Live from Austin!

Today was vehicle registration day. This is stage 2 of 3, the stages being (1) get TX insurance (2) get TX registration (3) get TX license.

A necessary prerequisite to the vehicle registration was another inspection. The Texas DOT web site suggested the closest place that would handle new cars, and we went there. It was a Honda dealership, and the technician was scared of the Prius. He said we might need to go to a Toyota dealer, but there was a place a couple of blocks away that specialized in inspections and might be able to handle it—something about the headlights needing to be set a certain way.

So, we went to Alan’s Vehicle Inspections (Best of Austin 2003), a small shed near what was once a gas station. Alan verified that the car worked, and gave us a sticker and a slip of paper. I took that to…no, not the RMV this time. In Texas, car registration is dealt with by the county tax assessor’s office. So we went there and registered the car.

Since Massachusetts hasn’t sent us the title yet, the car’s going to stay titled in Massachusetts. The poor thing must be quite confused by now—built in Japan, sold in New Hampshire, titled in Massachusetts and registered in Texas.

The new plates have a Z, an X and a K, which makes up for the fact that we were too lazy and/or uninspired to get custom plates in the end.

And now, it’s time to make up for the work I missed with an all evening caffeine-fueled orgy of productivity.

The paperwork arrived from NH, signed by Mr Toyota^† (or at least, his US representative), saying that there exists a Prius with a certain VIN. I’m still not entirely sure what essential purpose the Certificate of Origin serves, since it doesn’t have a price marked on it or anything; did they once have a lot of trouble with people maliciously paying tax on nonexistent vehicles?

Anyway, I went down to the RMV. There, I discovered two things: firstly, that they take credit cards for payment of everything except vehicle registrations; and secondly, that I had used the last check in my checkbook when I purchased the car, and in the delirious excitement I had been too excited to refill the checkbook holder when we got home.

Passing sailors blushed as I stormed back to the T station. One round trip to Cambridge later, I returned with a new checkbook. My bank account was graciously lightened further, and I was given two Massachusetts license plates. I was also informed that I would need to get the vehicle inspected.

I looked at the woman behind the counter incredulously. I reminded her that it was a brand new car, already certified to meet the toughest emissions standards in every state of the USA. She reaffirmed that nevertheless, I’d have to get it inspected. So, that’ll be a task for next week.

The truck with the transport containers arrives tomorrow. Everything’s now packed except cookware, china and cutlery. The air conditioners are sold, someone’s coming to buy one of the desks tonight, and once we have the car we’ll take all the junk to Goodwill and other similar emporia. The truck returns on Monday to pick everything up.

I’ve reserved us a ‘deluxe’ apartment at an extended stay hotel in Austin. It works out to cost about $400 a month less than we’re currently paying in rent. The location is described as ‘Arboretum’, which in fact means it’s near the junction of Route 183 and Burnet Road, a fairly grotty place to spend any significant amount of time. However, it does mean it’s about 5 minutes from IBM; I could even get the bus there if sara needs to go somewhere in the car. Supposedly there’s broadband Internet in the room if you pay a one-time connection fee, but who knows how flaky it is?

As the things to worry about get crossed off the list, my brain naturally finds new things to fret over. Currently I’m worrying about whether all our stuff will fit in the three containers we ordered, whether we’ll have time to load it all in, and whether I’ll destroy my back in the process.

^† Actually, his name’s Eiji Toyoda with a ‘d’.

My Prius arrived! Three days ahead of the most optimistic estimate! Now it’s purchased, time to tell the whole story…

I started the search on September 16th. Calling the local Massachusetts Toyota dealers quickly established that they all had ridiculous wait lists; the best wait time I was quoted was a year. However, the situation wasn’t completely hopeless—according to the online forums like priusonline.com and priuschat.com, dealers often get cars that are a color or a package that nobody on their wait list wants, or nobody on the list who wants the car can get financed at that particular moment in time.

Because we wanted the high end package with the GPS navigation system, I had a hunch that the legendary thriftiness of New Hampshire residents would make it a promising place to hunt for unwanted Priuses, not to mention that you can’t fit a gun rack on one. Another point in our favor was that we weren’t too fussy about color—we’d take silver, gold, green, red, maybe even black. So, I started checking every single New Hampshire Toyota dealer that had a web site, searching their inventory, and calling or e-mailing all the ones that actually had a 2004 Prius listed.

Almost the first response was from Autofair Toyota in Manchester, NH. They called me back about half an hour after I sent an e-mail. They said that the 2004 Prius they had on the lot was being shopped to their wait list, and that someone would likely take it even though none of them had said they wanted the BC package. However, they were expecting two more BC package cars in October, and could put my name down for one of them. The incoming cars would be brand new 2005 models, and they expected them to be at the dealership around October 10th-14th. Price would be MSRP—no special markup.

I should explain that unfortunately, a lot of dealers are taking advantage of the constrained supply of vehicles by adding $3,000-$5,000 to the price. Since the MSRP already includes a healthy profit, and the dealers get a bonus from Toyota for selling the cars immediately, people on the Prius forums have been rather scathing about the practice. I have no real ethical problem with pricing up—after all, it’s just supply and demand—but I had already decided I would rather buy a second hand temporary car than pay over MSRP.

The Autofair sales associate told me up front what the total price would be, including their processing and admin charge—a mere $121, whereas I’ve been quoted up to $500 elsewhere.

I explained up front that I wanted to continue to look for a car actually available, and they said all they wanted was a $100 deposit, which would be fully refundable if I managed to get a car somewhere else first. Again, other dealers are asking for $1,000 deposits, and some are even demanding non-refundable deposits. Autofair seemed completely reasonable and up-front about everything, so I agreed.

There then followed a couple of weeks of anxiousness about whether the car would actually turn up in time for our move to Austin, TX. During that time I believe I checked every single Toyota dealer web site for Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, plus I e-mailed and called a few places that didn’t even have web sites.

As of this morning, I still had no lead on an actual Prius available any time before the last week of October. And then Autofair called. My car had arrived.

Of course, it’s not as simple as it ought to be. Massachusetts makes the whole process as difficult as possible, in an apparent attempt to stop people buying cars in New Hampshire and dodging tax, or not getting insurance. Since I didn’t manage to find a description of the process anywhere, even on the RMV web site, here we go…

I have to:

1. Get the money from the bank as a bank draft.
2. Go to New Hampshire, exchange the money for the certificate of origin and an RMV-1 form. Don’t collect the car, because Massachusetts doesn’t allow any kind of temporary plates, and has no grace period for vehicle registration.
3. Return to Massachusetts and physically go to a state-authorized Massachusetts insurance agency, certificate of origin and RMV-1 form in hand. Then I bend over and take it, and get the RMV-1 form stamped to say I now have insurance.
4. Take the stamped RMV-1 form and bill of sale to the Registry of Motor Vehicles in downtown Boston, pay tax on the car, and exchange the form for a Massachusetts license plate. (Hopefully the USPS will successfully redirect our mail, ’cause we probably won’t be here by the time the title deed arrives 4 to 8 weeks later.)
5. Take the license plate back to New Hampshire, and pick up the car.

Not that I had any intention of committing any kind of tax fraud; the only question was whether I could wait and register in Texas rather than go through the paperwork twice. In fact, MA is cheaper than TX, so I suppose I’m winning, but…

One added wrinkle is that the certificate of origin is transported separately from the actual car, and hadn’t arrived today, so they’re going to FedEx it to me. In the mean time, I can read the user manual. The car itself had only just been removed from the car carrier; they obviously called the moment it came in. Its audio system hadn’t been connected up and tested yet, it hadn’t been fueled, and there was still plastic film on the wheels. But, I did get to sit in it. Very nice, extremely ergonomic driving position. The sales guy seemed as excited as us.

Once we get to Austin, I have to get new insurance from a non-Massachusetts agency, because the MA agency don’t deal in out-of-state insurance. The new agency has to fax the Massachusetts one to say I’m insured with them, and then my MA policy can be cancelled. Only then can I get my MA license switched for a TX license; apparently if you switch the license before switching the insurance the police computer will flag you as uninsured.

We also went for the Toyota Platinum Warranty: 24/7 roadside assistance to the nearest Prius-trained Toyota dealer, and they’ll pay for a replacement rental car while they fix the Prius. I got the 6 years of extra coverage from Autofair, because the price they quoted me wasn’t much more than the ultra-cheap price I’d seen on the Internet, and I was obviously feeling very well disposed towards them!

So anyway…Prius! Prius! Prius!

There’s a Prius being shipped from Japan to New Hampshire that has my name on it.

If you watch New Hampshire Public Television (WENH) for a while, chances are you’ll see an advertisement stating that the programming is sponsored by BAE Systems of New Hampshire. The TV ad shows happy smiling families playing baseball to raise money for the American Cancer Research Fund, and ends with the slogan “BAE Systems: A Global Company With A Local Heart”.

Heartwarming stuff. Unless, of course, you know who BAE Systems actually are.

They used to be known as British Aerospace, until they merged with Marconi in the late 1990s. They’re the UK’s number one defense contractor, and one of the largest arms manufacturers worldwide. They make warplanes, ships, submarines, radar systems—everything from gyroscopic compasses to weapons of mass destruction.

One of their more well-known products is the Hawk fighter-bomber. During the 1980s and 90s, BAE Systems sold 40 Hawk aircraft to the Indonesian government, who used them to help with the attempted genocide in East Timor. The UK Labour government shipped them another 16 after the genocide started, saying that they were powerless to revoke an arms contract signed by the previous government. Of course, that doesn’t explain why they extended the contract to avoid it expiring during the EU arms embargo on Indonesia…

You might also know BAE Systems via their subsidiary Heckler & Koch. The H&K MP5 was standard issue for Indonesian troops in East Timor during the genocide. To get around inconvenient trade embargoes, BAE Systems licensed the design to MKEK, a Turkish company who were happy to sell the weapons to Indonesia. (You may also remember seeing one of them pointed at Elian Gonzales.)

BAES are on very good terms with the US government too, to the tune of $5 billion a year. (That’s a very nice tune, it goes cha-ching.) BAE gets special treatment from the Pentagon, being allowed to trade as if it was a domestic arms company. That means lots of juicy contracts fighting “The War Against Terrorism”.

They’re also close friends with the regime in Saudi Arabia, allegedly thanks to their purchasing houses, yachts and hookers for Saudi officials via a corporate slush fund. In 1995, investigative reporters caught BAE staff on film offering electroshock batons for sale as torture equipment, and admitting that they had sold 8,000 to the Saudis and thousands more to the Chinese, who are particularly fond of using them against Tibetans. The great thing about BAES electroshock batons is you can torture someone for hours and not leave a mark. For some reason, they fail to mention all this on their home page, merely stating that they are “innovating for a safer world”.

When the UK government tried to start an anti-corruption initiative, BAE Systems actually refused to take part. In fact, they are so sleazy that the Bush administration accused them of being corrupt. All of which makes the WENH ad rather surreal, but not as surreal as the fact that BAES have the titanium composite cojones necessary to publish a corporate social responsibility page.

So, next time you see the happy smiling faces of the BAE Systems children on WENH, perhaps like me you’ll wonder what happens when one of them asks “What do you do at work, Daddy?”

Yes, I know, all the bad things happen in other parts of BAE Systems. The New Hampshire people make teddy bears for orphans. No, actually they’re the Information and Electronic Warfare Systems unit, who make the guidance systems for the happy fighter jets that fly over Aceh.

Authorities have located weapons of mass destruction. Actual weapons of mass destruction, enough illegal chemical weapons to kill thousands of Americans. The weapons were located on American soil.

For years, William Krar lived with his common-law wife Judith Bruey in New Hampshire. Krar first came to the attention of police in 1985, when he was arrested in New Hampshire for impersonating a police officer. In 1989, he started fighting back against the Federal government in the traditional New Hampshire style—he stopped paying taxes.

Then in 1995, Krar was investigated by authorities. They discovered he was linked to a network of anti-government and white supremacist organizations in New Hampshire. Still, nothing unusual about that, so they dropped the inquiry.

Soon, Krar and Bruey had moved to Tyler, Texas. Then in January 2003, Krar was stopped by a state trooper in Tennessee. Inside Krar’s rental car the trooper found 2 handguns, 16 knives, a stun gun, a smoke grenade, a gas mask, and 40 bottles filled with an unknown substance. Coded documents labeled “trip” and “procedure” listed rendezvous locations across the US. You might think that that would be suspicious enough to get the attention of Homeland Security, but you’d be wrong.

Krar’s schemes were finally revealed to the FBI by accident. Krar mailed five fake ID cards to a member of the New Jersey Militia. One was a fake ID for the Pentagon; another was a fake Social Security Card. Also enclosed was a note saying “We would hate to have this fall into the wrong hands.” Unfortunately for Krar, the envelope was misdelivered, and the recipient called the police.

As a result, FBI investigators began monitoring Krar’s mail, as well as his (common law) wife’s. They discovered that Krar and Bruey were renting three lockup garages from Teresa Staples, and that they visited them every day. Each garage was piled high with clothing and garden equipment; Staples thought they were gardeners, or that they resold gardening supplies at flea markets.

FBI agents were more suspicious, and took a closer look. They discovered a cache of weapons hidden behind the gardening equipment. So they checked Krar’s home in Tyler, Texas, and discovered more.

The eventual haul totalled 500,000 rounds of ammunition, 65 pipe bombs, remote controlled briefcase bombs, machine guns, silencers, land mines, and plain old explosives. Krar wasn’t licensed to hold automatic weapons; I don’t know if Texas issues landmine licenses. The weapons cache wasn’t the disturbing part, however…

Teresa Staples realized something was seriously amiss when a team of agents turned up in HazMat suits. The FBI had opened an ammunitions canister and found nearly a kilo of sodium cyanide, packed next to a quantity of acid sufficient to dissolve it into cyanide gas. Enough cyanide gas to kill literally thousands of people, if released in an enclosed space like a stadium or subway.

There were also anti-Semitic, racist and anti-government publications in the lockups, in case you hadn’t guessed. The KKK had even left a business card.

Krar and Bruey have plead guilty to all charges, as has Edward Feltus, the person who was supposed to have received the fake IDs. While Feltus faces up to 15 years in jail, Bruey will be out in less than five. Krar’s crime of possessing dangerous chemical weapons is sufficiently rare that authorities don’t seem to have gotten around to setting minimum sentencing guidelines. Krar’s lawyer is pointing out that there’s no evidence he actually planned to use the cyanide bomb.

It could have been a bigger mass-murder than 9/11. The Justice Department seems keen to publicize victories in the war against terrorism, so why haven’t we heard more about this story?

Perhaps because the story isn’t over. More cyanide was found in Krar’s house, and in his car. Authorities think he might have already sold cyanide bombs to various right-wing militia organizations.

Last month, a letter laced with ricin nerve toxin was sent to the Senate. Last November, one was sent to the White House. The perpetrator of the anthrax attacks of 2001 is still at large. Sleep well.

[Guardian/Observer link]

From The Boston Globe:

Cut $9 billion from the Massachusetts budget and watch what happens: Doctors would make frequent and free house calls, the homeless would be sheltered by churches and private charities, and hundreds of thousands of jobs would be created.

Yeah, and winged monkeys would fly out of my butt, and Satan would start skating to work.

All this according to Carla Howell, a Libertarian gubernatorial candidate, who helped lead a successful drive to put a question on the Nov. 5 ballot asking voters if they want to do away with state income taxes.

You know, I kinda think they should do it. If it’s voted through, the politicians should call the voters’ bluff and shut down the schools, stop repairing the roads, stop collecting trash, shut down UMass, and so on. Leave it for six months and let people see what happens, then have a second referendum to let them vote on whether it’s an improvement.

Then we’d finally be able to say to the right wing libertarians “Look, we tried it, and it didn’t fucking work. Now shut up with your whining.”

Sure, it would be an unpleasant six months, but I think the end result would be worth it.

I’d like it even more if they did it in New Hampshire, though.

You’ve read about it, you’ve seen it on TV, and, admit it, you’re fascinated by it. You can’t afford it, of course, and you’re skeptical of its practicality, but don’t you want to ride it? It’s the Segway Human Transporter – the invention formerly known as Ginger – and it will be at the Museum of Science Saturday, available for five-minute rides. Dean Kamen, the Manchester, N.H., inventor of Segway Human Transporter, will bring a small crew and two or three Segways. From 1 to 3p.m., those 15 and older can try it out in the Blue Wing’s Exhibit Hall. From 3 to 4p.m., Kamen will talk about the engineering of, and vision for, the HT. There’s no extra charge for the event, but there is an $11 fee to enter the museum.