There are moments where conservatives outright baffle me.
http://www.businessinsider.com/...
In order to show off how little they believe in Global Warming, it appears as though numerous right-wing anti-environment types have decided to show off why they aren't just opposed to global warming, but they apparently just dislike the environment.
It makes me wonder... What is the point?
http://www.businessinsider.com/...
"Coal Rollers" are diesel trucks modified with chimneys and equipment that can force extra fuel into the engine causing dark black smoke to pour out of the chimney stacks. These modifications are not new, but as Slate's Dave Weigel pointed out on Thursday, "rolling coal" has begun to take on a political dimension with pickup drivers increasingly viewing their smokestacks as a form of protest against environmentalists and Obama administration emissions regulations.
Last month, Vocativ noted many coal rollers focus their fumes on "nature nuffies," or people who drive hybrids, and "rice burners," or Japanese-made cars.
Hmm. I say this because I just bought my wife a new car.. a Honda Insight, which is nice since it gets about 44MPG so far. Loving it.. it will save us some real money over her older car.
I get this as a form of political protest as Slate points out:
“Rolling coal” is not new. It grew out of the modifications people would do on their vehicles for truck pulls. It’s just only recently entered the online culture wars. I’d seen the memes and a couple of the trucks. But I hadn’t seen the left reply until this month, when Vocativ ran an expose of “pollution porn for dudes with pickup trucks.” Progressives reacted with disbelief to Facebook communities like “Rollin’ COAL” and (naturally) “Prius Repellent,” and to the sheer number of Instagram and Tumblr entries that recorded this stuff. They reacted with a mid-June surge of comments, sprinkled throughout these pages, all about the breeding patterns and penis sizes of the coal-rollers.
The liberals seem a little surprised that conspicuous consumption—waste, even—could be a method of protest. They shouldn’t be. The motivation for political coal rolling is roughly the same one that gets people buying guns and ammo after mass shootings. The expectation, every time, is that liberals will capitalize on the shootings to ban guns, so it’s time to stock up.
http://www.slate.com/...
But I was still a bit surprised to encounter such a vehicle on my drive back across rural Kansas over the weekend. The thing that gets me isn't that they want to protest, fine fine.. or even that they disagree with global warming.. anti-science crazies abound.. it is far more simple: Who the heck just thinks burning their own money in fuel costs is a good idea? Because wow, I guess I have better things to do at $3.80 a gallon, or over $4 a gallon in Diesel.