The Saloon dot net

Obama's Energy Honcho Wants to Saddle Americans (You and Me) With Higher Gasoline Prices Through Greater Taxation...Because High Fuel Prices Were So Much Fun Earlier This Year...

Roland, the Gunslinger — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:03:00 -0500

Despite growing scientific dissent to the anthropogenic global warming meme and, indeed, greater evidence to the contrary that AGW exists, Obama's Energy honcho wants to ramp those gasoline prices right back up to, ya know, force us American saps to buy more-efficient cars and to live in neighborhoods closer to work. Uh huh. So, those of us who farm and/or who live in rural areas are supposed to sell our homes and move into the cities or else...?

Echoes of Obama's pre-election threat to "bankrupt" companies who build new coal power plants...

WSJ's Neil King, Jr. and Stephen Power report

(Hat tip: Pedro!)

More>>>

As fuel prices plummet, Rhode Island sees it's chance to levy new tolls, taxes and higher fees

Roland, the Gunslinger — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:59:00 -0500

FTA: To fix its crumbling roads and bridges and rescue the state’s financially challenged public transit system, a draft report made public yesterday says the state should consider charging tolls at the state line on every interstate highway and creating a new tax for each mile a vehicle is driven.

More>>>

Romney: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

Roland, the Gunslinger — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:24:00 -0500

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

More>>>

A Sea of Unwanted Imports

Roland, the Gunslinger — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:21:00 -0500

Gleaming new Mercedes cars roll one by one out of a huge container ship here and onto a pier. Ordinarily the cars would be loaded on trucks within hours, destined for dealerships around the country. But these are not ordinary times.

For now, the port itself is the destination. Unwelcome by dealers and buyers, thousands of cars worth tens of millions of dollars are being warehoused on increasingly crowded port property.

More>>>

Reuters: UPDATE 1-U.S. automakers bailout outlook in doubt-senator

Roland, the Gunslinger — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:31:00 -0500

"Right now, I don't think there are the votes," Dodd of Connecticut told reporters about prospects in the Senate. "I want to be careful of bringing up a proposition that might fail," he said.

Although Dodd said "we ought to do something" and personally backed using money from the ongoing $700 billion financial services rescue program to help Detroit, he was skeptical that enough Republicans would support a bailout.

More>>>

The Upside to a Down Market: Cheaper Oil

Roland, the Gunslinger — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:55:00 -0400

Confirmed: Obama Is Campaigning on Xbox 360!

Riley Jones — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:03:00 -0400

Last week we noted unconfirmed sightings of an “Obama for President” billboard in the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise. Today we’re able to report that it is, in fact, an official advertisement placed by the senator’s campaign team.

“I can confirm that the Obama campaign has paid for in-game advertising in Burnout,” Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher, told me via email, noting that EA regularly allows ad placements in their online games. “Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates,” she continued. “Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.”

More>>>

The Cure for Boredom:

Riley Jones — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:47:00 -0400

This dude builds a go-cart using a 1340cc DOHC liquid-cooled engine. I'm not sure what that means except that the go-cart can go really fast.

Top 10 NASCAR Crashes That Changed Racing (With Videos)

Riley Jones — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:30:00 -0400

You need only look at the strict regulations and checkups heading down the home stretch of this year's Sprint Cup season to see that even an organization as fundamentally conservative as NASCAR has been forced to modify its safety standards. Racing tends to change only when it has to, but as much as major crashes may raise the drama (and, concurrently, the popularity) of NASCAR, they are, tragically, the main impetus for new safety systems and engineering practices. Here are 10 worst-case scenarios (including some closely related pairs of crashes) from NASCAR's history that made it the less-deadly institution it is today.

More>>>

The Dumbest Women On The Highway...

Riley Jones — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:41:00 -0400

Apparently, this chick never heard of a tow truck and actually thinks she is filming at semi speeding down the highway in reverse at 70mph.

Fake Street Signs...

Riley Jones — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:14:00 -0400

More>>>

Now THIS is a Motorhome

Riley Jones — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:55:00 -0400

Nice...

More>>>

How Not to jump over a bus

Riley Jones — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:00:00 -0400

Skateboarder Does 62 MPH on Open Highway

Riley Jones — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:13:00 -0400

Auto industry to press Congress for $50,000,000,000 in loans

Roland, the Gunslinger — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:32:00 -0400

Auto industry allies hope to secure up to $50 billion in federal t loans this month to modernize plants and help struggling car makers build more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Congress returns this coming week from its summer break, and the auto industry plans an aggressive lobbying campaign for the low-interest loans.

The situation is growing dire after months of tumbling sales, high gasoline prices and consumers' abandoning profitable trucks and sport utility vehicles.

Lawmakers authorized $25 billion in loans in last year's energy bill, and automakers now want lawmakers to expand the pool of money available to $50 billion over three years.

Source>>>

And granny just got out of the way

Riley Jones — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:25:00 -0400

-Squish-

Riley Jones — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:41:00 -0400

This video is a pretty good argument for why 'methed up' truckers shouldn't be allowed to text and drive.

Batty way to spend £150,000

Riley Jones — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:07:00 -0400

Entrepreneur Paul Garlick brought a touch of Gotham City to an East Yorkshire village this week when his £150,000 custom-built Batmobile made its first public appearance.

The 130mph car is one of just three working models and it stunned passers-by when it was road-tested in Holderness.

More>>>

The Wearable Motorcycle

Riley Jones — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:34:00 -0400

Jake Loniak is a college junior, he's also the inventor of one of the most innovative concept vehicles we've seen in ages. Inside: the electric exoskeleton motorcycle and an exclusive video of the beast in action

(Hat Tip to our man Steve)

More>>>

Police Cruiser Versus Deer (Gross)

Riley Jones — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:36:00 -0400

I think they spell "tiddy" wrong...

Riley Jones — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:16:00 -0400

(Thanks to our man Tim...)

Car Runs Red Light

Riley Jones — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:52:00 -0400

This is a classic video from years ago that I came across again today. This dude flies through an intersection and somehow avoids cross traffic by inches.

A road map to wardriving in these times

Roland, the Gunslinger — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:22:00 -0400

Memorize this: a5d1tmI#9DWSFX`/ksbo"RZ"l`SN`
ito%b)Bel*B_EiCZ)q-h/`VF"3Gb_CM#TT.

Got it?

You might want to try because that's the kind of password you'll need if you really want your wireless network to be secure. That's the word from Keith Maynard...Seric is one of the original wardrivers, hobbyists who deck out their cars with computers and sensitive antennas and go cruising the streets looking for wireless networks.

More>>>

Summer goes by even more quickly in the 2008 BMW M3 Convertible

Riley Jones — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:13:00 -0400

Slide Show>>>

Really Awkward Car Commercial Slogan

Riley Jones — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:33:00 -0400

How To Live Without Gas

Riley Jones — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:23:00 -0400

The Segway, that marvel of two-wheeled balance and electric mobility, may someday solve America's dependence on gas-powered engines. But first, it will have to solve the suburbs. That was the lesson of my short-lived experiment in gas-free living, an ill-fated attempt to explore the latest in electric tech as an alternative to $4-a-gallon gas.

More>>>

Slideshow>>>

A collection of funny, stupid, weird, thought provoking and silly street and road signs photographed around the world.

Riley Jones — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:26:00 -0400

More>>>

Forbes: : World's Cheapest Cars (Slideshow)

Riley Jones — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:10:00 -0400

Most of the world's cheapest rides are found in the developing or economically weaker of the countries in their respective regions, and tend to be current productions of older-model small cars, such as the Suzuki Alto from the 1980s. All pricing data was provided by JATO Dynamics, a U.K.-based research and analysis firm that tracks auto prices around the world.

More>>>

For Knight Rider 3.0, KITT Mustang Gets a Supercomputer Upgrade

Riley Jones — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:58:00 -0400

SAN DIEGO — The annual Comic-Con geekfest here is as good a place as any to set the high-tech record straight on NBC's new Knight Rider series. After all, fans of the original cult hit still needed to be sold on the concept after objecting to February's two-hour movie, which upgraded KITT from a Pontiac Trans Am to a Mustang Shelby but overlooked many of the notoriously gadget-loaded car's key features—most egregiously its trademark car-jumping device.

More>>>

Arctic May Hold 90 Billion Barrels of Oil, U.S. Says

Roland, the Gunslinger — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:19:00 -0400

The Arctic may hold 90 billion barrels of oil, more than all the known reserves of Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Mexico combined, and enough to supply U.S. demand for 12 years, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

More>>>