Month: September 2026

Who Needs It?

Drive Time

Okay, I saw this (via Insty) and was immediately irritated.

Everyone wants to know about the Ford Fathom. What does it look like? What standard features will it have? What will be optional, and how much will the extras cost?

Well, not quite everyone, Simon.

My first question:  Who the hell wants an electric Duracell truck?  Having once lived in downtown Chicago, I can see (and always have seen) the desirability of an electric vehicle for inner-city or short-commute trips (more the former than the latter).  Small, tight parking places?  No problem.  Tiny gaps in traffic between large delivery trucks?  Likewise.  But why would you want to own a load-bearing vehicle when a heavy load is going to drain your battery quicker than Bill Clinton’s hand going for an intern’s bra clip?

No.  If Ford (or any manufacturer) wants to make a small inexpensive pickup, allow me to suggest that they use as a template the fantastic Datsun 120Y from the 1970s:

I once owned one of these little nuggets, and I absolutely loved it:  tiny 1200cc engine which went through gas slower than a teetotaller sipping Laphroiag single malt, but had plenty enough power for just about any payload short of lead bars or two Lizzos in its tiny truckbed.  I got it (very) secondhand because I was a Very Poor Student, kept it for over two years and never had a thing go wrong with it.  To call the 120Y “basic transportation” would be a misnomer:  “minimalist” would be a better description of its two or three features (heater, windshield wipers… actually I think that’s about it), and in today’s dollars, it cost the equivalent of about $8,000.

Yeah, it didn’t have airbags, safety belts or any of today’s OMG SAFETY!!!! must-haves, but surely, at some point, one has to make some kind of grownup decision about the compromises one may make — without the fucking heavy hand of Big Nanny Gummint making all your decisions for you.

Moving on…

My next truck (owned not in Seffrica but in Chicago) was this one, the 1993 Mazda B4000 (NOT the Ford Ranger equivalent, which was a shitty alternative):

Oh my.  That Mazda 4-liter V6 engine — all the power one would ever need — with that mini-backseat to accommodate things like kids and gun cases. I got it secondhand, with only 11,000 miles on it.  I loved that truck, lost it in the Great Divorce Of 1994, and ex-Wife #2 drove it until it literally fell apart in, I think, 2015 as much out of sheer metal fatigue as because of minimal maintenance.   Cost:  in today’s dollars, about $14,000.

Now these are two trucks that together could satisfy the transportation and trucking needs of just about anyone not engaged in heavy industry.  And at prices — even in today’s straitened financial times — that wouldn’t empty the wallet, either.

Yeah, maybe the Datsun would be adjudged today as more dangerous than a Muslim jihadist with C4 underwear, but a reincarnated B4000?

Slam frigging dunk…

…which means it will never happen, because gawd forbid today’s car manufacturers should address the needs of their customers over the wallets of their shareholders.

There’s much more money to be made turning out faddish, underpowered and overpriced ($30 grand?  FOAD) toys.  From the article:

We think it’s meant to signal capability since critics have questioned whether a small, low-riding, electric pickup will be able to do “real” truck things like towing, hauling, and off-roading.

It won’t.

Flock News Update

Surveillance Society

…in which I bring to you the latest news regarding America’s Most Hated Company.

Gun Stores Wake Up

Michael Carter, owner of Gun Commanders in Cleveland, Georgia, installed Flock cameras two years ago to combat burglars and help law enforcement nab illegal gun buyers.

He took down the cameras — which record license plate numbers and other data such as make, model and even bumper stickers to track vehicles — after his customers complained and posted criticisms on social media.

The​ir ire is but the latest manifestation of a nationwide privacy-rights backlash against​ ​Flock’s artificial intelligence-powered cameras discreetly installed on street corners, in parks, parking lots, neighborhoods or on drones buzzing overhead.

If you want to protect your premises, staff and stock by putting cameras inside your store, be my guest. But here’s where it gets sticky.

Let’s say that an ordinary citizen has, say, a website from which he has all sorts of Bad Things to say about government or universities and Commies (but I repeat myself).  Let’s also say that he’s on record, by his own account, as being a proud gun owner and supporter of the Second Amendment.  And now let’s assume that a political party comes to power, and this party is totally against the concept of an armed citizenry, and citizenry with a big angry mouth withal.

Can you see where having all sorts of information about this loudmouth shooter — his driving habits, his frequency of gun purchases and visits to the gun range, for example — may give said political party and its apparatchiks all they need to label him a “danger to society”, even though he quite clearly isn’t?

The problem with this   fucking   Flocking A.I. setup is that the data can be used for all sorts of un-Constitutional (and illegal in other ways) activities.

So well done, you, for getting rid of this excrescense in the public sphere.

Let’s hope that a whole lot of other people come to their senses, as you have done.