We’ve been trying to get on the cars.gov “cash for clunkers” web site for the last few days. But, it just wouldn’t come up for us. Given all the failures of the federal government, both in concept and execution, we figured that they simply over-promised the free money and under-delivered on their web server horsepower.
If you’re thinking to yourself, wait, I’ve been on the the site and it works just fine, well, you are also correct. But that’s only because you keyed in www.cars.gov, not cars.gov. It works the www prefix just fine; but on most browsers, without the www, it doesn’t. Click the links above and try it for yourself. That’s just not how a website is supposed to work. Try our site to see what should happen: if you key in ihatethemedia.com, it moves you over to www.ihatethemedia.com. No server error, right to the home page.
It’s an very simple problem to overcome, one that every rookie website owner runs into, unless it’s automatically taken care of by the web host. What is the fix? Ha! You think we’re going to tell the federal government how to give away more money? If they had their site done right, they might now be requesting $8 billion for this disastrous program, not $4 billion
The federal government: a bunch of rookies, in every way, every day.
This post was last modified on October 18, 2023
View Comments (9)
Unbelievably pathetic. Oh but we don't mind these amateurs trying to run health care too!
The servers are located at Oracle On Demand in Austin, TX.
Second page, top of third column:
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-17791.pdf
Much other interesting privacy-related stuff in this doc also, for those who like to read about behind the scenes shenanigans.
You know that you're now considered a Gov't computer... yeah - you should check out Glenn Becks report on this -- it's right there in the fine print. You have officially become a gov't computer and they can do anything they want with your pc - - all files, all information. Seriously... check it out. If you haven't clicked that you agree to the 'terms' of using cars.gov... um... http://www.cars.org - then you're alright -- but if you agree to their terms - they own you. Promise.
We wanted to do a story on that after seeing Beck's segment, but that's when I spent two days trying to get on the site without the WWW. LOL. But I looked around for 10 minutes this morning once I did get on, and did not see what Beck was talking about. Can you tell me where it is exactly? Thanks.
I've been all over that site today. If it was there, it's gone now.
I believe that yesterday Beck advised the terms of use had been removed from the site.
Are we still getting screwed???? Somehow I feel the pain coming on......
How many's cars can you buy with 1 billion dollars at $4500 per car the most . 1 billion is 1 thousand millions divided by $4500 is 10000000000 / 4500 = 2222222.2222... That's two million, two hundred and twenty two thousand, two hundred and twenty ... Hmmm. Where did the money go?
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Your math is off. It's actually 222,222. But it's interesting to note that the Obama administration, which is in such a hurry for the Senate to authorize another $2 billion for this program, isn't in such a hurry to release records of what cars people are buying. The best guess at this point is that the majority of sales will be foreign makes. Oops!
Are these the same Bozos who'll be making life and death decisions about my healthcare? They make the DMV look competent.