The End of The Classic Car?

 Totally different vibe today. 

I recently got my 1997 Z3 2.8 5sp back from the mechanic for major suspension work and some cosmetic work.  As you can see from the year, this car will soon be 30 years old.  Same engine, Same head gasket! same tranny. 1 clutch and over 200k miles. A couple of water pumps, injectors and catalytic converters. Fuel pump, Idle control valves, PCV system. It's been maintained but clearly not the car I purchased back in 2006.

I also have a 2018 530e that I replaced a 2004 645ci 6 speed (sniff...wiping tears). It's not a bad car but it's not a manual 6 series. It certainly makes my Z3 seem downright primitive. I bought it cause I had to replace the 6 due to reliability issues (just under 300k miles) and changed life circumstances.  Driving in to work I realized there was practically no way I could own this vehicle as long as I had owned the Z3. 

As a matter of fact, I thought that by the time this electric 5 series gets to the age of my Z3 it will be in parts. Over the weekend I watched a video of an old EV that Rich Rebuilds bought. The car supposedly would go 60 miles on a charge when new. It ran out of juice at around mile 10 or so.

When they got it into the shop and scanned the computer the battery had all of 30% usable charge. Essentially about as much range as my 530e (~16  miles in warm weather, 9 in sub freezing). They were considering purchasing a replacement battery. One that would give them 120 miles was a 5 figure purchase. 

5 figures.

I could put a replacement engine in my Z3 for 4 figures with labour. And go further than that. This brings me to the point of this post. Are we moving in the direction of cars becoming disposable products like cell phones?

A lot of EVs are totalled out because the battery is toast. The rest of the car is fine but the battery costs are ridiculously high. Yes, a replacement engine on a modern car is going to cost a lot of money too but that's not nearly as bad a deal. Besides, ICE cars do not "lose range" with the potential of leaving the driver stuck in the middle of nowhere due to a battery deciding to give up the ghost due to a bad cell.

What's a 2012 Tesla going to go for and work 30 years from now? Will there even be any on the market? Will there be a market for after market batteries? I know there are replacement batteries for the BMW i3 being sold in China. But as far as I know, this market is non-existent in the US.

Say my 530e battery decides to die. It's 4 figures to replace. The residual value of the car may be such that the battery is worth half the vehicle value. As  said on that video I referenced, "you could buy a...." Becomes a real convo that really doesn't exist for ICE vehicles in the same way. My Z3 is valuable to me because it is a manual transmission with roof that disappears. I don't hold my 530e in the same esteem. It is, indeed, a means of transportation and that is all.  I've never owned a vehicle that I was so detached from.

Would I even WANT my 530e in 30 years? Well actually, I'll probably either not be on earth then or not be able to drive so it probably wont matter. But think of all the old cars that people used to lust after and put money aside (or at risk) to obtain when they had the chance (a '87 635CSI manual in my case)? Who's going to be like, yeah I ALWAYS wanted a Tesla Model X when they are 15-20 years old?

Most likely it's going to be like laptops and phones. Latest and greatest, a few that are older, and a whole lot of obsolete models that have no appeal whatsoever, not even the joy of "rowing your own".

Or perhaps fodder for Rich Rebuilds  and Hoovie to monetize.

NYC: Your Money Is Our Money

 Mamdani announced that in order to deal with the NYC budget property taxes would have to increase 10%.

Lol

He said it was Hochul's fault because she declined to raise taxes on "the wealthy". 

I certainly wish that I could just demand my employer give me a 10% raise so that I don't have to trim my budget.

But it goes to show that for these neo-socialists, your money belongs to them. Your property belongs to them. 

You would think that if the NYC government has so much debt that they would zero out the entire city budget and start from scratch. Start with absolute essential services: Police, Transit, Sanitation. Then any city owned and operated hospitals. Then perhaps DOT.

After that, what's left is apportioned by impact on operating the city. That means a whole lot of pet projects that have been bloating the government get axed. Of course there would be a lot of complaining by those who leach off the taxpayers but so be it. If what they do is so important then the public will freely pay out of pocket for whatever they do.

They'll eventually figure out they can't tax their way out of the systemic problem. The only question is how much damage will be done before they realize it.

Oh and, a large portion of that shortfall? Blowing money on illegal aliens.  Didn't have to happen but you know, Orange man bad.

Jesse Jackson Passes

 I was doing work when I happened to see that Jesse Jackson had passed away. I wasn't sure if it was real news, you never know these days, so I waited a bit and saw a number of confirming reports so I believe this to be true.

I cannot say I was a fan of Jackson towards the tail ent of his activities in the Rainbow Push coalition days. I can say that my intro to Jackson was his bid for US President. It was actually quite impressive to me at the time and he ran what I considered to be a good campaign even though we, as in black folk, knew that it was unlikely he would win.

I think he knew that as well but the issues we was bringing to the race was important enough. That Jesse Jackson would be wholly dismissed by the current Democratic establishment, as would a first term Obama would be if he ran today.

I do remember him in the iconic photo from the Lorraine Hotel when MLK was shot. Big hair and all.  Indeed Jackson went silent as we all must eventually. I would be remiss to not comment. A generation is leaving this earthly plane and not a few are going to go soon as well. Sounds morbid but when you get to my age, you see mortality for what it is.

He will have a place in US history not "Just" black history which is something to aspire to. No doubt eventually his likeness and words will be used to advocate for things he didn't agree with. I would hope his progeny protect him from that. 

I do recall the times he told some rank truths that put him "on the outs" such as the Jewishness of NYC. The fact of who he worries about when walking down a dark street. His comments about how Obama spoke "down to" black people, though Democrats make a habit of that across the board.

I've always had my issues with the CRM and organizations that made it up. Hence why I can't make efflusive praise that are certain to come from certain corners. I can say that I respect the man to the extent that he tried to make life better for black folk not many are so disposed. For that he has my respect.

Garvey's Ghost TV 1-28-2026: And Just Like That...

The US left discovers a love of the second amendment. 

 

Rumble:

 

Bitchute

They Know Where The Money Comes From

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was on Dave Rubin's podcast discussing the Somali fraud and she said something that I believe to be incorrect and perhaps reveals a blind side of of opponents to the Somali fraud in particular and the organized left in general.

 

 

 

And none of these three groups, the

11:55

ethnic Somalis, the Muslim Brotherhood,

11:57

or the Democratic Party, seem to think

11:59

that that money comes from somewhere.

12:02

taxpayers, you and me, do you think we

12:05

want to finance our demise? That's

 

Each of these groups know exactly where the money comes from. There are only two racial groups that are net tax payers in the United States:

Whites and Asians.

African Americans, on average paid in 1,000 until 2001, where it dropped by around 2/3 and as of 2023 rose to 6k average per person. You can see that next to whites and Asians, particularly Asians, blacks pay next to no taxes. This is important.

When you look at just snap benefits African-Americans use ~26% of 2023 Fed money (not including state). That represents $26,730,000,000 total.

A group paying in under 6k/taxpayer is not supporting that kind of outlay hence the net tax payer claim above.

Hence the people involved in the fraud, Somalis, Muslim Brotherhood, Dems all know that the money is coming out of white pockets and it's exactly what they want. Remember the comment made by Mamdani's aide about how the policies need to hurt white people. Now the rest of us net contributors as individuals, which means black folks too, get shafted right along with them UNLESS we are in on the fraud.

White liberals, particularly the women, believe that white people, including them SHOULD be exploited and taxed. They see it as personal reparations and "justice". Recall that during the race for NJ governor there was an advert where Mikkie said that it's going to cost NJ residents to go to "clean energy" but "if they were good people" they would do it.

So white leftists don't mind the exploitation as they believe it is their duty as "good white folk". The rest are using those white leftists as useful idiots. Idiots in the short term to run frauds, and idiots in the long term when they take over like Hamtramck  MI, and expose what they really want to do.

So no Ms. Ali they DO know where the money is coming from. They just don't think you have the guts to do what is necessary to stop them from taking it.
 

About The 4th

 Recently it was announced by DHS that their agents would be able to enter and seize persons who had final orders of deportation and presumably an administrative warrant (more on that later).  There was a lot of pushback including from the likes of Robert Barnes of Barnes Law, who I actually have a great deal of respect for and generally find myself agreeing with. However on this point I found myself at odds with him.

The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution reads as follows:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Now when I read that in it's plain language I saw that the conditions were first that the people had a right against unreasonable searches and seizures. Reasonable searches and seizures were not out of bounds. Second thing was the Warrant. It didn't say "judicial warrant" or 'administrative warrant". It said warrant. To my simple, non lawyer mind, this meant that a warrant is a warrant is a warrant.

Barnes, among others pointed out that precedent had been that warrant here means judicial warrant. Personally, I find this to be a made up distinction due to no such qualification being present in the clear text of the 4th but so be it.

The next thing that I, and perhaps a great deal of Americans, thought was that this restraint was due to the presumption of innocence that a person has. If the state wanted to prosecute a person they could not just barge into their property and take stuff. Nor could they just  grab them up in the street without some good reason.

But are illegal aliens such persons? Again a lot of Americans don't think so. An illegal alien, particularly one with a final deportation order, has already been given his or her due process of law and has been deemed removable. This means, that unlike the presumed innocent person in the previous example, the alien is already guilty (of being in the country illegally and therefore their seizure, wherever it occurs is reasonable. For what reason is it unreasonable to seize a person who is trespassing.

No one has explained this to me. Rather the argument has moved to, well an admin warrant is essentially not a real warrant. The accompanying argument being that if the seizure of an illegal alien with a final order is allowed without a judicial warrant, then all persons, including citizens may also be so seized.  I do not buy this particular argument. It does fail the slippery slope test (logical fallacy) though I am the first to mention that often such "fallacies" do come true.

So not being a lawyer, I'm not particularly versed in the precedents. However; I do follow one online and he lays out a compelling case, similar to what I wrote above AND he provides SCOTUS decisions to support his commentary. I would be particularly interested in how Barnes Law would respond to his argument.

Above The Law

 Greetings. Long time no write.  Been a bit too cold to do videos from the car and I don't burn gas for that. Also training for a half marathon so workouts and sleep have a high priorty for me. Thanks for checking in though. If you're not following me on Rumble or Bitchute, I suggest you do as I do more videos than writing these days. Anyway onto the subject at hand.

Yesterday while driving home from work, Waze told me it would take an extraordinary amount of time to get home. As I travelled, I didn't run into the normal traffic and couldn't understand why there was such a long time. Then we hit the backup. Two lanes of stop and go traffic. 

Waze showed a traffic cone and a few police on the map. I figured it was an accident with a lane closure. Nope.  NYPD had set up a roadblock in order to catch people who had been avoiding tolls. Whether that be by obscuring their plates or being flagged as a person who owed.

As I sat in this traffic, unnecessarily, I thought about it. NYC will not honor a detainer for an illegal alien that it has captured who committed a crime. Yet, here I and others are, sitting on a road because NYC and NYS ain't giving up toll revenue. They shut down an entire road for this and have been doing so for a while.

Kind a lets you know where the priorities lay. 

The resentment I felt was not so much about the tolls, I actually don't care that people try to avoid tolls as I am strongly against said tolls. I felt resentment because while I'm forced to play by the rules and have my shit in order, the same city and state will shield other scofflaws who shouldn't even be in the city or state. 

There is a saying from I suppose is one of the founders, that when the law is not properly enforced, good people stop observing the law. Why? 'Cause they can clearly see others breaking it with the approval of the enforcers.

This is also the case, currently, with Don Lemon and his crew that broke a few federal laws when they invaded a church. I'm not fixated on Don but I don't understand how it's now Wednesday and none of the perps have been cuffed and perp walked.

Imagine I had robbed a store where I was caught on surveillance camera with a name tag on and plainly visible. Once identified I would have been arrested by now. That these individuals are walking around free, even after more than enough evidence for an arrest warrant, tells me that "law enforcement" is not serious in America and the "law abiding" are noticing this.

They are noticing the amount of fraud that has been uncovered in the last few months and they notice the lack of public consequences for those involved. And when they sit on a shut down highway so that the local PD can determine whether they are travelling with their vehicles properly tagged, they resent that.

A lot.

'Till next time.