A View From Across "the Pond"

Queen and Country, God and Guns

Guest Post by Revanchist

Though our stars tend to rise and fall in opposition through the years, your reputation for adventure, fearlessness and a legendary hunger for more lingers, and for the most part we find that admirable—no, more than that—we find it astonishing.

We may denigrate your American whisky (as well as your tendency to spell it with the Irish ‘e’) as you joke about our pasty faces and reliance upon dentures but we are cousins—if not always kissing—and share a rich common language, culture, customs and cuisine. We are more alike than different in nearly every respect but these: One, we are a constitutional monarchy and Two, despite what you may have heard we really, really envy you your guns.

America has always seemed the dangerous, glamourous older brother. You were the cowboy, the gangster, the astronaut and the comic book hero of our collective imaginations. You were the captain of the debate team, dating the homecoming queen and cruising through life in your ’55 Chrysler, one hand on the wheel, elbow on the door, working on that car tan.

The 40’s, 50’s and 60s were perhaps your finest hours. During World War II you were overpaid, oversexed and over here, breaker of hearts and hymens. The winds of heaven tousled with a loving hand your perfect hair, the sunlight glinted off your straight, white teeth. After the war you invented rock and roll and corn dogs and forty-seven million things to do with sugar including LSD, and we were dazzled.

While we were washing under our arms from basins of cold water in cold rooms in a bitterly cold country, you were inventing the hot tub. At the cinema, we would bask in shimmering visions of your highways and high fashions, your Endless Summer California culture, your glittering skyscrapers and flawless pavements, then trudge home and tune in the wireless for a Parliamentary debate on whether or not we could afford to clean centuries of coal smoke from our cracked and blackened buildings.

While you were bringing Caesar Salad, Martinis, Bananas Foster, Baked Alaska and the almighty, sacred Hamburger into the world, we anticipated the prospect of instant mashed potatoes finally becoming available down the local shops. We were unimaginably insular; it is within living memory that people in Britain believed spaghetti grew on trees.

Despite pretensions to polite behaviour we relished your films and television programmes like The Godfather, The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man and White Heat; more recently The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Deadwood—the more violent the better. We admired Clint Eastwood’s entire oeuvre. We devoured books like Lonesome Dove and the works of Steinbeck, Hemingway, Mark Twain and Raymond Chandler. Some of us even like bluegrass but those people are mainly in the looney bin. We treasure pretty much everything about you, but we’re British so you don’t hear us mention it very often.

Some Britons flinch when one suggests ever needing a gun in Old Blighty but don’t believe the lukewarm protestations. As the past few years have unfolded any remaining hesitation is apt to change, and soon. What we are beginning to remember is that for thousands of years everyone on this island was armed at all times with daggers—with swords if you could afford them, with throwing axes and longbows for truly special occasions. Personal defence was not just a choice, it meant accepting full responsibility for individual safety beyond city or castle walls. Defending ourselves with grace and strength and skill was something we once took great pride in.

Our downfall can be charted in three separate events:

Two hundred years ago, give or take a couple of decades, Sir Robert Peel established a full-time, professional and centrally-organised police force with the passing of The Metropolitan Police Act of 1829. It was not well received at the time; the public felt they did very well already with night watchmen and personal vigilance and besides, who was expected to pay for it? And why hadn’t the people been consulted? As things usually go between governments and their subjects, government had its way. We turned our weapons over to legally-sanctioned protectors and began to soften as a people.

In the midst of austerity after The Second World War, universal healthcare for all was rolled out to tremendous fanfare, followed by a steadily increasing system of welfare for mothers and children, later for pensioners, then veterans and civil servants. There was in the early days some shame associated with taking a government handout but practice makes perfect and before long anyone with a doctor’s note affirming a sprained wrist or dodgy knee could sign on and be supported for life. No one asked this time who would pay—no one wanted to hear the answer anyway. And we grew softer still.

Simultaneously, the government threw open its doors to the former colonies, or rather the brown colonies. Indians, Pakistanis and Caribbean Islanders answered the call to serve as a labour force and in short order became a demographic who never actually seemed to leave. Politicians had discovered the lucrative stand of virgin timber that was the immigrant class and promised them anything, even citizenship, in exchange for their vote. And vote they did, until their children grew up, stood for election themselves and were voted in by their own people on the colour of their skin. When native Britons asked why they were never consulted on allowing this flood of immigrants they were called racialists. Since Britain had just finished dealing Jerry a bally good hiding, any accusation of holding Nazi sentiments was social poison. Hence we softened our principles and muffled the warning of our hearts.

This is how we joined the invertebrates.

Now we are facing Islam, though not many know that what is happening today is just another battle in a very old war.

From the 16th to the 18th centuries upwards of two million Europeans were captured and sold as slaves in Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli. These weren’t people who were taken at sea but from their beds, in the dark of night in coastal towns and villages in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, up into Wales and along the west coast of Ireland, as well as throughout the Mediterranean. Why who would do such a thing, you may ask—the Barbary Pirates, of course—Muslims.

This carried on for two hundred years with only sporadic and half-hearted interruption. England talked a good game and now and then ransomed a lord or two out of slavery, but what’s a few missing Cornish fisherman, their wives and children here and there? It wasn’t until American ships began to be attacked and raided for goods and slaves that investors studied the situation and concluded, “You know, this could be bad for business,” and went to war.

First though, in the interest of fair play, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams made the perilous journey across the Atlantic to London for a sit-down with Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, the envoy from Tripoli. When asked what right the Barbary pirates had to force Americans into slavery, Jefferson recorded the ambassador’s answer in two letters and his personal diary:

“He replied that the right was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise”.

So, not a lot’s changed then.

In an Anglo-Dutch-American alliance three campaigns of The Barbary Wars were fought and the Muslims were at last subdued and colonised. Client kings and strong men were installed and until the present day Muslims have remained a benign tumour on civilised society.

It was a stunning victory and Francis Scott Key composed a song to mark the occasion. The original verses included:

And pale beamed the Crescent, its splendor obscur’d
By the light of the star-bangled flag of our nation.
Where each flaming star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turban’d head bowed to the terrible glare.

It wasn’t a huge hit at the time though after the War of 1812 he dusted it off, rewrote some of the more laboured lines and it eventually became the American National Anthem.

Were you taught all this in school? No? Nor I. Why is it that where our history intersects with Islam it always seems to either vanish like morning mist or become corrupted into making the Christian world into the bad guys and aggressors?

This brings us to the current mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, the platitude-puss Pakistani with links to Hamas, Al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. When he’s not scurrying along the baseboards he’s raring up on his two hind legs and sporting the most punchable, weapons-grade constipation face this side of the Atlantic. It doesn’t take an adept in Texas Hold’em to ascertain that Khan’s tell is one of a man who is eternally biting back what he really wants to say.

Within an hour of the latest cultural enrichment, Khan is on hand with fair-minded and reassuring statements like, Terrorism is part-and-parcel of living in a big city or London is one of the safest cities in the world. Meanwhile, the poisonous flood of piety and bloodlust threatens to drown us all.

What people in Britain are gradually coming to grips with is that Islam teaches that this life on earth is merely a stepping-stone to Paradise and that Muslims must stop at nothing to attain it. To paraphrase Kyle Reese, they can’t be bargained with, they can’t be reasoned with, they don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear and they absolutely will not stop, ever, until all non-Muslims are dead or enslaved.

For politicians, though, hope springs eternal; just fire the old PR firm and hire a new one. Hence, the RUN•HIDE•TELL campaign is off to a rocketing start. Of course, scruffy young tearaways were quick to deface the posters by substituting the last word to read RUN•HIDE•SUBMIT but the kings of PR, the Americans, have gone us one better with DRAW•AIM•SHOOT as the only viable response. We respect this, of course, because we love your guns.

In other news, on 28 May 2017, police sent a helicopter and combat-ready police to confiscate a karaoke machine from a backyard BBQ because the hosts played a song mocking Osama bin Laden. Bear in mind this was four days after bomb and bloodshed at a concert attended by teenaged girls in Manchester Arena. Several days after the karaoke caper, the horrific massacre on London Bridge took place. Clearly, prioritising threats could do with some work.

Our current PM, Barren Cat Lady, famously stated upon her election, “Brexit means Brexit.” We’re still waiting. After the London Bridge Massacre she said, “Enough is Enough.” At this rate she’ll probably say,”Potatoes are Potatoes,” next and the media will still stand up and applaud it.

But now I am just lobbing outrage darts at the page so I’ll wind this up.

Governments which no longer guarantee the security of their citizens are worthless, and those that disallow the right to defend oneself are worse than negligent, they are clearly dangerous to support in any way. People here are beginning to get this, but I still feel it’s too late to prevent the rivers of blood alluded to by the brilliant Enoch Powell, king of ‘racialists,’ true patriot and martyr.

As I write this it’s less than seventy-two hours till we march once more unto the polls to vote in an election that probably won’t make a bit of difference except to take our Brexit away for good. And yet it could also upset the entire apple cart as well. Such are the times we live in.

My American friends, you are surely aware that you don’t have to own a gun to fight like hell to retain your right to bear arms, as well as the freedom to play anything you damn well please on your karaoke machines. Preserve those rights, defend them, they are more precious than you know. Never sell them. Never soften.

They say a falling knife has no handle and yet our British politicians keep snatching it in mid-air, then expressing astonishment and dismay at the cuts on their hands.

Based upon past experience they’ll just carry on trying to catch it while the rest of us bleed to death.

This is an Incredibly prescient essay (but I guess this is normal, when you're staring down the barrel of a gun, hammer cocked, facing death).  Their (and our) politicians believe themselves to be insulated enough from a painful death to never have to speak of this truth and make the "uncivilized decision" that self-defense is a right and the logical extension of self defense is to completely eliminate a mortal threat.  But WE, the people, understand that their own self-defense is to cow-tow, neigh, to court the very disease that WILL KILL US.  

Hence, the rise of Geert Wilders, UKIP/Brexit/Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and Donald Trump/Make America Great Again.

Sadiq Khan is the cool immigrant that like Barack Obama, was supposed to heal white people of their RACISM. You'll notice that the immigrant's own racism is never seriously questioned despite sitting under the teachings of a Jeremiah Wright who implores GOD to Condemn (Damn) America or an ally of the Muslim Culture who believes he's found a way to destroy the Judeo-Christian culture of the west, "white privilege" and the "patriarchy."  You'll also notice that both of the dark skinned "leaders" don't and won't lead because true leadership is directly opposed to the Islamic Culture that requires submission.

The freedom loving Red Necks have escaped from their cloistered little prisons to Speak Truth to Power.  And on their faces, that gleeful smirk that all of the politicians hate, have been worn by the few politicians who are in touch with the populous' of their countries and actually believe what is commonly dismissed as tripe by politicians who believe that they're cool and smarter than the rest of us.:  Ronald Reagan, George Wallace, Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Lady Margaret Thatcher, Nigel Farage, Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen all come to mind.

What I Learned From Being Downsized After 25 years of Service toMy Former Employer

If you've just been laid off or downsized after a long career, I offer this as an encouragement to you.  Colonel Harlan Sanders had just gotten successful with his restaurant (on US 25 in Kentucky) about the time that I-75 was opened, siphoning off the vast majority of vehicle traffic that might stop at his restaurant to eat.  He sold the real estate part of the restaurant and took his winning recipe on the road and shopped it around, eventually starting Kentucky Fried Chicken, franchising it to a restaurateur in Utah, when he was 65.

  So, you understand that the end of your career at your current company is coming.  If you want to hear my story, here's what I learned through my experience:

• If you want to "re-apply"for your "old (reclassified) job," go for it!  But consider this:  "Do you really want to work for these guys again (or any more)?"  What could be better than going through the process, being chosen as the "best candidate?" Turning down the position?  Telling the people who will choose, "No, I don't think so.  Not for the money you're currently paying me?"  Nope.  Probably the severance that has been offered and knowing that you've left something that aggravates you on a daily basis.
• We should work to live and should never live to work.  Most of the time, we're just too damn busy making a living or raising a family to really separate the two. Take a month off and decompress.  Visit places that you've wanted to see.  Play golf, plan a weekend alone with your wife or take a motorcycle journey.  You'll feel amazing and I guarantee that except for the close acquaintances you've made at at your soon to be former employer, you'll be SO GLAD THAT YOU'RE GONE.
• You will go through the "Five Stages of Grief," just as if you experienced the death of a family member or that of  a close friend.  This is the end of your career at where you worked, but you can and should go on.  Get up every morning and do your normal "before work" routine.  Keep yourself in the habit that was "normal," until you find your new "normal."
  
• Find yourself a support group.  Change (when you're forced to change, without any input) is difficult.  Consider you a close acquaintance, who can be available, if you just need someone to speak with and listen to you.
• Look at the bright side:  You were paid to do something that few others could do (after all, you got the job!).  Be thankful (difficult at first, easier as time goes by).

• Consider that if you didn't have to work to what would you do each and every day?  Can you actually find a vocation that can incorporate that goal?
  
• After choosing what you would like to do (something that you enjoy), decide do you need to work?  If so, can it be part time or does it need to be full time?  Do you need money, benefits or both?  Or do you just need to work to have a reason to get up in the morning?
• Do you want to live in your current home or downsize your home to something smaller? 
  
• Where do you want to live?  If you and your wife could choose anywhere on the planet to live, where would that be?

    With that being said, I'm doing something that is completely different.  But, let me tell you what I did to position myself for the future:  When I was forced out, I took my Retirement and 401k and rolled them into an IRA account.  I wouldn't take ANY MONEY THAT WAS OFFERED (I was offered 13 weeks severance pay, where as everyone else was offered 1 paycheck for every year of service.  I had 25.42 years of service, so I should have gotten 25 full and 1 partial paycheck.).  So I bit the bullet, took the penalty for early withdrawal (sounds like a rule that a woman made up!) and cashed out most of my retirement, but left my 401k alone.  Taking this kept me from getting almost any Unemployment (maybe $125 per month, IF I'd just taken any "payoff" from them to keep my mouth shut and promise not to file suit, but $0.00 for taking the amount of money that I took out of my IRA - with takes withheld, penalties for early withdrawal, etc.  All of that money was counted as income.).  It also kept our daughter from getting any financial aid for her first year of college.  (At the time, we weren't thinking how our finances could affect the kids college needs.  Hindsight is 20/20).

    Then I paid EVERYTHING OFF - the house, my loans to the local Credit Union, old bills to the Doctor's practice (and strangely enough, they've recently found more from back in 2013 and 2014).  Last year, I paid the Feds an additional $8000 in income taxes for the right to take my own money to do this.  The state got some more tax money as well.  In the long run, that was all right, as I got about 2/3rds of that back in tax returns this year. 

    However, this has left me debt free.  It's amazing to see just how little it takes to live if you don't owe anything to anyone.  The world can now kiss my ass, as I just owe what it takes to live.  I'm taking a 72t monthly distribution of what I have left of my retirement and 401k.  It's not much, but it pays the monthly bills (water, electricity, gas, cell phones (Susan's and mine), land line and internet and maybe gas for both of the cars and I still come out ahead with an annual return of about 6% on my balance.

    Here are some of the things I've done since leaving my former career:

1. For the first year after I left, besides "desperately" looking for a job, I helped my Dad rebuild the house where he grew up in and that he currently rents out.  It was and is great spending time with him.  He's 86 and won't be here long (nothing really wrong with him, but when you're old, death comes swiftly.). 
2. I've driven a school bus as a substitute, with no benefits and at $12.60/hour. 
3. In the summer of 2016, I worked at the truck shop of a local utility for $20/hour (plenty of overtime) for about 2 months, as the Storekeeper/Inventory Control Manager/Buyer, until I figured out that they weren't serious about giving me the tools to keep the inventory secure and I found out that my manager was another "privileged jerk," who thinks that he's better and smarter than anyone that works for him, just like my former manager did.  Having made the decision never to work for someone who made fun of others again, I chose to quit BEFORE my 90 day probation period was up.
4. I went back to drive the bus as a Contract Driver for most of this year (basically for insurance for the family -which cost me 2/3rds of my 60 hours x $13.60 per 2 weeks paycheck.***SIDEBAR*** We did without the year before and seriously, we didn't miss it - and when you consider the 30% discount that we generally got for paying cash, the cost of insurance - before taxes, the cost of deductibles, the cost of co-pays and the cost of name brand drugs, the costs of no insurance wasn't significantly higher than when we had it, but we had no significant events either - e.g. kidney stones, broken ankles, Emergency Room visits, et. al.). 
5. I got on at the local logistics delivery company in November as a seasonal employee, working as a Package Handler in the evening.  I made it through the seasonal employment, well enough to be kept on for permanent employment, but I had a "second trial period and the seasonal work did not count towards my seniority date or retirement. 

    Since I enjoy driving, my goal is to drive either a delivery van (or maybe even go all the way to a tractor trailer driver, requiring a Class A CDL, with Haz-Mat and a Doubles Endorsements).  

       So, now I'm currently working part time for a ridiculously low pay rate - with overtime after 5 hours - since November 16, 2016).  I've lost 35 lbs. since the beginning of summer, from a 42" waist to a 38" waist (now, I can pull my old pants down over my ass like any ghetto thug....).  Although the pay is incredibly low (currently $10.20/hour) but, it's the way in, to achieve my goal as a delivery driver (you have to start from inside as a package handler - full time delivery drivers make GOOD MONEY).  I've passed the "classroom" training for being a driver/service provider and am in the queue for my  "in truck" training.  I'm taking a longer path as a Temporary Driver filling in as necessary, where you return to package handling when you're not driving.  The only question I have is whether my 56 year old back, knees and ankles can withstand getting on and off of a step van 300+ times per day.  If my body is too old to handle the full time driving position, I can still return to a part time position.  You can't return to part-time Package Handler, once you're a Full-Time Driver.

        I found that it's been great to do Blue Collar work again (getting back to my roots at least 18 years prior to today).  For the most part, my upper back is better than it's been in many, many years of Office Work, sitting at a desk.  I am a member of the Teamsters Union.  My seniority date is January 16, 2017.  I'm currently working about 5 hours/day in the evening and I was driving the bus about 6 hours per day and sleeping between each of the 3 hour shifts and about 4 to 5 hours each night (this is not the same as sleeping for 7 to 8 continuous hours, despite the amount of time being the same and quite often I would "bounce" rather than sleep between shifts.).  I quit that job in early May (primarily due to a chronic lack of sleep, but I'd gotten bumped to a part time Substitute when I took the class, losing my insurance and forcing me to purchase insurance through COBRA.  At that point, I had no reason to continue as an employee.).

       I see the trucks I designed and spec'ed from my old job vehicles EVERY DAY, as the company, which decals those vehicles is directly across from where I work.  I'm still proud of the job I did with my teams (Lenny P., Jery H., Marty B., Brian and the guys on the floor of the shop that made vehicle plans into reality, "Super Todd," Rusty, and "Haz-Matt" at my old company - these guys gave me the input to aggregate their needs concerns and innovations into a complete vehicle specification that fulfilled their driver technician's needs.)  But on day one of Severance, I made the decision that "these were no longer my trucks."  They were just my design, based on everyone's needs.

I miss my close acquaintances at my old job, but won't ever miss working at there or in my old department there.  The company unwittingly did me a HUGE favor:  They allowed me to become debt free and leave a job (that changed from its original mandate) that I hated!  And for that I will give thanks!

A Former Fleet Manager on Jalopnik's, Andrew P. Collins' rant about Pickup Trucks that are over 8500 lbs. Gross Vehicle Weight Rating

Yesterday in Jalopnik, Andrew P. Colins acted as if he was reviewing the new Ford Super Duty Pickups (and touched on the Super Duty Cab and Chassis), but instead, chose to loose his mind and went on a rant about Trucks over 8500 lbs. GVWR and the need for the government to publish fuel economy standards for these vehicles.  The rant was brought about over the new 48 gallon fuel tank that is available on Ford's Super Duty trucks and what the approximate range of the truck is.  With these numbers, you can "back into" the fuel economy.

While Mr. Collins has the luxury of being a Journalist, I 've been a Fleet Manager for a larger utility company, specifying things like Tare Weight, Gross Vehicle Weight Ratings, and Gross COMBINATION Weight Ratings for Class 1 - 7 trucks that keep energy moving to its end users.

Before I could get the Operations Department what they needed in a truck (choosing a utility body to hold tools and supplies), the Safety Department the features on vehicles that will protect drivers from being injured, and protect others around these vehicles from being injured due to collision (e.g. back-up alarms, sensors, and cameras), I have to take into consideration other things such as:

• What is the maximum payload for the vehicle, 
• What are the worst conditions the vehicle will see as far as gradient, road surface and payload are concerned
• Will the vehicle have to go off road?
• Will it have to tow a trailer and equipment in addition to its usual payload?

These are the basic requirements to know about a vehicle chassis and its intended use.

• Will the driver be required to have a Medical Card/What laws the driver must follow (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards or Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act), 
• Will/can an individual driver pass a DOT Physical? 
• Will his/her 2 year DOT Physical Card be shortened by non-Insulin Controlled Diabetes Mellitus, Sleep Apanea, Hypertension or Heart Disease?, 
• Will the driver be disqualified from driving a Commercial Motor Veicle (with a GVWR of 10,0001 lbs or greater) because of Insulin Dependant Type 1 or Type 2 Diabetes?   

(The reader will note that most of these "diseases" are associated with workers of older age and  have the ability to disqualify the expert technicians, who have the most experience and are (in theory) the best people that a company has in the field.)
 
These are regulatory requirements relating to the GVWR and Tare Weight of the Vehicle, related to driver qualifications and driver safety.  After this, you can design the upfit of the vehicle, in order to make it the mobile tool box the driver/technician needs to allow productive work.

And working at a utility, the company that employed me was considered (by the Federal Government) to be an energy producer, requiring us to purchase and use the alternative fuel for a required percentage of Alternative Fueled Vehicles (even though we only TRANSPORTED the energy to the consumer - this rule is about as silly as calling the railroads or trucking companies Energy Producers and forcing them to use alternative fuels to run their trains or trucks).  These regulations bring their own set of problems whether the vehicles are fueled with Liquid Propane Gas, Compressed Natural Gas, Liquified Natural Gas or Batteries, as each system has to have it's own real estate and lessen the payload on the truck, each has it's own special needs in order to produce power to move the vehicle.  Natural Gas Vehicles need to have Heated High Pressure Regulators to keep the regulator orifice from freezing, constricting the orifice and leaning out the mixture to the point of misfire, which destroys the Catalytic Converters of the vehicle, as well as a 3-year inspection of their high pressure fuel tanks.  Propane Powered Vehicles need to have heated fuel rails to prevent the injectors from freezing, when the Liquid Propane Gas is injected into the intake manifold.  Battery powered vehicles pose their own problems with extreme weight and heat generated during the charging and discharging of the batteries.

I ALWAYS specified the largest fuel tank(s) available for any of my company's trucks, as the less time that a driver/technician is filling a vehicle with fuel (including the trip to the filling station), the more time he's working.  So let's discount the rant about the size of the Fuel Tank.

The sweet spot for heavier pickup trucks is where Ford has been since about 2008, with their 3/4 ton truck at 10,000 lbs. GVWR (GM followed along at 9600 lbs and Dodge/RAM followed back at 9200 lbs.).  Above this weight, any drivers would have to get and keep a DOT Medical Card as governed by the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act.  This was followed in 2013 by a new FMVSS regulations on vehicle TARE WEIGHT from 8000 lbs.to 7840 lbs.), as Ford's competitions secondary completed vehicles (where a utility body is commonly added) were sometimes overloaded by their new owners, past the point of where their brakes and suspension could keep up with the loaded vehicle and were involved in wrecks.

So, just how does Mr. Collins want to measure the fuel economy of this type of vehicle?  Does he intend to be the sole arbiter for the individual needs of a buyer or for a company?

The job for which the vehicle is purchased must be the sole determining factor for the purchase of a truck. It's a business decision, whether it's a "home business" of pulling horses or a race car around, or an incorporated business that allows an inspector to cruise the right of way on his company's energy delivery system.

Different Utility bodies have different aerodynamic characteristics, leading to more drag and poorer fuel economy.  Likewise, different trailers suffer with the same issue.  So a one aspect will not fit all in evaluating Fuel Economy (or setting standards) for these vehicles.

Environmental regulatory issues also lead to the poor fuel economy of pickup trucks.  As engines are now tuned to produce fewer oxides of nitrogen, which is thought to be a primary contributor to acid rain, engines are no longer allowed to "lug" or pull very hard at low rpms. This lugging allows better fuel economy, but produces the oxides of nitrogen.  So the engines' power bands are moved upwards, using more fuel to create less of one type of pollution.  As a result, a 3/4 ton pickup, that's bed has been replaced by a 96" utility service body, feels sluggish and underpowered off of the line in normal acceleration, despite new transmissions with 8 forward gears.  It feels much like an older heavier Muscle Car that someone has swapped a higher performance camshaft into, with a "soggy," sluggish acceleration until the vehicle "gets up on the cam (in the rpm range in which the camshaft operates with maximum performance -which is beyond the cruising rpms)."  This is explained at the 1:15 second mark, and dramatically illustrated by this The Fast Lane Truck video, over the whole video as the truck and trailer pulls the "Ike Gauntlet" through the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado.  The RAM's 6.4 Hemi makes more Horse Power and Torque than the Chevrolet, but the Silverado beats the RAM with the same load (could it possibly be the gearing in the transmission?).  Additionally, the Ethanol laced gasoline that we are required by law to use, contains fewer BTUs and requires more fuel to make the same power as "pure gasoline."

To mitigate this issue, Ford has now gone to their 3.5 Liter Eco-Boost, Twin Turbocharged, Direct Injected, Twin Independent Cam Timing System in their pickup trucks (and are expanding into their Explorer EL and Navigator SUVs), but overall, the real world Fuel Economy between the 3.5 Liter Eco-Boost V-6 and their older Single Overhead Cam V-8s shows little difference, if any.  Performance is equivalent to marginally better with the Eco-Boost V-6.

I suspect, as GAWKER owns JALOPNIK, that it's left leaning viewpoints about (radical, forced) environmentalism, our hydrocarbon consumption and our carbon footprint are making it through the editorial process, telling us what we can/should drive as good stewards of the environment.