The Coolest Stickers Ever

Fatcat said:
Why are people so opposed to incentives for driving cleaner cars? Hybrids should and will become the norm if we are to do anything about Global warming. Don't piss on other people because they actually do something about the problem. Fine if you like your muscle car, but don't be an asshole about it.

Yes, because REAL MEN drive huge SUV's that use ridiculous amounts of gas and simultaneously piss on the Kyoto Treaty.
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I don't purchase aerosol cans in bulk so that I can tape the sprayer down while I dance across my lawn burning asbestos but I also don't go knocking on every neighbors door for a ten block radius every time I recycle a goddamn can. So if you own a hybird GOOD FOR YOU, but don't look down your nose at my old ride (or my new truck for that matter) and presume that you're somehow "SAVING" the world while I'm just looking for another good spot to set an oil rig on.

I love it when it's insinuated that those NOT driving a vehicle that gets a certain gas mileage are somehow 'destroying' the earth, while another group is somehow 'saving' it. You can't point fingers at others when you yourself aren't actually fixing anything. Purchasing a hybrid is not like putting a band-aid on the planet, you're simply not pressing the knife in as deeply. Just food for thought as maybe my experiences are limited to California where 'smug' is not just trendy, it's air, food, and water all rolled into one - and hybrids seem to be just the latest in that trend.

As for "global warming", it's a simple matter of geologic history that the earth has been in constant cycles of warming and cooling since long before we humans were ever on the scene.

Anyway, here's a link to the current listing http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZsporkmakerQQhtZ-1 so buy some stickers and help me pay for my gas. :D
 
McGruff said:
As for "global warming", it's a simple matter of geologic history that the earth has been in constant cycles of warming and cooling since long before we humans were ever on the scene.
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Certainly there's natural global warming. Let's be generous and say that three-fourths of the current warming trend is natural and only one-fourth is due to changes in vegetation and inreases in greenhouse gasses due to human activity in the past three hundred years.

Anyway, human-made or natural, the more the Earth warms up, the more it will flood our coastal cities and mess up our cropland. Sure, mankind will adapt, but as I posted above, it will cost trillions of dollars to build levees to protect all of our cities or else to relocate those cities inland, and trillions more to relocate farmers who find themselves on now-unfarmable land due to saltwater flooding or changes in rainfall patterns. It will be far from the end of civilization, but it may end up costing a lot more money to adapt to a warmer Earth than to keep the Earth from getting warmer.

Anyway, environmental considerations aside, driving a car that gets better gas mileage has two concrete benefits:
1: your nation has to buy less oil from OPEC, which means a better trade balance for your nation and less money for the OPEC nations (many of whom are accused of sponsoring terrorism or oppressing their populations--I leave you to judge for yourself the truth of those claims).
2: You have to buy less gas. Let's do a back-of-the-envelope estimate here. Let's say that you drive a standard sedan that gets 28 miles per gallon in real-life driving (as opposed to the idealized sticker mileage). Now let's compare that to a hybrid getting a modest 25% more miles per gallon (35 in this example). Let's also say that gas averages three dollars per gallon over a 100,000 mile lifespan of the car. The standard sedan will consume approximately 3,571 gallons over this lifespan, while the hybrid will consume approximately 2,857 gallons--you save 20%. At three dollars per gallon, you save about $2,150 in gas, as well as being able to drive 25% farther between fill-ups. If and when hybrids can sell for only a couple grand more than full-combustion vehicles, it will be to the customer's economic advantage to use one.
 
I'll stay out of the futile global warming arguments, but this bit I'll respond to...

Ijuin said:
Anyway, environmental considerations aside, driving a car that gets better gas mileage has two concrete benefits:
1: your nation has to buy less oil from OPEC, which means a better trade balance for your nation and less money for the OPEC nations (many of whom are accused of sponsoring terrorism or oppressing their populations--I leave you to judge for yourself the truth of those claims).
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A "better trade balance"? Trade today is a zero-sum game. If your country spends $5 billion on oil, it gets $5 billion worth of oil in return. The only way for a country to have a negative trade balance is to subsidise trade, in which case it either sends its goods abroad for less than they're worth, or imports goods for more than they're worth. But then, of course, if you buy stuff from another country which subsidises exports, you end up getting more goods than your money's worth, so everything evens out in the long run.

Trade balance used to be very, very important - back when money was more than mere paper, and when it wasn't possible to make large transactions electronically. In the 19th century, money was more valuable than any other commodity, so having a negative trade balance was not only possible, but also a huge problem. A negative trade balance meant that physical money (gold and silver coins - which obviously cost more than paper money to produce) left the country, and if this carried on long enough, the local economy was affected simply because people had no actual money to buy things. This caused deflation, which in turn meant that when you exported goods, you got less money for them than they were actually worth. Today, however, all this is virtually irrelevant - most transactions require no cash at all, so it would be next to impossible to deplete your country's cash supply to the point where the economy might notice it. The only reason people still keep on talking about trade balance today is because of how dominant socialism has become - and of course, a socialist will always tell you that it's better for you to buy locally-made products than imported products, even if the latter are cheaper and better.

2: You have to buy less gas. Let's do a back-of-the-envelope estimate here. Let's say that you drive a standard sedan that gets 28 miles per gallon in real-life driving (as opposed to the idealized sticker mileage). Now let's compare that to a hybrid getting a modest 25% more miles per gallon (35 in this example). Let's also say that gas averages three dollars per gallon over a 100,000 mile lifespan of the car. The standard sedan will consume approximately 3,571 gallons over this lifespan, while the hybrid will consume approximately 2,857 gallons--you save 20%. At three dollars per gallon, you save about $2,150 in gas, as well as being able to drive 25% farther between fill-ups. If and when hybrids can sell for only a couple grand more than full-combustion vehicles, it will be to the customer's economic advantage to use one.
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A hybrid car may indeed be more fuel-efficient, but I'm not convinced it's actually cheaper. The US government is pumping money into hybrid technology like there's no [oil] tomorrow - and the government has only one source of money, which happens to be you. Of course, they offer you tax deductions and other incentives for buying a hybrid car - but such subsidies are generally just tricks, with the government taking $500 from you with one hand, and giving you back $400 with the other (and in any case, such benefits are purely temporary - you might get free parking in LA now for having a hybrid... but if another 100,000 people in LA buy hybrids, the free parking will have to go away). There's no such thing as free money - any government intervention in the economy is harmful and ultimately costs you more money than it's worth.

Don't get me wrong, though. Hybrid cars seem like good technology, and in all likelihood, they'll be the way to go in the future, even if governments decide to stop spending my money on promoting them - but you should always be aware of the hidden costs.
 
Quarto said:
A hybrid car may indeed be more fuel-efficient, but I'm not convinced it's actually cheaper. The US government is pumping money into hybrid technology like there's no [oil] tomorrow - and the government has only one source of money, which happens to be you. Of course, they offer you tax deductions and other incentives for buying a hybrid car - but such subsidies are generally just tricks, with the government taking $500 from you with one hand, and giving you back $400 with the other (and in any case, such benefits are purely temporary - you might get free parking in LA now for having a hybrid... but if another 100,000 people in LA buy hybrids, the free parking will have to go away). There's no such thing as free money - any government intervention in the economy is harmful and ultimately costs you more money than it's worth.

Don't get me wrong, though. Hybrid cars seem like good technology, and in all likelihood, they'll be the way to go in the future, even if governments decide to stop spending my money on promoting them - but you should always be aware of the hidden costs.
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Besides which just as much polution comes out of the factory whether it's making a hybrid or regular gas engine car.
 
Ijuin said:
Certainly there's natural global warming. Let's be generous and say that three-fourths of the current warming trend is natural and only one-fourth is due to changes in vegetation and inreases in greenhouse gasses due to human activity in the past three hundred years.

Anyway, human-made or natural, the more the Earth warms up, the more it will flood our coastal cities and mess up our cropland. Sure, mankind will adapt, but as I posted above, it will cost trillions of dollars to build levees to protect all of our cities or else to relocate those cities inland, and trillions more to relocate farmers who find themselves on now-unfarmable land due to saltwater flooding or changes in rainfall patterns. It will be far from the end of civilization, but it may end up costing a lot more money to adapt to a warmer Earth than to keep the Earth from getting warmer.
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Without being a trained scientist myself, I can only speak from the different debates between experts and self professed experts that I have heard on the issue. Here's a very interesting one http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/31/lkl.01.html . If I had to muddle through all the bias on both sides such as the corporations on one hand which are willing to belch tons crap into the air and water at the expense of everyone's health just to make a buck, and the Al Gore's of the world who have no problem exaggerating certain statistics while totally omitting others to suit their alarmist agenda, I would probably conclude that global warming IS happening, and that we probably have very very little control over it one way or another. Your three fourths/one fourth example seems extremely generous.

Ijuin said:
Anyway, environmental considerations aside, driving a car that gets better gas mileage has two concrete benefits:
1: your nation has to buy less oil from OPEC, which means a better trade balance for your nation and less money for the OPEC nations (many of whom are accused of sponsoring terrorism or oppressing their populations--I leave you to judge for yourself the truth of those claims).
2: You have to buy less gas. Let's do a back-of-the-envelope estimate here. Let's say that you drive a standard sedan that gets 28 miles per gallon in real-life driving (as opposed to the idealized sticker mileage). Now let's compare that to a hybrid getting a modest 25% more miles per gallon (35 in this example). Let's also say that gas averages three dollars per gallon over a 100,000 mile lifespan of the car. The standard sedan will consume approximately 3,571 gallons over this lifespan, while the hybrid will consume approximately 2,857 gallons--you save 20%. At three dollars per gallon, you save about $2,150 in gas, as well as being able to drive 25% farther between fill-ups. If and when hybrids can sell for only a couple grand more than full-combustion vehicles, it will be to the customer's economic advantage to use one.
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Have to agree with everything here, though I would add that hybrids and the like are a good idea for those who choose to drive them. If I want to drive a gas guzzling hotrod or truck, then that should be my choice as well. Do not tell me what vehicles I can and can't own and I'll return the favor, though I reserve the right to make fun of your import deathtrap.

Quarto said:
.......(and in any case, such benefits are purely temporary - you might get free parking in LA now for having a hybrid... but if another 100,000 people in LA buy hybrids, the free parking will have to go away).
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That's already happened with the permits in question. After reaching I believe 70,000 they have stopped issuing them. Mine are the only ones now available :) .
 
Thanks McGruff! A man of his word! He did indeed send the free sticker. I took the pictures that you wanted. You want me to post them here or to email them to you? I even took a few extras of the el camino.

I also love the idea of staying out of the global warming deal but I would like to add a real life tale here. I have a 68 barracuda with a 318 under the hood, I also have a mazda b2200 recyled beer can with a tiny little 4 banger. Now if my hotrod is a gas guzzler why is it I get about the same milage out of these vehicles? Yes I could waste enough fuel to have to stop the fish at the gas station every other day but I choose to drive in a less wasteful manner. both have the same size fuel tank.
Now just one question on the whole emissions concerns. I drive big rigs for a living, Ive not heard anyone crying about them not having to be smogged. They are indeed cracking down hard on the emissions on all newer tractors but still I just wonderd why nobody said anything about them?
 
jaeger said:
Now just one question on the whole emissions concerns. I drive big rigs for a living, Ive not heard anyone crying about them not having to be smogged. They are indeed cracking down hard on the emissions on all newer tractors but still I just wonderd why nobody said anything about them?
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Regular drivers don't have Teamsters thugs to back them up. :p





(Tongue firmly in cheek, in case it wasn't obvious.)
 
All the good jobs are in the teamsters union =D I will be one soon enough.
I guess I could turn the real life job into a wing commander fantasy =X I could pretend the Highway patrol is the kilrathi and Im piloting a drayman . Oh what I would do for some flak or laser turrents, I would never have to sit in traffic again!
 
Small world - I used to drive for CWX just down the road from you in Hayward.

Hmm, I would go for hot warrior women with football shoulder pads and crossbows on my trailer instead :D .
 
Whats even funnier is I just tried to get in with cwx a few weeks ago. Ok maybe not that funny. They didnt hire me = (

I think Im going to go with a mad max wing commander crossover for that fantasy =X. Both are great ideas!
So how do you want me to send the pictures?
 
Just tell Tom Young that McGruff says you're OK ;) . Really though, leaving that place was one of the best moves I ever made. It's actually a great job if you put your time in and move up the seniority ladder, however to do that, it takes years of misery on the "extra board" and then on the less desirable routes like San Francisco. If I ever find myself driving a 53 footer in the city again, somebody please just shoot me.

Anyway, yeah, why not post them here. What I wouldn't give for a 'Cuda! :D
 
53 feet in frisco? you are a god =X. I was sweating with a ten wheeler up there! Anything has to be better than dealing with scrap metal, my last job. Overloads stinking of coolant.... Oh yeah happy thoughts my car! let me load them up and see what I can do!
 
Lets see if I did it right... Sorry I left out the one with me posing on the hood in a thong =X. Thats the "good side" as you can see, she is in need of work. She is a runner!

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jaeger said:
I drive big rigs for a living, Ive not heard anyone crying about them not having to be smogged.
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I work on a loading dock. I have to breathe in that big rig smoke every day. I can see (smell!) why they want to regulate it on a stricter law! :)
 
I started to comlpain about the fumes one morning. there were five trucks warming up next to one another, and then I realised just how dumb I was about to sound, as I went to light up a cigarette. I feel bad for you guys on the docs. I am sure you have to huff more fumes a day than the drivers do. Or maybe I just got too used to it. But fear not, all new tractors are supposed to have new smog gear to reduce the emmisions by over 50%. I cant remember the exact number but it was rather high.
 
Nice ride, Jaeger! But next time even if it's a 318, tell everyone it's a 440 ;) .

I can personally speak for the newest generation of Freightliners - there is a very noticeable reduction in fumes from the older models. In fact the fumes don't even have the same nasty diesel smell, even though it's burning the same fuel. Whatever they did to the engines, it makes a big difference. Of course trucking companies being what they are, you know they're going to squeeze every mile they can out of a tractor before they replace it with a new truck.

That's all well and good, but what they NEED to do is convert every diesel engine to run on vegetable oil like the inventor originally intended. I hope to have my own veg-diesel pickup before the year is up (though my girlfriend would rather have a veg-diesel Mercedes). Nothing like burning FREE fuel that restaurants are happy to give away to avoid the disposal fees. Even better, the fumes smell like whatever the oil was used to cook. Get it from KFC and they will smell like chicken, get it from Mr Chau's and they will smell like Chinese food. Might not help with my diet though :) .
 
It sounds like a 440 with the headers and 2 and one half inch pipes =X
So does your partner want to use the pictures on his website? I have a few more on the el camino. Pictures that is. Who are you working for now? I was spoiled on my last job, I had an 06 freightliner classic 3 axel. I told my boss to give me some of what he was smoking due to my "rookie driver " status.
 
Absolutely......when the lazy bastard gets around to spiffing up www.sporkmaker.com. He always seems too busy with his day job designing more important websites. As I promised, I put a couple more stickers in the mail for you for the 'Cuda pics - thanks!. I'd put them on the Ebay listing myself, but those bastards nickel and dime you to death for every little thing you add.

Well at the moment, I'm driving......well...........a 26' bobtail :o . I know, I know, but it's easy as pie and the pay's not half bad. It's a welcome change from my last gig. I actually diverted from driving for a couple years to be a Deputy Coroner in the central valley. Talk about a miserable job - almost made me miss CWX. I don't know what I'll end up doing, with a Class-A and a California POST certificate, you'd think there would be something that fits me.
 
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