>> ^Yogi:

>> ^zombieater:
>> ^RadHazG:
It never fails to amaze me that self-righteous Prius drivers (as opposed to normal ones) never seem to realize it costs the environment MORE just to build their stupid car than it does to build and run the average "gas guzzler". But then the environmental side has its share of idiotic nutters who don't care about reality or facts, just like the climate change deniers have as well.

>> ^Yogi:
I used to drive a Prius. Depending on how old the Diesel truck is it might be better for the environment than a new prius. A new car takes a lot to put into it, there was a report done on the Prius in particular, it gets its batterys from a plant in Canada I believe and around that plant it's become a complete wasteland. Also it's components are shipped from other parts of the globe on boats which burn TONS of fuel as well.
You want something good for the environment, buy a used car from someplace where another person won't be buying a new car to replace it. Keep your car on the road and take care of it, that's the best you can do.

Well it seems that there are a few reporters who have done their research and who would disagree with those statements. This article focuses more on the battery farce and addresses Yogi's statement about the "wasteland" in Canada (also a peer reviewed article does the same).

Both those articles are about Hummer vs. Prius, not what I was talking about at all.


The first article talks about an old used car vs. a Prius. Wasn't that your point, that a used car is more environmentally friendly?

>> ^zombieater:

>> ^RadHazG:
It never fails to amaze me that self-righteous Prius drivers (as opposed to normal ones) never seem to realize it costs the environment MORE just to build their stupid car than it does to build and run the average "gas guzzler". But then the environmental side has its share of idiotic nutters who don't care about reality or facts, just like the climate change deniers have as well.

>> ^Yogi:
I used to drive a Prius. Depending on how old the Diesel truck is it might be better for the environment than a new prius. A new car takes a lot to put into it, there was a report done on the Prius in particular, it gets its batterys from a plant in Canada I believe and around that plant it's become a complete wasteland. Also it's components are shipped from other parts of the globe on boats which burn TONS of fuel as well.
You want something good for the environment, buy a used car from someplace where another person won't be buying a new car to replace it. Keep your car on the road and take care of it, that's the best you can do.

Well it seems that there are a few reporters who have done their research and who would disagree with those statements. This article focuses more on the battery farce and addresses Yogi's statement about the "wasteland" in Canada (also a peer reviewed article does the same).


Both those articles are about Hummer vs. Prius, not what I was talking about at all.

>> ^RadHazG:

It never fails to amaze me that self-righteous Prius drivers (as opposed to normal ones) never seem to realize it costs the environment MORE just to build their stupid car than it does to build and run the average "gas guzzler". But then the environmental side has its share of idiotic nutters who don't care about reality or facts, just like the climate change deniers have as well.


>> ^Yogi:

I used to drive a Prius. Depending on how old the Diesel truck is it might be better for the environment than a new prius. A new car takes a lot to put into it, there was a report done on the Prius in particular, it gets its batterys from a plant in Canada I believe and around that plant it's become a complete wasteland. Also it's components are shipped from other parts of the globe on boats which burn TONS of fuel as well.
You want something good for the environment, buy a used car from someplace where another person won't be buying a new car to replace it. Keep your car on the road and take care of it, that's the best you can do.


Well it seems that there are a few reporters who have done their research and who would disagree with those statements. This article focuses more on the battery farce and addresses Yogi's statement about the "wasteland" in Canada (also a peer reviewed article does the same).

I used to drive a Prius. Depending on how old the Diesel truck is it might be better for the environment than a new prius. A new car takes a lot to put into it, there was a report done on the Prius in particular, it gets its batterys from a plant in Canada I believe and around that plant it's become a complete wasteland. Also it's components are shipped from other parts of the globe on boats which burn TONS of fuel as well.

You want something good for the environment, buy a used car from someplace where another person won't be buying a new car to replace it. Keep your car on the road and take care of it, that's the best you can do.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

Hardly effective with Jeeps. Jeeps are probably the easiest kinds of cars to work on in the world. You can literally order any part you want for a jeep (engine included) and have it in your hands within a few business days.


True nuff, but when you destroy lots of the functional used cars, some parts become harder to find. The unintended effect for me has been to increase the cost of using my old car, whilst still being unable to buy a new car, go go government meddling

>> ^Raveni:

>> ^nock:
lol. Face -> horn -> face -> horn -> face.

That's actually the horn going off automatically when the airbags deploy.


There was no front-end impact. My airbag deployed a few months ago from the airbag control unit getting wet and shorting a circuit. The horn did not sound.

That was the last sign I needed to go buy a new car though...

I agree with everything you just wrote.

The only thing that I would point out is the media is biased as Jon Stewart put it to be lazy, and to generate conflict, but it will spin what is going on in society either conservative or liberal to get out of real reporting, and to be sensational. Anything they can do to get people to consume said media is fair game. That laziness falls on both sides of the political spectrum media wide. And it doesn't help when society tunes out when the story isn't something that elicits an emotional response, or doesn't have a simple lesson or solution. Nuance and complexity is something most Americans abhor.

Case in point, when is the last time you saw something on the news that showed how many IT jobs are given to people with work visas, and compare that to how many people are graduating college with computer science degrees to illustrate that portion of outsourcing? I don't think I've ever seen that presented in the news. That point is very hard to pin as conservative or liberal because solutions to remedy it could come from both parties. And there's no easily identified villian, either. So instead, let's paint the big bad evil corporations for outsourcing in general because that's easy to report on, throw some basic generalized stats up about number of jobs outsourced, show corporate profits increasing, and do people love to consume that kind of story. I see that left and right in IT. I know friends who see it left and right in other sections of the economy like bioengineering, etc. But it never gets reported on. These are the jobs and sectors that will be growing in the modern economy, and we as a nation are doing a poor job preparing the next generations to succeed in them, no question about it.

Or conversely, if you love you some Fox News, let's focus on the fact that there's this agency called Planned Parenthood, that is in part funded by federal tax dollars, and it performs abortions! OMG! This must be this huge problem! Only, if you're a sane individual, you'd normally then want to know how much of this is going on, and you quickly realize the number of abortions that are performed in these facilities is under 100 annually nationwide, and it's dubious at best if federal dollars actually paid for any of those procedures. But finding those statistics is either purposefully omitted to sensationalize and stir up conflict, or done so out of sheer laziness. But conservative Americans eat that stuff up, because it's easy for them to follow, clearly identifiable villians, and fits their ideological narrative of the US crumbling from disregarding "traditional values". The facts of course clearly show this isn't a significant problem.

Back to the housing crisis, etc, the truth is there's blame to go around with the banks, government, and consumers. I also have a friend who took on a mortgage he shouldn't have. Got an 80/20, he's a single income earner, wife is in the process of getting a degree in nursing, they have two kids. In 2006, they got this big massive house in a brand new neighborhood. It's the American dream. Now, it's not like this guy is dumb. He took out $400,000 mortgages (80/20), very high interest, etc. on a single income, knowing full well his wife was going to school, and he didn't have an emergency fund to speak of.

I don't care what he was told by the lenders and real estate agent - he had no one to blame but himself in the end. He had a perfectly good house in a good neighborhood already. He just bought a new car as well. He had credit card debt. He wasn't putting much money away for retirement either. There's nothing anyone can say but "it's your fault" when the economy tanked in 2008, we both worked for the same company, and they cut our salaries to avoid layoffs. I'd have been sympathetic if he were doing the basics right, had a good emergency fund, could put a good 20% down for the mortgage, had no credit card debt, etc., then got caught later despite his best efforts, or lacked the mental capability to know he was walking into a potential economic deathtrap. But he wasn't putting forth anywhere close to a best effort financially speaking. When the same thing happened to me, I cut back on paying my mortgage off early, and sat on a six months emergency fund if the layoff ever came, and increased my retirement contributions when the market tanked to jumpstart it when the market would inevitably rebounded. There was never a sleepless night.

He's in better shape now, we got our salaries put back, and what did he do? Took that several year "postponed" trip to Disneyworld with the wife and kids, put off contributing to the reinstituted 401k, never has started an IRA for him or his wife, no college fund for the kids, only has one month emergency fund, although he has reduced his credit card balances.

I wouldn't pretend to know which is worse in the US - predatory lending and other abuses by businesses against consumers, or a complete lack of personal responsibility. But I know this - there's plenty of both, but you certainly don't hear it's both from pretty much any media outlet.

@heropsycho
i appreciate your response but i think i may not have been clear.
the points you are making...and understand i am not attempting to invalidate them, but rather attempting to point out that anecdotal evidence or a media fueled narrative meant to illicit an emotional response does not an argument make.
the actual statistics paint an entirely different picture and that is what i am referring to.in the 80's the narrative was "welfare queens" where they would take a handful of people who abused the system and painted them as being the "norm" when the reality was the exact opposite.
or that the people who bought homes during the housing bubble were somehow mentally deficient while IGNORING the predatory and out-right deceitful practices of mortgage brokers who lied to these people.
the latest narrative has been directed at unions,specifically the teachers union.now we can discuss corruption and abuse of power concerning unions but that is a wholly different subject, because historically unions have dome more for the american worker and middle class than anything else combined.

all these tactics are taken directly from the propaganda playbook:conflate,deflect and demonize.
all to get YOU to view your fellow citizen with a questioning eye and to judge based on the parameters dictated to you based almost solely on disinformation and emotive language.i am just trying to point that out.

here is my anecdotal story for the day:
i have a dear friend,very conservative and religious and gets her news solely from FOX.
her favorite statement is :"we were taught if things get tough you pull yourself up by your boot-straps and get it done"
sounds noble yes?
but the reality is her and her husband were given 25 grand when they got married to buy a house(that BOUGHT the house in those days).she worked only 10 years until she had her first child and then stayed at home (because she could).
every 4 yrs her family would buy a new car for her husband to get to work who happened to work for GM and she collects a pretty penny from his retirement and still qualified for medicaid.

am i upset she was blessed with these things? of course not, but i do find it delicious irony that this woman rages against:unions,social programs and people getting help when they need it, when her own family benefited from the very things she is raging against.

I hope he got a new car out of the deal, better than the one he lost.

http://www.king5.com/news/investigators/Chase-changes-procedures-after-mistake-lands-customer-in-jail-125381223.html

'Njoku’s Seattle attorney, Felix Luna, would not elaborate on the terms of the settlement. However, before the settlement was reached, he told the KING 5 Investigators that Njoku was seeking an apology, financial compensation and changes in bank procedures.

“Ikenna is very happy with the resolution,” said Luna.'

What an awesome teacher, what awesome life lessons, not shying away from the important things about life, death, friends, bullying, appropriate punishment.

Just wonderful. You can but hope for a teacher like this for your children. You can do all you can to make it so, choose the best school possible, try to get them into the classes with the best teachers. But in the end there's so, so, so few teachers like this.

I had a pretty awesome grade 6 teacher that had a letter writing thing where we posted letters to him in a classroom mailbox and he responded to them all. To this day I remember his response to one of mine where me, as an 11 year old, was saying how angry I was that our new car was being delayed in delivery for a few days. Utterly ridiculous outrage for such a small thing. He put it all in perspective, and being that I'm pretty darn good at putting things in perspective now, and that I still remember that letter, I think that it had a huge effect on me.

Just little things like that, things that are fleeting, can make such a huge impact on who you are as a person, how you face the world for the rest of your life.

These kids are becoming so much more compassionate people from this, it is enough to choke you up, really is.

Jesus christ, way to scare him more lol.

I've never lived in any fear of cops so just be yourself if you encounter one. It's never brought me any problems.

All these videos are like the tech support forum for a product.. you're going to see a lot of bad, but you have to keep in mind it's all the bad pertaining to the subject.

Any cop I've ever dealt with has been pretty cool. One after getting my new car (new model) and massively speeding in the middle of the night was asking me all kinds of questions about my car, then wrote the ticket for way under what I was actually doing. Two have just let me go when there should have been a ticket (in one case) and a bit more in anohter >.>

The rest, yeah.. just be cool with them, and they'll generaly be cool back.

You'll only get something like these videos if your odds suck and you get a bad cop (odds go up depending on how south, and far from the east or west coast you get), are protesting something.. or, GOD FORBID, dancing at a memorial.

I'm only 30 but certain aspects of tech are already beginning to shoot by me. I'm not on Facebook and I don't have an Iphone or a Blackberry or a phone with Android. I don't have a brand new car with voice automated GPS. But it's only just begun. Like Ant said, by the time I'm 40 - I don't even know.

To stimulate the economy by new car sales, and to reduce emissions by killing old fuel inefficient engines. That was the story anyway.

*history *shortfilms

FYI:
Music:
1. Nemo Egg by Thomas Newman (For quote in beginning)
2. Overture by Michael Kamen
3. Kaneda's Death, Pt. 2 (Adagio in D Minor) by John Murphy
4. Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros

Pixar Feature Films Used (In order of release)
Toy Story (1995)
A Bug's Life (1998)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Monster's Inc. (2001)
Finding Nemo (2003)
The Incredibles (2004)
Cars (2006)
Ratatouille (2007)
WALL-E (2008)
Up (2009)
Toy Story 3 (2010)
Cars 2 (2011)

Short Films: Adventures of Andre and Wally B., Luxo Jr., Red's Dream, Tin Toy, Knick Knack, Geri's Game, For the Birds, Mike's New Car, Boundin', Jack-Jack Attack, Lifted, Presto, BURN-E, Partly Cloudy, Day & Night, Hawaiian Vacation."

I thought this movie was pretty good, except for the "american guy" in the bar, he was annoying.

Another good movie by this director: "Old Men In New Cars"

Edit: After a little looking, I see that "Old Men in New Cars" is actually "In China They Eat Dogs II", interesting...