Carmaggedon
Found at Jalopnik:
Discuss.
While I’m not in favor of pissing money away, I’d be sad if I couldn’t walk into a dealership and buy a Mustang or a Challenger. Not that I would – I live in Manhattan – but I just like knowing I can.
I just want them to bring the trolley cars back. That would be an investment I could back, even if I have to get out and push.
@Pedonator: Streetcars here would be terrific, but GM and others killed them.
TJ: Attention DC stinquers: The Obama family needs a place to stay for the first two weeks in January. They asked to move into Blair House early so the girls could start school on schedule, but were denied by the bitter Bushies, who are using it for going away parties.
@blogenfreude: Exactly. That’s why I’m bitter and don’t want to give them any money.
@blogenfreude: Here’s an excerpt from a good article about what happened to the electic trolley system in LA and elsewhere:
In 1945, Huntington’s estate sold the Yellow Car system to American City Lines, a subsidiary of National City Lines, a Chicago-based company whose investors included General Motors and other big oil and rubber interests…..National City Lines soon controlled 46 transit networks in the Midwest and West, including Los Angeles. The company began scrapping these electric systems and replacing them with diesel buses that – surprise – used fuel and rubber.
Full article text: http://articles.latimes.com/2003/mar/23/local/me-then23
@flippin eck: Yes – I remember reading something like that in the dim past. Now we’ve got some electric (really semi-electric) buses, but that hardly makes up for it.
I’d like a ’63 split-window Vette with the 427. http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/1963-corvette-7.jpg. I’m going to call up Hank Paulson to ask. What’s the downside?
@Dodgerblue: Do you have Hank’s cell number? I think all of us should call him, the way they’re passing the bucks…
@Pedonator: What about the Sature Blog Crises? They’ve never had ONE YEAR of profitability and no one thinks it’s crisis? What is up with that? For a cool $5 billion, I think we can fix it. Stinque.com can appoint a Blog Czar to hand out the cash. We’ve been watching Paulson closely, so we know how it’s done. Nojo, how’s your eye? If I give you a 55 gallon drum, do you think you’d be able to catch bales of $1000 bills as I throw them from the roof of the Treasury in Washington? Or should we just go to a bankrupt dealership and trade him an egg for a pick-up truck?
@FlyingChainSaw: I think you’re gonna need an 18-wheeler to pick up this lottery prize. Neel Cash-Carry called shotgun, now put the hammer down Rubber Duck!
Sing along with me folks:
‘Cause we got a little convoy rockin’ through the night
Yeah, we got a little convoy, ain’t she a beautiful sight
Come on and join our convoy, ain’t nothin’ gonna get in our way
We gonna roll this truckin’ convoy ‘cross the USA
@FlyingChainSaw: It can be argued that this is an endemic structural problem that the Satire Blogs should have seen coming: The end of the Bush Era, with its easy pickins. Although I recall much the same thing being said at the end of the Clinton Era: What would we do without Monica?
However, there is a ray of light on the horizon: Mugwump Republican Senators. They may filibuster the world into disaster, but at least they’ll be entertaining about it.
@nojo: We’ll always have Sarah.
@nojo: If someone of the Stinque brigade around DC goes seriously into unemployment and actually has something like unemployment benefits (besides credit cards to live on), we should give him or her press credentials to go to Congress and heckle the Republicans in a hockey mask with a big black S painted on it. “Senator! Senator! Are you satisfied with the destruction your fascist party has inflicted on America or do you want to eat more babies?”
@Dodgerblue: Indeed we will.
Good thing Promnight is on vacation. He’d burst a vessel over this picture.
@JNOV: I don’t want Promnight to lose his job, but otherwise I’d be happy to see the end of the auto industry.
Of course I’d have to get off my fat lazy ass and walk or ride my bike everywhere (instead of driving five blocks to the liquor store) but that would be a good thing, right?
@JNOV: I’m still taking in Prommie’s comment that the quality problems of “the 80s and 90s” have been resolved. That’s a long time for a poor reputation to take root, and a big risk for consumers to take until a new reputation settles in.
When my pickup died, a friend insisted I buy a Honda for its quality and resale value. (Not that I flip cars — I prefer to run them into rust.) I lurve my Civic. And it was also the cheapest thing out there.
@Pedonator: I’m conflicted myself — personally, I don’t want to give the big 3 any reason to keep doing their stupid shit, but my father living in SC works at an auto parts manufacturer. They supply diesel fuel injectors for Ford.
We find out tomorrow whether they’ll keep his plant open in SC, or move all operations to one in Va. If they close the SC plant, it will take about a year for them to wind down, so it will at least give him time to get things in order and the Unicorn time to get the economic boat sailing in generally a correct direction.
The silver lining is that it may get my folks out of South Carolina and back to metro Atlanta, which is a good thing considering this recent stroke scare made me realize that in SC, my mother (who can’t drive) would be up shit creek without my dad.
@nojo: I was leaning towards a Hyundai when I bought new in 06. Good experience living and driving in the Detroit of the Far East. However, a friend convinced me to go with the Civic with the re-sale argument, despite the fact that I also don’t do the car swap thing every few years. I still get nearly 40 mpg on the long haul, 30 or better on my 16 mile r/t commute.
Only Murrican car I’ve owned was a used Fiesta in the 80s. It was a tin can and a piece of junk, but entertaining: the electrical system was so bad that the horn would blare everytime I used the wipers; made for very alert drivers during those Texas rainstorms.
@nabisco: I’m on my second Honda Civic. Drove the first one 10 years, the second one is starting on year 8. Love the reliability and longevity. I’d had a Ford and two Buicks before that– nothing lasted more than 5 years, and had all sorts of problems. The Honda ::knocks wood:: has only needed routine maintenance.
You know how people’s dream cars are always like Mercedes or Ferraris or Corvettes or whatever? Mine is seriously a Civic. That is all I want.
I have ONLY had American cars, and only one of them could be described as nice, which was a ’96 Grand Am that I bought in ’99. I had that put so much money into that fucking thing to keep it running that I eventually just got rid of it and went sans auto for two years.
My current ride? ’91 Buick LeSabre given to me by my former roommates parents. Heat doesn’t work. Driver’s side window permanently stuck open a half an inch. Makes driving in winter in Chicago a blast.
The one thing that American cars do have that is great are really comfortable seats. Which, I shouldn’t need to explain, makes perfect sense.
@homofascist: Sometime between my parents’ first tin-can Civic in 1974-ish and my 2005 model, Honda figured out American tastes. It’s a very comfy drive, although most days the drive is just a few miles to the coffeehouse.
Oh, and you can slam the doors. The car wants you to. Had a friend with a old Beetle, and I could never grasp the gentle click she insisted upon.
But my favorite car might still be the mid-80s Chevette hatchback I drove until it rusted out. Sure, had to adjust the clutch too frequently, but that car just wanted to have fun.
@Pedonator: @rptrcub: @nojo: I think many of us are willing to concede that the prospect of the big 3 going under is a scary, scary thing for a lot of American workers and it’s worth considering what aid (with stipulations) can be rendered them to keep the whole industry from tanking…and taking the labor movement with it. However, what’s jarring to me about Prom’s opinion is the idea that the auto execs did nothing wrong and were the innocent victims of circumstance, and anything that may have been amiss for the past 2-3 decades has already been fixed. Bullshit.
@homofascist: Oh hai! So you’re somewhat fuctional today?
@flippin eck: There’s plenty of blame to go around. In the end, though, no matter what happens, the workers are the ones who are going to get the shaft, as is usual in this country.
@rptrcub: the workers are the ones who are going to get the drive shaft….
Fixed!
@flippin eck: Functional in that I am alive still…
@flippin eck: I am also not dead….but it was close this morning. Nice seeing you! Next time, I’ll try to be sober enough to feel my own face.
@homofascist: @BeRightBack:@flippin eck:
What, no liveblogging from the Chicago Stinquer Meet-Up? You guys got together and didn’t tell us?
I cannot wait to get myself out to the Unicorn’s Home of Hope ™ and Change ™ to party with y’all. I am assuming you’re not moving to DeeCee with Black Eagle’s posse.
@SanFranLefty: Not so much a meet-up as just some drunken revelry those two got up to and let me partake in for awhile, when they were already bombed. Well, HF was okay, but BRB was gloriously trashed. I’m surprised he remembered I was there!
@SanFranLefty: The Hubbyfascist (HomoHubby?) put on a Christmas Party, where I proceeded to drunkenly revel with a gusto that I’m surprised didn’t result in either a blackout or a black eye. I barely able, by the time Flippin saw me, to stand without assistance, much less type. But HF and I did discuss my jealousy over his upcoming opportunity to meet you and the rest of the Stinquers soon at Obamarama, DC Edition, while I toil away here in the frozen heartland. But you’ll come visit us Blogoja-kvetchers soon, right?
@nojo: We can only afford Basic Cabal at the moment, but we’re saving up for an upgrade soon.
@BeRightBack:
I suspect I may be in your town at some point in 2009 for work related reasons. Hopefully it will be the warm time of year.
I can’t vouch for his memory or ability to feel his face, but I am able to confirm that BRB can, in fact:
-Down impressive quantities of gin
-Repeal the advances of lecherous drunken trolls with gusto
-Bust a move on the dance floor.
@SanFranLefty: BRB has the most tenuous hold on Chicago, but between Flippin’, CB and myself, we should be holding it down in the Windy City for a while. I think I can speak for the four of us that we would love entertain anyone that comes to town.
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