- The federal government is sick and tired of gas-guzzling, fuel-inefficient vehicles that put a massive drain on our national fuel economy. So sick and tired, in fact, that it is looking to raise corporate average fuel economy requirements to something between 47 and 62 miles per gallon……within the next decade and a half. That’s right, according to documents released Friday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, the fuel economy standards could rise to those lofty standards by 2025. The current requirements, known as CAFE, call for an increase in fuel economy to an average of 34.1 mpg by 2016. The new measures announced Friday will come on the heels of CAFE's requirements and are the next round of fuel economy increases, scheduled to begin in 2017. If the new requirements are adopted, fuel economy would have to increase between 3 to 6 percent per year from 2017 to 2025. No final approval has been given to these new rules and the proposed changes still need to go through various steps before the final rule is announced on July 31, 2012. It’s also worth noting that these lofty goals have very little bearing on the fuel efficiency of cars that the average motorist drives on a daily basis. The figures used to calculate CAFE are typically 20 percent higher than real-world results. What consumers will see if the price of vehicles increase anywhere from $770 to $3,500 as a result of these goals. The government would love for you to believe in and focus on the fact that, if you keep your more economic vehicle for a prolonged period of time, you could save between $4,900 and $7,400 in fuel costs over the lifetime of a 2025 model year vehicle, even factoring in the added cost of the car itself. For the fuel efficiency goals to be reached, sales of both electric and hybrid cars would need to increase substantially. Electric cars that charge by plugging in like a typical household appliance would have to make up 7 to 14 percent of all car sales by 2025 and hybrid cars would have to make up 55 to 68 percent of all car sales. Neither type of vehicle is anywhere close to that total at present……….
- How to get ready for a big game, how to get ready for a big game……ooh, ooh, I know! I know! It’s getting arrested the night before the game and having to call friends or family members in another state to wire you bail money, right? Before you say no, just realize that 50 people in Dallas for Saturday’s Texas-Oklahoma game at the state fairgrounds have already approached the game, known as the Red River Rivalry, in this fashion. Local police picked up the 50 or so drunk and disorderly UT and OU fans for public intoxication, mostly in the West End section of the city. Even for a game of this magnitude, pitting the No. 8 Sooners and No. 21 Longhorns at the Cotton Bowl, 50 arrests is impressive. Add to that total a whopping 300 parking tickets and two cars towed and it’s easy to see that fans from both schools came to Dallas not only prepared to cheer their team on, but also to get their freak on prior to the game. That sort of commitment to boozing, partying, shenanigans and tomfoolery is what makes college football the great sport it is and while I love the NFL, you’re not seeing a team’s fans flock en masse to a neutral site game, go out on the town the night before said game and stock the local jail’s drunk tank to capacity before the sun rises the next morning. A big tip of the hat to both UT and OU fans because while you drunks and hooligans may have missed out on the game because your bail money didn’t arrive in time, never can it be said that you had anything but an epic weekend, one to remember and cherish………
- At some point in your life, you have undoubtedly gone to the mailbox, found a bill addressed to you, fired said bill open and had your jaw hit the floor over what you were being asked to pay. Whether it was a credit card bill, utility bill or some other invoice, you know that feeling and having the sensation that you’ve just been punched right in the stomach. That’s how Maria Romero of Oakland, Calif. felt when she opened up her most recent cable bill and found an invoice for $4,000, with nearly all of it stemming from porn she and her family had supposedly ordered. Local cable provider Astound had truly lived up to its name by billing the Romero family for hundreds of pay-per-view pornos, which added approximately $3,926 to the normal monthly bill. The problem actually began two months ago, when the first inflated bill arrived and the normal $74 charge had morphed into $2,088. "It was in the amount of $2,000, so much money, I was shocked," Romero said. "I started turning the pages and it said 'adult movies,' my, I mean, I was in shock, I was in shock," she said. According to that bill, she or someone in her household had ordered as many as 10-15 adult flicks in a single day. As any perv, er, porn lover knows, when you’re chipping off $12.95 per porno, the charges add up quickly. Maria Romero immediately called Astound and insisted that neither she nor any member of her family had ordered any of the porn. "My bill was normal for so many years and then all of a sudden that happened," she said. "I said, 'No, it can't be, I'm not going to pay for something we haven't watched.'" At that point, she made the mistake of believing that the matter was resolved. That belief went by the wayside the next month when Astound upped the ante by charging the Romero’s for even more pornos, sending the bill up to a stunning $4,333. Romero was beside herself; after all, who can possibly watch 15 pornos in one day? “We don't watch those programs and they were still saying they were ours and there were 15 movies in one day now," she said. "Who could watch 15 movies in one day? It's ridiculous," she mused. Making her case even stronger was the fact that she had placed a block on any porn orders from her home and only she knew the code to remove it. The final piece of evidence was the serial number on her cable box, which did not match the one that Astound said had placed the orders. Astound refused to back down and the next month, even more pornos were added to the Romero family’s bill, bringing the total charges to $5,260. Romero refused to pay, service was cut off and she did what so many wronged citizens do in her situation: call the local TV station’s investigative reporter. When the station contacted Astound, the cable provider again insisted that someone in the Romero home ordered all of the charged pornos. However, the company agreed to remove all of the charges, saying, "Ultimately we believe the customer is always right and consequently the charges in question have been waived." Uh-huh, out of the goodness of your corporate, soul-less heart………
- Cool archaeological find time, everyone! Not all of us can traverse the globe digging up relics from ancient civilizations, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy when people who are nowhere near as exciting as Indiana Jones unearthing cool, ancient junk. An interesting find of just this sort occurred Saturday when archaeologists unearthed the upper part of a double limestone statue of a powerful pharaoh who ruled in Egypt nearly 3,400 years ago. Egypt's Ministry of Culture confirmed the find by a team of Egyptian archaeologists. They discovered the 4-foot by 3-foot statue of Amenhotep III in Kom el-Hittan, the site of the pharaoh's mortuary temple in the southern city of Luxor (yes, there is a Luxor outside of Las Vegas, ugly Americans). The temple itself is an amazing structure and is one of the largest on the west bank of the Nile in Luxor. According to a statement released by the culture ministry, the statue portrays Amenhotep III wearing the double crown of Egypt, which is decorated with a uraeus, and seated on a throne next to the Theban god Amun. Not that I need to tell you this, but a uraeus is the stylized, upright form of an Egyptian spitting cobra, used as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity, and divine authority in ancient Egypt - but you knew that, of course. Amenhotep III ruled in the 14th century B.C. and wielded power over an immense empire that reached all the way to Syria in the north. He’s also known for being the grandfather of famed boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, but that didn’t protect his temple from near-total destruction, probably by floods. Only small sections of its walls remain, but archaeologists have still been able to find a wealth of artifacts and statuary in the buried ruins. As always, the underlying lesson here is that you don’t need Harrison Ford, some stilted dialogue and a ridiculously implausible plot to make archaeology interesting………
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