CARBIZ

A lot can happen between now and then. I am confident (hope?) that as production begins and more real world driving stats come in, the battery technology will grow by leaps and bounds. Prices will drop and range will increase. Perhaps a little simplistic, but anyone who has owned cell phones over the past 15+ years will attest to how much better batteries are today than a decade ago. Most people I have spoken with who care a whit about the environment are quite excited about the Volt. Just the thought of not having to run on gas at all is enticement to many. I, myself, only drive 25 miles a day, so even with errands, I would most likely never have to fill up the tank. Another interesting aspect about the Volt is that for quite a few people (me included) the Volt could be plugged in at night when electricity rates are cheap and generator stations are idled. One of the drawbacks of nuclear power is that it cannot be 'scaled back' when demand slumps at night, so most utilities can never hope to run with more than 50-60% of their supply from nuclear. Thinking of a million or more plug-ins recharging over night could go a long way to managing our electrical supplies better. Clean coal and nuclear are the only 2 energy sources that we have in abundance and are not reliant on unfriendly powers for. The more vehicles we can have run off those two sources, the better off we will be.

I have been saying this for years: we cannot thrive in nations THAT BUILD NOTHING. Wallstreet produces NOTHING. You cannot eat paper. I've heard the argument that a sound investment/banking community is necessary for a modern economy. No doubt that is true, but who defines what a 'sound investment/banking community' is? I have little respect for accountants OR lawyers. Their professions are based on BS, plain and simple. The dance that the private sector/governments and the banking community perform for us is all smoke and mirrors. There is something intrinsicely wrong with a country (or countries) whose top earners are all lawyers, advisors and paper pushers. The end is always the same: the little guy (taxpayers) pay and the fat cats retire to the Hamptons. Bricks and mortar. Back to the basics, I say. Everything else is pie in the sky.

How about my favorite despair.com poster: CUSTOMER SERVICE If we really cared about our customers, we'd send them somewhere else!

No, in most cases it just means 'it's not done.' Isn't that what PC is all about? We have a unique set of circumstances in the West that has never happened before in history: we are too busy trying to accomodate everyone else, to include everyone, but we don't realize that what we are really doing is hastening our own demise. Europe and a very few of her former colonies are the richest, most successful cultures that have ever existed in the history of humanity. Virtually every technological and scientific advance have come out of them. They have reached heights not even dreamed of only a few generations ago, yet we are now so embarassed by our success that we are drowning in our own apologies and attempts at restitution for perceived 'wrongs' of our ancestors. It will be very interesting to see who is writing the history books at the end of this century.

That's a great theory, but judging a book by its cover is deeply imprinted in our genes. Would you walk up to a fat, dumpy girl in a bar and talk to her? I didn't think so. She's probably a 'nice girl,' though. Even my dog steers clear of pitbulls and rotweillers - he has learned that from experience, but he will bound up to golden labs or retreivers. We cannot enforce social engineering policies in a generation or two - not when we are up against 100,000 years of evolution. It's a lofty goal, but it is going to take a long, long time. Racial profiling, age profiling, health & beauty profiling - we do it every day, consciously or not. I'm taking the dimmer view that racism is going to increase as our world gets 'smaller.' I think there are two poles of tolerance: 1) people who come from cities/areas where their own culture is by far dominant will feel that 'ethnics' are fun and add 'flavor' to the area, so they will be very tolerant of other cultures when they come across them, and 2) people who come from cities/areas where their own culture is vastly outnumbered or at least in the minority, are likely to have either broken down their own resistance or given up. It's the in-between group that are the real issue. It's people (myself included) who started off not caring about other cultures one way or the other, but then slowly realizing that some cultures are not meant to co-exist - no matter how much we may wish that they could. I have to admit that there was a time, say 20 years ago, when I rarely gave the issue a thought, but as I see entire neighborhoods that I grew up being transformed (and not in a good way) and shootings in schools that were unheard of when I went to those same schools 30 years ago, I find my attitudes changing. I wonder how many people on this board who are in their late teens, early twenties will feel the same way in another 20 years.

Oil peaked at $147 a barrel in mid-July. Last week it was trading around $103. We were paying $1.36 a litre (about $5.50 of your gallons) in mid-July. Oil at the barrel-head has dropped 43% (147 to 103), yet last week we were paying $1.23 a litre ( a drop of 11%, according to my math) WTF? Oil spokespersons declared that the drop at the barrel-head was for 'October futures,' which takes time to filter through the supply line. YEAH, THEN WHY THE F$%K DID GAS JUST SHOOT BACK UP TO 1.36 OVER NIGHT BECAUSE OF HURRICANE IKE? Wouldn't it take a month or so to makes its way through the 'supply-lines?' There is some serious $h! happening here and somebody has to put some people in jail over this. I'm all for the free-market and all, but there is definitely some price fixing going on here. I am sick of this. By my math, we should be paying about a $1 a litre.

Harley, you gotta stop it with these pics of old Caddy's. My heart can't take it first thing in the morning!

More than half the population doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. When I was a car jockey at a major hotel, many of the women couldn't identify their car other than by color. These people don't CARE. They want reliability. Most 45 year old women don't want to worry about finding parts for their husband's 40 year old 'toy.' Believe me, 68, I am with you. If I won the lottery tomorrow, I wouldn't waste $100k on a Mercedes or Audi, I'd be off to the next Barrett-Jackson and have my bib on. You and I are not the average car buyers, though. Whether the Fit is a great car or not is really not the issue. Most people who want to spend that kind of money will pony up the extra few bucks and get a Civic. That is why the Aveo and the Rio have carved out a niche for themselves. If you want a new car that is reliable and don't want to spend $20k, then the Aveo or Rio will probably do othe trick. Nobody in this segment is going to be jerking off over the plastic dashboard or looking for a G-force meter.

To a dealer, a car like that is worthless. How many people would buy a 30 year old car for $5k? I had a customer try to trade a '74 LeSabre coupe that was in stunning shape. I told him to put it in the Old Car AutoTrader because it may be worth $4k to the right person but a dealer isn't going to take a chance on that.

It's important to do more than just sign over the ownership to someone else. You have to go with them to the registrar's office and watch them retitle the vehicle. You could be responsible for their accidents, tickets, almost anything.

The cleaning industry is a perfect example of that. A friend of mine had a successful cleaning business for about 15 years. He would charge about $25 an hour because after paying all the employment taxes (and Worker's Compensation, for example), that would leave about $12 an hour to pay an employee and keep a small profit for his business. Then along came all the illegals, which started in a landslide about 10 years ago in the Toronto area: a lot of Portuguese, Spanish, South American. All these new companies cropped up, charging $20 an hour or less because the workers were getting $8 an hour CASH and the owner of the company was paying no taxes at all. How does someone legally compete with that? The cleaning business, construction, restaurants. It is so obvious where the illegals congregate. It would be so easy for the government to do something about them, but they don't. All this $h! about saving money is just one vicious spiral down the toilet. Sure, it would be nice to pay someone $10 a hour to clean my apartment, but if that person is paying no taxes and gets free healthcare (the local hospital I use has a big sign saying they don't divulge immigrant status to the authorities), gets to use our roads, schools, etc. - in the end, the people who are paying taxes will have to pay more to offset those who aren't. It is unbelievably easy to work illegally in Canada; I am sure the U.S. is the same. You can just form a 'company' (no I.D. required) and then can legally cash cheques in the 'company' name. The same argument goes for offshoring our jobs to Asia: sure, you may pay 50% more for a washing machine, but if that employed 200 people in your state, wouldn't that be worth it in the end? Eventually, your income would rise (or your tax burden could fall) and the extra cost would be negligible. There are a lot of costs to immigration that we are not allowed to talk about. All we hear are the same bull$h! about how this is a nation of immigrants, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, but there was no free healthcare 40 years ago. Every time I see in the paper yet another immigrant is here and her kid requires $50k worth of surgery, prosthetics, whatever, I want to scream. No wonder Canada is spiralling down to 3rd world status. One case in point: External Affairs spent $100 million dollars two years ago to evacuate 'Canadians' out of Beirut when the Israelis started shelling that city. WTF are 30,000 'Canadians' doing in Beirut?

Ah, but there you have hit one of the biggest nails on the head: 80 years ago, when the poor Irish and Poles and Italians came over - they were commited. They knew they would never see their family again. They had $100 in their pocket and often they were told by our government to move to the Prairies and farm. No telephones. No internet. Three weeks by steamer and a week by train. Yes, indeed - they became Canadians or Americans because they had NO choice. Today, a $5 phone card and you can talk to your mother in India for 40 minutes. Have a picnic with your kids and upload the pictures to your in-laws on the spot. $1,000 will fly you almost anywhere in this world within 18 hours. Entire legions of lawyers and 'advisors' in the immigrant industry will tell you your rights, file you for free government hand-outs and tell you how to bring your entire village here - legally. There was an article in the Toyota Star a few months ago about a Cuban exile in Toronto. He is an architect and has been here FORTY YEARS. He was commenting on Castro's failing health and he added that he can't wait until Castro dies so that he can go HOME. FORTY F$#KING years in MY country, and this man pines for his 'true' home. F$#k you, I say. Ship him back now.

Well, another emotional firestorm. For me personally, I remember growing up in Vancouver where out of 30 kids there were 20 'whites' (who knows what they were - Italian, British, whatever), 5 Chinese, 1 or 2 Japanese and a Hindu kid. We all got along fine. Today, the Catholic school beside my building is 95% Pilipino. The public school up the street is 90%, well -non white. A blond or a light skinned kid is rare. When I moved to Toronto about 30 years ago, the occasional time I heard Chinese or Farsi or whatever was neat and kind of a novelty. Now, in the elevators I rarely hear English. In a crowd, the Euros are a dying breed. This goes beyond English speaking or not. My father built the United Church on Islington Avenue, here in Toronto, and then he was married in it. Now, the entire neighbhorhood has gone South-Asian and Caribbean. I ask myself what is going to happen to 'my' culture and 'my' values if this continues. Do I even have any rights? Am I being racist because when I go into a bar I don't like being hit on by every Asian guy in the place? (the bars are now 30-40% Asian in this city.) Would it take a KKK membership just to, well, hang out with 'my own?' (Whatever that is?) There is such a double standard in both our countries. I lump North America and Europe into the category of 'the West.' Frankly, the West is committing cultural suicide. Every Western country has a negative birthrate. We are told that we must accept immigrants to maintain our standard of living: that is the accepted factoid. What is happening, however, is a marked change in the cultural make up of our major cities. Although the intellectual in me hopes that they will one day adopt our culture and customs, I don't see much evidence of that. In fact, studies have proven that recent immigrants are assimilating less. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the most obvious one is critical mass: once there is certain mass of them, they don't need to assimilate. They have their own business associations, their own bars, their own groups and university affiliations. I don't think there is a culture in history that has allowed this to happen. From the Romans to the Ottomans, whenever a civilization became 'successful' they imposed their ways on their immigrants and on the people they absorbed. We are too busy apologising for the sins of our great grandparents to notice that we have given away the keys to the kingdom. I think there is a fine line between being xenophobic (like China and Persia were) and being over-run. I believe one of the reason's Great Britain became an unparalleled global ruler and so have her heirs, is because we have successfully figured out how to absorb new ideas without being absorbed ourselves. If we allow ourselves to be diluted and sapped of our energies, we risk being dragged down to the level of the countries our recent immigrants are escaping. I hope they (the unwashed masses arriving on our shores) can appreciate that. There is a reason the West has the highest standard of living. Respect that or there will be nothing else to covet.

The elephant in the room is that the argument isn't really about English, but since we aren't 'allowed' to discuss it under any other pretext, English it is. In Toronto, English is the minority. There are entire neighborhoods without a single English sign. The U.S. is lucky, because eventually the English majority can push back. In Canada, we've always had 'two solitudes' (three, really - now the aboriginals are trying to hog in), which paralyses any rational discussion on what to do. Even in my job, being unilingual is a handicap. People will walk up to us all the time and demand to speak to a [insert favorite ethnic group] speaking salesperson, which is as much to do with "I don't want to deal with you because you're white." Try doing that in a store. Demand to speak to someone who is 'english' and see where that gets you. In defense of these immigrants (being as I live with one), it is a nightmare to learn a foreign language as an adult. I've weathered my BF's 6 1/2 years of learning the language and he is anything but lazy. He has taken numerous courses and I am an English major to help him! Ours is a frustrating language to learn - and that's coming from a culture that shares our alphabet. Good luck with Farsi or Mandarin! Also, try learning the language while driving a cab 12 hours a day and going home to 5 screaming brats. Remember, you are learning more than just the language: you are learning the culture. Five years ago, the BF used 'f$#k' in nearly every sentence. Just like an 8 year old, I had to sit him down and expand his vocabulary of curses. Then I had to explain them. Then there are all the colloquialisms, idioms and clever slogans. You don't know a language until you can a) joke in it and b) understand it's poetry.

...including price. You're forgetting that most people that buy these aren't buying them for status or speed. Price counts a helluva lot in this category. You can $10-a-month-yourself to death. Why stop at the Fit and not just buy a Mini?

GM and Ford have invested tens of billions in this country over a period of 80 years. Toyota and Honda are just here for window-dressing. They learned from their mistakes in the early '80s with the backlash the UAW was able to whip up. Now many stupid people think they are as Canadian as the Big 2.5. It's all about optics, nothing more. Now that the $C is slipping to the .90 cent range, look for a lot of the BS to die down.

GM and Ford have invested tens of billions in this country over a period of 80 years. Toyota and Honda are just here for window-dressing. They learned from their mistakes in the early '80s with the backlash the UAW was able to whip up. Now many stupid people think they are as Canadian as the Big 2.5. It's all about optics, nothing more.

I had a black Persian for 18 years. What a nasty bitch. Hissed at everyone but me. Then I got a male black Persian. Had him for 9 years. Affectionate to a fault. Drove me nuts sometimes, demanding attention at 4 in the morning - even if that meant me chasing him around with the spray bottle. Had to have him put down in December. A blood clot moved to his legs and paralysed him. I cried like a schoolgirl. We have a kitten now: 12 weeks old. I have the scars on my hands to prove it. Still, she is whacky and wonderful, except when she tries to climb on me while I am typing this. (All spelling mistakes are hers.) I have a Husky. He is 12 years old. Had him since he was a ball of fluff at 8 weeks. I hate small dogs: terriers, poodles, you name it. They are yappy and psycho. My sister has two golden labs. Yech. Way too needy. Huskies are more like cats: independent and playful. You can tell a lot about people and their relations to animals. You are wired by evolution to look after your own kids so you get no brownie points for doing that. However, owning a pet is a very selfless act and a huge commitment. Selfish jerks never own animals. Uptight anal types don't either - might mess their hair/clothes/apartment. When I was single, I could use the dog as a baramoter as to whether a prospect was a keeper or not. Aloof queens would ignore my dog. My partner of 6 years walked into my apartment at 4 a.m. and rolled around on the carpet with my dog. He was a keeper.

I blame a lot of this on the media. They love to label everyone. It makes their graphs and pie charts much more interesting.

Oh, shut the f$#k up!

Not that I agree or disagree with the Second Amendment, but how do you explain the horrific murder rates in the United States? Those numbers are on par with the most abysmally poor, 3rd world countries. Nowhere else in the developed world is there gun crimes and murder rates like the U.S. This is not 1783. Nobody would dare invade the U.S., whether a little old lady had a pistol in her purse or not. This is not 1933 Germany either. There are a lot of critics who have drawn parallels between Homeland Security and the legislation Hitler's cronies enacted in the mid-thirties in Germany. I think what shocks many observers of U.S. politics is the sheer polarization of Americans. Black versus white. The coasts versus the 'fly-over states.' The Texans against everybody. The richest country on earth, with some of the poorest citizens. To a lot of people, America seems manic-depressive: the country is capable of such fantastic highs (the Moon landing, for example) and deep lows (the bible thumpers in the South, for example.)

Why? That's the choice you Americans have. Black or white. Given the two choices, I put myself down as 'conservative,' but obviously my moral beliefs would put me at odds with a lot of true blue-blooded conservatives. We Canucks get to choose between 4 Evils (5 if you count the regional PQ): the Conservatives, the Liberals, the NDP (Commies) and the Greens (??!!) We get to choose between 4 classes of idiots that will eventually destroy the country. You's guys only get 2. Since we're both going to the polls this Fall, it's a race to the bottom!

I thought Hargrove was RETIRING? Apparently, not soon enough! He is an idiot. John-Deere is closing their plant in Welland after SEVENTY FIVE YEARS. 700 jobs are being written off. The loss of manufacturing jobs in Ontario is becoming a torrent. Wait until the banks start their 'layoffs.' Then sh%t will hit the fan. The real estate market in the GTA is on the verge of a U.S.-style downturn and Hargrove is whining about appearances? All of Canada's financial 'successes' are coming from the West and their oil boom. Unless Ontario and Quebec want to become the new Rust Belt, something has to be done. And with the amount of salt we use around here in the winter, our factories will rust a helluva lot faster than the ones in Pennsylvania and Ohio did.

I think as a people we are losing our civility. I have been haunting some political forums lately and epithets of 'racist,' 'bigot,' and 'right-winger' get bandied about quite easily. People just don't want to hear other people's opinions any more. We've already made our minds up and the rest of you are idiots. PS: Me being called a 'right-winger.' My BF had a good laugh at that one!

It's like I've said many times: there is a big difference between posted gas mileage and the real world. Honda engines don't have any power until they are wound WAAAY up - it's not like you're going to get 30 mpg at 6,000 rpm. In fairness to Honda, though, you came out of an Avalanche where you were used to gobs of power. Your typical old lady who goes from her '96 Sunfire to a CR-V because her spawn have convinced her its Honda or nothing, is not going to have your experience. The engine is never going to drown out her Ray Coniff & the Singers on the AM radio because she will her CRV's engine will never see 2,800 rpm.