SobeSVT

Oh, no, we've gone down the language route. I like German for how guttural it can be. I only know a few things.

First thing I learned:

"eine gros schwarze frau" (my friend said that was how you describe this lady walking down the street at the time)

Second thing I learned:

"der Italiener zind lustig und verruckt" (I totally agree, you should see my parents)

Also, for Sobe:

Creia que Usted era Americano inicialmente, pero escribiste que viene de Caracas. Tenia una amiga de Caracas que vive en California que es "una come mierda," con una vida como una telenovela. Es mulata y ella tiene verguenza de eso, entonces quiere salir solamente con los hombres mas blancos posibiles (rubios con ojos azules). Siempe tiene problemas. Yo y mi amigo Cubano en California la llamavamo "La Reina de Maracaibo." (Sin rason, solamente porque "it sounded good").

Definitivaente tu amiga "maracucha" es una come mierda de grandes ligas, no entendí si era de Caracas o de Maracaibo al final Me imagino que es de Caracas, ya que usualmente la gente de Maracaibo es muy orgullosa de como son, si es maracucha ella debe ser la excepción que confirma la regla.

anata wa baka desu.

I'd like to see if anyone sorts that out. :AH-HA_wink:

That is Japanese and if you has added "ka?" at the end it would mean, "are you stupid"

Thank you Google!!!

Awwww.....just got some pics back from Xmas.......

This is my friend Paul (left) and I.....probably reading C&G on my laptop......looks pretty bad with all the liquor/alcohol on the table, eh? LOL

Me and my mother (flew in from Tampa) trying to figure out how to carve the turkey.....(I was never good at such things)

The ole' "Ex" Aaron (we still live together and own the house together) and mom with the fruits of their labor.....

. . and who is this Paul again. And tell us the truth, that is not C&G you are showing him, you dog.

¿Hablan español?

Hablo español, si señor. Fue el primer idioma que aprendí.

All this hate for Americans, WOW! Where's that coming from? Well thank God my passport says Bundesrepublik Deutschland on it! :AH-HA_wink:

Speak for yourself sweeheart.

J'aime la Amerique.

Yo amo a America.

I love America.

I think Ford finally found their strength: Their bought intelligence from other brands. Mazda has helped them a lot lately (Fusion/Milan/MKZ, Edge/MKX)

If Ford finally goes down, one of the factors to blame will be how terribly segmented and misused their global resources were for a long time. I am very happy to see Volvo technology used on the American cars (Five Hundred/Taurus, Montego/Sable) and also to see the successful join developments between Ford and Mazda in the C1 (Mazda3, Volvo S40 and Euro Focus) and D3 (Mazda6, Fusion/Milan/MKZ, CX-9, Edge//MKX). Now they are also jointly attacking the B-segment market.

I hope is not too little, too late. I think not, but then again, only time will tell.

Yo, Sobe, where in Miami Beach do you live? But you're not originally from there...almost no one is.

I've got cousins in both Dade and Broward Counties. Five years ago, housing was a screaming bargain down there. Not any more.

Just ignore ocnblu...he's always ready to pounce, it seems. LOL.

Four blocks north of the Convention Center on Prairie.

I am originally from Caracas, Venezuela

Its crazy expensive now, so much that property taxes and insurance (Hurricaine alley, you know) are driving people away, not only out of the city, but out of the state.

I am convinced that one of the three will be a goner. That basically is Micheline Manyard's scenario in her book The End of Detroit. She said that by the end of the decade one of the big three would be out of the picture.

I still think that the goner is the Chrysler group, since it is the weakest link. Daimler is already trying to get rid of them, I personally believe that if GM buys them Chrysler will drag them down and I don't see how GM could buy Chrysler without the labor liabilities and almost as bad how could GM solve the inventory glut problem in Chrysler. There are those reports about Daimler wanting to keep Jeep with them (I can't blame them) which would basically leave the Chrysler group as an unapealing carcass with one or two attractive offers.

Ford isn't half as bad as Chrysler although they have their own heavy set of troubles. But Ford has shown in the last two years that they can deliver: Although it has soften during the winter the Mustang is a hit well beyond anyone;s wildest dreams. The Mustang sent both GM and Chrysler running to the rawing baord to come with concepts Challenger and Camaro, which street version are over a full year away from hitting the market right at the end of the current Mustang life cycle. The Ford Fusion had a very good perfomence when introduced and has only gotten better with time and the Edge and MKX had a very strong launch outselling GM offerings Acadia and Outlook, and have registered a conquest rate of 40% and the Fusions conquest rate is 47%, and somehow the Expedition sales have been growing for 6 months in a row while the Tahoe is receding quite significantly (a bit more than the Mustang)

I don't think the government is goint to help at all. I don't know if UAW consessions will be enough, but you can put money that there will be some.

The old Ford stuff is still a mess to work on but their new stuff is kicking some serious ass and that for me is a signal that Ford is a keeper. Only time will tell though.

I got very angry after reading your first response. You questioned my core beliefs, ones I hold very true to myself. You treated my beliefs as if they were facades I made up for the sake of posting here. I am not a troll, and I am truly left wing. It felt like a personal attack, and I responded with a flame. In a way I'm glad that you read it though, since your response to it showed that you truly do know how to argue without attacking - which isn't what it seemed like from your first post.

I apologize for that flame.

Hope we can keep it civil in here.

Fair enough! I am glad also that we can talk our differences here. I guess that I am less of a romantic and much more pragmatic when it comes to this issue, I also have an enormous soft spot in my heart for Ford and cars in general, so don't expect me to be 100% objective. :AH-HA_wink:

I really would love to see both companies surviving.

edit: This thread has become too political. Forget it.

Too late you got too personal. i am not discussiing politics but your hypocrisy. You call yourself a "left wing troublemaker", insult me and then ask me to forget it??? OK, fine . . . forgotten. just et me say that it is people like you who give us Real Left Wing Troublemakers a bad name. :AH-HA_wink:

SobeSVT:

Explain to me how being left wing and awaiting the demise of an inefficient top-heavy corporation feeding a war machine with its tax money are contradictions?

You, my friend, are an example of the reasons that Americans are internationally hated. Just because you don't like an opinion doesn't mean it has no merit. You may not like my opinions, but please don't pass them off as contradictions unless you can back it up.

Your reference to history is very true. Ford did arguably contribute more to the automotive industry than any other company in history. However, this is (unfortunately) not what keeps corporations alive. That's capitalism for you.

Well, it is very very simple. The demise of Ford, or for that matter of any inefficient top-heavy (whatever that means) corporation that employs hundreds and thousands of people worldwide will be one more blow, albeit a giantic one both economically and morally to the American (and Canadian) workforce. Therefore if your left-wingness is true and therefore you are supportive of the little man, of the minorities, of the hard working people (whether in the US, Canada, Mexico or wherever else), the fact that you are advocating, or wishing - you name it-, for Ford's demise for purely economic reasons the way that "culling the fat from the international industry" is, makes the contradiction is evident and GIANT. Now, if you call yourself "left wing troublemaker", only because you don't support the war in Irak then you should also be wishing for GM's demise as well as for the demise of every single tax paying American corporation and individual there are since all are "feeding a war machine with its [their] tax money". But since again you spare GM due to that "je ne se qua", that something intanglible ( please! ) you are contradicting yourself again. If you think of it GMs contribution to the war machine is larger than Ford's.

Hate to disapoint you but I am not an American citizen and I do not support the war in Irak or the war as a concept at large (and I still need to pay my taxes) and although I tend to talk my issues to death I usually am very open to ther people opinion's as long as they make some sense. In my prior post I reazoned why I did see your position as contradictory and you chose to ignore any reason I gave you and instead all you were able to do was to pull the anti war card (very nice, we share that) and use a personal attack which incidentally you candidly extended to all Americans. So I hope you will understand if I don't hold any hopes for an adult conversation here.

Aww, look at Sobe. Think I could stay on that Mustang for 8 seconds?

PICTURE

I am kind of a newby here so I might have missed it if you posted it before . . . .

I don't mean to s**t in the Cheerios here, but I must remind the posting public that I've never liked Ford, nor am I pro-American. There's just something intanglible I like about GM. Always have. Would it be the same if GM were Japanese from the start? Absolutely. I see and understand the arguments about buying North American, and I understand them. However, as a proud Canadian it's a little harder to get behind those ideas. Sure, my money is staying closer to home, and it's partially funding plants around here, but it's still leaving my country. Not only that, but it's going to a country whose taxes support an army whose actions I really don't agree with.

This Ford question is not coming from a pro-American. So please remember that when you say it's a horrible question. It may be to you, but personally I would see it as culling the fat from the international industry.

I realize as well that not all Ford fans would go to GM. That's fine. Some would, and more to the point, GM would have more bargaining power with the UAW and would likely have to give less incentives, as they would no longer have Ford to compete with in that department.

The Silverado/Sierra make so much money... just imagine if there was no more F150.

The only thing that a Ford bankruptcy would bring is that Ford will legally be able to use the Collective Bargaining Agreementys with the UAW and the CAW as toilet paper. All health benefits granted to workers, blue and white collar, will go to hell without Ford having to ask for any favors, and the guys taking care of the proceedings wont certainly miss their fat fees. The company will be alive, will be protected against creditors for a while until they get their act together and GM will wish they had filed for .

Now if Ford disapears, which would seem to be your wish more than a chapter 11 filing, Toyota will certainly sit its well formed, nimble and increasingly good looking ass on top of the food automotive food chain to never leave again. It would trigger a chain reaction whithin the American auto industry and GM would probably collapse short after. Tousands and thousands of American and Canadian workers will be out of means of living and the Michigan/Windsor area will become the Kosovo of the Americas.

For someone who proclaims to be the "resident left wing troublemaker" wishing for "culling the fat from the international industry" seem to put it lightly, very contradictory, much more in line with what Ann Coulter would say, but I guess that those contradictions are all yours to deal with.

If Ford "Folds" though with it would also fold the spirit of the American auto industry, and of the American industrial might at large. The dream of the man that put the world on wheels. The company that gave its first wheels to the common man. The company that single handedly created the American auto industry (while Ford is the product of the dream of one man, GM was born as a conglomerate of failed companies put together by a man of great vision but horrible business skills and taken over by a group of brilliant and well educated and very aristocratic business men that followed very closely everything that Henry Ford did). The company that created the American middle class. Shoichiro Honda's inspiration. The creator of every single ultra big hit that the American auto industry has ever had: Model T, Model A, 1949 Ford, the Mustang and the Taurus, being the last one the inspiration for the Camry that seats in the top of the charts today. But if a senile and crazy as a goat Henry Ford himself couldn't make his creation "fold" in 1945, Ford will certainly survive today's juncture. So keep dreaming, and spear me the "left wing troublemaker" BS.

I've been thinking lately - I can't wait for Ford to fold. The sooner they do, the less likely it is that GM will do the same. The UAW will have to make some kind of concession if Ford folds. Maybe then GM could compete.

Would this work?

Will it come to this?

What do you think?

That is a horrible (and very stupid) thing to say. AND if GM's ability to compete depends on Ford "folding" then GM is in much worse shape than you think. Hopefully both companies will pull ahead.

I happen to think she has some excellent points, then again sometimes Ann sounds a wee bit crazy and out of touch. After all I am in the minority around here I tend to me more conservative than most. Overall she is a good lady but has her flaws, and although her apporach a little extreme *(to much for me even!)* she happens to shed light on real problems and political correctness is one of them... How far can we let politically correct go, I have always wondered and think we have to stop somewhere because we will always offend somebody.

I am with you in one thing, political correctness can be a real drag, but that human subproduct (AC) makes an excellent case for political correctness. How calling a guy (who isn't even gay) faggott does help in the political discourse? I sincerely hope you can explain that. She only does it to be provocative and to cause this kind of discussion which in these days of extreme polarization is anything but helpful.

She really needs to shut that useless mouth of hers up.

In any case, I mostly use SAFARI and sometimes Firefox

As for our rights, I don't think they come from something greater. They come from people. Case in point, we don't have the right to kill another person, but we can kill animals and plants? Then there's the whole concept of marriage and so on. For a "God" to come up with these rights seems like a heavenly type of favoritism.

100% correct . . . and you say you are only 18? If rights were God given wouldn't everybody be able to exercise them. Would kids in Africa be starving? for example.

I don't see why evolution has to exclude God. I firmly believe in evolution but I am willing to accept the notion of a superior force, I'd rather call it mother nature and I totally BELIEVE that we are not even close to now the extent of its power. That there is a ruling concience behind it . . . well that is a lot harder to sallow for me, but I can't in all honesty say it isn't so.

What I will never believe is that we ae made in the image of God. We would be sooooooooo much prettier. I don't think that God is a half evolved primate.

By the way, Ann Coulter is an insult to bitches. The should make a new word for her . . . come to think of it, there is a very old one that begins with a big "C" for Coulter.

I LOVE C&G. I have been waiting for some reprimend for this line of discussion or even for a closing of the thread just to realize that is not going to happen.

Feel good to exchange with adults.

Well... Pontiac.com is worth $6,216,670.

And the porn site I go to is worth $470. w00t!

That's some cheap porn. Please do share URL . . . :AH-HA_wink:

Not bad........ for a Ford driver... :AH-HA_wink:

I drove a Camaro once . . .

Only because Oldsmoboi asked . . .

I think you need to post in the Pics thread.....

Are you serious? OK will do, just give me a moment.

I am gay and I don't mind being hit on by straight boys . . . how about that?

Rarely there comes a person who should just be assassinated for the good of society. Ann Coulter is one of those people.

That's extreme!!! I'd rather have her/him living in a world of tolerance, understanding, multipartisanism and love. I want her to grow really old in such a world. She will squirm in pain in such a world. I'd love to see that.