Arlo, living in Hawaii is over-rated. Keep the van. Read more

This is the kind of stuff I love to see on Jalopnik. Thanks Adam. Read more

It’s not hard at all. You merely are hewing to a definition of communism which is artificially limited. Read the article I linked above, or better yet Victoria Smolkin’s book. Read more

Yeah Stalin was pretty over the top.  Have to agree with you there. Read more

I am kind of glad this is leading to an accounting of how all the Russian oligarchs have been infiltrating the economies and politics of the West and screwing with our institutions though. Let’s see what’s under some of those rocks. Probably some slimy stuff. Read more

He’s close. He’ll be 70 in October. But the real issue, is what do you do with an old guy who’s willing to go out in a nuclear bang? I suspect the financial constraints will do what the West wants. Eventually. But it won’t be fast. Read more

“..the Russians, which means Putin...” Read more

I don’t think ‘Putin has no morality’ accurately reflects his ethos. Like many sociopaths, his view of action and consequence, is that those who end up with the short end of the stick deserve it, because they allowed themselves to be put there. Thus he has no compassion for the thousands (millions?) of Ukrainian… Read more

I think you’re missing some of his previous statements on the subject. His perception of the Russian identity is ‘patriotism, collectivism and solidarity’; derzhavnost and gosudarstvennichestvo. He perceives Western individualism as a weakness, and instead reorders history by claiming that authoritarian control of… Read more

Putin wants nothing more than a return to full Soviet Era lock down and control. People can’t leave? He loves it. Western companies lose a couplr decades of capital investments? Perfect. Just in time to seize their assets and reassert collectivisation. Read more

I got rid of mine before it burned. Always smelled of gas though, because the gasket for the cover to the engine bay (which is in the inside of the car in the station wagon, way at the back) was incomplete, leading to gas fumes and exhaust in the car. Despite having a heater which merely suggested warmth while in… Read more

If you have been hypnotized by the challenge, do it then. There are few things which build character in life more than an inadvisable project carried to completion. I’ll look forward to your reports on what part fell apart next. It could turn into a pretty humorous series... Read more

Well, at least you put the right engine in it. You can get away with more modern fuel injection set ups, but I don’t agree with the L-jet not being bad. Even the supposedly ‘easy’ set ups are still poor designs. Read more

Listen, I’ve owned a VW 412. You really DO NOT want one. Their primitive fuel injection never runs right. Also, at any speed greater than 60 MPH, the aerodynamics and lack of weight on the front axle make it float, with very little control of what is already pretty bad steering. The only way to do one, is to get a… Read more

Yeah, those bumpers are cringe. And you do need a flamboyant color if you want to do one of these the right way. There is an argument to be made about some selective driveline/transmission work also. But definitely a simpler route to a weekend toy than a deuce coupe, and much easier to live with.  Not as classic… Read more

Putting a touch screen on a bike, then saying ‘you don’t need to use it’ means it’s a useless feature, and needs to be removed, or its human interface is poor, and you’ve decided it’s too hard to operate, so you can’t/won’t use that functionality. Read more

How the heck can you have missed this one:

Humans are interesting in their capacity to color all incoming evidence to confirm previous biases and prejudice. The obverse of that, of course, is that some humans don’t exhibit that capacity quite so profoundly as others. Read more

Nuclear reactors can get you as much polonium as you want. Read more

My fave was the Toyota Starlet.