Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 05-28-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

05-28-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

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 Clouser Drilling.com. It's 11 minutes after 6 7705633 to join the conversation. 770 KMED. My email, Bill at Bill Myers Show.com. Wanted to go over some of the headlines this morning. Eagle Point City Council approves expansion into urban reserve area.

Guy Giles popped me a note yesterday and said, boy, maybe you might want to watch what happened with the Eagle Point City Council. Naturally, that evening, I was not able to attend the meeting, of course, here, but the reporting on it from COBE indicates that, well, a couple of weeks ago, I guess, when they had a town hall meeting on this expansion into the urban reserve, it was pretty hot and heavy. So they held that hearing yesterday, and people supporting it, arguing that interested developers will find a pathway to build on the land, whether through the city, if if approved or through the county.

According to the Eagle Point City Councilor Brad Hewitt, he says this project is going to go through one way or another. We either let the county handle it, county gets the revenue, or the city goes ahead and accepts this into our urban growth boundary. Yeah and so people who are opposing it though, and apparently there are quite a few, say they don't want the city to lose its character, get bigger or take away from farmlands. You actually think that centralized land use planning put in place in the early 1970s was actually about protecting farmland. No, it's about protecting certain rackets and giving state control.

We're the only state that does this. We're the only state that makes the cities go through these hoops. And by the way, Eagle Point does by law have to, according to central land use planning, they have to have buildable land. You have to have a supply. The urban growth boundary. Boy, can anybody remember a day in which we didn't have urban growth boundaries? You have to go back, what, 40, 50 years, right?

In which people just decided to do what they wanted to do. And of course, people can't be allowed to do what they wanted to do. Speaking of which, there is something I read in here about this. Oh yeah, here we go. New Oregon law allows tribes to petition for removal of state control from tribal affairs. This is actually quite interesting when you think about it because I'm hoping that maybe someday we could be treated like the tribes here. A tribal-backed bill would simplify the jurisdictional patchwork in Oregon Indian country. It was signed by Governor Tina Kotec a few days ago, sailing through the state legislature,

passed unanimously. It creates a formal process for tribes to petition the state for the reversal of the 1953 federal law as it applies to on federal tribal lands within the boundary, jurisdiction over criminal and civil cases, etc., etc. I think that would be interesting. I'm really big on the tribal areas being able to more or less go their own way or do as much of their own kind of thing as it comes right down to it I

would just wish that every other city was granted the same kind of privilege that the that the tribes Are going to be granted granted wouldn't that be interesting wouldn't it be interesting if? Medford was sovereign land and we had a Medford tribe or we had Central Point tribe where we had a Medford tribe or we had a Central Point tribe or we had a Grants Pass tribe rather than Governments that are subdivisions of the overweening state I mean just just thought it something that would come to mind but it

I like the idea of maybe we could all become a member of the tribe and then be able to tell the state of government The state of oregon rather the government just kind of, would you just leave us alone a little bit, just leave us alone. No, listen, our tribe doesn't necessarily want to have the porno books in our schools, in our public schools. Could we do something like that? Would that be alright? I think that would be fine, right? We don't want the porno books in here. We actually want to be able to take care of the homeless. We actually want to be able to build housing when and where we wish, not according to the LCDC. You know, that's that sort of thing. Maybe we could all petition to join the tribes. We'll just do it that way. But anyway, I just thought that was interesting anyway. Meanwhile, we have demonstrators that were in

Vogel Plaza, downtown Medford yesterday for a die-in protest against President Donald Trump's tax bill. That one big, beautiful bill, according to Maximus Osborne on Kobe, threatens to cut Medicaid and SNAP benefits, while also including tax breaks for high-income individuals. Oh, it's Indivisible. Indivisible showed up with a bunch of tombstones. And so they're doing a sit-in. People in nursing homes that rely on this funding, children with disabilities depend on all of this. It's really scary.

This is serious stuff. Yes, yes, yes. Of course, I talked with Cliff Bentz about this yesterday. And I think he did a pretty good job of explaining these so-called Medicaid cuts, which are Oregon health care cuts, are actually cuts from people who shouldn't be on it in the first place. But of course, according to ORD, people are going to die. People are going to die. So there we go.

So they were doing their thing. Meanwhile, drugs guns found during a search of a closed down abandoned safari park. The owner has been arrested. Send illegal drugs, guns and money. West Coast Game Park Safari abandoned. They arrested a guy there connected to a 52 year old Brian Tenney. He's taken to Coos County Jail jail, charged with meth amphetamine possession, manufacturing, attempted distribution. Wow.

They found about 80 grams of meth with a search warrant at the park, and they also discovered cocaine, 44 firearms, including one modified into a machine gun, and about 1.6 million worth of cash, cashiers' checks, bonds, and certificates at the park. Wow, big investigation with Oregon State Police. So that has been taken care of. Let me have that. Oh, Governor Tina Kotec now has announced a brand new council to grow Oregon's mental health workforce.

And guess who's running it? Yes, First Lady Amy Kotec Wilson, who has some mental problems of her own apparently, who better to chair the new task force aimed at fixing Oregon's behavioral health workforce shortages. Now, she's not going to be paid for this. I don't know if you have an opinion about this or not, but we face a critical shortage, according to the story of mental health providers new report from higher education 88% of counties falling short of having one mental health provider per 1,000 residents so anyway, so Amy cotec Wilson will be will be chairing this the governor's wife. There we go

So I'm sure that the mental health problems that we're all suffering will be taken care of Anytime. All right, seven seven. Oh five six5633. We can go over some other headlines too. Oh, by the way, we have a new plastic bag ban here. They've voted to expand that. I'll tell you about that in a little bit too. Let me grab the calls here. Good morning. Wheel's up Wednesday. Hi, who's this? Hi, Bill. This is Vicki from the Applegate. Good morning, Vicki. How's life in the Applegate this Wednesday? Well, I haven't got the sun on me yet over the mountain, so it's actually pretty nice this morning, but as soon as that sun comes over there, it's going to start warming up fast. Oh yeah, it was just at... this is a beautiful time of year here in southern Oregon.

I love this time in which even at 445, I got in here about 440 this morning, and you get that early morning glow coming over the hills I love that look it's perfect. Yeah this is my favorite time of the day too actually. So what I'm gonna talk about this morning is yesterday when you had the congressman on one of the last things he said before he went off the air was about the $500 million to basically invest, not investigate, but for the AI. I just feel, you know Bill, we've had AI for a long time, years, like military, movies, just all over the

spectrum, and I'm wondering why does it take that much money to study it and and try and perfect it or see you know exactly how far we want to take it or how far it's already went? Yeah well the 500 billion is not really to study it. It's just to continue to kick-start development really. It's not about studying it or trying to figure out. In fact, from the looks of it, they don't really want to put any kind of limitations on it whatsoever, according to that big beautiful build which says that for the next 10 years, nobody touches it really. Well, I just feel like, you know, I know that we have to progress

and I'm very like in the 70s still out here. I mean I don't have TV, I don't have internet, I don't have cell phones. Well you will be assimilated, you do understand that. Well I'm sure I will. I'm sure there'll be another Vicky from the Applegate running around somewhere who enjoys all that stuff. Yeah, she'll have your robotic avatar, or avatar rather, you know, moving and shopping for you and it will be progress. Well, okay. I'm being sarcastic. Please understand.

I know. I know you are, Bill, but you know, I just feel like it's been out there for so long that they've already pretty much known what the capability of it is or could be. I just don't, I don't know. I don't, me personally, I don't really want to pay more to find out about it or keep it going or whatever they're doing with it. I just feel like that money could be spent somewhere else. It's kind of like the 90 million dollars for the new baseball team for the minor league. I just I feel like it's already got you know it's capable of doing a lot of stuff already. What more, well I'm almost afraid to ask, what more it could be. So I don't know. I just I just thought that was a lot of money to investigate

something that's already been like... Well, it's not investigating it. Or not investigating it. No, I mean, it's investing. It's investing it. Larry Ellison and the various tech bros have pledged half a trillion dollars, $500 billion to invest it and make us number one. And supposedly, whoever is able to replace

people first is going to control the world. Well that kind of sounds like what they're going for. I mean what is, what do they want it to do? I mean is it... Everything! Well I just, I don't understand. Well no, it appears to be. Now I know today for the next couple of days they have the AI for Good conference. There are a lot of tools. There are wonderful ways to take artificial intelligence and large language models, pardon

me, and automate some tasks and help format and do reports and create things. There's a lot that can be done for it, but I'm kind of reminded of a number of years ago in broadcast when automation... You still there, Vicki? Yes, I am. Yeah. I still remember when I was working with a lot of people in a particular broadcast facility and the automation systems came in for the computers. And I remember there were people working for some other stations that I worked for in the past that said, oh my gosh, you know, these automation systems are coming in here. There will be all of this extra time for us to do more things and so we can even be more efficient at

at our work. And I took some of the folks aside and I said, they're not spending a half million dollars to keep you here. Exactly. They're going to be replaced. They think it's convenience. That's what it's all about. It's about convenience, not having to work hard. It's like push a button, let this take care of all the menial tasks you don't wanna do that brings you up to do other stuff. Yeah, and there's a lot of, that's pretty cool,

if you can do a lot of those things. I guess it depends on what is progress? What is progress really? And what we don't know is what does a future look like in which a lot of mundane tasks that were performed by people are replaced with artificial intelligence? And maybe this is why there was such a push to do universal basic income. In essence, taxing the high-tech world, taxing the robots, so to speak.

And then you end up paying people to do whatever they want to do rather than having to go to work to feed themselves. Speaking about the movie with Will Smith, iRobot, it was all great until it wasn't great. So... Yeah, and yet you don't want to say... I'm sure those people thought that when radio broadcast first came around too, you know, when radio... Oh, we can communicate all across the country, right? And it's like, oh, but what happens if all of a sudden the farm kids hear about what's going on in the big city? They don't... They won't want to stay on the farm either. So I want to look at both sides of this

at this point. I don't want to be... It's a pro in Colin. I know that you know in the hospitals they're using a lot of robotics to help with surgeries. In fact I'm going to get a knee replacement which is going to be using a robot. And a lot of AI was probably used in the development of that in the design. So I think I am not trying to be a Debbie Downer or Karen, but I just think that there should be... I guess I just want to know how far is it gonna go? Yeah, those are very good questions. In every aspect. I mean, remember when we were talking about the robotic dog? It's like, if you want a dog, get a dog. Don't get a

robotic dog. It doesn't look like a dog. Yeah, well I think what... Okay, you know, I get that. All right. What concerns me most about this is the idea that biology isn't good enough. Being a person isn't good enough. Being a human isn't good enough. Being a dog isn't good enough being a dog isn't good enough there's there's no compassion from a robot there's no guilt from a robot oh but it'll be no it'll be able to mimic it though that's the point yeah but that's scary until it doesn't want to anymore when you have all this technology kind of going off the beaten path. Yeah I know and then it's like

every science fiction movie that we've ever watched over the last 40 years, 40-50 years. Hey I get you. Thanks McCall. I appreciate that Vicki, you know, getting my juices going here on AI for Good Day today and tomorrow, that conference going on in Medford. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Yeah, Ron Graspass. Hello, Ron. How are you? Well, pretty good. I got a couple of points here I think people need to think about. First off, the power surge needed for AI is significant and meaningful and it could bring about blackouts and brownouts to the rest of us on existing grid systems that are not proposed to be increased. Secondly, I think that the people who want AI should

have their own power system that's independent and separate from the current grid system. Oddly enough, the legislature was working on some laws here in which they wanted to make sure that the data centers that are there for AI growth were not going to penalize regular folks in there every day. So I think they're kind of already concerned about that, you know, the growth of that. I to be corralled into a box. They cannot go out of their box to do whatever they want to do that affects society, that might negatively affect it. And thirdly, that a person could opt in if they want, but they cannot be affected unless they do opt in to the AI operation. Well, hey, maybe that's going back to my earlier music about wanting to join a tribe. There will be the enhanced AI human tribe and then the, I guess, classic human, classic

humanity tribe. Well, our founding fathers gave us a kind of a tribal system called the United States of America. Yeah, I know. I don't think we need to have another tribe. All right, we'll take it. Thanks so much. I necessarily wasn't planning on getting off into AI,

but it's kind of funny how that works sometimes. Hi, good morning. I think this is Dave, isn't it, Dave? Hello. Yeah, it's Dave. Hey, Dave. I wanted to let you know that I got a notice in the mail yesterday from an administrator

on a class action suit. It was from when they call it the partnership here that has to do with my health insurance. They want to give me like a hundred bucks. Oh, I got one of those too. A few weeks, a couple of weeks ago, I think it was yes as part of it you know they were asking like how much you spent at a certain time did you you know have evidence of it you're part of a class it was like I don't need to show anything oh you know because my information was hacked because it was down here in

California probably what you got is something different but then I was I downloaded Karma we call credit Karma comm then I was I downloaded Karma, we call it credit karma.com. And I was trying to set up an account with them. And I found out somebody has already done it with them. And of course, I got them. Well, I don't know if I was dealing with a robot or a wheel person. But I got them to suspend that account. And then I got to set mine up. All right. Now, are you the real Dave Everest or a artificial intelligence simulacrum? I had to show my driver's license and had to take a picture and I had to prove that I was alive. Okay well I'm glad you're still alive. Thank you

for that Dave. Noodling around with some open calls here at the moment. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. It's not so crazy. Crazy Gene, perfect time. Go ahead. Yeah, this is going to be wild. Okay, there was a survivor at the Roswell crash site of an alien, and he told an interesting story. He said that this is a prison planet for the entire universe. Everybody that doesn't act politely out there in the rest of the universe is standing here. Oh, all right. So this is going down the why we didn't get to the moon really according to those who who pushed that theory, right? Oh yeah, well sure. We don't behave well, so...

Yeah, we're low-lives and we're supposed to do as we're told to do, which is what you do in the rest of the universe, only we didn't do that. Alright, we're the thugs of the galaxy then, huh? Yeah, well, we're the sludge. We're the sludge if they're trying to clean out the rest of the universe. And yeah, this is a good place to put us all. Well, I'll tell you what, Gene, you have a point there. We'll see what happens given that the latest SpaceX rocket failed and went down. If we are prevented from leaving our particular little sphere of influence, then I'm going to think that maybe you have more going on than you might think, even though it's not Conspiracy Theory

Thursday. I know, I realize it. I know, I know, all right. Thank you, Gene. KMED, hi, good morning, this is Bill, who's this? Welcome. Hello. Hi, Bill. Hi. Hello, Bill, Ludic Fringe. Hello, Ludic. I heard an interview with Larry Ellison yesterday

talking about artificial intelligence. Oh yeah, what did Larry have to say? Cause he was one of the tech bros that was up on the stage a number of months ago with Trump. Yes. And he said that he was discussing the rate of progress going from artificial intelligence to artificial general intelligence, and within five or seven years, artificial superintelligence.

And he said he asked Elon Musk how he felt about that. And Elon reportedly said, I do not look forward to being a house kept. That is rather sobering, isn't it? I thought so. Yeah. So, Ellison and Musk are not necessarily seeing eye to eye on this either. No, it's my impression that Elon is not that much of an artificial intelligence fan. But he's a big Neuralink kind of fan though. Yeah, I know. That's a dichotomy.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's interesting. Hey, thanks for letting me know about that. Great story. I'll grab one more call then we're going to be doing some more calls here with Eric Peters on EP Auto's Wheels Up Wednesday. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Hey Bill, it's David. David, how you doing? Hey, good. So you kept saying the word tribe and that's why I had to call. And so you know it's funny because we think about the tribes like the native tribes being formed around like ethnic you know an ethnic group but the thing about a tribe is a tribe has to be formed by like an ideological, you know,

a list of ideological beliefs. And you would think that your program would be the perfect like launch pad for a tribe. But what I've discovered is, and you've got this great guy that calls and I don't know, right, is that his name? What's his name? Is it Mr. X?

Is that the guy that goes to meetings? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Mr. X. And so much respect for that guy for all the effort he puts in. But here's the thing, tribes can't be formed around how people are gonna exist or interact with an existing structure because there's so much energy people

have when they turn on your show or they turn on Fox News or whatever. Those things are very different. But the thing about a tribe is it has to be relevant to the moment in time that you're in. And so I've been out tribe building, and I think at some point it's going to link up with your show, but I've been out tribe building on the on the almost the dogmas around forgiveness love and consciousness and it's a complete tribe building effort that's been extremely successful it's not tied to any kind of interaction with like a

media figure a political figure an economy a legal system it's entirely human-based and it's got so much more traction than anything that's tied to these existing anything like churches or governments or whatever, you know? And so, so I think we should do a show on tribe-building that's actually going to launch something much bigger. But I think it involves your show at some point. I will consider that. I'll keep that open. All right. Thanks for the call. Yeah. Appreciate it. Interesting that, you know, now there's talk that Gen Z tends to be turning more to religious institutions because they're feeling a lack of, I guess, of tribal affinity. You know, really, I thought that's interesting.

Yeah, seeing some of that. What is a tribe, right? 635, I'm running a little bit behind here, so if you have any calls, maybe hold the calls here for the moment, unless you want to talk with Eric Peters. We'll talk with him here right after news here on the Bill Meyers Show, KMED and 993KBXG. If you've been injured in an accident, you've got Reed Law Firm on your side.

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772-3266. Are you buying or selling a house this year? Here's a tip 772-3266. Are you buying or selling a house this year? Here's a tip from Grants Pass Water Lab. If you buy or sell a property with a well, Oregon requires tests for bacteria, arsenic, and nitrate. Don't let this slow you down. Get your well tested now.

Grants Pass Water Lab offers next day results for bacteria tests and a speedy 3 to 5 days for the full reporting that meets all the state requirements online at gpwaterlab.com independent and serving the rogue valley for more than forty years from the KMED news center here's what's going on the national weather service in Medford says high temperatures could hit a hundred degrees here in the rogue valley this weekend hot temperatures are expected for Friday through Saturday, while a small chance for showers and thunderstorms exist on Wednesday next week.

And she's back. Oregon Governor Tina Kotec has created the Behavioral Health Talent Council to address a shortage of behavioral health workers, and once again the governor has inserted First Lady Amy Kotec Wilson into the conversation to chair the 22-member council. They'll address increased diversity, the work shortage, high turnover rates and improved recruitment for providers in the Oregon Health Plan. The Butte Creek fire is now

20% contained as it burns near Klarnaw and Wasco County. Structural protection teams and hot shots are on scene, and the fire is being hit with active suppression from the ground and the air. Flights over the blaze have determined the fire is smaller than thought. It's mapped at just shy of 2,000 acres. Bill Lennon, KMED.

The Outdoor Report is every Friday morning, just past 7 a.m. on The Bill Meyer Show. The Outdoor Report on KMED and the Jukebox 99.3 covers recreational opportunities and is powered by Oregon Truck and Auto Authority, your department of adventure off of Vilas Road on Airway Drive. Hi, this is Bill Meyer. Always appreciate you listening no matter the time.

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What RoofMax does is it helps people in that they don't have to spend that 15-20 thousand dollars on a new roof. They can spend pennies on the dollar. The RoofMax product was a small percentage of cost of replacing a roof. Call 1-855-RoofMax for a free roof inspection. 855-RoofMax. This is News Talk 1063 KMED and you're waking up with the Bill Meyers show. 855 RoofMax. Friend of you too, Eric. Welcome back here from rural Virginia. How's life for you this morning? Oh good. Thank you for having me on again, Bill. We've got a lot to talk about this morning. We sure do. I ended up getting a news release yesterday and I sent it over to you, and I know you're gonna be writing about this, but I figured we could kind of talk about this. That Cummins, the big diesel engine manufacturer,

ended up announcing its Win-Win and and win-again program for heavy-duty Ram 2500 and 3500 model year 2013 to 2018 owners. So there's some emission recall. I hadn't heard about this, but they're calling it a win-win thing. You get a free extended warranty and cash perks. And I don't know, is this something to be, you know, if I, if I had one of these, uh, these Ram trucks, should I be concerned? Should I take the bait? What's going on here?

Well, it's kind of like your member when during the pandemic, they would offer to give you a donut if you got vaccinated. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. It's kind of similar to that. Oh, there's a great degree of hesitancy and reluctance on the part of the owners of these affected Ram 2500 and 3500 trucks that have the 6.2 Cummins diesel engine. What they're wanting to do is coerce or cajole them into bringing their truck into a dealership to get it fixed, fixed in the manner of getting your dog fixed at the vet. Oh, so the testicles are removed from the truck. Is that what would be happening or what? Yeah, here's the back story is that the EPA says that Cummins did

essentially what they claimed that Volkswagen did, i.e. they cheated on emission certification tests and they were hit with a massive, I think $1.67 billion fine for this cheating. And part of their penance is to try to get the people who own these trucks to bring them in. Now, the thing of it is, a lot of people who own these trucks have already deleted the DEF system. And they've done that to make their truck run better, and also to not have to constantly fill the DEF tank, which gets expensive after a while. I didn't realize that you could delete the DEF, you know, that's what that urea tank on the engine. Sure you can.

It's kind of like back in the day when you could get a catalytic converter test pipe. Remember those things? Yeah, I do remember those. But I thought- But here's the thing. A lot of guys who own those trucks have done that. And so now if they were to bring their truck in, they'd get slapped with having to replace the DEF system at massive cost you were talking about several thousands of dollars and even if they haven't done that what's the upside

to them you know they're supposed they're going to they're going to get a baseball cap a pen and and other little items like that as part of a gift pack in return for having their truck fixed well why would they want that what are they getting out of it well they're getting nothing out of it their truck fixed. Well, why would they want that? What are they getting out of it? Well, they're getting nothing out of it. Their truck is probably going to get slightly worse gas mileage and, you know, will have all of the other emissions stuff on it. So naturally people aren't wanting to do it. And they're getting kind of desperate now because I think the figure is only about 20% of the people who own these trucks have brought them in voluntarily

to have them fixed. But Eric, the program offers a free warranty extension, a prepaid $200 mastercard, and entry into a weekly giveaway of $10,000. So, I mean, of course you should come in and get your truck fixed. Yeah, well, doesn't that say something that doesn't kind of reek of how desperate they are to do this, just like during the pandemic, they were so desperate to get people to get vaccinated. It says something about the underlying motive that really this isn't probably in your best interest.

Now I know there are people out there who might say, oh, Eric is advocating for these people to be burning coal and, you know, polluting the environment and all of that. And my retort is, I would like to see somebody bring forth some meaningful evidence that any specific person is being hurt by this, as opposed to this pedantic business of, oh you're cheated, you're 0.005. Yeah, it's collective pollution and collective punishment too, I guess is what we're looking at here. Speaking of which here, the issue, so in other words, Cummins, I just want to make sure I understand this correctly, the reason here is that Cummins had a Volkswagen problem of sorts, right? Same kind of thing. All right, now the thing is though, why

wasn't Cummins just like Perp walked like the Volkswagen people were? Because I remember they were doing everything they wanted Volkswagen to shut down and go to EV. They had to kill the Volkswagen diesels. That was the whole deal. We figured that out during COVID time back then. But why didn't this happen with Cummins? Well, I think the reason is that we're talking about very different kinds of vehicles here. We're talking about heavy-duty big trucks, you know, 2,500 and 3,500 series pickups, a relatively obscure slice of the market in terms of just the general

passenger vehicle fleet generally speaking most people don't drive a twenty five hundred uh... though there are some who do but where's volkswagen was selling an entire lineup of light-duty small passenger cars golfs and jettas and so on uh... that had that td i diesel engine in those vehicles would have been a direct point of comparison for models like the Teslas. There really isn't anything that's analogous in the EV market right now to these 2500 and 3500 trucks and I think that probably explains it. And that's why they didn't

feel like putting people in jail and trillion dollar fines etc because Volkswagen has never been the same ever since they were laid down you you know, in that diesel deal. Okay, so they'll give you a software, a free software update, takes about an hour, and the software update must be completed in a Ram dealer in the state of Oregon, and then you get your your MasterCard and all these other things. So in other words, you're advising people not necessarily to take the bait. Is that what you're thinking? Well, it begs the question, doesn't it? You know, if the vehicle would have run better with the software, in other words, if it had been fully compliant with whatever the EPA standard is, don't you

suppose that Cummins would have made their engines that way? Because that would have been of benefit to the consumer as well as to Cummins in terms of compliance. But really what we're talking about here is the only benefit is in terms of compliance it was the same with Volkswagen you know the issue is what happened to the emissions when you floor the gas pedal you know under wide open throttle well the thing produced a little bit more emissions than was allowable but it ran better so you know from the standpoint of the owner it was a plus but it was an affront to the authority of the regulatory apparatus absolutely will not abide anything that smacks of, well, we kind of cheated on your standards and we

got away with it. Nyanananana. Yeah. Eric Peters with me this morning. EP Autos, if you had a question on some vehicle or what we're talking about or something else involving the transportation world, number here is 7705633. Okay, so there we go. You'll be covering this in a future article on

epautos.com, but I was glad to at least send this to you. I thought, boy, this is something that, you know, Eric needs to know about if nothing else. Now then, speaking of the regulatory apparatchiks and all the rest of it, I do find it interesting that President Trump is talking about taking rules back, right? And the real problem I think we have is that we have these rules in the first place. That's something that you made really clear in your articles there. But even going back to 2020, that's not exactly motoring freedom, is it? No, not at all. All of this is a temporary abatement in my view. You know, Trump has said that, that he wants to get back to the standards, specifically the Cafe fuel economy standards and the carbon emissions standards

that were in effect back in 2020. And that's okay as far as it goes, but the reason that we have all the cars that we have now, which in a lot of ways aren't very appealing, is precisely because of those standards. Now Biden came along and ratcheted up the standards such that we were headed down the road to having only electric vehicles is the only choice

available to us that's where we're headed for sure yet well-baked we're still headed there is the point you know that i i agree with you i think fundamentally as long as the premises left unchallenged i.e. that it's legitimate for the government to be decreeing how many miles per gallon of vehicle you buy delivers and this whole idea that somehow str us driving cars with engines is causing the

climate to change, as long as that isn't repudiated outright, all that's going to happen is that we're going to have a little bit of an abatement right now and then in the future they're going to kick it back up again. And we end up in the same place regardless. Yeah. You have a situation where you have, let's say, well, the Democrats come back in and then it's all climate change theater again. Total. And unless that is actually repealed and put in its grave, its deserved grave, then nothing

will really change long term. Plus, it's also chaos for the vehicle manufacturers. They can't just completely do a parking brake 180 and revamp their entire product portfolio based on what a politician who's in office for four years does during those four years. You have an article up there that at least gas costs a little less and there's a lot of things that Trump's been trying to do that he's getting you know the courts throwing at him just about every day there's another you know injunction of some sort but at least that's one that's one thing that is actually kind of going in with campaign promises, isn't it?

Well, a little bit. Gas, according to AAA, is nationally about 35 cents per gallon less expensive than it was a year ago. And it's a small thing, but it's still a step in the right direction. Certainly, at least I think, had Harris won, I don't think we'd be paying 35 cents less less a gallon would probably be paying fifty percent fifty cents more but it's still not enough it's still not where it was however that said you know if you look into it we're still paying are remarkably little for gas in historic terms you know we look at the three dollars per gallon thing and we think that that's a lot

but if you factor that number into the inflation calculator that the b l s the bureau of labor's statistics has it works out to about 35 cents, you know, back in 1970, which is, you know, that's what a gallon of gas cost in the late 60s up to about 1970. Yeah, not all that different really. Yeah, the one thing I would say though is that that gasoline was actually pure gasoline, no ethanol in it, nothing like that. That's true, but you know, I want to pat the free market on the back. You know, given everything that has happened over the course of the past 50 years, the increase in the regulatory costs, the add-on costs of the oxygenated fuels requirements, the

ethanol, all of that, and even notwithstanding all of that, we're still paying in real terms about what gas costs back in 1970 and that's pretty amazing. Yeah, unless you live in Oregon because we're at about 380 for regular right now. There are some exceptions and California is even worse than you guys. Oh yeah, California, California. It's like you cross the border and it's like all of a sudden you are into the carbon-free zone. Yeah, my sister lives out there and they're still paying about I think close to five bucks a gallon for unleaded. Yeah, and now that they're trying to figure out how to pay for the transportation plan here, I don't know if you know but the cap and trade is rearing its ugly head

once again. Yeah. And this is something, the climate, the climate, the children, you know, it's like, it just gets pretty nauseous at some point. We'll be right back with Eric Peters if you wanted to talk with him about something we've been talking about or maybe bring another topic about transportation in from you, 770-56 is the Bill Meyer show the greater the Bill Meyer show is on news talk 1063 KMED taking your calls for Eric Peters and EP Auto's automotive journalist and genius there Michael's here hey Michael you wanted to talk with Eric about insurance what are you thinking this morning well yeah yeah, more on, you know, broadly insurance seems like it's getting ready to just take over everything and put everybody, you know,

walking down the street before too long. They're just, you know, they get together in these giant lobbies, right? That seems to be, that's kind of collusion or whatever, I don't know what you want to call that, but it seems like a monopoly violation or something that we're gonna have to do something about insurance though you've written you've written pretty deeply on that haven't you Eric in the past sure have and I think the fundamental problem is the coercion in other words we're not allowed to say no and we're not allowed to say to say no to something and a force to buy it which is the case with regard to car insurance well what do you

suppose is going to happen what do you think the cost of a cup of coffee would be if the government said you must buy a cup of coffee once a week? Well, instead of paying three dollars for a cup of coffee at Starbucks, you'd be paying ten dollars. Yeah, everything you're forced to do. Well, you know something, Michael and Eric, too, for that matter. Think about what has happened to the cost of health insurance ever since we have been forced to purchase that, too, via Obamacare, right? With rare exceptions. Now, I know there are people that they get outside and pay their penalty. Now you pay the penalty, don't you, at this point? No, well, you know,

one thing that Trump did that was really laudable, in my opinion, during his first term was to take the fangs out of Obamacare by eliminating the enforcement ability of the IRS to collect what they call the shared responsibility payment. Yeah. So what you're talking... Yeah, so back to it, Michael, is that effectively, as long as it is mandatory, there's not a lot of emphasis to reduce the cost, is there?

Well I just... I think it's more than just car insurance. All the insurance across the board. Like everybody's, we're gonna run into a big problem. Everybody's gonna lose their house if they can't afford that insurance. So it's just, I see it coming fast and I got an idea. Wanna throw this out there. What if the counties are like at the county level,

like everybody has basic insurance paid by their gas paid by the gas pump. Oh yeah, pay at the pump. I remember them talking about that a number of years ago. Never really seemed to catch fire, right, Eric? Well, no, it's not. And honestly, I think the caller is right. I think there's a malicious aspect to this and he's correct, absolutely,

in that insurance is essentially a tool for them to dispossess us of everything. Particularly with regard to house costs you know home insurance is becoming exorbitant getting to the point where people can afford to pay the insurance anymore effectively they're going to be forced out of their houses and the same is happening with car insurance car insurance is typically doubled in cost over just the last two years well what happens when it

quadruples you know a lot of people are just not going to be able to afford to drive or they'll just say i'm going to drive anyway and the law be damned and I think ultimately that's what it's going to come down to. Ultimately our most effective tool is non-compliance. You know if they make everybody an outlaw they're not going to be able to jail everybody. Yeah you can't arrest everyone. What do you think about that Michael becoming an outlaw on the insurance issue? Do you think that's where it's going to go? There's a big move to do that right now. People are getting tickets and losing their license all over the place right now. If you look, you know, there's stories about it and there's all kinds of different stuff going on.

But yeah, it's just something I saw coming along. I was just thinking if you didn't have to pay the basic liability, it was paid through the gasoline, right? That would offset the cost. And you know, it would probably work out to where we'd be paying less, but everybody'd be covered by a pool. Like, I don't know how state, county level, whatever, or different smaller pools,

like could be your church group or something. But I don't know if that would work. I just thought I'd throw it out there. Okay. Yeah, all of this has set a very dangerous precedent. You know, one of the things that the left has been proposing for years, and I suspect they'll end up getting away with it,

is to require people who own firearms to carry specific liability insurance for a firearm, which of course would be exorbitantly expensive. And thereby they would make it kind of a backdoor way to illegalize firearm ownership for everybody except the very affluent who could still afford to pay. Yeah putting insurance on a constitutional right. Yep. It's a 657. Let me talk with Deplorable Patrick. DP, you want to talk about trying to keep a vintage vehicle on the road. Go ahead. I don't know if I'd even call it vintage. I'm happily driving a 1984 Chevy diesel van every day and it works great. And what

made me want to call is because like two weeks ago I think it was Eric mentioned something and I think by we're rapidly approaching the time when we're gonna have to have a full-time attorney on the staff of the Bill Meyer show. Oh, yeah, it does Is what Eric brought up before was what if they get to the point where you? You don't have to get rid of your 84 diesel van. You just have to pay five thousand dollars a year to register it and I would come back with the concept that it was legal when I bought it. And we don't want to screw around with an ex post facto law. You're getting a lot of trouble with that.

Oh, but ex post facto is messed with all the time. Look at what they want to do with firearms here. What they're just going to say. Yeah, they do the same thing. The problem with that argument, in my opinion, is that we live in a post-constitutional era. We make a mistake in thinking that the law matters and that we can appeal to the law. We live at a lawless time. What matters is power and who has it and how they wield it. So would it be the same on my second point? If they want to stop me from driving my 1984 Chevy diesel van with $5,000 a year registration fee, that is coercion.

Of course, obviously it is. But you should do what I would recommend, and what I plan to do frankly, is to do what all the illegals do, and just ignore the law. Remember, Bill, we were talking last week about I think the caller who showed up or who was at a gas station and saw a bunch of Mexicans driving on illegal Toyota Hilux? Yes. Yes. Remember you telling me, but they've been that person. You know, we've been too obedient for too long. If enough of us to say enough of this and it becomes widespread. Now, there's historical precedent for this. Go back to the era of prohibition. When the government made it an illegal act for you to have a drink, you know, they made it criminal to drink liquor. And people just

said, to hell with that. We're just going to ignore it. And it became ridiculous. And when enough people finally made it ridiculous, it went away. That's how you deal with this stuff. And it's a peaceful way to deal with it. It's interesting, Patrick. You know, you could see a time coming as the regulatory net wants to continue to cinch down on everyone, on everybody's freedom and liberty to be able to live and operate as they wish, that perhaps, I don't know, maybe we'll have a duty to defy that. My dad was a cop, and he said that good law is considered a law that will be obeyed by 85% of people. Yeah sure that's sensible

you know we don't even need laws generally speaking to prevent people like you and I from committing murder because we just wouldn't do that right? Yeah indeed. That's a way to measure whether a law is a moral and just law as opposed to one that's just an arbitrary edict. And so much in Oregon is arbitrary edict right now, Patrick. So I guess we may have our work cut out for us. Thanks for the call. All right.

Hey, Eric, before we take off here, I always enjoy talking to you about the latest reviews here and this time it's an infinity, right? And it's an infinity. I want to kind of riff on that old ad, gee, I could have had a V8. Well, I used to have a V8, but now I have a turbocharged six, right? Yeah, well, no surprise. The QX80 is infinity's top-of-the-line model. It's a massive SUV. It's in the same class as, say, the Cadillac Escalade. And like most of the vehicles in this class, it has been shorn of its V8.

It now comes standard with a 3.5-liter V6 because of the compliance pressure. Now on the upside, this little V6 is just 3.5 liters, makes 450 horsepower. Whoa. That's actually pretty, that's a pretty beefy little V6 then. It is, and it makes 50, that's 50 more than the old V8 made. However, it's under pressure. And the real irony of it is, I got 50 more than the old V8 made, however it's under pressure. And the real irony of it is, I got to looking into the stats. The old V8 got 14 miles per gallon in city driving and 20 on the highway.

Well this new high tech twin turbo, half the displacement, just about, 3.5 V6 gets a whopping 16 rather than 14 miles per gallon in the city and the same 20 on the highway. So you see it has nothing to do with gas mileage, it has everything to do with compliance. The little engine when it's not under boost is flowing less air, so less air that is carbon dioxide is coming out of the exhaust pipe and that is the whole reason for these small heavily turbocharged engines. Yeah, good vehicle though otherwise? Well an interesting vehicle. I mean it's just absolutely massive. It's interesting

how huge on the one hand these top of the line SUVs are getting and then how small everything else is getting on the other end of the spectrum. And the thing is, if you can imagine it, it's 6,400 pounds and it's not even an EV. Oh, 6,400 pounds. That is one heavy vehicle. It's just preponderous. It's huge. How long before he gets a four-cylinder? But you know what these things are is the modern iteration in a way It's kind of like a distortion of the big VA

Full-frame sedans that you and I remember growing up that everybody used to have the difference is that now only the uber rich can afford them You know these things all cost 80, 90, $100,000. Whereas when you and I were kids, it was common for working class, middle class people and families to have big V8 powered, full frame, rear wheel drive vehicles. I'm thinking though, the more that I see of people, and like I said, this is $80,000 to start. Yeah. Right. That's a little bit out of my out of my price range. Yeah. But it's nice to know that it's still a nice vehicle. It's still the big thing. I have to tell you

the one thing I am noticing more and more though is that people are starting to appreciate the more vintage vehicles and I'm seeing this all the time as I'm just sitting around just talking with people. Now, maybe it's because I'm driving a vintage vehicle more in the summertime. I pull out the camper and I do it more, the red Volkswagen camper diesel that I have. And people come up to me and they talk to me and they

said, wow, this looks so clean, looks so good, and this, that, and the other. And one guy said the other day, as I was loading mulch into it, and he said, and it's so simple, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I think there are a number of factors driving this. I think one of the big ones though is simply economics. More and more people simply cannot afford the cost of entry

with regard to new vehicles that typically now sell for $50,000. Not counting the insurance, not counting the property tax and the maintenance because they're so complicated now that other other than the most basic service such as changing the oil, you're pretty much locked into going to a dealership. So a lot of people are looking back and thinking, you know, those older cars weren't so bad and I can do the work on them myself. You know, everything short of rebuilding the engine, I can probably take care of myself rather than have to pay some dealer technician, you know, those older cars weren't so bad and I can do the work on them myself. You know, everything's short of rebuilding the engine. I can probably take care of myself rather than have to pay some dealer technician

you know, 150 bucks an hour to service the car. I saw one guy driving on 62 the other day was one of the first Ford Explorers when they brought that out. When did the Ford Explorer come out? Was it early 80s? You want to say? It was based on the Bronco II, if I remember correctly.

And it was around, I guess, about 1990, 9191ish. Yeah and it was the the old model square headlights you know all that all that kind of thing faded red paint and he was just going around and just looking looking happy and I'm just thinking to myself yep you've got that paid for and there's almost nothing on that vehicle that you couldn't do yourself if you had to, ultimately. Yes, simple V8 engine, as opposed to a twin turbocharged little V6, which is what they come with today. Yeah, speaking of which, that General Motors, it's the LT V8, I believe is what they were doing this recall, and telling everybody to go with a thicker oil. The 6.2 gas V8, yeah. Yeah, are we getting any,

now I know there's the LS which seems to be problems. I want to make sure and be particular about this. People have been saying, hey, you know, your guys are talking about the wrong V8. I think it's the LT, a recent vintage that has been having some problems. Are we getting more information about what has actually been going on with those

other than there seems to be an oiling problem with them? Well, yeah, it's lower end failing, either connecting rod or main bearings. I can't remember exactly which it is, but something to do with either or a combination of things is either that the bearings themselves were of poor quality, perhaps sourced from a subpar supplier, and that problem may have been compounded by the use of these very, very, very light oils that don't leave a whole lot of margin for error when it comes to having not so great parts inside your engine. Yeah, the trend of the zero W, you know on the lower end, right? That kind of thing.

Yep, yep. And I've seen a few of them turn, torn down rather on YouTube channels, and yeah you're looking at main bearings. Main bearings which I mean yeah if there are problems with engines a lot of times you'll see them with connecting rods you get that because they're lighter bearings and they're rotating very quickly but the main bearings are usually beefy and I'm just looking at main bearings coming out of these vehicles that are just absolutely trashed. Just amazing. And you know this is specific to the 6.2 engine which is the most powerful version of that family.

There is also a 5.3-liter smaller displacement version, but it's not as powerful. And I think that that's a contributing factor. This engine, I think the rating on it is 420 horsepower, and I forget the foot pounds of torque, but it's a lot of power, and it's taxed to move a big heavy vehicle. So all of that load on something

that's a little bit marginal or sketchy, you know, and the results are pretty predictable. Yeah, and they're saying I guess if it's not ticking then put thick oil in it. Can you imagine that is like back in the day you remember when they would tell people put motor honey in it it'll cure your problem. I remember that too. Put the Lucas in it or whatever, right? You know, the thiccener or STP. It's going to cause other problems because you know the oiling system in a lot of these engines it powers the variable cam or valve timing system and so if you start using the thicker oil you may have other problems. It's just a debacle and the right thing and I think the long-term right thing

for General Motors to do would be to buy back the vehicles and just eat the loss and try to salvage their reputation. I don't know about you but I'd be rather irritated if I had spent $100,000 for a brand new Cadillac Escalade and the thing needed a new engine a month after I bought it. Yeah and most importantly of all even if you do have a good engine in it or you have a replacement motor which is going to be okay, the cars the vehicles are tarred with that image and and what's the resale going to be like on them, right? It's going to be less and you know somebody should be given a check. The people

deserve a check for that. It's just not right. You know you've been defrauded in a way in my opinion. All right, Eric Peters, epautos.com. Eric, always appreciate the talk. So you have the Infiniti QX80 up on the site. What are you going to do for next week? Well, bear with me, Bill. It's going to be another cross. Just updated, 2025 Subaru Forester is coming tomorrow. You know, speaking of Subaru, I saw yesterday on Highway 238 when I was going through Jacksonville, I saw something which has made me smile. It was one of the oldest Brats that I had ever seen. Oh, I love those things. The Brat, and we're talking about one of the most early models of it, someone has one, and it looks pretty well worn, but I was just thinking, gosh, what a fun vehicle that was and probably couldn't be made now.

You know, you can't literally couldn't. You know, one of the hallmarks, one of the things that made that vehicle so neat was it had a pair of rear mounted jump seats that were bolted to the bed. Can you imagine the ululations that would emanate from the safety cult today if a manufacturer put something like that out on the market? Yeah and that's why you have another article up there, must read now, the irony and implications of safety technology. All right? Yep and I've got a couple of good videos to go along with it that I think people will find entertaining. All right keep on the road my friend we'll talk to you next

Wednesday. Thank you Bill, appreciate it. epautos.com, nine minutes after seven. Yeah, we ran a little bit long, but just good conversation when it happens. Okay, KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. We'll catch up on news, happy to take your calls too. Also going to do a Josephine County governmental catch up too, a little bit later in the hour.