bman

With the upcoming primaries, elections and other various assorted money-wasting, carbon footprinting, and human excrement-slinging blow hard politicians all gathered in mostly one place we need to discuss perhaps this decade's greatest threat to mankind.

Its not border security, Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan, not religion, not Roe vs. Wade, not democrat or republican, not even our French speaking friends in Montreal....

ELDERLY DRIVERS

Now I have yet another friend whom has either lost limb or life in a motor vehicle at the hands of some wrinkled prune who cant see 10 feet in front of their face or the bluehairs whom can see fine but get mentally confused about how to get up out of bed in the morning.

GET THESE BASTARDS OFF THE ROAD. I would personally vote for the next Gubernatorial candidate here whom MANDATES driver testing and real-road-driving test accepted standards for any person over 55 yrs old. Yes it will cost more money, tax me, I'll gladly pay it. Yes it will be an administrative nightmare to oversee, what could be worse than our welfare system already?

I am in serious doubt of the NTSA's finding on the number of accidents of our young, middle aged and elderly. I'm all about real-world facts, figures and findings. Every accident I see along the side most ALWAYS has some wrinkled up prune whom is obviously lost standing amongst the other victims waiting on a cop to take the report.

To any bluehairs reading this:
*Please drive within 5mph of the speed limit.

*Please do not drive at night if you have trouble seeing in the daytime.

*Push the turn signal lever down for left, push it up for right.

*Please do not drive between the hours of 7:30-9:00am and 4:00-7:00pm.

*Please stay home on the weekends. Leave the roads to us whom work during the week that are trying to get all our errands done unencumbered. Drive during the hours of 9:30am and 3:30pm Monday-Friday only.

*Please do not take your Chihuaua, Pekingnese or other small animal on your lap while driving.

*Please do not use the left lane unless you're ready to turn left, not right.

*Please consider hiring someone to do your running for you, its cheaper - especially when you consider my rates won't go up when you wreck, not to mention all the people who you're going to put in the hospital.

*Please consider giving up your drivers license if you have trouble remembering your children's names.

*Please consider giving up your drivers license if you own more than 5 cats.

Get better Gary Mount, We're all praying for you.

D.
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Ok so it's time for ole bman to buy a new truck. I've been doing some research over the past few months and decided to buy a new Ford F-250 Diesel. Why? Well, I haul a ton of things around including trailers AND this new 2008 diesel has the 3 diesel exhaust scrubbers! Yes, you can start it up and go around to the tailpipe and there is absolutely no smell whatsoever - much less than a passenger car from what Im told and what I researched. Ford says that this new exhaust system is cleaner than any other passenger car gasoline engine on the market and the EPA mandated a fuel change for all diesel last year. New diesel cannot contain more than 15ppm of sulfur for anything refined after 2007 - regular gasoline has sulphur equivalent of 550ppm. Wow.. my new truck is really green - Ok so this is cool! I can have the truck I need and help keep the planet greener by having the latest greatest state of the art in exhaust emissions reduction PLUS I can run biodiesel which is made from either used fryer waste oil or corn.

So I'm ready for my 2nd tank of fuel and I head on over the local biodiesel supplier. Hey this biodiesel is only $2.79/gallon! Wow, regular cruddy ole petroleum based diesel is now $3.25/gallon. Im gonna save a ton of money. Just as I start to put some in the tank the attendant stops me and says:

You'll ruin that state of the art EPA regulated exhaust emission system by running this very very clean and green biodiesel."

"What? What do you mean? I'm doing my part by buying this super clean fuel.." I said to him.

He told me to look again and read my owners manual on the engine. So I did. Apparently the oils contained in the new biodiesel are not able to be collected and broken down by my state of the art exhaust system. Ford says that I can use no more than a 5% mix of biodiesel and regular petroleum based diesel. According to Ford, The EPA specs mandated for all trucks as of 2008, very very specific things to scrub petroleum based fuels but will clog with the use of any other fuel - including biodiesel mixtures over 5%.

Any bets that the petroleum refiners had any lobbying interest in this law?

So in short, the EPA has caused all diesel truck owners as of 2008 to be forced to only run mixtures of 5% biodiesel in their vehicles. IF memory serves me right the president, congress and a variety of other 'green' speakers including Al Gore all advised us all to run as much biodiesel and biofuels as possible to reduce our dependence upon petroleum based oils.

Well, now everyone will just remove all the exhaust scrubbers and head over to the biodiesel depot and fill up. They're not paying $3.25/gallon for fuel. Besides, biodiesel without the scrubbers is still cleaner than the petroleum based fuels with the scrubbers.... until the demand for biodiesel goes up forcing the price to be over the price of the petroleum based fuels in which case I'll go back to those.. but wait.. it wont be clean anymore.. oh well, who cares.

So I guess the system is once again fighting itself.. go figure.