Chief Pontiac Dies a Second Death

I've never owned a Pontiac car. My brother had a 1969 Pontiac GTO, which he graciously let me drive a few times. Great car! During the many car searches I've experienced, I've answered a few ads for Pontiacs, and almost bought a couple of them, but never actually owned one.

A good friend, the Kosmik Kid suggested that this week's news deserved comment. Though I've had a mixed opinion of the line over the years, he's right.

The Pontiac brand began after the Pontiac Spring & Wagon Works Merged with Oakland Motor Company in 1908. General Motors acquired Oakland in 1909, and built Pontiacs as a companion line with Oakland. Pontiac became an economy six-cylinder which eventually outsold the Oakland. Oakland was eventually dropped.

Pontiac shared many parts with other GM lines (mostly Chevrolet), but mostly used its own running gear.

The Pontiacs I admire most include the post WWII years through the 1960's. Pontiacs had the distinctive trademarks that had reference to the American Indian. Model lines, the Chief the Cheiftain, Star Chief and the Firebird (I'll refrain from comment on the awful Aztek), were blended with Torpedo, Streamliner, Bonneville, Catalina, the Tempest and the GTO. After that, I lose track.

After the first demise of the Pontiac GTO, I (kind of deliberately) gave up on Pontiacs, except for the Firebird. The newer models of Pontiac mostly became re-trimmed Chevys and further became very generic in look and performance. A couple of recent exceptions are the new Grand Am and GTO, with GM's small-block V8.

The long, slow skid to oblivion began with GM's unforgivable caving to outrageous union demands, and its failure to resist unConstitutional edicts from the federal bureaucracy.

GM is on the brink of corporate death. As it stands, it would be better if it reorganized under bankruptcy but, in the effort to keep the union thugs and corporate top management intact, GM has decided to saddle the American taxpayer with its liabilities. The evil socialist who has assumed the office of Head of State, tail-waggingly following his predecessor, is aiding GM in this effort.

In the effort to appease Washington dictators, part of GM's plan to steal billions from Americans is to streamline its operations by dropping one of its marques: Pontiac.

Too bad. This is a small part of the reason why I eschew buying a new car. The car I drove prior to my current 1957 Chevy, was a 1975 Oldsmobile. Oldsmobiles were dropped from GM's list a few years ago.

Farewell, Chief. I'll miss you!

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,
Col. Hogan

More On Backseat Child Coffins

After an interesting exchange with my friend TF Stern about child restraints for cars, I realized that I may have been a mite flip in my response. While my opinion of these foul gadgets hasn't changed, there is far more to my answer than I have given thus far.

TF is a retired traffic officer who has far more experience than I with handling the aftermath of auto collisions. I'm sure he's seen many cases in which the lives of small children were saved by these contrivances, and I'll reluctantly concede the point.

Reluctantly, because my mind rebels at restricting a child's ability to see, do and learn. Yet, in a collision, a small child is nearly as vulnerable to physical trauma when restrained by a standard seat belt than he would be with no restraint at all.

Here's the problem. Years ago, someone came up with the idea of placing slots in a baby's bassinet in order to thread the seat belt through these slots, to hold it on the seat of the car during sudden maneuvers and panic braking. The baby was further strapped into the bassinet. Soon, the bassinet became a little seat for toddlers. Not too bad, so far.

Enter the federal government. The National Transportation Board (NTSB). What was a good idea became mandatory, and after a few tweakings to make the device even more difficult to operate quickly, it became frozen in time. There was no room left for further innovation, because.....the law's the law.

The fact that NTSB continues to try to require special booster/restraint seats for larger and older children tells me that safety isn't the only goal. Larger children are, in fact, equally safe in the car's standard seat belt/air bag systems as adults.

I submit that these unnecessary laws were adopted for no lesser a reason than to take even more choices away from the individual.

What might've happened had the NTSB not goose-stepped over individual prerogatives in this area? Perhaps further, and widely diverse solutions to these problems might be made available. perhaps the driver's and front seat passenger's seat belt release could also release the child restraints. In the 1993 action movie, Demolition man, cars automatically filled with a cushioning foam that protected the passengers.

But, in today's political climate, any innovation that threatens to disrupt the status quo is looked at with suspicion, if not outright banned. So children will continue to be drowned, or burned to death in car crashes because they cannot be easily extricated from their mandatory child confinement coffins, and the NTSB will continue to pressure for increased penalties for those who resist.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Protected to Death

Buried in a "news in brief" column in the OC Register today is a sad story about a car crash in which a car went off the road and skidded down a 60-ft bank into the Colorado River. The woman and her 11-year-old daughter escaped the car, but her 5-year-old daughter apparently sank with the car.

My knowledge of some of the laws foisted 'pon us by our omnipotent federal government reminds me that smaller children are required to be hogtied into an inescapable contrivance, far enough away from the driver that (s)he will be unable to reach the child in a panic situation. The restraints are secure enough that they are not easily undone, nor can the child save his(her)self.

I constantly wonder, watching parents deal with these child seats as they try to get them undone in supermarket parking lots or at nursery schools, why a parent would put up with this crap.

Now, I'm sure the National Transportation Authorities have cooked up hundreds of pages of statistics why making a mummy of your child in a coffin in the back seat of the car is a good idea, and that, as San Fran Nan might say, "500 million children's lives are saved each day" by these infernal devices. Some of that stuff can be found here.

Tell that to little Danica Maestas. Oh. You can't tell her. She's dead and her body has yet to be found.

Her body remains in the back seat of the car, rolling along in the Colorado River current to be found, probably sometime soon. Dead.

So, thank you, NTSB, for preempting yet another parent's prerogative regarding the safety of his (her) children--to the child's detriment. It's a one-size-fits-all world.

There were no child safety coffins around in my childhood. My parents avoided killing us in car wrecks by not having any. Following that line of thinking, I did the same thing. As I see it, all these safety devices (on the occasions when they don't kill the kids by drowning or by fire) actually do is give parents reason to believe that they can drive faster and more carelessly. Watch some of the suv's blasting down the freeways, careening from lane to lane, kids safely hogtied in the back seat, going 85 mph while talking on the cell phone, then tell me how well those little coffins work.

We don't know (the news story doesn't say) how fast little Danica's mother was driving, or whether she was talking on the phone, but I'll wager she would've tried to grab Danica's hand and pull her out of the car, had the little girl not been trussed up in that awful little death trap.

Aside: I wonder what was Ted Kennedy's excuse.....sorry. I couldn't resist.

Government is the root of all evil.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The End Of The American Automobile

Today, the idiots in the US House of Representatives voted to bail out America's three automaking corporations. It'll be seen as the beginning of the end of the industry.

They didn't simply throw huge sums of money at the firms. They're all but nationalizing the industry. Like they've done with the banking industry. Like they want to do with the medical industry and the insurance industry. There seems to be a bit of hesitancy in the Senate, so while I don't think Senators are any more honest nor intelligent than Congressmen, they might have a less intrusive version. Maybe.

Adolf Hitler, from his little corner of hell, is smiling.

No, they're going to appoint a "Car Tsar" to strut about the corporate offices of the three auto building firms issuing edicts and apportioning the hard-earned spoils stolen from productive Americans to the ceo's according to how well they lick his jackboots. It'll be appropriate to envision a pompous preening rooster strutting about the halls of General Motors in shiny leather leggings and a faux Ike jacket, complete with epaulets and rows of medals, pacing back and forth in the boardroom, slapping his leggings with a riding crop, smiling smugly as the board members bow and scrape.

Look for a failed ceo from an unrelated firm to play the part of Cuffy Meigs in this farce.

Look for more Yugos driving at forty-five mph on our freeways. Look for electric cars stalled in lanes, their batteries having depleted their charge unexpectedly, blocking the Slauson offramp.

One of the biggest problems with the auto industry (and many other industries) is that its run by executives who are not car builders.They are either lawyers (for making compromises with EPA thugs, etc) or marketers (who attempt to sell whatever crap the lawyers and EPA thugs throw together). Hence, the quality individual conveyances as were being built prior to this Mordorian alliance are either nonexistent in today's market, or too expensive for the average individual to afford.

The statist's desire is and has always been to get the individual out of his individual conveyance and into public transportation to more easily control his choices of destinations, and to keep track of his movements.

Think not otherwise: at some point, the government's plan is to have every individual insert his id card into a slot on every bus, plane, passenger train or taxi to record his comings and goings. Private cars, should they still manage to exist, will (many already do) have gps locators on board to keep track that way, and ignition cutoffs should one wander off in an unauthorized direction.

All in the name of Homeland Security.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards,

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Future of the American Automobile Industry

I stumbled onto this prognostication by Iowahawk as to the cars that'll go into production by model year 2012, after the government bailout, the enactment of the conditions therein contained, the mergers and the final nationalization and takeover by the federal government.

Fortunately, there's nothing dramatic or unexpected in this forecast: the auto industry has been headed in this direction for a couple of decades now.

We can only thank the environazis and the algorians for the more simplified lives, with the accompanying lessening of our ability to understand overly complicated and unfathomable technology, that make life so difficult for those of us who find ourselves lost in the maze of working, making plenty of money to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves comfortably for eighty or ninety interminable years.

The Pelosi. What a wonderful testimony to the individual whose planning promises to remove us from all that tedious complexity and stress.

Tip of the battered old fedora to Michelle Malkin for the link.

Trust your government; it was elected by the most mediocre among us.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag Calofirnia

I Guess I Can Fix Up the Old One

I drive an old 1957 Chevy. It's a hot rod, but it's reaching a need for some reconstructive work, and it can be made to get much better gas mileage with a few updates.

The plan was to buy a new car, put the ol' Chevy in the back yard and start wrenchin'. I'm not quite as enthusiastic about diving under the car as I used to be, but with the ability to take my time and do it right, it might be fun!

The Chevy needs transmission work, so my plan is to replace the three speed with a newer four speed overdrive transmission. The differential is wearing out, plus it has station wagon gears (similar to pickup gearing) and I can replace it with a newer one with sedan gearing. More gas mileage savings! New rear springs and new shocks.

I'll need to redo the windshield wipers and fix a few minor things in the dash. The power steering needs work. I could go on, but that's most of it.

So, I've been researching new and late model used cars that I can afford and that can carry my work tools. I'd settled on a Chevy HHR, with a second choice of a Dodge Magnum, if I can find a nice used one. Well, maybe the Dodge is my first choice. They're pretty cool.

Well, thanks to the whims of government parasites and the clutching hands of the non-productive of Stalag California, America's network of carmakers and dealerships will have to do without my money.

The non-productive of the Stalag have voted to saddle the productive with an additional 1/2% sales tax. Herr Schwarzengroper, Guber of the Stalag, seriously threatens to add yet another 1%, as well. That puts us on the high side of 10% sales tax on top of a 11% (more or less) state income tax.

The buck stops here. I can't quite angle my way to move out of the Stalag right now--though it's not for want of desire, but I can refuse to pay an extra $80 to to $240 for sales tax on it to pay for Sacramento's insane excesses.

I'd rather spend those thousands of dollars on the above-listed repairs to the ol' hot rod. I'll still have to pay sales tax on the parts--unless I buy them on the I-net, but labor and service work isn't subject to sales tax--yet.

I'll have the hot rod shop do the work--it'll cost more but get done much more quickly, and I'll still pay less than $100 a year for tags.

Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to be politicians!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Graying of the Freeways

You might think this entry is about the lack of maintenance given to the country's freeways since their construction between the 1950's and today. Well, 'tis true enough that, in their haste to hand out vast sums of money to those who don't feel like working, and to hand out even more money to artists who construct hideous, useless structures they call objets d'art in front of government buildings and in atria and foyers of these same buildings, and to hand out money for greater and grander offices within those buildings, the highways are getting the short shrift. Politicians need these grand offices to create the edicts that cause us to have to take three to five times as long as it should to get to our lousy metal desk-furnished soft cubicles. And to wreck our cars in the potholes that happen when it rains, that there's no money left over to fix. But that's not what this rant is about, at all.

Have you ever notices, while creeping slowly along these selfsame freeways, that most of the cars thereon are gray? Almost all of them.

In the mornings I usually commute in the dark, in relatively light traffic, at normal freeway speeds. In the afternoon, on the other hand, I drive in the afternoon light, at speeds that range from a slow creep to maybe 50mph, for part of the way, if I'm lucky. Plenty of time to observe the cars around me, to observe some of their incredibly bad driving habits and to occasionally check out the odd blonde talking illegally on her cell phone.

To observe the drivers of convertibles with the tops down but the side windows up (!?) and with those silly girlie screens behind their heads so they don't have to contend with the stray current of moving air that might cause a stir in their $400 coifs.

But, most of the cars are gray. Gray cars driven by gray people. Gray, for my current purpose, includes everything from the purest silver to, but not including, black. It also includes grayish brown, grayish beige and grayish blue--and remember, they don't call it olive drab because the color is electric.

I don't think, even though it hadn't occurred to me until relatively recently, that I've ever owned a gray car. The closest was my 1975 Olds convertible, which was a kind of off-white. It also almost always had its top and all of it's side windows down unless it was raining. It doesn't rain often in the southern third of the Stalag.

Oh, yeah, my 1937 Olds hotrod was sprayed with gray primer, but only in anticipation of a deep candy burgundy paint job it would've gotten had I not sold it.

Why would anyone buy a gray car? There sure are a lot of them. Perhaps it's a herd thing. Conformity. Fitting in. A sign of a conforming society.

Perhaps it's camouflage. Pavement is gray. Blending in with your surroundings.

I think that I shall never see/
A baby blue SUV/
A car the color of the sky/
Or the blue of a baby's eye.

When I decide to buy another car, I'm going to look for paisley.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Kroozin' the Boulevard--A Criminal Offense

Two stories appeared one after the other on KTTV Fox News At Ten this evening; laughable in the stupidity so ably illuminated.

The first story has been an ongoing lie on the part of local government: apparently our New York/Boston import Chief of Police, William Bratton still believes that gang murders and other gang activity isn't racially motivated. In the same story, LA County's Sheriff Lou Baca, who rarely utters any other comment that that his department needs a larger budget, disagrees He says that some part of gang criminal activity is racially motivated. Duh!

The underlying message of the Police of El Pueblo de Los Angeles is that they really don't want to seriously attack gang activity. El alcalde, Antonio Vinaigrette, after all, was once a gangster himself before he found it more fun to be a philanderer.

Instead, the city police, the county deputy sheriffs and the California Highway Patrol (all ordered to extract the maximum possible legal tender from every possible motorist, to help mitigate the deficit) have decided it would be far easier and more fun to make driving, as Chuck Berry says, "With No Particular Place To Go," illegal on Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards.

Over the years youths, including myself years ago (hell, who am I kidding--I still do it once in a while!), enjoyed kroozin' the various major boulevards in LA just to see and be seen, check out the chicks (who are checking out the guys), and to stop by Tubby's for a burger and fries. For an idea of what I mean, watch the movie "American Graffiti."

Van Nuys Blvd, Whittier Blvd, Bristol Blvd and many others have been favorite Kroozin' streets over the years, and all have been rendered illegal Kroozin' streets by cops with nothing better to do (while real criminals run rampant, virtually unchecked).

Now, it's the natural kroozin' circuit--up on Hollywood, back on Sunset. The bastards.

I'm wondering if there's an attorney who will sue the agencies for gas taxes and license fees for our having been deprived of the right to the pursuit of happiness.

Cops say it's because the Kroozers make a lot of noise and disturb neighborhoods. I'm pausing to clean up the Diet Coke I splattered all over my screen, laughing when I heard that! If you've ever been in the Hollywood/West Hollywood portions of those streets, there ain't no quiet. Ever. Well, maybe between three and five in the morning you'll hear not much but the drunks, snoring on the sidewalks.

There's no fine for that.

But there is a minimum $275 fine for Kroozin'. And, they've doubled it for the duration of the state, county and city deficits.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Open Letter to California Congressman Howard L. Berman, (D-Calif)

I don't suppose anyone will actually show this letter to the Congressman, the Baron of the lands that include what I chortlingly (post KELO) call my house, home and castle, in view of his Democrat (ie, leftist) mindset, so I'll circulate it in other places as well.

Everyone who's read entries to this site over the months and years knows that I love cars and I love to drive. In fact, I took a twenty-odd mile drive around the Central Valley this afternoon--kroozin' along Ventura, Van Nuys and Sepulveda Boulevards, looking at the other cars, the buildings, the businesses, the girls and the other scenery.

Losing the ability to do this will seriously piss me off.

Hence, the first of (perhaps) a number of these missives:

Dear Congressman Berman:

Today, most gas stations are selling regular gasoline for around $4.50 a gallon. Diesel, for reasons I can't fathom, is even more. News stories are beginning to come out that gasoline and diesel are being stolen from cars, trucks, farms and construction sites. Yet, the federal government refuses, in the light of all this, to see reason, to get out of the way and allow oil companies to drill in US territory.

There will be alternative energy someday. It'll happen faster if government stays out of it and allows entrepreneurs and investors to allocate funds intelligently. But, it'll take some time.

In the meantime, the United States government holds billions and billions of barrels of oil off the market....for what? So that Americans will have to return to a hunter-gatherer society?

What's next? Americans shooting those they see siphoning gas from their cars? People unwilling to go to work because gas is too expensive to make their drive to expensive to be worth the effort? General strikes?

I ask you to reconsider your opposition to a prosperous America and lead an effort to free oil producers to drill and refine oil for the use of Americans. Voters like myself are watching America deteriorate, and we don't like it.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

[Col. Hogan]
Sherman Oaks

We'll see whether he represents those of us who commute in cars, or whether he represents himself only.

People shouldn't be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

In Search of Clean Air

The first time I visited El Pueblo de Los Angeles was in 1961, which happened to be the same year I graduated High school. I had just finished boot camp in San Diego and came to LA to visit my grandparents, who had moved here several years earlier.

Gramp took me downtown one day, sightseeing. We also cruised through Hollywood and Beverly Hills. One of the most memorable things was the foulness of the air. It was a hot day, and it seemed like it was foggy. It wasn't fog. The smog was a palpable thing. It smelled, made my eyes water and caused occasional coughing jags.

Five years later, my new bride and I drove into LA on a rainy September day, to better our lives. A mere few days later, after the unseasonable rain cleared out and it became hot and sunny, the smog closed in once again.

I eventually got used to it, though from time to time it became too obvious to ignore. The sun was dull in the sky. From a window fourteen or so stories up, the ground couldn't be seen. Buildings looked like they grew out of fog. It wasn't fog. Once, I flew into LAX on a hot, sunny day. LA looked like a sea of fog with several dozen of its taller buildings sticking out.

Over the years since, the state has created many thousands of laws designed to fight smog. Most of them merely served to help impoverish the less well off in California, but some of them actually worked. The state faltered, stumbled and spent billions, most of it wasted, but in the past ten years the smog has been lessened to a degree that it isn't so much noticed anymore.

Oh, I won't say the air's clean. Not exactly. There's still noticeable smog, occasionally, in the east at the San Bernardino foothills, but nothing like it was.

One could say that we ought to stand pat. The free market (if it were allowed to work) would supply us with a cheap, clean replacement for the gasoline-powered engine, eventually.

The point of this little history lesson? Several years ago, in spite of the rational arguments of many, the evil and stupid California Air Resources Board (CARB), decided that raw gasoline, evaporating into the atmosphere, was a major cause of smog--the same smog that was even then a diminishing problem. After much experimentation, testing, bribery of CARB officials and state legislators, the state was divided into zones. One zone was the San Diego, LA, western San Bernardino and Riverside counties and the San Francisco area. The other, the rest of the state.

The urban areas were to use a very expensive fueling nozzle that picked up all the fuel vapors during pumping and stored them in the underground fuel tank. It was called a vapor recovery system. Fuel delivery trucks also had a complex, expensive dual-hose system that returned the vapors to the truck tank as the underground tank was filled.

All was again right with the world.

The rest of the state eventually was required to implement a fuel recovery system as well, but it remains far less ponderous and expensive than its urban counterpart.

CARB officials and state legislators were wearing Ace bandages on their wrists and elbows for months, from slapping each other on the back.

So, the war on smog is over, right? Not, as they say in Boulder City, Nevada, by a damsite.

As long as there is one molecule of a substance that can be called a pollutant, hovering over any part of the state of California, Sacramento will keep giving CARB tens (at least) of millions of dollars a year to chase it.

Meanwhile, they're ignoring the fact that their precious vapor recovery system doesn't work. It's worse than the old way--putting the bare hose nozzle into an open fuel tank and letting the vapors go where they will. Now, instead of a little vapor escaping into the air, the high-priced, overly-complex nozzles spit out the best part of a pint of liquid gasoline all over the rear of your car, and on the pavement underneath, where it's free to evaporate over the following few minutes. This, of course, is a pint of the four-dollar-a gallon gas that you pay for. They do this, just about invariably, when the stream clicks off as your tank fills. At times, the nozzle actually pops out of your car, falling 'pon the pavement and spilling even more liquid gasoline under the rear of your car.

CARB won't do anything about this, because to them, it's a done job. To them, no more gasoline vapor is escaping into the air. And so it goes.

You can't trust any air you can't see.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill!

Ok, so I'm a hot rodder. I like old cars; I like fast cars. I'm also a fan of NHRA drag racing and, to a lesser extent, other kinds of auto racing.

Fast cars need a lot of gas. America has, contrary to what the algorians will have you believe, plenty of oil available within the areas US oil companies can search. More than we'll ever need--because we will, in spite of all the wheel spinning with stupid and costly stuff like highlt subsidized ethanol from corn and those idiotic, unsightly and expensive windmills we see here and there (but not in the Kennedys' back yard).

We've had a number of "oil crises" over the past thirty or so years, each one seemingly more serious than those previous. These past five or six years, we've been in a continual oil crisis, largely because of the disingenuously-named "War on Terror." And our own politicians' propensity toward following suicidal policies.

Leftist environmentalism, or algorianism, is deliberately designed to destroy capitalism and individual freedom--not to mention the free world's industrial and technological capabilities. Algorians don't actually care a whit about the environment except as it serves their agenda.

Ten years ago roughly, the question of drilling for the oil under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) became a political football. It had been a question for a long while before, but oil from OPEC member nations became more problematical and a few sensible voices suggested that the federal government get out of the way of American petroleum production. Screams from the left were both shrill and without any rational arguments at all.

The arguments ranged from unprovable fears of destruction of animal habitat to the arguable notion that it would take ten years until any meaningful production would come from ANWR.

A very few brave advocates even suggested that exploring and drilling be authorized in offshore areas in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific. They were again shouted down by emotion-laden voices that claimed unavoidable environmental damage. Baloney.

Planet Earth is self-cleaning. Whatever happened to the millions of gallons of oil spilled from the ships of the world's navies and merchant fleets destroyed during WWII? Microcritters ate it. Same with the oft whined about Exxon Valdez spill. One might be able to find traces of that oil today, but he'd have to search. A few years along, even that won't be possible.

Well, ten years have passed. Had we begun working the ANWR oil pools ten years ago, we'd be able to tell the Mideast countries to pump their oil where the sun don't shine. The crisis would be over for decades to come, giving entrepreneurs time to develop personal nuclear generators for the home, the factory and for personal aircars.

But that's not what the algorians want. They want to see us looking under rocks for bugs to eat. They want us killing each other for food.

And I would happily give up my hot rod for my own aircar, if there were no worries about tree huggers bringing back another Dark Age.

We've seen the enemy and he is Algore.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Keeping the Kids In a Soundproof, Padded Cell

As I sit in my car at a red light, I often look at the car beside me. Most of the time, if it's a woman, she's on the phone.....but that's not my point right now. I want to focus 'pon the back seat, 'pon which there's often a padded, plastic contraption into which a poor young child is strapped in, more securely than a condemned murderer is strapped into the electric chair.

Sometimes, the poor child's end is fairly similar--burned to death cruelly strapped into a padded coffin which requires someone else to remove to safety.

Proponents of these plastic maidens cite stats that indicate that a child is much safer hog tied in the back seat in the event of a collision or a rollover. I imagine that that is probably true, as far as it goes. On the other hand, when mom and dad are in the front seat arguing, or simply chatting....or when the driver is talking on a phone or driving 85 mph while trying to unwrap a burrito, the youngster strapped into his little cocoon is no safer than were he sitting, untethered, on the hood of the car.

Today's crowded streets and freeways, swarming with cars driven by young men and women who have no notion of the connection between actions and consequences, old folks whose physical and mental abilities have begun to diminish, foreign-born folks who learned to drive (to the extent that they can) very recently, and middle-aged working folk less concerned with getting there than with what they'll do when they arrive. In this venue, driving is a full-time job, for those of us who want to avoid crumpled metal (crumpled plastic, if you drive a foreign-made car), requiring all of one's attention.

To take the foolishness a step farther, I've observed on many more occasions than I like, seeing parents removing the youngster from the car, if he's a baby or a toddler, in his little suicide seat into the store or restaurant, placed it the shopping cart or on the chair or seat as a unit, keeping him immobile and fully bound--often gagged with a mouth plug, through dinner, the shopping trip, or whatever. One has to wonder if, when they get home, they just throw the Kiddie Kocoon into the corner, toddler and all, until bedtime.

So maybe, just maybe, in a certain kind of automotive mishap, a child might survive that otherwise might be killed or seriously injured.

What about the kids whose parents don't do the stupid stuff that causes (or fails to avoid) collisions? Why should they have to suffer, bound and gagged in the rearmost sections of the vehicle, kept in stasis while surging through a scary world that he can't see from his confinement.
Not having young children any more, I can only wonder how they ever grow up sane from their sensory deprivation capsules in the back of their mother's unarmed Armada.

When I was growing up, there were four of us. One of us (my little brother) lay in Mom's lap in front. The other three of us sat in the back. If it was a long drive, usually we'd take turns lying up in the back package shelf, looking at the following cars or up at the stars and moon. Going somewhere in the car was fun, and something to which to look forward.

If it wasn't too cold, we'd open the windows and stick our heads out, like dogs, or shape our hands into lift surfaces out in the wind. We'd wave at the truck drivers and look for out-of-state plates.

We were never involved in a collision.

When my kids were little, it was the same, except we all had seat belts. The key, of course, was to not crash into things with your car. With a couple of minor (no injury) exceptions, I've always been very good at that. I keep my phone in my pocket, and rarely (almost never) answer it until I park the car. "Leave a message, I'll get back to you."

There is, no doubt, reams of evidence indicating that childhood obesity is exacerbated by long periods of enforced immobility in their isolation chambers in the back of the car.

Soon, someone will invent the Kid-ee-muffler to wrap around his face so we won't have to listen to him, either.

Just until we can ship him off to the children's prison.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Hot Rod Fever

The preliminaries, called "qualifying," of the NHRA Finals at Pomona, are going on as I write this. I'd rather be there than here, but where's the time, where's the money? Qualifying goes on for three days, and is both exciting and fun. The fourth day, Sunday, is Final Eliminations, in which the race winners in each of four classes are determined. It's all very noisy and very exciting. If you've never heard (and felt) the roar of a 8000+ horsepower engine covering a quarter-mile from a standing start in four-and-one-half seconds, you've missed an extreme assault 'pon your senses.

A story in the LA Times Sports section the other day reminded me of the long history drag racing has in Southern California. It started here, as did many things, in the wake of World War II, with surviving veterans looking for outlets for the excitement to which they'd become accustomed while slogging through the mud and sands of faraway places.

There were the bikers, and there were the hot rodders.

Hot rodders would work on their cars, making them lighter by taking off superfluous parts and faster by installing bigger engines, modifying them and by using different tire/wheel/brake/suspension combinations. Naturally, they'd race against each other to measure the success of their efforts.

At first, the races were on rarely used roads ans streets. After a number of collisions and pileups, when the local police started cracking down, enterprising individuals started setting up dedicated race tracks around the Los Angeles area, for use by area hot rodders for a reasonable fee. For years, these tracks thrived. Between 1950 and the early 1980's, there were as many as eleven drag strips in Southern California.

Now, they're all gone but one, and that's at Pomona. It's not available for today's young hot rodders to use on any weekend.

Some say they all closed because of the rise in land values in Southern California. Others cite high insurance costs, in an era when a signed release of liability by an adult means nothing in a court of law.

Meanwhile, thrill seeking young men (and now, young women) still want to race. With no drag strips available this side of Bakersfield, where do they race? The streets. At night. In the normally quiet suburbs.

Since Southern California has a far denser population than in the late 1940's, quiet roads and streets are increasingly harder to find. There are more racing collisions, some involving the public, and some involving death.

But for an unknown and unknowable government regulations, edicts and unneeded laws, insurance organizations would be willing to write policies for reasonable prices, and in the absence of draconian taxes, land would be more available at lower prices.

I don't know if an absence of government intervention would mean more drag strips or not. A favorite theory of mine is that cars would soon become obsolete in favor of personal aircraft. That process was begun (by some of those same post WWII thrill seekers) and quickly squelched by the evil Civil Aeronautics Board in the 1950's. It will still happen, once government is gotten out of the way. And then, it won't be any time at all before aero hot rodders will be racing 'em.

Feeling the need for speed.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Big Brother is Alive and Taking Notes

In order to gauge the willingness to comply with outrageous demands, presumed to come from the federal government, an evil corporation by the name of PIRE (Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation) has managed to convince Gilpin County (Colorado) Sheriff Bruce Hartman that there'd be federal money in it for his county if the Sheriff set up a few roadblocks in which PIRE would be allowed to voluntarily take blood, saliva and breath samples from the occupants of travelers.

The fit hit the shan (thanks, Larry) when drivers later reported that PIRE examiners, dressed in "official-looking" blue uniforms, became insistent that reluctant drivers comply and be sampled. Some were detained for as long as forty-five minutes while PIRE examiners repeatedly and sternly asked them to submit.

At no time were law enforcement officers brought into play, except to handle traffic control.

Sheriff Hartman, who had apologized for getting involved in this scam, has been interviewed by Charles Goyette, for broadcast on The Charles Goyette Show Monday, Sept 24th. Details here. There are some relevant links in the story and further details, as well. The interview will also be available on the Freedom's Phoenix website after the broadcast.

The only reason I can think of for doing "private" surveys this way is to accustom Americans to the idea of "papers, please?" road blocks at random locations and times around the country. The fascist-oriented officials in government (almost all of them) have an abiding frustration over not being able to keep closer tabs on the movement of Americans.

If there are any federal officials that can be linked to this atrocity, they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for violating their oath of office, and removed from office, fined and imprisoned. A public hanging would be even better, as an educational aid for others. I imagine, however, that these errant individuals have carefully covered their tracks.

PIRE should have its ass sued off by all travelers inconvenienced.

Americans have to start drawing a line against these trial balloons and forcing the federal government's fascist infiltrators out the door and into the graybar hotel.

People should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Every Auto Dealership Should Have One Good Mechanic

I've worked in gas stations a few times in my youth, back in the days when many gas stations had service bays and did some light mechanical work. I managed one of these gas stations for a couple of years. In addition to pumping gas, we also did light mechanical work, such as oil changes, belts and hoses, selling and repairing tires and replacing bulbs, wipers, etc.

Over the years, I've had occasion to buy two or three new cars (mostly, I buy older cars, because they're simpler, and I can do a lot of the necessary work myself, which I like to do), and thus have had a few opportunities to use the dealer's shop for warranty work.

I now own a 1957 Chevy. A couple of weeks ago, a leak developed in the lower radiator hose. I also had an ailing starter, which I'd been putting off fixing because of a lack of time to do so. The leaking hose had to be fixed right away, and I still didn't have time to do it.

I took the car over to Rydell Chevrolet, in Van Nuys. They loved the car; several of the service advisers told me tales of similar cars they or their parents owned many years ago. The next day, I got a call from the service adviser. A "technician" replaced the starter, but the "technician" who was to replace the radiator hose couldn't do it because the car has a non-stock engine and a custom-made radiator.

I told the adviser that all the "technician" has to do is take the old hose off and compare it by eyeball to the new hoses they have in stock. One of them will fit. Well, it seems that "service technicians" don't work that way. They requisition parts by means of their computer. The computer only shows the stock hose for the car.

Back at home, and backed against the wall, I took the old hose off myself. It took maybe twenty minutes (there are access issues). I took the hose to my neighborhood Kragen and explained the situation. The clerk immediately took me to the aisle in which dozens of radiator hoses were hanging from pegs. In less than five minutes of looking, I found a hose that would work.

Back home, I had to cut the hose to length and, because of the access difficulties, it took me about half an hour to install the hose and refill the radiator with coolant. Ready to go, and for a mere thirteen dollars. I'm sure that a good mechanic, with a far better set of tools than I, could've done the whole thing, including the starter, in less than an hour.

So, I guess I really did have time to do the work.

The current assembly line-style auto service technician schools might turn out good technicians, but it takes an ability to think on one's feet to make a good mechanic. Every auto shop should have one good mechanic.

Darwin got it backwards.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

So, You Want A New Car.....

In another entry, I mentioned the elder classman who was the son of the Chevrolet dealer from whom my dad bought all his cars back in the old days. Wes Rydell, the guy who always drove a new Chevy Impala Convertible when we were in high school, has inherited the dealership, and has increased it by tenfold. Not only does he still have his dad's dealership in Grand Forks, but there are several Rydell Chevrolet and GM dealerships in the San Fernando Valley.

Now, I've been toying with the notion of selling my Kroozer and buying a modern, up-to-date car with its warranty, its relatively maintenance-free driving and its high gas mileage. I've been observing the little Chevy HHR wagon for several months, and I kinda like its retro look. Today, I finally took a few minutes and stopped at Rydell's in Van Nuys to take a closer look.

They really are small, but they're like a pint-sized 1954 Chevy Suburban, so there's some room to carry stuff, and room for four--five in a pinch (if they're good friends).

They're front-wheel-drive, with a sideways-mounted four-banger; 2.4 liter (that's about 146 cubic inches in American). Teeny.

So, I opened the doors and looked inside. It looked teeny. I opened the hood. Teeny. I got inside and sat in the driver's seat. I never did close the door because, well, it seemed teeny. I'm not claustrophobic, but this car seemed like it'd make you so.

The gas pedal and brake were very small, but in the right place. There was no place for your left foot! The floor to the left of the brake wasn't flat, it was curved away from what must've been the front wheel housing.

Remember how we used to love that new-car smell? Well, this car doesn't smell like that. It smells like plastic. New plastic. The entire interior of the car is plastic--the headliner, the dash, the interior door panels and the entire rear cargo compartment. The seats are sort of like leather, but they're plastic. The sun visors are plastic.

The car reeks of plastic!

There are little labels everywhere. They tell how not to hog-tie the kids in the car. They explain how the air bags can kill you. They admonish you to wear seat belts.....and many other things.

My next thought was to tell the dealer that, if I buy the car, they have to remove all these stickers at no charge to me. I'd also like the air bags removed, but I don't think they'll do that. It just doesn't seem safe to have a big bag blow up in your face while you're trying to control the car after a crash. What if I'm smoking a pipe, at the time?

Sorry, Wes. I think I'll just hang on to the Kroozer. The safest way to survive a crash is to steer clear of it, and that'd be hard to do with a big bag in your face.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Driving around at $3.239 a Gallon

Last weekend, Debbie and I attended the 19th Annual Seal Beach Classic Car Show, putting the new (to me) '57 Bel Air on display for the first time. There were, according to the officials, about 450 cars entered. They were parked diagonally along Seal Beach's Main Street and three or four of the intersecting side streets, which were closed to allow pedestrians to walk freely among the cars and have access to the several shops and restaurants.

We had a great time, met a few fellow classic car folks and enjoyed a couple of bands, one of which was an old-timey instrumental surf band. We walked up and down the street several times, admiring the hotrods, stock classics, race cars and muscle cars.

We drove home by way of the scenic Pacific Coast Highway to round out a pleasant, sunny day.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENTS!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Yet Another in a Long List of Gas-Guzzlers

For the past couple of years, I've been driving Col. Hogan II, and occasionally, the Bomber. The Bomber always needed work and was costing me more money than was comfortable. Col. Hogan II has always needed cosmetic work, but always ran well and was both fun and comfortable.

Neither of them gets very good gas mileage.

About a month ago, I sold the Bomber. This week, Col. Hogan II goes up for sale. Why, you ask? Oh, you didn't ask. I'll tell you anyway.

I just bought a new guzzler. Since one of my favorite pastimes is driving--I even enjoy driving in heavy traffic, although I often mutter when I see someone reading while driving, or talking on a phone instead of driving, etc.

Debbie and I took the Amtrak up to Thousand Oaks Saturday morning and picked the car up, then drove it home. It was a thoroughly enjoyable drive. We also went for a drive up to LA yesterday--another very pleasurable outing.

I like this car pretty much the way it is, but there are a few things I plan to do to make it mine own--what car buff has no such plans?

Now, if they can just start drilling for all that cheap oil off the California coast......

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

A Rare, Very Expensive, Yet Legal Addiction

I was sixteen. I had a new 1960 Corvair coupe. My first new car! It was the first year of production for the new major American compacts, and I was the only teenager in town who had one. Cool!

An acquaintance of mine, a senior named Wes Rydell, always had a new Impala (his dad owned Rydell Chevrolet, the local dealer), but he was on the football team too, so we ran in different circles.

Back then, teenagers used cars mostly for two things: dating and racing. We did some street racing on the little used secondary roads outside of town. We did some hare-and-hound chasing in town at night: the rubes from the new SAC base were dating local girls and, see, we didn't like that. Three or four guys in the car, we'd shine headlights on a parked car (with an out-of-state plate) until he moved. We'd follow. He'd try to shake us. We'd chase him around for a while.

I wanted to legitimately race my new car and find out what I could do against a clock. Now, a 1960 Corvair wasn't exactly a race car. It was small and light; a pretty good handler, (Ralph Nader was a damned liar!) but underpowered. It could scoot down the twisties with the best (of the cars available to most teenagers), but was a very slow dog on the strip. I wanted to try it anyway.

The nearest drag strip was in Fargo. They had Run-What-You-Brung races once a month on Saturdays. As I recall, it cost about a buck to race. Drivers of stock cars didn't have to have helmets or roll bars; just seat belts. A couple of friends and I drove down to Fargo early one Saturday morning.

The car clocked 68 mph in 20 seconds in the standing quarter-mile. Not very impressive compared to the V-8 Chevies and Fords, but it was fun, and I got to drive a real race track!

I've been a casual NHRA drag race fan for all these years, though my interest increased after I moved to Sunny SoCal after my stint in the Navy. California hadn't yet sunk to Stalag status, and was truly a wonderful place to live and work, smog and traffic notwithstanding. I'd gladly trade California's War on Productivity for a little smog anytime!

After all, you can't trust any air you can't see.

Back to the point, I watched and followed drag racing for years, never having actually gone to a race. I'd read about it in magazines and see results in the newspaper, and occasionally see coverage on TV. In the late 1960's, top fuel dragsters finally were able to accelerate to over 200 mph in the quarter mile, and today, they routinely surpass 300mph. I can only imagine what it must be like to run a car from a standing start to over 300 in a quarter mile! In well under five seconds!

One year, fairly recently, I finally went to the Pomona Drags. The nitro fuel cars are outrageously loud, and with that comes the addiction: once you've inhaled the exhaust from a fuel dragster, you're hooked. I can't usually get up to Pomona every time there's a race, but I usually catch the coverage on TV.

The Pomona Spring Nationals were last weekend, and I missed 'em (drat!), but there's the Phoenix race next weekend! Now, if they could find a way to bottle that nitrous aroma......

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California