Where did the salt of Bonneville go? The BLM effed up... they screwed up bad

The Save the salt coalition http://www.savethesalt.org/Save_the_Salt/Save_the_Salt%21.html and SEMA http://www.sema.org/ got BLM to take action, do a study, and conclude that a replenishment program would stabilize the Salt Flats.

But BLM went into an arrangement with the the last mining company, and didn't make a regulation that would continue to force all mining operations in Utah to adhere to the same level of replenishment, and leave the salt in the Bonneville Salt Flats to the national landmark that it is... and not being sold in bags to apply to roads.

The company currently mining in Intrepid Potash http://www.intrepidpotash.com/ Based in Denver, Colorado, Intrepid Potash, Inc. owns and operates Intrepid Potash - Moab, LLC, Intrepid Potash - Wendover, LLC, both potash mines located in Utah; and Intrepid Potash - New Mexico, LLC, with operations in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Buy your salt from someone else if you like racing in general, or Bonneville specifically

I got motivated by reading Jean Jennings editorial in Automobile Magazine, Oct 2011 issue

Women, and the automotive world... specifically the Islamic/Muslim country of Saudi Arabia, which outlawed women drivers (male chauvinism, no religious text from their holy book, or decree from Muhammad spoke of cars, nor of women drivers)

So.. .  why don't men let women drive in Saudi Arabia? Women have been riding horses since before written history in Suadi Arabia... and the main bullshit line the Saudi govt ( the Saud family) give is that women are (by religious decree) supposed to modest... and sitting in a car behind the wheel is less modest than sitting a horse?

Chauvanism and religion have no logic, nor intelligent answer to a question that asks for facts.

This year of the Arab Spring of revolution the women in Suadi Arabia are protesting the nonsense and risking persecution, prosecution, harassment, and jail time with unreported indignities.

Show some support to those women... they are someone's sister, someone's mom. They don't deserve this crap simply because they were born in a country run by assholes.

To give them encouragement and support, let them know on Facebook and Twitter, or tell the US State Dept to keep hounding the Suadi Govt. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/21/hillary-clinton-saudi-female-drivers

Saudi woman aren't alone in dealing with dumb ass men keeping them from equal rights, General Motors in 1957 hired 9 women to be designers, and paid them less than the men. Indianapolis Motor Speedway didn't give women access to the pits til 1971

I just got motivated to write about this from the new issue of Automobile Magazine, Oct 2011

How much of a raise should a CEO get in a year? Which would seem reasonable? 10% or 510% ?

in 2010

TRW CEO John Plant got 510% raise over his 2009 salary of 6.7 million
Ford CEO Alan Mulally 524% raise... yet his company has 14 billion in debt
Johnson Controls' Stephen Roell 424% raise

So... did those 3 companies make 4 to 500% better business decisions? Better profit? Better products?

Doubt it.

I read about this in the article by Jamie Kitman in Automobile Magazine, his source, and the full story is at http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110613/OEM02/306139854&sectioncat=product&template=printart

Plant's base salary was $1.9 million, but he made $28 million from stock option gains. Bonuses, stock awards and other means of compensation accounted for the rest of Plant's pay.
The $9.45 million bonus package Mulally received in 2010 was almost three times as much as his total compensation from 2009. The Ford CEO also earned $9.3 million in stock award gains and $1.4 million in base salary.

The median salary of CEOs who held their job for at least two years rose from $3 million in 2009 to $5.7 million in 2010, an increase of more than 90 percent from 2009, Equilar research analyst Aaron Boyd said.

Hungarian made cars, the difficult struggle against political turmoil, lack of manufacturing, and frequent bureaucratic red tape... all they want is to build cars!

Hungarian car enthusiasts Pal Negyesi and Csaba Hajdu have researched the Hungarian car history thoroughly, and made a 35 page PDF that exemplifies the spirit of perseverance to surmount obstacles in the way of progress.

Their focus is the Hungarian cars made between the years 1945 - 1990, but the inventors, craftsman, and innovators often began before 1945... and so did the national and intenational conflicts and restrictions that created a one of a kind unique situation that resulted in the USSR organization COMECON ruling of 1949 that of all the allied countries, only Hungary would not be allowed to build cars. Busses and trucks, yes... but not cars that the people could use for personal enjoyment, business travel, and product distribution (flowers, parcel delivery, etc etc)

Just as important as the automobile enthusiasts informative look, is the historian enthusiasts understanding of the myriad problems that were brought about by WW2, the USSR governing bureaucracy regulations, lack of car parts manufacturing (no car tire makers for example led to using airplane tail tires), political refusal to allow foreign investors, the revolution of 1956, the oil crisis of 1973, the fall of the USSR in 1990 dissolving all the previous infrastructure that was just beginning to make progress in loosening govt owned company restrictions in involvement in cooperative ventures to produce car and parts... all complicated the Hungarian auto enthusiasts ability to make cars.

But read about the many one off cars that were prototyped, microcars that were made and attempted during this time, the 3 wheelers that were declared "motorbike and sidecar" etc etc in order to bring mobility to the people.


Price is EUR 1 or USD 1.4

There are two ways to pay:

- Either someone sends the amount via PayPal to npaul@hu.inter.net and then Pal will send him/her the link
- You can buy an e-book version at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LOVR02

US government owned car companies (GM for example) used taxpayer dollars to lobby against government regulations for higher fuel economy standards

That has to criminal, and politicians and bureaucrats should be fired. What a waste of money.

The politicians finally had the control of the car company, and didn't force the issue when they had the chance. What a bunch of corruption. 

The Chicken War, and the Chicken Tax, and what they have to do with trucks made in Europe and Asia

The Chicken tax was a 25% tax on potato starch, dextrin, brandy, and light trucks imposed in 1963 by the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson as a response to tariffs placed by France and West Germany on importation of U.S. chicken.

Largely because of post-World War II intensive chicken farming and accompanying price reductions, chicken, once internationally synonymous with luxury, became a staple food in the U.S. Prior to the early 1960s, not only had chicken remained prohibitively expensive in Europe, it had remained a delicacy. With imports of inexpensive chicken from the U.S., chicken prices fell quickly and sharply across Europe, radically affecting European chicken consumption. In 1961, per capita chicken consumption rose 23% in West Germany. U.S. chicken overtook nearly half of the imported European chicken market.

Subsequently, the Dutch accused the U.S. of dumping chickens at prices below cost of production. The French government banned U.S. chicken and raised concerns that hormones could affect male virility. German farmers' associations accused U.S. poultrymen of artificially fattening chicken with arsenic. In fact, U.S. chicken farmers, with Food and Drug Administration approval, had treated chicken feed with antimony, arsenic compounds, or estrogen hormones to stimulate growth.

The period from 1961–1964 of tensions and negotiations surrounding the issue, which took place at the height of Cold War politics, was known as the "Chicken War".

Eventually, the tariffs on potato starch, dextrin, and brandy were lifted, but over the next 48 years the light truck tax ossified, remaining in place to protect U.S. domestic automakers from foreign light truck production (e.g., from Japan and Thailand). Though concern remains about its repeal, a 2003 Cato Institute study called the tariff "a policy in search of a rationale."

As an unintended consequence, several importers of light trucks have circumvented the tariff via loopholes—including Ford (ostensibly a company the tax was designed to protect), which currently imports the Transit Connect light trucks as "passenger vehicles" to the U.S. from Turkey and immediately shreds portions of their interiors in a warehouse outside Baltimore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

Iso Rivolta background info

Iso Rivolta was initially named Isothermos and manufactured refrigeration units before WW2.

After the Second World War, the company reopened its doors, completely changing its activity. In 1948 it began to build motorcycles, scooters and motocarries (three wheeled transport scooters/motorcycles). Among the most famous are the Furetto (1948), 'Isoscooter (1950),' Isocarro (1951), 'Isomoto (1954) and' Isosport (1953). The last Iso motorcycle was presented as the Iso 500 in 1961. Isomotos were known as expensive, but durable and well-built.

In the mid-1950s, he started to develop a miniature car for two persons and front entrance, initially with only three wheels, later, for reasons of stability, with four wheels (the two on the rear very close together): the Isetta Bubble Car. About 20,000 of the bubble cars were built at the Rivolta works near Milan, but this volume was dwarfed by that of the German licensee

Starting in 1954, Isetta was licensed to automobile manufacturers in several countries: France (by VELAM), Spain, Great Britain and Brazil (by Romi). The most successful, however, was the German Isetta built by BMW. The BMW-Isetta fulfilled the dream of mobility in post-war Germany and about 130,000 had been sold by 1962
 At the start of 1973 the Rivolta family ceded the business to an Italian American financier named Dr Ivo Pera who promised to bring American management know-how to the firm: the business faded rapidly into obscurity.
Found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iso_Rivolta

Charlie would like to know more about this Morris J he bought in Victoria BC, email him if you recognize it please

his email is mailto:charles.grahn@gmail.com and the website he has about fixing it up is http://victoriajvan.blogspot.com/

This had me wondering if a Morris J is part of the MG company,... MG is pretty well known for the great little sports cars. The letters MG are representative of Morris Garages, and I looked them up to see about the Morris J.

The Morris J was launched by the Morris Commercial subsidiary of Morris Motors in 1949 and produced until 1961. In 1952 the Commercial name was dropped and the van was marketed as the Morris J-type. As well as complete vehicles, the J-type was also supplied in chassis form to external body makers and it appeared, amongst other uses, as a pick-up, tipper truck, ice cream van and milk float. Many were bought by the British Post Office and these differed from standard in having rubber front and rear wings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Commercial_J-type and there is even a Morris J registry and info source http://www.jtypevan.com/ which has links to Morris J van owners websites.. (really cool ones too)
Here's what Wikipedia has about Morris Garages:
The MG Car Company got its name from Morris Garages, a dealer of Morris cars in Oxford which began producing its own customised versions to the designs of Cecil Kimber, who had joined the company as its sales manager in 1921. He was promoted to general manager in 1922, a position he held until 1941 when he fell out with Lord Nuffield over procuring wartime work. Kimber died in 1945 in a freak railway accident.

The first cars which were rebodied Morris models used coachwork from Carbodies of Coventry and were built in premises in Alfred Lane, Oxford. Demand soon caused a move to larger premises in Bainton Road in September 1925, sharing space with the Morris radiator works. Continuing expansion meant another move in 1927 to a separate factory in Edmund Road, Cowley, Oxford, near the main Morris factory and for the first time it was possible to include a production line. In 1928 the company had become large enough to warrant an identity separate from the original Morris Garages and the M.G. Car Company Limited was established in March of that year and in October for the first time a stand was taken at the London Motor Show. Space again soon ran out and a search for a permanent home led to the lease of part an old leather factory in Abingdon, Oxfordshire in 1929, gradually taking over more space until production ended there in 1980. The MG Car Club was founded in 1930 for owners and enthusiasts of MG cars.

Originally owned personally by William Morris, the company was sold to Morris Motors (itself part of the Nuffield Organisation) in 1935, MG was absorbed into the British Motor Company, created in 1952 as a merger of the Nuffield Organisation and the Austin Motor Company. BMC merged with Jag in '66 to become renamed as British Motor Holdings, which didn't last 2 years before mreging with Leyland to form British Leyland, which couldn't make it and in 75 was renamed British Leyland, but in 1980 was killed off due to politics.

After BL became the Rover Group in 1986, ownership of the MG marque passed to British Aerospace in 1988 and then in 1994 to BMW.

BMW sold the business in 2000 and the MG marque passed to the MG Rover Group, the Group went into receivership in April 2005, in July the Nanjing Automobile Group purchased the rights to the MG brand and the assets of the MG Rover Group   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_(car)

Pnuematic (compressed air) locomotives were needed in highly flammable environments like coal mines

found on http://steampunkvehicles.tumblr.com

JR is going into business, building performance engines, and his grand opening will be Sat Mar 19th 10am to 2 pm

Car show to start the morning, at Carlsbad Company Stores
5620 Paseo Del Norte #124 (just off I5 and Palomar Airport Road)
7am to 9am (roughly)
Performance engine and machine shop in Escondido... at 2080 Wineridge Place

You might remember seeing JR posted here before, he's the bearded machinist in the gallery here: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/02/open-house-tour-for-mustang-club-at-jba.html

Amos publishing company merges 6 magazines

I used to subscribe to Musclecar Enthusiast. I liked it. I can't remember when I recieved the last one, and don't know if they stopped coming because I didn't renew my subscription, or if they went out of business like Motor Trend Classic did a couple years ago... just poof!

They never informed subscribers that they weren't going to finish with your subscription that you'd paid for. The Motor Trend Classic kept the unfulfilled money and didn't credit me towards another title. They pissed me off.

Anyway, Amos Publications is merging 6 titles into a new magazine called Auto Enthusiast. Cars and Parts, Musclecar Enthusiast were 2 of them.

About 10 pages of Chevy, then Ford, then Mopar, etc etc. I'll let you know how it turns out, but the one issue I flipped through looked good enough to get me to subscribe.

Who is the Biggest car company? Why hasn't one company been able to stay on top of the competition?

It was Ford, they lost the competition to GM in the 70's , GM lost to Toyota, and Toyota lost to VW.

Since GM was on top, the number one biggest car company has changed twice in 2 years.

I just read Jamie Kitman's article in Automobile Magazine (great magazine, also read Ezra Dyer's article, the both of them are great!) and he points out that VW is on the verge of screwing up. They are making bigger cars, and making them cheaper, so they will be cheaper to buy and result in increased sales volume.

It's backfiring with VW. The Passat is only selling 10% of it's all time high in 2002. Not good.

Jamie looked the Passat over, and it's built in Tennessee for the American market, but it's not as nice as the German built Passat the rest of the world buys.

Jamie reports that VW has about a 1/4 million US customers, and wants to triple that and sell about 800,000 cars a year by 2018, but he tells us that the quality of the interior of the VW's is lousy, and thinks they are about to lose their market share to their competition. Time will tell.

The diesel version of one VW gets 52 mpg. Nice, but if a 45 mpg Hyundai has a nicer interior, I know I'd go for the better interior, and not worry about 7 less mpg while driving in a comfy and good looking surroundings.

FYI, the company that makes the most cars is Mattel.

Remember CB radios? They now are so high tech, they don't need the head unit, it's all in the handheld microphone

Jalopnik changes format, traffic and comments take a nosedive, down 24% in 3 months according to one source, 75% in another

Above stat graph from http://karakullake.blogspot.com/2011/03/jalopniks-new-format-design.html but looking at Alexa, http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/jalopnik.com pageviews are down 25% in the last 3 months.

Someone named Matt, who doesn't have an email on his blogger profile (so responding directly is not possible) and doesn't indicate if he has any affiliation with Jalopnik, left the follwing comment on this post

As it should be clear, sitemeter was pulled from the sites because it wasn't functioning. This has been widely discussed and explained. A simple look at individual post pageviews on the site would indicate this is so. Thanks for your concern, though.

Ok, you refer to plural number of places sitemeter was pulled from, Why?

Further, what correlation is there that Alexa (2nd source, you know, responsible journalism standard practive) also has Jalopnik's pageviews down 25%, and I link to their site page about 3 inches about this sentance, not hard to see what they have to say.

Oh, I'm not concerned, I'm reporting this fact as news, not concern. My stats are steadily growing like mad, and I'm guessing it's for many reasons, and only one of them is that Jalopnik has lost viewers that like my simple, easy, with no advertising format instead. Huh.

Macintosh, Granny, and Red Delicious.

How ya like them apples?

The US Interior Secretary and Director of the BLM toured the Imperial Sand Dunes at Glamis

story here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sand-dunes-20110221,0,4494274.story but in a nutshell they came to relate that motorized recreation fits into the Obama administration's "America's Great Outdoors " conservation initiative rolled out last week that is heavy on land preservation.

great photo by Allen Schaben, shows the secretary in a ranger's sand rail that got stuck when they went to go over a steep dune... nice new rail huh?

1967 Rebel station wagon regional models

The Mariner (600 units) in Barbados blue with panels trim of simulated bleached teakwood planking accented by narrow black horizontal stripes and a "nautical anchor" medallion. The interior featured anchors and stars decorating dark blue suede bolster panels of the seats, which also had white piping and broad horizontal pleated inserts of medium blue antelope grain vinyl and was sold along the coastal regions of the United States.

Above, the Mariner

Below the Westerner

The Westerner (500 units) in Frost White with plankwood trim side inserts and a "Pony Express" medallion. The interior featured stallion brown vinyl that simulated "richly tooled" leather on the seats and door panels in combination with white antelope grained vinyl and was available west of the Mississippi River.

The Briarcliff (400 units) in Matador Red with simulated black camera grain side panels and "regal" medallions, as well as its own black "antelope grain" vinyl interior. The Briarwood was marketed in major markets in the east and south.

Designed to spur interest in all of AMC's products and to generate increased sales for the company, the special wagons were limited for sale to geographical areas.

Info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_Rebel learned about it and got photos from
http://svammelsurium.blogg.se/2010/may/mariner-westener-briarcliff-rambler.html

If you have a car shipped, I recommend inspecting the cargo container before they lock it closed and send it off

If you look closely, you'll the see above photo has 2 pieces of lumbar stacked on top of each other , both sides of the container, from the front to the back. Doesn't look safe to me.

Photos from http://svammelsurium.blogg.se/ becuase if I recall correctly, that blogger works at a recieving location where collector cars come into Sweden

Marten (http://svammelsurium.blogg.se/) tells me
Since the customs about a year ago raised their costs excessively for goods from the US, people shipped cars via the Netherlands and paid only 6% fees, but now they raised the fees to 20%, so what is done now is to take the cars to France which has a regular fee of ony 5% on the custom value. The reason for taking a midway landing is that when the car is brought here its suddenly a European car, and then taken into Sweden with no charges at all!

You have less than a second to see the biker... Click on the image to see the full size first

Too late, next time slow down and be careful, it's the only way to see better... Ducati advertising found on http://autoadvert.tumblr.com/

Rental car fuel charges as of last week, before gas prices jumped

National...........$5.01 a gallon
Avis..................$7.99
Hertz................$8.29

This is what you will be charged if they have to top off the tank, if you opt not to prepay them, and don't fill the car before returning it.

I've just added a translator widget, adapted from the brilliant Dicasblogger.com.br translator widget

I adapted the code from Dicasblogger.bz to the following, but since they were are writing their blog in Brazil, they speak Portuguese, and never wrote a code for translating anything to Portuguese, nor did they use a flag of Brazil, so I need one of those also, I can't adapt any code to translate from English to Portuguese... can anyone write the code to do that?
Here is one source code to show an example of what it takes, But it's not complete or all that would be displayed would be the flag, and none of the code text. So, clicking on the flag will work for a translator... but to see and example of the source code behind I'm going to have to delete a little bit of it

!--– Add English to Italian –-- a
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cit&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;"
title="Google-Translate-English to Italian" img style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px solid; BORDER-LEFT: 0px solid; WIDTH: 32px; HEIGHT: 32px; BORDER-TOP: 0px solid; CURSOR: pointer; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px solid" title="Google-Translate-English to Italian" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cit&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" alt="Google-Translate-English to Italian" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_mcq01yDJ2uY/Sdke2xCmrPI/AAAAAAAAAj0/Jv14yyDo1i4/Italy.png" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" /

I deleted all the <> >< stuff so you can read it.

What I did adapting the code from Portuguese to English as the origin language seems to have worked, if you find it didn't, I'm sorry. I can't do anymore with it, coding is beyond me.