JayB

Helped my Dad do that job when I was about 12. Horrible job. If I had to do that again I'd have respirator instead of one of those paper masks, and use a 15' x 4' strip of old carpet to lay down on top of the dirt/glass/etc.

I have zero sympathy for this chick's point of view, but responding to these perspectives by declaring them illegal is the wrong way to respond, for a number of reasons. "British Muslim woman convicted of penning poems about beheadings By ARTHUR MARTIN An airport worker who wrote poems about beheadings is the first woman to be found guilty under new terror laws. Samina Malik, who liked to call herself a "lyrical terrorist", called for attacks on the West and described "poisoned bullets" capable of killing an entire street in her poetry. The 23-year-old Muslim wrote of her desire to become a martyr and listed her favourite videos as the "beheading ones". Lyrical terrorist Samina Malik claims she was just a 'fan' of the terrorist music Described as a "committed Islamic extremist", Malik, a shop assistant at Heathrow, hoarded an extensive collection of terrorism manuals, the Old Bailey heard. She was a member of an extremist group linked to Omar Bakri Mohammed, a hate preacher who fled to Lebanon from Britain two years ago. Yesterday a jury found her guilty of possessing documents likely to be used for terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, by a majority of ten to one, after deliberating for 19 hours." Can't tell if she's wearing lipstick or not, which would be quite the kuffar move for a "lyrical jihadist."

Will that get me an invitation to meet you at Tiger Mountain, sugar?

Haven't seen many dipshits pasting "I'm changing the climate" stickers to airplanes, buses, trains, semis, delivery vehicles, container-ships or any other mode of transport that burns fossil fuels. The emphasis placed on a subset of passenger vehicles is totally out of proportion to their actual importance in terms of transportation related emissions, especially when you consider that the average mini-van, station-wagon, luxury-sedan, and sport-car hardly differs from most trucks or SUV in terms of their fuel economy. Thus we have the celebrity with a 15,000 square foot house and a lear jet that's a paragon of eco-virtue because he owns a prius, and a working-class guy with a small house that keeps a close eye on the thermostat who's consigned to the other end of the spectrum because he drives a truck.

Yup.

I think that you could pretty much just index the rebate/tax reduction by income, and commercial users generally keep track of such expenses anyway, so it wouldn't be that big of a deal. My main purpose in participating in this thread was just to demonstrate that using CAFE standards is an irrational and ineffective way to reduce either oil consumption/CO2 emissions. I'm actually not terribly fond of the idea of a fuel tax either, but I think it'd be preferable to raising CAFE standards if I had to choose one or the other. I also think that the nearly exclusive and obsessive focus on passenger vehicles that has characterized this discussion on the national level is extremely irrational - and has less to do with reducing C02 emissions than it does with a desire to limit the scope for choices and lifestyles that a particular sector of the electorate takes exception to. If they were actually serious about this, they'd be dedicating the most energy into reforming the sectors that generate the most emissions.

Note bold text. Cough. Make a law that revenues gained by the fuel tax will be offset by reductions in income taxes and I think that the political resistance to the idea would diminish, especially if the taxes were phased in over the course of several years. I'm not sure what your coughing is all about. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that, when gas hits $10 a gallon or whatever the magic number is, people will do anything to avoid driving. Brilliant. Your idea sounds good in theory...pure theory, given our deficit. Thanks to the administration you and yours voted in, I wouldn't expect a reduction in any form of federal taxation, even if it involves a straight trade, that has a remote chance of reducing revenues (and there would be that risk due to undcertainty with your plan) for the rest of your life. You seemed to have dedicated quite a number of keystrokes to attacking this notion earlier. The point is that while raising the price fuel directly via taxes will discourage fuel consumption, and will impose costs that are in direct proportion to the quantity of CO2 emitted, and the same can't be said for manipulating the sales price of vehicles via CAFE standards.

Good observations on the effect of higher fuel prices - whether brought about by taxes or the market. If commercial users were exempted, and the poorer you were the more of the gas-tax you got back, I think that you could avoid most of the problems associated with the tax that you brought up - at least in theory.

wouldn't that be more grammatically correct as: is it true that all jews are niggardly? Anyone remember the DC politician that had to resign on account of the phonetic similarity between that word and a particular racial slur? "No really, it's spelled differently. It has an entirely different meaning. Look, it's right here in the dictionary..."

Just wait until they find out about their per-capita C02 emissions...

One of the reasons no one asks the mpg of a used vehicle is because they already know the answer; that information is readily available and most folks, including myself, take it into account in choosing what type of vehicle to buy before they ever talk to a seller. If fuel taxes were high enough, CAFE standards would not be necessary. They would have to be very high, however. Politically, that's not going to happen any time soon. CAFE standards, from a political standpoint, are an already relatively popular and therefore much more feasible way to reduce consumption and emissions. A combination of CAFE standards without loopholes, carbon taxes, and elimination of subsidies for gas guzzlers are the most feasible near term solution, politically speaking, to the problem. Note bold text. Cough. Make a law that revenues gained by the fuel tax will be offset by reductions in income taxes and I think that the political resistance to the idea would diminish, especially if the taxes were phased in over the course of several years.

Did you see the deal? I buy $100 worth of beer if both the house you choose and the CSW index for Seattle both go up. You buy $100 worth of beer if both the house you choose and the CSW go down, and if it's house-up/Seattle-down or Seattle-down/house-up we each put in for $50 worth of beer. Only way either of us wins is if the other is totally wrong, anyone at the PC wins some free beer in any case. 11/1/07-11/1/08.

The people who pay the most for this will be your friends in the UAW. More dodge and weave, JayB style. Or would that be duck and cover? This is not a discussion about unions. It's not a discussion about home insulation, which is (no shit, Sherlock) a good idea. It's a discussion about CAFE standards, and why they are a very, very good idea. So far, you've got nothing on topic in the rebuttal department. Why? Because, basically, you're a one note song. The market is good, government is bad. Why, then, don't we have privatized armed forces (OK, I mean ALL our armed forces). Or fire/police? Or roads? Water supplies? Or any one of many VITAL services that are too important to hand over to the private sector? That's actually not an accurate presentation of what I believe, or what I've argued for. Enforcing the law, preserving individual liberty, and the provision of public goods in cases where there's either no effective demand for the said good, or in those cases where one can demonstrate that the provision of the said good is a technical monopoly are amongst the areas where the case for government control is clear. I think that Friedman largely had it right: "Friedman was supportive of the state provision of some public goods that the market is not seen as being able to provide. However, he saw the scope of such goods as being minimal. And, he argued that many of the services performed by government could be performed better by the private sector. Above all, if some public goods are provided by the state, he believed that they should not be a legal monopoly where private competition is prohibited. For, example, in response to the United States Post Office's legal monopoly on mail, he said, "there is no way to justify our present public monopoly of the post office. It may be argued that the carrying of mail is a technical monopoly and that a government monopoly is the least of evils. Along these lines, one could perhaps justify a government post office, but not the present law, which makes it illegal for anybody else to carry the mail. If the delivery of mail is a technical monopoly, no one else will be able to succeed in competition with the government. If it is not, there is no reason why the government should be engaged in it. The only way to find out is to leave other people free to enter." In cases like the provision of education services, or emergency services, or the like - I think that government has a legitimate function in insuring that such services are provided to all citizens, but it doesn't necessarily follow that the government would have to provide these services directly in all cases. I also think that there's a clear link between economic liberty and political liberty, and the more dependent the citizens are on the state for the basic necessities of life the less likely they are to be able to effectively resist or discourage encroachments on their personal freedoms. The critiques will be much more interesting if they're at least accurate.

Poor marks on artistic merit *and* technical difficulty today. The backhanded onano-auto-praise via insult instead of the typical declarative statement announcing himself the winner was a novel element in the overall presentation, however. "So far I'm still waiting for an anti-CAFE argument that might just convince a 4 year old...if he were a bit slow."

There was an NPR feature on cell-phone jammers today. Sounds like they can be had for less than $200, and the smallest units have an effective range of around ~10 feet.

Revenue-neutrality is a smart caveat to higher fuel taxes, for both political and economic reasons.

This gets better with every post. While you have a marketplace wet dream why not invoke the spaghetti monster iniative as well. You can always "what if" an individual case that has no application or evidence. Continue herr marketplace miester. I'm just trying to understand why you are so attached to the idea of reducing CO2 emissions with CAFE standards when a fuel tax would actually be fairer, more rational, and more effective, and was actually hoping that you'd make a sincere response.

You do realize that your argument here about their failure to manufacture the diesel hybrid, or license the technology to, say European manufacturers who are operating in the very regulatory environment that you claim would make this kind of vehicle's dominance of the US market inevitable - literally rests on the claim that all auto makers in all markets are averse to realizing the profits that they'd realize upon bringing this technology to market.

The people who pay the most for this will be your friends in the UAW. What? Are you kidding me? Like it could actually get worse? Have you checked the profits and percent slope of the decline of the American car makers lately? Hmmmm. Why are the foreign car companies selling so much better over the past 20 years? Quality and efficiency. The Big Three's gamble on throwing an oversized shiny body onto a pickup frame has been diasterous in the long run. I guess in the short run some of the execs made out pretty well though. I think that it could actually get worse, and that attempting to regulate CO2 emissions via CAFE standards would do this very thing, since most of the cars that they make that people actually want to buy fall into the very category that would be affected the most. Also - what makes you think that if you eliminate all but the most fuel efficient cars from the marketplace, that people won't neutralize quite a few of the gains thus realized by simply driving more, carpooling less, etc - since they'll be able to increase their driving in direct proportion to the extent to which their fuel economy increases? If your aim is to discourage fuel consumption, rather than the production of certain kinds of vehicles, then imposing the costs on fuel consumption, rather vehicle acquisition makes much more sense. Oh give me a break. You've reached the usual absurd creshendo. CAFE standards have shown clearly that they improve fuel effecienty. Look at our past records and the European standards. The obvious problem that marketplace gurus like yourself have is that choices will be limted. Too bad, so sad. There is more at stake than some SUV driver's vanity. The argument was never that they don't improve the fuel efficiency of the vehicles sold under regulations that impose extra costs on less fuel efficient vehicles, but that if your aim is to discourage fuel consumption - it's more rational and effective to tax fuel. There are people with inefficient vehicles that hardly drive them at all, and people with efficient vehicles that drive them `~50,000 miles per year. Who is emitting more C02? Why should the person who wants a large vehicle for short trips pay more for the privilege of owning such a vehicle, much less subsidize drivers of small vehicles with his purchase? Unless a large vehicle emits CO2 when standing still, there's no rational justification for taxing the acquisition of the vehicle instead of the consumption of the fuel. This clearly has more to do with a desire to restrict the production of a subset of passenger vehicles that you dislike than it does decreasing CO2 emissions, which could be accomplished via a fuel tax with much more efficiency, fairness, and with less damage to the domestic auto industry than manipulating CAFE standards.

This is getting better with every post. So what has prevented the Big Three from reaping the gains that they'd realize by selling these wonder-vehicles when, per your claims - the single most important factor driving consumer preferences now and off into infinity is fuel efficiency? Presumably the costs to develop the said wonder-vehicles were greater than zero, so you that if nothing else they'd want to sell a few of them to help offset the R&D costs, or license the technology to all of the other automobile companies around the world that would be willing to pay for such advances, since the only reason the wonder-cars didn't appear on the US market is because of our woeful failure implement mileage standards that are consistent with global norms. Hell - it's not like the Big Three don't have operations in Europe, where fuel costs are at or above your desired threshold? Why haven't they unleashed the secret wondercars on the market there? Actually, during the Clinton years, the Feds paid most of the development of those concept cars, Einstein. It was a government/private sector partnership. Guess who cancelled the project upon taking office? That would be your guy; the fucking cretin you and yours voted into office. Instead, now we have the 'Hydrogen Economy'. OMFG, Please. So much for your 'cost of development' argument. Way to go for supporting all this shit, genius. Your philosophies, put into practice, have really put this country back on its feet. That's even better. The government gave the Big Three a free good and they failed to deploy it despite favorable market conditions in a number of major markets, or to license to others, because...why exactly. They hate profits?

The people who pay the most for this will be your friends in the UAW. More dodge and weave, JayB style. Or would that be duck and cover? This is not a discussion about unions. It's not a discussion about home insulation, which is (no shit, Sherlock) a good idea. It's a discussion about CAFE standards, and why they are a very, very good idea. So far, you've got nothing on topic in the rebuttal department. Why? Because, basically, you're a one note song. The market is good, government is bad. Why, then, don't we have privatized armed forces (OK, I mean ALL our armed forces). Or fire/police? Or roads? Water supplies? Or any one of many VITAL services that are too important to hand over to the private sector? As I said in my response to Jim, if you want to discourage fuel consumption, you raise the cost of fuel. If you want to discourage the production of a subset of passenger vehicles, you raise the cost of those vehicles.

The people who pay the most for this will be your friends in the UAW. What? Are you kidding me? Like it could actually get worse? Have you checked the profits and percent slope of the decline of the American car makers lately? Hmmmm. Why are the foreign car companies selling so much better over the past 20 years? Quality and efficiency. The Big Three's gamble on throwing an oversized shiny body onto a pickup frame has been diasterous in the long run. I guess in the short run some of the execs made out pretty well though. I think that it could actually get worse, and that attempting to regulate CO2 emissions via CAFE standards would do this very thing, since most of the cars that they make that people actually want to buy fall into the very category that would be affected the most. Also - what makes you think that if you eliminate all but the most fuel efficient cars from the marketplace, that people won't neutralize quite a few of the gains thus realized by simply driving more, carpooling less, etc - since they'll be able to increase their driving in direct proportion to the extent to which their fuel economy increases? If your aim is to discourage fuel consumption, rather than the production of certain kinds of vehicles, then imposing the costs on fuel consumption, rather vehicle acquisition makes much more sense.

This is getting better with every post. So what has prevented the Big Three from reaping the gains that they'd realize by selling these wonder-vehicles when, per your claims - the single most important factor driving consumer preferences now and off into infinity is fuel efficiency? Presumably the costs to develop the said wonder-vehicles were greater than zero, so you that if nothing else they'd want to sell a few of them to help offset the R&D costs, or license the technology to all of the other automobile companies around the world that would be willing to pay for such advances, since the only reason the wonder-cars didn't appear on the US market is because of our woeful failure implement mileage standards that are consistent with global norms. Hell - it's not like the Big Three don't have operations in Europe, where fuel costs are at or above your desired threshold? Why haven't they unleashed the secret wondercars on the market there?

Good point there. Human nutrition and automotive fuel efficiency are pretty much the same thing. In fact, I drink far less gasoline today, compared to the past, and it's really improved the mileage my bicycle gets. No equivocation here at all. The point is that consumer demand determines what manufacturers produce, and what retailers sell. Holding manufacturers responsible for what people want to buy is about as rational as blaming Andean peasants for our drug problem.

The people who pay the most for this will be your friends in the UAW.