Recession?

[yellow_crane]

I never fail to finger one every time I pass.  I am not afraid of retaliation; people who drape themselves so resplendently with butch buttons to project such bully bravado on the outside rarely have much sand on the inside.

I bet that was Crane that walked by this golf course I was playing on, up in Carmel a few years ago, yelling profanities at me, for playing on such an apparent perversion to the enviroment     

Were you the one in the neon green jumper?

The guy looking in both directions before you moved the ball out?

[Xavier_Onassis]

I doubt none of you would turn one down if given one.

==========================================
If you will give me a Hummer, I would naturally accept the fool thing. But I'd sell it as soon as I could and invest the money in something lucrative. Like restoring my Mercedes Diesel a bit, perhaps buying an apparatus to turn WVO (Waste veggie oil) into biodiesel.

[sirs]

If you will give me a Hummer, I would naturally accept the fool thing. But I'd sell it as soon as I could and invest the money in something lucrative.

I don't think that's wise.  You obviously need the government to invest the $ for you.  They know better, and will take much greater care of your money, than you ever could       

[_JS]

So, XO, what hidden meaning do you find in my vehicle?  I have the Ford Five Hundred with AWD.

I drive a Buick Regal myself.  What Fascist proclaimation does sirs present with such a travesty of a vehicle?

===================================================
Well, one would assume a yearning to present a royal image.

I sure hope it's better than the 1982 Regal four door I had. It had a large (3.7 litre) buy truly puny engine that could not maintain a constant 60 mph on the I-75 hills coming into Atlanta from the Soth and the puniest brakes that I have ever had on a car, including three Renaults (a Dauphine, an R-10 and an R-16) a Studebaker and a Hudson with twin H-power. One was never sure one would stop in time. The interior plastic was five shades of blues and greens, ranging from baby blue to stale peasoup green, much of it some form of self-destructive plastic that flaked into bilious green dandruff when scraped. It blew a headgasket at 61,000 and the dash caught fire and burned, ending its career at only 81,000. I bought it used for $850 and spent over $1200 on it in the two years I drove it. The rear windows could not be rolled down, instead, there were electric wind wings. One was broken in an incompetent attempt to steal the fool thing.

Unfortunately, it did not last long enough for the only purpose it was well suited for: Roger Smith's tombstone.

Hudson's were memorable cars. The Hornet is a favorite of mine when I get to a decent car show.

You owned a Dauphine? That has to have been one of the worst vehicles ever made (no offense). I think there are lawnmowers with more horsepower. It ranks up there with the Chevrolet Citation, Chevrolet Vega, and that 350 diesel engine Chevy made from a gas engine that tended to catch on fire.

GM really made some crap there for a while.

[Xavier_Onassis]

My Dauphine cost me $150 in 1966. It was a 1958 model. I bought it in Washington State from a fellow teacher.
It had very little power, but it did get great mileage.

The two worst moments were when the soggy headliner came loose and fell all over me, except the cutout for the sunroof. FWAP! It can surprise a fellow when driving down a wet mountain road at night and a wet and moldy headliner attacks you.

Then shortly afterward, it did the headgasket on the freeway trick, on I-5 between Bellingham and Everett. The car filled up with steam. I managed to get it home by filling up the radiator with ditch water. But the final leg into the logging town where I was staying, there was no water in the ditch, and it seems to have fried the engine.

I traded it to a old mountaineer who fixed it for a 1955 Buick Special 2 dr hardtop. He wanted it because the sunroof was ideal for poaching deer from while his wife drove. Eventually my T-bird was repaired (it had swapped ends on an icy road and hit a tree) and I sold the Buick to the town butcher for $150.

The Dauphine was a pretty awful car, it is true, but it was cheap. The Buick Regal had no excuse for being so poorly designed and made.

[Rich]

>>How low will the market have to go in order to make you people understand that the whole of the country is not doing as well as the Haves are doing?When that market drops below 12,000 next week some time and people start wigging out even more, then it is going to drop even lower.I suppose what we're figuring out is no one will start understanding that this country's economy can't run on fast food, coca cola and computers or basically shuffling piles of money around.Bush the Moron got something right the other night in his cringe-worthy interview with ABC.  Higher oil prices will destroy this country which means the Middle East has us by the short hairs.Y'all better get with the program and come to Jesus and realize that Hummers should be burned like Beatles records in the '60's and the auto industry needs to be turning to making cars that run on compressed air or hydrogen TODAY and not in oh maybe hopefully 20 -30 years, we'll see. It's time to collectively circle the economic wagons or the America you guys love so much will go the way of the dodo and the Mayans.<<

I've heard some fascist things come out of Brass's mouth before, but his little mustache has finally filled out. By circling the economic wagons, the fascist left means, ?we will make the decisions for you because we know best, just like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, and all the other fascist despots throughout history. Notice the word collectively. Not a very subtle nod to communist confiscation of your hard earned wealth. 

Watch out folks, there are lots of people who hate you because you can afford to get a hybrid car, or turn your thermostat down. They hate you because they can?t keep up, and they will take what they want by force if you let them.

[Michael Tee]

<<You obviously need the government to invest the $ for you.  They know better, and will take much greater care of your money, than you ever could >>

Hey, I dunno, maybe sirs is on to something.  Let's compare the number of times the U.S. government has gone bankrupt with the number of times individual Americans have gone bankrupt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_11#2004_Statistics

Chapter 7 bankruptcies (personal bankruptcy)
2003:  1.2 million
2004:  1.2 million

So, in just two short years, an amazing 2.4 million Americans have declared personal bankruptcy.  It might interest sirs to know that in its entire history the U.S.A. has never declared bankruptcy even once.  (although I'm not all that sure about the early days of the Republic.  Maybe once.)

I understand that bankruptcies were up last year and expected to be even higher this year.  So it appears that sirs' sarcasm was really unwarranted - - the fact that over a million Americans a year go into personal bankruptcy would seem to indicate that yes, for MILLIONS of Americans, the U.S. government WOULD know how to manage their money better than they do.

[The_Professor]

I think if you took a survey of those of us to the right of Domer you would find the majority of us think it is high time we looked at all the options on the table as far as development of alternative energy.

We may disagree with how this should be done, the level of govt funding etc. but it is a high priority for most of us.

Far as i know, none of us drive hummers.

 

We should SERIOUSLY invest in R&D on geothermal, oil shale, wind and solar energy. For example, I bet if the proper funding was available, solar energy cells would be MUCH MORE EFFICIENT than now. Efficient and cheap enough for the common homeowner.

[The_Professor]

I think if you took a survey of those of us to the right of Domer you would find the majority of us think it is high time we looked at all the options on the table as far as development of alternative energy.  We may disagree with how this should be done, the level of govt funding etc. but it is a high priority for most of us.

I'll 2nd that.  And "all" includes our own oil vs importing foreign sources

My uncle has hundreds of capped wells in Western Kentucky. He says it doesn't pay to uncap and pump them due to oppressive EPA regs. Might there be many many others like thus?

[The_Professor]

A Hummer is a man's car. It is supposed to be ugly. Essentially it is testosterone with 4 wheel drive, or 2 wheel drive pretending to be 4WD.

So, XO, what hidden meaning do you find in my vehicle?

I have the Ford Five Hundred with AWD.

And, let's see: I have Toyota Celica convertible, a Toyota sedan and a new Honda Civic. And an old Jeep Wrangler and 1968 Vette I am slowly restoring. Your reading?

[The_Professor]

I once heard a comic monologe in which was pointed out that "Electra" was a pretty good name for a car , but the caricter Electra (the daughter of Odepus) was devoted to vengance ,and he suggested that "Vengance" would be an even better name for a car. He then suggested that the seven deadly sins would each make a good name for a car , except for "Sloth", which might not sell.

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There was a Buick Electra for a while. Now Buick has given up on its old model names from long ago, like Century, Special and Roadmaster and the newer ones, like LeSabre and Regal. At one point market research revealed that the average age of a new Buick Park Avenue was 88. Not much chance of selling him another car.

Oedipus is not a good name for a car, though: it means "swollen foot".

Drive the New Chrysler Envy! The all-new Plymouth Greed! The Improved Subaru Ire! The Amazing Honda Lust! The Spectacular Cadillac Gluttony! The Exciting Nissan Avarice! The incredible Ford Pride!

The Advanced Mercury Sloth doesn't work, but if we use the Latin name, it is best of all: Drive the all-new Hyundai Acedia!

I read something a few years ago that said that the Buick Roadmaster had one of the most favorable ratings by owners of any American car ever made. I know my parents had two and were very dismayed when Buick stopped making them. It was a cool car because you could be on a trip from D.C. to Minneapolis and you only had to move to the front seat to instantly be in Minneapolis!

[The_Professor]

Far as i know, none of us drive hummers.

I doubt none of you would turn one down if given one.

Nope, I would immediately sell it! Let's see. I purchased it for $55K. After two days, I might get $20K for it! 

[The_Professor]

So, XO, what hidden meaning do you find in my vehicle?  I have the Ford Five Hundred with AWD.

I drive a Buick Regal myself.  What Fascist proclaimation does sirs present with such a travesty of a vehicle?

===================================================
Well, one would assume a yearning to present a royal image.

I sure hope it's better than the 1982 Regal four door I had. It had a large (3.7 litre) buy truly puny engine that could not maintain a constant 60 mph on the I-75 hills coming into Atlanta from the Soth and the puniest brakes that I have ever had on a car, including three Renaults (a Dauphine, an R-10 and an R-16) a Studebaker and a Hudson with twin H-power. One was never sure one would stop in time. The interior plastic was five shades of blues and greens, ranging from baby blue to stale peasoup green, much of it some form of self-destructive plastic that flaked into bilious green dandruff when scraped. It blew a headgasket at 61,000 and the dash caught fire and burned, ending its career at only 81,000. I bought it used for $850 and spent over $1200 on it in the two years I drove it. The rear windows could not be rolled down, instead, there were electric wind wings. One was broken in an incompetent attempt to steal the fool thing.

Unfortunately, it did not last long enough for the only purpose it was well suited for: Roger Smith's tombstone.

Hudson's were memorable cars. The Hornet is a favorite of mine when I get to a decent car show.

You owned a Dauphine? That has to have been one of the worst vehicles ever made (no offense). I think there are lawnmowers with more horsepower. It ranks up there with the Chevrolet Citation, Chevrolet Vega, and that 350 diesel engine Chevy made from a gas engine that tended to catch on fire.

GM really made some crap there for a while.

As in Paul Newman's Hudson Hornet?

[_JS]

I think if you took a survey of those of us to the right of Domer you would find the majority of us think it is high time we looked at all the options on the table as far as development of alternative energy.  We may disagree with how this should be done, the level of govt funding etc. but it is a high priority for most of us.

I'll 2nd that.  And "all" includes our own oil vs importing foreign sources

My unlce has hundreds of capped wells in Western Kentucky. He says it doesn't pay to uncap and pump them due to oppressive EPA regs.

In Western KY?

I'm guessing that it wasn't the EPA's fault, but the fact that the oil is just such low quality. We have old pumps here in TN too, but the oil quality is just no match for the Arabian or Russian oil. The same problem exists in much of Alaska. It costs too much to refine poor quality petroleum. That's simple economics and not evil government.

[Michael Tee]

<<My unlce has hundreds of capped wells in Western Kentucky. He says it doesn't pay to uncap and pump them due to oppressive EPA regs.>>

You also have to wonder about the "oppressive" EPA regs.  "Oppressive" as in Hey!  stop poisoning the local groundwater?  or "Quit causing brain damage to the local children?"  Every one of those "oppressive" regs has probably been challenged by the industry in its passage into legislation and in court time after time and still stood the test of the industry's high-paid lawyers.