Automobile Armageddon

I'm one bit closer to declaring a small victory in my 2009 predictions...that the U.S. EPA would overturn Johnson's denial of the California waiver request.

Clearly Obama's comments today only increased the likelihood that a reversal will come soon. It's sorta contradictory, though; I took issue with the old White House interfering with the EPA decision to deny the waiver while I now hope the new White House interferes. To be clear, all he did was direct the EPA to revist the decision. L. Jackson has to make another assessment, but I'd bet she won't take two fucking years to decide.

The proof that this waiver request would benefit me, my lungs, my boy's lungs, and nibble at our domestic energy conundrum can be found in about 20 seconds by looking at the comments by the Center for Automotive Research, the National Automobile Dealers Association, the Heritage Foundation, and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. When they say that these new regulations are going to exterminate Detroit, kill off the industry, and add to their financial woes...well, that's proof enough. It's pure bullshit, because they know America is a fully paved over automobile slum with forced motoring participation by all its inhabitants -- Americans have to drive, that's all they know how to do anymore, alongside running up their cell phone minutes. They've got built in demand. As seat belts and catalytic converters didn't bankrupt them before, more efficient vehicles won't bankrupt them now. They proved they are fully capable of bankrupting themselves with their existing fleets.

When these affluent white pricks speak of Automobile Armageddon, it only means all of us win.