Random Thoughts Thread

[A Horse With No Name]

1 hour ago, trinacriabob said:

I'm a little down given what's going on with Pope Francis's health.  I know that there isn't a lot of religiosity on C&G, that I know of, but it is the religion I was raised in and the one I identify with, even though we "casual Catholics," especially with roots in warm weather places, have an irreverent and cheeky approach to most things in life.  Blame it on the palm trees.

I didn't realize he was 88.  He turned 88 in December.  I believe he's been Pope between 10 and 15 years.  He was a much needed antidote to Pope Benedict, the tightly wound and legalistic predecessor and German Pope, and it seemed to have worked out well.  He comes from Italian lineage, but is from Argentina, which has been a good thing for connectedness between the RC church and Latin America.  Comparatively speaking, he has been a humble Pope who has a handle on the fact that people are fallible and not fire and brimstone robots.  With this being local news here, I'm fairly up to date on what's going on. 

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, and, clearly, he was not able to participate in the publicly held religious observation.  Even though he's resting okay, it doesn't look good as he's had a lot of setbacks.  I'm holding good thoughts.

My fear is that the next pope will be MAGA sympathetic. 

A good friend of mine thinks the next pope will be from Asia as that is where the church (Catholic) is growing the most. 

Hone a Chisel. 

This guy gets it...

Quantum Mechanics is interesting...

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 02:58 PM by Drew Dowdell

[Drew Dowdell]

1 hour ago, trinacriabob said:

I'm a little down given what's going on with Pope Francis's health.  I know that there isn't a lot of religiosity on C&G, that I know of, but it is the religion I was raised in and the one I identify with, even though we "casual Catholics," especially with roots in warm weather places, have an irreverent and cheeky approach to most things in life.  Blame it on the palm trees.

I didn't realize he was 88.  He turned 88 in December.  I believe he's been Pope between 10 and 15 years.  He was a much needed antidote to Pope Benedict, the tightly wound and legalistic predecessor and German Pope, and it seemed to have worked out well.  He comes from Italian lineage, but is from Argentina, which has been a good thing for connectedness between the RC church and Latin America.  Comparatively speaking, he has been a humble Pope who has a handle on the fact that people are fallible and not fire and brimstone robots.  With this being local news here, I'm fairly up to date on what's going on. 

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, and, clearly, he was not able to participate in the publicly held religious observation.  Even though he's resting okay, it doesn't look good as he's had a lot of setbacks.  I'm holding good thoughts.

Albert is very catholic and follows it closely.  I keep trying to warn him that an 88 year old man with double pneumonia, several acute attacks of respiratory failure, and a body that doesn't seem to be fighting the infection on its own (little to no fever) even with antibiotic assistance is not likely long for this world.

@A Horse With No Name - we're dialing back on the politics here unless it is directly related to the auto industry. I need to wack a few of your recent posts. 

[trinacriabob]

48 minutes ago, A Horse With No Name said:

My fear is that the next pope will be MAGA sympathetic. 

A good friend of mine thinks the next pope will be from Asia as that is where the church (Catholic) is growing the most. 

I don't know.  That would deplete some Catholics in the Modern Old World ... sell that to that French, the Spaniards, the Irish, the Canadians, etc.  .... no bueno.  

I'm already sort of lapsed.  I wouldn't handle that well. 

Asia's significant Catholic community is in the Philippines, where they are the majority religion.  They are growing some in India, Korea, etc.  But their identities and cultures don't have much in common.  Add to that growth in Africa.

At any rate, I do like Pope Francis on a gut level and hope for his best.  This post, and my first one, is about recognizing his relative higher level of kindness, humility, and wanting to connect with a broader range of humankind.

 

 

[A Horse With No Name]

On 2/28/2025 at 2:59 PM, Drew Dowdell said:

While I'm as angry over the current state of things as anyone, I'm going to gently steer the conversation away from politics given the no-politics rule we've had in place for years.

 

If you've got something political to talk about, it must be related to the car industry somehow. 

I missed this correction, returning to talk of cars and such...,

 

[Robert Hall]

22 hours ago, G. David Felt said:

Idiots are making me very nervous about flying this May for the company's tradeshow. Musk is an Idiot and his Satellite company will not make things better over what Verizon has been doing in slowly modernizing the system.

Yeah...I'm a bit uncertain about my upcoming flight in May to Colorado for vacation. 

[Drew Dowdell]

Now Trump is granting a 30-day extension for car companies for the tariffs... but to what end? You can't shift an entire supply chain in 30 days.

[A Horse With No Name]

43 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Now Trump is granting a 30-day extension for car companies for the tariffs... but to what end? You can't shift an entire supply chain in 30 days.

I am trying not to buy anything much for personal reasons, even beyond Politics. We will see. the end result of all of this wll obviously be terrible. 

[Drew Dowdell]

On 3/5/2025 at 3:04 PM, A Horse With No Name said:

I am trying not to buy anything much for personal reasons, even beyond Politics. We will see. the end result of all of this wll obviously be terrible. 

Yeah, I dunno what I wanna do. I'm pulling back on spending. The Chrysler and the Avalanche are just about paid off. I was going to grab one of the cheap EV leases for all the mileage I'm doing these days, but now I am thinking a Volt or ELR for cheap.

[G. David Felt]

8 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Yeah, I dunno what I wanna do. I'm pulling back on spending. The Chrysler and the Avalanche are just about paid off. I was going to grab one of the cheap EV leases for all the mileage I'm doing these days, but now I am thinking a Volt or ELR or cheap.

This is the year that a ton of EVs come off lease, as such, an expected surge in low-cost low mileage EVs will hit the market. Might be a good way to go for a commuter auto.

[A Horse With No Name]

23 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Yeah, I dunno what I wanna do. I'm pulling back on spending. The Chrysler and the Avalanche are just about paid off. I was going to grab one of the cheap EV leases for all the mileage I'm doing these days, but now I am thinking a Volt or ELR or cheap.

My whole goal right now is to get completely out of debt, and hike as much as possible.  I was thinking hard about a Subaru Crosstrek, but that is probably off of the table. 

16 minutes ago, G. David Felt said:

This is the year that a ton of EVs come off lease, as such, an expected surge in low-cost low mileage EVs will hit the market. Might be a good way to go for a commuter auto.

This is good to know. 

This is what I want to spend the rest of my life doing. $35 grand for a nicely equipped Crosstrek would pay for a year back packing in Patagonia. I know which one I would choose. 

 

[trinacriabob]

47 minutes ago, A Horse With No Name said:

I am trying not to buy anything much for personal reasons, even beyond Politics. We will see. the end result of all of this wll obviously be terrible. 

I'm way less planted than you are, and I won't be buying for a while.  It used to be, "Which GM sedan or coupe do I buy?" "Have they successfully been using that same powertrain for a while?"

Now there are so many more variables, even if just considering purchases in the U.S.

A babied, low mileage reputable older sedan from Mabel in Missouri might be a good option.

[ccap41]

2 hours ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Now Trump is granting a 30-day extension for car companies for the tariffs... but to what end? You can't shift an entire supply chain in 30 days.

No, but you can make plans and claim a plan to move things to the US. We all know it's just a bargaining tool. I don't know for what as I don't pay that much attention, but it's just trying to force somebody's hand. 

[daves87rs]

14 hours ago, trinacriabob said:

I'm a little down given what's going on with Pope Francis's health.  I know that there isn't a lot of religiosity on C&G, that I know of, but it is the religion I was raised in and the one I identify with, even though we "casual Catholics," especially with roots in warm weather places, have an irreverent and cheeky approach to most things in life.  Blame it on the palm trees.

I didn't realize he was 88.  He turned 88 in December.  I believe he's been Pope between 10 and 15 years.  He was a much needed antidote to Pope Benedict, the tightly wound and legalistic predecessor and German Pope, and it seemed to have worked out well.  He comes from Italian lineage, but is from Argentina, which has been a good thing for connectedness between the RC church and Latin America.  Comparatively speaking, he has been a humble Pope who has a handle on the fact that people are fallible and not fire and brimstone robots.  With this being local news here, I'm fairly up to date on what's going on. 

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, and, clearly, he was not able to participate in the publicly held religious observation.  Even though he's resting okay, it doesn't look good as he's had a lot of setbacks.  I'm holding good thoughts.

Me too….He has done a good job.

 

A little church is a good thing- it keeps me off social media for a while.

Getting quite wild out there now……

6 hours ago, trinacriabob said:

I'm way less planted than you are, and I won't be buying for a while.  It used to be, "Which GM sedan or coupe do I buy?" "Have they successfully been using that same powertrain for a while?"

Now there are so many more variables, even if just considering purchases in the U.S.

A babied, low mileage reputable older sedan from Mabel in Missouri might be a good option.

 

At this point I’m running the Trax/ Equinox into the ground. And on the hunt for a beater for myself ( to replace the Cobalt that got hit head on last year) and one for my son. 

Nothing new for a while over here…….

[G. David Felt]

12 minutes ago, daves87rs said:

Me too….He has done a good job.

 

A little church is a good thing- it keeps me off social media for a while.

Getting quite wild out there now……

 

At this point I’m running the Trax/ Equinox into the ground. And on the hunt for a beater for myself ( to replace the Cobalt that got hit head on last year) and one for my son. 

Nothing new for a while over here…….

As I have stated elsewhere, plenty of EVs coming off Lease that will make them great bargains for folks that need a commuter auto or run around local town driving.

[trinacriabob]

TECH question ...

Now that I have your attention ...

- - - - -

On an Android phone, is it possible to pull an app from the Settings>Apps onto the home screen or one of the home screens without getting it from the Google Store?

(This is because it's no longer available on the Google Store and it's for its "sentimental value."  I just want it back on one of my screens.)

So, to take it from Apps to screen(s) ...

Thanks.

[Robert Hall]

Kind of feeling like 2020 again... holding off on excess spending..though I do have some home remodeling projects I want to do in the next year... no car payments, Jeep (80k miles) and Cadillac (60k miles) running fine... will be a while before I need another vehicle (also have my sister's Equinox w/ 10k miles for around town driving).   Work is going well, 5% raise for this year, got my annual and quarterly stock grants laid out for this year, company stock staying stable for now.  

[trinacriabob]

Today, March 6th, would have been Michelangelo's birthday.

At a time when most men in Renaissance Italy lived about 45 to 55 years, he lived to be 89 years old.

[G. David Felt]

8 hours ago, trinacriabob said:

TECH question ...

Now that I have your attention ...

- - - - -

On an Android phone, is it possible to pull an app from the Settings>Apps onto the home screen or one of the home screens without getting it from the Google Store?

(This is because it's no longer available on the Google Store and it's for its "sentimental value."  I just want it back on one of my screens.)

So, to take it from Apps to screen(s) ...

Thanks.

Settings > Apps > click app

Once you are in the app with all the details where you can delete data, uninstall, there is also an option to open the app and this should regenerate the icon on your phone to more easily use it.

[G. David Felt]

Rare Earth material is used in modern technology. Seems we need an informed administration that understands how to negotiate with others as the US is behind the 8 ball it seems. To move to a cheaper EV product line, auto companies are going to have to develop their resources for importing raw material and processing it here. Or focus on a proper global supply chain if we can get over empire building.

Map Shows World's 10 Largest Rare Earth Element Reserves - Newsweek

[G. David Felt]

This is good, Tesla Australia sales have tanked, 33% down in January and now 70% down in February. Glad to see the world is seeing the Nazi loving Musk for what he is, bad for the world, bad for the U.S. Time for Tesla to Ditch Musk as CEO and Chairman and bring in a real auto person.

Tesla Sees Catastrophic Sales Decline in Australia

[Drew Dowdell]

On 3/5/2025 at 4:25 PM, ccap41 said:

No, but you can make plans and claim a plan to move things to the US. We all know it's just a bargaining tool. I don't know for what as I don't pay that much attention, but it's just trying to force somebody's hand. 

But it's not. There's no secret 3D Chess game here. He renegotiated NATFA in his first term so any objections that he has with Canada are his own fault.  There is no appreciable amount of fentanyl coming from Canada, less than 1% of it in the US comes from there. We have far more domestic production of it than what comes from Canada.  Canadian tariffs on U.S. dairy and other ag products is because we heavily subsidize our agriculture industry because we over-produce. We were killing Canadian dairy farms because we were dumping so much federal money into our dairy farms.  But again, this policy was agreed upon by Trump back in his first term.

Tarrifing Canadian oil and car parts makes no sense. We've had a robust cross-border auto industry trade for 100 years. Parts can criss-cross the border multiple times before making it into final assembly on either side of the border. Disrupting that flow only harms the US Domestic manufacturers though since the foreign companies that manufacture here generally don't hop the border so much.  Honda, Toyota, and Mercedes won't be affected nearly as much as GM, Stellantis, and Ford will be. 

Restricting Canadian oil, which we buy at a discount due to the ease of transport, does nothing to help our energy independence. Canadians ship their oil to the US because we have more of the refineries that can process the type of oil they produce. It's a symbiotic relationship. They ship us $100B worth of oil which we refine into $300B worth of other products and cut ourselves a hefty dividend check for the trouble.  Restricting that oil just raises fuel and construction materials costs (their oil mostly goes to making asphalt, shingles, and the like) for the US and reduces the profitability of our refineries.  It's lose-lose.

No. You can't look for deeper meaning to these policies because there is none there.  His goal is to shift the tax burden entirely onto the lower classes by tariffing imports, raising income taxes on the middle and lower classes, and lowering taxes on the rich.  He's modeling himself on President William McKinley, and trying to set up a new gilded age with an even larger class/income divide than we have today.  It also tracks with his tacky gilded personal style. 

[trinacriabob]

Yo, good morning ...

... the days when "big hair" seemed like a contest.

[G. David Felt]

Very interesting video in this story on produce that comes into the U.S. for food, but this also touches on how it will affect production of parts / items AKA Auto's.

I'm a grocery store CEO. This is what my avocado and salmon suppliers are telling me about tariff pricing.

[G. David Felt]

Interesting read on the Chargers and how the feds were moving forward with a solid plan to keep chargers working and expand, than IDIOT47 imposed his illegal act of shutting down approved programs by the HOUSE, SENATE and signed by a VALID President. At this point, NO PERSON or Ghost Agency should be stopping these plans. One can only hope the judges continue to do their job in protecting the constitution and laws and keeping our EV industry moving forward.

Biden had a plan to keep America’s EV chargers in good working order. Trump pulled the plug.

[G. David Felt]

Very cool 400-mile range with 470hp Honda Sedan / CUV that is electric, but China will only get it.

Honda's New 400-Mile EV Has 470 HP And One Big Problem

Seems this EV was released last year.

Honda Unveils “烨(yè)” Next-generation EV Series for China | Honda Global Corporate Website