CARBIZ

Exactly - and just what do they prove? Like most 'certifications' today, they only provide more jobs to people who also control the agenda, plus make the safety nazis happy. I know people who work for the 'safety' police, and it has nothing to do with safety and everything about extorting the public.

The challenge is to build a vehicle that the jaded press and the know-it-all armchair critics like, then they will STFU and leave GM alone. There was nothing wrong with the OLD Equinox. (Well, other than the cloth seats which were fugly, but that has been a weak link for GM for about 5 years!) Even the truck guy who wrote for the Toyota Star wrote a (grudgingly) glowing piece about the Equinox back in '04 when it came out. He admitted that when he saw the spec sheat (the 'old' engine and other specs) he was immediately prejudicial toward the trucklet, but after driving it for a week in Texas, he decided it was a good package overall everything worked well together. Let GM focus on pretty door handles and soft plastics you can hump when your wife won't put out (like Chrysler did in the '90s), or vehicles that look great in crash tests or dynometer EPA ratings (like Honda and Toyota do) - that way, the a-holes at CR will love the vehicle.

Sounds to me like GXT took it up the ass on his Alero, then is still pissed about GM ever since. Let me tell you a story, GXT. In 2001 and 2002, I stood next to the Alero GLS at the Toronto Auto Show because I knew that with standard leather seats, spoiler, 16" wheels, 3.4 V-6, kick-ass sound system, all the power goodies, ABS, etc, this car leased out for $420 TAXES INCLUDED, about the same as a 4 cylinder Accord or Camry at the time. GM had a $3,500 STACKABLE cash credit AND a lease rate of 0.5% at the time. I knew I would be able to attract a lot of customers by pointing this out and make my unpaid time there worth it. If you paid anywhere near the $32k MSRP on that car - well, like I said, you are pretty boneheaded. Or you just don't know how to buy cars. If you lost $15k on the vehicle, it's because YOU PAID TOO MUCH. The beauty of GMAC leases (at the time) is that the lessee doesn't need to worry about depreciation, because it is in black and white. Why the F would you care if the Alero's buy back was $3-5K less than a crappy 4 cylinder Accord? Your payments are LOWER by quite a bit. That's what counts. GMAC would have taken their lumps at the auctions, for sure - but why would you care? Dump the car while in warranty and run. Cleary you got hosed on the deal. I am sorry for that, but you apparently never leased an Alero from me. Does GM play games with MSRPs? Yes. As a former salesperson, I hated it; however, over at our Toyota store, their 'red tag sales' garnered $350 discounts and people sneered at that. Remember, the public at large thinks we make $5-10K on EVERY car sold. A $500 discount gets laughed at. So, GM provides hidden 'stackable credits' which gives the dealer the tools to appease the "I know how to buy cars" a-hole, or we can soak the bone heads who don't. That's the nature of the car business, and one of the prime reasons I got out. As the movie Suckers points out, never once has a customer walked into the show room and given a $h! whether the dealer makes money or not... Back to your Cobalt/Corolla comparison. For 2009/2010, the Corolla has narrowed the gap, to be sure. The old Corolla was a POS, plain and simple. Cowl chake, chintzy suspension, grossly underpowered: I used to sell the '05 CAVALIER against the '05 Corolla just by test driving them with the customer back to back. Other than the Cavalier's fugly seats, it was the hands down winner in the handling/ride/power department by miles. In '09, Toyota played catch up. Knowing that the Cruze was still a couple years away, GM upped the ante with the Cobalt by piling on the equipment list. Here's GM's wins: The 1SB package for '10 is called the Team Canada Edition. It includes a 220W sound system with SEVEN Pioneer Speakers, including a 10" flat sub in the trunk XM Radio, standard On Star, standard Power sunroof, standard leather wrapped steering wheel, with radio controls, standard Blue tooth and all that stuff, programmable through the OnStar system (even without subscription, so there!) Chrome exterior handles and spoiler That is above and beyond all the usual Cobalt stuff, like 6 airbags, ABS, power windows, etc. Here are the Corolla's wins: automatic a/c - in a car? what, you can't reach the 30" to turn the heat down yourself? Smart key - yeah, kind of cool, but I wouldn't call a Corolla cool to begin with, so this feature is superfluous XM 'ready' - WTF is that? $550 for XM??? You can buy the portable for $220!!! DVD Nav 'optional' - yeah, but with OnStar you could upgrade for a year until you've grown bored of it and save $$$ love the dual glove boxes, tho no leather steering wheel available fewer speakers and downright crappy sound compared to the Pioneer system in the Cobalt the outside mirrors are heated - that is a feature I do like and is useful in Canada NO SUNROOF The ride and handling on the Corolla has vastly improved over the previous model - it should! It's 'all new.' The Cobalt is already 5 years old, but still holds its own, especially with all the tweaks they did to the 2.2 in '08. Finally, I like the Corolla. But I still would rather push the Cobalt than drive the Corolla (no damned way my money is going to Japan -ever!), but Toyota has done a good job with the Corolla. The 2.2 in the Cobalt is still quieter and has more power than the Corolla, but not by much. If you believe Canada's Energuide numbers, you are a fool. They are tested on a dyno, not even on a track. Toyota and Honda know this, and design their vehicles accordingly. BTW, a friend of mine bought a 'daily rental' used Alero from me back in '02 and was hit by two vehicles in an intersection a few weeks later, and walked away with a bump on his knee. The cops were amazed he survived. He came back to me and said he wanted the exact same car because it saved his life. Crash tests are great, if you drive into a brick wall; real world, not so much. FYI, in 2006, only the Corolla and Cobalt passed the small car side impact crash test that year, the vaunted Mazda 3, the Hyundai and all the rest failed. I don't put much faith in the crash tests. A laboratory is a laboratory.

???? Not sure what you're harping about: even the old Equinox had fold flat rear seats....What's your point?

"Frank, Fritz here. Frank, how much does GM spend with Magna every year?" [Long pause] "That much, eh? Listen, Frank, I know you're used to dealing with Rick, but I'm the boss now and I have Obama backing me, so here's the deal: we really don't want to ditch Opel, but ya know, right now with the German election and the bad news coming out of Wall Street - well, we just can't make a good PR case for keeping Opel. So here's what we want you to do, can you put together a deal with some Russian bank that we all know neither Washington or the Germans will like and can you drag this thing out for, say, six months or so? I know you're pretty good at shuffling paper, so can you do that for us?" [Long pause.] "Thanks, Frank. You're a pal. Yeah, no problem, you know we're gonna open the Oshawa plant again as soon as all this blows over. Yep, we'll keep those orders flooding in! Thanks again, Frank. Say hello to the wife... ah, what's her name again?"

I won't even grace their stupid list. I am sick of them. Since when would Business Week know a good looking car from an ugly one? Tastes change and even the cars of the '50s that are considered iconic today were merely common then. How many of my friends bought Sebrings, Challengers or Barracudas as beaters, drove the crap out of them, then scrapped them? Now those cars fetch $100k on Barrett-Jackson. By today's standards, Chrysler should have sold far more of those back then. MSN loves to dredge up their Top 10 or Bottom 10 lists all the time. They are the same sludge. Just another bored journalist with an axe to grind or a slow news day. "Hey, Ralph, when is the last time we printed a negative news piece about Detroit? What, three days? You're fired! Jameson, get your ass over here, stat! I want a Worst Cars in History list printed in tomorrow's issue. Yeah, yeah, better throw in a couple BMWs and Japanese cars to make it look fair, but you know, make sure the Cimarron is in it okay?"

Oh, GXT, you are so funny. I wish you'd come and bought a car from me when I was working at GM: my commission off you would have been well over $1,000. Keep up the good work, your posts are my daily thrill. First of all, by comparing a LE Corolla with a LT2 Cobalt, you are showing your true colors: they don't match up in features by HALF. Secondly, get off the internet will you? Both the GM and Toyota websites don't show accurately what their prices are or their equipments lists. If you would pay $21k plus taxes for a Cobalt LT2, then you are stupider than I thought you are. (Sorry, I know I shouldn't get personal, but this kind of sheer ignorance just cannot go unchecked. It's people like YOU, spreading your lies and ignorance that are destroying GM. Some people might actually think you know what you are talking about!!) Your half-assed analyses are getting annoying already! I worked for a GM store that owned 2 Toyota stores. I worked there for 10 years. For $h!s and giggles (and with the used car manager hovering over my shoulder) we crunched the REAL numbers many times, and forgetting the cost of money and forgetting the MANDATORY 3 money trips to the Toyota dealership, the Cobalt was literally $3-5K cheaper than the Toyota. Nobody uses black book, especially on newer vehicle. Black book is only shown to idiots that walk in the show room to prove the dealer is being 'honest.' It's the auctions, stupid. They change daily, literally. But the real proof is working at both a Toyota and Chevrolet store and SEEING the differences, not speculating about them like Cars.com or whaver half-asses sites you use. It's the mythology that Toyotas hold their value better that is keeping the Toyota mistique circulating. And people dredging up BS speculation about a car that GM isn't even building yet, hoping to topple it before it gets off the ground, is what is destroying North America. How can GM counter such mindless drivel when people believe it to be true? I don't even work for GM anymore, so really, I shouldn't give crap, but honestly - I can't countenance fools either.

Hmm, the plot thickens. Makes me wonder if GM is going to let Opel go after all, no?

Siegen, you do realize that entire courses are taught in colleges all over the world that spend years discussing examples of symbolism, allegory, ironical statment, etc, etc, etc in the media, advertising, literature, poetry... hell, pornos!!! Geez, sit in any court room or political arena for an hour and you'll see dicitonaries being bent, twisted and lobotomized...... It's just an ad...

Oh, the joys of a a free society and the internet: we get to attack GM before it builds something, during and then through hindsight attack things we overlooked. We are watching the final few moves of a massive game of chess on a global scale. What did GM learn from the EV-1 project? Answer: we don't know. Why didn't GM worry about aerodynamics on the Volt from the beginning? Answer: we don't know. How much will the car actually cost IN ANOTHER YEAR WHEN THEY START SELLING THEM? Answer, we don't know. What eventual mpg will the car get, when its real marketing trump card is that for 70% of the drivers out there, it will never run on gas? Again, we dont' know. A whole lot of speculatin' goin' on. The difference is, some of us are HOPING for the best, while others are HOPING for the worst. I'm starting to see why Nero chose to play the fiddle while Rome burned...... [and puhlease! I know the fiddle was invented a thousand years after Nero died...it's just an allegory!]

Halloween is Gay Christmas, and this is the first time since '98 it has fallen on a Saturday night, thanks to leap year. I'll be in my mid-50s when the next one rolls around, so I'm planning on whooping this one up while I still look good in a dress (joking - I'll always look good in a dress!) I was going to go dressed as Ontario's budget deficit, but decided that would be far too scary. The gay ghetto will be crazy tomorrow night. Friends are gathering at our place tomorrow night, then we're heading out to haunt the streets, literally. My aim is to break as many of the Commandments as I can in one night! Whatever we end up doing, I plan on celebrating to excess.

Well, the dictionaries are always evolving. New words are added, deleted and altered every year. Seriously, you are nitpicking: by your definition, poetry and dramatic license should not exist. So much for Hollywood and literature - be gone! As to my remarks about our GM-sponsored seminars (back in the day): first off, they were fairly balanced, even pointing out where we missed the mark or where the competition did one better. Secondly, what I love about armchair critics is when they base their opinion on renting a car for the weekend or a test drive at the dealership. What I miss about working at a dealership (and probably the ONLY thing!) is that I would often change cars every week. I would love scamming used (as in current model year) competitor's offerings. (One of my last temporary drives when I was at the dealership was an American-destined Ford Crown Victoria - I've always had a weakness for those old, RWD boats!) I would keep some cars for a few months, but then change them up again. (I even had a Mazda Protege for a few weeks because we couldn't sell the 5 spd stick sedan!) So, my opinions (and they are just that) are based on driving hundreds of vehicles from '97 to early '09. I'd say that covers it. Oh, and add to my resume EVERY car made in North America in the early '80s when I worked at the Plaza II Hotel as a car jockey. So much more than reading R&T or haunting dealer lots on the weekends, no?

You could just cut and paste your anti-Volt diatribes, or just right 'ditto' on your posts: save the uninitiated the pain of having to read them all from scratch. Tell me, what is Toyota paying you to be their spokesperson? The fact that Toyota began to attack the concept of the Volt from the beginning is enough proof for me that GM has been and is on the correct track here. I agree that perhaps Lutz and others shouldn't have over-hyped it from the beginning, but with Consumer Reports and others constantly rehashing Toyota and Honda's press releases, GM needs to bleat their own horn because nobody else is doing that.

Well, the reasons GM (and America) are in this mess certainly cannot be summed up in a short essay. I'm a big picture sort of guy, and when I look back over the past 35 years (the end of Vietnam, Watergate, the 2 oil shocks, CAFE ratings, unleaded fuel, pollution controls, etc.) that all came crashing down, it is easy to see why America (and to an extent Canada) is where it is today. Asians are determined and homogenist. They don't get bogged down and distracted by issues about the past and reparations, boo-hoo and all that. The government issues policy and it is followed. Japan is supposedly a democracy, but their government (despite scandals upon scandals) has been largely dominated by one party for decades. In China - well, the prisons over there are full of people who have tried to oppose the government's edicts. Makes you wonder, no? I would also challenge assertions about GM's inferior products, but then I am less prone to putting historical facts under the lens of revisionist history. I drove an auto parts truck as my first out of highschool job and visited all the service stations in '81/'82 and worked as a car jockey at a major posh hotel, so I hung around the car guys who worked in the trenches, not the pampered writers in CR and R&T: fat cat, middle-aged white guys whose appetite is bigger than their penis. Perhaps because I lived through the messes as mentioned above, I can put GM's foibles in a more balanced light. GM's troubles do mirror America's. Look at the bookstores today: the media is absoultely gushing over the fall of America and the rise of Asia. Do they realize what they are saying? For one, their books won't sell anymore once we are all forced to speak Chinese (or Japanese!) The trouble with Capitalism, is that it assumes a level playing field and the altruism of human nature - neither of which is true in the real world. Government must reign capitalists in. Alexander Hamilton understood that. Japan Inc does not practice free trade, either within its own borders or with its so-called trading partners. The fact that China is holding nearly a trillion dollars in US Treasury bills (because there simply is not enough 2-way trade with the U.S. to spend this money) should scare the crap out of you. But I doubt I could have a debate with a person who prefers to stomp off to his room in a huff because his favorite 'brand' was cancelled. What has 'brand' got to do with it? They are just myths dreamed up in some Madison Avenue back room to hoodwink consumers into spending more than they should - and tell them what they want to buy. I've owned 3 Dodges and 3 Chevrolets. I'd buy a Cadillac tomorrow if I could afford it, or even a Lincoln. GM and Ford offer quite enough 'choice' for any consumer, but then this is all about 'you' isn't it? The 'me' generation is goign to reap what it has sewn. That is why Japan Inc is going to own your house in 10 years.

It may be lack of money in California (thanks, Schwarzenegger!), but up here, it's the looney-left and their hatred of all things car-related. Can you imagine, the entire central core of Toronto has been shut down for WEEKS. Adelaide St., which is the only eastbound route in the core that moves, has been closed for 2 weeks while the unionized city workers fart around with streetcar tracks. And (it gets better) 2 of the connecting streets (Church and Yonge) are also either entirely closed or down to one lane for sewer replacement and streetcar tracks. I have the misfortune of having to travel east to west in the core every day and it is a night mare of L.A. proportions. But that is the intent: frustrate and starve motorists until they abandon their cars for (get ready for this) bicycles, because the bankrupt city is spending $60 million on bicycle lanes.

Critics aside, the changes made to the Cobalt in the 2007 and 2008 model year, the upgrades to the 2.2, and the features enhancements in '09 make it a true bargoon. Up here in the hinterland, Honda has bleated about having the #1 selling car, but for 10 years, but that is total BS: even in the Cavalier's last year ('05), the J-car outsold the Civic. That is just sad, on Honda's part. But like Ford bragging about being #1 in pickups (again, not true), this was always GM's Achille's Heel: split platforms. Especially in Canada where Pontiac nearly outsold Chevrolet and where the GMC Sierra does outsell the Silverado! Cash starved dealers would love to have a $10,000 special edition Cobalt to blow out the door sitting next to the 'all new Cruze.' That is a win-win combination for GM to tackle Honda AND Hyundia/Kia. One of the benefits of seeing Pontiac gone will be GM can focus on gaining back bragging rights in sales where it never could before (the Uplander/SV6 comes to mind).

It's always dangerous playing revisionist history. Even the 'venerable' Bug was prone to rusting out, and don't get me started about the lack of heat or the tendency to ice up in the snow! Chrysler actually had the cars to beat in the '70s, with the Duster and Demon twins: their slant-6 was a bullet-proof engine and gave fuel mileage that was not much worse than the Vega or Pinto. But they, too, had rust problems. My father's girlfriend's (don't ask) '71 Duster coupe (purple!) had all the paint peel off the roof within 2 years, a common Plymouth problem back then. And, I'm with Balthy on this one: none of these rusted out as quickly as the original Datsuns (with their corrugated steel suspension mounts!) or original Civics. The media conveniently ignores that because, of course, GM was selling (too tired to look it up) in the neighborhood of a quarter million Vegas a year when they were launched (maybe more) - and how many Civics did Honda unload on the unsuspecting public back then? Everyone built crap in the '70s, it's only the GM and Ford stuff people remember because that is all that was around back then.

Well, apparently it is working, it put your knickers in a knot! GM needs to be more aggressive, plain and simple. Some of it will work, some of it won't - that's the nature of advertising. I, for one, laughed my ass off when I saw this ad. These ads need to get noticed. If I see one more 'Zoom, Zoom,' Mazda commercial, I will puke - but it worked. Compared to the Malibu, the Accord is definitely a 'compromise.' When I was still in sales, we spent the day at a seminar comparing the Accord to the Malibu, and from the crappy rear suspension struts intruding into the trunk to the noisy engine (we could clearly hear the Accord 4 cylinder engine running when it was at idle, 30 feet farther away then the also running 4 cylinder Malibu!), the Malibu was superior in virtually every aspect. Sadly, as evidenced by the numerous deals I lost at the time, even customers who drove the Accord and preferred the Malibu were too nervous to buy the Malibu due to the negative press about GM's possible demise! (I'd wager the pre-bankruptcy media frenzy cost GM more sales then the recession!) And anyone who doesn't think the modern useage of 'Accord,' as in Camp David (like the Israelis and each thought they got a great deal!), means anything other than 'compromise' is too dependent on dictionaries - or, more likely Wikipedia! for facts.)

I remember this thread from ooooh so long ago! I've seen studies that indicate gay men are generally sexually active much younger than their straight peers. (In fact, that's probably why a lot of gay boys end up in circle jerks, etc. with their 'straight' friends - ah, but I digress!) I had my first sort of experience when I was 6. I guess that was my 'older man' phase, since he was 9. I mean, what can 2 kids do in the back seat of a '57 Plymouth? (Ah, memories!) I was sexually active all through my pre-teens and my teens, so naturally my taste tends toward the younger men. However, having said that, I recently met a 21 year old Brazilian (he lied and said he was 23 when we chatted on line - LOL), but after we met and did 'buddy' things, I realized the age difference was just icky. It hung over us more than the cultural gap, being as my current BF of 7 1/2 years is from Brazil! People can be so hung up about sex. We're hanging in the balance between Catholic purity and PlayBoy debauchery. No wonder so many people have self-esteem issues! If I am too 'easy,' then I am a slut. If I don't put out, then I am playing games. Should my BF and I have 'extra-curricular' sex on alternate weekends, or only when we are out of town? Sheesh - maybe we have too much time on our hands? I mean, the straight folk are so bogged down with their snot-nosed brats for 20 some-odd years to realize that their partner now looks like that woman on the opening sequence of Monty Python's Meaning of Life. And thank God for porno, or I suppose the divorce rate would climb to 80%, rather than the 50% where it currently sits. Our 'tastes' are influenced by our upbringing, like it or lump it. I went to primary school in Vancouver where my classes were a veritable United Nations: Vancouver even then had a lot of Chinese and Indian immigrants, but in the '60s Vancouver was still largely WASP. At the age of 8 or 9, I never gave it a second thought. Then we moved to small town north of Toronto that was as WASP as WASP can be. Again, I didn't notice or care. I was a bit suprised when, at the age of 13, I moved to northern Toronto where my junior highschool was 80% Jewish: I was such a naive kid, I had no clue what a Jew was until I had to ask the teacher why the classroom was empty during Holy Days (and boy, do they have a lot of them in the Fall!) This was my first sort of awakening that the world was different than I'd thought. Nothing can be more personal than who you choose to sleep with. There was actually talk in some of the local gay press that want ads should prohibit the use of age or race in them. Okay, that is taking PC to an extreme. I had a BF in the '80s for 4 years who was Mulatto (are we allowed to say that anymore?) For me, black guys are sort of exotic. They are fairly rare in most of Toronto. I think that it is natural for any grouping to seek out or it's own 'kind.' The animal kingdom demonstrates this for us everywhere. I think what 98 might be experiencing is a case of 'overload.' For example, Toronto is being overloaded with Asians, mostly Chinese. Now, we all know that us Canucks are supposed to be tolerant, etc., and I suppose that is partially true. However, speaking to a lot of people (including some Asians!), many quietly express concern about how one race/culture seems to becoming so dominant. I feel a certain amount of 'discomfort' in the air. Some of the gay bars in Toronto are 30-40% Chinese, because every gay guy in China wants to live here. Perhaps in areas where certain races are rare or a small minority they will be treated with curiosity or (hopefully) their difference will just ignored. But I posit that anyone who is honest with themself would admit that when they are 'surrounded' by those who are 'different,' it makes them feel uncomfortable - that's just 'normal.' America's racist past is well documented, but in areas where blacks were traditionally a small minority there really never was that much racism. Why would there be? Thirty years ago, when Toronto was 60% WASP, it was the Italians and Portuguese that raised eyebrows. Now it is the influx of Indians, Sikhs and Asians. We're trying to cram 100 years of civilization into 100,000 years of evolution. It will all take time. It is natural for paranoia to set in when one established group begins to notice a sudden influx of a new group - especially when that new group tends to stick together. (Wasn't it true that there were more African-Americans in the South at the end of slavery than white Americans? One can see where the paranoia and fear set in, justified or not!) The gay world is fragmenting, and the internet is making things worse, not better. Dating nuances have gone right out the window. The 'twinks' often prefer to hang out with their straight highschool/college friends at straight bars/clubs, leaving the gay night scene largely a wasteland of men in their late '30s and up. (I would know, I've stopped going to the bars because of the noticeable shift in the past few years.) What I find truly disheartening is the proclivity towward 'bears.' Thirty years ago when I started clubbing, if you were fat, hairy and bald, then you were fat, hairy and bald. (Now I am not trying to be nasty here - I do have a point.) Giving something a cute name does not disguise the fact of what it is. Now that I am 48, most (if not all my peers, single or coupled) have given up: they have ballooned out, stopped going to the gym and hang out in the leather bars with the rest of the 'bears.' WTF? Whatever happened to the myth that gay men were more handsome and better dressed? Not in these here parts! After 30, Mother Nature has no use for us, so it is an uphill battle to maintain one's youthful look and vitality. Perhaps sleeping with someone who is half one's age makes a person feel young? Well, maybe for 30 minutes anyway. Why are so many people just giving up now? Because you can play games and lie on the internet, hoping to lure someone who is attractive to your lair? I am not sure, I'm just throwing that out there, is all. Dating is going to have to learn to embrace the internet culture; it's all about instant, 24 hour gratification, on demand. The ultimate expression of the 'me' generation. Hmm, the same generation that shuns Detroit.... Okay, that was sort of rambling. Now that I have offended everyone, I can go back to reading about GM's latest mis-steps.

Chock up another vote for the Fall of Western Civilization. The sheer ignorance and animosity out there toward GM in particular, and Detroit in general, astounds me. If only GM's 'bad decisions' were made in a vacuum. All I can say is that I am glad I don't have kids and I am 48: by the time Asia calls in their loans and we hand over the keys to Washington (and probably Ottawa, too), I will be sitting in a wheelchair, wearing diapers. It's the young 'uns who love all things Asian that will reap the rewards of the West's selfish ways of the past 2 decades. I, for one, don't understand why someone who clearly has an axe to grind would bother hanging around a GM site. I tried Toyota Nation for a while, but frankly it sickened me, so I quit. As Oldsmoboi points out, the negative press harping about GM's problems had as much to do about GM's demise as it's 'mistakes.' Only the West eats its own. You don't hear the Japanese media tearing down their institutions.

At least in its first generational form, the Volt is not going to appeal to rural or long distance drivers. Its greatest strength is in being able to charge the vehicle for under a buck and drive to work once or twice on that, within the distance that 70% of the urban commuters do. The Prius' highway numbers are not spectacular, either.

I work in an office full of women who all drive Hondas and Toyotas. You'll get no sympathy from me!

I thought Nissan was going to ditch the Titan. What happened while I was gone? Did Nissan have a sale at Happydale Sanitarium?

It matters not what we in the West do (other than commit mass suicide) as long as China and India keep having 100 million babies a year! I am sure more methane gas is released from sewage dumped into their rivers than all of the SUVs in Canada and the U.S. combined. That is the 'elephant in the room,' that we are not allowed to speak of. On some of the 'green' sites the fanatics clearly won't be happy until humans (read: the West) kill themselves because, of course, we are responsible for all that is evil in the Known Universe (and probably the Unknown Universe as well.) Clearly there are certain things that can and should be done to lessen our environmental impact on the globe, but I believe overpopulation of certain countries is a far more serious threat than whether one drives a Tahoe or a Prius.

No, no, I'm back in Tornto now, just in time for winter - yay! Rio is not my favorite city in Brazil - not by half! Jaoa Passoa is nice and I am really liking Sao Paulo. Fortaleza was a dump and Recife didn't impress either. I'd recommend Salvadore, too, but only the sections closer to the 'old' city. And my Portuguese still sucks, BTW, but I don't embarass myself completely anymore.