Teh Ricer Civic!

You know as well as i do that manufacturing batteries is an enormously dirty operation. The Prius helps the environment like the Pinto helped Fords image.

what are they yielding them to? the government?

Uhh, the problem with this argument is, oh yeah, some corporation will find that if they position themselves as "the good guy" that people will be willing to pay a bit more for their product. Thereby bringing the "corporate control" by the evil corporations agenda down by the "white hat" corporation. It is irrelevant that the "white hat" corporation is reaping record profits through all of this. Oh yeah, and people can always start growing victory gardens again. I mean sure corporations can control this by selling people seeds that do not produce viable seeds that require them to buy more seeds (this is common when farmers buy seeds), but there will always be another company who will recognize that they can sell seeds that DO bear viable seeds for a LOT of money because people will pay for them. Its not a sustainable business plan, but it will reap enormous return on investment for a while (which will then let them set out for other markets). People always forget that corporations build off of public sentiment because that's how they make more money. Hell, look at Ben & Jerrys. A couple of hippies set out to make "the peoples ice cream," and although they perhaps failed in that objective, they set out to be a very community oriented company. People turned out to be more than willing to pay premium prices for ice cream because it came from a "responsible" corporate citizen. Although perhaps leaderships was somewhat lacking in their expansionary goals, the point remained that they were very profitable. Profitable enough to the point that they were acquired for very large sums of money by a company that few would see as community oriented. However they let their Ben & Jerrys subsidiary be a good corporate citizen because they realize that is a large part of why people buy Ben & Jerrys ice cream - which helps their bottom line. Since we, as Americans, believe (or used to anyways) in competition, we established Anti-Trust laws to ensure that no single company can ever attain a monopoly on a market. So long as a corporation, or group of corporations, do not establish a monopoly on a market, such fears are unfounded. Although given the course of the US government over the past century, these fears may be growing; especially considering there is no real competition to the government.

spotted a 50s Ford Truck today.

How about an alliance between gun rights owners and gay marriage advocates? Its a win-win for both sides, powerful organizations seeking greater liberties for all Americans. After all, how hypocritical can you be to support rights for everyone in one category and not another? (and do go about saying that i am a hypocrite cause i am fully aware that past decisions of mine greatly conflict with this and have been nagging at the back of my mind ever since making them). lol. Although there is a group up in San Francisco called like the Pink Pistols who are a gun rights advocacy group that marches in the rainbow parade or whatever its called.

Ahh cucumbers, one of natures delicacies that takes more energy to digest than the food itself provides. A grand way to lose weight, but probably not a proper meal. That being said, i do love cucumbers. Your first meal sounds delectable.

you could always blow it up and use the debris as mulch for a new tree. Hey it would be more entertaining than chainsawing it down.

Actually i apologize for even saying anything. I am on your side on this argument, but for some reason i tend to attach a LOT of other frustrations with our government onto the gay rights movement for no good reason other than it is useful as an example.

Saw an old Volvo 164? That had a decent sized badge on the back that said "AUTOMATIC" lol

It's kinda blah...

needs more rustolium

OH! lol, that makes a lot more sense. Well how much is the engine worth?

is the furniture made of starbursts?

someone is willing to trade you a classic car for a landscaping job? How would that even work? He just shows up for the landscaping job and you take the car?

You are entirely correct my good sir, i just like posting random "out there" stuff cause i know you will respond. But you must admit that under "Equal Protection Under the Law" the majority of tax code seems to be in violation of it. All i was trying to get across is the only way to actually solve these problems is for the government to simply back off and not recognize ANY marriages whatsoever. Would it piss off both sides? Probably, but its the only fair way to do it. After all, who is to say that people merely living with each other should not be able to file for the same benefits as married people? Any way you slice it, there is not equal protection under the law with this. Additionally have NO LAWS in place regarding marriage of any sort would yield greater freedom for all, and would not reduce freedom for anyone. The next great achievement in the womens rights movement will have to come with women being forced to register for the Selective Service too. Equal rights you know.

From an entirely legalistic standpoint (i.e. this is not necessarily a view that i hold on this subject). It is entirely legal for any state to ban gay marriage unless the states constitution prohibits it. Why is this? Well the 16th amendment allows the government to tax people without any basis on census or really anything... Hence progressive tax brackets. Anyways, this also means that the government can discriminate amongst its people on a tax basis. Now a "Marriage" has a legal meaning in taxes which allows the government to discriminate between those who are single and those who are married. Hence in that sense, marriage is nothing more than a way for the government to discriminate amongst its people in an effort to "promote" population growth. This is entirely allowed within the 16th amendment as does not fall into any other amendments because marriage only has any significant real life ramifications on taxes. As such, any effort to move the nation towards true equality for all involves the government relinquishing its ability to recognize marriage of ANY kind. This is not to say that people cannot get married in churches of course and there is nothing to say a church cannot marry two people of the same sex. The point is that this is not the government business. Of course, one could also argue that progressive income taxes are unconstitutional.

Come to think about it, this does not really help GM or Fords bottom line. While it may help their cash flows, they cannot really recognize any revenue since potentially all payments have contingencies. I'm glad i don't work in their accounting department.

Not quite as much. The leading indicators indicate an economy that is pulling itself out of a recession (hence the strong stock market performance). This means that this sub prime lending may not cause all that much harm provided they reign in the ties relatively soon. This will be beneficial to GM for the time being.

Gee what a shocker, this recession isn't really all that bad! If this recession didn't occur during a damn presidential election year this would not have been so politicized and turned into such a debacle. I always had a nagging at my conscious that we would be out of the recession by the end of this year bailout or no bailout or "stimulus." Hmmm anyone else find it almost odd that GM was able to outsell Toyota this month? I mean hell Ford nearly sold as many cars as Toyota. I thought consumers were supposed to be avoiding GM and Chrysler.

No, merely reducing our corporate tax levels down to like 10% and eliminating most complexity in the tax code will provide more than enough additional money and time for Companies to be able to provide healthcare for their employees. It also will not appreciably lower tax revenues off of these companies since there will be very few loopholes to exploit in the first place and no special deductions other than business expenses of course. This will eliminate any domestic tax planning activities (as there will be nothing to alter by the planning) which should lead to greater emphasis on core activities and overall increase profits... leading to more tax revenue & healthcare for more. Bankruptcy works just fine too, your best performance often comes under the highest of pressure. Both of these are fine as long as it doesn't appear that it is the government instilling this domestic pride because if it does it will spark a trade war.

This is an awful idea. Hyundai's idea is actually halfway decent because if people cannot make their car payments they get the car back and can then resell it as a used car. It is a virtual no-lose situation for Hyundai. Now for GM and Ford, this represents ways to severely lose cash on cars sold if a lot of people lose their jobs.

odd diesel is cheaper than gas here in cali

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This had better be an April Fools joke. Although given everything else that Obama wants it does not seem out of line.