Remember the Kia Boyz? Remember that weird moment, late in the pandemic, when Kias and Hyundais were being stolen at a huge clip with USB cables? A strange combination of factors, many related to COVID-19, led to a historic increase in car thefts. What goes up must come down, and 2024 saw a massive drop in stolen cars.
The Morning Dump today is all about reaping and sowing. Just as Hyundai and Kia had to spend huge amounts of money to make up for the tiny amount they saved by not putting immobilizers in cars, so must Toyota pay $1.6 billion to the United States for importing cheater diesels via its Hino subsidiary to try to save itself some time and money.
Tesla made a totally wild-looking pickup truck in order to differentiate itself from what’s out there, but to achieve that aesthetic it had to glue steel trim to the exterior of the vehicle. That glue is now failing on some vehicles and the company will recall nearly every Cybertruck made.
Japan’s government, reportedly fearing a Foxconn takeover of Nissan, pushed the company into an arranged marriage with Honda. It didn’t take, and now Foxconn may be getting what it wants from Nissan in a more roundabout way.
Kia-Hyundai Help Solve A Problem That Kia-Hyundai Created
I do think the pandemic broke our collective minds in ways we’ll only be able to grasp looking back on this period in history from way in the future. Exhibit Z, for the last letter in KiaBoyz, is that time in 2022 when teens on TikTok showed the world how to use a USB thumb drive and a flathead screwdriver to steal an entire car.
For reasons of thrift, Kia and Hyundai decided to sell versions of its lower-trim cars without an immobilizer (basically, a device that can sense when a legit key fob is in the car). The brands did this for years, and it wasn’t a big deal until somehow this information got to rowdy, thieving teens.
Someone realized that you could remove the trim around the steering wheel, pop off the part of the ignition cylinder that interfaces with a physical key, and twist the ignition into the “on” position using a USB cord. The information spread virally on TikTok and thieves around the country started looking for Kias/Hyundais. Specifically, they were looking for cars without push-button ignitions.
While some teens were doing this for the lulz, many were doing it to harvest parts. Older economy cars are exactly the kind owned by budget-conscious individuals who might not be looking to buy new, genuine parts. The pandemic also led to global shortages of just about everything, meaning that the value of those stolen parts was even higher.
It was a perfect storm, leading to a massive increase in stolen cars in 2022 and 2023. So many cars were stolen that insurers started to drop Kia and Hyundai owners. The automakers attempted to offer fixes, including sending stickers to people letting them know the cars are now not as easy to steal.
The good news, unless you’re an Accutane-raging miscreant teen, is that the fixes seem to be helping. According to statistics from the National Insurance Crime Bureau, car thefts dropped by 17% from 2023 to 2024. This is back to pre-pandemic levels and the biggest decrease in 40 years. From NICB:
“The overall decrease in stolen vehicles nationwide is a testament to the hard work and collaboration between law enforcement, multi-jurisdictional auto theft task forces, governing bodies, vehicle manufacturers, and NICB,” said David J. Glawe, President and CEO of NICB. “Collectively, these groups used data and intelligence to develop actionable strategies to help local authorities investigate and prosecute offenders and to prevent vehicle theft from occurring in the first place.”
NICB assisted thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in 2024 on theft investigations, aiding in the identification of complex vehicle theft rings and the recovery of hundreds of thousands of stolen vehicles across the United States.
Last year, 850,708 vehicles were stolen nationwide, marking a significant decline from the recent historic peak of 1,020,729 thefts in 2023.
While all of the above is likely true, there are two unmentioned factors worth considering:
- Parts are now cheaper as supply chains have improved. This may be bad for companies like ZF, but it makes stolen parts less valuable. Even before the KiaBoyz went viral, thefts went up.
- Hyundai-Kia vehicles may still be popular targets, but all the efforts made by the company seem to be helping. Overall, Hyundai and Kia vehicles saw a whopping 37.5% year-over-year decrease in sales.
Of course, Hyundai and Kia vehicles are still targets. A friend of mine bought a used Kia Optima last year (she didn’t ask me first) and it was stolen within the first two days of ownership. Of the top five most stolen vehicles, Hyundai and Kia still make up three of the spots:
- Hyundai Elantra (31,712 cars stolen in 2024)
- Hyundai Sonata (26,720)
- Chevrolet Silverado (21,666)
- Honda Accord (18,529)
- Kia Optima (17,493)
Hyundai is lucky that HyundaiBoyz never caught on.
Toyota-Hino Agrees To Pay $1.6 Billion For Diesel Cheating
Volkswagen may be the automaker most associated with Dieselgate, but it’s far from the only automaker that was trying to squeeze more power and mileage out of oil burners through various cheats.
Hino, the Toyota subsidiary that makes the company’s diesel engines, admitted it used “illicit short-cuts” and falsified emissions test data in a guilty plea this week. This is connected to the larger Daihatsu Charade wherein various arms of Toyota tried to rush products to market to meet increasingly strict deadlines.
The penalties, according to Reuters, are quite severe:
U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith in Detroit accepted the Japanese truck and engine manufacturer’s guilty plea and sentenced the company to pay a fine of $521.76 million and serve five years of probation during which it will be prohibited from importing diesel engines it manufactured into the United States.
The court also entered a $1.087 billion forfeiture money judgment against the company.
“Companies who intentionally evade our nation’s environmental laws, including by fabricating data to feign compliance with those laws, deserve punishment and will be held criminally accountable,” said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s acting enforcement chief Jeffrey Hall.
A ban on the importation of diesel engines seems worse than the actual monetary judgment.
Tesla Recalling Basically All Cybertrucks For Steel Trim Failure
We’ve now hit the magic 8th recall for the Tesla Cybertruck. There was the weird pedal issue, the defective inverters, and the tire-chewing wheel covers. This sometimes happens with new vehicles, although a curious number of them appear to be related to trying to make the truck look cool.
This latest involves a steel trim piece glued to the car. Here’s how NHTSA describes it:
The Cybertruck is equipped with a cosmetic applique along the exterior of the vehicle, known as the cant rail, which is an assembly comprised of an electrocoated steel stamping joined to a stainless steel panel with structural adhesive. The cant rail assembly is affixed to the vehicle with fasteners. On affected vehicles, the cant rail stainless steel panel may delaminate at the
adhesive joint, which may cause the panel to separate from the vehicle.
Tesla will fix this problem by using a different structural adhesive that’s “not prone to environmental embrittlement” and, additionally, by adding a stud welded to the panel and then affixed with a nut.
How is this impacting the company? The stock is mostly flat so far today after the Secretary of the Treasury told people to go out and buy Tesla stock, which feels like a weird thing for the Treasury Secretary to do.
Foxconn Might Close The Deal With Mitsubishi
There was a time not that long ago when Honda and Nissan were planning to merge, thus bringing Mitsubishi with them to create one big supercompany. The world discovered, quite quickly, that this was likely due to Taiwanese phone maker Foxconn sniffing around Nissan.
Just as quickly the whole deal fell apart, and the world learned that maybe Honda was more interested in Mitsubishi all along. Mitsubishi, being the belle of the ball, seems to have attracted a lot of dance partners lately.
Foxconn, stymied from grabbing Nissan outright, may just skip ahead and make a deal with Mitsubishi according to this report from Nikkei Asia:
Foxconn is finalizing a deal to collaborate with Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors on electric vehicles, sources briefed on the matter told Nikkei Asia.
If completed, the arrangement would be a major breakthrough for the Taiwan-based iPhone assembler’s yearslong ambition to expand its presence in the EV industry, giving it an established automaker as a key client.
Discussions on the EV project have been going on for more than six months, according to multiple sources. Foxconn Chairman Young Liu values the potential collaboration with the Japanese player as a way to prove the contract electronics manufacturer’s EV capabilities and open doors to work with other carmakers, the people said.
This makes sense to me, although it remains complicated. The largest shareholder of Nissan at the moment is Renault, and the largest shareholder of Mitsubishi Motors is Nissan.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
It’s grey and foggy outside and that, to me, feels like Beach House, so please enjoy the hyper-mellow “Space Song.”
The Big Question
Have you ever had a car stolen? What happened? Did you get it back?
I haven’t, but a friend had a Rio stolen a year or two before it became very known and viral about how H/K thefts. I forget if it was ever recovered, but it actually worked out for them to just take the insurance money. It had been the good, new, reliable car in the household when it was bought new a few years prior, but at that point they also had a newer Tacoma and they didn’t really need two cars with one car-based commute by then (pandemic + a move closer to one job).
I’ve otherwise just been concerned that other people I know with pushbutton start H/K vehicles will still get broken into, only for the would-be thieves to realize it isn’t one of the easy ones. I can’t imagine they’re looking that closely to see if it’s a spec that would be a keyed ignition.
That happened to a friend of ours last year. He’s got a Soul with keyless entry but one day someone broke his window and tore out some interior trim before noticing they couldn’t steal it.
Yeah, it seems like cars on the smaller/cheaper/lower end are the ones you hear about getting stolen more, like Souls and Fortes, and they’re the models that are probably less frequently equipped with keyless access.
Hyundai-Kia vehicles may still be popular targets, but all the efforts made by the company seem to be helping. Overall, Hyundai and Kia vehicles saw a whopping 37.5% year-over-year decrease in sales.
Is… this is a typo right? Though I guess making 63 sales this year for every 100 sales last year means fewer cars to steal.
Why auto thefts are down.
“What is ‘All the Hyundais and Kias have already been stolen’?”
Now I’m just picturing EVERY Hyundai/Kia dismantled in a large yard, with the KiaBoyz sitting around going “Well shit, now what?”
Just like the underpants knomes, Step one, steal Kias. Step 2, . Step 3, profit!
+1 for the gnomes reference.
It sort of reminds me of the reasoning going on in DC lately.
Someone tried to steal my daughter’s Elantra, they broke the window and ripped apart the dash but somehow weren’t able to start it? Maybe they forgot the USB. My mom also had her Grand Prix stolen while parked at an airport hotel parking lot when she was overseas. The only way we knew it was happening at the time is the thieves used her credit card from the trunk to buy gas. Never saw that car again.
You underestimate the incompetence of the kind of people who think stealing cars is a good idea. I helped a family member put the steering column of a ’12 Soul back together THREE times after failed attempts to steal it.
Thought it just had an immobilizer, but after the third time, the ignition cylinder was destroyed and I found out when sourcing a replacement these guys just can’t do anything right.
Well they not only didn’t manage to start the car, they were doing it in an apartment parking garage. With security cameras.
The guy that half-successfully (ruined it, walked away with it, but got caught and I got it back) stole my ZX-6R punched out my ignition cylinder with my biggest screwdriver and then twisted the wires together.
He also left a bloody fingerprint wrapped around one of the shafts of my screwdrivers, left a sweat soaked sweatshirt in my shed, and tried walking it up the street when he realized he was too stupid to hotwire it but not smart enough to give up. Oh, and he tried walking it out my backyard first… which is fenced and densely wooded.
What country are you in? All Canadian cars built after 2007 have immobilizers – it’s illegal to sell a new car without one. So if they broke in to a car that was Canadian spec the USB trick won’t work.
USA, the country where no regulation seems to get passed that might actually be good for consumers
Yes, I had my 1991 Honda Accord Wagon stolen from in front of my house on a Saturday night on June 25, 2011.
Nothing happened other than it was just gone. The police could do nothing. I never got it back.
I purport that I would be driving that car today if I still had it.
NOT ONLY did the Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced on live TV that Americans should buy an individual stock for what I believe is the first time in history. That exact same Commerce Secretaries sons run an investment Bank (Cantor Fitzgerald) that he was previously CEO of. Lutnik’s sons also just upgraded their companies rating of Tesla stock, despite the free-fall in value and sales.
Lets recall a few facts here, Commerce Secretary is a cabinet appointment by the President, and is unelected and accountable to nobody but the President. The Commerce Secretary is also the Presidents principal advisor on commerce, US business, and things of that nature.
Tesla stock has continued to fall despite a single-day bump caused by a shameless advertisement on white house grounds, Elon Musk continues to use his influence over the president to attempt to salvage what is left of his quickly crumbling company. Actions like this should be considered nothing less than outright corruption and insider dealings.
With all that in mind, a scramble to attempt to fix a poor design choice on the cybertruck with different glue than before feels awfully symbolic of the company as a whole right now, minor shift to reframe shortcomings, rather than address the true issues at hand.
Principal Advisor but not Principalled Advisor.
For some reason I read this in Matt Berry’s voice.
I didn’t at first, but now I realize the error of my ways.
I read it in Bernie’s voice.
I can hear that too.
I love how every cabinet pick can be traced directly back to the industry that they’re now tasked with regulating. Complete corruption was the plan and they’re succeeding magnificently.
Today I had to take an annual training course on conflicts of interest. I aced my test. This clearly constitutes a conflict of interest. Maybe I should forward this course to the Commerce Secretary?
Sorry, but conflict of interest training is DEI related, and has therefore been banned. Falls under the Equality umbrella, so it had to go.
Besides, the definition of conflict of interest has now changed. The new standard is “is that something I don’t want someone (other than me) to do?”
My brother had my father’s early 1980s Cutlass Supreme in New Orleans in the early 1990s – that year the Cutlass was the most stolen car. The car was eventually recovered, but they took my radar detector. This car needed new coil springs in the rear due to me and my brother renting a U-haul trailer to take some furniture we picked from my friends along the way and we poorly loaded the trailer and put too much downforce on the bumper.
Otherwise my “Elise” has had multiple cars where thieves broke her passenger door window to steal low-value items from the car – in the first case a cell-phone charger, the second case some sunglasses and ice-cream money. The ice cream money was stolen across the street from a New York City police station – I should not have parked the car there, but it was pouring cats and dogs when we parked and the hotel’s garage was screwed up and we couldn’t figure out if we could park in it, and I had parked a dozen times in a sketchier part of the neighborhood without issue. That was a tough one because we had to drive it home to Massachusetts without a window – we did stop at Home Depot and got some storm window film, but it didn’t work all that well. Although the garage near the Whitney Museum didn’t blink when we valet parked the car with a smashed window (don’t let thieves ruin your vacation). In both cases we never really got rid of all the little cubes of tempered glass.
The neighborhood I grew up, we learned early that it was cheaper to just leave the car unlocked and let them have whatever they were going to take. Replacing a window was more expensive than anything we left in the cars. I still do this as an adult by habit and it annoys my wife to no end.
I’ve seen people put signs on their car saying door unlocked and the thieves would still break the glass.
Oh, It’s JBweld’s time to shine. Mr. Tesla and friends are going to go out to whatever remnant of mid 80’s economic growth known as a vacant mall parking lot. Where they keep the nation’s Cyberstruck emergency surplus. Just a dab of Metalstik here and a couple drops of Clearweld there. Get the Cybertruck back to collecting dust in no time.
“environmental embrittlement” is my general vibe in 2025
It will be once the EPA is done.
“Have you ever had a car stolen?”
Nope. Until recently, I always drove basic and relatively undesirable cars with manual transmissions.
Basic and relatively undesirable cars are perfect to use while committing other crimes
And you know this… how? Inquiring minds want to know.
That’s one of the main things cars get stolen for
Flashy/fancy ones get stolen for joy rides or export overseas
Very common/popular ones get stolen to dismantle for parts
Bland, boring ones and beaters get stolen for use in other crimes – robberies, drug deals, drive bys, etc
Well, it’s way easier find, let’s say, the screamingly yellow Lamborghini than a 2009 Nissan Sentra with a mismatched panel and a donut tire. I see a dozen of those on my 3/4 mile walk to work every day. I see the screamingly yellow Lamborghini maybe 2-3 times a year.
If you’ve ever seen Six Underground, there’s a neon green Giulia that definitely backs up your easier-to-find theory.
See below. My Escort was manual transmission, base model I bought new for $9999. It was sitting between a BMW and a Lexus so my low end was apparently more desirable. I can only go by my experience. My Soul stays in a garage and uses a club as pictured in the article. Thanks for sharing.
Not if I fart in it before getting out…
This. Nobody would steal any of my cars.
In other words, cant rail can fail.
The good news for Tesla is it is easy to track down the recalled trucks when the majority of them are sitting unsold in showroom overflow lots.
The ones that have been set on fire are even easier to find!
I was out of town once and had my base model Ford Escort stolen out of a hotel parking lot. Fortunately for me I received the insurance check the same day as the police called saying they had found it stripped.
I currently own a 2012 Kia Soul that has had the recall protection installed.
Also, I didn’t see a photo credit for your Kia steering wheel shot?
The Treasury Department urged Americans to help prop up the stock value of a car company owned by a Nazi. Goodness, we live in such interesting times.
“Help prop up our investments so we can bail out on them!”
We’re getting so close to Starship Trooper levels of “Remember, owning Tesla stock guarantees citizenship!”
“I want kids, so I bought a cybertruck”
Wait, I thought the nickname for the CT was “Incel Camino”? Wouldn’t that imply procreation is off the table?
Wankpanzer is also on the table. Just putting that out there!
Coincidentally, the federally subsidized “investment” bailout is the exact same reason why the billionaires that have infested the government are pushing so hard for a Federal crypto reserve. Too many people are left holding a bag of zero-utility crypto that they want to cash out on, and there needs to be Government levels of money pumped into the market for them to get out profitably. As if tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy wasn’t bad enough, now they’re actively asking the average American Tax Payer to bail out their dumb investments.
There is a twitter account that I follow that only focuses on the stock buys of every politician. It’s worth a look, regardless of how you vote.
https://x.com/QuiverQuant
This is a cool resource and another reminder that the vast majority of these folks live very, very different lifestyles than their constituents.
Yep, it’s not like one “side” is the only one taking advantage of policy. Most regular folks tend to think that their chosen leaders are fighting for them. That’s simply not true. They don’t want anything to do with you, unless you are advancing THEIR life. Yours is an annoying side effect.
Each one of them is taking advantage of their power. (I’d do the same, obv.). Not a single one of them cares about voter number #17438, or voicemail number 12 on a Tuesday.
As soon as they all have enough money, corporations won’t need or want our business either.
Rock, meet hard place!
That’s not possible.
Once Nancy Pelosi starts purchasing Tesla shares, I’ll consider it – her investment track record is spotless.
I mean basically being able to legally do insider trading definitely makes it harder for folks like her to miss, but clearly she knows what she’s doing on top of that.
Politicians have no right buying stock. It’s a massive conflict of interest. This is a big part of the problem. Everything in our society should be separated by labor and capital, with public servants barred from profiting from capital.
No shit, Sherlock, lol.
How can I assume that sentiment is obvious in this climate?
I dunno…ask any 5 year old what their thought is on that exact issue with no context. When they reply with the same answer you have formed, it should tell you that it is basic common sense, and not something profound.
Hence, obvious.
Don’t be scared to be right about things, regardless of the “climate”, lol.
Yeah, okay, pal. When the capital was stormed in a grass-roots movement to topple democracy and 75 million Americans voted in a fascist, I should have consulted a 5 year old for the real consensus.
Putting “lol” at the end of something doesn’t make you less of a jerk.
Thanks!
(there was no attempt to “topple democracy” and there is no fascism in the US. People just got tired of some dumbshits fucking it up for everyone else. Get a grip, dude.)
I mean there was a riot targeting the interruption of certifying the 2020 election. That sounds like an attempt to topple a democracy to me.
It was a bunch of tourist lemmings that got all hot and bothered on a cold day. Which, btw, was not halted by either “side”. The Dems were just as accountable, in the sense that they also wanted it to happen to further their own agendas. (Read:money for them and their friends)
It wasn’t anything close to anything serious. There has been probably 50 WWE pay-per-view events since then that were more serious in regards to intent.
It was basically a bunch of 7th graders banging their lockers because the school took Hi-C off the fountain machine.
To hold on to that day as a battle cry is insane, and even more juvenile than that day on its own.
What is your definition of something serious? what would’ve had to happen for those events to be ‘serious’?
The woman that was killed by the police was jumping a barricade to get to the politicians, and the crowd stopped because of the gunfire.
I have no doubt they would’ve tried to kill any they got their hands on, regardless of which side of the aisle they were on.
I think you are vastly overestimating the intelligence/skill set of those people on the property that day.
It was a bunch of underqualified union “cops” vs. a few thousand hillbilly tourists (and some planted Feds) going at it on a brisk afternoon.
That is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the story.
It wasn’t a war, or a revolution. It was nothing more than some dummies fighting with some other dummies about a topic neither had anything to do with.
A glorified bar fight. To make it into anything more is egregious.
But, if you want to make it a basis for a platform, have at you. It hasn’t worked so far, and won’t ever work. To each their own.
Ah. There it is. The ‘planted feds’ comment. We’re done here. No further point. You’re too far gone, and have a complete lack of ability to self reflect or think critically. Enjoy life
Well, it’s true.
I am not sure what “too far gone” means as far as paying attention to facts, but if it means farther away from your intolerance to ideas that conflict your own… I will, and have a great time doing so 🙂
No shit.
Once again: what color is the sky in your fucking world?
Such god damed bullshit here.
Troll…
Too bad the idiot CEO of tesla (sorry forgot his name) runs the country, otherwise that stainless steel thing would finally be deemed too unsafe for the road. It would be nice if us decent people didnt have to be visually assaulted (sometimes physically since the steering doesnt work) on the road.
What is the salary of “full-time victim” these days? Because, even if it’s not a lot, you got yourself a sweet gig!
If only Dyson could harness the suction power you demonstrate for the billionaire class that’s actively unwinding a country.
Unwinding a twisted system should be a good thing, correct?
If it’s replaced with a system that improves the lives of the average person, then yes. If it’s replaced with turbo oligarchy that allows a small handful of people to control basically all of the wealth and power, then it’s less than ideal. Probably bad, in fact.
And let me be clear-if anything Trump’s economic policy will probably be beneficial to me and my extended family at best and be a net 0 at worst. My wife just got a massive raise that kicks in in May and I’ll be up for a big one in the fall. Barring anything catastrophic (which is always possible) we’re going to be in very good financial shape for the rest of our 30s.
I personally just want our incredibly rich society to offer a higher baseline quality of life for everyone, and I don’t mind giving up some of my own money and material comforts to help make it happen. This country is in dire need of a makeover, I just don’t think what we’re getting is going to do anything but make things worse.
Well, we are lockstep in agreement that something needs to change.
It’d be fool’s gold to expect the newest changes to result in 120 on three arrows, but hitting a double 15 is a start, anyway.
We gotta aim for the board at some point, right? Even if it means missing the cork during warm-ups, at least they are toeing the tape.
That’s all I ask for in a first attempt. Toe the tape and hurl it.
This seems more like hurling it directly into the stands, then saying “no look I set a world record.”
Given the current inability to maintain relationships, cut random funding, and head directly towards a degraded quality of life.
I mean I think this was more or less the mindset of a lot of voters and failing to address it was a death sentence for party line Dems. Folks want change and they no longer care how they get it. You’ve got one candidate acting like a aggrieved spoiled kid running on a “I promise we’ll burn everything down” platform versus a candidate who’s telling you everything is fine and you should want more of it.
I’m not surprised at the result, but unfortunately I think a lot of people are starting to realize that they’re going to be collateral damage in the whole burning down thing and of course Republicans are vindictive and are going to crush every one of their boogeymen (which are subject to change each election cycle) with an iron fist.
We’re getting change alright, it’s just going to harm a lot more people than it’ll help. I feel bad for and work in a position that I’ll be able to help some of the innocent victims of all this in, but when it comes to all the folks that enthusiastically signed up for it that are on fire I’m afraid my empathy is more limited.
Dems would be smart to take a look at all of it, do a little populism as a treat, and swoop in with actual left wing policy to aid the working class…but come on, we know they won’t do that! They’re just going to run Mitt Romney next time or something.
Anyway we’ve got room on the actual left for you here amigo! And you get to keep your guns!
Until you kids get your house in order, I’m good. Thanks for the invite, though 🙂
“…economic policy will probably be beneficial to me and my extended family at best and be a net 0 at worst. My wife just got a massive raise that kicks in in May and I’ll be up for a big one in the fall. Barring anything catastrophic (which is always possible) we’re going to be in very good financial shape for the rest of our 30s”
You sound like my dad in early 2008. And me in 2019. Remember who really pulls the strings and never underestimate them.
I may disagree with you about the politics, but I just want to say thanks for being chill and level-headed. The past few weeks have seen a lot of the commentariet lose their collective shit about politics and the level of child-tier insult slinging is really off-putting. So thanks again for being reasonable.
Of course! This is a great place to chat and I’m here to chat. Several people also told me the mudslinging wasn’t adding to the conversation and I took it to heart. I firmly believe the vast majority of us agree on way more than we disagree on and the only way we’re going to find ways to unite on common goals is dialogue.
I’ve explained the perspective I’m coming from a few times and folks like you, Get Stoney, V10emous, etc. who I may not agree with some of the fine details on have done the same and as a result there’s mutual respect. The name calling on both sides as well as the attempts to further ostracize certain groups isn’t productive.
This country has been in a real pickle for a while and I don’t think all of the solutions will come from a singular place. I think they’ll come from a lot of different people of differing opinions and values and I just like to set the table when I can.
…I won’t stop making fun of the Cybertruck or Musk though. That’s a bridge too far 😉
Some things function better twisted than they do unwound. CANBUS lines become error-filled ghost-code nightmares if they’re untwisted.
So unless you’re replacing it with a more robust system, your problems will get worse. I would argue backtracking to a ruling King with completely unchecked authority is not more robust.
Do we see King Henry the 8th reincarnate making his own religion by years end?
Make a religion? Good grief, lol.
He’s already sold his own branded bibles. It’s closer than you think.
Selling a branded replica product is a far cry from creating a religion.
The hysteria that you posited in the comment before is a whole different proposition. One that isn’t even remotely tied to reality.
I deliberately compared him to Henry the 8th as there’s a lot of parallels in the “fuck you, I do what I want” department. Which ultimately saw him declare himself the head of the Church of England.
There is nothing this man will not burn to forward his own interests.
If they were only his own interests, no one would have voted for him.
That’s what is baffling, there are millions upon millions of people that agree that you are wrong.
There are millions more than them, that agree. I would argue many of the millions you refer to are standing too close to the problem, and can’t see the forest what for all the trees in the way.
Thankfully, those forests won’t be an issue now that the Mad King declares protected forest land can be cleared to replace the lumber from The North (for a brief period until it rapidly runs out).
Except that at some point you might have to acknowledge that you are wrong. When the collective decides (not on a whim, mind you) that the ideas you speak about are stupid…well, they might just be stupid.
So, you can stay in your tower, saying what you want. Go for it. But, you can only cry wolf for so long, before everyone starts to just ignore you, knowing that there isn’t any wolf in the way you want there to be.
To be clear, there is no wolf. I agree. I’m talking about the leopard. Unfortunately, most choose not to acknowledge it until it eats their face.
Wasn’t that leopard thing some crazy analogy on one of those news networks a few days ago, Or was it a quote from some old lady in Congress? I know it came from somewhere ridiculous, but I forget which one.
It’s been a mainstay since the initial election run of 45.
Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party | Know Your Meme
Ahh, so it’s just an annoying stale rehash of some proverb that a genius came up with centuries ago, that people today copy to feign intelligence.
Makes sense I would have connected it to some news network. Cool.
History repeats itself, but it usually adds a modern twist in the process.
It’s been going around a while. “I never thought the leopard would bite MY face off”, says the person who voted for the leopard biting faces off party.
I know you don’t care, but thousands of people have been indiscriminately (and often illegally) fired by people who have very little understanding of the workings of government. And now they don’t know how they are going to pay their mortgages. Or their car payments. Or eventually their grocery bills.
I don’t work for the government because I like my fat corporate comp package too much. But I know many, many people who do, and most of them really care about this country and therefore dedicated their lives to working for it.
No one is unwinding anything. They are blowing it up for their own gain, and they are hurting a lot of innocent people in the process. So shove your flippancy up your ass and fuck off.
So shove your flippancy up your ass and fuck off.
Nah. I normally would, but since it is you who said something so shitty, I don’t think I am going to.
I would like to shake the hand of whomever made you boss, though.
When I read his bullshit takes here it just makes my head hurt.
+1 for the fuck off comment though.
Thanks.
Dyson himself is a Brexiteer, so there’s that.
Another rich man that folks regarded as brilliant, that very much bet on the wrong horse. How incredibly on the nose.
Ok elon…
Yeah, no thanks. lol
I’m sure every whiny maga moron knows. The entire platform of the idiot Trump right wing is basically “Whaaa! Whaaa! Whaaa! – not everything is the way I want it so I’m going to burn down the house”.
I’m not sure if that is true, but if it makes you feel better, I gave you a smiley. 🙂
If they deemed any vehicle that lost a piece of trim as too unsafe for the road there wouldn’t be a car on the road.
Yeah, I had a Cadillac that seemed to shed them with some regularity
Thats just the latest recall in a string of them. And not all problems witha vehicle become recalls. Im surprised people are somehow ok with the steer by wire it has.
You mean the laminated face twitter c*nt?
Yeah the one with the botched penis enlargement
I object to the oxymoronic term “hyper-mellow.”
Goes right along with extra-medium
My favorite is over-exaggerate. Ever heard anybody under-exaggerate?
Oh, I think our British friends have honed under-exaggeration to a fine art. Let’s ask Adrian!
Those are the only t-shirts that fit me!
[all the giggles]
It makes sense if you think of Beach House as mellow music for hyperspace travel.
The “sub-pop” label has never been more applicable.
Never had a car stolen, but they tried. 94 Accord, they busted out the window, removed the steering covers, and my theory is that at that point they realized it was a manual and stole my backpack (it was finals week, great time to have all my books and notes stolen) and ran.
I was fortunate enough to get it all back, they apparently stole a neighbors civic, then took stuff from several cars, took anything valuable and left the rest. So luckily my laptop was not in the bag and in the end all I had to do was replace the window and glue my steering column covers back together.
I have a 94 Accord auto… and a club.
I always get annoyed when incomplete stats are presented. Ok there were 18,529 Accords stolen out of how many on the road? % would be nice
That’s a good point. And far more relevant. I swear these reports used to break it down like that.
I’ve never had an entire car stolen, but remember when people were ripping out our aftermarket cd players left and right? Those were the good old days.
They stole the removable faceplate off of mine and left the now useless head unit. Miscreants.
I’ve never had a CD player stolen, but someone once did steal a book of CDs from the front seat of my car.
I fought this by using exclusively burnt CDs full of pirated music. Anti-theft was the reason I did it, not cause I was a poor college student that could barely afford the spindle of blanks, nope.
That’s what this mostly was!
THE BASTARDS! Hours of careful curation lost! It won’t bring much cash, but it’s sentimental value is through the roof!
Omg in college I would spend hours making CDs for my boyfriend. One time I wrote poetry IN A SPIRAL from the outside to the inside of the disc. ????????
I have no idea why this person agreed to marry me.
I quickly found out that Columbia House CDs were cheaper than blanks. Since I like mostly classical CH had plenty of those at give-away prices.
same. Case Logic 256. so many lost hours of burned CD’s.
Did we all have the same CD case at one point?
we all absolutely did.
I risk making all of us feel old but there are likely some around here that weren’t born at peak “giant CD case in your car” time.
“So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.”
#MeToo
I still do, somewhere.
They had a damn good zipper on that case. Satisfying to zip.
Schwip, Scccchhhhwip. Schwip.
Especially considering it could take HOURS to download one song
Interesting. I also had this happen. I was very confused about this.
Someone once stole only the JJ FAD “Supersonic” mix single tape on my passenger seat.
I was delivering pizza as a job at that time, so I probably had $10 in change in the cupholder, but no…JJ FAD was the booty, lol.
First they took my subwoofers but couldn’t figure out the head unit, then a year later they (or someone else) took the head unit by simply removing the whole plastic trim piece if was connected to and taking it as one piece.
Sorry but that song has been ruined for me with it’s over-use online as sloppy shorthand for SAD
The Incel Camino is the gift that keeps on giving
You mean thefts, not sales, right?
One of the properties of stainless steel as that very little sticks to it.
Krylon seems to.
I’ve read that tagging Cybertrux is now more popular among LatinX youth than tagging rail cars.
“Delaminating” is such a great word to describe so many things associated with Elon Musk.
The board wants to delaminate him from the company.
I wish. The stonk needs to keep yeeting value before the BOD yeets the vile Musk out the nearest window.
One of the investors has already called for him to step down. If they get much closer to a margin call, I imagine it’ll be their next move.
That’s defenestration. He can be delaminated first.
Excellent point! Why not both?
I never had an issue getting my Kias or Hyundais stolen, as we require immobilizers as standard up here in the country Matt supports annexation of.
Perhaps in a reverse takeover, the offer should be opened up to allow people, like Matt who might fear for Kias and Hyundais, to join Canada and the protections afforded to its citizens by mandating immobilizers.
Much like the current PM, we will not sit down with him until he recognizes the sovereignty of our country.
Somewhere a Tesla engineer by themselves at a bar slamming shots: “I told them not to use the edible glue, but Elon demanded it needed to be his favorite flavor and so here we fucking go again.”
They got a bulk deal on Elmer’s school glue when they shuttered the DoE.
I’ve read all your replies on this article, and you are ON FIRE this morning. Keep it up.
I type with the fury of a thousand angry CobraChickens.
Am I the only one who always reads your name as The Drunken Wench?
No, it’s been confused many times. But I have a history for doing that to people. I daily drove a white Gencoupe with NEON pink wheels for 8 years.
Working in the heavy diesel trade, a great many questioned me. I responded by intentionally never clarifying any of their concerns one way or another.
I always assumed that was the joke, but maybe that’s just me?