There is a bill pending in the Senate -- which has passed the House -- that basically eliminates compliance requirements (with federal motor vehicle standards) for a large number of driverless vehicles.

Nader is going ape**** over this, as you'd expect (being that his history goes back to the Corvair, if you remember.)

But so-called "driverless vehicles" are potentially much worse than the Corvair.

At least with a Corvair you had to be an idiot (in how you drove it) and in the case of the Pinto you had to be hit from behind.

In this case neither is true.

The "sales job" for driverless cars is that it will "eliminate" DUI, old-age-related and simple negligence (such as crashing while texting.)  Maybe.  But that's no panacea, and what Nader is screaming about is only a small part of the problem.

Note that there are reports that Toyota is working with Uber to bring these cars to reality.  They're not the only one; the entire premise of Tesla rests there long-term, Lyft is active in the space and so are many others.

While I have no quarrel with the premise of driverless cars they must never be allowed to become mandatory either through market pressure or government mandate of any sort, no matter how it happens -- and this includes privileging them in any way whatsoever over a vehicle with a human operator nor allowing them to collect and transmit data as well.  In other words they must not be reliant on "always-on" connections, or even connections to anything outside at all.

Without these protections driverless cars can quickly become effectively mandated even without the government doing so.  Such an outcome can be mandated on a quite-effective basis by industries that collude and destroy owner-operated vehicles and since our government utterly refuses to bring charges under 15 USC Chapter 1 in the medical sector what makes you think they'd do so if car insurance carriers made owning a personally-operated vehicle a $20,000 a year mandatory insurance expense?  This is in fact the goal of most of the firms working in this space, many of them openly admit it, and it must be stopped right here and now.

Can't happen?  The hell it can't.  What has happened in Michigan with its "no fault" law and treble, if not more, charges by medical providers for the very same injury in a car accident as opposed to one obtained by walking your dog?  That is a 10 year in prison felony along with a $100 million corporate fine in penalties to be imposed on everyone involved including the insurance and medical provider businesses yet there has not been one criminal prosecution, not one person or firm indicted and as a result basic liability coverage, which is mandatory under state law, can cost as much as $2,000 a year or more in that state for someone with a clean driving record!

If you can't afford that then your plates and license get suspended.  Get caught driving in that situation and you spend the night in jail.  Keep doing it and it becomes a felony.  Now you can't get a job, rent an apartment or own a gun -- the latter ever again.

Congratulations; you're now a non-person as a direct result of the illegal collusive conduct of the medical and insurance businesses in the state of Michigan and your inability to comply with their manufactured "mandates" coupled with what you need to do in order to get to work and attempt to survive.

For comparison that same (minimally legal) coverage is roughly one tenth as expensive here in Florida where such outrageous felony collusion and concurrent extortion hasn't (yet) occurred, assuming you're in a "good risk" position from a driving record and age perspective.

The true ugly with driverless cars is what you inextricably get with them and which cannot be accepted or allowed to happen.  In fact if such appears to be headed toward any possibility of becoming a mandate I will say it right now even though I'm sure people will call me a nut for doing so -- you had better go grab your guns and kill everyone involved up and down the line, and yes I do mean a shooting revolution aimed at both business and government, as soon as any such movement toward such a state of play takes place.

Let me be clear: There is no such indication today and thus no, this is not a call to commit violence in the present tense but you had better make clear to everyone involved in both industry and government that if they take even one step down that road this will be the result and you damn well better mean it.

This is the real purpose of the 2nd Amendment by the way -- to prevent tyranny by making clear that any attempt to impose same will be met with immediate deadly force and thus preventing the need for such a revolution and the shooting that comes with it.

Why?  Because as soon as any attempt to mandate or materially privilege "autonomous cars" happens all freedom of movement and in fact freedom to live -- that is simply to survive -- disappears permanently.  Since we all have a right to life and to defend same and such predate any government anything that threatens to extinguish that gives proper authorization for the people to stop it via whatever means are necessary -- including violence.

This is the future you have if you don't make this clear to both lawmakers and industry:

• Every movement you make in such a vehicle is and will be tracked and sent to one or more organizations who own all that data and may do with it whatever they wish.  They will do exactly that; this is the business model -- to profile, sell and screw you using same.  You have already consented to this business model with social media, "reward cards" in the grocery store and the simple act of using a credit or debit card for payment.
  
  
• Every person will be subject to being blackballed and killed or rendered permanently destitute through the simple denial of ability to summon or take a ride anywhere.  Since these are all "private businesses" (just like Twitter and Facebook claim to be today, along with Microsoft, Amazon, Google and more) you will have no right to obtain such a ride anywhere, no matter the reason or consequence if it's denied to you.  This is what you get for allowing so-called "hate speech" -- mere speech -- to be squelched, as well as allowing companies like GoDaddy, Amazon and Microsoft to "blackball" customers of what is a utility service.  Under this very same principle every autonomous vehicle provider can legally collude and blackball you, rendering you a prisoner in your own home.  If you live in a place outside of walking distance to necessary goods and services this means you die.
  
  
• Every trip you take in such a vehicle is subject to the whim in pricing or even possibility of denial of completion by said firms with no redress. Such a change can be made in the middle of a trip as well.  Decide to go visit a family member 500 miles away, get halfway there and suddenly the price doubles or the company simply decides to blackball the destination entirely.  What are you going to do about it?  Walk?  Go ahead and try to claim "contract" -- if you survive.  Oh, such a thing would never happen when the vehicle is in the middle of a gang-banger friendly ghetto, right?
  
  
• Any destination becomes completely unreachable by pure whim.  The companies will claim this is for "safety", of course.  Maybe true, maybe not, but not your choice any more -- their choice.  Want to go to somewhere in a "less good" neighborhood?  Nope, can't.  Want to be picked up in same?   Nope, can't.  End of discussion.
  
  
• At any moment during which the government so chooses it can stop or redirect to a place of its choosing any person or persons in all such vehicles, by force, with no ability to override same.  Since such cars have no steering wheels or pedals -- no user-accessible controls whatsoever, whoever has control over the airwaves and software has absolute control over your destination, travel and even your life.  In the event you, or everyone become "persona non grata" at some point to some official there will be no means of due process, no means of appeal and no means to stop being transported directly to a prison or, for that matter, off an embankment and into a 200' deep body of water.
  
  
• When such vehicles are hacked via their OTA links said criminal hackers can do any or all of the above including intentionally crashing said vehicle into one or more others, killing the occupants or simply shutting down the entire thing, leaving you stuck wherever you are.  If you're in Death Valley when that happens, well, you're dead.  So sorry, so sad, and since it will be blamed on said hacker the company isn't responsible either, not that it matters when you're a corpse.
  
  
• All such travel, along with exactly who is doing the traveling will be transmitted and monitored over the airwaves in real time.  This is already happening with Tesla vehicles over links that we know are factually compromised and monitored in real time.  The government will obtain access to this either by legislative fiat or by breaking the law exactly as the NSA has already done in myriad other cases, and exactly nobody in government or these firms will ever be prosecuted for same.  This will be used to suppress or murder anyone they wish should such become part of what they want to do.  Since they will control the data such decisions will be made at a time, place and in a manner of their choosing designed to prevent anyone from being able to prove that's what happened.

Freedom of association, movement and travel is one of the keys to a society that has some resemblance of freedom remaining.  The ability to do so without being tracked inch-by-inch has already nearly been rendered impossible because our nation is collectively too ****ing stupid to demand that we own said data and we have the right to control it, never mind jailing the **********s in government and private businesses that can and do abuse same. Major corporations and governments are colluding to track and identify people in real time, all the time, reaching absolutely everyone -- not just those on a "100 most wanted" list as is often claimed.

Self-driving vehicles take that weaponized information content and add the ability to severely injure, economically destroy or kill any person or group of persons at whim to what we have already given up and there is exactly nothing that will be able to be done about it once it occurs because at that point you will lose the ability to move that is necessary to put a stop to it!

For this reason if it appears that this path is being undertaken it must be stopped by whatever means are necessary or you may as well just commit suicide as at least if you do that you'll get to choose when and how you die instead of some jackass making the decision for you.

Email kairia.rocks@gmail.com now to put this unique piece of art on your wall!

Ok, I know I tweeted that this would be delayed, but I think it needs publication now -- I may have to come back and revisit it, but for the moment... here it is:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 201,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, and
mining.

No it didn't.

Note the blue line swan-dive at the end.  The Household Survey reported a net loss of 1.465 million jobs, and a net gain of 2.048 million people leaving the labor force!

To find a worse monthly number on the employed figure you have to go back to January of 2011 (January is often a large firing month due to the holiday temporary workers being fired.)  To find a worse number on people leaving the labor force you must go back to...... uh.... beyond the limits of my data table.

In other words this is the worst (largest) addition to not-in-labor-force since at least January of 1999!

The employment:population ratio confirms:

Even among the seasonally adjusted numbers (which I don't use) in the household survey the job loss was catastrophic, registering 423,000 jobs lost!

As a note August usually is a negative number by about half of what it was this time, as the seasonal summer workers (amusement parks, etc) leave work to go back to school.  Sometimes this winds up in September's numbers to some degree but the majority of it is historically recorded in August, so it's not unusual to get a negative household print.  However, to get one this large, confirmed by the seasonally adjusted number, says that the "Establishment" survey figures are complete crap -- or entirely made up, especially when it is confirmed by an addition to those exiting the workforce in record numbers.

Especially ugly as well is the fact that among the educational attainment figures "some college" saw enormous losses -- while the other buckets, including those with no diploma, did not and some even saw gains.

I smell a data problem here folks since the figures don't jive internally.  Which part of the data is bad is the open question; if the BLS revises their data, or if I can suss it out, I will post an updated Ticker on this.  If the Household Survey is accurate, however, and especially if it confirms next month then we are on the cusp of a material downward economic event and possibly a dislocation.

Enough damnit.

An illegal alien who previously fled the United States after being accused of sexually assaulting a child is once again been charged with sexual battery of a child after allegedly climbing into bed with an eight-year-old Florida girl and assaulting her.

Wilibaldo Salinas Garcia, a 29-year-old illegal alien, allegedly admitted to sexually assaulting the young girl — whom he is related to — after he “digitally penetrated her and forced her to touch him,” according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

Heh Mr. Tibbetts!  You make excuses for these animals.

I am tired of this crap.  No, I don't care that people want cheap lawn mowing, cow-milking and fruit-picking services and are willing to break the law to get them.  I want both they and the apologists like you in prison as accessories before the fact for every single one of these criminal illegal invaders who commit a crime as their first act in this nation, by doing so demonstrate that they will not follow the law, and then sexually assault or murder Americans.

They all must leave and so must all their apologists - or they can join them on the gurney for the death penalty.

I love how a sperm fountain brands himself a racist by calling other people one.

BROOKLYN, Iowa (AP) — The father of slain Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts in an opinion piece spoke out against using his daughter’s death in support of “views she believed were profoundly racist,” a call that comes after President Donald Trump and others seized on the suspected killer’s immigration status to argue for changes in U.S. immigration laws.

How is it profoundly racist to insist that if you come into this country you do so legally?

I might remind you that illegal invaders are not all Mexicans.  Not by a long shot.  Nor are all Hispanic descendants illegal invaders -- again, not by a long shot.  Indeed there are a hell of a lot of lawful citizens who neither came into being by being pooped out by an illegal invader nor did they come here illegal -- they are citizens of Hispanic descent who were born here to lawful citizens or permanent residents.

Therefore, to equate illegal invaders with Hispanics is the RACIST statement -- on its face.

Good morning Rob Tibbetts, you RACIST piece of trash.

What this debate is in fact about is savages who have no respect for the law, not persons of one heritage or another.

It matters not if they're Cuban, Haitian, Venezuelan, Mexican, Chinese, Canadian, Cambodian, Japanese, Saudi Arabian, French, Aboriginal or Martian.

A person who's first act in this nation is to break the law demonstrates that they have no respect for the rule of law and no intent to assimilate into our nation of laws.

At best they intend to take advantage economically of anything and anyone they can damn the law to Hell.

AT WORST THEY'RE WILLING TO COMMIT RAPE, MURDER OR TERRORISM AND DAMN THE LAW TO HELL.

You, Mr. Tibbetts, are a five-alarm prick.  You wish to run cover and make excuses for people that have zero respect for the law irrespective of their race, color, creed or national origin by attempting to label those of us who insist that entry into the United States be done by legal means as "racists", thereby attempting to deny those of us who respect the Rule of Law our right to point out both your hypocrisy and the invaders' savage lawlessness.

Worse, when your own daughter died as a consequence of those very screeds of many over the years you willingly pissed on her life and its loss instead of expressing fully-justified rage that a cadre of politicians and business interests have admitted and allowed to remain myriad savages lacking any respect for the law over a period of decades for the purpose of advancing political careers and, in the case of business interests, profit.

As the father of a daughter of approximately Mollie's age I am outraged that now, when the chickens have come home to roost in your own back yard that you have the temerity to attempt to silence people like myself through maliciously false charges of racism.  Those men who are actual fathers rather than sperm fountains consider it our duty to put a stop to the invasion of this nation by lawless savages that have no respect for the Rule of Law and thus raise the risk, by a material amount, that our daughters will be victimized by same.