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Trump is shocked that Carrier took him literally. That doesn’t bode well for his many promises. The Washington Post / December 1, 2016 One of the best explanations of the Donald Trump 2016 phenomenon is this, via Salena Zito: "The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally." But apparently some supporters took him both seriously and literally. And Trump, rather amazingly, is surprised by this. During his attempted victory lap in Indiana on Thursday celebrating the fact that Carrier opted to keep jobs in the state thanks to $7 million in incentives, Trump candidly admitted that he didn't even remember having promised to keep Carrier's jobs in the state and insisted that he hadn't actually meant to make that promise. He said his mention of keeping Carrier's jobs was meant to signify other manufacturing companies that might be tempted to move jobs outside the country — as Carrier long planned to do — in the future, and that he didn't even realize he had said it until he saw on the news that Carrier's workers expected him to make it happen. "About a week ago, I was watching the nightly news," Trump said. "But they were doing a story on Carrier. And I say, 'Wow, that's something. I want to see that.'" Trump recalled a "handsome" employee who was interviewed for the piece who didn't seem worried about the company's plans to move production to Mexico. "He said something to the effect, 'No we're not leaving, because Donald Trump promised us that we're not leaving,'" Trump said. "And I never thought I made that promise — not with Carrier. I made it for everybody else. I didn't make it really for Carrier. And I said, 'What's he saying?'" Trump went on: "And they played my statement. I said, 'Carrier will never leave.' But that was a euphemism. I was talking about Carrier, like all other companies from here on in. Because they made the decision a year and a half ago. But he believed that that was — and I could understand it." He was apparently referring to this Nov. 14 NBC Nightly News clip: Carrier a/c became a rallying cry for Trump on the campaign trail. Now employees are counting on him to fulfill his promise. Watch @kevtibs. pic.twitter.com/vS4fgi8Zfg — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) November 15, 2016 Here is the exact comment Trump made back in August: We're bringing jobs back to our country. We're not going to let Carrier leave. Here's the thing: You can make an argument that Trump was perhaps speaking more generally and using Carrier as an example of the type of company that would no longer be leaving under his presidency. But this is a statement he made while in Indiana — in front of people who had a very strong interest in taking him literally. They did, and yet he was apparently surprised by that. Any studied politician would know that if you are in Indiana and you say Carrier won't leave, you had better mean those exact words. That doesn't bode well for the hundreds of promises Trump has made that some highly interested stakeholders may have taken very seriously. Zito's overall statement may hold true — that people read into Trump what they want and that they didn't take everything he said 100 percent literally. But for everyone who voted for Trump, you can bet there's something they hope he was being very literal about — whether prosecuting Hillary Clinton, building a wall, taxing outsourcers (which Trump pledged to do yet again Thursday) or repealing Obamacare. There's quite simply no way Trump will ever fulfill all (or even most) of those promises, and perhaps his supporters will understand that. But many likely won't. For the first time, the president-elect has been asked to cash a check that his mouth wrote. There will be more.

Trump threatens ‘consequences’ for U.S. firms that relocate offshore The Washington Post / November 1, 2016 President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday warned that the government would punish companies seeking to move operations overseas with “consequences,” setting the stage for an unusual level of intervention by the White House into private enterprise. Trump’s remarks came as he triumphantly celebrated a decision by the heating and air-conditioning company Carrier to reverse its plans to close a furnace plant here and move to Mexico, helping keep 1,100 [of 1,400] jobs in Indianapolis. About 800 of those were manufacturing positions that had been scheduled to move south of the border. An additional 300 to 600 Carrier positions at that plant, as well as roughly 700 jobs at another facility in the area, will still be cut. Under the terms of the agreement, which have not been finalized, Carrier would receive a $7 million tax incentive package from the state of Indiana [i.e. Indiana taxpayers] in exchange for making a $16 million investment in the facility — although Trump said Thursday that amount would probably be higher. In remarks delivered inside the Carrier facility, the president-elect said more companies will decide to stay in the United States because his administration will lower corporate taxes and reduce regulations. Trump also warned that businesses that decide to go abroad will pay a price through a border tax on imported goods. “Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences,” Trump declared Thursday. “Not gonna happen. It’s not gonna happen.” Trump had no plans to intervene in the Carrier case until he watched an evening news segment featuring a worker who expressed confidence that the ­president-elect would save the Indianapolis plant. Trump had vowed during the campaign, “We’re not going to let Carrier leave.” Known for his tendency to react to TV news reports, Trump said he immediately picked up the phone and called Gregory Hayes, the chief executive of Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies. “I said, ‘Greg, you gotta help us out here. You gotta do something,’ ” Trump recalled Thursday. Standing in front of a wall blanketed with Carrier’s blue-and-white logo, Trump lavished praise on the company for its decision, promising that the sales of its air-conditioning units would soar “because of the goodwill you have engendered.” Trump’s determination to use a mixture of incentives and tariffs to keep jobs from going overseas represents a sharp break with the free-market wing of the Republican Party, including senior congressional leaders. On Thursday, top Republicans offered careful responses to the Carrier deal. “I think it’s pretty darn good that people are keeping their jobs in Indiana instead of going to Mexico,” said House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), emphasizing that the party is hoping to pass comprehensive tax changes that would be a boon to all businesses. Ryan has repeatedly criticized President Obama for allegedly trying to pick “winners and losers” in his stimulus package and other economic policies. [Why lots of people think Trump’s deal to save 1,000 Indiana jobs was a bad idea] The Carrier deal was sharply criticized by some conservatives, who viewed it as government distortion of free markets, as well as liberals, who derided it as corporate welfare. “I think it sets a pretty bad precedent,” said Dan Ikenson, director of the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “I don’t think we should be addressing issues like this on an ad hoc basis. It certainly incentivizes companies to make a stink and say: ‘We’re going to leave, too. What are you going to do for me?’ ” Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, accused Trump of reversing course on a pledge to punish companies that outsource manufacturing jobs. In the case of Carrier, Trump had said he would force the company to “pay a damn tax” if it closed the plant. [Instead of paying a tax, Carrier will get $7 million of free taxpayer money, AND 1,100 Carrier workers in Indiana are still seeing their jobs relocated to Mexico] “Instead of a damn tax, the company will be rewarded with a damn tax cut,” Sanders wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post. “Wow! How’s that for standing up to corporate greed?” Privately, some business leaders were also unnerved. “It is uncharted territory for a president-elect to get involved personally in social engineering with a single company,” said an adviser to major corporations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order not to anger the incoming administration. Now that Carrier “is no longer the political piñata,” the adviser added, chief executives “are asking, ‘Who’s next?’ ” Timothy Bartik, an economist at the nonpartisan W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Mich., said that vague threats from the ­president-elect could stymie corporate investment as firms seek to avoid decisions that could draw the ire of the White House. “What are these consequences? Who’s in charge of them?” Bartik asked. “One of the worst things for corporate investment is uncertainty,” he added. “You would hope that the government would not add to the uncertainty.” [Trump is shocked that Carrier workers took him literally. That doesn’t bode well for his many promises.] But Trump said Thursday that he planned to personally call other companies that are contemplating moving operations out of the country, even, as he said, if critics felt such outreach was not “presidential.” “I think it’s very presidential. And if it’s not presidential, that’s okay because I actually like doing it,” Trump said. “But we’re going to have a lot of phone calls made to companies when they say they’re leaving this country, because they’re not going to leave this country.” Trump’s aggressive stance toward outsourcing comes despite the fact that his family companies profit from low-wage laborers around the globe who produce Trump-branded merchandise. His daughter Ivanka has her own separate brand of jewelry, shoes and clothing, much of which is produced in China. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly attacked specific companies for outsourcing, drawing huge cheers from his crowds. He blasted Ford Motor Co. for opening factories in Mexico, criticized a U.S. drug company that moved its headquarters offshore and said he would not longer eat Oreo cookies because its maker, Nabisco, moved part of its production to Mexico. He also mocked politicians who offered low-interest loans and tax abatements to keep factories in the United States.[as he has done with Carrier] “These companies don’t even need the money, most of them,” he said at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in October. “They take the money. There were a couple instances where geniuses with great lawyers gave them money, and then they moved anyway.” Trump repeatedly pointed to Carrier’s planned move to Mexico as a prime example of the perils of globalization: The company told Indiana officials it would save $65 million a year by shifting production to a 645,000-square-foot factory under construction outside Monterrey, where wages are far lower. Carrier rejected a tax incentive package the state offered earlier in the year to keep the Indianapolis plant open. But that was before Trump won the election and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence became the vice president-elect. Some state officials also noted that the federal government is a major customer of Carrier’s parent, United Technologies. United Technologies’ sales to the government have dropped in recent years, from $6.3 billion in 2013 to $5.6 billion last year, making up about 10 percent of its total revenue. Note: The “Department of Energy awarded Carrier $5.1 million in clean energy tax credits in December 2013 for its Indianapolis facility. Carrier at that time said it planned to use the money to expand production at its Indianapolis facility to meet increasing demand for its eco-friendly condensing gas furnace product line.

A year after San Bernardino attack, investigators still seek answers Reuters / December 1, 2016 One year after two Islamic militants shot dead 14 people in a massacre in Southern California, FBI investigators are still seeking to answer key questions such as the location of the married couple's computer hard drive and whether anyone helped them. Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, opened fire on Dec. 2 during a party and training session for San Bernardino County employees, who were co-workers of Farook, injuring 22 people in addition to the 14 killed. It was one of the deadliest attacks by militants in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks. Authorities have said that U.S.-born Farook and Malik, a native of Pakistan who lived most of her life in Saudi Arabia, were inspired by Islamic extremism. The couple, who were parents of a 6-month-old daughter, both died in a shootout with police four hours after the massacre. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is still seeking to determine if anyone assisted the couple, such as in financing the attack or helping to plan for it. The FBI has not charged anyone with providing support to Farook and Malik. The FBI is still hoping to find the hard drive from the couple's computer. A search by FBI divers in the weeks after the attack of a small lake at a park where Farook and Malik stopped in the hours after the shooting failed to turn up the hard drive. In addition, the FBI still has an 18-minute gap in accounting for the whereabouts of Farook and Malik in the hours they spent driving around San Bernardino in an SUV after the attack. The couple left three pipe bombs at the center, in an apparent attempt to harm emergency workers caring for the wounded. The couple approached the center after the attack and might have been trying to detonate one of the devices remotely.

Associated Press / May 15, 2016 Former London mayor and leading Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson sparked fury Sunday after he compared the European Union (EU) to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. Johnson made his remarks in an article in the Sunday Telegraph in which he warned 'that while bureaucrats in Brussels are using "different methods" from the Nazi dictator, they share the aim of unifying Europe under one authority'. Johnson said that the past 2,000 years of European history had been characterized by repeated attempts to unify Europe under a single government. He says the EU's "disastrous" failures have fuelled tensions between member states and allowed Germany to grow in power, "take over" the Italian economy and "destroy" Greece. "Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.” “But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe." "There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void."

What suspension is under the back of your MH, ST34 or SS34? It appears a bit low. I assume it was originally a tractor.

What is the model and VIN on the truck title ? New rails don't come stamped. The dealer has to stamp them, but some don't. For parts and service, dealers reference the vehicle identification plate on the door, which should be swapped over to any new/used replacement cab. Wire brush and look for the 1QHA number, and FAW model number, stamped on the front of the axle I-beam. Was this truck originally a tractor?

Volkswagen Truck & Bus Brazil (Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus) has announced the largest investment package that the company has ever seen. Volkswagen Truck & Bus’s Brazilian commercial vehicle brand is set to plow EUR 420 million (US$448.7 million) over the next five years into the steady renewal of its product portfolio, modernization of its plant in Resende, and the development of its connectivity services. Andreas Renschler, CEO of Volkswagen Truck & Bus and the member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG responsible for commercial vehicle activities, spoke about the reasons behind the investment, saying: “We believe – despite the current market situation – that Brazil is an important market for trucks and buses. It has always been a key market for the German industry and it will be again. I am confident that the Brazilian economy has bottomed out and will recover again in the next few years. In order to be prepared for this, we are now taking money into our hands to be able to continue to offer excellent products and state-of-the-art production. The entire Latin America region plays a major role in our growth strategy.” Volkswagen Truck & Bus Brazil has been the leader in Brazil’s commercial truck market for 13 consecutive years. At the Resende plant, its employees work together with suppliers in a modular production system sharing tasks. Roberto Cortes, CEO of Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus, considers this a crucial advantage in the tough economic situation at present: “We have been selling Volkswagen-branded trucks and buses for 35 years and our plant in Resende has been around for 20 years. It is only through our innovative production concept which sees us work together under one roof with seven partner firms that we have been able to join forces to take the necessary action to overcome the current crisis and equip ourselves to deal with an upturn that is sure to come.” Renschler took the opportunity to emphasize that: “German companies think long-term. We might not be the first ones to venture into new markets. But wherever we are, we persevere in difficult times too. Brazil in particular is a country with which we enjoy very successful business relations that go back decades and that will continue for a long time yet. That is why we are strengthening our commitment at Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus further.” .

TBD (To be determined)...................https://nikolamotor.com/one#specs The minute I heard Ryder mentioned, I thought small start-up............David Hobbensiefken and his R-100 Paymaster. http://iowa80truckingmuseum.com/exhibits-list/ryder-paymaster-r-100-cummins-vt-903/75/

WCTI 12 / November 30, 2016 A Camp Lejeune Marine officer is charged with sexually abusing a 6-year-old child. Col. Daniel H. Wilson, 55, of Mason, Washington, assigned to the II Marine Expeditionary Force, was charged on Nov. 15. He is charged with three counts of alleged sexually assaulting and/or abusing a child (Article 120b of the Uniform Code of Military Justice), four specifications of Article 128, (assault consummated by battery on a child under the age of 16 years); one specification of Article 92, (failure to obey a general order or regulation), and nine specifications of Article 133, (conduct unbecoming of an officer). Wilson, who has been in the Marine Corps since June 1981, was removed from his post and reassigned to administrative duties after the investigation began. The allegations of sexual misconduct remain under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (Carolina Field Office). An Article 32 hearing has been directed for the near future. .

What is the model and VIN on the truck's title paper ? Look for the 1QHA number stamped into the front of the axle beam under one of the spring seats.

KTLA 5 / November 30, 2016 A 72-year-old convicted rapist was sentenced to 520 years in state prison for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl he was babysitting at her Canyon Country home last year, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday. John Adam Whitsell was convicted last month of four counts of lewd act upon a child, four counts of oral copulation or sexual penetration with child 10 years old or younger, and one count of forcible oral copulation of a victim under 14. Whitsell was babysitting a family member when he abused her between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2015. He was arrested Nov. 10, 2015, and has not been released since then. In two separate cases, Whitsell was convicted in 1971 in Louisiana of two counts of aggravated rape. He served seven years in prison for those convictions. .

Associated Press / December 1, 2016 A Florida woman was indicted on a murder charge Wednesday after authorities say she strangled her one-year-old daughter with a string of Halloween lights then blamed it on her two-year-old son. The Seminole County Grand Jury issued an indictment against Krisen DePasquale, 27, on charges of first-degree premeditated murder and aggravated child abuse for the November 10 death of baby Mia Rice. Kristen DePasquale told police that when she stepped out of the shower on Nov. 10, she found the child unconscious in the living room, the lights wrapped around her neck. But a police detective noted that the bathroom shower was dry and so was the towel that DePasquale said she had used. Also, her feet were dirty, and there was makeup on her face. Police say the medical examiner determined an adult type force placed pressure onto little Mia’s neck for a least four minutes before she died. The father of the children is in prison on unrelated charges. .

KETV / December 1, 2016 A 14-year-old boy is charged with the fatal shooting of his mother and younger brother while they were sleeping, according to authorities in New Stanton, Pennsylvania. At 6.53am, Jacob made a 911 call falsely telling a dispatcher that his father had shot his mother and brother. 'Why didn't he kill me? I need help,' Remaley was quoted in the affidavit as telling the operator. He then hung up the phone, but called back a short time later, loudly accusing the operator of hanging up on him and demanding that an ambulance be sent to his home. Jacob Remaley finally admitted to shooting his mother, Dana Remaley, and his 8-year-old brother Caleb, telling police that he used his father's gun and would have shot his dad too if had not already left to go to work at a VA hospital. "He woke up that morning, went to an area in the kitchen, recovered a firearm from atop the refigerator -- that firearm wasn't loaded at the time," Trooper Stephen Limani said. "He got a magazine, loaded that firearm, walked into his mother's room, and -- from a very short distance -- fired one round into her forehead, subsequently killing her, and then walked into his brother's room and repeated the same act." Dana Remaley, 46, worked at West Hempfield Middle School and Caleb was a third-grade student at Stanwood Elementary. Police said both were found dead Wednesday morning inside the family's home. The firearm Jacob used was a Ruger LCP .380 Auto handgun. On Wednesday, Jacob Remaley was charged as an adult with two counts each of criminal homicide and third-degree murder. David Remaley's father said his 52-year-old son is a US Army veteran who had served in Iraq, and who is now employed as a master plumber at the VA Hospital in Pittsburgh. Mr Remaley had a license to carry and had a handgun on him at all times, and at least one other firearm at home. .

KSL Broadcasting, Salt Lake City / December 1, 2016 A 15-year-old Mueller Park Junior High School student casually walked into a science class shortly after school began Thursday and without saying a word, fired a blast from a shotgun. "I heard it cock, and then I heard the shot go off and I looked up and there was a big hole in the ceiling," said fellow student Dan Fowers. "He looked angry when he came in, like just kind of an angry face, and he just shot at the ceiling without an explanation. He didn’t really say anything," added student Calvin Smith. The student was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun, a .9 mm handgun and two boxes of ammunition — one for each weapon. Moments after firing the round, he was disarmed by his own father and mother who had gone to the school that morning looking for their son because they were concerned about his behavior that day. "They were (also) concerned that there were weapons missing from the house," said Bountiful Police Chief Tom Ross. Investigators say the guns the boy took are normally locked in his parents' safe. He used a long coat to conceal the shotgun as he walked from his house into the school. There were 26 students and a teacher in the classroom the boy walked into. A student and the teacher immediately attempted to talk to the boy, causing him to pause. "I believe those seconds played a big role in the outcome," Ross said. "The suspect did put the gun toward his neck and his intentions may have been to commit suicide." The pause allowed time for the boys' parents — who were two classrooms away at the time looking for him — to run into the science class after hearing the shot and pull him into the hallway. "Both participated in apprehending him," Ross said, while a teacher called 911. Investigators said they did not yet know whether the parents called police or the school about their concerns before arriving at the building. The parents disarmed their son and a Bountiful police officer arrived shortly after and took him into custody. Meanwhile, the school went into lockdown. All of the students were instructed to hide under their desks. As soon as the boy was pulled out of the room, the class locked the door and executed the lockdown drill it had previously practiced. A Bountiful police officer who was already near the school arrived within two minutes. Because it was dispatched as an "active shooter" situation, over 100 officers from law enforcement agencies between North Salt Lake and Layton responded to the school. The boy was booked into the Farmington Bay Detention Center for investigation of two counts of theft of a firearm and two counts of bringing a weapon to school. .

Isuzu Commercial Truck of America Press Release / December 1, 2016 .

I like the European market Holland Aluminum fifth wheel..........http://ww1.safholland.us/sites/usa/en-US/products/fifthwheels/FWALSeries/Pages/default.aspx I want to learn more about its Meritor-sourced fully independent suspension. When Milton switched in mid-stream from battery/micro-turbine to battery/natural gas fuel cell, he lost me. Clearly, he didn't think things through all the way before he started his sales pitch.

You could get a copy from the Mack museum. We didn't build many B-46s, just 473, from 1958 to 1965. It had a short B-67 style hood and was targeted at ready mix operations.

It has a Scania model DS8 (Mack designation E4-210). Great engine, like most, when properly maintained. The Scania centrifugal filter certainly kept the oil clean. No cartridge to buy, just clean it out and reinstall. It prompted us to create "Centrimax" for the Mack engines. Morgan Millwork ran a huge fleet of R487P straight trucks on the east coast. They loved them.

Nikola Motor Co. is revealing its Nikola One hydrogen-electric Class 8 tractor at its headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah. The unveiling is being streamed live below. Allegedly over 600 members of the media, industry partners, customers and government leaders are scheduled to attend the unveiling. “There are many out there that wondered if we would deliver, but today we proudly show off the most advanced semi-truck ever built,” said Trevor Milton, founder and CEO of Nikola. Nikola says Ryder System Inc. will be its exclusive nationwide distribution and maintenance provider. Ryder, which has a network of more than 800 service locations in North America, will provide nationwide sales, service and warranty work. “This relationship is key to expanding our advanced vehicle technology portfolio of innovative solutions,” said Dennis Cooke, president of global fleet management solutions for Miami-based Ryder. “Ryder continually monitors emerging fleet technologies and seeks to establish relationships with companies that are leading innovation within the commercial transportation industry.” Thompson Machinery, a Caterpillar dealer and an early investor in Nikola Motor Co., also will offer sales and service in Tennessee and Mississippi. .

James N. Mattis, USMC General (retired) Post: Secretary of Defense Commands held in the U.S. military U.S. Central Command U.S. Joint Forces Command Supreme Allied Commander of Transformation for NATO I Marine Expeditionary Force U.S. Marine Forces Central Command (Middle East excluding Israel) Marine Corps Combat Development Command 1st Marine Division 7th Marine Regiment 1st Battalion, 7th Marines Age: 66 (Born September 8, 1950) Schooling: Mattis graduated from Columbia High School in Richland, Washington, in 1968. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Central Washington University. Mattis is a graduate of the U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School, U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and the National War College. Background: Mattis was born on September 8, 1950 in Pullman, Washington. Since retirement from the military, Mattis has worked for FWA Consultants and also serves on General Dynamics Board of Directors. In August 2013, he became an Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an American public policy think tank and research institution located at California’s Stanford University. Mattis is noted for his intellectualism and interest in military history. Mattis is a life-long bachelor. He has never been married and has no children. Red Flag: In mid-2012, a Department of Defense official evaluating Theranos's blood-testing technology for military use initiated a formal inquiry with the Food and Drug Administration about the company's intent to distribute its tests without FDA clearance. In August 2012, via email, Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes asked Mattis, who had expressed interest in testing Theranos's technology in combat areas, to help. Within hours, Mattis forwarded his email exchange with Holmes to military officials, asking "how do we overcome this new obstacle." Since 2013, Mattis has been a Theranos board member, a controversial Silicon Valley biotech company with criticized corporate governance practices. In a July 2013 letter from the Department of Defense approving his possible employment by Theranos, Mattis was given permission with conditions. He was cautioned to do so only if he did not represent Theranos with regards to the blood testing device and its potential acquisition by the Departments of the Navy or Defense. Theranos is under criminal investigation. http://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-is-subject-of-criminal-probe-by-u-s-1461019055 Instead of attributing the Middle East’s atrocities to radical Islam, Mattis blames regional anti-Western hostility on the perception of the injustice of oppression suffered by Palestinians under the Israeli occupation. At the 2013 Aspen Security Forum, speaking about the Israeli-Palestinian situation, Mattis said “I paid a military security price every day as the commander of CENTCOM because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel.” Calling Israeli control of Judea and Samaria “unsustainable,” Mattis warned that Jewish “settlements” could turn Israel into an “apartheid state.” Before deploying to Iraq, Mattis ensured his troops were given courses on Arab culture and cultural sensitivity classes. Note: Mattis will need Congress to pass new legislation to bypass a federal law stating that defense secretaries must not have been on active duty in the previous seven years. The National Security Act of 1947 states a general must wait 10 years from leaving active duty before becoming defense secretary. An exception was granted on a one-time basis for Gen. George C. Marshall in 1950, with lawmakers saying in special legislation at the time that it was the “sense of the Congress that after General Marshall leaves the office of Secretary of Defense, no additional appointments of military men to that office shall be approved.”

Can you post your truck's line sheet?

Okay, RWS721LS-1528. You should see "1M2V120C4FM001528" also stamped on the outside of the right frame rail by the steer tire. Now, your dealer can take that, look up the 1QH and 1QK front axle and front spring arrangements respectively, and tell you what axle and springs you have.

The truck's serial number (VIN) is also stamped on the outside of the right-hand frame rail. You can lean over the right steer tire and see it. This is the same number on the driver's door-mounted vehicle identification plate. But the model number is not stamped on the frame. A dealer needs the model number, and the last 5 digits of the serial number, to research the truck.

So Queensland taxpayers, who are NOT asking for autonomous vehicles, have to pay the bill for this farce. And Bosch, who stands to profit from providing the autonomous vehicle technology, is merely “supporting” the show (Bosch people stand by warmly clapping and smiling).

Australasian Transport News (ATN) / November 30, 2016 Bailey says success of such trails depends upon adapting existing traffic systems with new technologies Queensland has announced plans to host the biggest automated vehicle pilot program that will see around 500 fleet and public vehicles test the concept of connected and automated driving (C-ITS) technology in Ipswich. The four-year Cooperative and Automated Vehicle Initiative (CAVI) project will be funded by the state government, and the Motor Accident Insurance Commission and supported by Bosch Australia, Ipswich City Council and Queensland University of Technology’s Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety – Queensland (CARRS-Q). The state government plans to engage with transport industry members and other relevant stakeholders to adapt the existing systems, infrastructure and data to innovative transport technologies. The on-road testing phase of the project is expected to kick off in 2019. The subjects of platooning, driverless vehicles and automated vehicle trials have gained momentum in Australia, with other states including Western Australia and South Australia planning similar trials in the near future. Earlier this month, the National Transport Commission (NTC) released automated vehicle regulation reform roadmap, which recommends a phased reform program to facilitate such trials. Queensland roads and road safety minister Mark Bailey says the state transport department is working with Bosch to secure its "highly-automated driving vehicle", which is co-sponsored by the Victorian government, for the trial. "The Queensland Government’s CAVI project is another example where industry and government will work together to trial and validate the benefits these new technologies will bring to the market," Bosch Australia regional president chassis systems control Mark Jackman says. "Project’s such as these are not just vital for the advancement of road safety and public awareness but also for the further development of technical expertise and capability of Bosch Australia engineers." The vehicles involved in the trial will be retrofitted with C-ITS devices that will provide safety warnings to the driver about current road conditions that may not visible to them at that point on the road. "These C-ITS devices work by providing safety warnings to the driver about a range of conditions – for example, a pedestrian crossing at a signalised intersection, a red light runner or a queue ahead that isn’t visible to a driver," Bailey says. "Our interest in testing these vehicles is to help understand the implications for our infrastructure and drivers, and the improvements to automated vehicle performance when the vehicle can talk to other vehicles and infrastructure. "These rapidly developing technologies have the potential to significantly reduce crashes and crash-related gridlock, as well as reduce vehicle emissions and fuel use over coming decades. "While industry is leading the development of advanced vehicle technologies, the success of these will rely upon connecting to our existing traffic systems." Member for Ipswich Jennifer Howard says the test-bed will be available for use by industry, academics and governments to continue to test new technologies. Member for Ipswich West Jim Madden says the transport department’s move to the planning phase of the pilot "will have a strong focus on safety".