SultanOfSwing

I'm with you there, I ****ing hate Jeeps.

dc koop

Volvo used to claim that their vehicles would last forever. They didn't mention however that this claim didn't apply to Canadian winters. My neighbor in Montreal had a five year old Volvo which had been driven in winters. One morning he stamped a foot on the floor to get the circulation going again and it went right through the floor

jeepster

The founders believed that the threat to the Republic would be internal, a corrupted government using a standing army to impose their will on the people. The antidote for that would be an armed citizenry, that would be as well armed as the standing army. The founders feared that the state militias' would fall to neglect; they would have recognized the mass shootings as evidence of government corruption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._46

robin1234

Can you explain that, I don't get the bit about government corruption.

Beaverstate

He said a corrupted Government not government corruption. Yes the highlighted part could have been better stated.
While it may be hard to see now, the founding fathers had no illusions of a democratic style government not becoming overwhelmed by a 'King like' figure, or a repressive authoritarian style, well in charge of the nations (its)military. An armed citizen especially in those days served as a very effective deterrent to government over reach.

Pulaski

My interpretation would be that he meant an ineffective government, that government is "corrupt" to the extent that it cannot be relied upon to protect the people. Certainly across vast areas of America there will never be enough police to be able to respond quickly to an attack or break-in at someone's home.

RoadWarriorFromLP

You haven't actually read Federalist 46, have you? (And if you have, then you certainly didn't understand it.)

The central purpose of the constitution was to centralize power.

The constitution shifted authority over the militias from the state to federal governments. Federalist 46 was intended to assure the states that the power shift would benefit them.

The country figured out relatively early that militias were inadequate for defense (or for conquering neighboring territory), which is why the US reduced its dependency on them.

md95065

They seem to do pretty well in Swedish winters. Perhaps they made the mistake of not building the North American models to the same standards.

uk_grenada

Scandanavian countries never salt their roads.

dc koop

Well since winters in eastern Canada are at least twice as bad and long as Swedish winters one would assume that Volvo would have upped the standards for cars exported to that part of North America but in reality the average family car, irrespective of the make didn't last very long.

dc koop

I don't know how traction is maintained then. We used to get some serious snowfalls in Montreal. The snow plows and dump trucks would clean up most of it but at night when the temperature turned to way below zero the residual snow or what was left of it would turn to ice making the surface of the roads a virtual ice rink. The average life of a vehicle was around 5 years if driven in winters. The odometers might read 60K miles but the bodies were rusting off.

mrken30

Winter tires or studded tires.

They don't use salt in Oregon either. Hence why they don't do well in the snow.

dc koop

I remember that at the beginning of October drivers were required to fit winter tires on their vehicles but even so on a road surface covered with ice and unsalted they were pretty useless.

uk_grenada

Scandanavian countries esp up north are extreme, often -40 in winter in norway, they have studded tyres but crucially they never try to melt ice, they just scrape the roads flat and allow very hard ice to form and become the new road surface. Quattro is very normal. I used to have an auDi a4 quattro which would be mazingly good on ice, so long as you dont try to change the laws of physics. Why do you think all the best rally drivers come from that part of the world...

Volvo's that are winterised have 4x4 double glazing, sump heaters, engines hidden in a block of red plastic so they never cool off, and ceramic heat exchanger interior heaters, even without the sump heater it retains warmth for the cabin next day overnight.

It reminds me of a warning on the exit doors in stockholm airport, its 10? Miles to the city and is a very pleasant walk in summer. In winter theres a sign - danger of death beyond this point... I was warned my german anorak was junk in narvik, you cant have any metal studs or zips or buttons, you just freeze to them.

Pulaski

Once it gets below about -15°C (actually the minimum is about 21.1°C, IIRC), salt won't thaw ice anyway, so there'd be no point in salting the roads anyway if it frequently gets as cold as that.