----- Original Message -----
From: "Jed Rothwell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <vortex-l@eskimo.com>; <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 4:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Vo]: Outrage !!
I do not know whether highway taxes are more likely to invite corruption
than other kinds, but I think we should have them. I seldom drive, and I
know people in > cities who never drive.
I honestly don't know if this is a bad idea or a good idea, I don't know.
However, I do find it amusing that here in Vortexland (and everywhere else
for the most part) any suggestion for changing something having to do with
hitting us up for more money to drive generally has the qualifier "this
doesn't apply to me though..." or some such derivation.
I drive a long way each day to work and back, compared to many, and probably
a long way in your opinion. About 40 miles round trip. I have no choice, the
economy here is devastated and will only get worse. You can do nothing here
without permits for this and regulations for that, and so everything is
gone. This was once a big steel area...now all the steel here is from damned
China. We have to fight to make a living. Heating bills here in this frozen
wasteland are enormous. We are taxed out of our homes here, literally. Those
taxes are largely wasted on pork projects and the lazy. I do not want help
from these corrupt people, but even if I did, I couldn't get it for a few
reasons: 1., I work and make "too much money", 2., I am the wrong race. That
isn't racism either, its simple fact of observation. I've been with friends
who try as hard as they can, and needed some help during the coldest parts
of winter, as they went for assistance downtown. They were told in no
uncertain terms that they were not eligible due to income (too much of it,
so called) and due to not being a minority.
To tax us further, without something giving somewhere, will destroy us more.
I'm just a lowly mechanic (by day anyways) and make very little. I imagine
many of you high minded dreamers here on Vortex make far more and could
handle this. What do you say to us? If we go, who will fix your cars? I'd
like to see some of you try to fix a modern electronicized,
over-emissionized, plastic-and-aluminum, engine shoehorned into the tiny
engine bay car with the Bible sized wiring diagram. You will quite simply be
screwed over royally. Try doing this on a hybrid, and you are adding even
more difficulty. We can barely do it at our shop, as the crooks at Toyota
will not sell us the tools we need. Want to change your own transmission
fluid in your Mercedes-Benz? Good luck without your blue-collar mechanic's
shop... Mercedes-Benz sells you the car without a dipstick! "MB WORKSHOP
ONLY" printed in nice friendly letters on the transaxle dipstick handle with
no dipstick connected to it. If you just guess, and overfill the
transmission, oops....foaming of the fluid and the transmission is done.
To go futher on about this issue of taxes and regulations, did you know that
all new cars will soon be required to have sensors in the wheels to alert
you of low tire pressure? I have to go to a meeting on my own time, and
which I am not paid for, on March 27th to be taught how to use the new tire
valves and how to reset the sensors and such should we need to plug a nail
hole in a tire. Gone bye-bye are the days of punching the plug into the
tire, fill 'er with air and drive off into the sunset...now it is all
computerized. We need a damned SILICON tax! Who is going to pay for this
crap? You are. And me, eventually, when all the old cars are gone and I have
to buy something post-1995. No one needs tire pressure sensors. What people
need is a working brain to get off their lazy, stupid, computer-jockey asses
and learn how to make sure 32psi is in their tires. (That's PSI too...no
bloody kilopascals, thanks much)
New York also has the NYVIP joke as well... New York Vehicle Inspection
Program. It is a computer that scans the barcode of your registration
sticker so that you can do an inspection on the vehicle in question. When
the computer works, of course. The Empire state, with its "vast wealth and
variety of resources" bought the cheapest computers and peripherals they
could find, and cobbled it together with ape-level intelligence. Then
requires us to buy this thing at $3500, or sorry, we can't do inspections
anymore. If your car is older than 1996, you are lucky. If 1996 or newer,
you get the OBDII connector plugged into the DLC port under the dashboard,
and the computer (hopefully) communicates with your vehicle's ECM, and sees
if the emissions are kosher. If not, you fail inspection. But....its not
necessarily if your emissions are excessive. If your "Service Engine Soon"
or "Check Engine" light is on for any reason, the computer will fail the
car. You will be charged too, we can't cancel the inspection and just let
you leave without getting the inspection done and get it fixed (or fix it
yourself), the computer will not let us do so. If we just pull the power
cord out of the wall to shut the computer down, two things happen: 1., the
vehicle's ECM will likely be damaged, as the interface between the car and
the inspection computer is beyond even Microsoft level of incompetence, and
2, the DMV sends someone out to "audit" us. The days of people helping
people are over, ladies and gentlemen. Further, the computer crashes day in
and day out, the DMV office line is always busy (the computer has to call
into the DMV by modem during each inspection. [this requires a second phone
line that, yep, we have to pay for!]), and the peripherals (OBDII scanner,
barcode scanner) fail frequently.
So all I can say is this: you want to tax me more for going to work, and
doing you a service when your car breaks down, dealing with the legal system
to get your car legit to drive around on your high-minded business, while
plotting to tax me even more for my own good? Go to Hell.
Fix the damn system that is broken first, get rid of the waste at the top,
stop having thinktanks and summits and meetings to discuss what to do about
the vague, undefined "problem" and DO SOMETHING! Less talking, and more
solution. I have been doing my part to try and conserve, I go cold in the
winter time to save gas, not because I care so much about the money, but
because I honestly, in my heart, want to DO something to make a difference.
I run almost exclusively fluorescent lights to save power for the same
reason, even though I adore the look of a clear-enveloped incandescent. I
try to take the most efficient trips to work and around town to get things I
need for home, for my research, etc. Even if I have the gasoline, if I find
I need something from the electronics store or hardware store, I will waste
my day and wait until I am near it the next day to go and get it, just to
conserve. It helps me with my money, yes, but mostly it is because I care
and worry about these things so much. It has been a long time since I drove
around in the summer just to enjoy driving. A good feeling of freedom on the
open road that I go without, to satisfy the programming I have received from
those who wish to save me from myself.
If that is the future, with no joy in anything, just calculating efficiency
and worth/loss all day long, metering how much energy I expend and on what
merit that expenditure had, if that is where we are truly heading and there
is honestly no way to have any alternative, then I pray to God that we
destroy ourselves utterly, and let the world go on in peace without us.
Maybe something better will come along to take our failed place.
I end this rant, or vent, or maybe just cry into the night, with a bit of
the lyrics from a song I like very much and feel very close to at the
moment. Appropriate name for the band that performed it as well: "Tears for
Fears"
All around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races, going nowhere, going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses, no expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow, no tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, cause I find it hard to take,
when people run in circles, it's a very very
Mad world....
Mad world....
Mad world.....
--K
