that you rather vote for an apparent idiot who then goes on to create government agencies named after meme dogs and name TV hosts to lead dept of defense, rather than let the other side win.
Similar things happen in Europe as well, that's the result of the social media era, but nowhere they managed to create such a clown circus as you did.
And it's only beginning, the real fun will come (though I have no idea what it will be).
Vojta, it’s a mostly MAGA crowd here, but you are not alone.
Trump is showing with his appointments that his motto must be “‘why not the worst?” The idea that anyone in this collection of tax-cutters-for-the richest, self-dealers, grifters (happy to fleece working people by creating fake “‘universities”), union busters, deadbeats (multiple bankruptcies, contractors stiffed, etc. etc.) gives the slightest damn about working Americans is just farcical.
You have NO IDEA how much so many of us have suffered under the Biden-Harris regime.
Just before the election, the intelligence community BLATANTLY LIED about Hunter Biden's laptop, which contained evidence of influence peddling by his father, and which has since been determined to be genuine. A substantial portion of Biden voters admit that if they had known that the Laptop was real, it would have changed their vote.
Almost IMMEDIATELY AFTER INAUGURATION, Biden signed EO 13988, which enacted a very radical form of transgender ideology in schools and has had very serious effects on thousands of girls who wished to participate in athletics.
My own career has possibly been ended due to his UNCONSTITUTIONAL "Mark of the Beast" mandates for a novel form of genetic therapy.
Many decent soldiers have been run out of the military due to one or both of these issues.
I know, third-hand, of a man whose elderly Mother wanted to see what was going on in Washington on January 6: although he did not enter the Capitol, his business has been destroyed and he was sentenced to 10 months in Federal prison.
The Department of Justice has targeted people who speak out at school boards, Catholics who attend Latin Mass, and others. Even liberal journalist Matt Taibbi's house was visited by the IRS while he was testifying before Congress, which is HIGHLY UNUSUAL as the IRS almost never makes house calls. Tulsi Gabbard has been selected for special anti-terrorist screening and has been surrounded by Federal agents and bomb dogs while traveling by commercial airliner.
Don't you DARE imply that the Biden-Harris Reign of Terror was in any way normal or benign.
It's perfect. The perfect NPC tweet. The entire German auto industry appears to be on the verge of collapse (or relocation to the third world due to energy prices due to the CIA blowing NS2) and "everything is fine."
Give me whatever drugs or hopecope you are inhaling brother, I could use them.
The great thing about the USA is western europe thoroughly depends on us and we don't think about you at all. Who is the prime minister of britain? Tony BLair? German? Merkel. We don't know! We don't care!
I was picking my daughter up from practice tonight and chatting with a friend who is married to a Scot. She was in Scotland and one of his relatives asked “do Americans hate us like we do them?” She said “uh the average American is vaguely aware you guys wear skirts and eat haggis and otherwise don’t think about you at all.” They were suitably taken aback.
And many Americans, including President Trump, have Scottish ancestry and find modern Scotland's substance abuse and politics confusing and concerning.
I glanced through the Wikipedia page and find that "Dr. House" rode a CBR1000RR, was a fan of the Phillies and Flyers, and attended the University of Michigan. There is nothing strange or disloyal about supporting certain professional teams and one's alma mater, and there's nothing strange or disloyal about having an interest in one's country of residence and citizenship as well as regions of genetic / linguistic / cultural origin.
One hopes the checks and balances perform their functions as the founders intended. I dislike the establishment as a whole so I am not necessarily opposed to outside the box choices for cabinet positions but his Sec Def choice is a bad fucking joke..
I had never heard of SecDef before yesterday or today, but if all he does is turn off the woke which causes a reversal of the massive drain of the kind of man who traditionally joins the military we’ll call it a success.
"much larger part of what makes America "great" in the world is the diplomacy (supported by military) and the fact that it was always a power you could reasonably depend on."
I work in Africa and parts of the Me a lot. The people there were begging me to elct Trump. As one youngish Afrcan said, maybe the USA is not the most consistent of allies, but lord help us if we have to liver under the Chinese. When i asked various and sundry why not kamala, they said look at the world, its in chaos.
Something the 3rd world understands, weaknes begets trouble. Your diploschucks may work well in western Europe but thats about it. Diplomacy got us treaty of Versailles and sylkes picot, the Un, look how well that's all worked out.
yes the uSa will be a great ally, to allies. That means if you want NATO, pay your fair share. If you're going to have imprt duties on us, well do the same to you. Its true its not 1955 and were not 70% of global GDP, so happy to have you on board as a partner, not for a free ride.
As for the middle east, if youre any sort of modern sunni you love the USA.
"Once you stop being the "shining city on the hill", attracting people from all over the world to the "centre of the free world", you stop being best at inventing things."
Elon seems to like it here, plus 70% of our tech CEOs who come from asia. If we cut regulations and taxes that will only get better. What sets us apart from say Europe where you're even better educated is that here in the USA without 50,000 permits you can start a business and if the idea is good raise capital to expand it. In Europe youre large legacy companies large bureaucracies and the existing small businesses are family resteraunts and hairdressers plus a few cab driver.
Lastly and this is just a fact, not a larger comment. The majority of our immigrants are Christains with deep family values or from india China. Because we dont have a class structure we see within one generation theyre already upper middle class.
Europe is increasing getting swamped by cultures who cannot assimilate after generations and have little outlet for any productivity they may have.
Lastly despite the best predations of the latterly socialist democrats, its seems the majority in the USA are still into the self reliance thing and deeply distrustful of the government knows best model. If you wat to look this election, at its core is a repudiation of the big government globalist view. Now that may be unthinkable heresy in other lands, but yeah were gonna go that way
yes the barbarians have stormed the ramparts, and theyre going to try tearing Washington Dc a new asshole.
Perhaos were this way because our unique non parliamentary system allows once in a while a fresh outsider to take over from the poltical class. The founding fathers inteded it that way and its still working.
Yeah wed love to have oter choices to elct, But no same person would subject themselves and their family to the level of scrutiny and destruction that the media and social media will subject them too.
So our choices became a populist circus barker or an unelected empty pantsuit. Trump may be crazy and ignorant, but he is also savy and smart. Given the the options the choice is not even close.
We can agree on the need of a strong USA to counterbalance the China, which is the real threat.
Actually, one of my main fears of Trump is that his idea of being "strong" is shouting at higher volume than others, with no thought about what he's actually saying. Which makes him weak in the end, especially face to face with a very smart opponent who's able to think strategically. Remember that Sun Tzu was Chinese...
As for the NATO and "paying fair share" – that's a nice example of my problem with Trump. Even after four years of being president, he seems to think that Europe is supposed to pay US for protection and we are not doing that (the 2% of national budgets).
The actual rule is that every nation should spend 2% of their budget on THEIR military. It's true that a lot of EU countries don't do that, but that's changing – actually one of the few good things to come out of the first Trump presidency.
Also, your idea of not being able to launch a startup in Europe says something about you, more than about Europe. You are right that you need a bit more bureaucracy, but it's far from being either legacy companies or family restaurants.
But mostly, my problem with Trump is what I said in another sub-thread here. He's incompetent, in his inability to control his impulses, he's weak, and he's stupid.
Exactly the reasons your friend begged you to vote for him are the reasons you shouldn't.
Imo Chia is a competitor , our inabality to deal with that may make them a threat, but theyre not a threat in the way the USSR was. To the extent we compete with China in our won way, well be better and stronger for it. Yes china is playign the long game, they dotn need tot ake taiwan now, they can wait 50 years or next week. Their undoing though has many parents, one is their repression, that stifles Individual Evonomic vitality. Another is their sheer Hubris. Another is the way countries who deal with them always end up getting shafted. Then their is the population implosion. Lastly single leaders consolidate power and then falter as they get old.
Democracies have their issues too, fat lazy spoiled and disconnected from economic relaitis of the planet, leadership who are good a climbing slippery poled but otherwise weak.etc. In that regard Trump for all his manifest faults is a breath of frsh air. BTW Chircill was condisdred crank untill 1939.
Having a gun, and being able to point it and pull the trigger are two different things. Biden could never pull the trigger. Trump doesn't just shout, he can and will pull the tirgger, as he did with Solemani and Sysiuras redlines, or frankly tariffs despite the economists sayign theyre bad. As someone taught me years ago, if youre going to unzip you better be prepared to pull it out. Thats what sperates trump from all the oter frankly weak estrogenized western leaders.
Trump is not asking Europe to pay for protection. Frankly were over there spending $$$ backing you up. What h'es asking is that if were doing that you at least step up with the 2%. So far while there has been some slight improvement most western Europeans are nowhere near that or even close to getting there and without holding your hads to the fire you wont do it.
As for launching startups in Europe. Yall have better universities than us. Please explain why Google Apple, tesla Space x ets etc all happened here, while you're all better educated and have a larger population. The facts as they say speak for themselves.
Trump may end up making amess, be brilliant or a mixed bag, at least were trying, you guys just sinking into the morass of false socialist bliss.
the thing peopel dont relize is the difference between the european right and the Us right. in Europe your right is mostly nationalist with more than a hint of racsist nationalism, but is still essentially socialist as are all euro political movements, from lenin to Hitler to Angela etc. Here we are mixed heritage the right is mostly economic and our nationalism is to a country and idea not a historic race. Our right mostly looks to economics and efficiency, family structure, its not some scary thing.
Any group in power for too long becomes abusive, thats just how it goes.
There is Churchill’s supposed quote: "You can count on Americans doing the right thing, after exhausting all the other possibilities”. Give us some time to burn thru the possibilities.
You would have to enlighten me on how Vice President Harris would be a better leader of this country. I can't blame them dem's for the inflation that overtook the country via Covid spending but the opening of the borders and sending planes to import more unskilled labor during an economic crisis made me vote clown.
Latest Social Security wage statistics show the median wage is around 43k a year. I won't make that this year. Unless I want to hope for the bread and circuses the dem's may offer, I would have been stupid to vote for Harris.
Biden continued and raised Trump's tariffs and has gotten no respect for his foreign diplomacy so give me cheap energy and government austerity. Most of us don't really care what the rest of the world thinks of us when we are struggling to pay for heat and groceries.
So like I said tell me how Harris would have been better for me not Europe and I will consider your logic but to trash us Trump voter's like the Mainstream media does is a bit boorish and adds little to the conversation.
Off subject I know I apologize, but I’m finding it impossible to change my subscription from free to paid. When I click the subscribe button, I’m told “you have the free subscription.“ What do I have to do to give you my money?
Help me. I tried six times to change to a paid subscription. I had to edit my payment method because I’ve gotten a new credit card. I tried five times and each time I was told that my credit card number was incorrect. I don’t know what to do. I’ve been using that card for a month. The old one got canceled because fraud had been detected on the line
Live picture of the DOE
https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/robert-e-lee-statue-melted-in-secret-ceremony-to-be-remade-into-inclusive-public-artwork.png?id=50314556&width=1200&height=600&coordinates=0%2C48%2C0%2C17
physical pain
aaarrrrggh. I'm not even a Southerner and I find that appalling.
im not even an american and im furious
thats because its not about americans specifically but their hatred of whites it seems
remember everyone: they just hate yt ppl
all it ever was
"when we win, dont forget that they want you dead, your kids raped and brainwashed, and they think its funny" -elon musk, probably
-samuyil hyde, ghost of kyiv
Those statues were erected as a sign of reconciliation and reunification, so melting them down means what, exactly?
Trump is burning down the department of education. Turnabout is fair play
The statue hissy started many years earlier.
Yup..during the pandemic.
that they want petty revenge
As someone who did an honors history degree, specializing in economics of the post-Civil War period, this destruction last October and the earlier vandalism and removal of the fallen lion of the Confederacy at the Oakland Cemetary in Atlanta fills me with anger. Was in Vegas for SEMA, very happy to have been on US soil to enjoy the victory in real time.
I'm very much looking forward to saying "Elections have consequences" for every single shuttered department and federal job lost for the next four years. This was petty and destroying history.
Fuck every single one of those traitors.
We're I alive in the latter half of the 1800's, early 1900's I would have held my nose and bent over backwards to put up with what was necessary for reconciliation, the honoring of the dead with relatives in living memory, the stuff of nation building.
In the 2020s, it is time to think of them for what they were. People who put their own pride above all else, and were willing to kill for it.
We know what the main issue was, and there is no argument for it.
The side issues never would have risen to the level of bloodiness that occurred.
Lee and his peers are the most at fault. They knew better. I have no idea what motivated each private from nowhere Louisiana, and assigning individual moral culpability to them is harder because of that. But we know what motivated their leaders.
but why apply modern morality to people of 150 years ago
that said i wonder how people would act then if they knew what modern america would look like and if that would influence them
It isn't applying modern morality, they were traitors then too. What was remarkable was the capacity to forgive on one side, and the immediate need to create a narrative absolving themselves on the other. Again at the time I would have gone along with it readily. No reason to now.
The notion that modern people are more morally enlightened than our ancestors comes primarily from the fact that most people today view racism as vile.
Unless of course, they're black, Hispanic, asian, Indian...
But truly, modern people are morally disorganized.
People who have gone with every single major social trend their entire lives
"I'd have stood against racism and nazis!"
You won't even stand against mutilating children!
they didnt even resist the vax mandates
hell some of them even encouraged it
Silly MAGAt, they were never mandated. The President has no control over private businesses. You must be misinformed due to le Faux News.
Sincerely, the enlightened atheists of Reddit.
Why needlessly open up an old wound?
This one one spot where there is a good chance that people are not 100% crying crocodile tears. If I were to channel Atticus Finch and try to walk a mile in a (current preferred term)'s shoes I can see how serving at a base honoring a person literally guilty of a real deal treason, motivated by the enslavement of others, could be off putting, and perhaps a wound that is still open.
Thank you Harry .
That djt won the election fair and square tells the true story .
-Nate
All true, but we need the statues so we don't forget. And "inclusive public artwork!!?" I can already tell that crap will deserve to be melted down.
Probably a statue of a man in a dress opening a door to a ladies room.
It's long past time to brakestand every BLM street mural into smoke.
See you at the cookout!
Had to do a Google on him.
Clicked and read: "Brett Berk (he/him)..."
Got it.
not allowed to be surprised at this point
If any of us had crashed as many cars as Berk and his ilk have,
we would be uninsurable.
"I took the plunge and bought another"
this guy buys gt3s with less enthusiasm than i do buying na miatas
i do not feel bad for him whatsoever
"Sixpack Chargers should have 550hp and 521lb-ft"
i am curious to see if these new hurricane engines will displace 2jz engines in drift cars in the future as theyre already quite powerful and will hopefully be plentiful but theres still a huge draw for the naturally aspirated hemis that someone will eventually make a swap kit for the new chargers
also as far as paint goes does anyone have a suggestion for a kind of durable light grey paint for the engine bay of the miata because that might make it easier to see leaks or dirt like you would on a real racecar
I don't know if this guy is a douche canoe or not. He does kind of seem like one from his writing but he bought a porsche, drove it on a track, and crashed it. Doesn't sound like he was being reckless, just a bit naïve. Maybe I'm a softie but I feel for him.
i suppose id feel bad for him if the gt3 was a retirement gift that he bought himself but he didnt seem to be all that bothered by binning one other than the inconvenience it brought him
maybe hes in way over his head with that level of car or not i dont know
I'd like to coin the phrase "Thurman Munson Syndrome" to describe people who abuse money to short-circuit their skill progression.
Named after Canton, Ohio native and Yankee catcher, who, per Wikipedia:
"In August 1979, Munson had been flying airplanes for over a year and purchased a Cessna Citation I/SP jet..."
ONE YEAR, not full-time, and he's already into a JET?!
"It was his fourth airplane in less than a year and a half."
Time In Type is a very important metric in aviation.
"His flight instructor Dave Hall spoke well of his ability: "From the onset to completion of training Mr. Munson displayed well above average skills and judgment as a pilot. However, in a 2022 tribute piece for his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast, sports commentator Keith Olbermann recalled that four months before Munson's death, he was told that Yankee executives were terrified Munson was "not as good a pilot as he thinks he is" and that they were attempting to get owner George Steinbrenner to trade him to Cleveland to get him to stop flying, afraid that he might "wind up killing himself.""
The end result:
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation into the crash stated that the probable cause was "the pilot's failure to recognize the need for, and to take action to maintain, sufficient airspeed to prevent a stall into the ground during an attempted landing. The pilot also failed to recognize the need for timely and sufficient power application to prevent the stall during an approach conducted inadvertently without flaps extended. Contributing to the pilot's inability to recognize the problem and to take proper action was his failure to use the appropriate checklist and his nonstandard pattern procedures which resulted in an abnormal approach profile." Munson was not wearing the available shoulder harness restraint, only a lap belt, which contributed to the severity of his injuries.
EDIT: My mother pointed out that JFK, Jr. was another example.
This is 90% of humanity. Most just don't have the means to do it.
Possibly, but the phenomenon is real and potentially avoidable.
Part of why my first bike was a humble G310R was that I an article by Chuck Hawks[1] and the analogy to military flight training resonated with me.
I played hockey with a surgeon who spent three years going to public skates weekly (if not bi-weekly) before starting to play. I learned a lot by NOT following his example.
It would be interesting to talk to DHH about this; perhaps he practiced extensively each year and thus rapidly built up experience.
[1] https://www.chuckhawks.com/good_first_motorcycles.htm
good article
I started on a 300, was on a 675 within six months and had a liter bike within the next 2 years. It's easy to be rational when you don't have the means to be irrational.
My first bike was a Honda Cub. Nothing teaches you spatial awareness and restraint better.
Try coaching someone in a c7 z06, scary.
sounds like lance stroll to a degree
Ha ha ha! How dare you tear down our fellow Canuck 😁
its easy when he sucks
wheres our next villeneuve
Thurmon may have been born in Akron but he was raised in Canton and with all his money wanted to raise his family here. His widow never remarried and still lives in their home about 2 miles from me. He may have gotten in over his head with airplanes but he was a good man. Keith Olbermann on the other hand......and don't get me started on LeBron.
Corrected...apparently moved around age 8.
I hope the Syndrome isn't too disrespectful to the memory of a good man...would Munson-Kennedy Syndrome work better?
Wish I had removed references to Olbermann.
Apropos of nothing other than seeing the words “Keith Olbermann” I saw a tweet today styled like a Trump appointment announcement that said “Keith Olbermann has been appointed the ambassador to Fagistan” and thought it was hilarious.
I would normally have some empathy in a situation like this, but the “humbling experience” of driving *his own* minivan bugs me. Most of the cars I have owned were humbling experiences. It wouldn’t bother me if he stuffed GT3 #2.
if a minivan is humbling then why not buy something better to replace it
he certainly has the money
It’s the wife’s car I’m guessing. No Porsche for you!
I'm not about to go read it again but from my initial skim, i got the idea he was embarrassed to crash in front of everyone and leave in the minivan instead of his own car. He'd have been embarrassed if it was a Honda pilot too.
I'd be less embarrassed in almost any minivan than in a Honda Pilot.
I would bet his wife has a white macan. He made the minivan up.
I was almost going to make a white macan joke!
I suspect douche canoe. If he was simply embarrassed at not leaving the event in the car he drove in, he could have said that. He thinks he's above a prole mobile like a minivan. Then he spends words telling us that not only can he absorb the financial hit of binning an uninsured GT3 but he casually buys another one. The same way the rest of us might talk about replacing a broken toaster.
rumor has it that the new Charger is being actively engineered to accept the Hemi...use up what is left or ?
David FriedBurger said so on a Motortrend "documentary" about v8s. I'm curious to see it happen.
i wonder how far that engineering actually goes
might just be a set of steel brackets on the frame from the factory to support a hemi
Mopar will be offering the T6 as a crate motor too (Hurricrate... they'll never stop with the cringe naming), so that will help the restomod crowd develop swap parts for old cars. As far as these being viable junkyard swaps for us poor people, I'm not so sure. It remains to be seen how many will be built, how durable they'll be in the real world especially after some tuning, and also how much aftermarket support they'll have from Holley et al. The gen 3 hemi only recently got to 90% of the support LS has, after being available for over 20 years. I want to lay my eyes and hands on a T6 before making any major speculations about them though. I just have a feeling they'll be harder to deal with than other options for a while. I heard David FriedBurger say the new Charger is made to have a v8 bolted back into it, but again, I'll believe it when I see it.
As far as your durable grey paint, Steelit might be your ticket.
will check steelit out for that as i was aware of them for primer but was uncertain of its ability to shed oil and dirt
I think they make a top coat of some kind. LZ uses it a lot, makes a nice interior and cage paint. The version I've seen him use dries to a semi-gloss, looks nice.
sounds like i might be judging that against something like rustoleum for simple application out of a spray can and can be found locally
That implement paint Jack mentioned works well on things. Also machinery paint.
will investigate machinery paint
thanks
Yeah, a lot of us off road guys use Steel-It (prob thx to a pretty targeted marketing program a few years ago). That said, it does seem to hold up pretty well.
I was going to say, the shop recommended that we use it to touch up where we cut the droop limiters out of my truck. It’s held up well.
You implied earlier that you wanted a paint that would help you see leaks. Isn't "ability to shed oil" somewhat contrary to that objective?
guess i should clarify that i dont want the oil to stain the paint and will wipe off for easy cleaning
i dont know why i wrote it like that either
Paint that shows the leaks means light colors .
-Nate
you got it
i was thinking some light grey but not in love with any particualar shade just whatever is in the can
I swear whoever runs their marketing department is a Satanist.
Hell This and Hell That.
Or a fan of '80s metal...
The naming may be cringe to some, to me it's fun in the same way microbrews name their beer. I'll take it over the convention, for example, the camaro had with the lt1 and 1lt. I have to look up what they mean every time.
Paint suggestion...some kind of catalyzed system so that it's chemical resistant. Traditional auto paints are mixed & sprayed with a gun, and traditional spray can paint isn't really chemical resistant (carb/brake cleaner removes it easily). But most auto paint stores should have 2 part spray cans that have an activation feature to mix the 2 components. You can then spray/tag whatever you have in mind and the paint will be fairly tough. But you need to use the paint "soon" after you activate it.
i see
ill keep that in mind when im looking
it doesnt have to look good it just needs to be resilient
Too bad more women don't think like that anymore :)
Some do ! =8-) .
-Nate
Look into an epoxy paint with the appropriate epoxy primer. I buy it at the local pro auto paint store. Use a cheap-o DeWalt brand LPHV spray gun I bought on Amazon. Have to mix the paint with an activator and something else, but it’s super easy and gives a bulletproof finish. Use it for painting heavy equipment undercarriages and it holds up great to that abuse.
good stuff
thanks man
BMW B/S58 motors have already displaced 2JZs in many applications. im sure drift cars will get there if they havent already.
so thats what it was
i can never remember the naming conventions lol
FWIW, Weigh Safe ball mounts are made in the USA as well. I've had one for 3 years now. Having a built-in scale to quickly measure tongue weight is a real game changer, IMO. It takes the guesswork out of how to configure a new or unfamiliar load, especially if you're pushing the limits of your equipment.
Link, please! Do they come with a good security lock?
https://www.weigh-safe.com/product/weigh-safe-drop-hitch/
Roll your own for locks. I have Paclock. For trailering that's the locking hitch pin, tongue lock, and coupler lock. For storage, I have a Proven Industries tongue lock, but I'm using a Paclock puck. The nice thing about Paclock is that you can order everything keyed alike. All of this (Paclock and Proven) is also USA-made.
THANK YOU!!! Copied and saved.
Sure thing. If you need tie downs, I've had great success with PowerTye in similar conditions (rain, snow, mud, etc.).
I could put some of this into a digestible format for Jack to post here if he thinks its worthwhile. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to find USA-made trailer accessories. There's a ton of imported junk out there too, but quality stuff isn't too difficult to find. Most of what I listed can be bought on Amazon if that's your thing.
Weighsafe also has options for keyed-alike locks. *Don’t stand on the tongue coupler lock when crossing over the trailer or you’ll be buying another one.
I love it when they say 'MANDATORY SPENDING'
It's hysterical.
It's also a complete lie.
There is no LAW that says 'Congress MUST SPEND THIS MONEY'. Nope, Congress can spend whatever the hell they want, that's why there's a budget. It's only 'mandatory' because they're afraid it'd cost them votes to cut it. If it's not in the constitution, it ain't mandatory.
Side note: Remember when it was AGAINST THE LAW for military equipment to use FOREIGN parts? (I actually suspect it still is, but our government likes to look the other way a lot nowadays - take employer medical benefits - Ocare outlawed those, yet... no one is enforcing that law - funny that).
I can only dream that somehow Trump or one of his appointees has enough power and clout to go full Javier Millet on our bloated, ridiculous DC gov't. It would be glorious to behold, and brighten our futures immensely.
You and me both. I'd fire half the people there the first day in office.
Most of the rest on the next!
Thune replacing Mitch.
Little Marco for State.
Not looking good.
I could be wrong, but I do not believe these two want to be on the wrong side of history. Reputation and appearances matter to these pseudo elites.
There will be an appointee who does not follow Trump’s direction or slow walks something, and I pity that person. This will be a “Go ahead, make my day” moment.
The overriding theme of the next 4 years is FAFO, and I’m guessing most people in the US and in foreign countries do not want to “find out”.
From your mouth.....
Lizards gonna liz.
Yeah, I know. It will be fun to see what happens to the first appointee who fails. It won’t be pretty.
Tapping Rubio for figurehead State removes him from Senate Intelligence AND opens his Senate seat to someone less foam party-ish to be appointed by Desantis. 5-D chess?
Hmmmm. Gaetz for AG and Gabbard for DNI. Interest piqued.
Ron Paul for Treasury PLEASE OH PLEASE.
https://imgur.com/a/JjulgFO
Tulsi Director of National Intelligence. Maybe she can get the surveillance pulled off herself.
The MSM is reporting that RINOs "audibly gasped" at Gaetz' nomination. Let's hope this is the first of many actions that will make RINOs gasp.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gaetz-pick-as-ag-triggers-audible-gasp-from-some-republicans/ar-AA1u2ET0?ocid=nl_article_link
I’m ok with those two. It’s Gaetz as AG that should scare the hell out of everyone.
Both are TDS neocons.
I think people are missing the point of Rubio. You want a war hawk on the front lines of diplomacy. What you don't want is a war hawk signing money over to the DoD or a War Hawk as president. I also don't quite think he's an interventionst war hawk either.
You also want a Latino talking to all the countries you’re shipping Latinos back to.
My hope for all youngsters is that they get the same opportunity for economic success that I had. Reagan was President when I graduated college.
Hopefully there are some Constitutional lessons that will be taught starting January 20, 2025.
It’s like magic. Just set the parameters and never have to take a vote ever again.
And when someone suggests using only Made In USA on an aircraft carrier or a fighter plane, the globalists cry But That Will Make It Unaffordable!!!
Have I mentioned how much I hate those people?
Not enough.
All of my uniform apparel must be made in the US and it's all shit and obscenely overpriced.
I'm all for US manufacturing but just making a law about where parts have to be bought is not fixing the problem but only furthering the corruption.
Back when I was in, I knew a guy (my sister's best friend's husband) he ended up working for a guy in the pentagon (he was an officer) that was in charge of overseeing the quality on all of the stuff they were buying for uniforms and that guy really went after the manufacturers. It was nice that for at least the rest of the time I was in, the uniforms didn't suck. The mess dress was still incredibly expensive - but at least it didn't suck.
I should have clarified, I'm a Letter Carrier.
I have an iraq era Army surplus manual air pump ~ it was new in the box and oh so obviously not made anywhere in the U.S.A. ~ it didn't work out of the box, I can't even inflate a beach ball with it .
-Nate
I can't wait!!!
But I am posting now, just to make sure that everybody knows that the US firm "Kaman" on the Defense-Contractor Infographic is almost certainly the nice folks who gave Glen Campbell that funny acoustic guitar with the black rounded so to speak rear end--the Ovation Balladeer.
I don't think most folks know about Ovation guitars.
Pauline Kael, the 1960s 1970s film reviewer for The New Yorker, once famously blubbered that she had no idea how Nixon had gotten elected; she was sure that NOBODY she knew had voted for him! And of course she was roundly ridiculed, and for a while her name was a fixture in popular culture.
In much the same way, I am pretty sure that I don't know anyone who is not aware of Ovation guitars. So I have no idea what Heather and Jason and all their friends know or don't know about Ovation guitars.
I have a strong aversion to the sound an Ovation guitar makes. "All the sound of an acoustic, mins the pretty part"
Well, the steel-string wood-top Ovations do have a distinctive sound. I owned a nylon-string model. If you can find it on whatever streaming service you use, I'd recommend checking out John McLaughlin's solo "Goodbye Pork-Pie Hat" from his 1970 album "My Goal's Beyond."
While I suspect most people know what they are, I don't think most know how they came to be.
Yeah, it's the same Kaman, he invented a lot of stuff.
I've played a LOT of gigs with Ovations. Until the carbon-fiber guitars arrived, it was the only way to do a live performance without fear of feedback.
Charles Kaman's company, founded in 1945, was the first to make an electrically-powered drone aircraft, in 1953. His company made the "Husky" ("Huskie"?) helicopter for the Air Force and the Marine Corps. His work in composite panels for helicopter bodies led him to experimenting with guitars, because he was a guitarist.
Thanx for the back story ! .
-Nate
" They say that your testosterone will improve if you put your shoulders back, level your head, and walk like a gorilla. In my case, it caused me to walk right into a testicle-crushing parking post, which reduced my testosterone, but I digress."
This actually made me laugh out loud.
Also, what a moron, whoever this Porsche owner is..
Imaginary Lat Syndrome.
Also, unnecessary generalized aggression and "WHADDA YOU LOOKIN' AT?! HUH?! HUH?!"
Pretty sure this is just Trump and Musk trying to profit on a hoard of dogecoin they got squirreled away. Get your commemorative Donald/Elon dogecoin with 3 special gifts if you act now!
If had some dogecoins before yesterday (ideally, say, August) and sold them today, there would be something like 400% profit...
The LB Charger in the current form was originally slated to get the 2.0L turbo from the Wrangler as it's base engine, but that was shelved to save complexity. Should the regulatory environment support a new generation of Avis grade Dodge cars, that'll be the engine.
The most interesting thing they could do that they probably won't is put the EREV in it from the upcoming Ram Ramcharger.
That tech makes a lot of sense for trucks and utility vehicles but less for cars that don't haul and can achieve significant range. I doubt they'll port it over but doesn't mean they won't. That powerplant is a Pentastar.
Is that 2.0L turbo the same engine that’s in the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio?
Similar. The Alfas have a variable lift function on their version called Multi Air while the Jeeps have fixed lift and variable timing. Multi Air is a brilliant idea that never really delivered due to high complexity and some hydraulic limitations.
1) The new Charger looks neat. I would like to say I'd be in the market for one, but I struggle to imagine it starting anywhere near my price range. $45k and up feels appropriate? Hopefully I'm wrong, but I doubt that.
2) The idea of an efficiency department isn't bad, but Musk* is among the last people I'd want heading it. He's a guy with numerous government contracts with both this country and others across the globe. Why would I EVER trust that guy to make careful and considerate suggestions? The conflicts of interest are just far too many. On top of that, making it a meme off the bat says that it'll be treated as a joke. It's taking a serious issue and ruining it for the sake of making some rich dipshit laugh.
*And Vivek. Why does the "Department of Government Efficiency" need two leaders? It's so clearly set up to fail and/or make suggestions of gutting social programs rather than anything else.
I think it looks okay, but it could use a little more panache. More Duster profile, or more rear overhang, or more surface excitement around the wheel arches.
You should give credit to that bit to Senator Pocahontas.
https://x.com/senwarren/status/1856541693836734783?s=46&t=pOghkxSbQl2pg4CLby5nCA
This isn't really the "gotcha" she thinks it is.
https://x.com/Just_A_Dude_AZ/status/1856543585232896106
The new Charger looks like a '68 R/T that got a promotion at work and couldn't make it to the gym anymore.
It combined two individuals with two different skill sets, Musk is an idea man with no tolerance for incompetence, just look what he did at X, he fired how many people and as far as I know the website still works. Vivek, is a communicator that can present what is happening to the public with a positive outlook. Sometimes you need a front man and an operations man running an organization.
“Musk is an idea man with no tolerance for incompetence, just look what he did at X, he fired how many people and as far as I know the website still works.”
Gonna stop you right there. Musk has driven Twitter right into the ground lol. It’s valuation is down at least 50% since he bought it (can’t remember the exact number), it glitches frequently, the algorithm is hopelessly broken, and there are MORE bots and spam now than ever.
Yes it technically, sorta, works. But it’s a shell of its former self (which wasn’t that great either!)
Without Twitter it's doubtful that Trump wins. It works enough.
It does what Musk bought it to do.
Exactly. it inflates his laughably fragile ego.
Who is valuing a private company with private financials?
“valuation is down at least 50% since he bought it “
This may be nominally true for purposes of repayment of the loans Musk used to acquire it,
But Twitter, however glitchy, is on net less worse than it once was. Under Vijaya and that hilariously goofy Indian idiot CEO it had simply become a Threads style echo chamber for libs.
In terms of valuation, it’s literally priceless as it is software capable of steering the ship of state, by steering the Upper Midwit Class. It’s also a military intelligence honeytrap/dissident identification machine and censorship machine. In a sense Twitter is _worth_ almost any price you could conceive of.
Sucks for Elon that he paid too much (based on totally bogus financials + post-acquisition bullying from ADL and SPLC) but he should have seen that one coming a bit more.
Elon Musk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3mMMg3pKXo
Arguably there is too much waste to cut for just one person. Also, Elon has a lot of other things going on.
"this is not the most flattering picture of my ass ever taken..." is it pure coincidence or inuendo that our author was operating a grinder?
Sadly, its just a four-inch grinder... and i hear that the community wants seven or more!
I believe it's spelled "grindr"
Jack might as well as go with a 12 inch.
Given the walking and talking recruitment poster he tapped for SecDef, I'm guessing they want recruitment and Pentagon spending to go up for another war. [guitar riff] DANGER ZONE!
As for DOGE, I'm going to send Elon the address of the deadbeat relation of mine who suckered them out of SSDI.
By this time next year, the majors will all be saying 'EV? What's an EV?'
Musk is going to post wasteful examples of what they find on X. The government doesn’t stand a chance.
From your lips to God's ears, but to succeed with mass firings of fed employees, Trump will need an ARMADA of Lawyers who want this to happen.
Everyone who gets fired is going to sue. One suspects there will be class actions against the government for wrongful termination, with billions on the line.
I bought a new Charger RT in 2014 and a new Charger Scat Pack WB in 2022. But I have zero interest in the new one without a V8. Very likely Ford will be getting my money next.
Just give them a minute, I would not be surprised if the architect of the chassis will allow you to pop out the sux and drop in a crate 392, image that…. The Dodge Boys always have a trick up their sleeve (gee lest see if a Hellcat will fit in a Durango, oh surprise it did….
Amazes me that people take expensive cars like GT3s to track events without a truck and trailer. I suppose they’re channeling their inner ‘50s road racer, but if you’re really going to complain about riding home in a minivan, maybe invest in a tow pig before before plunking down the money for a second GT3.
I have also looped a car at a wet track day. But I know exactly what happened: long, fast turn (turn 4 at Putnam), car got a little out of shape over a rough patch and I jumped off the throttle, which unloaded the rear and around we went into the grass. Car was undamaged and I drove the rest of the sessions that day. I learned a lot doing that.
What's the venn diagram of GT3 owners and people who think that TrUcKs ArE bAd?
Probably some overlap there.
a circle
Does that mean that if I can learn to resent people who drive trucks a GT3 will appear in my driveway?
yeah totally
i think they call that manifesting now
The way it works is, you whore yourself out to get enough money to buy a GT3 and therefore hate the people who own themselves and their own truck.
I think it is more likely that the average GT3 owner is unaware that they could or should buy a truck and trailer to take their GT3 to and from the track with. I'd wager that most of the GT3 set were convinced to buy one by their peers during bonus season, and before delivery knew very little about what a GT3 is or track days. Only after the purchase would they realize the intended purpose after being woefully disappointed in its driving characteristics at road speed and no more than 25% throttle application while driving their wives to dinner.
A roommate of mine back in the late 00s worked for Skip Barber at Lime Rock and watched a similar situation unfold after a new 997 GT3RS owner failed to recognized the correct braking marker and parked his barely broken in Porsh on the back side of the turn one tire wall. My buddy reported that the guy was on the phone with the dealer ordering a replacement before the wrecker even had the car in the air. So this has happened at least one other time, my guess is it's pretty common.
'Amazes me that people take expensive cars like GT3s to track events without a truck and trailer. I suppose they’re channeling their inner ‘50s road racer, but if you’re really going to complain about riding home in a minivan, maybe invest in a tow pig before before plunking down the money for a second GT3.'
I'm of the opposite opinion, namely: if you have a truck and trailer, that means you could get an actual fast car, like a Stohr or Formula Continental, instead of driving a porky pig with its Euro-emissions-compliant six hanging off the anus.
You make an excellent point. I used to race karts with a guy that ran Formula Fords and Continentals. He had no interest in driving street cars on a track whatsoever.
I still contend if you can afford to write off a GT3 and buy another, a support vehicle makes a lot of sense.
Good point. If I wanted to drive a race car I'd get a race car and a truck.
I kind of think opposite of Grant. When I see a trailer for a street car at a club track day I gently roll my eyes. Who are you kidding bud?
If I were spending my own, imaginary, GT3 money, yeah, real race car all day long. But I also get some people have dreams of driving a Porsche on a race track.
Either way, truck and trailer will get you home when you break something.
To me a truck and trailer are a must. Ive also enjoyed just putting some spare wheels with 888Rs on my little na elsie and trundling 45 mins up the road to lrp. Drive to the track may mean you just get some extra low impact days in here and there.
For any distance to a track, why would you want to be driving home in the car you just spent days in on track assuming its still going. Plus I hear a Gt3 is not really drive tot he track as you need some sort of 300FTlbs wrench to remove a wheel. I hear youre not supposed to drive them at all because the nut holding the wheel on is prone to cracking and there is a "recall".
The thing about the porche GT3 though is it really can hack it on track without fading and at 3200lbs is for a street car light. Plus with a new showroom stock car it really is turn key for a few years, unless the wheel falls off. Thats quit a contrast to a BMw M4 which i think weights 4000+lbs.
At least the dude was actually taking his Gt3 to the track, more than we can say for most ferrari or lambo owners, but then those cars would last but a few laps.
Reminds me of the person who told me had to have a motor, (face palm) and was looking for a Gt3 cup car. I suggested getting a fully track worked Cayman that someone else had spent 250k building for 80k and learning to really drive that first, he didn't listen.
Yeah truck trailer something durable, easyish and economic to fix that can still smoke a Gt3 in the right hands. 2200lbs 360ish toyota hp.
Theres quick drivers, theres fast, theres really fast, and then there are the very few who are in a whole other orbit. Follow them into a corner and revel in watching greatness.
A lot of my track and autocross driving was done in a truly ratty old Miata. Sometimes it broke. But the truck always got me home.
they say the answer to every car question is usually miata, there is a reason they are 50% of the worlds race car population. I Honeymooned for a week in a rented NA miata all those years ago. Keep seeing nice ones on BAt and keep thinking just buy it, that's a car thats a keeper.
I saw a really ratty looking NA this summer at the glen that was going like the clappers, he had done some sort of acura v6 engine swap. What was neat about that was it kept the transmission and rear end.
These days mostly live in FL,(still have the lotuses up north for summer) so a miata here prob should be a flyin miata, and so it goes down the what if, I need, rabbit hole. According to my long term first wife, if i get another car or bike or small 2 stroke outboard boat, will need to get a new wife. That would really blow the budget though, Ill juts have to wear her down again.
Miatas tend to multiply too. I’ve had three of them: an ‘06, a 1.8-swapped ‘90, and my current ‘94. If I wasn’t kind of attached to the current one, I’d be looking for a fourth.
SEE
ITS NOT JUST ME
you gotta pull the trigger on an old one that not mint so you can tool around with one and then sell it for what you paid
its cheap fun
Did you drive an Elise? I lasted 6 years driving my it to and from three tracks, but one is only 20 minutes from my house. It would have been nice to have towed it, but I was never that serious. Knock on wood, 15 years in and never had to call a tow truck.
After some skippy schools and some minor skippy races bought an Elise so I could get track time in on my schedule, ie didnt need/have the time commitment to race.
Tracked that car mostly at lrp, thompson and the Glenn for 6 years. Along the way rotors some ohlins this and that and align for track. Ended up with a car not that great on street and still not an ideal track car. It always felt quick if you don’t slow down which is the art of it. Got a lightweight open trailer a few year in and used wife’s suv.
It did get tiring at places like the Glenn just pointing those high hp cars by down the long straights on to hav then stuck in the windshield elsewhere. .But I always loved the lightness and purity of the Elise. Still have that car and have returned to stock trackback shocks rode height etc for mostly road . I found the car I spent a lot of track time in I wasn’t really road driving and that where the Elise really shines
Through. Series of various car trades ended up with an additional
Lotus an exige v6 cup which I’ve honed between 17 and now. It has the sledgehammer power of a different marque, great ap brakes ohlins springs etc yet is still turn key. Its very different to the Elise more a broadsword than a rapier and you arrive at each corner 20 mph faster and can brake later. It’s far far from being street legal or street useable and has full cage fire etc.
That all being said I still take the Elise to some small tracks a few times per year, this past summer LRp and Thompson. It’s just so sweet and has this fantastic balance of forces. It’s also my metronome because if you wnat to be quick in an Elise then like a Miata it’s all about momentum.
The exige v6 is at least 15-17 secs faster than the Elise at the Glenn. There are places like turn 10 at the Glenn where data indicates I’m quicker in the Elise which makes sense because there is no way you are touching the brakes in the Elise there it’s just turn and go. Whereas in a faster car where you arrive at a corner so much faster there is always the inclination to over brake.
Through the esses though the exige is pretty much faster than anything. If there is a well driven gt3 behind then between turn 2 and 4 the exige just puts so much distance that all the porche hp can’t make up the difference down the back straight.
However a well driven cayman gt4 clubsport is a different animal.
It kinda highlights the difference between a pure track car (Gt4s clubsport) and a street car(gt3).
There is also my favorite bone to pick with so called fast cars. I’ve seen Ferraris and mclarens come out. That 700+ hp will savage down the straight but after 3 laps those cars are fading. The exige it simply does not fade, well tires do a bit after 10 laps but not much. I’d love for magazines that do the lap tests to tell us what lap times are like on lap 10 that time is a far more important metric.
Both lotus have always just worked. I change fluids every 4 days on track and use good stuff. So far neither burns oil. Toyota motors.
The Elise has maybe 8k track miles and the exige 10k. The Elise has used 2 sets of rotors and pads last 14-20 days the exige is on its 3rd set of rotors and pads are about 8-10’days. Good rotors do cost $ as do pads, after tires theyre the big expenses..
More expensive to run than a Miata but way less than anything of comparable performance, and as close as you’ll get to the feel of a single seater in a closed car.
In each car elise and exige v6 quick as I get, i always know that driven better the cars could have done better. So while its tempting to add some aero and maybe hp to the Exige I always resalize there is a much better way to get quicker, and thats the driver improving.
I have a few nice cars, if there is one id sell last its the elise. Its simply sublime on backroads and tremendous fun on track. I always say if you only ever had one sportscar in your life and it was an else, youd have missed nothing. Yeah something sle might be fancier, sound better or faster down a straight, but then compared to an elsie you're also giving up a lot in term of size weight feel. Overall and Na else is to me the essence of everything great. Now if were talking one of the new Gordon Murry cars, yeah if I won the lottery thats where id blow the first 4 mill.
Exige V6 Cup is a great car. I drove one all day at Sonoma a decade ago. Really lovely.
The newer cars get faster and faster, so the game moves on. This winter I put solid bushings in it, which was a great upgrade, all those micro steering adjustments now, , but then required fiddling with the alignment Still got another second out the car.
I can't agree about Ferraris and Lambos not lasting. The modern cars from both companies are dead nuts reliable at pace. The Huracan especially. That's a very hard car to damage.
I can only coment on observation not having driven either at pace. But those cars after 3 or 4 laps seem to really fade out and head for the pits, as did the few c7 zr1s I saw. Maybe it’s just tue owner driver profile, or maybe the weight cf rotors with road pads etc meant that after 3 or 4 laps pace really slackened. I know that’s also endemic to the homda ctr even the new version.
On the mclaren front one guy showed up a few years back with a 765 in a magnificent trailer rig. He told me to keep the warranty there was Mandatary pre and post track servicing at the dealer dealer and it came to 15k, so that alone could slow it down lol.
I’ve driven a factory 570 gt4 car for 12 or laps at lrp. It was quite quick with very accurate steering but not really that much fun. You could floor it off each apex secure in the knowledge the computer would sort it all out for max power and not let the car get out of shape at all. I’m sure in a race that’s effective but truly it’s the car not you. Couldn’t wait to get back in the Elise that day.
A freind. a hired gun to race one of those, they could never really get it to work because the systems were so intrusive although I hear the Ferrari challenge cars are way better, but then we’re talking Factory track cars not road cars. The 296 race cars are not hybrid, so that’s a whole other topic for another day,
There’s a reason those with the $ who are inclined to track their cars use gt3s and gt4s even though there ferraris notionally faster.
Would love to try a hurricane love the looks sounds and pure rawness of the cat, something the others have lost.
I’ve only seen them over polished and posed on the road though.
For a raw but useable road car today, the new aston vantage seems to be getting its game on at least from pictures and what I read.
Gotta say on a track driven in anger in practiced hands the new z06 is not slow, nor for that matter was the recently departed zl1 1le, in the 21st century pigs can dance, Iapl
That mass and hp I’ve seen it go wrong too.
For what it's worth: I have worked extensively with the EXR/SpeedVegas and XtremeXperience crews and have a lot of detailed information about the reliability and continued performance over time of pretty much the entire "exoticar" segment.
Rather than bore you with it in a comment, however, I'll write it up as part of Sunday's post so it's generally available. Short version: a Huracan is not one bit less reliable than a GT3.
A wise man once advised me to "Never leave pit lane in a car unless you are willing to bring it back in a gunnysack."
Whether it is your race car or your daily driver (or the wife's...!) and particularly someone else's race car, make absolutely sure everyone is clear of the consequences if you return it as a forcefully disassembled pile of bits.
I have occasionally had to load my mistakes back on the trailer with a front-loader.
And sold it at a recycling yard by weight - $5.43 - It happens.
Polite request for a Driving for Harambe story ending with selling car for scrap, please
Is it true Porsche won't sell you a GT3 unless you're an Internet Attention Whore?
It certainly doesn't hurt!
but porsha is the best
It amazes me that the GT3 owner couldn't be bothered to buy track insurance from some lifestyle brand.
Wait till you find out what it costs. Almost cheaper to crash the car and leave it there.
They denied me coverage on my C6 because they were unfamiliar with the organizer of the event. It was the SCCA.
ah yes
the scca
a niche midwest motorsport clique with members numbering in the tens
Gets worse: the event was listed on MotorsportReg, the site they bought a couple years after that.
Guess they had to find out what the SCCA was.
When you lay off two thirds of your phone staff to pay Jason Cammisa's expense reports, these things happen.
... how much does one day of track insurance cost?
What would one day of it, in an SMX5, cost?
Five hundred or so.
I insure my car valued at 25k for about $225 for a 2 day event. That's from the automotive lifestyle brand. That's the approximate cost of 1 tire for my car. I just consider it an operating expense.
You guys elected an orange clown to be your Emperor, ahem, sorry, President, so you will get a circus of clowns. It's funny how some are still trying to persuade themselves that it would be a great thing, that your lovely band of Trump henchmen plus his owner (WTF is Musk on calls with foreign heads of state?) will induce some Ayn Rand paradise.
I'd very much love to be wrong, but it seems that the USA as a whole will turn into a clown circus (with a gorilla here and there) in the eyes of the rest of the world. And no matter what MAGA people may think, much larger part of what makes America "great" in the world is the diplomacy (supported by military) and the fact that it was always a power you could reasonably depend on.
If the clow party destroys that plus starts trade wars, which both seems likely, your position as the world's superpower will vanish – and I suspect a lot more of your prosperity than you think vanishes with that. Once you stop being the "shining city on the hill", attracting people from all over the world to the "centre of the free world", you stop being best at inventing things.
You might get back American jobs in making things, but that won't make you rich again any more than it made Mexicans rich.
What you needed was probably another Bill (not Hillary) Clinton, or maybe some modern day Reagan... or even Jimmy Carter, for that matter.
What you have is a clown circus.
Noted.
The first serious symptom of TDS is the ability to articulate a cogent critique.
orange man bad right
this reads like a euro frothing at the mouth that america might not be the best country in the world at some point in the future
It's very strange when you think of it that way
Technically correct, but only because America's successor nation took over and did an even better job of Being Awesome.
Well, in his first term we had energy independence, rising wages versus inflation for the first time in like 30 years, burgeoning peace in the Middle East, and zero aggression from the usual suspects. If this is the "clown show" we can expect in the sequel I'll take it.
If all you're getting is information from mainstream news sources, ESPECIALLY European ones, you're doing yourself a serious disservice.
... which was, in part, a result of a prosperous time in the world in general. Plus, the first time around, he at least started with an administration full of smart, experienced people who shaped much of his policies, especially those he didn't give a shit about.
This time around, Trump himself is 8 years older and showing alarming signs of dementia or something like that.
But what's worse, there are no "adults in the house" anymore. He appointed some guy who he liked on Fox News to be Secretary of Defense. And Vivek with Elon as two-headed Doge of government budget cuts.
I can understand being bored by Democrats and woke people and seemingly unchangeable government... but what you decided to do is to give it all to a crazy man to totally destroy and hopefully rebuild. And I fear that will not have the outcomes you hope for.
Especially not on the economic front and especially not if he starts trade wars that you can't win.
"Hegseth, 44, is an infantry officer in the Army National Guard who previously served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay and was awarded two Bronze Stars for his service." But sure, he's on Faux News, right? ZING
And? I of course know he served in the military. But is really serving as an infantry captain a qualification to be the secretary of defense?
Would you appoint a guy who sold cars for ten years to be the CEO of the General Motors?
He has no relevant experience for what he's going to be doing.
Over Barra? You betcha.
You are obviously a thoughtful guy who is taking all of this very seriously, so I would just offer one piece of advice: Make your points without invoking "Orange man crazy!" every time. It dulls the impact you might otherwise have.
You might be mistaking my views for politically motivated. I don't really care whether Trump is a Republican or a Democrat (he used to be both) and I care even less about what he does with immigration or your healthcare system.
What I care about is whether the most powerful man in the known universe is someone competent enough to do the job, which includes one very direct and several indirect avenues towards the end of the civilization as we know it and potentially of all human life.
You, as a nation, chose a man, who is, very obviously:
- Of a dim intellect. I have never ever, not even once, saw Trump talk about any complex topic in a way that suggests he is really able to grasp is on any deeper level. In 2015, he didn't know what a nuclear triad was and wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't know still. I'd be willing to bet a large sum of money that he never read the US constitution, let alone study it in a way that would enable deeper understanding of its principles. And so on and so forth.
- Of a terribly bad impulse control. I don't think I have to explain this one.
- Of a deteriorating mental condition. His speeches lately not only make no sense on a deeper level – that's a long-standing issue – but they don't make sense grammatically. He apparently can't keep his thought for more than one sentence, if even that.
- With a tendency to hold grudges and act on them.
- With a tendency to see his country, his generals and his military in the same way a Roman emperor would. As truly HIS. Which is a little problematic especially together with the previous point.
- Who's a famously bad businessman in debt to who-knows-who, with those unknown entities possibly being from countries with, say, adverse stance towards Western Democracy.
- Who, completely in line with several previous points, apparently chooses his aides on basis of perceived loyalty (which in his case means "defending him on Twitter or TV) with little to no regard to actual skills and competence.
I would react in exactly the same way to the victory of a Democratic (or Independent or Libertarian or whatever) candidate with similar issues.
I can even understand the disillusion with woke politics and other aspects of Democrat rule, but I can never understand choosing someone so incompetent just due to perceived closeness on left-right scale.
Absolutely. Mr. Hegseth has identified the prime issues causing the institutional rot in the US military, and he has the mandate to fix it. Defense lobbyists have already weighed in that they hate him, so that’s an excellent sign for world peace.
The US has a 240 year history of CIVILIAN control of the military. a) the Sec Def should be a civilian, not a junior grade veteran b) he has zero experience running any kind of organization at all, let alone one with a million plus employees.
He is also a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, a New York Times bestselling author, and a decorated warrior whose interest lies in keeping our young men out of war.
I try so hard to listen to opposing opinions but when you wrote we need someone like Jimmy Carter back you abandoned all credibility.
The part of "even Johnny Carter" was more like an illustration that even Carter would be better, because he was at least sane.
It is wonderful to have the Ivy Leaguers back in charge, isn’t it?
All those people criticizing Hegseth for a cabinet position were perfectly fine with a VP candidate who is a poster child for stolen valor and bailed on his unit so he wouldn’t have to deploy.
just you wait.
Many of his first-term cabinet appointees were yes-men to his face who ended stabbing him in the back when he wasn't looking.
There never were "adults in the house." You think there were "adults in the house" during Biden's "administration?" Adults who botched the Afghanistan pullout and droned birthday parties? Adults who let Putin walk all over Ukraine (and Obama was pres when he took the Crimea and part of Georgia)? Adults who advocate stuffing innocent kids full of puberty blockers and use tax dollars to do so? Adults who can't even say what a gosh darn woman is? There probably haven't been "adults in the house" since Clinton was president (someone had to balance the budget).
Trump's not the crazy clown the media portrays him as. And the "adults" are a bunch of incompetent morons who shouldn't be trusted to babysit or run a little shop selling t-shirts. Anything being reported by big-name media sources should really be regarded with, at the very least, healthy skepticism, although they really should not be trusted at all, especially if the message they keep sending is that Trump is crazy, he's going to appoint himself God-Emperor, and he's going to bring the world (or at least the USA) to annihilation.
I agree on the Obama and Ukraine part, that was pure Chamberlain-style fail. Biden on "letting Putin walk over Ukraine" is a huge oversimplification. For one, Putin didn't "walk all over" anything. He was kicked out of Kyiv with his tail between his legs, he gained some areas in the East, but at terrible price, and he managed to lose a part (albeit small) of Russia to Ukraine.
Still, I agree that the West should've given Ukraine much more and much sooner, preferably in 2014, so we would avoid all this shit.
As for the Trump, listening to him speak, I honestly believe he is crazy and mentally deteriorating – in a way that would raise questions about him living alone anymore if it was anyone else.
And I don't think it's very probable he will bring the US to annihilation. The risk of doing so by the means of nuclear war or something like that is non-zero, but probably not very high. Still much, much higher than I would like and that it would be with a sane POTUS, but low.
The risk of Trump burying your economy through trade wars, destroying your diplomatic power in the world by stupid decisions and therefore leaving China to be the leading superpower, that's quite high.
And it got much higher with the clown circus he's now selecting for his cabinet.
If you can't see how close the previous administration, of which the losing candidate was a part (and who even bragged about being "the last person in the room" before the Ukraine war started) took us to nuclear WWIII, there's really no hope for a reasonable discussion.
HINT: There were ZERO North Korean troops on active duty ANYWHERE in Europe for the ENTIRETY of Trump's first term. You can look it up!
"But what's worse, there are no "adults in the house" anymore."
Have you... ever read a news article, from a right leaning outlet, describing how the current administration is run?
LMAO, but come on.
Your first mistake was assuming that most of this nation actually cares what other countries think of us. We don't.
I know that. But you might find you're not unique and powerful enough for it to be a good idea.
oooh! a threat!
We've already lost the economic war with China. But it's not like anyone could get an army as far as Nevada or the Cumberland Gap so...
That hasn't even close to have happened yet. Plus if we played the commie-capitalist role with a few nation-states using full IP-theft and brutal Foxconn type industrialization we could become a Romanesque empire
You *do* have a robust point!
But we actually are at this point in time. Unless nukes then no one has power. Your continued arguments from a European slant really don't play to this crowd.
https://imgflip.com/i/9a998w
https://imgflip.com/i/9a9bwz
STAHHHP
America, the land of V8s, Walmart, AR-15s, Big Gulps, McMansions and the cheapest gas outside the Arabian peninsula.
Sure, OF COURSE we care what the world thinks of us.
I want to respond to this one point-by-point because you're a great writer and very persuasive.
'And no matter what MAGA people may think, much larger part of what makes America "great" in the world is the diplomacy (supported by military) and the fact that it was always a power you could reasonably depend on.'
Our record of diplomacy is pretty shameful. We bullied the Japanese into WWII. We've toppled nations, subjugated peoples, abetted dictators. I think we could do with less of that.
We're no longer a superpower in the 1980 sense, because we're bankrupt and dependent on non-Americans for much of what we do. We are Rome 50 years before the Vandals show up.
'Once you stop being the "shining city on the hill", attracting people from all over the world to the "centre of the free world", you stop being best at inventing things.'
I don't care if rich, rootless cosmopolitans would rather live in Singapore than NYC. Those people are, at the minimum, not good for this country. Americans invented a ton of stuff when the country was a backwater joke. We will again, when we are again.
'You might get back American jobs in making things, but that won't make you rich again any more than it made Mexicans rich.'
Men don't need to be rich. Men need jobs. A job defines who you are, what you do. Men need that. Being on welfare or UBI turns us from men into nothing at all.
'What you needed was probably another Bill (not Hillary) Clinton, or maybe some modern day Reagan... or even Jimmy Carter, for that matter.'
Maybe... yeah, probably... NO. Carter almost lost the Cold War, he emboldened the enemies of freedom, and he murdered the American economy. He was a wonderful, decent, man of God who ran our nation face-first into the ground.
I strongly disagree that you are like Rome 50 years before the Vandals. That's an old and tired comparison and, most importantly, it ignores the whole post-Republic era of Rome.
You might be further gone than Rome was when the Republic ended, but not by much. I think you still can have a few centuries of world dominance (especially if China ends on in some economic crisis, which seems likely). What I don't believe is that you have that much of a true Republic in front of you.
And as I already mentioned earlier, I don't even fear the birth of an "American Empire" or "American Kingdom" as much as I fear that you started with a Caligula or Nero instead. The whole DOGE thing is actually a nice parallel to that whole "horse as a consul" business. It would probably be better to start with some Octavian Augustus instead, so your Imperial phase is not built on meme dogs, former Fox stars and Universe knows what and who else might Trump yet find to appoint. I suspect that once he starts to have falling outs with this batch of guys, it will, once again, get progressively worse.
Which means going from the clown circus to a freak show.
-------
But to the second one.
You don't need to care about rootless cosmopolitans and you are wise not to. Fuck them. The guys you need are the guys that invented those great things in the centuries before. Great many of them were first or second generation immigrants, who came to the USA as the "land of the freedom and opportunity", the place everyone aspired to, the American Dream.
And you still have that. USA might not be the best place for a working class or even a middle class guy who wants to lead comfortable, safe life with not stress from being bankrupted by education or healthcare, but it's still the best or one of the best places for guys who want to invent things and make things and change the world. One you lose that, you're fucked. No more Elons for you.
-------
As for jobs – yes, men are thought to need jobs. They actually don't, because a "job" is a relatively new invention and there were times people did not have that. Or when most people did not have that.
But it's hard to create something to replace jobs when most of them goes away, which they probably will over the course of this century. And it's good to make things in your country, I agree on that.
However, no matter what you do, you won't bring back the USA of 1960 when factory workers had middle-class lifestyles – especially as that "middle class" lifestyle of the 1960 USA was equivalent to an upper-class lifestyle of an European.
The manufacturing will, by the way, come back – even the Chinese are starting to make things in Europe or America, because with heavy automation and expensive Chinese labor, it doesn't make sense to ship stuff around the planet anymore.
But I don't think it will bring what MAGA thinks it will.
Also, even in those golden years, not insignificant part of the American wealth was that you were able to buy stuff for other countries cheap, which was at least partly caused by the rest of the world being in debt to you for the WW1 and then WW2 and the dollar being the reserve currency of the whole world etc.
It also probably doesn't matter that much whether you have ten guys making sledgehammers or one Jack consulting for the same money and nine guys making coffee and tailoring suits for that one Jack, as long as you can sell the consulting work to a company in Asia and in exchange buy the work of 20 Chinese guys to make your sledgehammers.
It's nice to have an American sledgehammer, I like buying European or preferably Czech clothes etc., but I'm afraid that those don't have as much effect on the overall prosperity as we tend to think.
-------
As for Carter, there was a reason I mentioned him last and in the "even him would be better" fashion.
I'm afraid that the change Trump brings might be catastrophical. It might not, of course, and his clown circus might succeed.
But it seems more and more like that "infinite number of monkey writing Shakespeare" situation. I would rather not go fast and break things when it comes to ruling the most powerful nation in the world – even if it was a 1:5 probability of them doing something really fucking crazy, I wouldn't bet that much on a single dice roll. With these guys, the probability might be much worse.
"The guys you need are the guys that invented those great things in the centuries before. Great many of them were first or second generation immigrants, who came to the USA as the "land of the freedom and opportunity", the place everyone aspired to, the American Dream."
WHERE did those inventive immigrants come from? HINT: not Venezuela (IQ 82.99 IQ), India (76.24 IQ), Somalia (67.67), or Nicaragua (52.69).
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country
These decisions, read together, give you a sense of how Americans thought of immigration before 1964:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Trinity_v._United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind
90% of them came from Germany. The biggest change in American history before the low-IQ immigration firehose of the last 40 years was the change from being a majority English country to a majority German one.
I'd say 90% underestimates the contribution from Scotland / Northern Ireland. To your point, despite their names, Claude SHANNON and Walter BRATTAIN both had German mothers. I would Brian Wilson KERNIGHAN and Dennis MACALISTAIR RITCHIE were not straight German.
To the remainder, Kelly JOHNSON was Swedish, and the Ashkenazim punched above their weight.
everyone seems to forget the where part
its as if they think all immigrants are identical
Except the people who are campaigning for mass immigration, who want them from the worst possible shitholes to approximate slavery as closely as possible.
it is genuinely evil why they do these sorts of things
abusing government grift to reap the profits of subsidized labour
We were still rich when we made everything here though. Now maybe our richest of the rich got richer when they offshored everything but America was the most powerful country in the world when I was a kid. Is it still? At a minimum, we have competition now. And it isn't Europe.
“Men don't need to be rich. Men need jobs. A job defines who you are, what you do. Men need that. Being on welfare or UBI turns us from men into nothing at all.”
Even though I essentially make a somewhat favorable observation re UBIs earlier, I feel the above in my bones.
UBI might eventually be necessary just to keep the cities from burning, but it will have to be accompanied with something else to give men a focus.
A free xbox, soma, and a vasectomy.
The vasectomy thing isn't bad .
I agree that some focus is a very good thing for those who need it .
-Nate
meanwhile, be VERY UPSET about the "genocide" in Gaza, which has an ultra-high fertility rate
Or maybe it's the kind of thing you can tap into X number of times over your lifetime, but isn't lifelong cash welfare.
For many people, it just takes one "VERY BAD DAY" to pull the rug out from under them. A little bit of money at the right time can change or save a life.
We effectively have UBI now and short of literal burning (now), it isn't helping.
When you have a chance, can we have your considered thoughts on the status of
Germany (which has run out of money and needs a new government)
France (which has run out of both money and government but has plenty of no go zone Muslims)
Great Britain ( which has run out of money and is about to dump Starmer)
Sweden(which has lost cities, doesn't know what to do about Muslim rape and gang culture)
And
The Netherlands ( which is cosplaying 1936 Germany)
Take your time
Germany didn't run out of money and replacing government mid-term is a thing that happens every so often in most European countries.
France is doing French things, surprisingly they are not torching cars at the moment, so things have to be going swell.
Britain, same as Germany, PMs get replaced, it happens.
Sweden – I always hear about their no-go zones from people who haven't been there, though it's true that they probably fucked up the immigration a bit. Like French, in which case it was the problem of making Algeria a part of France and therefore Algerian French.
Netherlands has a "far right" PM who would probably be a moderate Republican in today's US.
You can also add us, who have reasonably functional government right now, after 8 years with a babbling tycoon asshole and will likely elect the same idiot the next time around. However, he can't do as much damage as your orange guy, so we'll be okay when he goes away finally.
The troubly with Trump is that half of your country is so pissed off at the other half that you rather vote for an apparent idiot who then goes on to create government agencies named after meme dogs and name TV hosts to lead dept of defense, rather than let the other side win.
Similar things happen in Europe as well, that's the result of the social media era, but nowhere they managed to create such a clown circus as you did.
And it's only beginning, the real fun will come (though I have no idea what it will be).
Vojta, it’s a mostly MAGA crowd here, but you are not alone.
Trump is showing with his appointments that his motto must be “‘why not the worst?” The idea that anyone in this collection of tax-cutters-for-the richest, self-dealers, grifters (happy to fleece working people by creating fake “‘universities”), union busters, deadbeats (multiple bankruptcies, contractors stiffed, etc. etc.) gives the slightest damn about working Americans is just farcical.
The most recent union buster is still residing in the White House right now and spent his Senate career as a bankers' footstool.
Didn’t your mom teach you that two wrongs don’t make a right?
No, but yours did.
You have NO IDEA how much so many of us have suffered under the Biden-Harris regime.
Just before the election, the intelligence community BLATANTLY LIED about Hunter Biden's laptop, which contained evidence of influence peddling by his father, and which has since been determined to be genuine. A substantial portion of Biden voters admit that if they had known that the Laptop was real, it would have changed their vote.
Almost IMMEDIATELY AFTER INAUGURATION, Biden signed EO 13988, which enacted a very radical form of transgender ideology in schools and has had very serious effects on thousands of girls who wished to participate in athletics.
My own career has possibly been ended due to his UNCONSTITUTIONAL "Mark of the Beast" mandates for a novel form of genetic therapy.
Many decent soldiers have been run out of the military due to one or both of these issues.
I know, third-hand, of a man whose elderly Mother wanted to see what was going on in Washington on January 6: although he did not enter the Capitol, his business has been destroyed and he was sentenced to 10 months in Federal prison.
The Department of Justice has targeted people who speak out at school boards, Catholics who attend Latin Mass, and others. Even liberal journalist Matt Taibbi's house was visited by the IRS while he was testifying before Congress, which is HIGHLY UNUSUAL as the IRS almost never makes house calls. Tulsi Gabbard has been selected for special anti-terrorist screening and has been surrounded by Federal agents and bomb dogs while traveling by commercial airliner.
Don't you DARE imply that the Biden-Harris Reign of Terror was in any way normal or benign.
https://giphy.com/gifs/fDzM81OYrNjJC
It's perfect. The perfect NPC tweet. The entire German auto industry appears to be on the verge of collapse (or relocation to the third world due to energy prices due to the CIA blowing NS2) and "everything is fine."
Give me whatever drugs or hopecope you are inhaling brother, I could use them.
I want some of that hopium or some cheap energy and food.
The great thing about the USA is western europe thoroughly depends on us and we don't think about you at all. Who is the prime minister of britain? Tony BLair? German? Merkel. We don't know! We don't care!
https://i.imgflip.com/1y4r75.jpg
Yeah, of course, you're the biggest and most beautiful a yugest in the world.
Let's talk again in four years, shall we?
you just wait! i think you're an ai creation of an exposition of a brilliant mind corrupted by 'liberal' thought processes. be well!
Hitching up with China due to Trump would be like trading a room with a mosquito for one with a crocodile because you didn't like the buzzing.
Reminder scheduled.
I was picking my daughter up from practice tonight and chatting with a friend who is married to a Scot. She was in Scotland and one of his relatives asked “do Americans hate us like we do them?” She said “uh the average American is vaguely aware you guys wear skirts and eat haggis and otherwise don’t think about you at all.” They were suitably taken aback.
And many Americans, including President Trump, have Scottish ancestry and find modern Scotland's substance abuse and politics confusing and concerning.
Because America's substance abuse and politics aren't confusing and concerning?
More like because of the many genetic ties.....
I didn't know Scotsmen hated America .
-Nate
What Nate said.
I glanced through the Wikipedia page and find that "Dr. House" rode a CBR1000RR, was a fan of the Phillies and Flyers, and attended the University of Michigan. There is nothing strange or disloyal about supporting certain professional teams and one's alma mater, and there's nothing strange or disloyal about having an interest in one's country of residence and citizenship as well as regions of genetic / linguistic / cultural origin.
One hopes the checks and balances perform their functions as the founders intended. I dislike the establishment as a whole so I am not necessarily opposed to outside the box choices for cabinet positions but his Sec Def choice is a bad fucking joke..
I had never heard of SecDef before yesterday or today, but if all he does is turn off the woke which causes a reversal of the massive drain of the kind of man who traditionally joins the military we’ll call it a success.
"much larger part of what makes America "great" in the world is the diplomacy (supported by military) and the fact that it was always a power you could reasonably depend on."
I work in Africa and parts of the Me a lot. The people there were begging me to elct Trump. As one youngish Afrcan said, maybe the USA is not the most consistent of allies, but lord help us if we have to liver under the Chinese. When i asked various and sundry why not kamala, they said look at the world, its in chaos.
Something the 3rd world understands, weaknes begets trouble. Your diploschucks may work well in western Europe but thats about it. Diplomacy got us treaty of Versailles and sylkes picot, the Un, look how well that's all worked out.
yes the uSa will be a great ally, to allies. That means if you want NATO, pay your fair share. If you're going to have imprt duties on us, well do the same to you. Its true its not 1955 and were not 70% of global GDP, so happy to have you on board as a partner, not for a free ride.
As for the middle east, if youre any sort of modern sunni you love the USA.
"Once you stop being the "shining city on the hill", attracting people from all over the world to the "centre of the free world", you stop being best at inventing things."
Elon seems to like it here, plus 70% of our tech CEOs who come from asia. If we cut regulations and taxes that will only get better. What sets us apart from say Europe where you're even better educated is that here in the USA without 50,000 permits you can start a business and if the idea is good raise capital to expand it. In Europe youre large legacy companies large bureaucracies and the existing small businesses are family resteraunts and hairdressers plus a few cab driver.
Lastly and this is just a fact, not a larger comment. The majority of our immigrants are Christains with deep family values or from india China. Because we dont have a class structure we see within one generation theyre already upper middle class.
Europe is increasing getting swamped by cultures who cannot assimilate after generations and have little outlet for any productivity they may have.
Lastly despite the best predations of the latterly socialist democrats, its seems the majority in the USA are still into the self reliance thing and deeply distrustful of the government knows best model. If you wat to look this election, at its core is a repudiation of the big government globalist view. Now that may be unthinkable heresy in other lands, but yeah were gonna go that way
yes the barbarians have stormed the ramparts, and theyre going to try tearing Washington Dc a new asshole.
Perhaos were this way because our unique non parliamentary system allows once in a while a fresh outsider to take over from the poltical class. The founding fathers inteded it that way and its still working.
Yeah wed love to have oter choices to elct, But no same person would subject themselves and their family to the level of scrutiny and destruction that the media and social media will subject them too.
So our choices became a populist circus barker or an unelected empty pantsuit. Trump may be crazy and ignorant, but he is also savy and smart. Given the the options the choice is not even close.
well put!
I'll try to be brief.
We can agree on the need of a strong USA to counterbalance the China, which is the real threat.
Actually, one of my main fears of Trump is that his idea of being "strong" is shouting at higher volume than others, with no thought about what he's actually saying. Which makes him weak in the end, especially face to face with a very smart opponent who's able to think strategically. Remember that Sun Tzu was Chinese...
As for the NATO and "paying fair share" – that's a nice example of my problem with Trump. Even after four years of being president, he seems to think that Europe is supposed to pay US for protection and we are not doing that (the 2% of national budgets).
The actual rule is that every nation should spend 2% of their budget on THEIR military. It's true that a lot of EU countries don't do that, but that's changing – actually one of the few good things to come out of the first Trump presidency.
Also, your idea of not being able to launch a startup in Europe says something about you, more than about Europe. You are right that you need a bit more bureaucracy, but it's far from being either legacy companies or family restaurants.
But mostly, my problem with Trump is what I said in another sub-thread here. He's incompetent, in his inability to control his impulses, he's weak, and he's stupid.
Exactly the reasons your friend begged you to vote for him are the reasons you shouldn't.
Ok let me try take this point by point.
Imo Chia is a competitor , our inabality to deal with that may make them a threat, but theyre not a threat in the way the USSR was. To the extent we compete with China in our won way, well be better and stronger for it. Yes china is playign the long game, they dotn need tot ake taiwan now, they can wait 50 years or next week. Their undoing though has many parents, one is their repression, that stifles Individual Evonomic vitality. Another is their sheer Hubris. Another is the way countries who deal with them always end up getting shafted. Then their is the population implosion. Lastly single leaders consolidate power and then falter as they get old.
Democracies have their issues too, fat lazy spoiled and disconnected from economic relaitis of the planet, leadership who are good a climbing slippery poled but otherwise weak.etc. In that regard Trump for all his manifest faults is a breath of frsh air. BTW Chircill was condisdred crank untill 1939.
Having a gun, and being able to point it and pull the trigger are two different things. Biden could never pull the trigger. Trump doesn't just shout, he can and will pull the tirgger, as he did with Solemani and Sysiuras redlines, or frankly tariffs despite the economists sayign theyre bad. As someone taught me years ago, if youre going to unzip you better be prepared to pull it out. Thats what sperates trump from all the oter frankly weak estrogenized western leaders.
Trump is not asking Europe to pay for protection. Frankly were over there spending $$$ backing you up. What h'es asking is that if were doing that you at least step up with the 2%. So far while there has been some slight improvement most western Europeans are nowhere near that or even close to getting there and without holding your hads to the fire you wont do it.
As for launching startups in Europe. Yall have better universities than us. Please explain why Google Apple, tesla Space x ets etc all happened here, while you're all better educated and have a larger population. The facts as they say speak for themselves.
Trump may end up making amess, be brilliant or a mixed bag, at least were trying, you guys just sinking into the morass of false socialist bliss.
the thing peopel dont relize is the difference between the european right and the Us right. in Europe your right is mostly nationalist with more than a hint of racsist nationalism, but is still essentially socialist as are all euro political movements, from lenin to Hitler to Angela etc. Here we are mixed heritage the right is mostly economic and our nationalism is to a country and idea not a historic race. Our right mostly looks to economics and efficiency, family structure, its not some scary thing.
Any group in power for too long becomes abusive, thats just how it goes.
great statements!
tagging this to come back and dunk on you in 18 months
There is Churchill’s supposed quote: "You can count on Americans doing the right thing, after exhausting all the other possibilities”. Give us some time to burn thru the possibilities.
"What you have is a clown circus."
The literal current spokesman for the current administration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSS_9VKMLcc
https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1552310680413503491?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
You would have to enlighten me on how Vice President Harris would be a better leader of this country. I can't blame them dem's for the inflation that overtook the country via Covid spending but the opening of the borders and sending planes to import more unskilled labor during an economic crisis made me vote clown.
Latest Social Security wage statistics show the median wage is around 43k a year. I won't make that this year. Unless I want to hope for the bread and circuses the dem's may offer, I would have been stupid to vote for Harris.
Biden continued and raised Trump's tariffs and has gotten no respect for his foreign diplomacy so give me cheap energy and government austerity. Most of us don't really care what the rest of the world thinks of us when we are struggling to pay for heat and groceries.
So like I said tell me how Harris would have been better for me not Europe and I will consider your logic but to trash us Trump voter's like the Mainstream media does is a bit boorish and adds little to the conversation.
Off subject I know I apologize, but I’m finding it impossible to change my subscription from free to paid. When I click the subscribe button, I’m told “you have the free subscription.“ What do I have to do to give you my money?
Off subject? This is literally the only subject of any importance to me!
Like everything else at Substack, it's twice as awkward as it needs to be:
https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/6051838054932-How-do-I-upgrade-from-being-a-free-subscriber-to-a-paid-subscriber
Help me. I tried six times to change to a paid subscription. I had to edit my payment method because I’ve gotten a new credit card. I tried five times and each time I was told that my credit card number was incorrect. I don’t know what to do. I’ve been using that card for a month. The old one got canceled because fraud had been detected on the line
Put five 20s in an envelope and address it to “Jack Baruth, part time racer, somewhere close to Mid-Ohio Raceway”.