balthazar

-- -- -- -- -- If we need to channel 'Grand Am' anywhere... And is that an exposed cigarette lighter, on the console, in 2011? Sure you can plug junk in there... but there's still a cigarette emblem on it. How does everyone like that 'slide-in' rectangular NAV unit- nice integration, eh? Eh?? Drab, depressing & cheap-looking interior. Typically audi : overhype and WAY under deliver.

The more and more electronic this & airbag that & passive this & avoidance that only increases my desire to put a mid-'60s car back on the road, with REAL trunk space & REAL interior room & REAL visibility & REAL durability. I could have one rebuitl for FAR less than the entry-level price for this segment and that savings would pay for the MPG deficiency for a decade, easy. I don't need or want the latest electronic distraction, in-dash NNAAVV, etc etc etc - modern sh!t is really pointing up the need for a new Minimalist Car that allows the driver to concentrate on DRIVING (which would address most of what had been discussed in tangents in this thread). Verano looks nice from the pics, but it still seems to me the segments are slowly contracting towards each other, with less & less distinction on so many levels. I would have to see this side-by-side with a Regal. And with the contracting in spending still commonplace, I DO see this car -quiet & with decent features- competing 'outside' it's price class.

I like the way there is only 1 exterior badge & one interior badge. And the Cadillac Crest doesn't fill the entire grille like so many mercedes do. Classy.

^ Agreed. Mark the radiuses adequately, driveway openings & any road-edge obstacles, and maintain a 'line of vision' along straightaways with these. If one can visualize the complex buried in 12" of snow, where even the 'humps' of buried obstacles are getting lost, the placement should be fairly self-apparent. On straights, a stake every 150' or so should be fine. About the only thing a competant plow driver needs to know is about how far off the road these stakes were placed (ie; just on the other side of curbing, or 'inland' notably more. Often times the logistics of plowing requires pushing quantities of snow onto the lawns in certain spots- stakes too close there may quickly get buried. This thread is really making me appreciate whoever places these stakes for me- never gave it much thought before!

IMO, the illustration nails it: a conventionally functional car that you could pour any flammable liquid in as a fuel and go. '63 Chrysler Turbine.

Place I plow has no curbs, so these are quite welcome for me. They are well-placed by whomever does them. With a winding, buried lanscape to traverse, they are often my only guide. They mark the storm sewers in a different color. I'm supposed to leave them clear for melting runoff, but when you are dealing with 24" : no way. You are well advised to buy & place them yourselves (like Camino said- perhaps with input from the plower), because plow companies have the ready potential to charge out the wazoo for everything, including these.

Completely immaterial. Knowledge is plentiful and well-documented. Everyone has access to it. Drugs are recalled all the time for adverse affects on people, even with initial FDA testing & approval. Often, time & expanded sampling reveals the shortcomings and products are changed/banned. The shortcomings of lead, esp in children's goods, is entirely documented. The very tangible difference here is the span of time- China lacing children's goods with lead goes beyond the ignorance & limited testing of the 1950s and get right into willful assault & chargeable murder in 2010. China is not a stone-age society, ignorance is not at play here. We must stop making & accepting excuses. If the U.S. wasn't so indebted to china right now, I believe the repercussions would be markedly different.

You are really equating salmonella, a naturally occurring bacteria of over 1000 strains that the food handling industry fights on a minute-by-minute basis, to HUMAN feces in cooking lard? And The Jungle was published in 1906, the chinese examples are from 100 years later. Again, unless china is somehow stuck in a bubble in the year 1000, these things are NO LONGER excusable.

Wow: conversation over!

>>"I was mainly referring to Nordicism when I said that the Cleveland immigrants were probably reviled."<< Don't put up a chart about Cleveland in the 1920s~today... thinking about 1850's NY, Asians in the Pacific states and Hilter... and draw broad assumptions about Cleveland and say you 'proved your point'. Cold immigrations numbers in 1 city prove none of the above. You have an issue with past events, state THOSE and address those. Attempts to extrapolate those to every locale in this country at every point in time and you fail at step 1. That's the sort of sloppy, irresponsible idealistic rhetoric that spins a serious discussion right down the toilet. Don't broadbrush. Sure some of what you read on wikipedia happened in some instances. Of course there has been racism, from all races, in all countries, thruout history. But there's a monstrous difference here. No one today, anywhere, that I've seen, reported or rumored, is demonstrating against MEXICANS as a RACE. That is the typical race-baiting of the left. This again is where you fail to understand the issue on the minds of those speaking up. Immigration, like everything else, needs to be sensibly moderated, not wildly unchecked. 'Moderation is the key' as is often said. Those crying out 'close the borders' are frustrated; frustrated at Gov inaction, Gov ignorance of their own laws, Gov defeatism of it's own laws, and what bears every appearance of a partisan voter grab and nothing more. Because in general (NOTHING is absolute), Americans welcome immigrants, and value those coming here who demonstrate respect for this country's laws. But when millions & millions flaunt their disregard of the law, well, why should these same law breakers be welcomed ?? Is this merely an attempt to 'erase' past history, a feel-good moment? Emotional reparation? Because that doesn't work. And the Gov still has a responsibility to it's citizens first, above non-citizens, or what is the point of Gov in the first place?

Explain where your chart showed that they were "reviled".

Yet you don't seem to trust companies in China that will coat children's toys with lead in 2010, when it's been effectively banned in the U.S. (in housepaint for example) since 1970 ANY LESS, either. If you can see that, you sure don't convey that. Ideals are fine in the absence of facts. However, these scenarios did not happen at the same time in history, with the same base of knowledge, but generations apart with volumes of information readily available. Again; at what point did a U.S. company intentionally put human sh!t into cooking lard ??? (Let me guess: no answer there, again.) This is not accidental, it is not unknowning, it is INTENTIONAL, and it cannot legitimately be explained, equalized or excused. These are not inbred neanderthal zombies running things in china, they're not building computers with sharpened sticks in grass huts, it's not the year 1000 over there. Get real.

Ahh yes, the age-old conundrum; confusing ILLEGAL immigration with legal. no DOUBT the 240K that entered Cleveland in 1920, to a man, hopped a fence to get here. And now, because of the hundreds of thousand of illegal immigrants in the 1st half the century everyone in Cleveland sips ice tea and watches someone else mow their lawn, a veritable paradise !!

^ Riiiiight; because before the FDA/ et al, the sh!t was oozing out of cooking materials on U.S. store shelves. You seem quite unaware that there are MARKED differences in cultures around the world, and that that INCLUDES commercial cultures.

I think it's possible to get quality out of China, there are some examples of it, but to --for example-- consciously put human waste in cooking lard is some kind of frightening, zombie mindset... and the sheer scope & regularity of this sort of intentional practice where people & animals are knowingly sickened and killed for money via food supply is beyond comparison in modern times & civilized societies.

Even chinese cardboard is substandard.

>>"But 56 grand for a Cadillac Vue is a bit steep."<< And that is exactly the kind of self-fufilling crap that will insure just that.

Saw the vid- the method & the marks left there are obvious- but WTH made those smooth horizontal marks in the 1st pic?? I would LOVE to have a snow thrower truck vs. a blade for the job I do; would make it far easier (and more fun). I assume around here, we just don't get enough to warrant such a thing. Whatcha think, Camino?

Rush is basically approaching the issue on the basis of politics, not product. Not fair to the product, but that's his angle.

So I'm plowing again today. There's this one road that connects the 2 halves of this development, but the middle section is blocked. There's a maintenance shed & the tennis courts- otherwise it's 2 (joined) dead ends. On the 'other side' I can see an SUV, stuck in the snow. What he's doing there, I don't know, because I didn't plow that side AT ALL. So I drive around, and it's some old white-haired dude, and his AWD lexus RXwhatever is very stuck. Says he was checking out the hill for his grandson to sled. He lives 'right over there' (points to million dollar plus house). I offer to help, I shovel around all 4 tires, and watch him burn rubber- the front wheels in the ditch and the toyoyo humping side to side like a sick dog. I offer to give it a try, climb in (his herefore unseen wife in the pass seat), fuss with the retarded gated shifter, and pop it out of the ditch. He gives me $5. >:/ Never again- without being paid in advance.

Property manager called: the numerous tight, dead-end-terminating loops are 'slippery', so I'm going back out to do basically nothing, but the clock will twirl and I have nothing else going on. Lovely street design in Florida, perhaps; hell on earth to plow tho.

>>"I bet Balthazar is having fun."<< Oy. Started out from my house at 4PM. For the third time in a row, I drive the 30-some minutes to the plow job, make one pass on the main drag to the end, and the blade isn't lifting. Top off the fluid, bang on the connections, get the blade up, drive from 20 minutes to the 'plow shop' and wait around to get the pump replaced. Back out to the job, plow for a while and the front brakes go (ruptured line). Limp it back to the shop on RR brakes only. NO ONE on the road- very few plows (circa 11PM) Wait, replace 2 brake lines, back to the job. A few hours later I tag a raised manhole cover hard enough to lose both headlights. Plow for another hour on hazard lights, then limp it back to the shop on parking lights & hazards. Wait, headlights are a lost cause, but the hidden toggle switch that operates the (presumed dead) plow lights is found. At this point it is now 4AM & I am frazzled to the core. The job is in passable condition, so I go home, sleep about 3 hours, then go back around 10AM and tidy up for about 4 hours. At first I was frustrated, but I rolled with it. The upside is I get paid from leaving my driveway to returning home. 17.5 hours, plus a rouge $20 for backdragging a driveway for 5 minutes.

'round 1.5" so far in central NJ. Can still see tips of the grass (it was mowed in late Nov (mulching leaves). Fired up the blower, running fine. Pulled the plow truck up by the house & locked in 4WD. Found my mittens & loaded up the CD changer...

Latest sez 3-5 today, 6-10 tonite, so 9-15" total. Right now (2PM) there's about a half-inch down. We'll see if the '90 GMC has 1 more season in her...

I'm seeing 2-4 tomm night, plus 5-8 Monday in my plow zone (Princeton). Gotta get the snowblower out tomm and blow out the cobwebs, too. Not looking forward to this other than the money...