avant1963

Timex Social Club "Rumors" I also remember the parody of that song, called "Roaches". From what I can remember it went something like: "Look at all these roaches, around me everyday. Need something strong to make them go away. Look at all these roaches, can't take it no more. Go home at night, turn on the light a see the floor show." That brings me back to middle school.

The rolling turd known as the BMW Z4 coupe. Looked like a bad 80's fiberglass kit-car. Is there a Fiero engine under that horrible rear hatch?

It's really hard to pay attention to the Fox Noise Channel. You actually get news from there? The rich who have gotten richer off the backs of the middle class, selling their businesses for millions to overseas companies and sending good-paying jobs to be outsources, OF COURSE is going to say this is great. And at Haliburton/KBR killing is a business and business is good... REAL GOOD, doesn't mean I agree with it. I'm reading "Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History" and this, my friends, was not how our great democracy was supposed to end. I fear if there isn't a huge change in 2009, the peasant revolt isn't too far behind, as long as we can pry the minions from their iPods, Xboxes and HDTV long enough for them to see what's happening here (stop children, what's that sound?). Cspec, I will never see it your way. I will never see it the way of Fox News. I am an independent thinker, of the liberal mindset, and a proud secular humanist who wants to look after my fellow American, not bury them for a couple of bucks. NOTE: I love that this topic has not gone off the deep end, and we can discuss like adults. Thanks all.

If having pride in one's country and wanting to purchase products made here to support our economy and middle-class worker is "racism", then call me a racist. It's really called patriotism. I can play by Fox News Rules: Anyone who is against me about this is anti-patriot, against this country and against the troops fighting overseas. </Fox News Bull&#036;h&#33;>

But BV, this is what I am saying. WE DON'T HAVE A CHOICE TO BUY AMERICAN WHEN IT COMES TO TVs, Music, almost every consumer good that is out there. I am not saying close the trade doors, but we have to stop selling the store. I would love to be able to walk into a Circuit City, and see TVs built in China, Japan, Korea AND US, and make my choice. Right now you said you do not want to "limit my choices", but buy selling every business, this has limited your choices.

What I don't understand is the loss of PRIDE in this country. Other countries have pride. You don't think Japan has pride in their products. Hell, they even made Manga comics about Carlos Goshen, and his rise. They had pride that he revived Nissan. Once GM is back, do you think ANYONE, especially the younger crowd that would have been interested in Manga would read a story about Rick Wagoner? Do you think anyone in the country would give a darn. Does anyone outside us car geeks even know who Rick Wagoner is? Nope. The pride is not there. Americans can't build anything worth owning anymore. To that I say bull&#036;h&#33;. We just have lost the chance to prove it. I have pride in the country and can't stand to watch it get ripped apart for a very few to have 99% of the pie. The middle class is what made this country great after the Great Depression and WWII, and now we are watching it slip away and become a country that does nothing but consume and work at WalMart. Not the American dream I had in mind.

When I talk to someone about buying American cars, the subject always falls back to "I bet the TV that you are watching in not made in America, so what's wrong with owning a Camry?" There is only one response to this "apples/oranges" retort; "If there was an American made TV, I would buy it. But our government and big business has sold out almost EVERY manufacturer to other countries, that I CANNOT BUY an American made and owned TV, even if I wanted to." As far as vehicles go (probably the second largest purchase most of us dwindling middle-class Americans will make) I can make a conscious effort to purchase a car from an American-owned company, one of the last items we can. Here's some statistics from economyincrisis.org that may spin some heads. "Motor vehicles again topped the import charts in 2005 with $142,842,000,000 ($142.8 billion) of imports according to recently released statistics from the US Department of Commerce. Fully 39% of US dollars spent on motor vehicles were spent on imports – not including those not counted as imports as produced domestically by foreign-owned parents. This represented a 6% increase in percentage consumption of motor vehicle imports by the US over 2004." Since 1978 13,948 US companies were sold to foreign ownership. Companies whose value total $1,750,846,777,2002. 97% of all Sound Recording Industries are foreign owned. 90% of Audio and video equipment was imported in 2005 (40.6 billion dollars worth!) Just look at the companies that were sold out from America this year alone: Metaldyne Corp - maker of auto parts are now owned by Asahi Tec Corp from Belgum. The OREGON STEEL MILLS! are no longer US owned. Evraz from Russia owns it. The USA is becoming a Banana Republic. Companies are using us to mine raw materials, like copper, and send them to China so they can make cheap computers and then ship them back to us to buy. We don't make anything anymore and it needs to stop. You know what happens to Banana Republics... Bottom line, if there was ANY consumer goods that I can purchase made in America BY AN AMERICAN COMPANY, I will. Just run out to local stores and just try to buy anything that isn't made in China, Philippines or Vietnam. Good luck. Take some time and peruse the economyincrisis.org website and see how much of the USA has been sold, then tell me that I'm crazy for caring that GM and Ford pull through their current crisis.

Malibu has had a rear-seat DVD player that folds up from the console since 2004. It is an option for the MAXX.

Balth, Great Faith No More flashback. "Surprise, your dead. Guess what? It never ends."

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical. And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily, joyfully, playfully watching me. But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical. And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical. There are times when all the world's asleep, the questions run too deep for such a simple man. Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned I know it sounds absurd but please tell me who I am. Now watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical, liberal, fanatical, criminal. Won't you sign up your name, we'd like to feel you're acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable!

I've had my G6 GT for two months longer than you, and have had none of the problems that you have had. All my issues lie with the absolutely horrendous Panoramic sunroof, and option I wish we never got, but that was the reason my wife wanted the car. Any time the car flexes, the noises it makes is horrific. It has been in the shop twice for the roof (once for almost a month) and the noise came back after a few months, worse than before. It is a lease, and since I never really drive it anymore (I would have taken it off a cliff because even the slightest little noise/rattle inside a car makes me crazy, but my wife can ignore it somehow) and know that GM Service CANNOT REPAIR it (and my wife doesn't want to get stuck driving a Buick Century for another 4 weeks) she'll just live with it until the lease runs out in '08. It was in the shop 4 times: 1 for a defective windshield (bubbles in the laminate that came from the factory that way - how the hell did that pass inspection?). 2 times for the roof and once for a recall on the vanity mirrors (the spring loaded doors break).

Hence why today is the first Daytona 500 I will not watch since the 80's.

I have an old Road & Track with that thing on the cover.

I lived it with my last employer. We had a great job. We had little "silly" incentives, like when we reached our numbers, we got lunch bought for us. There were gift certificates for perfect attendance (I know it sounds stupid but I made $450 in Circuit City gift certs for two years of perfect attendance) and there was no problem paying for our education - classes, books, anything to help us grow. Then the big, happy company decided to "go public". The belts were tightened. We first lost any "extra" incentive programs (like the attendance), then the lunch went from once a month, to once a quarter to never. The company stopped paying into our Holiday parties (first they paid for everything, then half, then none) and forget about taking a class - on your dine only. There was no $$ for learning anymore. Then the layoffs and outsourcing, first 10 people (the low-end people that was no love lost) then 20 then the whole place. All in the name of the stock price. As soon as they went public, the &#036;h&#33; hit the fan... and this was a HUGE company (rhymes with Grudential). But they made a big deal that we all would get stocks. That was great, but I wasn't around long enough to be vested in the entire 180 shares (that I was "allowed" to BUY at IPO price and then sell for a couple of bucks woo-hoo) while the CEO took in I think 4 million shares as a bonus that year for "bringing us public". The CEO gets more money than I will make in two lifetimes and I get laid off. You wonder why I am cynical about this.

Screw anyone (including this entire administration in DC) that says they can gage how "strong our economy is" by quoting the stock market. DCX announces thousands of layoffs, and their stock is up over $4. The stock market is not a sign of a strong economy for the "everyman", just the only people the current employees at the White House give a &#036;h&#33; about. It's time for an impeach-pink slip to be handed to them. Sickening.

There is nothing I do not like about that car. It is the perfect next purchase. The G6 lease is up in T-minus 21 months and counting (praying for 6 month lease pull-ahead from GM).

Pontiac has my money as long as it will be at the dealership when my G6 lease is out in 2008. Very happy.

That's the Torana...

Biggest problem is that Holden, aside from the VE RWD vehicles, are all vehicles from Europe, Including the Astra (Opel/Saturn), the Vectra (Saturn Aura), the Barina (Chevy Aveo), the Tigra (Opel Corsa), the Captiva (Saturn Vue), and Rodeo (Asian market Isuzu) that most Saturn already has. Holden has been global for a while now... we just want the full line of VE and if the Torana comes back, be sure that North America gets it too

Webasto is also the company that cursed me with the Gawd-Awful panoramic sunroof in my G6. Webasto can kiss my ass. I would think it over REAL GOOD before cutting a hole in a GTO roof for a Webasto sunroof, or any sunroof for that matter. Can't wait until the lease runs out so I can get a G8.

Please, it is now time for all good people to stop watching NASCAR. Toyota knows exactly what it is doing and many people have sold their souls for a few bucks. A few select quotes from Veteran driver Dale Jarret: "As far as Toyota, sure, the parent company is foreign ... but there are a lot of Toyotas that are built in the United States." Toyota just as American as Chevy, Ford http://www.nascar.com/2007/news/headlines/...yota/index.html And this "Toyota is American" spin will be spewed out every two minutes during TV NACASR broadcasts. There will be tribute pieces about "How Toyota has built America" and "Why Americans should be proud that Toyota is in NASCAR." When it really should be "Toyota has a butt-load of money, and our rating are starting to tank." Even Jimmy Spencer, who when Toyota started racing the Tundra a few years ago DARED mention the words "Japanese" and "Pearl Harbor" in the same sentence, has now fell in line. Last year, while watching one of the last NASCAR races I'll ever see on TV, I heard him praise Toyota for all the jobs they have created (jobs they stole from American manufactures) so he can collect his Toyota blood money. America is doomed to become a corporation owned, make nothing, do nothing country. I advise anyone with children to make sure that they take classes in how to speak Chinese, because we will be owned by then soon enough unless we start waking up.

I was flipping through the news yesterday and they teaser was: "Honda bringing a plug-in hybrid to the roads in the future" Not a word about the Chevy Volt that was just introduced. Only Honda is working on it. Right.

Late breaking news! After learning that it was not dead, the Sunfire has jumped off a bridge...

I'd rather they use his wife

Make it go away, please I beg of you, in the name of good taste. Let the USA Smart-tipping begin.