Drew Dowdell

I mean, I don't want them to look like this: Mine are a black shell, wheels, and frame, with a dark blue inner boot

I do it as an alternative to jogging.

The losses on the automotive company bailouts could only be $34b if GM's value went to zero. Since even in liquidation that wouldn't be possible, the $34b is just a big number meant to scare people. Even skeptical analysts peg GM's value at around $68b, which makes the Government's share a little over $41 billion.

Yesterday I broke out the rollerblades for the season.... the pair I have, I've owned since 1997. I got out to the bike trail, strapped them on, and *SNAP*, two straps broke. Anyone have any suggestions for a set of replacement blades that are good quality but don't look like I belong on the set of Dragonball Z?

Happy Birthday everyone!

If it's a mini-poll, I'm disqualified.

Why would I need to? I've never had trouble finding someone do to it for me.... this is one area where I favor outsourcing the work...

This line stood out to me: This ignores the fact that people without insurance are less likely to seek out treatment for an illness before it gets to emergency status. The number I would want answered is: "How many of the uninsured received emergancy treatment for something that started off as a minor illness and was left untreated until the ER visit?"

Damn that Matador is ghastly!

I don't agree with their methods. They are more concerned with the continuation of the organization than with the results they get. They spend a huge amount of their donations on swanky parties with D.C. elites.

Number 6 is only half right I think.... the lower half...

Utah had a gay kiss in about 6 months ago.

Why? You don't have gay people there?

It's the Human Rights Campaign.... it's a gay rights organization.

Well lets apply some critical thinking to the CBO estimate from March. Is 34 billion a reasonable number?

Did you read the link? And Treasury thinks it's going to lose $1.6b on Chrysler

Hot car!

And.... as I said yesterday.... taxpayers aren't going to lose any money on the GM bailout.

Yeah, and that kind of deal was gone just a few months later.... and it most certainly wasn't "no problem". Tata had to have massive financing in place that it struggled to get.

it's a royal bitch to do, it's less frustrating to just to a Migwiz, back your stuff up, and reinstall windows.

I think I see it.... if you squint real hard, you can see the clearly superior German engineering! It's right there between the slant I-5 and the offset radiator... but in front of the sideways distributor, right under the cruise control module that reaches halfway across the engine bay for the throttle body only to reach back to the center again for the spark advance..... clearly superior to the sucky pushrod technology.....

uh... seriously? We haven't seen that spectacular failure already with Cerebus? "Oh I'd like to buy LGR and build me some Cadillac CTSes... I'll get the engine from... ooh... wait...."

And? As I've stated before, market share isn't any measure of the health of a company. GM only slightly losing market share while shedding 50% of it's brands is actually a win. Rental fleet sales are the bad kind. Many of the fleet sales were government or commercial. Ford's fleet sales are going to rise a lot... and that's a good thing....because they brought out a fleet specific vehicle in the Transit connect. For the government to break even, GM needs to be valued at around $70 billion..... even skeptical analysts are predicting around a $68billion value for GM. So, no, the taxpayers aren't going to lose a ton of money on it. This point shows a gross lack of understanding of out the automotive industry is structured. GM going out of business would have immediately killed Chrysler. The collapsing of GM would have taken out parts suppliers. Those parts suppliers also supply to current golden child Ford, and former golden child Toyota. The only reason Ford is still in business is some wise finance sage mortgaged everything up to the Ford name just before the credit crisis. If Ford were to be hit with supplier problems brought on by a GM collapse, it is unlikely they would be able to continue to service their debt and would themselves collapse. As for liquidating GM... I ask... to whom? Toyota might be able to buy GM from a financial standpoint, but why would they want to? Toyota has a couple of their own pots already boiling over that need attention. Honda and BMW are too small, Daimler-Benz still has that nasty Chrysler taste in their mouth, Volkswagen is already full from an earlier acquisition binge, Nissan-Renault is being held together with paperclips and bubble gum. Tata stretched themselves as far as they could just to buy Jaguar and Land Rover. Fiat is barely able to digest Chrysler. The idea that a company like Honda could suddenly take up the sales from the largest automotive seller in the country doesn't pass the laugh test. Honda already runs at or near capacity as part of their lean production system. This author's impression that Honda could buy a production line from GM today and start building Civics tomorrow just shows that she is out of her industry.

It's a 2 owner car and the current owner has owned it for 10 years. I'm not that concerned with fuel economy because it just going to be rumbling the few miles from my house to my various apartment buildings. It is in very clean shape. Everything works. What do you think I should offer?

RuRoh! I might be going the other way but still in white! Tonight I test drove a '91 Caprice wagon.... it's in great shape with 111k miles and it would do well for me as a work vehicle (since I already have experience with the FrankenWagon) He's asking $2200, I might offer him $1800 on friday.