…standing in long lines to get into shopping malls and stores for phantom bargains and dog piling on this year’s must-have gift, getting pissed off at everyone around us, cursing and maybe even take a few swings at complete strangers, driving through massive traffic jams, spending hours hunting for a parking space, tempting traffic accident fate on highways full of drivers too busy worrying about their shopping lists to pay attention to the traffic around them, generally raising blood pressure and sulking angrily at home because you couldn’t find what you were looking for Anywhere, because the holidays are a time of peace on earth good will toward all…

A piston engine…I looked Everywhere and they were all sold out..!

I started seeing people posting on Facebook and Twitter last night about the long lines in shopping malls. Are you people nuts? Never mind the relentless consumerism…how do you plan on enjoying the holiday season when you’re getting wound up tighter than a watch spring fighting crowds and traffic???

Buy your gifts online. That’s what I’ve done for years now because I decline to make myself miserable in holiday feeding frenzies.   I Hate Crowds. And from what I’m reading, everyone else does too.   So I have a question: why do all of you keep doing this to yourselves?   This is Peace On Earth Goodwill Toward Everyone time, not Work Yourself Into A Frustrated Temper Tantrum time.

Relax.   Kick back.   It’s the end of the year.   Time to reflect on life…all the things you have to be thankful for…and all the people you love.   Sit down at your computer…we’ve all got one these days…and browse the online catalogs.   There are tons.   It’s nothing new, just a new twist on an old Christmas tradition…the wish catalog.   When I was a boy there were these big phone book sized catalog things people ordered from by mail.   And every year we got mail ordered stuff from relatives, along with the usual Christmas packages.   What the magical wonderful computer does for us 21st century people is put all those catalogs right at our fingertips!   Think of it…every catalog you ever wanted to browse…there.   And you can fill out your order, specify gift wrapping and a nice card to go with it, pay and you’re done.   All from the comfort an convenience of your own home!   You can shop in your pajamas even!   And things still come in the mail just like they did when you were a kid.   Your loved ones will be just as delighted.

A little less traffic might make the holidays nicer….just saying.   Seriously…this is a time of year to remember how good life is, and how wonderful that we are human beings, and not sharks all piled together in a feeding frenzy.

[Update…]   Kevin Drum does a little digging and discovers the origin of the term “Black Friday” really is as dark as you’d expect from just hearing it and not knowing it’s supposed to mean the day retail sales go into the black (profitable) zone.

…all the evidence points in one direction. The term originated in Philadelphia in the 50s or earlier and wasn’t in common use in the rest of the country until decades later. And it did indeed refer to something unpleasant: the gigantic Army-Navy-post-Thanksgiving day crowds and traffic jams, which both retail workers and police officers dreaded. The retail industry originally loathed the term, and the whole “red to black” fairy tale was tacked on sometime in the 80s by an overcaffeinated flack trying to put lipstick on a pig that had gotten a little too embarrassing for America’s shopkeepers.

Another success in the annals of public relations…

This came across my Facebook stream just now…

Which is probably why some gay men of my generation stick to casual sex…why the advice I constantly, reliably get from gay friends of my generation and older, about my chronic loneliness is to just go out and get laid.   It’s the cure that’s worked for them for so much of their own lives.   But for some of us that would only make it worse.

You can work your way past shame and self loathing.   Getting yourself to a place where you can trust another person…intimately…after so many years right when you’re so very young, being emotionally battered and bruised by your own family…your own parents…friends…that’s a lot harder.   Nearly impossible for some.   For some gay folk of my generation, it will always be a time before Stonewall…

A letter I just mailed off to Mercedes-Benz USA…

November 21, 2012

Customer Assistance
Mercedes Benz USA
P.O. Box 350
Montvale, New Jersey 07645

Dear Sir or Madam;

Last December I traded in my 2008 C300 for a 2012 E350 Bluetec. I’d wanted a Mercedes-Benz diesel sedan since I was a teenager, and I have been delighted to own this car ever since I drove it off my dealer’s lot.

One important reason I have wanted to own a diesel is I enjoy taking long, cross-country road trips. The longevity and fuel economy of a diesel was very attractive to me for this purpose. Already I have put nearly twenty-three thousand miles on my E350, mostly from driving up and down the east coast from Baltimore to Florida, the Keys and back. The car is a pure pleasure to drive over long distances.

I have been planning to give my car its first trip to California around Christmas to visit family. But now I have grave concerns about driving this car across the midwest. Recently I learned the corn growing states in the midwest have decided to make biodiesel in grades above that allowed in my car more widely available. I have read that in the state of Illinois for example, due to changes in their tax code that make it more economically attractive, B20 is now almost all there is for sale at diesel pumps.

This is alarming to me. I understand, and you have made it perfectly clear, that this grade of biodiesel will void my car’s warranty. Even were the car out of warranty however, my intention is to always follow Mercedes guidelines as to maintenance and service intervals. This is my dream come true car and I am going to take care of it. If B20 is all that is available to me in the mid-western USA, then that would make it nearly impossible to drive this car to California from Maryland, let alone drive around all the backroads and scenic highways of the midwest just to see what’s there. And if this situation spreads to other states, especially along the east coast, I may end up unable to drive the car anywhere, other than locally, and then only so long as regular diesel or biodiesel no greater then B5 remains available to me somewhere I know I can get it.

I am reading that biodiesel advocates say consumers should not be worried about the spread of B20 because, as they put it, all domestic makers of diesel engines have approved it for use. That may be true, but as I understand it those are all makers of trucks and truck engines. There are currently no domestic makers of diesel powered passenger cars, and as near as I can tell every company importing diesel passenger cars says that using biodiesel in percentages greater than B5 will void their warranties. So I fail to understand how they could implement these biodiesel policies not knowing they would profoundly impact drivers of diesel passenger vehicles.

I’m writing you specifically about a column I read in the Chicago Tribune while researching this problem online. The column, “Motor Mouth”, written by Bob Weber, on October 20 of this year, contained the following exchange:

Q: We recently purchased a BMW X5 diesel SUV. The manual states that that diesel fuel cannot be over five percent bio or the warranty would be voided. However, in Illinois about the only diesel fuel available is 11-20% bio. Also, we need a couple of Mercedes diesel Sprinter vans. The dealer stated that their mechanic said it was okay to use B11 to B20 bio fuel. When asked about their warranty they also said that Mercedes can void the warranty if you use over 5% bio fuel. Both the BMW and Mercedes dealers say its okay to use 11 to 20% bio. However, when we asked them if BMW or Mercedes would agree to honor the warranty they both said no. Fortunately, we didn’t by the Mercedes sprinter vans. However, we can’t understand how BMW can sell diesel cars in Illinois without disclosing the fuel is not readily available in Illinois. Do we have any recourse?
— G.H., Northbrook, Ill.

A: We contacted both BMW and Mercedes-Benz with your question. Although BMW has not yet responded, a spokesman for Mercedes said that valued customers will be “…taken care of for any unforeseen technical challenges that may or may not occur in a variety of cases or scenarios.” In other words, if anything happens to your diesel engine, it will be handled. Frankly, we would be surprised if any carmaker’s service department would go through the trouble of analyzing the fuel used.

This does not sound right, so I decided to write you directly about it. Mr. Weber seems to be saying in his column that even though the owners manual on my car states that only B5 can be used, you have told him that owners of Mercedes-Benz Bluetec diesel automobiles need not worry about using it because if anything happens to the engine we will be “taken care of” and (his words) “it will be handled”. I suspect the handling of it consists of our paying the repair bill out of pocket because our warranty has been voided. I also suspect that determining whether engine or emissions control failure was caused by the use of biodiesel in concentrations greater than B5 would not take too much analyzing on the part of any trained Mercedes mechanic.

Please let me know whether Mr. Weber is giving an accurate account of Mercedes-Benz USA policy toward the use of B20 in its vehicles. Also, please let me know what Daimler is doing to address the problem that is developing here in the USA for customers of its diesel passenger vehicles. I appreciate that this is a situation is being forced on you, and your customers, by these midwestern states. But if this it spreads beyond them and nothing is done your customers may find themselves one day soon with wonderful and expensive automobiles that they cannot drive because they cannot find acceptable fuel for them, nor will they be able to trade them in for cars that they can fuel without worry because they will be worthless.

In the meantime, can I suggest Daimler, and perhaps the other diesel passenger car makers could join forces on this, make available either a web site or a directory of some sort with locations where drivers can find fuel that meets their car specifications? I realize the difficulty in maintaining one, but something that could be used while on the road would be very helpful. Currently the car’s navigation system can be set to only show diesel fueling stations, but that is all of them, including those that only sell B20.

Sincerely,

Bruce Garrett
Baltimore, Maryland 21211

The letter is more polite in its treatment of midwest corn state biodiesel advocates then I am inclined to be on this blog.   The level of dishonesty in their claims that B20 is nothing for consumers to worry about is stunning. You realize after reading it a for an extended period that they can get away with it because diesel powered passenger vehicles are not widely sold or used here in the U.S. compared to elsewhere in the world.   Most people hearing that all U.S. makers of diesel warrant their products for B20 won’t know that they’re just talking about truck makers. No U.S. company makes diesel powered passenger cars.   And people generally don’t know trucks are held to lower emissions standards then automobiles, so their engines don’t need the sort of emissions control equipment automobiles do.   Yes, B20 is fine to use in truck engines.   In passenger car diesel engines not so much.

But its reading Bob Weber’s columns on this matter that is especially infuriating. His slipperiness on the issue just oozes off the screen. In October 2011, a year ago as this problem was beginning to reach crisis levels in Illinois, Weber penned this fragrant piece of deception…

Q: All the gas stations in and around Chicago have switched in the past month or so from a biodiesel B5 to biodiesel B20. I understand that B20 fuel voids the engine warranties on Mercedes, Audi, BMW and VW vehicles. They all specify to use only an approved B5 diesel fuel. Some gas stations have even put up signage at the pump stating that fact. Now we find ourselves suddenly in a situation whereby there is no approved fuel available. So what are we diesel car owners supposed to do? — A.A., Chicago

A: Unless you plan to park your vehicle or drive around looking for B5 (5 percent biodiesel) or straight diesel fuel, you have no alternative but to use B20 (20 percent biodiesel). Engine manufacturers warranty the materials and workmanship of their engines. If there are problems caused by the fuel, they are the responsibility of the fuel supplier. That said, reputable fuel suppliers should stand behind their products and cover any fuel quality problems if they occur, states the National Biodiesel Board (NBB).

According to the NBB, “Most major engine companies have stated formally that the use of blends up to B20 will not void their parts and workmanship warranties.” Several statements from the engine companies are available on the NBB website biodiesel.org.

Yes, yes…if the B20 a fuel supplier sells does not meet its specifications or is contaminated it is that fuel supplier’s responsibility.   But if it meets all the relevant specifications of B20 and you put it in your car when the car maker is clearly telling you anything higher then B5 will void your warranty, the responsible party is you…more than likely to the tune of thousands of dollars if your engine or emissions system needs fixing because you used a grade of biodiesel your car was not engineered for.   And get that “Most major engine companies have stated formally that the use of blends up to B20 will not void their parts and workmanship warranties” crap.   Those are truck engines.   Every company making and selling diesel powered automobiles in the United States, Without Exception, is stating flatly that the use of B20 Will Void Their Warranties.

They’re even taking steps to make sure in some cases that their truck fleet customers understand it too…

Q. I read Sunday’s article. I work for FedEx Express as a technician. We just went through 2012 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter (commercial truck/cargo van) training. We were told by the Mercedes-Benz boys that if you by a CDI (capacitor discharge ignition) diesel vehicle in Illinois you are required to sign an engine warranty waiver due to the fact you can’t buy B5 in Illinois. It’s worse in other states, Minnesota being one off the top of my head with B20 or higher biodiesel.

As usual the politicians in the corn states are dictating policy. No one really knows the ramifications of the ethanol additive. But apparently Mercedes-Benz is not willing to chance it.

Dig it.   Daimler, the world’s biggest manufacturer of heavy trucks and buses is making its customers here in the United States sign engine warranty wavers in at least one state.   How does Bob Weber, who writes for the Chicago Tribune, which last I heard was in Illinois, keep telling his readers that there is no problem, nothing to see here, move along?   One thing I am really keen to see is if Mercedes USA has a different story to tell about what they told Weber.   I strongly suspect there was more to that reply he got than he is saying.

And if you think this is only going to be a problem for us diesel car owners…think again…

E15 gas brings conflict to pumps

April 29, 2012 – 8:45 PM

A new blend of ethanol and gasoline may soon show up at the gas station pumps — along with mixed messages on whether it’s safe to put it in your vehicle.

Motorists driving up to pumps for the new, higher-ethanol “E15” will see government-mandated orange-and-black signs that say the new fuel blend is approved for use in all 2001 and newer cars and light trucks.

Two of the biggest carmakers offer puzzling or contrary messages, right on their gasoline caps. Toyota warns on its 2012 model gas caps not to use E15. Ford offers less-explicit advice.

“When you pull up to the pump it will say you can use this, and then you turn to your gas cap, it says you may not use this — it’s going to be very, very confusing,” said Bob Ebert, service director for Walser Automotive Group in the Twin Cities.

Toyota is now selling cars here in the U.S. with gas caps that look like this:

I appreciate that fossil fuel use is unsustainable in the long run and alternatives must be developed.   I appreciate that there will be difficulties going forward with that.   I’ve heard it said that the switch from fossil fuels to something else will be painful, but I think “painful” is the wrong word.   It will be a chore.   It will be work.   Fine.   All life is purposeful work.   We can handle this.   We will find the way forward.   But apart from automobile warranties and the purely engineering aspect of converting to higher grades of biofuels, there is the issue of turning farm land once used to grow food to the production of fuel instead. Last I heard, there were still hungry impoverished people here on planet earth, and taking land out of food production doesn’t strike me as a plan to fix that.

We don’t know yet what the long term alternatives to fossil fuels are.   Meanwhile corn states have used their local tax codes to make high levels of it cheaper than the motor fuels used elsewhere in the U.S. and in Europe, which is having the effect of making those fuels the only kind drivers in those states can put into their cars, whether or not their cars will actually run on them without long term damage.   That doesn’t seem to be concerning anyone in the corn state statehouses.   Eventually though it’s going to start alarming everyone else.

Stay tuned…the clown show is just getting started…

The fall out, or if you will, belly flop into the gutter for Social Science Research, just keeps getting better…

Social Science Research editor  James Wright published the Regnerus study without benefit of valid peer review, for which reason many scholars are calling for the Regnerus study to be retracted and for James Wright to be removed from his position. (To read some of the calls for retraction of the Regnerus study, see  here,  here and  here).In response to the criticism for having published Regnerus without valid peer review, editor  James Wright published — in his November issue — a non-peer-reviewed  defense of Regnerus by Walter Schumm, a Kansas State University sociologist who was a paid consultant on the Regnerus study…

And what credentials does Schumm bring to the table…?

Schumm has a long association with the discredited anti-gay pseudoscientist Paul Cameron. He is on the editorial  board of Cameron’s fatuously-named  Empirical Journal of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior.

Well there’s an authoritative voice if ever there was one!   I have a question.   How does a legitimate, self-respecting, peer reviewed journal of science look at the resumé of someone who sits on the editorial board of a Paul Cameron journal and conclude that person’s scientific judgement makes them fit to print in its pages?

Perhaps Social Science Research should ask Paul Cameron to sit on Its board…

This came across my Facebook stream this morning…

This seems like beating on a dead horse…probably everyone knows by now that WalMart pays food stamp wages…but there’s a point here that needs constant hammering on.   If you like WalMart’s Low, Low Prices! fine…except WalMart workers are living on food stamps and probably other public support too, and that’s a large part of how WalMart keeps its prices down (another part is their pressure on companies to manufacture goods in low wage countries abroad, thereby costing American families their livelihoods and decimating this country’s industrial base).   So…the difference between what you paid for your WalMart goods and what they would actually cost if WalMart simply paid its workers a living wage is the part paid for by food stamps.   If you shop at WalMart, you are on the dole too.   Except you could probably afford not to be.

So who’s the lazy bum wanting a government handout here, because it isn’t the WalMart worker.

Via The Local – Germany…

‘Ice cream parlour killer’ chopped up two men

…She cried as she explained that she only chopped up his body with a chainsaw once it had started to decompose – and temporarily put the pieces in a freezer before taking them to the cellar and encasing them in concrete…

Something to tack onto my refrigerator to remind me not to get romantically involved with a married German…

Nice car…   Bluetec diesel is it…?

…I’m here to make sure its residual engine heat does not go to waste.   You’re welcome.

Won’t come near me or sit in My lap…oh noooo…but my car is obviously another story.

Nobody expects the Minnesota Inquisition…

The Assumption Church, a Catholic congregation in Barnesville, Minnesota, does not mess around when it comes to fighting followers who support marriage equality.

The church’s priest, Rev. Gary LaMoine, told the family of 17-year old Lennon Cihak that he cannot participate in his scheduled confirmation because Cihak shared his opposition to the recently defeated amendment that would define marriage as one man and one woman.

Not only that, LaMoine is now denying Communion to the entire family, including Cihak’s parents, who have attended the church for decades.

It’s something to remind me how glad I am, even at this stage in my life, that I was raised a Baptist, if only for the satisfaction of knowing I’d have been on the pope’s shit list for that fact alone, never mind my homosexuality. The only thing better would be to have been born a Jew.  

But more importantly, being raised in a Baptist household meant I was never taught to believe I had to ask permission from the clergy to have a spiritual relationship with my creator. I will probably never really understand how painful this all is for that family, and especially that boy who is now afraid his church won’t allow him to be buried with his parents, simply because he stood up for the human dignity of his neighbors. I want to tell them there is no shame in walking out that door and never looking back. But I know that isn’t their way. You have to let everyone find their own way. That was something else the faith of my childhood taught me.

I’m an atheist now, and I can only watch these things happening to good-hearted people from a respectful distance.   Meanwhile the boy inside me who once went dutifully to church every Sunday wonders how anyone would want to take the body of Christ from the hand of someone who is pissing on his cross.

[Edited…there was something else about being raised in a Baptist household that in retrospect I needed to get in here…]

So Romney is complaining that president Obama won because he promised the hoi polloi a lot of gifts.   But Romney was no slouch in that department either…promising even bigger tax cuts to the rich, less oversight of Wall Street and the finance industry.   So Obama promised gifts to the 47% and Romney promised gifts to the 1%.   So the reason Obama won is 47 is greater then 1.   Or in other less cynical words, you win elections by appealing to more voters then the other guy does.

I think the complaint here is that elections are still too fair to suit republicans.   Or maybe democracy.

Via Romenesko…

Hudson Register-Star reporter fired after refusing to allow byline on story

The Hudson (NY) Register-Star fired reporter Tom Casey after he refused to allow his byline on a budget meeting story that had two paragraphs inserted by an editor, who apparently wanted to create controversy for an editorial. Here are the inserted grafs:

At the start of the meeting some in the audience were upset over Third Ward Alderman John Friedman’s decision not to stand for the pledge of allegiance. While Hudson City Code does not require council members to stand for the pledge, Fifth Ward Alderman Robert Donahue, who had complained about the matter at a previous meeting and asked Friedman why he did not stand, was visibly upset.

No comment could be reached from either party concerning the matter, and it did not interfere with the meeting.

Sam Pratt reports “Casey had been under pressure by higher-ups at the paper to make an issue of Friedman’s choice, which the Alderman had exercised at some but not all previous meetings. Getting the matter into the body of a news story would give the paper’s management a predicate for writing an editorial about it. The day after the dispute, Casey was reportedly fired by editor Theresa Hyland at the insistence of publisher Roger Coleman.”

So…dig it…Casey’s editor inserted two paragraphs into his story just so the paper could write an editorial, presumably attacking Friedman’s patriotism. The reporter then refused to allow his byline on the story and so the publisher had him fired.   Because not standing up for the pledge of allegiance is a greater crime against America then not standing up for honest journalism and freedom of the press.

Hey Roger…you’d be running a much more efficient operation if you just got rid of all that pesky news gathering fluff you really don’t care about anyway and make your paper just one big opinion section. All your opinions of course…

Not going to link to them, but Politico is repeating the babble of some republican nutcase in Maine who can’t figure out where all the darkies were coming from on Election day…

The head of Maine’s Republican Party is claiming unknown groups of black people showed up in the state’s towns and cast ballots on election day.

“In some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens, dozens of black people who came in and voted on Election Day,” Charlie Webster told Portland, Me.’s NBC affiliate on Wednesday. “Everybody has a right to vote, but nobody in town knows anyone who’s black. How did that happen? I don’t know. We’re going to find out.”

Psst…hey Charlie…one of these days why not take a wee stroll outside your little all-white Maine neighborhood over to the colored side of town? Wow…didn’t know all those people were there did ya?

Still in it…

Dan Savage this morning…

NYT:

“The die is cast on this issue,” said Steve Schmidt, who advised the presidential campaigns of Senator John McCain and George W. Bush and has for years urged Republicans to accept same-sex marriage. “Why should we sign a suicide pact with the National Organization for Marriage?” Mr. Schmidt asked, saying the party should instead endorse the principles of federalism and let the states decide the matter.

Depending on how you slice and dice the electorate, you can make the case that the gay vote was decisive in this election. So what NOM is asking the GOP to do—double, triple, quadruple down on anti-gay hate—really does amount to signing a political suicide pact.

The homophobic pundits and leaders of the anti-gay industrial complex who are saying now that this election does not represent a sudden shift in people’s attitudes about same-sex marriage are right.   There’s nothing sudden about the build up of pressure along a fault line either, just the release of it.   The trend toward acceptance and equality has been obvious for decades now, and the haters have always known it.   Witness the junk science industry they’ve been busy building since the Stonewall Riots and the removal of homosexuality as a psychiatric diagnosis.   You don’t wage a bitter scorched earth war on the facts if you know the facts are on your side.   The haters have always known that in the end all they had to win on was the passion of their own hate, and that eventually that would not be enough.   And they have always known that marriage was the final threshold, and that it would be crossed when more heterosexuals then not would say to each other, and then at the polls,   Actually, homosexuals do love.

And so it comes to this…

The Colorado Independent reports that officials from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) have vowed to make Starbucks (along with other companies that support same-sex marriage) pay a “price” in Middle Eastern countries that are hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. The statements were made during a Nov. 8 conference call, scheduled as a discussion of the 2012 elections which saw sweeping marriage equality victories in Maine, Maryland and Minnesota, as well as Starbucks’ home state of Washington.

“So for example, in Qatar, in the Middle East, we’ve begun working to make sure that there’s some price to be paid for this,” Brian Brown says in audio recording of the conference call…

And that price will be paid not merely in lost sales, but in the blood of gay people all throughout the middle east, just as they have done in Africa and wherever else they could.   And Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher and Robert George will not shed a single tear over it.   Ours was always a struggle for the right to love and be loved, against an immovable need to hate the heart capable of it and all the wonder and joy of life and existence.   The fight isn’t over, the sweat and tears and bloodshed go on, but the Rhine has been crossed.   Actually, homosexuals do love.

Put the bottle down.   Please.   For everyone’s sake…

The polls were not skewed.   Nate Silver was not making things up.   Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.   He did not raise taxes.   The unemployment figures were not faked.   Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction.   Climate Change is real.   Evolution is real.   FEMA is not building concentration camps.   Christians are not being treated like Jews were in Germany in the 1930s…