Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-22-25_WEDNESAY_6AM

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Morning news, why feeling a bit cautious about all the AI tech movement with DJT, later Eric Peters talks the new administration, Could Cal control of cars end, answers listener calls for Wheels Up Wednesday.

The Bill Myers 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 Myers. Good morning and welcome to Wheels Up Wednesday. You can join the conversation anytime, 770-563-3770, KMED. And my email, bill.billmyershow.com. The Facebook.com slash Bill Myers Show feed is up there.

We appreciate you watching or listening to 106.1067 on KMED and KMED HD1 in Jackson County in Josephine County. You can hit it up on 105 9 translated there 105 9 or during my morning show 6 to 9 99 3 KBXG also carries the show. And of course, KMED.com. Am KBXG. Also carries the show. And, of course, KMED.com. Am I missing anything else? I think I got it all. Yeah, I think you got it all. Oh, yeah, you could also ask Alexa to play KMED.

You can ask that. Enable the skill. And we appreciate all the sponsors that make that possible. Okay? Boy, the information still continues to be coming out of day two of the Trump administration. Now we're in a day three. It's just like a fire hose. Yesterday, it was a big announcement. And I'm going to have to learn more about this because this was a big grand kind of an overall plan on on artificial intelligence in the building of AI farms. And Fortune reporting on this,

this is where I'm going to grab this from this morning, but the leaders of OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle yesterday got together with President Trump. And so they're announcing this private partnership, or it's a public-private partnership. Of course, you know what I think about public-private partnerships. It really ends up being the public controlling the private, but I digress on that. But these are going to be enormous new AI centers, and they call it Stargate.

It's going to be about a half trillion dollars is what is going to initially go through this, building out of AI data centers. And also, I would imagine, some power plants to run these AI centers. President Trump didn't mention that. And, you know, we've talked about AI off and on, and I know that just about everyone's going to say, hey, hey, isn't this great? It's going to be 100,000 jobs. Of course, let's be honest, the 100,000 jobs are the temporary jobs to construct the centers. And then after that, we'll be training them to replace that, I guess.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. I shouldn't say that. We'll be training them to become our new masters at some point. Now, I don't know. I don't know. Like I said is it is fascinating artificial intelligence is fascinating and yet it really is in essence um looking for patterns and and i get this and i do find it interesting and you can't get away from this this is uh

this is something that um every country in the world of any import is working big on. China, Russia, us, of course. I mean, everybody's doing it. And they want a race to be able to make it happen. And I don't know everything there is to know about this. And I think I'm going to have to ask a few more people that understand this better than me, but I do find it interesting that the way that they're trying to sell AI is in the medical world. Because there are a lot of concerns about AI.

There are already people that are saying, Hey, you know, essentially these AI computers are taking the uh the music that i've written or the books that i've written or the stuff that i've written or that i've done and uh more or less uh has have absorbed it and then mash it up i've watched the stories and in fact there are even patent attorneys that are uh suing over this uh this kind of stuff and um and medical doctors and everybody else. In other words, it just takes everything that we're doing online, absorbs it,

learns from it, machine learning, large language models, and all the rest of it. There's all sorts of terms that are connected with it, and I don't claim to be an expert on it, but I can understand why people are feeling a little nervous. It's one thing to have microsoft co-pilot or open ai in fact i know microsoft co-pilot's getting to try to get me to use it to write my stuff all the time i just prefer to write it myself and maybe i'm just a you know a luddite in that respect maybe i will have uh cope co-pilot uh you know write my some morning, we'll do a whole show that way with Microsoft co-pilot, which of course has been included in my Microsoft 360 subscription, which just went up in

price 40 bucks, I think, to cover the cost of the AI, you know, each year. But I digress on this. But the concerns have been that AI will essentially just be the replacement for human thought and humanity rather than augmenting. And it's a reasonable fear. I mean, let's just leave and look at Elon Musk as an example. Elon Musk, for all I know, he's acting like a guy that already has his neural implant in there. Sometimes when you watch him and he's hopping around and doing his thing, it's quite interesting to observe Elon one time, you know, every now and then physically. I think he already has the neural link in there, and maybe they just haven't completely perfected it.

But we can't get away from it. It's going to happen. And so I can understand why President Trump is saying, all right, we need to be the biggest, the biggest, the best, and the grandest. You know, this is, you know, our orange golem of greatness. And I understand that. And yet, there's a part of me in the back of my mind that is a little suspicious and uncomfortable with it. I don't know if you feel that way either or not. Or maybe you're just ready to uh to go all in

but i can understand why the tech bros would want to use the conservative populist to sell ai to the american people to the boomer rubes and the gen x rubes and everybody else you know sell to the older generation, it might not be quite so trusting and open. What better person to get a program like that going then than with the conservative populist? Now, you have the Democrats come out with something like that. They're kind of bloodless to start with. And so we're always a little bit suspicious because the basic bent of the Democrats for

a long time have been of a very authoritarian point of view. And then you start promoting AI in the midst of that authoritarian view, and it just isn't a good optic, you know, that kind of thing. Robocop, minority report, all the rest of it. But you have the conservative populist, kind of the individualist guy go out there and you push the push the ai thing maybe it's able to slip past the resistance a little bit better and i'm not saying that we should resist it but i'm just saying i would just want to be careful about this one of my concerns about ai is, and even the science, if you want to call it the science, is how it's kind of a godless world, and we already have a lot of godlessness in our world. I'll give you a small example of this.

I mean, so much of the artificial intelligence and the science-based world right now doesn't seem to have much room for the spirit and the soul, in my opinion. Here's one example of it. And I know you'll think this may be a crazy analogy. And you know how Lars will always do all those big analogies? Well, I'm going to have kind of a Lars kind of analogy. And maybe it's crazy and you can call me crazy if you want. I was shopping the other day, and I ran into Rose Harrington, Rosemary Harrington. Remember Garth and Rose?

Well, I've run into Rose Harrington in my shopping travels I think about three times over the last year. And it's always really interesting. And by the way, when we got together, I was on a time crunch, of course, at first. And so because I knew I had to get my hair cut at three and it was like two o'clock and I'm looking at my watch and I never want to be that guy that's looking at the watch and like you're not important. And I was so thrilled to see Rose. And so Rose and I sat there, and we're talking in the aisles of the store,

the warehouse, about, I want to say about 15 minutes. And we're talking about their trip to Hawaii and all the rest of this stuff. But it's amazing how often I run into Rose Harrington. And I'm just thinking that sometimes, you know, God, our Creator, has us meet people who we need to see and talk about. I think about our collective consciousness. I do believe that, you know, we are plugged in and tied into one another with our thoughts and desires and our spirit, as the case. At some level, not on absolutely everything.

I'm not saying that, you know, that, but I truly believe this. And so it was great. I'm talking with Rose Harrington and catching up on things, the Hawaii trip and how's Garth doing and everything else. And then I have to rush off and get Linda's prescriptions and get the other stuff and get, and that get off to my haircut at three o'clock. And I didn't make it on time. But when I got out of the store, I turned the radio on,

and so I thought, I wonder what JPR is doing, Jefferson Public Radio. And I was listening to, it was some show they had on. I don't listen to it very often, but I kind of want to hear what the liberal intelligentsia, the I kind of want to hear what the liberal intelligentsia, the people we are supposed to be believing with the science, the science of everything, science, as they blind us with science, that kind of thing. And the host from Kansas City, I think, had a mathematician on, a mathematician on from England. And they were talking about how there are really no such thing as coincidences, and it can all be explained with mathematic probability.

And she's happily going through it. Well, our minds are just a program to recognize patterns. And when you have something happen to you several times, and you're thinking that, well, you know, it's just a coincidence or is there something weirder going on? You know, something. No, no, it's just it's just the it's just probability in our in our minds. We'll always tend to look at something like that and think that the patterns are that there's a higher a higher meaning in our coincidences, our happy coincidences. Like me running into Rosemary Harrington in the store two or three times a year. It's kind of like just, oh no, it's just mathematic probability, right?

And I was listening to this mathematician and the host talk about this, and it reminds me of everything about the rise of artificial intelligence, the rise of the singularity, the merger of men and machine, the neural links, the tech bros, the type of world in which we will perfect humans, not biologically, but by the merging with artificial intelligence. Because it was all about, well, what happened with... I know you might think it's silly at first. My running into Rosemary Harrington a number of times and having great conversations when I don't run into lots of other people three times a year. You know, that sort of thing. Of course, maybe Rose is a stalker. That's what it is, Rose, you're a stalker.

But it seems to me that there are reasons that things like this happen. And the whole aspect of science is to take any kind of spirit or conscience kind of question out of play. Everything can be explained with a large language model, or you can explain why this has happened so often to you just by probability, like the roll of a dice, you know, that kind of thing. And it's kind of thin gruel to me. It's thin gruel. And maybe I'm looking wrong at this, but it seems like everything about science and the push for the artificial intelligence is to remove the spiritual and the sacred from our thought process.

And I guess that's where I am always on guard here, as we're told, well, the science. We'll sell you, though. We will sell you this new god by talking about hey we'll cure your cancer so we're going to take the conservative populist president who of course is looking to get the economy rolling and he looks at a hundred thousand jobs even if they're temporary as good thing we'll get energy for the tech and all the rest of it. But we'll cure your cancer. And they were talking about that. That was a big thing. We'll cure your cancer. And gosh, you know, AI is able to see these kind of patterns, which are absolutely amazing, things that humans can't do.

And then we can formulate an mRNA vaccine for you very quickly, maybe give you your cure for cancer the same day because it's able to detect the microtumors and parts of tumors that will break off and go in your bloodstream. They're able to see that in the blood test much more quickly than humans. And that's wonderful. Don't get me wrong. That would be a wonderful thing. As someone who has had a lovely wife who went through just, oh, just miserable cancer treatments and things like that.

To have not had to do that would have been a blessing. I get that. My only concern is that I am hoping that we are wise enough as a species to have AI work for us rather than us essentially being subsumed by AI and that it not be transformed into our new God. Because as we train it with our own thoughts and information and the science and all the rest of it, it will start performing functions for us that mimic God, that mimic a God, I would think.

Anyway, just so that's a roundabout way with connecting my running in, my pleasant run in with Rosemary Harrington a number of times per year, just seems to happen. And then the mathematics and then the science. And, of course, what is artificial intelligence? Nothing more than a lot of mathematics and algorithms and large language models. And it's all tied together. And I'm just feeling cautious.

Everyone else is talking, hey, isn't this great? But I'm just feeling a little more cautious. That's all. I'm hoping that we're smart about this. As I've said before, I'm not sure we need smart cities as much as what we really need or more competently run dumb cities at a human scale, but I'm a silly guy, I guess. It's 626. Whereas one other critic once said, you're just an entertainer bill.

Just thinking this is the bill Meyer show on KMED and 99, three KBXG rain is synonymous with the Pacific Northwest. While we love the rain for many reasons, your home may not. Stock number TR 59, seven 10 and selling price of 3, one 500 after all rebates and discounts escape stock number TR five 97, 89,

all financing on approved credit through Ford credit. Hi, I'm Michael gauge of construction and I'm on km ed 628 it's our local headlines oh my goodness he had a road rage remember that last thursday got some reportage was it thursday night medford police had responded to crater lake. Big road rage incident involving a handgun. Someone just blasting their gun away. And this man had reportedly threatened these victims with a firearm before leaving the area.

And so they started looking for the guy. And about 30 minutes later, victim contacted cops again to report that the same guy had come back and following a verbal exchange, so they argued here. This is according to a release from Medford police. The suspect fires a gun from his car as he left the scene.

So needless to say, this is a violent potential dirtbag here. And so they ended up looking for him, and they arrested a suspect, 34-year-old Brandon Blackwell from Medford. And imagine this, a convicted felon determined to be a convicted felon. And so they picked him up. And so he was taken into custody. Menacing, unlawful use of a weapon, felon in possession of a firearm. But remember, everybody else who is not a felon needs to be disarmed to keep the uh the black wells disarmed right yeah i noticed that all those uh all those gun laws the democrats that keep trying

to uh shove down our gullet haven't had uh any effect somehow the uh the alleged dirtbags are still able to to get them i'll think think about that as we talk about the state legislature in action. We're going to kick that around, by the way, with Dwayne Yunker after 7 o'clock before he gets into his committee meetings. Meanwhile, Governor Tina Kotak on OPB has extended Oregon's homelessness emergency declaration once again, saying despite billions spent and thousands of people helped, most recent available data is showing homelessness still increasing in the state of Oregon.

I would imagine that. Daily Courier reporting this morning that a new member of the Grants Pass City Council apologizing for falsely claiming a city in Northern California, Crescent City, had been busing homeless people to Grants Pass. A colleague who made the same claim said, ready to learn more. This was Councilor Kathleen Krohn apologizing after Eric Weir, the city manager of Crescent City and the Daily Courier, sent a message last week saying that Crescent City got word that the two of them made the busing claim during an informal meeting with the public. So Crescent City says that, no, they're not sending it out.

They're not busing homeless here no that would be portland uh grand spas city council no i i don't know this either but uh you know what i do wonder though i i wonder if all of those uh amazing unmarked unmarked white buses that were coming into southern oregon and uh disgorging illegal aliens alleged illegal aliens all over the place i wonder if those buses are going to be stopped under President Trump. I'll bet they will be. We'll see. Remember all the buses that were seeing everybody come in there with their Obama phones and everything else,

and people would say, where is this? And they were always unmarked, too. Always unmarked. Meanwhile, in the Oregonian, a Multnomah County jury yesterday awards a 16-year-old girl more than $1.3 million. It found that the state's Department of Human Services was negligent in preventing her from being sexually abused. Robert Wilson pleaded guilty to sexually abusing the girl, who was his girlfriend's daughter, four years ago. He's in prison for four years. He won't name the teen, but they're arguing that the State Department of Human Services

missed the opportunities to intervene. Hmm. Yeah. Very, very sad story. Negligent. Taxpayers will have to pay again, I guess. We'll catch up on the rest of the news here, too, and then we're going to hit the open road here because it's Wednesday.

And every Wednesday, we do Wheels Up Wednesday with Eric Peters. Coming up next, this is the Bill Myers Show. And I appreciate you waking up here. AI or not. Life's busy, and you need to be on. On time. On the road. On schedule.

And where you need to be. Wait till he sees the dinner menu. Freddy's Diner on Main in Old Town Eagle Point. Freddy's Diner, open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day for lunch and dinner. The Phil Myers Show on 106.3 KMED. Southern Culture on the skids, by the way, the bumper. And I tell you, it's a great band because it's a three-piece band, and the three-piece band always has to work hard.

Just kind of like, well, Eric Peters, who is a one-man band, over at epautos.com for Wheels Up Wednesday. Eric, we appreciate your one-bandiness because I'm a one-man band, too. How are you doing, sir? I'm good, Bill. Thank you for being understanding about my technical difficulties, too. Well, that's okay. All we need is the right AI agents to help you with your communication methods, and things should be fixed in no time.

Yeah, yeah. Next time I'll have my AI avatar do our interview. Okay. I know we're kind of laughing about this, so I thought we were going to get into that a little bit later, but I was talking as I opened up the show this morning with, you know, everyone's getting really excited because of, hey, we're going to do a big that Elon Musk appears to be really upset because, you know, these three tech bros that were in there with President Trump yesterday are rivals to his tech bro-ishness. Yeah, he's not getting his money's worth, is he? Well, what do you mean his money? Well, I know he invested a lot, but he did have a big role in getting President Trump elected. And as you have said, what we've been seeing so far has been a good start.

But there's always a part of me that wants to be very cautious about AI. And I love how they always want to take AI, artificial intelligence, and sell it to you with cancer cures, like instant cancer cure, you know, those kind of things. And we'll have a vaccine for you by that afternoon. Of course we will. Yeah, it's one of the claims which was brought up there. And I would tend to look at this thing, hey, you know, I would much rather have AI go to work on finding out why we're getting the cancers rather than trying to cure the cancers after the fact with a pharmaceutical. But that's just me.

I'm always a little, you know, I'm always a little bit suspicious here when you get the tech pros involved. Yeah, I hear your point of view. And, you know, I think the observation that I would offer up is if this is such a great thing, why is it necessary for the government to do it? Surely there is a market for it if it's so very good. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you have to figure that government would also look at big ventures like this is not only for tech, I don't know how you, supremacy, I guess,

but it also has to do with military supremacy. And I would argue government surveillance supremacy to information supremacy. You know, this is all about the the burgeoning panopticon, you know, under the bubble of which everything we do will be known and scrutinized, recorded, collated and used against us naturally and of course uh the internet of things which would be also part of uh the the ai world and internet of everything everything's all connected everything's all connected to which means that it's all knowing too at the same time and i don't know the very best the very best take that i can have on it is that that uh and i don't believe this myself because you know musk didn't get to be a billionaire by being on the spectrum, even though he comes across that way, that he's sort of like this semi-autistic 13-year-old who's just very fascinated by technology and considers it really neato, you know, and wants to see it develop and prosper. Absolutely not.

I think he's a very smart and cagey man and understands that it's a mechanism for him to make even more money. And frankly, despite his protestations to the contrary, to be at the very heart of the control system that's being erected all around us. And I just think it's something that is worthy of consideration as we see the breathless, you know, slobbering positive headlines moving forward here. That's all. Completely. All right. Completely. Now, Orange Man, as you have termed him, has certainly been deserving the slobbering headlines for a positive headlines for a change for a lot of the stuff that he did on the first day. And certainly with the January 6th remedying the injustice, I think that was probably the best thing that I saw. I actually teared up when I watched him do this because, you know, to me, it was one of the most foul things that I have noticed our government do to the people for a long, long time. Certainly it was disproportionate. And that's, I think, a very good working definition of what an injustice is. You know, ordinarily people who had done the things those people were accused of having done would have gotten a ticket. They might've gotten a few days in jail,

maybe something like that. Well, and let's look at what happens if, and I noticed that the Democrats were really big on, even pardon some of the people accused of violence against cops. Well, Hey, in the democratic world, violence against cops, half the time you get a presidential medal of freedom for that. Sure. Sure. You know is so tiresomely obvious that they don't even, I think, understand how ridiculous they look when they make these protestations. Yeah, indeed. So that was a good thing. And there are many other changes to the Husk or the Biden thing, as you used to term it there. And it's good to see a lot of this being reversed. I do wish that I would see more of it. I'm hoping that we see more of permanence, though,

in legislation, because otherwise the next person who comes in could then, you know, revert, you know, revert to the meeting. One of the dangerous precedents that I and others see with regard to all of this executive ordering is that the next one who comes along four years from now, who might be very contrary to Trump, could do exactly the same thing. And with regard to my business, you know, the car business, there's no way that they can operate in an environment where every four years there's a new regime in town that does a parking brake 180 and expects them to completely alter their investments and their future product planning and somehow continue to make money. It's going to destroy everything. Yeah, and I wanted to bring that up to your latest article today. And by the way, Eric Peters is here, epiattos.com.

If you want to call him and ask a question, by the way, or comment, the number here is 770-5633. Your latest article featured on EP Autos is brilliant because it's called Our Carb Overloads. And Carb Overloads, gosh, it's just stumbling out of my mouth. Sorry about this, Eric. Carb Overloads is the California Air Resources Board. And you even mention Oregon in this article for good reason, because we've talked about this before, but why don't you break it down, please? Yeah, well, there's a couple of pieces to this. The first is that CARB, which is the California Air Resources Board, is this regulatory apparatus in California that operates as a de facto

legislature, because after all, regulations have the force and effect of law. So when CARB issues a regulation, for example, that only EVs will be allowable in the state after 2030 or 2035 or whatever the date is, that's effectively a law. And if you go against the regulation in the state, you can be hutted for that. Now, it's even worse than that, though, because it's not confined solely to California. A number of states, including yours, have decided to simply mirror whatever CARB says, and therefore effectively CARB, this little bureaucracy, well, it's a big bureaucracy in California, operates effectively as a kind of national Congress, but one that is not elected by anybody, yet has power over all of us. And I would add that California was given an exemption to

regulate its own air pollution standards by, did Congress give them the exemption or was it our EPA or something else that did this? It's the EPA. So one apparat washing the hand of the other apparat, neither apparat having been elected by anybody, you know, and it's not just it's you can get rid of a political appointee indirectly by, for example, electing Trump. Trump will get rid of Michael Reagan. He's already gone, the current head of the EPA, and he's put a new guy in there. And that's all well and good. But the minions within the apparat, all those people who have been there for years and even decades, they stay and they constitute a kind of permanent legislature, effectively, that rules the country. And how did we get to this point? You know, we're supposed to have legislatures that are elected by the people that are accountable to

the people that pass laws. Instead, the legislatures, both the Congress and at the state level, have passed that off along to these bureaucracies. And they've done it, I think, because, you know, they can then blame the bureaucracy. Oh, it wasn't me. You know, it's not my fault. You got to worry about the bureaucrats. Yeah. Yeah. It's the car bureaucrats in California or in Oregon, the Department of Environmental Quality, you know, DEQ is what we have here. Yeah. So how about these guys do their job instead of spending most of their tenure in office trying to get reelected? How about they actually do the work that they were elected to do? You know, it's interesting that you bring this up and, and I've often thought that one of the challenges of being a

Congress critter, I'm actually a little bit sympathetic. I don't know. Do you talk to your congressman at all, your congressperson at all? No, not directly, no. But the way you described how Congress works right now is perfect. I mean mean they spend their entire time running for re-election now i'm talking about though in the house because every two years it's like the moment you're elected you are instantly into another uh election cycle and and i think the because of that i think this is one example in which a constitutional change to maybe increase the term of the of the house so it's not quite such a churn and burn thing now i'm not saying you know we already have six-year terms in the senate maybe you do a three-year term for the house or something it's there almost

needs to be a year or two that you're able to do things without worrying about hey do i have my million dollar donors here and big donors here? But that's essentially what happens right now. Because I ended up talking with a former Congressman Walden here a number of years ago when I was visiting him in Washington, D.C. He says, Bill, you wouldn't believe what is expected of us the moment we come in here. We've got our offices and everything else, but we have to be raising money continually or else it's done. And that's the way it works. No question.

You know, and it's an extraordinarily corrosive problem. And I think even more corrosive, and it's a function of what we're just talking about, is that they have abandoned the whole purpose of having them, which is to promulgate these laws, to consider the laws, to have debates about the law. Okay, we're proposing this. Let's look at it. Let's see if it's worth doing. Let's have the public comment on it yeah and then decide one way or the other yeah do that and if congress were actually doing its job it wouldn't be the epa coming up with the uh the rules it would be the epa talking with congress it's like well we're thinking that this might be something that we would like to do and uh you know for a nationwide

ruling on plumbing or or on what the car emissions do or EVs or whatever it is. And then Congress is supposed to sit there and debate it and debate it and kick it around. But as it is right now, appointed people or lifers within the swamp end up making the decisions for us. And then Congress is off the hook. So I think Congress kind of likes it that way right now because they would have to do more work. But I'm also sympathetic that it's next to impossible to do that job and also do all that fundraising all the time. Yeah, well, and it's also inscrutable. For the most part, most of these regulations, people aren't even aware of them, that they're being considered. You know, there are these so-called public comment periods.

But as you and I know, only wonky people who are interested in such things are even aware of that. Right. So what happens is the policy or the regulation gets issued and then gets implemented and people find out, hey, wait a minute. All of a sudden, I'm going to have to pay 25 percent more for my house's new heat pump because the regulations say that I can't use the old refrigerant anymore. Yeah. You know, surprise, surprise. That's the kind of thing that happens. Yeah, it is all connected here.

I'm talking with Eric Peters and we're discussing his latest article, Our CARB Overlords. And, Eric, the point, though, with CARB, the California Air Resource Board, is that it essentially controls the state of Oregon DEQ. And Washington signs on to this, too. It's kind of a West Coast cabal. But this all has, as the linchpin, the exemption that California has to come up with its own air pollution rules. Now, I'm curious, is the new administration taking a look at this? Is the new person running the EPA thinking about making sure that California doesn't run the rest of the United States? Because even in the automotive world, what ends up happening is that

they don't want to build two different types of cars. They used to do that back in the 70s, right? There was a California compliant car, and then there were all the other ones. But then they got to the point where they just want to build one car, so they build it to a California standard. Well, I didn't elect to have California control at all. That's all. Right. Or to pay for it. You know, as you say, at one time there were California cars, and then there were what they called 49 state cars. And the 49 state cars generally didn't have all of the emissions equipment and so on that was required in California. Well, you know, rather than fight the whole California thing, the auto industry collectively said, it'll just be easier for us to make one California car for the entire country. Which means that California controls the rest of the country. And that is not what is supposed to be. We're not supposed to have a state,

one state control the rest of the states. Just not. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and just to get down to the real nitty gritty, this is the thing I hope that Trump goes after. It's not the regulation per se. It's the apparat that issues the regulation. I think we should call into question this whole idea of having these permanent bureaucracies that operate as legislatures and that are essentially unaccountable to the people. Is there any talk, though, to remove the exemptions and kind of put things under, you know, more of a general control rather than a one state control? Nothing that I'm aware of that's official, though. I'm hopeful that there are some conversations along those lines. I don't know that Trump actually really gets it yet or whether he even agrees with it.

You know, he's talked about rescinding the EV mandate. Well, technically, there isn't one, at least not at the federal level. What there is are regulations that make it essentially impossible for vehicles with engines to meet the standard. And that serves as a de facto mandate, but the distinction is important, I think. Eric Peters, epautos.com, latest feature article, and it is a must-read. It is called our CARB Overlords. 770-5633-770-KMED if you wanted to talk with Eric, and maybe as we kick around some reviews and more. Eric, stand by, and we'll do that as we continue Wheels Up Wednesday on KMED and 99.3 KBXG. Joel here at Butler Ford and Truck Center, and I'm always going to tell you what I think the best deals are right now.

Some restrictions apply. American Rancher Garage, we are united through service. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 106.3 KMED. A chilly 24 degrees here, at least by the airport. It's cool for you, but it's always hot on the radio. You can talk with Eric Peters, automotive journalist and genius, EP Auto 7705633, if you wanted to join in, okay? Hey, Eric, I was just looking at another article on the site that just cracked me up

because did I ever tell you the very first car that I ever bought, my first new car, was a 1982 Chevy Chevette? Yes, you did. Okay. Yeah, Chevy Chevette scooter, 1982. I have to tell you, it was actually a poorly built car at that time. I don't know if we were just in the death throes of General Motors culture at that time, but as I was driving away from the dealership, I think about a day later,

the seat bracket broke and the driver's seat completely fell backwards. It wouldn't hold me up. And I was just thinking, I just spent like $5,200 for this. Of course, that was a lot of money for me, you know, working schmo, you know, 43 years ago, you know, that kind of thing. But, yeah, my Chevette scooter, it, you know 43 years ago you know that kind of thing but um yeah my chevette scooter it you know it got me around and then i'm seeing that there is a kind of a brand new chevette that went on the market and how much did it go for tell me about this this is great story i love

this story oh yeah it's now it's astonishing you know the meekum car auction um uh for people who aren't familiar they they have cars that they auction and sometimes they go for extravag. Well, here is perhaps the most extravagant price I've yet come across, which was $33,000 for a 1987 Chevette. 1987 Chevette, $33,000. What could possibly make a 1987 Chevette worth $33,000? Can you help me understand this? Yeah, well, that's where it gets interesting. It wasn't just that it was a low miles car. It only had 47 miles on it. And probably what happened was a dealer took delivery of it way back in 87 and it didn't sell and they put it on the back lot and it didn't sell. And then they put it in a warehouse somewhere and somebody forgot about it. And here we are. And it's a pristine,

original example of an 87 Chevette. But five five years ago there's no way in heck it would have sold for anywhere near thirty three thousand dollars they probably would have been lucky to get five thousand dollars for it because it's a it's an 87 chevette yeah but i think the reason that it sold for what it did is because it is a a kind of way back machine to the way cars used to be you know we didn't appreciate it at the time because cars were not like they are now. And what do I mean by that? Here's a basic, simple car that's very repairable. Granted, it probably is going to need more repairs just like yours did, but the point is you can fix it. And it's not a mobile spy machine. It's not mining your data.

It's not parenting you. And I think I get a lot of feedback from my columns. More and more people are tired of it. They're tired of being spied on by their cars, new cars. They're tired of being controlled by them. They are tired of all the electronics, all the parenting stuff. They just want a car that's theirs and under their own control that they can fix themselves. And the Chevette is one of those examples of that, even though I can't exactly say it was a great car. Did you ever drive one? Just curious. Oh, sure. No, it was a crappy car, but it had its virtues, you know, and its virtues are beginning to shine relative today. Back then, it was laughed at because there were so many better cars available. But today, cars have gotten so worse in so many ways. I'll give you one example. Believe it or not,

that Chevette, which has no computer, has a carburetor, does not have an overdrive transmission, gets about the same gas mileage as a current Nissan Versa, which is the closest equivalent to it. And the reason why? The Chevette weighs 2,000 pounds. The Versa weighs about 2,700. And of course, why does the Versa weigh 2,700 pounds? That is the federal regulations that we have been talking about for quite some time, right? Yeah. So all of these technologies, you know, everything from a computer-controlled dual-injected engine, multi-speed transmissions, multiple overdrive transmissions, CVTs, blah, blah, blah, on and on and on, all of that end up being negated by the weight. So what is the advantage? What are you getting?

You're getting a more complicated vehicle, a heavier vehicle, one that's more alienating. Because, you know, I mean, your Chevy may have been a kind of crappy car, but, hey, if the throttle cable snapped, you could see it snap. Oh, yeah. And you could repair it, too. And you even talked about how if the fan blower went bad. And this is something that you struggled with your Nissan. What's the truck that you have? The Frontier. Yeah, the Nissan Frontier. How many hours did you place or have

to do to get the blower out of that and replace and get heat back in your vehicle? Actually, it wasn't the blower. It was the heater core. Pardon me. It was the heater core. Yeah. I mean, I had to disassemble most of the passenger side of the dashboard to get at the core let alone remove it and then reinstall it yeah my truck is relatively easy um but in the case of the chevette i posted a picture with the article you pop the hood and you can literally see the blower the fan blower it's bolted right there to the firewall i remember when the cars had that in which all the fans were exposed with just the bolts and then you just take them out. The Volkswagen that I had, that was a two-day job for me to pull the dash out and get all that stuff out. You know, for me as a non-pro, you know, that kind of work.

It's just astounding what they've done in some ways to make things non-repairable. Sure. And the Chevette, believe it or not, for those who are not old enough to remember, was rear-wheel drive. You can imagine an economy car that was rear-wheel drive. Today, the only vehicles that are rear-wheel drive, other than trucks, are high-end luxury cars. And there's actually a significance to that. And it is that, let's say you need to put a clutch in a Chevette.

Super easy. Yeah. Because the transmission and axle are separate components. Just unbolt the transmission, pop the clutch in, and you're good. With a front drive car that has a transaxle, which is the combination of the transmission and the axle, it's an ordeal to do that job. Yeah, because you got to pull drive shafts. You got to do all sorts of things that have to be done, too, because it's all one unit. That's right. Interesting stuff. But it's $33,000 Chevette. I'm thinking maybe I ought to sell the van again.

You know, I expect this trend to continue. You know, my truck, I bought my 02 Nissan when it was about five years old for about $7,700. Now, here we are, what, 15 years later? And right now, with twice the miles and that much older, I could still get it, get probably $4,500 to $5,000 for it. And it's increasing because these kinds of vehicles made between the mid-late 90s and the early to mid-2000s, people are beginning to recognize that that was the peak. That was when technology and practicality meshed together, and you had just basically these unkillable vehicles that could be counted on to be reliable for 20, 25 years if you took care of them, as opposed to what they're trying to hoist off on us now. Yeah, indeed. This is Eric Peters once again, EP Autos. And I'll go to the phones here. I'm always happy to take your calls and comments and questions. And hello, caller, who's this? Welcome. Good morning, gentlemen. Jeff and Thelma.

Hi, Jeff. How are you this morning? Do you have a question or comment with... Well, 1986, I was working in Joe Iveson Chevrolet in Lima, Ohio, and I was doing a PDI on an 86 Chevette. A PDI is a pre-delivery inspection. They come off the car carrier. You've got to take all the plastic off the seats, put the hopcaps on, take it for a road test. And the road test, it had a grindy growl in the transmission in first, second, and third,

but nice and quiet in fourth. Okay. So that would indicate an input shaft bearing or a drive pinion bearing. So out comes the transmission, put a pinion bearing in it, take it down the road, grind, growl, first, second, third, quiet, and fourth. Hmm. Service manager says, put an out shaft bearing in it. Well, it's not an out-shaft bearing.

He said, do it anyway. By the time I got done with that car, I could have it. By the time it hit the rack to the time I set the transmission on the bench was 20 minutes. 20 minutes is all it took to get the transmission out. Wow. Out and on the bench, right. By the way, did you finally figure out what the growl was from? Yeah, it got parked on the lot for a while.

The counter shaft bore was off in the case. Okay. So there was just a manufacturer's defect in it, in other words, right? Right. Yeah, they had to not necessarily recall, but they had a problem with a few of them off the assembly line during a certain period of time. So those all got repaired. And then you were talking about the heater core, an 83 Thunderbird. When you look at the manual, step one, disconnect the battery.

Step two, remove the steering column for a year. Yeah. Then you get to remove the whole dash and get the heater core. Oh, my gosh. That was a fun one. You know, this is why, you know, I've got a couple of friends who are professional mechanics, and they tell me some of their worst horror stories.

And some of the vehicles, you know, it's such a job. If you can't do it yourself or have a friend who can do it for you who's a mechanic, it may not even be worth doing. You know, if you're looking at a $1,500, $2,000 job on a 20-year-old vehicle that's worth $2,000, the whole time you'll just say, well, throw it away. I'll buy something else. Yeah. Hey, I appreciate the call there, Jeff.

Thanks for the story. Man, 20 minutes to get the transmission out. You've got to love that. Hi, good morning. You're with Eric. Who's this? Welcome. Good morning.

This is Trey Jeff here in Washington State. Hey, Tracy. Welcome. Two're with Eric. Who's this? Welcome. Good morning. This is Tracy up here in Washington State. Hey, Tracy. Welcome. Two quick things here. First off, very much thank you for the review of the Jetta the other week. My friend is a big fan of the VW. He has a Golf R, and he was hoping that they would continue that line because he loves the manual transmission. And he commented back to me after reading the review that VW detunes the engine because the manual transmission can't handle the torque of the modern engine when it's in manual mode. And so that's a real problem.

Huh. I wonder whether that's true, though, because I doubt that that six-speed manual that they're using in the current car isn't basically the one that they've been using for years, going back probably 10 years. And they certainly used that, I think, in the TDI diesel iteration. I bet it's the same transmission. And that thing puts out a lot of torque. I think it's probably because they don't want to make the vw look too good relative to the audi ah that would that would make sense hey tracy appreciate that call good story and let me go to matt hey matt how are you doing hey i'm good as far as that was heater core story day uh-huh what's your what's your heater core story, Dave, given that it's 24 degrees here? 1996 Ford X4, four-wheel drive. I bought it when it was pretty much brand new. It's got 313,000 miles.

I go on YouTube because that's the Great Repair Manual on the net, and I find a mechanic who's basically a factory mechanic first thing you do of course you gotta drain the coolant then you have he's saying you have to disconnect all the air conditioning hoses remove the box with all the you know the air conditioning bits parts and pieces then drop the steering wheel take the column down then pull the whole dash out. So then I found another guy who found a shortcut. It still took me two days. Man. I was determined to do it. And I was reading remarks, and people were cracking me up.

They were saying, it's like Ford built the whole car around the heater core. Well, they did. It's literally true. It's one of the very first parts that typically will go into the chassis as they're going down the line. And that's why it's so difficult to get at it because they put it in there and then everything else goes on top. All the plumbing, all of the dashboard stuff, all the computers, all the wiring harnesses, everything, the airbags, the dash, everything, it all goes right on top. And yet there's a really high odd that if you keep that vehicle for a long time, one of the first things that will go will be popping your heater core, right?

You know, as it corrodes. Oh, yeah. Well, it's an inevitability. It's essentially a radiator. You know, radiators don't last forever. Eventually they're going to spring a leak or they're going to get clogged or something. You know, and, of course, a radiator is relatively easy to deal with because it's literally right there under the hood.

You know, just unbolt a few things, disconnect a few hoses, and pop the new one in. Not so easy with the heater core. We'll grab one more here with Eric Peters, and then we're going to have to roll. But, Gus, I always enjoy your calls. Hi, who's this? You're with Eric. Hey, it's David. Hey, David.

So the main thing about heater cores is the manufacturers are making them like a sand trap, and they're plugging up after five or seven years. I mean, it's an onslaught right now. It's an onslaught. But here's the thing. Just in my own sick ways, I'm not really a business. I like to send customers pictures of their vehicle when the heater core is out because the whole interior is taken apart. And people – just to kind of do some psychological torture.

And they text me back. They go, that's not my car, is it? It's really like unsettling to see your car completely taken apart like that from the inside yes it's even more unsettling when they get the bill egg oh yeah oh that's the sad part i don't yeah i don't like i don't like to be i give them a piece of paper and i walk away for a few minutes give them some time oh so when you're doing it in your mechanics business david oh man i'll tell you what is the most expensive heater core you've ever replaced?

How many hours and parts did you have to build? Oh, I don't know. I just did a newer CRV that was like a two-day job. But, you know, I think the 2009 Malibu Impala, I did one a while back that seemed pretty involved. I don't know. The dealers, see, the dealers know the little tricks, you know, but the main, the sixth thing is that the manufacturers are making them with low coolant flow and types of coolant that plug up the core. And there's people with a 2015 truck that have had to have it done twice since buying it new.

Really? Because the thing, it's that, well, it's a, it's a down, it's down in a hole. It's a sediment trap and they're doing it. I mean, I have to imagine, after all these years of building cars, now we all of a sudden don't know how to make a heater core that won't plug up, and people buy their $80,000 nice truck. I won't say the name, but, you know, the $80,000 truck, and you get five years per heater core? I mean, come on. Yeah, that's outrageous.

And it's a lot of money. Yeah, it's deliberate. And for a cheap part, too. In the case of my Nissan, the core itself was, I think, about $70. Yeah, yeah. David, great call. The thing is, though, I've gotten to the point now, David, where I replace coolant in all my vehicles every two years, minimum. Yeah.

Well, I should say, the worst heater core is that 83 Vanagon diesel because you've got to not break all that plastic trim. Oh, I know. Well, you're the, worst heater core is that 83 Vanagon diesel, because you don't want to, you got to not break all that plastic trim. Oh, I know. Well, you're the one that did that. I know. Yeah, you're the one that did the first Vanagon heater core for that. And then, of course, the thing is, though, I never told you this, but the Vanagon heater core that I purchased for it was a bad heater core, you know. And so I had to replace it myself later on because it was actually manufactured incorrectly. But that's a story for another time. That was the crazy stuff.

Thanks for the call, David. And Eric, always appreciate your call in here. And gosh, we'll have you back next Wednesday. What vehicle do you think you're going to be reviewing here next year? I know you have the Lexus UX300H. We talked about that last week here. What are you going to be reviewing here next year i know you have the lexus ux 300h we talked about that last week here what are you going to have maybe for next week it's going to be a volvo xc 60 a kind of higher end crossover suv but i'm sure i'll find something interesting about it that we'll be able to talk about all right we'll do epautos.com sign up for it get the uh just

become a comment or two because the comment i, I think the comments are just as good as the articles. Sometimes they're better. You know, I mean, I've got a really, I'm honored by the people who post on the site because some of them are a lot smarter and more informed than I am. And I learned a lot from these people. This is KMED and KMED HD1 Eagle Point Medford, KBXG Grants Pass. And we will catch up with you next week. Thanks so much, Eric. Be well. Okay? Thank you, Bill. Nine minutes after seven. Ran a little long, but it was kind of fun, you know? When the spirit takes us and the calls are coming in and we have good storytelling, let's do it.

Hi, this is Charlene at American Industrial Door. Colder weather can make spring snap and the rain makes...