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no, but this month is 18 years together.

I think you need to look deeper at this. He made his money, millions of it, by talking, so he has a natural desire to keep the conversation going. He was also incredibly disingenuous about it. It's all well and good to say we shouldn't build walls, but he was responsible for building or reinforcing most of them. This tweet is just rage bait designed to get the right wing angry at the gays, many of whom serve in the military. May is Military Appreciation month. So not only is he spreading bigotry, he's also spreading misinformation.... and he did that All. The. Time. When he got shot, he was in the process of trying to blame mass shootings on trans people. I frequently see people say that he was taken out of context, but when you go look up the entire context, what he's saying is even worse. You know what dead guy you don't have to ever explain context about? Mr. Rogers. Did you know he also kept a public list of professors who taught on subjects like feminism, LGBT issues, or even just American history that he didn't like? He posted these professors pictures and contact information on his website and turned his supporters loose on them flooding them with death threats, sending barrages of e-mail and phone calls to universities to get these professors fired, some of them even having to uproot their lives and move. Doesn't sound very in the spirit of "just keep talking" does it? Imagine having 100,000 people e-mail your boss saying you need to be fired in the worst terms possible. That's not very freedom of speechy of him. He spread Covid misinformation too, something which conservatives have been 100% wrong about on every angle of the subject for over 5 years now. His entire operation was grift. Getting people angry in order to extract money from them. Heck, his memorial service yesterday was selling Merch! His wife set up a gofundme even though they've been bringing in millions for years. So, while you feel you may have some alignment on his views, I would highly encourage you to find out what he was really about and the positions he took specifically to build the very walls he was claiming to want to pull down. But feel free to post a position he had that you agree with and I'll take a wack at it.

Oh I LOVE to engage in politics and talk politics. It is difficult for me to follow my own rule here. But there are other places on the internet for that and I would rather we keep this a friendly place. Politics can, especially of late, ruin relationships and friendships. I've left car clubs over politics and the general bad behavior associated with older white straight men of a particular political party. For a time, I considered shutting down C&G because every thread devolved into an "I love EVs"/"You're a dumb liberal if you do" fight and it really killed my love for this hobby. It has been difficult for me to return to it.

Today, Jan. 14, would have been my LaCrosse's 18th birthday. It could have done everything except drink. Same color, but different alloys. (stock photo) I hope that the buyer is getting good service from it. Every once in a while, when I see one, I miss it. Between the '92 Regal coupe and this last one, I have driven the 3800 V6, both as the original owner, for 399,000 miles. And the way I maintained them, there would have been a good bit more useful life in them left.

Happy Birthday @Drew Dowdell!

It's not about putting down the fork. It's about changing what that fork picks up.

Since making major changes to my diet and walking more, I’ve taken off 10 pounds in the last month. Still got a ways to go, but almost under 200lbs for the first time in 25+ years.

Not religious, but I find the orthodox church about eleven billion times more Christian than American evangelicalism. I have several man caves, a spare bedroom in my house for reading, a garage woodworking shop, my living room set up for Stereo equipment. This is why most of my time is in my wood shop, my living room with my stereo, or out hiking/on my bicycle. The more I know about humans, the more I like cats, dogs, and birds.

Different account. You're thinking of @VenSeattle. All of the accounts were new signups that got through 2 layers of spam filters. I pay for an extra layer of spam security for this site, that's why incidents like this are relatively rare compared to other sites. The first line spam firewall has blocked over 5,400 attacks over the last 7 days, and it's like that every week. So 11 getting through once every few months is still fantastic results. There's a second layer of spam filter as well. These spammers were reported to both.

Speaking of guys holding a Yorkie, here I am with Lola recently at the vet. She’s been to the groomers since then.

He was sleepy joe because we could all sleep at night and he wasn't up at 2 a.m. posting unhinged tweets. You're right about all the rest, but here's some additional context. The Chinese EVs are so cheap because there is a price war going on in China in the EV market right now. They are being sold at a loss even in their domestic market because they have so many companies producing them, they are trying to outlive each other to eventually dominate the market. The Chinese goverment also is subsidizing the purchase of EVs on the consumer end while supporting the industry with subsidies. It's the EV tax credit and battery plant subsidy we did but times 10. The Chinese want entry to the North American market for the same reason. They don't want to just sell here, they want to put the legacies out of business so they can raise prices later. They did this with the solar industry already. We once had a booming solar panel production capacity in North America, but China came in and undersold everyone and now China controls that market.

In this latest war with Canada (we'd been bros since like 1813), this American is taking the Canadian's side. That's all I've got to say on it.

Talking, in general, about politics is not taboo. Talking politics where politics are not wanting to be talked about, is taboo. Nobody is going to specific group pages (Corvette, Mustang, Dallas Cowboys, Montreal Canadians, Dale Earnhardt Jr) groups and wanting to talk politics. Go to political pages that are dedicated to talking that stuff. There are sooooo many pages/sites available if you want to talk politics. Talk politics with people who want to talk politics. That seems fair, right? Personally, I don't want to be talking about the new Silverado EV's multiple trims and battery sizes and have somebody cram some political garbage into the comment section.

30 years ago at the U of Michigan my PhD advisor had a dark green '93 Bonneville w/ the tan leather interior.. I don't recall the trim level or engine, but it was a nice car..rode in it a couple times to dinner/etc. He also had a white '92-ish GMC Jimmy 4dr (the square S15-based one). He's now the president of Carnegie Mellon U.

These were awesome engines, just needed a huge engine bay as any straight-line engine needs. I call BS on this, I feel that if you cannot respect the cost of taking care of your truck and to me abuse it by damaging it, then your just lazy and clearly have no idea about how to use tools properly. I have heavily used my trucks, SUVs and CARs and never babied them, but always kept them looking sharp. Yes, accidents happen and sometimes when one is tired you might put a scratch on it, but this truck has just been abused by someone that does not care. His statement of a Truck you're afraid to beat-up is no longer a truck is BS, you do not need to beat up a truck to still have it as a useful tool. A person who abuses their vehicles tells me a ton about their approach to how they work and live and they are just lazy and do not care. Do you really want a person like that working with you or doing work for you when they cannot take any pride in their own tools, makes one question if they would really take any pride in their job, products they do, etc.

In both cases its the cycle that humans let run for decades. Neither party is innocent, go back to the year I was born Americans were bombing kids in Vietnam and the Chinese were enslaving children and adults in the cultural revolution and the Marxist garbage in China. The thing that disgusts me is that I think we have more economic and political liberty to change the situation and it persists, so, in my calculus having more ability to change and not changing is worse. One of my favorite philosophers is Simone Weil. She was highly skeptical of both Capitalism and Marxism, and doubted that humans were in many cases capable of grand change or collective action. I am kind of with her on this. Thank you for being sane and reasoned, and putting up with the bitching on the left from all of us here. We now return you to this forum, where our love of dashboard plastic matches the love JD Vance feels for living room furniture. In Sport mode, the Camry will move, and the Turbo 4 in the Ranger has not disappointed me. 131,000 miles on that beast, has run well so far...knock on wood. They were damn fine vehicles. The last of them are rotting to oblivion and running their final miles here in Ohio. Sad to see them go. The Big Buicks were the best of the lot IMHO. The Camry and Ranger are both easy for me to park in the city, even parallel park. A dually pickup truck would not be so easy though.

Heh heh..I'm 55.. can't believe 60 is so close. After 25+ years of mostly driving Grand Cherokees, I do enjoy driving my Cadillac sedan. But it is a handful in tight parking lots due to the overall length, long wheelbase and AWD. Had to make a few 25 point turns in tight parking lots in Beaufort, SC and Savannah GA on my vacation....as I was driving around those cities with their colonial-era narrow streets I was wondering what it was like in the 60s-80s with the huge and downsized but still huge B-bodies, C-bodies that were common then... a lot more scratched bumpers and door dings then, I suppose. I have no idea how people park full size double cab/crew cab pickups in cities, but I see a lot of it.

Good morning: Sending Sicilian Saturday vibes your way. I dropped off a rental car to board my plane in the States while it was flurrying. That is the hydrofoil that goes to Malta. I think that - where I am standing - I am a hair south in latitude compared to Tunis, the capital of Tunisia! But this is still Europe ... sort of. Walking along the beach in a small town I spotted this - the new and the old.

Today - depending on the time zone - marks 20 YEARS that I have been on C&G. It seems to have gone in chapters: First 3 years: Needed a new car, the LaCrosse was being released, and I was weighing the options, including test driving. Some of you will remember one ghastly initial design for the LaCrosse the Bob Lutz threw the book at the design staff for. Next 15 years: Owning the car, reporting on it, and driving other cars while on vacation, not to mention a lot of fighting with ocnblu ... which was hard to avoid! Last 2 years: NO car ... living on 2 continents ... (I would have never imagined this) ... renting cars as needed. There's a lot more to this decision than deciding between a LaCrosse, a Grand Prix, and a Monte Carlo.

As far as modern wagons go, I found the recent Volvo V90 quite attractive.

Call me old fashioned, but as much as I like two-tone exteriors, I don't like all those colors and stripes. Looks like a basketball shoe.

Very slick! Very nice! Straight to my wagon lovin' heart!

Loving the G90 Wingback profile. OK, sent ya the PDF files, so you do not have to figure out installing the 7zip software to open the file. This is awesome

One of my sister’s friends has gone overboard with white. Both her Michigan lake house and Florida house are all white inside, walls, kitchen, white carpet, white furniture, white trim, white dog…a bit much IMO.

Over the last six years or so, I have slowly grown my Vinyl collection. This project was an effort to preserve my vinyl playing ways after the original 50 year amp gave out and I could not find a replacement anywhere on earth lol. Here's some other pics of the progress over the last week or so... After gutting it, I installed some wood slats. For the record, nothing was cut away from the cabinet itself. I steed away all the original components in case I ever come across another OEM amp for it. The only change to the cabinet itself was the paint and stain job. After that, I set did a little "switcharoo" with some old school Sony floor speakers that were put into storage due to a pair of blown passive woofers (top speakers in them were active woofers with the bottom being the passive woofers). I combined the working woofers into a single cabinet and cut out two holes on one end to install the mid and tweeter from "gutted" floor speaker cabinet. Then that was installed through the back of the console and it barely fit lol. Here's the rest of the work.

And a huge happy birthday to Drew!

You're right. At the time, the forum was more GM-centric and all of the car divisions were around, with Oldsmobile just having exited. The Canadians on here were just like the Americans and they themselves also had a long history with GM cars that they owned or that their families had owned. Some of these folks were interesting, and even funny. One such person was a Torontonian who had held a lot of different jobs, one of which was selling GM cars. He took us back to the Toronto that had a sizable middle class thriving there, unlike the very expensive Toronto of today. He told quite a few ribald stories, sometimes oversharing, but they made for interesting reading. He had a significant other from Brazil, so he began dividing his time between Toronto and Brazil and then participated less and less. But he made some eye opening posts! Yep, it was just normal back and forth car stuff - commenting about mostly ICE coupes and sedans that were still around - or just random daily cartoon strip stuff that was happening in our lives. During this period, I met one of the more understated Canadians on the forum when I was in Canada on vacation and he had recently picked up a babied rust-free Cutlass Supreme colonnade. That meeting was a good experience.

While I agree with your overall position here, you have to accept your role in feeding the troll during all of this.

Today marks the two-year anniversary that I do not have a motor vehicle to my name. There's less to hassle with. But the periodic renting is also annoying. When I see a nicely kept same model year LaCrosse going by, there might be a slight wince. I think it went to a good owner, as far as I could see, and hope that they get good use out of it. Actually, you can make an adventure out of riding transit. For example, I love that cheap 7-day MTA card that works across all five boroughs of NYC. Discovering large metro areas using public transit passes can be fun, as long as it does not lean too much on the "thrillseeker" side.

A friend and former coworker has a Regina SK-themed area of his man cave in his house in Huntington Beach, CA...Western Pizza menus on the walls, SK Roughriders merch, regional beer bottles, etc. I have a bunch of NE Ohio/Great Lakes region stuff for my man cave in progress--- miniature lighthouses, light house photos, freighter photos, etc.

Random thought: Talking politics non-stop on an auto enthusiast site is like talking autos non-stop on a political enthusiast site.

Washington has pretty color change for a drive through the mountains, but I love that most of the year we stay green no matter the season. HWY 20

Here's a pic I took Sunday at my favorite local beach on Lake Erie...been up there the last two weekends...taking a folding chair and a floppy hat, sit and listen to the waves..very relaxing...dip my toes in the lake. One of my happy places where I can shut out the drama of the world.

Don't be jealous. Just kidding. Just do it. Easier said than done, but I recommend it. And you nailed it. It is considered a crossing in that it's New York to Southampton, or vice versa. Those who know and love this voyage would bristle at it being called a cruise. It follows the traditional historic route of its Cunard predecessors. This is my third crossing and fourth time on QM2. I cut out a lot of things in life. I hit up BK on Whopper Wednesday, for example! Say you're heading to Europe and staying a while. Compare a nice enough cabin to outlays for one-way airfare, lodging for 7 nights, your daily meals, and that you don't have rental car costs and utilities. It's not that much more. You'll have to get an internet package. I also participate in the tipping package and give extra to the stateroom attendant and the dinner waiter and second person. I don't buy alcoholic drinks and I don't go into the casino. I bought a mug and a t-shirt this time ... usually stuff like that. I do have some CCL stock I bought a few years ago. The 7 day crossing gets you $100 in credit. This crossing runs deep in my family. I made 2 round trips on then active Italian Line as a kid. My parents and some of my relatives did it more often than that. Italian Line still called it a transatlantic crossing, but they had stops. Often, from NYC, it was (1) Portugal: Lisbon, (2) Spain: Algeciras/Gibraltar, Barcelona, OR Palma de Mallorca, (3) France: Cannes, and finally (4) Genoa and Naples. They did drop off and pick up passengers at these ports, so people from 4 Southern European countries used their ships to immigrate or repatriate. In port, we usually took the 4 hour motorcoach tours. Lisbon was my favorite port. My parents said the food on Italian Line was top notch, but it was definitely Italian-centric and only somewhat international. The cabin attendants made us these delicious panini with prosciutto, cheese, etc. when we kids asked for them as snacks. You will never forget crossing an ocean as a child.

My CT6 has these thumb rest bumps at 10 and 2 that I use often. But when I’m doing a straight line cruise on the freeway I often hook my thumbs at 5 and 7 so I can rest my elbows on the armrests.

100% spot on analysis of Kirk. Yes, the way he died was horrible, no matter what side of the political spectrum on which you stand. However, let us not ignore the man's ACTUAL words and actions that helped fuel the "radicalization" of certain factions in this country and create this exact scenario where someone decided to take matters into their own armed hands. Ten years of pure madness fueled by one giant narcissistic A-Hole in D.C.

Just a few months ago I was getting Kerry Gold on sale for $10.99 Your grammar lesson for today.

I get that, but it was cheap. We (myself included) are always wanting more affordable cars but when they make them, we complain about how cheap they are.

I thought it was a Sonic. It works for the vehicle it was put in though. It started at like 14k when it first came out. The Spark's was basically the same design that just looked newer(because it was). That's exactly what it was back then. Big tach with a small digital speedo + other information. This was my Triumph Daytona's instrument cluster (not my picture):

That sounds very smart on GM's part. That way they're only really making like 3 packs and adding them together for various uses. I'm sure other companies are doing things similarly, I just don't know about it. Thank you for the information. It's much appreciated! While I think a lot of auto enthusiasts would agree, I think the masses think the opposite. I know a lot of people who just want all black interiors. Well, I think everybody I know who's bought a vehicle recently has wanted an all black interior, for whatever reason. I'm more of a fan of dark brown leathers. I'm a sucker for that.

Ok, a few things to address, but I agree with most if not all you've said. My only Air B&B experience in Italy was in July 2023, in Bari (southeastern on the boot; top of the heel). The only caveat of the whole thing was an elevator issue, which was rectified (it was on the top floor, and one day it wasn't working so we had to walk down all the stairs, and it was 115F outside, and you know the interior of the building doesn't have a/c). Since I broke my leg falling down a flight of stairs during lockdown, I still get anxiety on them today. Everything else about the experience was perfect. My only experiences not in the south are limited to 25 years ago... I've spent a few trips on the bottom of the heel at my in-laws homes, and the south in general, is opposite of the south of the US in terms of being progressive. When it comes to more liberal topics such as homosexuality, the south is surprisingly friendly. Even the town priest walked up to me and was very welcoming. The places you may come across more right-leaning ideologies are in central Italy and the north. Of course it's not everyone, but in general, you'll see more bigoted people in central/northern Italy. It's tricky for me to give an accurate, unbiased reaction to the country though because when I go there, I am fluent enough to be confused as a native, and they always peg my accent as southern (which has to be from my late fiance's and my grandmother's/father's influence). You will still get the reaction from northerners that are against the south... just like southerners who are against the north, but I'll save that history lesson for class. Small towns in the south are incredible.. I stayed in this tiny hotel... 40€ a night, air-conditioned, breakfast included (granted in Italy that's just a cornetto and a cappuccino, but that's all I eat anyway), WiFi, so clean you could eat off the bidè, and the hotel owner's wife treated me like her child. I came home one night and she washed and folded my dirty laundry (seriously). I approached her about it, which, I understand most might find this a huge invasion of their privacy, but when a man is traveling alone (and she knew I was a widower), the "mother" in them comes out. In fact, she didn't think I was taking good-enough care of myself, so she'd tell me to go into the kitchen and help myself to peach juice, taralli (for those who don't know, they're the Italian versions of pretzels but have a texture of like a cracker), cookies, etc. Southern Italy has become more like home to me (aside from my fiance being buried there, it reminds me of my own family). My only hatred is for the blistering sun and summer heat.

Some more pics.

Dad sent me spy photos of the 2026 Ford F-150 SUB testing south of Miami last week.

A Deville Concours. These were rare when new and rarer now. These were the high end version that came with the more powerful northstar and magnaride. Concours got all the new suspension tech through this generation as it came out.

That's every car company out there. Toyota and Honda only exist today because of the US government getting Japan back on its feet and then later the Japanese government supporting them with currency manipulation and socialized pensions and medicine. Subaru was originally Fiji Heavy Industries which built busses, trains, heavy construction machinery, and was a major supplier of airplanes. FHI is still a major aerospace company who supplies parts for the Airbus 380 and just about every model Boeing makes or has made that starts with a 7. They also make military helicopters and both military and commercial drones. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and VW are all here today because of the Marshall Plan and later their countries' social medicine and pension programs. Mercedes makes a lot of military and construction equipment purchased by governments. BYD (and others) is where it is because the Chinese government spent loads on battery development and incentives to its citizens to by EVs. Prior to that, BYD built their industrial might on building busses and other heavy machinery for the Chinese government and local governments all over the world. GM and Ford had major defense contracts during WWII, the 2008 bailouts, the Biden EV tax credits, the Obama cash-for-clunkers incentives, and much more. However, they famously have always had to manage their own healthcare and pensions systems which are what put them at a competitive disadvantage throughout the 80's and 90's. Stellantis's ownership timeline is too convoluted to even tackle, but Chrysler was bailed out in 1979, then they bought AMC/Jeep which had been kept afloat by the military, then they were bailed out again in 2008 by both the US and Italian governments. Fiat is/was a major equipment and bus supplier in Europe. The French government has always supported Peugeot and Citroen... the list goes on.

This thing looks worse than the EQS. 2 things that car companies need to get rid of is the bar of soap design and the yoke steering wheel. And I just saw Mercedes is going to steer by wire and showed a yoke style steering wheel. People don't want yokes in a car.

On mine, there is a box on the lower right marked 'PARTS CONTENT INFORMATION'.

Just not good enough at being a motor vehicle period...just hideous, shoddily built chod..