It’s a car commercial

I predict a certain demographic will take a special eyes glued to the screen interest in this video. (I mean, of course, car dorks)

Trunk Monkey

I would skip the 18 seconds intro

via Paco

The real life practical problems include care, feeding and cleaning up poo and this is why we need more research into mutant atomic-powered trunk monkeys.

Im astounded and befuckled!

I had seen this video before but hadn’t been interested enough to watch it. I finally did and it has exploded my preconceptions of an everyday annoyance/safety device.

Traffic lights, everyone knows they are a necessary evil right? But we all endure because it would be worse without them right…..?

Watch these 2 vids and have an almost LSD-like expansion of your consciousness…

Me, while watching this...

Ht: The UK Libertarian

* Befuckled is a specalist medical term used by the charming lady who trained me as a medic. It comes when a student is in a profound state of befucklement and has hit a dead end. Once you work the problem out you cease to be befuckled or in a state of befucklement and become unbefuckled. Befucklement is a natrual stage in the process of learning.

I apologise if the terminology is a little advanced…..

V2G: close but no cigar

OK, this isn’t exactly breaking news, but last night on Discovery HD World, after the main show, there was a little 10 minute clip on a mini program called e-nnovations (*groan*), or, apparently, Discovery Tech over in the US.

Anyway, the segment was about a new type of electric car that uses Vehicle-to-Grid or V2G technology. At first, perhaps, this sounds like a pretty neat concept. Charge your car off the grid in off-peak times then sell the electricity back to the grid during peak times.

But check out the nitty gritty, and it’s not such a sweet deal. And odd, too, that in 10 web pages I looked up (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10), all of them espouse the wonderful benefits, but none of them mentioned the cost.

Only the video did.

For starters, these V2G units cost about $70,000. So effectively, you will be paying four times more for your average car. Dr Willet Kempton, at the University of Delaware, who’s the bloke plugging this type of car, also acknowledges that if most of your electricity comes from coal (which it does), then the CO2 emissions end up being about the same as a regular car.

So far, we’re at four times the cost for pretty much no benefit.

Then he notes that if we use renewables like wind and solar energy, then, of course (?) the CO2 emissions will go down. But that means the cost will go up, not to mention that wind and solar baseload power is, at present, completely unreliable.

Maybe if we switched to nuclear power…

And how’s this? It seems to be that in the video, the doctor charges up his car at the university, then takes it home to power his house… and a few neighbours’ houses.

How convenient.

So overall, it seems like a neat idea on the surface, and may well work after quite a few more years of R&D, but at present it is at best a gimmick, and at worst a fraud.

PS They don’t exactly go for 500-odd kilometres, either.

*cross-posted at bing’s

Men are sometimes a touch odd

The other half alerted me to this touching story of the triumph of love over the brutal constraints of society….I wish she hadn’t. 

I have sex with my car! 

The man himself...

 

Like many men, Jordan Witham is obsessed with his car. But while most boy racers would draw the line at a wax and polish, his obsession has gone into overdrive.

The 20 year old is in love with his Volkswagen Beetle – and has been having sex with it for four years.

 

 

Jordan is one of just a handful of extreme car lovers in the world known as mechaphiles, and says his obsession was fuelled as a child. 

   

“I could feel myself falling in love while I worked on Ingo,” he says. “I once became so aroused, I started rubbing her bodywork and masturbating. It didn’t feel strange, just really exciting.

“After a few minutes, I felt a desire to connect with her further, so I had penetrative sex with the exhaust pipe.”
“I don’t always have sex with the car,” he explains. “Sometimes I stroke and kiss her bodywork, or rub myself up against her. If I’ve just been driving her, I have to wait for the exhaust pipe to cool down before I have sex. And I always use a condom because of all the dirt and dust inside.”

 

Pope Benedict disapproves or your tomfoolery!!

  

Now he has spent a further £200 on a “boy” car, a Trans Am he calls Todd, and is experimenting with a “gay” relationship.
 

Wrongness+wrongness is still wrong.

  

I have no words

  

I really, really wouldnt get this car alarm if  Mr Witham is in the area… 

Finally, a Hybrid Automobile I Wouldn’t Be Embarrassed to Drive

Read it and smile.

“Porsche lifted the sheet on the 918 Spyder on the eve of the Geneva Motor Show and made some huge claims. A few things got our attention right off the bat — 500 horsepower, mid-engine V-8 and two electric motors. Oh … and 78.4 mpg.

Lots more pretty pictures at the source.

I’ll continue to be scarce until sometime in April. Weird stuff; some good, some not.

Poison to the human soul subsidy

Here is a short article on Hugo Chavez’s socialist car to free Venezuelans from the “yoke of capitalism.”

The factory was opened with great fanfare by the president three years ago. It is a joint venture between Iran and Venezuela, which Mr Chávez predicts will turn his country into a car exporter. It is also intended to be an example of socialist production principles, although its workers see things a little differently.

In December they downed tools over the company’s refusal to negotiate a collective contract. Their wages, even at the grossly overvalued official exchange rate, are worth around $25 a day. They complained of poor safety conditions and exploitative work practices. Their supposedly socialist employer refuses to recognise trade unions and has ignored the labour ministry’s order to reinstate sacked union activists.

Venirauto’s cars are rehashes of clapped-out 1980s models from the imperialist West. The Turpial, a five-door hatchback, is based on the Ford Festiva, while the Centauro saloon is a clone of the Peugeot 405, though both are fitted with a conversion kit allowing them to run on natural gas. Their capitalist-busting claims are based on price: they undercut rival models by around 50%. If you can get one, that is.

The plant has a production capacity of 25,000 vehicles a year, but is struggling (even by official admission) to produce 10,000. There is no dealer network, and no credit facilities are offered—unless Mr Chávez personally orders a batch of cars for some favoured group of public employees.
…
When not praising the Turpial and the Centauro, Mr Chávez has been known to rail against the whole concept of car ownership. “The urge to get a car,” he told students on one occasion, “is poison to the human soul”. With that, he got into his limousine and rode off.

Send this through a carwash at BP?

Via teh interwebs. Actually, it’s an email doing the rounds claiming the car is painted with white gold. Probably to provoke some kind of reaction towards the middle east. It’s all over google.

More likely, though, it’s chrome. Not exactly a new concept.

Still, what a pic!

However, who else is sick and tired of those emails which come in all too often, and yet with a simple check on snopes.com or google are proven to be full of crap?

On the lighter side…

“I saw the two people kissing and thought ‘geez, in the back of a paddy wagon – they’re keen‘,” [Ms Walker] said.

They lived

From just before the two minute mark.

Another Democrat, Another Tax

Just fuck off, already.

Now some congressman from Oregon, Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of course, wants to track your car to find out where and when it goes. Why? So you can be taxed more.

H/T Insty

BMW Vision Efficient-Dynamics Concept Car

I don’t usually get excited about concept cars – I’m really more of a motorcycle guy and I drive a pickup truck – but this BMW is pretty freaking cool.

“BMW’s Vision EfficientDynamics concept has been the subject of rumor and innuendo for weeks, but now the German car company is setting the stage for its 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show display with new details of its concept…

As the name implies, this concept car grafts fashionable green technology on the body of a 2+2 sports car. The promise: BMW M-car performance from a vehicle with a three-cylinder diesel plug-in hybrid powertrain…

Performance is geared to please the toughest Bimmerphile. BMW claims a 155-mph top speed and a 0-60 mph time of less than 4.8 seconds, while providing fuel economy of almost 63 mpg, and for European enthusiasts, CO2 emissions of 99 grams per kilometer…

Driving range could pass 400 miles with fuel or 31 miles on electricity alone, BMW also adds…

The racing-inspired details continue with well-managed airflow–so tightly tuned, the EfficientDynamics concept generates a coefficient of drag of 0.22, while today’s best production cars sit at 0.24 (the Mercedes-Benz E-Class Coupe).”

Of course, nothing this radical or beautiful – in the mind of this particular beholder, I’ll admit – is practical for production, but the technical details, many of which I didn’t excerpt, are truly marvelous.

If only BMW made 4×4 pickup trucks, then my truck would match my motorcycle. LOL!

Where Motorcycles Kill Cars: Hyabusa versus Carrera

Even with the Porsche driver taking up both lanes of the road to keep the bike behind him – driving like a typical car dick, in other words – he hasn’t got a chance when the merest straight opens up. The Suzuki pilot drinks his milkshake.

I love to ride twisty roads like that. Just watching that video gives me Pavlovian reactions in my throttle wrist and shifting ankle.

When Fast Isn’t Good Enough: Nissan Encounters Warp Drive

I have a Dodge RAM 1500 Quad Cab 4×4 Sport pickup truck and a BMW R1100RS motorcycle, and I’m okay with that. Why don’t I have a car? Because I can afford the truck and the bike I want, but I’m nowhere near wealthy enough to afford any car I’d care to drive. Say, an automobile such as the Bugatti Veyron.

Here’s what happens when a fast car I could afford – the Nissan GT-R – meets a Bugatti Veyron in a matchup.

Well, calling it a “matchup” isn’t really fair, is it?

See, if I can’t afford a car that can do that, I’ll stick with trucks and motorcycles.

From AutoBlog.

UPDATE (bing)

The Veyron at top speed… 253 miles/h… 407km/h

It goes from 200km/h to 300km/h in 9.4 seconds.

The asked a Formula 1 team if they could use their wind tunnel. No can do. F1 cars don’t go fast enough.

UPDATE 2: For SezaGeoff, Angus Dei’s highly customized 1994 BMW R1100RS.

The Beef of God himself on his BMW K1200LT back in 2005 (Now sold).

I love motorcycles and have ridden over 100K miles on them in the past ten years.

Top Gear

An open letter…

Jeremy, please blow up an Equus.

What is an Equus? It’s the flagship car of Hyundai. And a new model just came out… after years of enduring the last.

But please don’t be rash.

Test it, test both, the old and the new.

Maybe you won’t want to blow them up.

But maybe you’ll need a ship to surface AEGIS missile on hand… just in case.

Regards,

James

No, not the Harry Potter Equus.

Car Fail

Saw this on the way home from work today.

Break a leg, guys

Via somewhere near Des Moines.

F1 Confirmed

They’re all in for twenty ten.

Background.

UPDATE

Oh yeah, and there’ll be a race in Korea next year!!!11

Obama the eco-warrior

No fuel cell, no fuel cell for you!

Hey, let’s let the Left keep loving Obama. Hehe, he’s just upped the Pentagon’s black budget! Ironic.

OK, so his stimulus package sucks, but in some respects he really is carrying on Bush’s work (hint: with Iraq won, the focus was always gonna shift to Afghanistan). Prez Change in many regards ain’t really so different. He’s getting away with what Bush could never have gotten away with, lulz. The Left are hypocrites a funny mob.

Pity about those poor school kids.

Showing Them Some Love

I love a good car, because a good car is better than any man (or woman). It’ll be loyal. It’ll be your friend. It’ll do whatever you want, and it’ll do whatever you need it to. It’s a beautiful thing.

So, in keeping it fair with how ruthless I was with some truly hideous cars, I will now show you some great cars and explain what I think is so great about them.

First up is the Lexus SC430. To be completely honest and in the interests of full disclosure, I own one of these beauties. It’s had a complete overhaul though, so is now absolutely incomparable with the original Lexus SC430.

This is what the original SC430 looks like. Mine isn’t majorly different in design, but everything under the bonnet is completely different. However, I will give a fair assessment of the original.

The original was much easier to handle, but mine runs much better and is more economical, despite being much more powerful. The SC430 runs smoothly, handles well, and is incredibly responsive. It’s easy to fall in the trap of just wanting to go for a drive just for the luxury of being in this beautiful car, and to want to reward it.

What’s the point?

Good stuff if you live in a country with cheap electricity (with electricity). The rest of you guys, sorry, but you’ll cause even more global warming so the Left of the West requires for you to live in abject poverty.

Toyota has unveiled a budget priced electric car that can be driven up to 80km without using a drop of petrol, reports Joshua Dowling in Detroit.

Just don’t drive further than that otherwise you’ll need a long extension cord.

The car could be sold in Australia from as little as $20,000 within three years, although this is not yet confirmed.

But who cares? Thanks to Kevin Rudd’s ridiculous Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS/CAPRS), Australia’s main source of cheap energy, coal, is set to become a whole lot more expensive. And we virtually don’t have any nuclear power plants, despite an abundance of uranium – almost a quarter of the entire world’s supply.

Add to that, the car looks horrid and with oil around US$40 a barrel, nowadays, you have a classic example of exactly what futility is.

Remember, this is on top of Rudd giving Toyota thirty five million dollars to help them with hybrid cars.

Just… why give Australian tax dollars to the world’s most successful (and Japanese) car company to help them build hybrids? Why then would that company then concentrate on electric cars (with the hope of them being sold in Australia) when Australia’s electricity, for no good reason, is going to become prohibitively expensive?

This is, at best, lunacy.

JFTR: Cars. And more cars.

They Don’t Deserve This

Sometimes, we all see something so incredibly cruel, so incredibly heart-wrenching that we feel that it’s our duty to step in and right wrongs. This is the case with these cars. I’ll even explain what’s so wrong with the cars.

Enzo Ferrari, named after the company's founder

Only 400 of these beautiful cars were ever produced. Ever. So hands up who thinks that some guy’s wife got this out of the divorce and broke his heart by painting that gorgeous car that disgusting, revolting colour?

McCain’s Perfect Choice for a Running Mate: Governor Sarah Palin

While most of the pedantic, two-dimensional, inside-the-box-thinking, conservative political hacks are touting Tom Ridge for the slot (Not a bad guy, but…), David Freddoso notes a far superior choice has been proposed: The Republican Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

I believe this is a truly inspired idea. Gov. Palin ran as an anti-corruption outsider, and handily defeated a corrupt and entrenched Republican political machine. Plus, at 44, she would almost totally wipe the “age issue” McCain has off the slate, and since Obama is only two years her senior, there is no way they could attack her for her youth and inexperience: She has much more executive experience than Senator Obama has.

Not to mention the fact that, she’s a gorgeous woman who exudes mass quantities of charisma…

and has a super-solid family life.

Dibs on the eldest daughter! LOL!

This inspired choice would allow McCain to actually capitalize on his “maverick” persona, as Gov. Palin shook Alaska politics to the core: She’s a charming, charismatic woman, but she can also play with the big boys and kick ass.

What say ye?

UPDATE: Things are looking optimistic!

UPDATE II: Welcome to all 4500 8000 40,000 in the past few hours (so far!) people visiting us from Google. We’re a fairly opinionated right-wing blog, and you might like to take a look at our “About” page. You might also be interested in our other coverage of Sarah Palin and whether she becomes a prospective Vice President of the United States. You can find this coverage here and here. Personally, I hope she does, but you can feel free to debate the idea in comments below. All first comments are moderated, but unless you either insult or use severe profanity (and I mean severe by my standards, which generally only means the C U Next Tuesday word or the implication that someone has had a rather enjoyable erotic experience with someone who has borne a child), however if you come up with a new one, I may simply delete your comment. I, and all other contributors to this blog are more than fair in what we permit.

UPDATE III: Nayr Drahcir, don’t bother even trying. You will not be published.

UPDATE IV: A lot of people must like Palin.

UPDATE V: More coverage of Governor Sarah Palin and a theme song here.

UPDATE VI: Funniest observation on the announcement yet: “Put Obama and Palin on a basketball court one on one. Winner takes all!”

UPDATE VII: [spot_the_dog] No, we do not have any pictures of “Sarah Palin + Naked,” nor do we have any of “Sarah Palin + Swimsuit.” In the past 24 hours, there have been 157 separate searches on this site for “Sarah Palin Swimsuit,” and 161 separate searches for “Sarah Palin Naked.” I repeat, we have no bathing suit, swim suit, bikini, or naked pictures of Sarah Palin. What kind of people do you think we are, anyway? 😉

UPDATE VIIa: [spot_the_dog] Ace has noticed a similar search phenomenon on his blog and has a theory…

UPDATE VIII: A well-rounded view of the selection of Sarah Palin for the Vice President Nomination can be found here.

UPDATE IX:  We got it!  YES!  Nude photo of Sarah Palin right here!  (C’mon.  You know you want to click.)

UPDATE X: Feel free to visit our main page and read the latest posts we’ve written.

Who woulda thunk it? Chrome the car!

Well, this isn’t exactly news but it was certainly news to me as I was surfing away checking out concept cars. Anyway, I stumbled upon this first pic. The blogger whose blog the pic is on reckons it’s probably inspired by the Cobra. And I tend to agree.

Bored with regular metallic paint? Then why not go chroming?

Thanks Monty, whoever you are and thanks to whoever Jalopink are (hot site but).

PS You’d be wanting those polarised sunnies, eh?

Unions sticking the boot into the Big Three

At a time when the Big Three US auto makers, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford are going hat in hand to ask the powers that be for a $25B bailout, surely not just their CEO’s private jet travel has to stop but much, much more importantly, this too.

“Unbelievably, at its assembly plant in Oklahoma City, GM is actually obliged by its UAW contract to pay 2,300 workers full salary and benefits for doing absolutely nothing. As The New York Times describes it, “Each day, workers report for duty at the plant and pass their time reading, watching television, playing dominoes or chatting. Since G.M. shut down production there last month, these workers have entered the Jobs Bank, industry’s best form of job insurance. It pays idled workers a full salary and benefits even when there is no work for them to do.”

By George Reisman.

H/T Rafe Champion.

UPDATE

Auto bailout cancelled (sorry ’bout the link).

UPDATE II

Moore on Larry King (live now at 9pm time, 9pm ET for US bloggers) about all this (pardon me while I go puke).

KING: Do you blame the UAW?

MOORE: No, not at all.

Thanks, Mike. Have a pie.

UPDATE III

About 23 minutes in and Mike says the government should own the Big Three and they should be forced to build hybrids and mass transit.

Socialist asshole.

UPDATE IV

MOORE: (about 25 mins) We are seeing the end of capitalism as we know it. And good riddance.

This guy is scum.

UPDATE V

Oops. I’ve been informed it just started in Australia, 9:30pm AEDST.

UPDATE VI

Oops II. I nearly forgot. Michael Moore, Larry King, FYYSFLT.