#trucking economy 2024

[artisticdivasworld]

Truckers Brace for Impact as Freight Jobs Disappear

The freight industry just got hit with over 14,300 layoffs across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. That’s a big deal, and it’s going to ripple through the industry in ways that could make life even harder for individual truckers trying to make a living. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves) First off, fewer workers in manufacturing and logistics means less freight moving. When factories slow down or…

[rubylousstuff]

Join me 😉

[bestgaddi-com]

2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz: Compact Yet Capable

Overview and MPG Performance

Don’t let its size fool you—the 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz delivers a respectable 23 MPG combined. This compact truck is perfect for those who need a versatile vehicle that’s easy on the fuel.

Key Features and Specs

The Santa Cruz comes with a 2.5L Turbocharged engine that offers 281 horsepower and 311 lb-ft of torque. It’s nimble, responsive, and ready for any adventure you throw at it.

Why It’s a Top Choice

For urban explorers and weekend warriors alike, the Hyundai Santa Cruz is a fantastic choice. It offers the convenience of a truck with the fuel efficiency of a smaller vehicle.

[gaytruckerthoughts]

a lot of news articles are already emphasizing how this strike might will raise the price of goods. leaving out a lot of steps in the chain from 'dockworkers want to be able to support their families' and jumping to 'increased prices on consumer goods,' like those things are a direct cause and effect a-b chain

the dockworkers aren't doing that. they are not the bad guys in that equation.

dockworkers are demanding more job protections, and a pay increase over the next 7 years. super reasonable.

currently their pay caps at $39/hr. for a a physically demanding job, outside, near lots of dangerous machinery, and moving cargo boxes that can squish a human like a bug even when empty.

food selling companies are importing all these goods, remember, from abroad because it's much cheaper than producing products here in the usa. they have been depriving our economy, and workers, of countless jobs over the years. these big companies have money the likes of which we cannot imagine. they are already selling their goods at outrageously inflated prices. they, and the people who own the docks and the shiplines, etc, can absolutely afford to pay their workers a living wage and not use this as an excuse to inflate their prices even more

use critical thinking when reading about union strikes. in this case, the union reps started the walkout at exactly midnight on the last day of their last union contact. this is completely legal and ethical. the cartoonishly villainous bosses at the top of the chain had PLENTY of time to negotiate a decent contract for the people that make their mansions and jets and country club memberships possible

huge dockworker strike in ports across the country!! approximately 69% of goods imported expected to be effected

completely essential workers in the supply chain of literally everything we consume

we (the usa) get a lot of food produced in california and the midwest, so that shouldn't end up being too dire if the strike is a long one

be very very very interested to see how truckers react to this, and gauge interest level when/if the dockworkers get what they need

payment scams, pay below cost of living, dispatchers who press drivers to drive in unsafe conditions, and lease-to-purchase scam 'programs' are rampant in the industry. just sayin

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #60 – Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar

This is a book I heard about because the cranky old communist who runs the local daily paper recommended it in some editorial I’ve long since forgotten the actual point of. Which is generally a very high-risk way to get book recommendations, but in this case it worked out! Though I came into this as the friendliest possible audience for the arguments Grabar is trying to make, so I’m genuinely not that sure how convincing a work it is for a less sympathetic reader. It is at least full of fun and somewhat memorable anecdotes.

The book is about, well, (almost) exactly what it says on the tin – the economics and politics and logistics of parking infrastructure in American cities. Specifically, how it is an all-consuming, economy-warping, environment-destroying, city-killing cancer that is the primary causes of decaying urban cores and the lack of affordable housing in gentrifying neighborhoods. The book is loosely organized, with each different chapter approaching the question of and ills caused by parking from a slightly different angle, or considering the history and psychology that has made it such a mighty force, or showing case studies of how different places have started fixing it.

The two main thrusts of the book are a) parking as an un- (which is to say privately-) regulated privilege and entitlement which the great mass of the American public expects to be provided for free (or for an at-most nominal fee) wherever they happen to want to go and b) parking as possibly the least efficient use of developed real estate in the world, and one that absolutely dominates most American cities.

The latter is a bit less interesting to me, just because it’s broadly things I either already knew or could have pretty quickly puzzled out from what I do. It’s still quite well-presented, and quite rage-inducing – the number of square miles of space set aside for the sole use of free parking on every urban street, the eye-watering amount of money cities spend and give up in revenue to subsidize driving and parking, the hundreds of thousands of units of housing whose economics don’t pencil out because of mandatory parking minimums or that are killed by neighbors and ‘community engagement’ out of (ostensible) concern over their effect on parking availability in the neighborhood, and so on. It’s all well-told, but none of it’s exactly groundbreaking (which Grabar is entirely forthright about, to be clear. A large chunk of the book is combination synopsis and advertisement for the older and more more rigorous The High Cost of Free Parking, also cited as one of the main reference texts).

The former is much more interesting reading for me, just because (as a lifelong and involuntary non-driver) the psychology of it is just a bit foreign to me. The sheer fact that so much parking is both free and unregulated means that instead of market pricing or government permitting all manner of fascinatingly dysfunctional private systems to allocate and ration it out develop instead. Fist fights and murders over stolen parking spots, the self-proclaimed vigilantes patrolling condo parking lots for anyone overstaying their welcome, outright criminal conspiracies and organized violence between ice cream truck companies over poaching each others most lucrative routes – many less morbid and attention-getting things too, to be fair, but it’s still all just fascinating. And if ‘explains the world’ is a bit much, does function as an excellent window into a great many neuroses and dysfunctions of American public life.

One of the points the book repeatedly hammers home is that ‘parking shortages’ are, except in a few extremely select neighborhoods, basically a myth. The parking is almost always there – the average American city has more free or subsidized parking spaces and lots than are filled (at least) 360 days of the year. Drivers just expect parking that is simultaneously no more than a couple blocks from their destination, available the moment they pull up, and (almost) free. Garages go half empty while thousands of road-miles are driven every month circling blocks looking for free spots – terrible for the climate, for the roads being driven on, and for traffic and the utility of driving through the city in the first place. Reducing or eliminating free curbside parking (either charging market-clearing rates, or using the real estate for loading zones or patio seating or any of a thousand other things that serve more people in a period than the same amount of parking) thus often makes traffic better, not worse.

This is very much a book written by a journalist rather than an academic, for both good and ill – not that it doesn’t seem densely researched or well-cited (the endnotes run north of 50 pages), but there’s definitely a prioritization of being approachable and readable over being detailed or rigorous. Hence every chapter having at least one and usually several interviews or deeply characterized anecdotes there to be case studies and examples. Sometimes this anecdotes are incredibly interesting and something I’d probably read a book entirely devoted to – the above mentioned New York City ice cream truck feuds, or the fascinatingly blatant and eye-popping amount of corruption around parking ticketing and violations also in NYC, or how the city of Chicago sold the right to operate all its parking meters through the end of the century to Morgan Stanley – but just as (if not more) often it’s just a few pages sketching a sympathetic portrait and life story of someone suffering the travails of some aspect of parking infrastructure so the reader will have someone to empathize with as the problem is described. A trick that does start t get old the more often it’s repeated.

The book’s long digressions into history were (perhaps unsurprisingly) more interesting for me than the contemporary anecdotes. Partially just because the evolution of things like the car garage and how public streets are conceived of is always interesting to learn more about, and partially because of just how long we have at this point known about things like ‘induced demand’ and the various morbid inefficiencies of car-first, -only and -always culture. Literally generations! It's bleak.

Though having said that, this was funnily enough one of the only works of nonfiction I can remember reading in a long, long time that ended on a positive note in a way that didn’t sound like transparent cope. As is mandatory in all works of pop-sociology, -economics or -poli-sci, this one also ends in a chapter or two of examples of Doing It Right and ways society can fix itself going forward. Grabar just actually weaves together a narrative through most of the book of a slowly-increasing pushback and growing political coalitions who are (in the book’s framing) more interested in cheaper housing and more usable public space than traffic jams and parking lots. The COVID lockdowns and sudden need for as much outdoor space as possible – leading to parking lots being repurposed as church pews, curbside parking as patio seating, and a dozen other things – serve as a case in point. The book ends reiterating the point that the USA’s most desirable and expensive neighbourhoods are very often the ones that are dense and walkable enough (and/or sufficiently well-served by public transit) to comfortably live in without owning a car, and the confident belief that such neighbourhoods are only going to grow more common.

All that said, Grabar’s actually much more sympathetic to the pro-car, pro-parking viewpoint than most authors or pundits I have seen make similar points are. Sometimes to a mildly cringe-inducing ‘no don’t run, I promise I’m normal like you!’ way, being entirely honest. But then, one can at least hope that it helps the book actually function as a persuasive text instead of so much elegant preaching to the choir.

[lev-1athan]

How to Survive Being Online

There was an article going around a few weeks back that listed dozens of good things that happened in 2024 globally. The site linked to a weekly roundup newsletter called "Fix the News" that I subscribed to, and it's SO wonderful. It's free, but there's also a paid version. It links its sources as well.

As an American who has been spiraling into hopelessness, it puts into perspective that a lot of progress is still happening worldwide and it's helped to shift my perspective from being so Western-centric.

This week's newsletter included this advice from Mike Monteiro (cw for some ableist language; bolding is mine)

"The only way to defeat a narcissistic sociopath is to starve them. Protect yourself from their bullshit, of course, but move away from it. Let them have their stage, but refuse to be their audience. This isn’t easy. It’s especially difficult because capitalism is an attention economy. The New York Times and The Washington Post love a narcissistic sociopath because they generate clicks and clicks sell ads. Social media loves a narcissistic sociopath for the same reason, but it’s even worse. On social media, we’re the ones carrying their water. Trump says something that he knows will get him attention (i.e. renaming the Gulf of Mexico) and not only does it fire up hundreds of media outlets, who now divert attention to this idiocy, but it also fires up tons of people like me and you, who end up reposting his garbage. Some of us because we feel like we’re media outlets (we’re not), some of us because we’re freaked out and freaking other people out justifies our own freak-out, and some of us because we were once bitten by a narcissistic sociopath under a full moon and we want to generate some of those sweet sweet likes in our direction. The first four years of Donald Trump was a continuous panic attack. I’m not going through that again. You don’t have to either. They’re on stage, but you don’t have to be their audience."

A few positives in this week's newsletter: Wage inequality has declined in two-thirds of countries since 2000 A new report from the International Labour Organisation has revealed that, since the early 2000s, global wage inequality has fallen at an average rate ranging from 0.5% to 1.7% annually, with the most significant decreases occurring in LMICs. Global real average wage growth has started to surpass inflation, with projections reaching 2.7% growth for 2024, the highest increase in over 15 years. (source)

The fastest energy transition in history continues Solar and wind are being installed at a rate five times faster than all other new electricity sources—including gas, hydro and nuclear—combined. At these growth rates, energy think tank, Ember estimates that by 2032, solar and wind generation will surpass the combined output of coal and gas. Step by step, the outlook for the world’s energy mix is getting brighter. (source)

Aid begins pouring into Gaza Over 2,400 aid trucks have entered the Gaza Strip since the cessation of hostilities was announced on Sunday. The truce requires at least 600 truckloads of aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the initial six-week ceasefire. “This is a moment of tremendous hope — fragile, yet vital,” says Tom Fletcher, the United Nations undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs. (source)

Anyway, I highly recommend taking a look. This has seriously helped my mental health, and I think we could all use a little respite.

[soon-palestine]

Who Is the Egyptian Tycoon Accused of Charging Palestinians to Escape Gaza?

Ibrahim al-Organi has close connections with the Egyptian government, diplomats say, and he has multiple business interests in Gaza.

By Vivian Yee, Emad Mekay and Adam Rasgon Vivian Yee and Emad Mekay reported from Cairo, and Adam Rasgon from Jerusalem.

June 20, 2024, 5:49 a.m. ET

He is an Egyptian mogul who is little known outside the region.

The tycoon, Ibrahim al-Organi, chairman of Organi Group, oversees a vast network of companies involved in construction, real estate and security. He maintains close connections to top Egyptian officials, three people who have tracked the relationship and who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their work in the region.

But it is Hala — a company that Organi Group has listed as one of its own — that has drawn the most scrutiny.

Hala has emerged as a lifeline for Palestinians who are trying to escape war-torn Gaza but has also been accused of squeezing desperate people with exorbitant fees.

In an interview this month, Mr. Organi spoke at length and in detail about Hala’s activities, though he said that his role in the company was limited and that he was just one of many shareholders.

Officials at Hala did not respond to questions sent by email.

What is Hala?

Hala had long been listed on Organi Group’s website as one of the conglomerate’s companies, but the reference appeared to have been removed recently.

Organi Group did not respond to a request for comment about why it had removed Hala from the website. Organi Group has at least eight businesses. The company lists Mr. Organi as its chairman and his son, Essameldin Organi, as the chief executive.

The older Mr. Organi, according to the company’s website, has built “a diverse business empire acting as an inseparable backbone to the Egyptian economy in countless fields.”

In the interview in his office in Cairo, Mr. Organi described Hala as a tourism company, “just like any company that exists at an airport.”

It was set up in 2017, he said, to provide V.I.P. services to Palestinian travelers who wanted an upgraded experience crossing through Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza. At the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in February.

Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters According to people who paid for its services during the war, Hala has charged most Gazans older than 16 years $5,000, and most of those younger than 16 half that, $2,500, to coordinate their exits. They also said V.I.P. service was missing. Mr. Organi says Hala charges $2,500 per adult — and nothing for children.

What are the mogul’s ties to Gaza?

Mr. Organi was born in 1974 in the Egyptian border town of Sheikh Zuweid near Gaza.

He says he is merely a shareholder or partner in any companies with business relating to Gaza. But in the interview, he said his companies played a key role in the reconstruction in Gaza, including the removal of rubble, after a previous round of war between Israel and Hamas in 2021. Sign up for the Israel-Hamas War Briefing. 

His Instagram account features several videos that show earth-moving equipment clearing destroyed buildings in Gaza City in 2021. Text below many videos note that the work was being carried out based on the “instructions from President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.”

Mr. Organi also leases trucks to aid groups transporting supplies into the territory and procures some of those same supplies. Weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack in Israel that led to the war, Mr. Organi appeared at the border between Egypt and Gaza and pledged to support Palestinians in Gaza. “We won’t hesitate,” he said in remarks broadcast by the Egyptian news media. “They are our brothers.” Mr. Organi also says he is in talks about potentially participating in Gaza’s reconstruction after the war.

How is he linked to the Egyptian government?

Mr. Organi has maintained close relationships with members of the Egyptian government, using his influence to advance his business interests, according to two diplomats familiar with the matter. He was already a well-known businessman in Sinai when he rose to prominence in the 2010s after he partnered with the Egyptian military to fight militants in the peninsula who claimed affiliation with the Islamic State.

Trucks waiting near the Rafah border crossing in Egypt last month.

In the interview, Mr. Organi said he had led the Sinai Tribes’ Union, a statebacked group that helped to fight the militants in the peninsula.“God helped us gather the tribes again under the banner of the Union and put me as the head,” he said. “We decided to help the government wipe out terror groups completely.”

In 2022, Mr. el-Sisi appointed Mr. Organi as one of two nongovernment members on the Sinai Development Authority, which is responsible for development initiatives in the peninsula.

Mr. Organi recently announced that he, along with other tribal figures, would build a city named for Mr. elSisi in Sinai. He said that did not mean he had a special relationship with the president, and that others were involved. “We are known for strongly supporting President Sisi and we love him,” Mr. Organi said, “but it’s not that we are the only ones.”

Vivian Yee is a Times reporter covering North Africa and the broader Middle East. She is based in Cairo.

Yee Adam Rasgon is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.

[sourcreammachine]

✨My Favourite Moments of 2024!✨

uk prime minister keir starmer resigns in disgrace after accidentally referring to a trans woman by her correct pronouns

elon musk attempts to prove the safety of the tesla truck by letting mitch mcconnell drive. both men die within seconds of entering the vehicle

in response to worldwide famine, the World Food Programme appoints taylor swift as its director-for-life

the IDF continues carpetbombing occupied gaza after the ghosts of hamas are spotted. all gazans are required to evacuate into a shallow grave

the conclave repeatedly fails to elect a new pope, causing a schism. one conclave elects some italian bishop you’ve never heard of while the other conclave elects agent Q

the IMF buys pakistan

donald trump wins the republican primary carrying 60 states, 14 countries, and 8 circles of hell. during his victory broadcast from prison he suffers what it clinically described as a MegaStroke, removing his ability to move and speak. he declares one of his busty nurses to be his running mate and leads biden by 30 points

following the death of musk twitter is divided by gavelkind amongst multiple rival warlords

joe biden finally finishes his 13th genocide, winning a bet he made with obama

after it retreats from ukraine and georgia, putin personally murders every single member of the russian army. he is reelected in a landslide

his holiness the ayatollah ali khamenei dies peacefully of old age surrounded by his loving family and a grieving nation. days later he is found in a disused oil pipeline hiding from protesters while off his tits on heroin, and is dragged through the streets and beaten to death

the largest war in human history erupts in africa, costing dozens of millions of lives. it is a slow news day at the UN

president millei attaches argentina to the dollar. the us economy immediately crashes and undergoes apocalyptic hyperinflation, the dollar becoming the first currency to have a negative value. the only surviving american industry is joe biden ‘i did that’ stickers

the PLA begins its amphibious invasion of taiwan. the war claims the lives of one million PLA soldiers, ending within 20 minutes when the generals learn that tanks can’t swim

donald trump wins the us presidential election carrying all 100 states. during his victory broadcast from the intensive care unit, he suffers what is clinically described as a Heart Apocalypse, rupturing every single artery in his body and leaving him as pile of blood and gore. the supreme court rules that despite being, quote, “the most dead person ever recorded”, he is still eligible to be president. he and vp-elect Busty Nurse will be inaugurated on 20 january

due to a weird loophole, elon musk’s trans daughter inherits his entire estate. she immediately uses all her wealth to found a mutually-owned food distribution network, ending world hunger

the switch 2 still doesn’t have fucking analogue triggers

[comeonamericawakeup]

Donald Trump's disastrous mishandling of Covid was a searing reminder that "a president's character really matters in a crisis," said Matt Bai.

When the pandemic began, Trump lied to Americans about the virus' lethality, telling them it was like the flu and would soon "disappear." His sole concern was that a tanking economy would cost him re-election.

In the ensuing months, Americans died by the tens of thousands, bodies were stacked up in refrigerated trucks outside hospitals, and unemployment soared to 14.7 percent. Instead of providing leadership, Trump misled people with quack cures and nonsensical talk of injecting bleach.

He also made the refusal to wear a mask and to socially distance into a badge of tribal loyalty. As a result, the U.S. Covid death rate outstripped that of other rich nations, such as the United Kingdom and Canada, by 40 percent. More than 1.1 million Americans ultimately died of Covid, and researchers estimate that at least 130,000 people who died on Trump's watch might have lived if he'd had a sane, humane pandemic response. "The more clearly you remember the horror" of his utter disregard for Americans' lives, "the more terrifying a sequel becomes.

THE WEEK November 1, 2024

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Nation of Change:

China’s largest automaker, BYD, is selling its Dolphin hatchback EV for a low-low $15,000, complete with a 13-inch rotating screen, ventilated front seats, and a 260-mile range. Here in the U.S., you have to pay more than twice that price for the Tesla Model 3 EV ($39,000) with lower tech and only 10 more miles of driving range. In case $15K beats your budget, the Dolphin has a plug-in hybrid version with an industry-leading 74-mile range on a single charge for only $11,000 and an upgrade with an unbeatable combined gas-electric range of 1,300 miles. Not surprisingly, EVs surged to 52% of all auto sales in China last year. And with such a strong domestic springboard into the world market, Chinese companies accounted for more than 70% of global EV sales.

It’s time to face reality in the world of cars and light trucks. Let’s admit it, China’s visionary industrial policy is the source of its growing dominance over global EV production. Back in 2009-2010, three years before Elon Musk sold his first mass-production Tesla, Beijing decided to accelerate the growth of its domestic auto industry, including cheap, all-electric vehicles with short ranges for its city drivers. Realizing that an EV is just a steel box with a battery, and battery quality determines car quality, Beijing set about systematically creating a vertical monopoly for those batteries — from raw materials like lithium and cobalt from the Congo all the way to cutting-edge factories for the final product. With its chokehold on refining all the essential raw materials for EV batteries (cobalt, graphite, lithium, and nickel), by 2023-2024 China accounted for well over 80% of global sales of battery components and nearly two-thirds of all finished EV batteries.

Clearly, new technology is driving our automotive future, and it’s increasingly clear that China is in the driver’s seat, ready to run over the auto industries of the U.S. and the European Union like so much roadkill. Indeed, Beijing switched to the export of autos, particularly EVs, to kick-start its slumbering economy in the aftermath of the Covid lockdown.

Given that it was already the world’s industrial powerhouse, China’s auto industry was more than ready for the challenge. After robotic factories there assemble complete cars, hands-free, from metal stamping to spray painting for less than the cost of a top-end refrigerator in the U.S., Chinese companies pop in their low-cost batteries and head to one of the country’s fully automated shipping ports. There, instead of relying on commercial carriers, leading automaker BYD cut costs to the bone by launching its own fleet of eight enormous ocean-going freighters. It started in January 2024 with the BYD Explorer No. 1, capable of carrying 7,000 vehicles anywhere in the world, custom-designed for speedy drive-on, drive-off delivery. That same month, another major Chinese company you’ve undoubtedly never heard of, SAIC Motor, launched an even larger freighter, which regularly transports 7,600 cars to global markets.

Those cars are already heading for Europe, where BYD’s Dolphin has won a “5-Star Euro Safety Rating” and its dealerships are popping up like mushrooms in a mine shaft. In a matter of months, Chinese cars had captured 11% of the European market. Last year, BYD began planning its first factory in Mexico as an “export hub” for the American market and is already building billion-dollar factories in Turkey, Thailand, and Indonesia. Realizing that “20% to 30%” of his company’s revenue is at risk, Ford CEO Jim Farley says his plants are switching to low-cost EVs to keep up. After the looming competition led GM to bring back its low-cost Chevy Bolt EV, company Vice President Kurt Kelty said that GM will “drive the cost of E.V.s to lower than internal combustion engine vehicles.”

So, what does all this mean for America? In the past four years, the Biden administration made real strides in protecting the future of the country’s auto industry, which is headed toward ensuring that American motorists will be driving $10,000 EVs with a 1,000-mile range, a 10-year warranty, a running cost of 10 cents a mile, and 0 (yes zero!) climate-killing carbon emissions.

Not only did President Biden extend the critical $7,500 tax credit for the purchase of an American-made EV, but his 2021 Infrastructure Act helped raise the number of public-charging ports to a reasonable 192,000, with 1,000 more still being added weekly, reducing the range anxiety that troubles half of all American car owners. To cut the cost of the electricity needed to drive those car chargers, his 2022 Inflation Reduction Act allocated $370 billion to accelerate the transition to low-cost green energy. With such support, U.S. EV sales jumped 7% to a record 1.3 million units in 2024.

Most important of all, that funding stimulated research for a next-generation solid-state battery that could break China’s present stranglehold over most of the components needed to produce the current lithium-ion EV batteries. The solution: a blindingly simple bit of all-American innovation — don’t use any of those made-in-China components. With investment help from Volkswagen, the U.S. firm QuantumScape has recently developed a prototype for a solid-state battery that can reach “80% state of charge in less than 15 minutes,” while ensuring “improved safety,” extended battery life, and a driving range of 500 miles. Already, investment advisors are touting the company as the next Nvidia.

But wait a grim moment! If we take President Donald Trump at his word, his policies will slam the brakes on any such gains for the next four years — just long enough to potentially send the Detroit auto industry into a death spiral. On the campaign trail last year, Trump asked oil industry executives for a billion dollars in “campaign cash,” and told the Republican convention that he would “end the electrical vehicle mandate on day one” and thereby save “the U.S. auto industry from complete obliteration.” And in his victory speech last November, he celebrated the country’s oil reserves, saying, “We have more liquid gold than anyone else in the world.”

[batboyblog]

The Biden administration on Wednesday issued one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history, a rule designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids by 2032.

Cars and other forms of transportation are, together, the largest single source of carbon emissions generated by the United States, pollution that is driving climate change and that helped to make 2023 the hottest year in recorded history. Electric vehicles are central to President Biden’s strategy to confront global warming, which calls for cutting the nation’s emissions in half by the end of this decade. But E.V.s have also become politicized and are becoming an issue in the 2024 presidential campaign.

“Three years ago, I set an ambitious target: that half of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 would be zero-emission,” said Mr. Biden in a statement. “Together, we’ve made historic progress. Hundreds of new expanded factories across the country. Hundreds of billions in private investment and thousands of good-paying union jobs. And we’ll meet my goal for 2030 and race forward in the years ahead.”

The rule increasingly limits the amount of pollution allowed from tailpipes over time so that, by 2032, more than half the new cars sold in the United States would most likely be zero-emissions vehicles in order for carmakers to meet the standards.

That would avoid more than seven billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the next 30 years, according to the E.P.A. That’s the equivalent of removing a year’s worth of all the greenhouse gases generated by the United States, the country that has historically pumped the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The regulation would provide nearly $100 billion in annual net benefits to society, according to the agency, including $13 billion of annual public health benefits thanks to improved air quality.

The standards would also save the average American driver about $6,000 in reduced fuel and maintenance over the life of a vehicle, the E.P.A. estimated.

The auto emissions rule is the most impactful of four major climate regulations from the Biden administration, including restrictions on emissions from power plants, trucks and methane leaks from oil and gas wells. The rules come on top of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate law in the nation’s history, which is providing at least $370 billion in federal incentives to support clean energy, including tax credits to buyers of electric vehicles.

The policies are intended to help the country meet Mr. Biden’s target of cutting U.S. greenhouse emissions in half by 2030 and eliminating them by 2050. Climate scientists say all major economies must do the same if the world is to avert the most deadly and costly effects of climate change.

“These standards form what we see as a historic climate grand slam for the Biden administration,” said Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, a political action committee that aims to advance environmental causes.

Mr. Bapna’s group has calculated that the four regulations, combined with the Inflation Reduction Act, would reduce the nation’s greenhouse emissions 42 percent by 2030, getting the country most of the way to Mr. Biden’s 2030 target.

Get in Losers we're going to save the planet.

[deada55]

Kloktober 2024 day 1: Your Favorite Character

A little glimpse of the future.

The roof of a crumpled hangar was held aloft the rest of the shambling NuHaus, which was as posh of a residence as anything could be in the everlasting waste. Around it grew a shantytown of tarps and rope made from black skinnyjeans to house the army, simply because they had been too exhausted to move. Still, without many provisions, a fierce and snappy economy in the encampment meant that Dethklok’s spacious digs were the limit of their wealth. They sat around a table made of crates and a sheet of heavy plastic from the bed of a truck, surrounded by a motley crew of makeshift chairs, most of the time.

“Murderface, I’m gonna kill you. I mean it.” Pickles hands were ruled by tremors these days, but the grip that he had on a tomato jar of hooch was well-controlled.

“Just a sip, man! You fuckin- you get all the booze we get!” 

“That’s because Pickle don’ts feels good!” Toki felt fine; he was putting pillbugs in a little box with little nature-y bits arranged like dollhouse furniture. “Gots all fucked up sobers. Not evens canned paints…”

Skwisgaar was plucking at makeshift strings on a tinny cigarbox guitar made out of a muffler. Metal. The tuner ran out of battery a while ago, so he superglued it to a couple of dog bones and made a shitty clip.

All Nathan did was grunt and watch a line snake through the shacks and huts carrying poles with white flags flopping in the sandy gusts. Four or five makeshift caskets, one of which was a sealed commercial trash can held sideways for a child, were carried on soldiers. Together, the processional headed north out of the encampment, over a shallow ridge of broken earth, as a snow of falling ash blew in.

“Nathan?” Pickles flicked the metal lid off his jar and took a fat swallow.

“Yeah?”

“Takes the picture, it lasts longer!” Toki shouted over Pickles and giggled.

Nathan turned away from the window and back towards the center of the room, flat. “We don’t have a camera.”

“I-“ Pickles couldn’t get a word in.

“Ans no powers, no amps, no phones,”

“No more, what’s it do,” Toki rose from criss-cross-applesauce to a kneel, neglecting his pillbug palace. “Brr— the ring?”

“Tokis—“ Skwisgaar tried to correct his rendition of their old ringtone under the conversation.

“No calls,” offered Pickles.

“Or getting called by our fuckin’ parentsh!”, Murderface chortled.

Pickles tossed a scraggly, singed dread off of his neck. “Yeah! Now we don’t have to watch their stupid DVDs, or listen to them go on and on on the phone.”

“We don’ts have to know wheres they are and whos they with all nights long durings the working week!”

Toki was rubbing his legs with the palms of his hands. “We don’t even know if theys alive, ha-ha!”

Nathan sighed.

So what if his parents were dead?

He dug deep into his pockets until he found a battered Ibuprofen bottle and pulled out two 2mg Xanax. He leaned over the table and snatched the jar while he ground the pills between his teeth. He swished the drink in his mouth and finished whatever was left in it. 

“Nathans?”

He didn’t realize he was breathing out of his mouth until his own spit came down the wrong way, down his throat already butchered with a slowly disintegrating tablet and vinegary jail booze. He choked until his eyes stung. How long? He couldn’t catch his breath, just hold it. It forced its way out like a sob. 

“He’ms gonna pass out-!” Skwisgaar didn’t even bother standing up. An object in motion stays in motion.

When Nathan’s chest hit the edge of the table, he took it with him to the ground. The empty jar smashed on the dirt beside him.

“Schit!”

[bestgaddi-com]

2024 Ford F-150 Hybrid: Balancing Power and Efficiency

Overview and MPG Performance

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[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil floods hit food silos, disrupt routes to major grains port

Heavy flooding in southern Brazil has hit food storage facilities in lower areas while hampering the shipping of grains to port, jeopardizing the nation's exports and wreaking havoc to the economy of Rio Grande do Sul state, a large soy, rice, wheat and meat producer.

Anec, an association representing global grain exporters, said on Tuesday access to the port of Rio Grande had been disrupted as a local rail line stopped operating. The group, which represents firms like Cargill and Bunge, also cited road blockades forcing grain trucks to travel an extra 400 kilometers (248.55 miles) through alternative routes to reach the port, increasing freight costs.

The unprecedented climate event, which left entire towns under water and destroyed critical infrastructure in the capital and rural areas, also killed livestock and caught farmers in the final stages of the corn and soy harvests, clouding the outlook for national grain production in 2023/2024.

The escalating crisis also led competing meatpackers to join forces to circumvent logistical hurdles brought about by the heavy downpours, which disrupted water and electricity services to 1.4 million people, the state's Civil Defense agency said.

Continue reading.

[mariacallous]

While the failure to break through Russia’s fortified defensive lines on the southern axis this summer has been disappointing for Kyiv, the news on the diplomatic and political front is far more alarming.

Speaking about the progress of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in early December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told The Associated Press: “We wanted faster results. From that perspective, unfortunately, we did not achieve the desired results. And this is a fact.”

While Ukraine has achieved some limited successes this year, with results in the Black Sea in the summer and a Kherson-region bridgehead firmly established east of the Dnipro River in the fall, the lack of significant territorial gains is a bitter pill to swallow for Kyiv.

But despite these setbacks, with the final taboos overcome regarding providing the heavy weaponry and long-range missile capabilities needed to win this war, the trajectory of the conflict was still arguably trending in Ukraine’s favor, according to many Western military experts, just as long as the coalition of democratic nation states maintaining Ukraine’s wartime economy held strong and the arms transfers kept arriving.

Winter’s developments, however, paint a far worse picture. Given the immense risks ahead, it is imperative that Kyiv starts preparing now for a future in which that coalition has fragmented.

In Europe, election victories for allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Slovakia’s Robert Fico and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders have potentially added further blocks on European Union financial and military aid packages. Hungary’s Viktor Orban now has more leverage in his attempts to disrupt the bloc’s Ukraine policy, including holding up a new round of sanctions on Russia and a proposed 50 billion euro ($54.9 billion) aid package, even if his opposition to the EU opening accession talks for Ukraine has been successfully navigated by the bloc.

Orban was previously isolated inside the EU, which overtook the United States as the largest overall donor of aid to Ukraine over the summer. If Wilders manages to form a governing coalition and become prime minister, it could not only imperil the planned transfer of Dutch F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, but also become a major threat to future EU aid packages going forward.

Winter has also seen a truck driver protest in Poland and Slovakia, which have been blocking Ukrainian border crossings in a dispute over EU permits for Ukrainian shipping companies, which has in turn impacted the flow of volunteer military aid coming into Ukraine.

While Kyiv will be disappointed by these events, they are not insurmountable. Support for Ukraine remains high in Brussels, and Orban has proved himself capable of relenting on similar packages in the past, leveraging Hungary’s veto in exchange for EU concessions toward Budapest. Individually, member states such as Germany and the Baltic nations also continue to send substantial military aid to Kyiv outside of the structures of the European Union.

The news from the United States, however, is far more bleak. Speaking to reporters on Dec. 4, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan laid out in stark terms that the funds allocated by the government for Ukraine were spent, warning that if Congress did not pass further funding bills, it would impact Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

“Each week that passes, our ability to fully fund what we feel is necessary to give Ukraine the tools and capacities it needs to both defend its territory and continue to make advances, that gets harder and harder,” Sullivan said.

The White House has been trying to pass a $61.4 billion aid package for Ukraine (part of which would go to replenishing U.S. Defense Department stocks), tied together with a package of aid to Israel and Taiwan, which is being blocked by congressional Republicans in a dispute over the Biden administration’s border policies.

Despite a majority of Republicans supporting increased military aid to Ukraine, bills trying to secure further funding have stalled in both the Senate and the House of Representatives since the caucus of far-right, pro-Trump House Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as the speaker of the House of Representatives, replacing him with Ukraine military aid opponent Mike Johnson.

After Johnson was elected speaker, he appeared to walk back his opposition to Ukraine funding, in an apparent bid to win over some of his Reaganite skeptics in the Republican Party. However, he has chosen to try to leverage the urgency of the Biden administration’s Ukraine package to advance the Republicans’ anti-immigration platform.

This is no longer isolated to the House, as even pro-Ukraine senators, such as Lindsey Graham, joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in blocking the White House’s security package amid chaotic scenes in the Senate. With Senate Republicans falling in line with the legislative agenda of the House’s hard-right “Freedom Caucus” Republican wing, Ukraine will enter the Christmas period under sustained Russian aerial bombardment with depleted air defense ammunition stocks.

The United States is incapable of replenishing those stocks due to the domestic political wrangling of a small band of hard-line, anti-immigration Republican lawmakers, and Ukrainian civilians will likely die as a result of this amoral legislative obstinance. In Kyiv, where I live, the sense that these conservative lawmakers are willing to recklessly endanger Ukrainian lives for selfish political ends is palpable.

The Biden administration has expressed a willingness to compromise in order to try to break the impasse, but there is no certainty in where these negotiations could go. The size of this aid bill is itself a strategic move. The $61.4 billion package dwarfs any of the previous U.S. aid packages to Ukraine (which as of August 2023 totaled more than $77 billion), representing a more “one and done” approach to meeting Ukraine’s military aid needs for the entirety of 2024 and the remainder of President Joe Biden’s term.

If it passes, there will be no further opportunities in the short term for the Make America Great Again caucus to hold Ukrainian aid to ransom.

But the problems don’t stop there. The United States and Europe have both failed to produce enough artillery ammunition to meet Ukraine’s needs, and this shortfall led to South Korea becoming a larger supplier of artillery ammunition in 2023 than all European nations combined. But Korea’s supplies are not limitless, and U.S. and European production is still not at the levels needed to sustain Ukraine going forward. If this shortfall is not addressed, the consequences could be disastrous.

There are more hopeful signs that these problems are well understood, and that the coalition of nations supporting Ukraine remains committed to the cause in the long term. “Wars develop in phases,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in a recent interview with the German public broadcaster ARD in early December. “We have to support Ukraine in both good and bad times,” he said.

Everything now points to a long war in Ukraine, although none of this should have been unforeseeable for Western policymakers and defense chiefs. Ukraine’s top military c, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, gave a much-publicized interview with the Economist in November, in which he said “just like in the first world war, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.”

These comments, however, despite appearing to create the impression of a public rift between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, are not a concession of defeat from the four-star general. Zaluzhny made clear that he is trying to avoid the kind of grinding attritional warfare that favors Russia’s long-term strategy for wearing Ukraine down.

But a long war also heightens one of the biggest threats. Even if the Biden administration manages to get the new aid package over the line, effectively securing Ukraine’s military funding for 2024, the specter of another presidency for Donald Trump still looms large on the horizon. The polling for Biden less than one year away from an election is deeply concerning, and Trump’s prospects for victory need to be taken seriously, even in the face of his growing legal jeopardy.

A second Trump presidency would imperil not just U.S. democracy, but also the entire global world order, and the consequences for Ukraine could be potentially devastating. Trump’s refusal to commit to continuing to support Ukraine should be setting off alarm bells—not just in Kyiv, but across Europe too, where the greatest impacts from this change of policy would be felt.

Trump’s first impeachment was over his attempt to extort Ukraine to search for compromising material that he could use against Biden in the 2020 election, and there is no reason to believe that Trump has moved on from this. Many in Washington expect that a second Trump presidency will be marked by his desire for revenge against anyone that stood in his way. As the U.S. analyst and author Michael Weiss told me, “Trump’s first impeachment was over Ukraine, and he sees it as an abscess to be lanced. … A Trump presidency would be an unmitigated disaster for Ukraine.”

There are also signs that the Russians are acutely aware of this, and that their strategy in the short-to-medium term is simply to hold out in Ukraine long enough for a Trump presidency to pull the plug on the vital military aid keeping the Ukrainians in the fight. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu recently remarked that the Russians expect the war to last beyond 2025, and in an address to his own propaganda think tank, Putin said that Ukraine would have a “week to live” if Western arms supplies were halted.

Ukraine cannot plan for a war that may extend beyond 2025 without preparing for a potential Trump presidency and all that would entail. The Ukrainian government must prepare for every eventuality, including a White House that is actively hostile toward Kyiv. To his credit, Zelensky appears to have acknowledged this possibility, going as far as inviting Trump to visit Kyiv.

Putin has made it perfectly clear that he sees his war in Ukraine as being part of a wider war that he is waging against the entire West. Western policymakers to take him at his word on this. Putin and his regime have been waging a hybrid war against the West for many years, and he considers his support for European extremists such as Fico, Wilders and France’s Marine Le Pen to be part of that war and part of undermining the Western liberal democratic institutions, such as the EU and NATO, that stand in opposition to Putin’s tyranny.

But there is no single individual on the planet more important to Putin’s global war agenda than his pet authoritarian in Mar-a-Lago.

Moscow’s goals in Ukraine remain unchanged; the Putin regime still maintains maximalist aims in Ukraine and is in this war for the long haul, with the total subjugation of Kyiv as its goal. Putin made his position very clear during his annual news conference. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also been explicit about this, and Europe should take the ongoing threat that a Trump administration poses to Ukraine seriously. There may well be a potential future in which Europe is forced to carry the burden of Ukraine’s war without its North American ally at the helm of the coalition, or even at the head of the collective defense strategy at the heart of European foreign policy.

Looking forward to 2024, there remains no path to peace in Ukraine without a Russian defeat. Looking beyond 2025, the future of Ukraine as a free and democratic nation-state, and potentially the entire security of Europe, hang in the balance.

This is why Europe, in particular, cannot afford to be complacent in the face of the rising threat of a Trump presidency. Opening EU accession talks for Ukraine is a good start, but until the bloc can match or outperform Russia’s current levels of ammunition production, the tide will start to turn against Ukraine if U.S. leadership on this war continues to falter. The truth is that U.S. leadership on this and on any other pressing international issue cannot be guaranteed.

For Ukraine to stand a chance of victory, its allies must begin preparing for catastrophe now.

[beardedmrbean]

MEXICO CITY — In a small town in Mexico’s western state of Michoacán, members of a criminal group forced residents to pay for high-cost internet service — or face death.

After these threats, residents made monthly extortion payments while simultaneously reporting the situation to authorities.

After months of investigations, officials raided three properties, finding evidence such as antennas, internet repeater equipment and connections, which were handed over to the prosecutor's office.

While it may sound surprising for Mexico's drug cartels to be involved in internet service, those who follow the criminal groups' activities aren't at all surprised.

"Drug cartels have diversified their operations since their inception," security analyst David Saucedo said. "Many of them started as criminal organizations whose main activity wasn’t drug trafficking."

Some gangs were involved in, for example, fuel theft, others were involved in vehicle theft and others specialized in robbing public transportation, Saucedo said.

“Criminal groups that joined drug trafficking already had these other activities beforehand.”

Besides the billions of dollars cartels make from the drug trafficking industry, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says the most powerful drug cartels, Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation (CJNG), are involved in many illegal ventures that result in profits.

“The Sinaloa Cartel is most closely identified with drug trafficking but is also engaged in extortion, the theft of petroleum and ores, weapons trafficking, migrant smuggling, and prostitution,” the 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment states.

CJNG directs the theft of fuel from pipelines, extorts agave and avocado farmers, migrants and prison officials, and taxes migrant smugglers, the report said.

"The portfolio is extensive. However, while drug trafficking is the most profitable activity, it has a longer recovery time for the investment compared to other ... criminal activities, which yield almost immediate profit," Saucedo said.

From cartels calling older Americans to offer timeshares in Mexico, leading to the loss of nearly $40 million, to cartel-backed smugglers reaping growing profits in the trafficking of migrants across the U.S-Mexico border, their criminal range is extensive.

Here are some ways where the cartels have extended their reach:

Fuel theft

Fuel theft, known as huachicoleo in Mexico, is a highly profitable activity for organized crime groups. In the first nine months of 2022, Mexico's state-owned oil company, Pemex, lost $730 million from illegal pipeline taps.

Cartels in Mexico have developed a sophisticated approach to fuel theft, which involves corruption, precision and violence.

This includes tactics such as bribing Pemex employees and local officials for information, drilling precise illegal taps into pipelines, and using modified tanker trucks to transport stolen fuel for distribution in black market networks.

Several cartels are involved in this criminal activity. For instance, the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, led by Jose Antonio Yepez, also known as El Marro, established its dominance through fuel theft before entering into drug trafficking.

Additionally, CJNG and the Gulf Cartel are also linked to fuel theft, which supports their criminal activities.

Avocados

Mexico's multibillion-dollar avocado industry, which continues to break records for exports every year, has also been one of the main targets for drug cartels.

Avocados are known as “green gold” in Mexico, and the country has become the world’s largest producer of the popular fruit.

But as growers’ fortunes have risen, they have faced increasing threats from drug cartels seeking a share of the profits.

In Michoacán, the only state authorized to export the fruit to the U.S., CJNG and local gangs demand payments from farmers, often referred to as "protection fees."

These fees can range from $135 to $500 per hectare monthly, depending on the size of the farm and the level of perceived threat.

The extortion process begins with cartels identifying and targeting profitable farms. Armed cartel members then approach the farmers, issuing threats of violence or property damage if the farmers refuse to comply.

In February 2022, the U.S. suspended avocado imports from Mexico after a U.S. official received a death threat while working in Uruapan.

The imports resumed a week later following new safety measures applied by Mexico’s government in the region.

Two years later, locals say the situation hasn’t changed much, and avocado growers continue to deal with criminal organizations in the area.

Tortillas

The average Mexican consumes about 70 kilograms of tortillas annually, according to the Mexican Agriculture Ministry. It is a staple in Mexican cuisine, which is why cartels have decided to profit from it.

Extortion from cartels affects nearly 20,000 tortillerías, directly impacting the prices paid by Mexicans.

According to the National Tortilla Council, in an interview with The Washington Post, out of more than 130,000 tortillerías in the country, between 14 to 15% percent suffer from extortion.

Homero López García, the organization's president, told El Sol de México that establishments must pay between $135 and $190 weekly to multiple criminal groups to continue operating.

"Well, look, nothing surprises me anymore," Saucedo, the security analyst, said about cartels extorting tortillerías. "Perhaps it's a somewhat insensitive and cynical posture from me, but the truth is that I remain open to all possibilities in this regard."

Chicken

In a video posted on social media two days before Christmas 2023, an armed group was seen arriving at a poultry shop in Toluca, Mexico, kidnapping four workers and putting them into a white van.

The Mexico state prosecutor's office said the victims were retailers who were forced to buy chicken in some establishments. Likewise, they had to pay a fee of $2.50 per kilo in exchange for not getting killed by the Familia Michoacana cartel.

Authorities said as a result of their efforts to combat extortion, the criminal groups La Familia Michoacana and CJNG lost over $43 million from threatening poultry and egg vendors in municipalities of the Toluca Valley and the southern part of the state.

The state prosecutor's office said in 2023 alone, they received 4,010 complaints for this crime, of which they determined that only one in four was made in person, with the rest being indirect through phone calls, social media, and emails.

Three months later, the four workers kidnapped in December were found alive, and four perpetrators were detained, but those behind the abductions remain on the loose and the extortion of poultry vendors continues, officials said.

'Piso' fee

"They were asking me for $600 monthly for cobro de piso; we reported it, and we had to close for a month," Guillermo, a businessman in downtown Mexico City, told local media, recalling the extortion from the cartel.

The cobro de piso, which is the fee cartels charge business owners in exchange for "protection," has been the main problem for merchants in Mexico City.

"The first group of affected businesses are restaurants, followed by convenience stores in second place, and then jewelry stores in third place," said Jose de Jesus Rodriguez, president of Mexico City’s Chamber of Commerce.

In the past few years, extortions have been on the rise. Depending on the areas, some establishments would receive calls, emails, or in-person visits from armed men asking for the cartel's fee.

"They have tried several times, it's through calls," restaurant owner Israel Zavala told Mexican media. "The trust in the authorities isn't very high; complaints have been filed, but they don't proceed."

Analyst Saucedo said the problem with the metrics is that we have never had access to their accounting books.

“We will never have the total amount of the taxable fee because many do not report it to the authorities.”

In Mexico City, there are many criminal organizations involved in activities such as drug dealing, but also charging extortion fees to small business owners like tortilla shops, street vendors, and taxi drivers.

"Since Mexico City is a densely populated area, and we have a very large informal economy, many people are unfortunately susceptible to paying protection money. Consequently, it is a profitable activity for the local mafias," Saucedo said.

 "Besides paying an official tax to come to work, you have to pay another one to them," Angel Campos, a vendor at a street market in Mexico City, said.