President Biden delivers remarks on progress made on his Administration’s Trucking Action Plan to strengthen our nation’s supply chains; the Secretary of Transportation also delivers remarks.
Side note: I wonder what the trucker convoy people think about President Biden’s Trucking Action Plan. If they think Biden is awful, how can they reconcile that with Biden having an action plan to help truckers? Or maybe most of those idiots weren’t long-haul truckers at all? I have not seen the plan, but feel quite confident that the Trucking Action Plan is not aimed at at racist owners of pickup trucks.
I guess we’ll have to watch and find out!
In case you missed this post from Anne Laurie yesterday, you can always read the Pete Buttigieg article while you wait for President Biden and Pete Buttigieg to speak.
Open thread.
Jerzy Russian
I tried this iron-on edging veneer from Home Depot for the first time this weekend. I used it to cover the edges of some plywood shelves, and it worked amazingly well. They make the veneer in a few different tree species, and the birch edging I got matched the birch plywood I was using.
NotMax
Assumes EEG detection not in evidence.
//
Leto
John Oliver had a good piece about truckers last night; essentially how they’re overworked, underpaid, and how the situation devolved over the past 40 years (I’m sure everyone here already knows why). Here’s the YouTube video of it.
Old School
Here are the details on the Trucking Action Plan from last December.
This afternoon’s event seems to be an update on what has been done.
Maybe Biden will get to sit in a semi and pretend to drive it.
WaterGirl
Music is starting. Progress!
WaterGirl
I simply cannot listen to Hail to the Chief without hearing the words as they were sung in the movie Dave.
Buttigieg speaking now.
JaneE
At least some of the convoy truckers were closer to truck company management than on-the-road drivers.
For a long time the roads were pretty empty of trucks, whether Covid safety rules or congested ports or other things I don’t know, but about the time they started doing something about the containers clogging up the ports more trucks seemed to be driving up and down 395. The last few times we have been on the road, there were trucks everywhere, and so many I sometimes thought “convoy”.
The traffic seems almost “back to normal” for the summer season, even with higher gas and diesel prices.
I hope part of their plan is to build truck bypass lanes for really crowded areas. They put one at the 15/215 interchange and it made the transitions much easier and probably safer for autos and small trucks. Of course the slowdown now starts about a mile or two after the intersection, because they still have to merge into the traffic lanes, but at least they are not doing it while trying to cross lanes to get to the road they want.
delk
Not sure if it was mentioned but C.W. McCall passed away last week.
germy
@delk:
trollhattan
Reveling a little in the latest Madison Cawthorn misadventure in which he gets popped for driving 89 with no license in a car that’s not his, but registered under dear old dad. “Late for orgy” was not his first explanation to the ossifer.
Baud
@germy:
One last push for royalties for their heirs.
Geminid
@Leto: My late friend Chris was a trucker and a skilled furniture mover. Chris made a decent living in the 1970’s, which was not so easy for a Black man in Virginia. Then come deregulation followed by Reagan, and Chris had to scratch and scrabble for a living from then on. Chris was an ardent Democrat, but he always held a grudge against Jimmy Carter over deregulation. The race to the bottom in Chris’ industry was intensified under Reagan.
Martin
Reminder that the port of LA/LB backlog was mostly solved by charging companies $100/day for containers they didn’t pick up. Mysteriously, they immediately found a way to get truckers there to pick their shit up.
Biden needs to throw everything behind this concept.
We were trialing it in CA when Trump admin pulled the plug. Bring it back. Catenaries are not expensive to build, even with how sparse the US is.
different-church-lady
It’s very simple: “Fuck Biden” + “Fuck Biden” = “Fuck Biden Twice”. There — reconciled using MAGA math.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Did you see Biden proposed a “use it or lose it” policy for the energy companies who have leases on federal land but don’t use the leases?
Leto
@Geminid: The Oliver piece covered that; so much of our society has been made worse by deregulation, and the following race to the bottom to enrich the top 1% of our society. Add on to that the fact that the propaganda machine to enable that has been widely successful.
Benw
The other day I was gassing up the fam-mobile when the guy at the next pump started in on “Biden and gas prices and the Keystone pipeline blah blah” so I asked him where he heard all this and he looked shady and said “the nightly news” which was pretty clearly BS. Then he jumped in with “this Buttigieg guy and billions on electric car stations,” to which I said that sounds AWESOME, which he was NOT expecting. I told him it would be huge for us so that we could take our Leaf all around instead of gassing up the big fam-wagon. He said, “welllll, we’re not ready,” so I said we weren’t ready to go to the moon until we decided to, this country can do anything it puts it’s mind to. He looked all disgruntled, shook his head a couple times, and drove away. It was fantastic
Roger Moore
@Benw:
One of the core ideas motivating contemporary conservatism is the tendency to see any obstacle, even the tiniest, as an unsolvable roadblock. They absolutely will not put their mind to any solution. Of course it’s not just conservatives. It’s amazing how people who don’t want to do something will give up at the first difficulty. It’s just that conservatives don’t want to do anything, so they’re amazingly capable of finding obstacles.
gvg
@Benw: I recently pushed back on a business owners gripes about not finding employees. He blamed lazy teenagers because none of the kids in his neighborhood wanted to get jobs he claimed. I told him it was demographics, that the baby boom was aging out and we just didn’t have enough younger workers as had been predicted my whole life…he didn’t look convinced but said he would have to look into it.
I did not say your business (plant propagation nursery wholesaler) is not an attractive job prospect and teenagers needed to be in school which has much more homework than it did when we were kids, plus it doesn’t pay enough to cover car costs and probably doesn’t have healthcare. I will be sad when his prices go up but honestly I would not be telling my kid to take that kind of job.
Sure Lurkalot
@Roger Moore: @Benw:
If I get treated to this opportunity at the pumps, I’m going to add “why do you hate America?”
gvg
@Jerzy Russian:
I used the cherry when I re veenered my grandmothers little side table last year. My father said it looked better than it had in his lifetime He remembers it when he was a kid so it must be over 70 years.
I was putting the edge banding on curved sides. It turned out to be important to go really slow and iron over and over small sections at a time, but it looks fine and its been over a year.
These little projects feel good, don’t they?
Benw
@Sure Lurkalot: LOL I tried to imply that pretty strongly!
The Moar You Know
I know that at least one of the idiots, if not the idiot-in-charge, was the owner of a long haul company. He did not spend his days driving trucks.
@Geminid: deregulation damn near destroyed the airline industry, and in spite of the later PATCO strike, threw every vote in the airline industry to Reagan in 1980 and 84 and to Republicans in general afterwards. It is impossible to overstate just how much damage deregulation did to those industries.
I frankly (and part of it is because I was likely too young then) just do not understand a lot of the decision making that went on in that administration.
Gravenstone
Because it’s painfully true.
Benw
@Roger Moore: I think it was you who made a comment a little while ago about the type of people of steer into problems rather than away, which has been an amazing help in conceptualizing the people who try to sandbag every step of the way forward in the DEI work which I’m involved.
The Moar You Know
@gvg: It is damn near impossible – and the business owner knows it – to get your insurer to sign off on hiring anyone under the age of 18. Mostly because guys like him just ignored all the working conditions and hours limits set for the youngsters.
I frankly think it would do a lot of the spoiled white kids I see around here a LOT of good to get jobs, but it just isn’t done anymore.
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore: You’re missing the mark a bit here: they turn things into obstacles so they can blame others for them. They inhibit solutions to things that are problems for the same reason. Putting effort into solving things isn’t even a consideration, because the perpetuation of problems is the goal.
Geminid
@The Moar You Know: Jimmy Carter was an engineer and saw a lot of things like an engineer sees them. Economists probably assured him that deregulation would be good for the economy in the medium and long terms.
I think it was, actually. Unfortunately, it was Ronald Reagan who reaped the political benefits, and no one wanted to credit Carter for this. I debit much of the harm deregulation did to American workers to Reagan, though
Herbert Hoover was our other engineer president. It might not be a coincidence that both Hoover and Carter were not reelected.
debbie
OT, but hahaha, jackass:
Suzanne
@Geminid:
I love engineers, I work with a lot of them, but I’m not surprised that their mindset is not good in the presidency. They tend to be people who dismiss — likely because they cannot even see — the vast role that non-quantifiable forces play in the success of any project. I see it even in the kinds of projects I do, which are nonpartisan. In most engineers’ minds, the right answer is always obvious (the cheapest or easiest thing) and they are really shitty (as a cohort) at understanding why the project is going in a different way. A lot of our public health people during this pandemic sucked at this, too. There seemed to be this unspoken assumption that everyone would just follow direction to do what was deemed necessary to squash the virus. Of course that isn’t what happened. Fear and hatred and status threat and stubbornness were bigger factors than most of us assumed.
On a totally unrelated note, I have lost over 30 pounds of quarantine weight, while putting on a bunch of muscle, by doing at least 150 minutes per week of indoor cycling (at like 90% of my max heart rate) plus at least 5 hours a week of hot, disgusting yoga. AND MY ASS LOOKS WORSE. I am so salty about it.
Suzanne
@Benw:
Don’t ignore the aesthetics/semiotics of this. They don’t want electric cars because that will reduce the availability of gas-guzzling trucks, which are potent symbols of masculinity and status amongst that cohort.
They really do not want to be associated with latte-drinking Prius-driving arugula-eating people, even aesthetically.
Roger Moore
@Benw:
I don’t think I used the exact terminology you do, but I have noticed the difference between people who look at problems as something to be solved vs. people who see them as an excuse for inaction. Once you think about the difference, it’s really stark.
It reminds me of something I’ve come to see as a key moment in my career. I was with a group of people at work who were grousing about some minor computer problem. I was about to say that “somebody ought to do something about that” when it occurred to me that I was somebody who knew about the problem and had the knowledge to fix it. So I stopped complaining and actually fixed the problem. The thing that really got me afterward was that I spent less time fixing the problem than we had previously spent complaining about it. I won’t say I’ve always been successful, but I’ve tried to keep that attitude since then, and I think it was directly related to me getting a big promotion a few years later.
Roger Moore
@Geminid:
I agree that deregulation was actually really beneficial for the economy. People complain endlessly about the problems deregulation has brought with it, but they ignore the benefits. Yeah, flying today is nowhere near as nice as it was before deregulation, but it’s massively more affordable, and a huge amount of that has to do with deregulation. The big problem is that deregulation came at the same time as a whole bunch of other stuff that conspired to give the benefits to the ultra rich rather than letting them be broadly shared. My gut feeling is that declining unionization has a lot more to do with today’s truckers being in precarious financial shape than deregulation does, but it’s deregulation that gets the blame.
cain
@Suzanne:
I could never understand the term hot yoga.
In India it is always hot yoga.
Leto
@Suzanne: grats on losing the quarantine weight! For a better posterior, squats. Have to target that specific area. Also hip thrusts. The cycling, running, and yoga are very good at toning everything, but to build that area you have to do those squats. Also did you ever get over to the Pittsburg running store? Have you gotten new running shoes? They working out?
Leto
@Suzanne: which is a bit weird because the new electric F-150 is a monster. Tows more, can power your house, acceleration of a Ferrari… But they’re going to live and die by the dino fuel.
Suzanne
@Leto: I’ve been doing squats, lunges, etc. My ass looks BIGGER. Ughhhhhh.
My crescent lunge is fire, tho. And my flexibility is great. I can now do mermaid pose on both sides and hold crow for over 20 seconds.
Suzanne
@Leto: And yes, I did get new running shoes. Bought the Brooks Ghost one generation back and have much happier toes, as in they are not going numb.
trollhattan
@Suzanne: Oh, trust me, GM has just the answer for these folks: the Hummer EV.
Nine. Thousand. Pounds. Soon to be taking two spaces at a Trader Joe’s near you.
Roger Moore
@Leto:
How much range do electric trucks have while hauling anything? That was the big worry I’ve heard about electric trucks. Basically electric vehicles have a light engine but heavy “fuel”, while internal combustion vehicles have comparatively heavy engines but comparatively light fuel. That means if range is really important, ICE vehicles have an advantage over battery electric vehicles. Trucks tend to lose a lot of range when they have to haul anything heavy, so the ability to add a lot of extra fuel is very valuable.
That’s not to say electric trucks are a bad choice for everything. If you’re a plumber or construction worker, so you need to haul a bunch of tools a comparatively short distance, electric vehicles will be great. But if you need to haul your horse trailer up into the mountains, ICE is the way to go.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: That thing costs more than my entire college education. And I have almost two Master’s degrees.
Leto
@Suzanne: I could do crow for upwards of 2 mins; never could do mermaid. That’s some non-joint shit there. I had a really good swan/pigeon pose, which I needed due to having issues with my glutes. Currently doing chair yoga as that’s my new speed. It def helps.
Edit: that’s awesome about the Ghosts! Happy Running!
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Good luck finding two adjacent empty spaces in a TJ’s parking lot.
Leto
@Roger Moore: honestly I don’t know. I know their hauling capacity/range is way up even from a decade ago. It’s technology, yo. I do know the guys who came to replace our chimney cap were complaining about gas. Dropped $100, still didnt’ fill the vehicle.
Raven
@Roger Moore: I recently invested in this
Suzanne
@Leto: I am much more flexible on my left side than on my right. I can do left-leg splits but not right. So I am excited that I can now mermaid on the right.
RSA
@Jerzy Russian: I used veneer on the edges of some oak shelving once, and it came out surprisingly well. It could be sanded where needed and took a stain well. An expert could have told the difference from solid wood, I guess, but to my eye it looked pretty natural.
scuffletuffle
@Old School: Sadly, I read “sit in a semi” somewhat differently…
Kay
Guffaw. Good for him.
Gravenstone
@Roger Moore: Besides, a true sociopath would use at least four spaces…
Suzanne
@Leto: Haven’t gotten to do much running yet, actually. We’ve been having a spate of crime (including my break-in in January, and that dude is still criming). There was a murder a few blocks away last week and then another one last night in an adjacent neighborhood. Police are stepping up foot patrols. The crime shit is bad, y’all. It’s making me scared to be outside.
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore: This is my question as well. I am never going to be able to buy one of these expensive electric trucks anyway, but any truck I own needs to be able to haul a loaded horse trailer over the Rocky Mountains. The diesel engine F250? Doesn’t even notice. The electric F150…?
Gravenstone
@trollhattan: 9″ longer and 11″ wider than my land yacht Dodge Challenger I traded in last year, in part because it was feeling a bit unwieldy. Yeesh.
Roger Moore
@Raven:
Two points:
The Thin Black Duke
@Suzanne: I like big butts, I cannot lie.
Geminid
@Roger Moore: EVs will make big inroads into the fleet delivery vehicle market. UPS and Amazon have ordered a lot. Plumbing and electrical, and other contractors whose trucks sit at the yard overnight will want them too.
Same with school districts. One part of the Infrastructure bill promotes a changeover to electric school buses. Vice President Harris appeared at a plant in Rocky Mount, North Carolina the day after the bill was signed, and talked up their electric school buses. Parents will love them once they see their kids breathing clean air instead of diesel exhaust.
I’m not too worried about market acceptance of EVs. I think that by the end of this decade availability of raw materials will be the limiting factor in their introduction.
Roger Moore
@Geminid:
They should also be perfect for things like garbage trucks, which do a ton of stop-and-go driving but don’t actually travel a huge distance. That’s right in electric vehicles’ wheelhouse. The same thing with the trucks here in Southern California that go back and forth between the port and warehouses in the Inland Empire. They spend a lot of time in stop-and-go traffic and waiting for freight, so electric motors are great for them.
Again, though, the big thing will be convincing people who want a truck to prove their manhood- a key market segment- that EVs are at least as manly as ICE vehicles. I think it can be done, but it’s going to take a lot of convincing. Having those trucks that do this stuff for a living switch to electric will probably help.
Jacel
@Leto: Rachel Maddow had a segment or two about the electric F-150, playing her Car Person card, and pointing out how exciting this vehicle was by those standards.
SeattleDem
Range on an electric vehicle is also related to regenerative charging. A 4-wheel drive electric vehicle has significantly more range than a 2-wheel drive version of the same model, in general. Weight dragged up a hill is offset by weight coasting down the hill, so a loaded EV truck doesn’t pay as big a price in range as a loaded ICE truck.
Given a choice between 2-wheel and 4-wheel ICE pickup truck, many drivers choose the 4-wheel drive and accept the sacrificed fuel efficiency. The contractors I’ve talked to who have their names on the waiting list for the new Ford told me about not having to drag a generator out to worksites, not worrying about getting their gas siphoned, and how much they pay for scheduled service in shop fees and lost time.
I’m sure there will be an aftermarket attachment that lets their kids “roll coal” using a little diesel and lamp-black.
Suzanne
@SeattleDem:
I cannot convey how much this offends me aesthetically. It reminds me of that restaurant that I used to live near called “Heart Attack Grill”. Just so disgusting.
Dan B
@Roger Moore: I put friends in our wimpy Leaf and stomp on it. They’re shocked. It won’t take many times when the F150 smokes the ICE trucks.
JAFD
@Suzanne: Well, we won’t think any less of you
JAFD
@The Thin Black Duke: Somehow, YouTube keeps sending me recommendations for “One Long, Two Short”, aka ‘The Duluth Harbor Cam’ aka ‘I Like Big Boats…’
Roger Moore
@SeattleDem:
That’s pretty cold comfort if they can’t make it all the way up on one charge, which could be the case if the mountain is tall and the weight is large.
Benw
@Dan B: yeah the Leaf might be little but it can hum!
RaflW
I passed a tractor trailer this evening, can’t remember the company, with a largish sticker on the rear trailer door proclaiming “now offering health benefits!” to which I thought, Jesus, they’ve not bothered to even offer insurance before.
Ahh, the shittiness of capitalism.
J R in WV
@The Thin Black Duke:
Me too. Taj Mahal performs a sweet song about that…