Being one of the cool kids.

I just stuffed the tank in the pickup yesterday which made me good for another 450-500 miles or so. It's a 2009 and was made to the pollution mandates of the time and passed the required emissions test a couple of months ago. It's not something one of the cool kids would be proud to drive even if they could because it has a manual transmission in it. Then again, I cheerfully drive it because IDGAF. It works and takes me where I want to go.

Over the past few years I've spoken with a few EV drivers and discussed the pros and cons of EVs. Tire wear, fueling times, repairs cost and things of this nature.

Mostly I had to listen to the cool part about saving the earth, peace, love, flowers, what's your sign? crap.

There was one guy I met that I respected. He told the truth as he saw it.

"It's a coal burner,"  he said. "It chews up tires, is powered by lithium batteries and uses other rare metals most of which are mined in Third World countries by children forced into slave labor. Just doing my part to save the planet."

With a grin I asked him if it bothered him that slave labor was being used to power his car and he grinned back and said, "Nah. They ain't MY kids."

I liked the guy, really. He was at least honest. He clearly wasn't one of the cool kids that was afraid to admit the downsides of EVs. 

He grew serious and said that having children mine rare metals was a human disgrace. I agreed with him 100%. It most certainly is a disgrace. A number of heads shoud roll over that one.

Still, the cool kids run around acting like because they bought a very expensive car that runs on a elecrticity instead of fossil fuels  which makes them a part of the in crowd. (Go to YouTube and look up Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs. 'I'm in with the out crowd'. That's me.)

Still, the in crowd really doesn't care about much of anything but feeling relavant, on top of things. While they will likely speak out against child labor in the mines, fact is deep inside they really don't care a whole lot about it just so long as they get what they want.

Speaking of poverty and child miners, I get pretty tired of people in this country talking about poverty here. Fact is there is daamned little of true poverty in the country. SNAP benefits or not, nobody really starves. 

Granted there are some pretty crappy parents out there that send their kids off to school with empty stomachs but the fact is nobody is really starving. We live in a world where we have it so good that if the food stamps run late morbidly obese women start screeching about starvation.

Actually you have to look at things overseas to put things into perspective.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY