Robert Hall

It's too bad they killed Plymouth.... I think some affordable, efficient Plymouths could do well in today's market. And Valiant is a name that still has positive brand equity...

And the Big Money contributors (corporations, wealthy individuals, PACs, etc) fund both the Big 2 parties. Given all the buzz about environmentalism, I'm surprised we haven't seen a viable Green party in the US, but it's probably the lack of Big Money contributions that have kept it small...

Wishing Well -Free

We had a late breakfast at about 10 am at Dennys this morning.. I had a tasty skillet dish w/ scrambled eggs, cheese, hash browns, bacon and sausage concoction with pancakes to roll it up in like burritos. Tasty. Dennys is a guilty pleasure once in a while. I haven't been to a Cracker Barrel or Original Pancake House in a while, those were some of my favorite weekend breakfast places in Colorado..love the ham and biscuits at Cracker Barrel and the bacon, pancakes, crepes and french toast at the OPH. There is a great local place called Dozens with lots of different omlettes, etc in downtown Denver that I love. During the week, it's usually OJ, a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, a Starbucks doubleshot or 2, or a bagel, or occasionally, a bagel sandwich from Einsteins or Sticklers (excellent local sandwich shop in downtown Phoenix), or a breakfast burrito (used to work in a place in Denver where a local company brought in burritos a couple times a week--delicious).

Just looking at the numbers, it's not a pretty picture.. Google Finance: GM

If McCain wins, I'm definitely getting out of AZ....either back to Denver/Boulder or maybe Seattle or Portland...

I'll go see it...I usually always like Oliver Stone's films...saw 'Body of Lies' tonight, quite good.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Colorado goes.. I'm voting there by mail, since I still maintain residence there while in AZ.

About 10 min ago, on the way back from lunch, I saw a goregous black '65 GTO convertible, black interior, top down, red line tires and Hurst wheels. Drool.

I don't think Chevy is even in Australia...I know in Europe they have Daewoo generics badged as Chevys, Holdens badged as Chevys in the Middle East, Opels in Mexico and South America as Chevys, etc..

Cool..

Maybe Cerebus is looking at unloading Chrysler on GM..

I would definitely miss Jeep and their RWD cars!

GM could use their minivans, since GM has given up on them. And Jeep would give them some good compact and midsize SUVs.

The oil companies and the politicians they finance?

I'm wondering if they are doing anything with Tesla on the technology..or if it's just coincidental that Chrysler is showing a Lotus-based concept.

I saw that on CNN this morning...at a town hall style meeting, some stupid fat old ho said Obama was a Arab. F*cking redneck retards. This country is full of them.

Maybe they could rename the combined company 'American Motors'. Some interesting possibilities. GM has the better FWD compact and midsize lines, GM has the better full size truck and SUV lines (though that market is in decline). Jeep is a credible, international 4WD brand, could replace HUMMER. Chrysler has minivans that actually sell pretty well. Chrysler has an excellent full-size RWD platform (and GM seems to be giving up on theirs). I don't know...seems like a lot of brand and model overlap..not sure what the upside is beyond maybe a better chance at survival?

I'm surprised..I figured the bottom had dropped out of the market for those beasts...

Of course, when that Escalade is a year old, it may be worth only $25k with depreciation?

I'm not opposed to domestic drilling, but I question it's efficacy in the near term. I can see reducing imported oil as a worthwhile goal, but it needs to part of an overall energy plan...that includes alternative energy sources and moving away from fossil fuel.

This was originally posted in another thread, probably fits better here. An article in the NYT today is one of the best I've seen lately at illustrating the differences between the parties, esp. what I dislike so much about today's Republican party.. NYT article A few paragraphs from the article that ring true to me: " Over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts. What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole. The liberals had coastal condescension, so the conservatives developed their own anti-elitism, with mirror-image categories and mirror-image resentments, but with the same corrosive effect. Republicans developed their own leadership style. If Democratic leaders prized deliberation and self-examination, then Republicans would govern from the gut. George W. Bush restrained some of the populist excesses of his party — the anti-immigration fervor, the isolationism — but stylistically he fit right in. As Fred Barnes wrote in his book, “Rebel-in-Chief,” Bush “reflects the political views and cultural tastes of the vast majority of Americans who don’t live along the East or West Coast. He’s not a sophisticate and doesn’t spend his discretionary time with sophisticates. As First Lady Laura Bush once said, she and the president didn’t come to Washington to make new friends. And they haven’t.” The political effects of this trend have been obvious. Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone." I'd add the Boulder-Denver area to this list, from personal experience.. The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community. This sums it up the best: " And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission — because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away."

Placing 'smaller government' and 'Republicans' in the same sentence has become an oxymoron, I'm afraid.

Well, the Republican party today is the party of intolerance, IMHO... it seems today that if you aren't a straight white evangelical Christian, you aren't welcome. The Republican party has alienated vast groups with in the US with it's anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-professional stances...I saw an article today in the NYT that's one of these best I've seen in a while about this cultural divide--- it's a worthwhile read. NYT article A few paragraphs from the article that ring true to me: " Over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts. What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole. The liberals had coastal condescension, so the conservatives developed their own anti-elitism, with mirror-image categories and mirror-image resentments, but with the same corrosive effect. Republicans developed their own leadership style. If Democratic leaders prized deliberation and self-examination, then Republicans would govern from the gut. George W. Bush restrained some of the populist excesses of his party — the anti-immigration fervor, the isolationism — but stylistically he fit right in. As Fred Barnes wrote in his book, “Rebel-in-Chief,” Bush “reflects the political views and cultural tastes of the vast majority of Americans who don’t live along the East or West Coast. He’s not a sophisticate and doesn’t spend his discretionary time with sophisticates. As First Lady Laura Bush once said, she and the president didn’t come to Washington to make new friends. And they haven’t.” The political effects of this trend have been obvious. Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone. The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community. This sums it up the best: " And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission — because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away."

Yeah...Alaska being so small in population and remote from the rest of the US is probably full of corruption...look at Ted Stevens.