Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-08-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Morning news headlines and calls into Wheels Up Wednesday with automotive journalist Eric Peters at EP Autos.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clouserdrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Okay, so we're going to get Greenland back. I don't think we ever had Greenland, but I guess we're likely going to find some way to get Greenland. And the Panama Canal, we're going to get that back back and it's going to be called the American Canal. And let's see.

President-elect Donald Trump says he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America when he takes office. He says that the drug cartels run Mexico and that the country's in deep trouble. He also announces he's changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. What do you think? We can certainly talk about it. It is Wheels Up Wednesday. Join the conversation at 770-5633-770-KMED. The email Bill at BillMeyersShow.com.

Big local news here yesterday. Grants Pass City Council ended up getting together and immediately yanked funding for Mint. That is their homeless nonprofit up there that takes care of this. And I'm just going to take some of this from KOBI 5's reporting on this one. New Grants Pass City Council wasting no time putting its imprint on Josephine County's largest city and pulling support. Okay, pulling support from the homeless community. I like that way that they're putting that phrase as if we're pulling support. The homeless community, we're pulling support from it.

And what this means, though, is that they're pulling support from a nonprofit group whose business has been taking care of the homeless. Do you see how news reporters can shade a story? I mean, we're all biased. We all tell stories from a certain point of view, right? In other words, we hate the homeless. We're going to do homeless. It comes right down to it, though. This was about funding for the low barrier shelter. The low barrier shelter is the funding, and let me just be clear, you'll hear terms such as low barrier shelter. And the libs of Southern Oregon have been very big in standards not being applied to anybody. The whole thing is that everyone's a victim, and you can't function without the drugs,

without the methamphetamine, and all the rest of it. You just can't function. There's nothing. So the way to solve the problem of homelessness is that we have to have a low barrier shelter. Low barrier means exactly what it is. There are shelter beds in Grants Pass available right now at the Gospel Rescue Mission. There are plenty of them, but they have rules there. You're not going to smoke. You're not going to be shooting up drugs. You're not going to be doing You're not going to be shooting up drugs. You're not going to be doing all that kind of stuff within there. But the libs don't want that.

And a lot of the homeless don't want this either because they got some real problems. And I guess they want the addiction more than they want the shelter. And so the idea from the city of Grants Pass, City of Medford's already doing this too, and everybody else, we decided this is the way to do it. You have your raving lunatics that are drug addicted, and you put them up. Essentially shooting galleries of some form or another, I guess. And this has been a bone of contention in the city of Grants Pass. I think they're wanting to take, especially the new city council, is wanting to take a little more of a tough love approach on this one.

Is that, no, we're not going to let you defecate on the street. No, we're not going to just let you take over areas of the business districts downtown. And no, we don't really want to pay for this low barrier shelter. Now, let's see. One person yelled during the meeting, you're full of S. Dwayne Yunker says, go F yourself. We're going to talk with Dwayne Yunker here about an hour from now.

And hopefully, Dwayne, you can't say go F yourself on the radio, though, OK? Just so you know. Anyway. So NBC5 had a talk with Republican Mayor Clint Scherf, who is now the incoming mayor there, to talk about what what he, along with four other new Republican council members, hoped to bring to the city. For him, that meant tackling some of the city's bad apples. He says, when you have more bad people in a situation than good people, they take away from the resources that the good people actually need help.

The people who actually need help and want help. So I would like to really start our focus on really tackling the drug problem. And the city proposed a couple of resolutions revoking funding for mint. It was only last month that the prior city council approved a resolution granting mint $660,000 to buy two properties to use as low barrier shelters and urban campground. They said during inclement weather, we can have 49 people stay here overnight. Anytime we're open, we have had a full house in our future state. Our goal is to have at least 100 people living here through the low barrier shelter and foundry village type homes. This was

the executive director and co-founder of Mint, Casey Leach. But the new city council sees issues with the location and the buildings after an inspection was completed. Building not a very good building needs to be bulldozed if anything they're saying and this is not a good place it's a liability for the city it doesn't matter how much you want a shelter we should do it right that is the problem here we're not going to cram something down in used taxpayers dollars this according to then counselor duane yunker uh yunker by the way is no longer on the city council. But like I said, we'll talk with him about this latest decision. So it passed 5-2.

Councilors Rob Pell and Rick Riker voting no. Pell citing the hasty meeting for his reasoning. And Leach says there's more time to discuss their plan with the council may have changed some minds. They're expressing concerns about the building and the shape. We understand that. Yada, yada, yada. Okay, so there we go. The drama continues in Josephine County,

and so we'll talk with Dwayne a little bit later about this. You know, the issues that I think we have to be honest with ourselves is that the issues with the homeless camps are deep and dark and not good. I saw another story. I think it was on KOBI 5 the other day. And they were looking at what was going on in the current places where the homeless were hanging out. And it was all wet and muddy and the rocks were poking holes into the tarps. And that's an issue, so maybe they do need to move that around here. But still, we're dealing with a drunk, alcoholic, raving drug-addicted population.

Largely. Not all. Largely, though. And the thing is, they like the addiction more than they want to be comfortable, I guess. And should you enable it? These are real philosophical questions that are being asked right now. And for a long time, we have, in essence, been trying to say that we can tolerate, that we have to take care of the addiction, tolerate the addiction, and whatever it is, just housing first, like the Obama administration came up with. It was always about housing first.

Doesn't matter if you actually know how to function in a house or if you're actually together. Here's a house, and then what do they happen? They go in there, they get drunk and drug addicted and tear the house up. So they're not ready for that kind of stuff. All right? Low-barrier shelters and camps are interesting, too. get drunk and drug addicted and tear the house up. You know, so they're not ready for that kind of stuff. All right. Low barrier shelters and camps are interesting, too. This one came from NRToday.com up in Douglas County.

Patrick Moore in the news review there. The Douglas Interagency Narcotics Team seized a substantial amount of meth from a tent near the largest area of Roseburg's unhoused camping on Monday. Court and jail records confirm that Eric Donovan Ray, known as Eric Donovan Ray, or the nickname Gimmick, is now incarcerated in Douglas County Jail on multiple charges. $56,000 bail. Two ounces of meth. In other words, in the homeless camp, in the low barrier homeless camps,

the meth dealers were hanging out in Douglas County, and now they put one of them in jail. And I can imagine that Josephine County is probably not all that much different from Jackson County, et cetera, et cetera. This is a real deal, and I guess the tough love time is coming, and there's going to be a lot of yelling going on in Joe County. But we'll have conversation with Dwayne Younger about this and where he sees this going. And I'm sure this is going to be talked a lot about in the state legislative session,

which is going to be coming up here in the next few days. Democrats will normally be telling, well, you know, Democrats are our mommy and the Republicans are playing the role of dad. You know, dads are kind of like tough love. It's kind of like, all right, okay. You don't want to freeze to death on the street or something like that. You know, put the needle down. You're going to have to do something to, you're going to have to care about your life more than we do that essentially is the republicans

and the democrats are oh we gotta do everything we throw everything at it whether it's the free phones and free phones and free free needles free needles oh free methamphetamine too well if we have to anything to keep you alive. Where's the Narcan? These are the dueling philosophies we have right now. And mom's been in charge for a long time in the cultural scene here in the state of Oregon. And I think dad is getting ready to take control. I hope dad is successful, too. This is the Bill Myers Show, KMED 99.3 KBXG, 21 minutes after 6. Stock market's been a little bit soft as of late.

Gold's been finding support around 26.50, 26.60, somewhere in there. It's not near the peak at this point as far as I'm concerned. It's still a nice buying opportunity if you haven't had the chance of thinking, wow, it was too late. Because no matter what, even with all the smart people in the Trump administration and all this talk about taking Greenland with all the smart people in the trump administration and all this talk about taking greenland and all the rest of it it looks like an inflationary situation is baked in the cake it is going to be tough for the doge suggestions to have much effect

what do you have two-thirds of the uh of the budget off limits you know you can't touch social security you can't touch medicare. You can't touch Medicare. Can't do anything like that. Yeah, it might be a good idea to have some of your wealth protected. Get some physical gold and silver from J. Austin & Company. Gold and silver buyers in Ashland, 1632 Ashland Street, 6th and G in downtown Grants Pass. Call 482-3715. Mark and Andrea have been doing this for a long, long time.

It's pretty simple. There's a commission when you buy, and they just tell you about it right up. That's how they make their money. They don't make money on the percentage of the gold, just a basic commission on it. It's the way that's done. And I know some people are saying putting it in the IRA. I'm kind of a fan of you having control of it and keeping it out of the reach of Uncle Sam just in case because things are so nutty that over the next few years, there has been talk in the opening Congress about seizing 401ks. And so you're thinking, hey, I'm going to put all my gold into a 401k. That's what everyone in the national, the big national shows are saying,

get a national one. Yeah, and what happens when the Democrats come looking for that at some point? Okay. Wealth preservation is about making sure you have access to it, and not having to have access to it where the government says they'd like to have access to it. Just saying. Okay, that's my opinion. Talk to your financial

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Call Completed Electric Plus and check those jobs off your list. Visit CompletedElectricPlus.com. We've had a lot of rain this year and a lot more people struggling to make ends meet, but we're happy to announce that the 14th annual Wipeout Hunger Drive at Kelly's Automotive Service will start on January 13th. If you bring in 40 ounces or more of peanut sun soy or almond butter and 10 or more ounces of jelly to either the Grants Pass or Medford location of Kelly's, we'll exchange that food for wiper blades installed up to $35 in value. Wipeout Hunger ends on February 7th. Kelly's Automotive Service, where we service your vehicle, but take care of you.

Hi, I'm Steve Potter, Body Shop Manager of Lithia Body & Paint, and I'm on 106.7 KMED. Okay. Alright. Correcting an error. Dwayne Yonker writes me and says, Bill, I did not say go F yourself. That came from a free Palestine

person. Please correct. Duly noted there sorry about that counselor well former counselor here i misread the uh the kobi story i think it had to do with a exclamation point because it looked like it was like yunker said okay okay it didn't sound like you but hey duane you have to, with the way that things have been going here in Southern Oregon government, it would not surprise me to have someone yelling, go F yourself in an open meeting. Okay? So sorry about that.

So, no, Dwayne did not do that. The other person yelling that was a free Palestine person. Okay. So, needless to say, just a lot of fun. A lot of fun. Other thing which happened yesterday is that they released the wildfire map. The new wildfire map. Oregon placing new rules on homeowners living in certain high-risk wildfire areas,

which look like to be about everywhere except the city. Isn't that interesting? The release of the maps follows. This is from Oregon Public Broadcasting. The release of the maps followed a record-breaking wildfire season last year and firestorms in 2020 that killed nine people and destroyed thousands of homes. Now, remember, you're not allowed to cut down forests and things like that. You're just supposed to burn them in wildfires.

That's what we do with them now. That's our wealth. But anyway, the state developed maps, the state developed maps, which will not affect homeowners insurance rates. Liar! Liar! Liar! Okay, well, maybe not actually lying, but maybe just a little bit of a distortion uh they have their own maps too but you try to tell me that insurance company's not going to

look at some of the maps too that they can't they're not allowed to look at it and say hey we'll just take what they're doing on that map and put it on our map, right? Can we be honest about this? But anyway, yes, the state developed maps which will not affect homeowners' insurance rates under Oregon law. Well, yeah, it won't affect your homeowners' insurance rates because you just won't have insurance. That's how – maybe that's how they get around it. That's how they'll get around it they'll say you know hey listen these these wildfire maps that we put out on tuesday it's not going to affect your insurance right oh it's okay i don't have an insurance right because the insurance

companies canceled everything and they're not they're not now serving our state or they're not serving my neighborhood you think i'm kidding that could be part of? That could be part of this. That could be part of this. Who knows? But anyway, it creates new rules for those living in the most fire-prone areas that also border wildlands, such as forests or grasslands. The provisions impact 6% of the state's roughly $1.9 million tax lots. That's a reduction from an earlier version developed in 2022, but retracted after homeowners raised concerns that it would increase insurance premiums. Wildfire seasons are growing longer and more intense due to climate change. And Oregon isn't the only state grappling with how to manage the risk.

Okay. Once again, we have a land in which the forest keeps growing, and we don't do anything with the forest. We don't do anything about the herbivory, and we have lots of cheatgrass everywhere, this is to hire lots of people to burn the forest therapeutically when we actually used to therapeutically harvest the forest and yeah i know and actually made money from it down here in southern oregon isn't that the sad part about it all we actually used to make money from it but you know josephine county used to have so much money jackson county used to have so much money. Danny Jordan, in essence, was hired way back in the day, you know,

to make up for some $30 million a year in timber money that used to go to the county and then went away. Yep. But yesterday just doesn't count anymore. It just lays in the ground until we sweep it away, according to that old Neil Diamond song, something like that. Speaking of fires, though, boy, L.A. in tough shape, that is for sure. And where can we go on that?

So that's kind of the quick look here. I took a look on the new wildfire map that's posted. You can get them online, take a look at it. I looked at my address over on Viewpoint Drive, and it says that i'm of moderate risk i have a fire hydrant about i don't know 200 feet away from the house not that far and so they're saying i'm moderate that's like the purple purpley or bluey kind of thing now remember i'm colorblind i'm not sure what color that is and then they had the orange stuff now they say that only six% of the tax lots are affected by this wildfire map and the new rules that are there on it. But I have to tell you, it's a sure heck of a lot more.

When you look at that map, it's way more than 6% of the land mass. Okay? Just letting you know about that. Go take a look if you want to find out. It does seem that, you know, the only way that you escape it is if you live in the city. And, of course, what is the goal of Oregon land use planning? You're not going to live out in those orange areas, are you? You're going to live in the stack-and-pack, sustainable development, you know, that culturally equitable, climate-friendly community,

you know, that kind of thing that the governors are wanting. I wonder how that's going to work out for us. That's the latest. This is the Bill Myers Show. We're going to get on the highway now. Eric Peters will join me. Wheels up Wednesday, kicking it around. And we have State Representative Dwayne Yunker talking about what's going on and no dwayne did not say go f yourself

he was probably thinking that though and i wouldn't blame him in fact i probably i would have applauded you dwayne if you had this is the bill myers show looking for durable and custom fit metal roofing stephen westfall roofing inc specializes in metal roofing with two portable snap lock machines they pull right up to your door, allowing them to custom cut every... Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. But if you're not using ZipRecruiter, you're missing out. So see what it's like when the impossible is easy. When you go to ZipRecruiter.com slash free right now to try ZipRecruiter for free.

Once again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash free. ZipRecruiter.com slash free. Never miss out on great candidates with ZipRecruiter. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 106.3 KMED. Wheels up Wednesday. Every Wednesday we talk with Eric Peters, automotive genius and journalist at epautos.com. And welcome back. There's no pressure out there.

I guess we're going to take over Greenland. The Gulf of Mexico will be the Gulf of America. And the America Canal will be reopening. I've got to tell you, wouldn't you say, Eric, that Trump is doing his best Teddy Roosevelt these days, or else it's like kind of like reenacting the Monroe Doctrine. Isn't that interesting? Well, actually, it's kind of a cartoon of that. You know, it's fatuous. This like WWE cartoonish blather, the Panama, America Canal, it's going to be great. Maybe I'm just speaking for me, but I'm tired of this nonsense.

You know, I want to see results. I want to see things done. I really don't care about semantics. It doesn't matter to me whether it's the Gulf of America or whatever the heck it is. You know, what I care about is are we going to do something to improve a lot of people in this country? Stop bloviating, please. Yeah, I think that's just it. Let's get to it. It's going to be hard. And I have to tell you, President Trump can do everything right this time, and I'm hoping that he does. And it's still going to be a very, very difficult lift to get it through Congress. And that's why I think there's been little focus on just how difficult that's going to take and how much work is going to have to be done.

And, you know, people like, I don't know, it almost feels like we're intentionally being distracted in the system at the moment. Would you agree or not? Well, I completely agree. And I think it is going to be very difficult for him to go through normal channels, so to speak. And that's why if I were he and if I had his ear and maybe he's listening, I would appeal directly to the American people on a number of subjects, including, for example, the cost of the administrative state, the regulatory apparat, and specifically with regard to what it's done to the cost of cars.

Explain it to people, and that might create the necessary public pressure to get the Congress to go along with these necessary reforms. What does it actually do, or how much of a cost? Could you put a number to it? I'm sure that you have in past articles. Well, it amounts to thousands of dollars. You know, let's just take one example. All of the federal so-called safety requirements that have, among other things, effectively required all vehicles to now have at least four and as many as six or eight airbags adds thousands of dollars to the cost of the vehicle, not so much because of the airbags themselves, but because the entire vehicle has to be designed around these things.

And I'm not saying that they're bad. I'm saying people should be aware of what it costs. And a great suggestion that isn't my original one, but I'll pass it along, would be if the manufacturers, the car companies, would line item such things. You know, the way they do with optional features, they could point out this is what airbags cost you and add to the price of the car companies, would line item such things. You know, the way they do with optional features, they could point out, this is what airbags cost you and add to the price of the car. Just make it public and let the public see it so they know what they're paying for.

That would be interesting because as it is right now, you'll take a look at the sticker when you go down to the, you know, the key of the Hyundai dealer, Chevy dealer, everybody else, Ford dealer, and they just talk about it being included. They'll have, hey, six airbags and it's just included in the cost of the car. But the problem with that is kind of like the way it is in our medical system, the way people will overuse it because they don't really see the cost of it because, well, your medical insurance is now kind of like almost a prepaid medical in many ways, wouldn't you say? Yeah, and another good example I think would be withholding, which was devilishly ingenious.

They simply take your money before you even have it so that people don't have to write that check. If people had to write that check, I think there would be a lot less insouciance toward the amount of taxes that people are paying. So if you want to go buy a car, let's say, and they broke it out in the, let's say the car is $18,000 without the safety equipment, and then all of a sudden you realize by the time you were done, you were paying $6,000 to $7,000 for the optional safety equipment, something that used to be optional maybe even just a few years ago. And, you know, it used to be that first you had to have one airbag, right? You had one airbag in the steering one, then you had to have an airbag

in the steering column, and then you had one in the glove compartment area, you know, that sort of thing. Yeah, now you've got them in the doors and you've got them in the seats and everything else. And by the way, here's a good way to quantify it. Look, for example, at the Toyota Hilux Champ that you and I have talked about a number of times, which is available everywhere except here. And it costs $13,000 in export markets because it does not have four or six airbags. And it doesn't have to have a direct injected turbocharged engine. It can still have a manual transmission and all of these things. And so there you go. It's a $13,000 truck versus a $25,000 or $30,000 truck. Freedom is less expensive, okay?

It ends up saving you money ultimately there. All right? And, you know, again, it's not that I'm against any of these things. What I'm for is alternatives and choice. You know, it used to be you and I are old enough to remember when Volvo was the safety car brand. Right? Yeah. So if a person valued that above other considerations, crash worthiness and so on, go ahead and buy a Volvo.

And that's what a lot of families did back in the 80s. I remember that, the 80s and the 90s. And then it got to the point where Volvo really couldn't use that any longer because the federal government more or less forced everybody else to be the safety car, as it were. Sure. It was great when people had the option to choose something. You could choose a Volvo if that was your choice, if that was your preference, those were your desirable attributes. Or if you had other things that you valued more, like lightweight and a high economy and a low price, go out and buy a Chevette or a Volkswagen Beetle. That used to be the American way, having the choice to pick what suits your particular needs and wants.

And then I would imagine, though, it's the insurance mafia that would be dictating those choices sometimes, wouldn't you say? Well, yeah, that is part of it. Of course, boy, it's so complicated, isn't it? Part of the problem there is that insurance has been made mandatory, which means of course they can pretty much charge what they like. Your only real choice is whether you're going to deal with the Lucchese family

versus the Corleone family. Yeah, but do you think we can get to the point, though, and this is it, where I could see where it's almost like insurance needs to be for protecting you, you know, that sort of thing. But yet I also understand the need to be able to be financially responsible for what you could be doing

to somebody else. I mean, you could agree with me on something like that or not? Except with the caveat that I don't feel that people should be responsible for harms they haven't caused because somebody fears they might cause them. I think that's gotten us into a whole lot of trouble as a people. Certainly, I absolutely think that anybody who damages the property or injures somebody else is 100% liable and ought to be made to pay for that, no matter what it takes, frankly. Even if that means chain gangs and indentured servitude. I don't have a problem with that at all.

I want to take it back to the freedom of speech arena right now, which you bring up on one of your newer articles on epautos.com. Eric Peters, by the way, is with me. If you want to talk with him, too, 770-5633 to join in. Now, a couple of days ago, you wrote the piece called Excommunication Addendum, and this has to do with you having been banned from X. Now, is this a recent banning from X or a long-term banning from X? No, this just happened a few days ago. Normally, I'm not a big active participant on X.

I generally used to go there, and I would post links to my articles, and occasionally I would respond to something that I saw that I thought was worth responding to. And the reason why I think it's important to talk about is that social media is in the news a lot right now. Meta yesterday, you know, Meta with Zuckerberg and various other officials are saying that, you know, we're not going to be doing the censorship any longer. The New York Times reporting that this is going to please the incoming Trump administration. Of course, how about it just being the right thing to do, Eric? But I don't know. I'm not completely trusting of this whole algorithm and social media world. I guess we will have to see.

How did you end up getting banned or restricted on X? Because this is supposedly – now we're told now since Elon bought it that it's free speech now. So what happened? Well, it isn't on multiple levels, first of all. It isn't free when you have to pay for reach, which is what you have to do with X. You have to pay a monthly fee in order for whatever you post to be seen by anybody. So it's not free, literally.

It's not free speech. And that's fine. Elon has the right to charge for his service. I don't have an issue with that. But please spare me the talk about free speech. The other thing is the algorithm is absolutely still in effect in force, and so are the community guidelines. You post something that violates these things, and it doesn't have to be anything specific. Often they don't actually tell you.

It's just, oh, you violated community guidelines. Now, I said something a little bit harsh about the prime minister of the UK, Keir Starmer, who's a loathsome cretin, you know, who's a guy who has covered up gang rape that was performed by some of these refugees slash immigrants that they flooded the country with. And so I said something about that. And that almost immediately triggered the ban. Now, the only way to come back is if I do the Ask Ghost Challenger. There's some stupid, goofy name for it. And of course, like a good penitent, promise to sin no more. And I'm not doing that. And, you know, it's fundamentally about this, I think. It's not so much the overt censorship.

It's the self-censorship. All of us keep our fingers above the keyboard before we type anything because we know in the back of our minds, oh, my gosh, if I phrase this the wrong way, if I say it that way, somebody's going to get offended. Well, it's a free people. It's kind of what happens when you have the total surveillance state on what used to be a free people of the United States of America, because when the people know that they are being watched in absolutely everything they're doing. Yes. It's got a real East German quality to it. It does.

They're constantly being monitored. And that, I think, is why we should disconnect and divorce ourselves from this stuff, because we're self-censoring and we're not even aware of it. You know, this faux politeness, this faux civility, just like with the masks, oh, do it because it shows you care. No, I'm not doing it. And if that makes somebody upset, too bad. You know, that used to be part of what it meant to be an American. You know, Eric, there's a thought, just kind of going through my head the other day. I remember when I first started getting onto the Internet, what I was doing in those days, it was kind of a pre-net world, and everything was about billboards, or bulletin boards, rather.

Do you remember those days? I do, in chat rooms, too. Yeah. Could you see the day coming in which the real free speech is going to be going back onto some form of your locally controlled bulletin board and it really can't be internet connected and the reason i bring that up where it can't be the net because still what ultimately ends up screwing you up then is having to deal with amazon's web services and various other monopolies and going through the various people that, what is it, ICANN or whoever controls the internet names and

all the rest of it, they can choose to ban you because you've been a bad person in their view, all that kind of stuff. Could you almost see us going back to the future in a way? Well, I hope so. And I think at the end of the day, it's important that we don't shackle ourselves by just facilitating it, by being a part of it. You know, I'm not trying to toot my own horn here. I'm just saying that people who want to have conversations, especially long-form intelligent ones as opposed to ones that are restricted to two sentences maybe, that infantilizes and trivializes speech and reduces it to stupid soundbites, should go to websites where they are allowed to speak freely.

Mine is one. There are many others. And decentralize. Just go where you can find like-minded people who share your values and stop feeding Elon Musk. And stop feeding Zuckerberg, I would say. Him too. Ultimately too. I mean, do we want to trust these people given their track record?

Do we want to really put people given their track record? Do we want to really put all of our eggs in their basket and just hope that they're not going to, you know, sometime down the road decide, oh, we decided to change the rules. We have no community guidelines now. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, they're actually going to be using the – I know that what Zuckerberg was talking about yesterday is essentially going to the notes and the community guidelines sort of thing. But the thing is, though, it's, you know, wait a minute. Who is that community, really?

Yeah, that language is insufferable. You know, it conjures this image of everybody sitting around a campfire, and there's a hippie strumming the guitar, and we're all nice, good, caring people. No, we're not. We're talking about an algorithm that is set up by some probably woke leftist programmer somewhere that is going to corral and monitor and direct and control what we're allowed to say. Yeah. Now, we do have X. Well, I'm not saying X. I'm sorry. Meta is saying they're going to take all of their censors or all their people, their tech boys, and they're going to move them to Texas because they're saying that that will get rid of the bias. Being out on the West Coast, do you buy that? No, I don't. I absolutely do not.

And, of course, you know, there is a legal issue here, too, this whole distinction between a publisher and a platform that is somewhat problematic. And that some of these social media platforms, you know, they'll argue that, well, we're liable if somebody says something that's actionable. And for that reason, we have to have these algorithms. So let's get rid of that, and let's just make it essentially a public square. And if somebody says something that's potentially criminal or whatever, okay, we'll deal with that particular thing. But otherwise, it's open season, and people should be allowed to say whatever is on their minds, and they should be allowed to hurt people's feelings.

You remember Sticks and Stones, Don't Break My Bones? You know, our words will never hurt me. I can't remember the exact, sorry, I screwed that one up. Well, now we know that speech is violence, though. Speech is violence in the leftist world. It's absolutely insufferable. That's one of the really effective tactics they've used to shout us down and shut us up by making us feel bad. You know, you're making somebody upset eric peters with me ep autos.com of course we're talking cars and politics and so much more happy to take your call too and let's go to line two you're on with eric good morning you have a question comment go ahead yes good morning this is tracy up here in the uh near the canadian border and actually i went

across yesterday to the 51st state the 51 51st state. That's pretty funny. You know, I talked to a Canadian attorney the other day here, Tracy, and he was talking about in the Alberta province that literally they have been so oppressed under the socialist regime of Canada that there's a huge number of people in Alberta, at least they would love to actually join and be a 51st state. But I don't know how big of a deal that is right now and how far that's going to go, but it is an interesting thought experiment.

Well, what's on your mind? Well, first, Alberta, yes, that is the one exception, but most of the other provinces don't really want it. As a matter of fact, the big talk up there is, in fact, the Canadian auto industry and what the tariffs would do to their exports. And they pounded on the fact that when you build a car in Canada, you're doing a lot of parts exchanges where things are being built, say, over in Detroit or wherever, and then it hops over to Windsor where it's actually assembled and sent back.

And this may happen multiple times during the production process. So that was their big concern. The reason I wanted to call is I saw something yesterday in Abbotsford, B.C. that maybe Eric can talk about and tell them what's going on here. I saw this vehicle. It's called a VinFast. And I looked it up and, oh, it's a Vietnamese electric car. And they're selling them in Canada. So really talk about that. I know about up, and oh, it's a Vietnamese electric car, and they're selling them in Canada. So talk about that. I know about the Cherries and all the Chinese e-vehicles and Buick and whatnot. They're doing stuff over there, I guess, too.

But what is this VinFast? Well, okay, Vietnam has this great industrial cartel, and the VinFast is one of the arms of this cartel that is making and trying to sell its own electric cars. And it's also in the U.S., at least as a technical matter. I think they've sold four vehicles so far. Apparently, they're of very poor quality and very slipshod, and they're not doing very well. But it's another device coming at us from Asia. So you saw it. So, Tracy, was it on the side of the road broken or actually operating on the road, from what you could tell?

No, it was actually at the Indian buffet I was eating at. So it was just a normal way of the car. So they're selling them in B.C. Oh, okay. Yep. All right. Well, can you buy them here now, Eric, or is it just the Ford that you talked about? I forget whether they're direct-to-buyer or whether they have dealers.

I'm pretty sure they're available in California right now, but nowhere else. All right. Appreciate the call there, Tracy. Good hearing from you from close to the border, all right? 770-5633. Eric, we'll talk about some of your recent reviews here, and I think especially we want to find out more about the Hemi. Get the Hemi while they're still hot, okay?

And we'll have that all coming up. If you want to talk with Eric, 770-5633. Contractor. Good morning. This is News Talk 1063 KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. Wow. Hey, did you hear that, Eric, about the Subaru dealer here?

Southern Oregon Subaru? That was interesting. No, I missed it. What was it? Yeah, he was talking about, you know, a lifetime powertrain warranty on that that they're offering. And the dealership is offering that. I think that's pretty darn good. Well, it depends what the lifetime is, right?

Well, I imagine. Well, the thing is, though, as we all know, now that is not being offered by Subaru. It's offered by the dealership. So the dealership working that thing there. So I imagine this is one of those things. Maintain it. In other words, don't do 20,000-mile oil changes, right? Well, yeah.

People should know that, generally speaking, there are, of course, exceptions. But by and large, with late model vehicles, you're not going to have to deal with anything more than oil and filter changes, typically for at least 100,000 miles. Yeah. And the thing I would recommend, though, is I've been watching a lot of vehicles being torn apart on YouTube channels like I Do Cars. There's this one guy who takes apart engines that blow up. And whether it's a lot of Ford EcoBoost and a lot of those 1.3 Chevrolet motors tend to make it there. Well, can you blame them? I mean, it's a motorcycle-sized engine that's tasked with pulling a nearly two-ton car. Yeah.

But it is amazing how many of the vehicles, including big power strokes, big Ram diesels and things like that, end up being taken down because people extend their oil change and they're not getting the old oil out. They're not getting the old dirt out of the system. And then they end up sludging it up. And, you know, you'll have this 50, $60000 truck, and you're only changing the oil every 15,000 miles. It's like, and then you lose your engine at 75,000. I've seen these videos. Like, it's amazing. Oh, I have too.

And, you know, it's really foolish with regard to pretty much any late model vehicle. Oil is even more critical than it used to be because these engines are often fitted with things like oil pressure, powered cylinder deactivation, and variable cam and valve timing systems and so on. Yeah. So, you know, if you get any, you get crud built up in these small passages, it can be absolutely catastrophic. So it's really important to change the oil regularly.

And, you know, I personally would always go by at least the heavy-duty service schedule, not the normal use schedule. Everybody, unless you're on the road all the time, you're on the heavy duty stop and go driving. For me, it's every 3,000. I do every 3,000 miles. Sometimes I'll even in the wintertime, I change it at 2,500 or something like that. And it can't hurt and it might really help. Yep. That's the way I'm looking at it. Although I was reading some stats recently that i thought were quite interesting that uh the real issue that we almost can't do anything about when it comes to motor wear is that most motor wear actually happens when the engine is cold and it's all

from this from the cold start it's like from everything from when it's cold to when you warm up so that's one of the reasons why the semis, you know, will go, you know, like a million miles between, you know, you got a couple of cold starts a day, maybe. Yep. At best. And then it's on the road all the rest of the time. And it's exacerbated because, you know, in modern vehicles, they typically use these extremely lightweight viscosity oils because it reduces internal friction and it gives them a fractional gain in mileage and so on. But that leaves you that much less margin, you know, when you initially start the engine up, particularly when it's cold before the pump gets the oil through all of the parts. And so, you know, it's kind of just this compounding problems that are ultimately all

brought to us by the government. All right, let me go to line two. Hello, line two, you're on with Eric Peters. Question for him today on Wheels Up Wednesday. Hi, yes, it's Carol Ann, the Applegate. I love listening to you two guys. Thank you, Carol Ann. Thank you. You know, I had my car stolen a while back. Well, I got a wonderful little car I named Cream Puff.

It's a 2011 Hyundai Tucson. It had 52,000 miles, had been garaged. It's beautiful. So my question is, I heard that if I put a higher premium gas in it like every other time, that helps clean the engine. Is that true? No, probably not. Now, in some cases, depending on the brand, the so-called premium, which means high octane generally, gas will maybe have a better additive package. But it's a misnomer. Premium, all that means, again, is that it's got higher octane. And if your engine doesn't require the higher octane fuel, it's a money waster. Okay. Well, that's really good to know. And I appreciate you. Thank you

so much, Eric. Thank you, Bill. You bet. Thank you, Carol Ann. Submitted after 7, KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. Hey, Eric, why don't we talk about what you've been reviewing here as of late? And you had some good news. It was kind of odd news, really, about an electric vehicle review. You were driving the 2025 Honda Prologue, and you discovered something that is a first for electric vehicles in your case, huh? The Prologue is basically a Chevy Blazer EV that Honda is selling under its own label, which is kind of clever, because that way Honda doesn't have to invest in making the

EV. They just get it from General Motors and resell it under their own label. But what was interesting about it, they dropped it off for me last Thursday, and the weather turned really cold here in southwest Virginia. And two days later, when I went to take it for a drive, I noticed that the range remaining indicator had not dipped as it has in every single instance when I've previously parked an EV unplugged outside in the cold weather. And that's because all these EVs have a thermal management system that keeps the battery from getting too cold or too hot. And naturally, that burns electricity.

So my initial reaction was, wow, that's amazing. Magic almost. How is it that this thing did not consume any power just sitting out here in the literally 15-degree cold weather? Because every other electric vehicle that you've ever driven and reviewed and tested would end up dropping 10, 15, 20 miles just overnight sitting, right? Yeah, because there's no free lunch in thermodynamics, right? Right. So I figured it out, I think. So then I took it for a drive. And when I left the house, it said it had about 210 or 11 miles of range remaining. When I

got back to the house, it said I had burned through about 100 miles. Now, my actual road driving was only about 60 miles. So that's a big, big disparity, and it's more than the usual disparity. So I think what they did, I can't prove this, but I'm pretty strongly suspicious of it, is that the computer that tells you what the range is subtly folds in the power loss from sitting into the driving range while you're driving. Wow. So it doesn't look like all of a sudden you turn the key on and the needle went to E, right? Yeah. It's like back in the day when you had a vehicle that had a gas tank needle that would just sit there on full for the longest time. And you'd feel like psychologically,

wow, my car still has a full tank of gas. And you feel like you weren't burning that much gas. I think that's basically what's going on here. Other than that, what did you think of the prologue, other than that it might have folded the heating of the battery energy into the overall range loss? Well, one thing that's interesting in that it differs from the Blazer in one very important way. The Blazer comes standard with the usual high-powered dual-motor setup and all the emphasis on how quickly it gets to 60, which raises the cost and reduces the range. The Honda version comes standard with one electric motor, less powerful, and it goes farther. And, you know, it's a step in the right direction if we're going to go down this EV road, I think,

in that it's a whole lot more practical as a vehicle. You know, all this zero to 60 in four seconds stuff is wonderful to talk about and go to the racetrack, but at the end of the day, you want to be able to go where you're going without having to stop and wait for a while before you can get going again. The other thing in this whole thing about, oh, my EV is zero to 60 in four seconds, I mean, so what, given the fact that you're monitored by a camera everywhere, and then they're just going to issue you a ticket that much more quickly. Oh, absolutely. And the other thing is, it's not as if the thing is slow even the single motor version gets to 60

in a little over six seconds and i can remember when corvettes were you know that pretty much that was a good time for a corvette back in the 80s darn straight all right so that was an overall impression that is the 2025 honda prologue you can find out more now for the time being you can still get a dodge hemi or a ram hemi as the as the case might be what is the story where can you get those because i know that uh under the whole guise of of wanting to destroy any car company that's letting people have some fun uh but they're still a hemi what do you got to do well yeah it's really interesting is as we've talked about before uh ram removed the uh the 5.7 hemi from the roster of the half-ton Ram pickup, the 1500.

But for 2025, the new iteration of the 2500, which is a heavier duty, heavier version of the Ram pickup, still comes standard with the Hemi V8. Now, the interesting thing to me is that if you look at the stats, the new inline six that they're using in the 1500 actually makes more horsepower and torque than the Hemi V8. So it made me scratch my head and think, why wouldn't they put the stats, the new inline six that they're using in the 1500 actually makes more horsepower and torque than the Hemi V8. So it made me scratch my head and think, why wouldn't they put the engine that makes more horsepower and torque into the heavier and heavier duty 2500 that people use for work, you know, for hauling things and for pulling trailers and so on. And the reason I think is because the V8 doesn't have to work as hard and is more reliable and more durable and less likely to fail.

And that's really important to people who buy a 2500 or heavy-duty truck. That's my opinion. That makes a lot of sense. It may not be quite as fast or not quite as much grunt, but it'll have that grunt for a much longer lifespan. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Now, what do you got in the driveway for next week, do you know? Well, I still have that prologue sitting out there.

And by the way, this is like a really, like another head-scratching thing. It does not come standard with a power cord. You have to pay extra for it. What? No, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait. I just want to make sure I understand. So you have what, about a $40,000, $50,000 car? I don't know how much it costs, right?

Yeah, yeah, about that much, absolutely. The one I've got is over $50,000. Okay, over $50,000 car and they don't know how much it costs, right? Yeah, yeah, about that much, absolutely. The one I've got is over $50,000. Okay, over a $50,000 car, and they don't include the power cord to charge? They do not, and I found that out the hard way. You know, I had assumed, because I've driven a bunch of these things, you know, that it would have the power cord in the back under the, you know, the little storage compartment. So I drove it, got home with the intention of plugging it in, and oops, there's nothing in there. So I called up the company that handles the vehicles for me, that brings them back and forth and said, hey, you know, I think the last person who had the car didn't put the

charge cord back in. Nope. It turns out it doesn't come with it. So you're forced to go to the commercial fast charger. The thing is, now it's very cold outside, and I only have about 100 miles remaining. And so I don't think I want to risk going down there and finding out that the fast charger is not working, and I'm out of luck, and I can't get back home. Oh, it's amazing how often some of those chargers are broken down and vandalized. That's for sure. Let me grab one more though, before you take off for the week. I just want

to talk with Eric Peters. Welcome to the show. Who's this? Hey, good morning, Scott. Hey, Scott. Scott, go ahead. Hey, yeah. Last year, I heard about a company that has a guy has bought a company and they're supposed to be producing batteries this year in this country. But it's a graphene battery or graphite battery. And he said it's like you can you can charge up your battery in like 10 minutes. Wow. So and it doesn't explode. You can drop it, put it in water, it doesn't explode. And have you heard about that? Well, call me skeptical. I've been hearing this

stuff for years and there are certain physical limitations in terms of how much electricity you can induct into an EV battery. The infrastructure is a whole nother issue, a whole nother problem. And then we have to get into when they say 10 minutes, I'm very skeptical that that's a full charge. I think they're whole other issue, a whole other problem. Then we have to get into, when they say 10 minutes, I'm very skeptical that that's a full charge. I think they're probably going to, you know, the asterisk is, oh, it's a partial charge. You can get 100 miles of range, hypothetically, in 10 minutes, something like that. And of course, they don't get into the cost either. So long and short of it is, I mean, extremely skeptical. Well, the guy that told me about it, he was actually going to try to market it. You can buy them now, evidently, but they have a little bit of wait time. It has to be shipped.

You have to pay for shipping. So I don't know what the cost is, but he said if you send them what you need for what you want, they'll build it, and then they'll tell you what the price is. Well, it's always intriguing. Hey, Scott, could you send me that information of that guy, if you can get the information? I'd like to read up on it, please. Okay? Yeah, me too, Bill. And I suspect if this is a one-off per-order thing customized for particular vehicles, it's probably going to wind up being even more expensive than a factory replacement lithium-ion battery. What I'm wondering is whatever happened to the supercapacitor? Because we were talking about that just a few years ago.

Now, I have capacitors. We use big capacitors in our radio transmitters that hold big charges, and they're very efficient. It's not like a lithium-ion battery. You're not changing the chemical composition. You're just charging, putting an electrical charge on a big device and you make the capacitor big enough. Unfortunately, there's a huge amount of energy there and making sure that it is discharged safely would be the issue.

But did that just kind of go away or it's just gone? Yeah, it seems to have. And I imagine it probably has something to do with what you just said, the safety issues. And the other, frankly, you know, and I put on my conspiracy tinfoil hat, you and I think are in agreement on this, that ultimately these electric vehicles are the vehicle that they intend to use to get us, generally speaking, out of owning cars and driving them. Yeah. Along with the self-driving Waymo type things, too. Sure. That's also part of it. Oh, by the way, did you catch the news that Tesla is, you know, a full self-driving thingmo type things too. I think that's also part of it. Oh, by the way, did you catch the news that Tesla is, you know,

a full self-driving thing apparently is bricking the cars that have them? No, I hadn't heard that one. What's the story? Yeah, I'll be writing about that. I'll have something up on the site probably tomorrow about it. All right, will do. We'll talk again next week, Eric. Happy New Year.

Take care. You too. Thank you, Bill. Eric Peters, epautos.com. This is the Bill Myers Show, KMED 99.3 KBXG. Town Hall News is coming up. We also have the head of the update. More of your calls on the way here.

And State Representative Dwayne Yunker, former Grants Pass City Councilor. A lot of drama in the city as they end up yanking homeless mint funding, you know, that nonprofit funding. And a lot of people, you know, hot and bothered about it. We'll kick it all around coming up. Take the long way.