tomo,
Invasive plant species would be a decent metaphor. Or the tendrils of a fungal growth, or cancer. Rooting it all out may be the only answer, but there'll be a lot of "collateral damage" (shades of Gaza).

The Pennsylvania case brings to mind a murder that happened here in 2016. Elderly farmer Ian Turnbull shot environment officer Glen Turner in cold blood. The media was in high dudgeon about it at the time. I had a sneaking suspicion that it was the cumulative effect of petty bureaucracy provoking a huge overreaction by the farmer. Looking today, the headline of this article (paywalled) shows that others shared my suspicion.

Pennsylvania officials are a bit shrewder than our NSW ones. Unlikely to suffer physical violence no matter how much you provoke an Amish farmer.

DaveS,
Yes, this offensive form of "stimulation" is far from new. I'm not sure if it was an EU directive, but in the '90s some Euro car makers started using "biodegradable" wiring looms. A time bomb. When the car was 15-20 years old the gremlins would be in it as degraded insulation had unwanted copper to copper contact. Perfectly good cars scrapped due to uneconomic repair.

Modern Euro cars still have biodegradable bits on them. The rodent community seems to have a particular liking for Volvo and BMW rubberware (vacuum hoses and the like made of some soy product).

I think the Japanese way was to ramp up annual registration costs after the car reached a certain age (4 years?). Quite a few "scrapped" cars came to Aus. too. I suppose the Europeans are being refreshingly direct about it: illegal to repair a car more than 15 years old. Once that's in place, they can adjust the age limit.

Listened to the latest Brendan O'Neill Show with Ross Clark on Net Zero. Decent listening, though nothing too surprising. While I was listening my mind drifted to that accusation from the other day about Spiked having been pro-lockdown before it was anti. A much earlier interview with Julia Hartley-Brewer came to mind where she confessed that *unlike Brendan* she had been pro-lockdown at the very beginning, before waking up and turning strongly anti. So that suggests the O'Neill himself was anti from the beginning. (or my memory has let me down, if you can believe it)

Not that it matters much anyway. Unlike that commenter, I'm quite willing to forgive people who change their minds when they realise they've been wrong. I'd even forgive TinyCO2 :-)

Mar 3, 2024 at 9:30 PM | Robert Swan

I think you are correct in thinking the EU's proposed restrictions on maintaining older vehicles is really just a way of pushing the EV substitution agenda - although the way things are going it might end up helping Chinese manufacturers more than European ones unless import restrictions are imposed. Using regulations to favour building new vehicles rather than maintaining older ones isn't new - I think Japan certainly had, and maybe still has, stringent inspection rules for such a reason. There used to be a cottage industry in the UK importing used cars from Japan which still had plenty of life in them by UK standards; although Japanese rust proofing was generally not so good, presumably because expected life was relatively short. Being right hand drive made it quite simple to modify such Japanese imports to UK regulations.

big bureaucracy path

Invasive plant species isn't a bad metaphor ? - the choking effect kicks in eventually and intervention with heavy machinery and fire is required....

Barnes is, I feel - correct in the assertion that detailed resistance is futile when the entirety of an organisation has succumbed - better to cut the public financial risers and let it wither.

The sprawling awfulness of The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture is quite something.

tomo,
That was enjoyable listening (would have been a bit better if he'd not fiddled with his microphone). A shame it's not *just* Pennsylvania. We're all headed down the big bureaucracy path at the moment. I fear it's a much rougher road back.

One of the commenters on YouTube suggested that Amos Miller would have no bother funding his case if Trump were to mention it in a "swamp" context. I'm sure that's true, but it would make him an automatic unperson to a fair chunk of Americans. Poison chalice.

And on Trump, Jo Nova tells us today that the US Supreme Court has ruled against Colorado's barring of Trump's candidacy. A win for sanity, though I still wouldn't hold my breath waiting for him to win that state.

tomo; many thanks, much appreciated

tomo,
The "Are farmers allowed to grow their own food?" case is another demonstration of the big bureaucracy -> bigger bureaucracy positive feedback loop. We've been aware of it for a while.

Enjoyed reading up on Miss Shilling's orifice. Hadn't heard of it. Such a simple idea, but easily missed if you went looking for a perfect solution rather than a good enough one.

Solar roads *might* be the future. At €14,000 / MWh we can be pretty sure they aren't the present.

Couple of things spotted in comments at Jo Nova's:
EU banning repairs on (not very) old cars. Environment as a pretext, but pretty sure it's all about bolstering ailing manufacturing (at the expense of the repair industry).

Enjoyed this technical view of the SR71. Lots of interesting stuff, and not just on supersonics. I think my favourite bit was the aileron/elevator input mixer control. Glad I don't have to design things like that!