...There might come a day, say in some "Planet of the Apes" future where being compared to a monkey is meant to be a compliment, but that obviously is not today.
Calling an ape a monkey in POTA was an insult to the ape... Just sayin'.
P.S. "America" is much larger than just the U.S. -- I do not like USians or "yankees" any better, but if "Americans" do not even know what to properly call themselves, I find 50% "not deceived" as unlikely.
I know I shouldn't feed the AC trolls, but I am so tired of hearing this lame-ass statement. Americans DO know what to call themselves - Americans!. I have never, ever heard an American citizen refer to themselves as "USians" or "Yankees" (unless, of course, they play for the team or are talking about northerners). No other country in either North or South America (the Continents) have the word "America" in their name: only the United States of America has that word in it's complete and proper name. Therefore, it is not only logical but sane to use the word Americans to describe citizens of the US. Canadians, Mexicans, Venezuelans, Brazilians, Portugese, etc. have made no claim to the "Americans" name, as they do not associate the tag as pertinent or descriptive to their country.
Nor have I ever heard anyone from another North or South American country complain that the USA co-opted the "Americans" name and stole it's use from all of the other countries. Never.
Reading through your post, I have to guess that, when you use the word "Americans", you mean all citizens of all countries in both North and South America, since you seem to have such a problem with the citizens of the US using it as a description. Your post makes much more sense that way... There are many, many corrupt governments on these two continents; the US not being the worst. And, there are many, many corrupt governments on other continents as well. Don't take this as me defending my government: it's a fucking mess and needs a hell of a lot of housecleaning, and I am willing to bet that more than 50% of the US citizens agree with me. However, unlike most other parts of the world, the US citizen sees revolution as the absolute last resort, not the first, and will try many, many alternatives before resorting to such a destructive choice.
I find it quite interesting that the only group of scientists involved here is the climate change group. This move sounds suspiciously of getting the media to discredit any and every attempt at questioning the "science" of CC.
Eugenics was once accepted by EVERYONE (or so the proponents of the time wanted the public to believe). It was a "proven" science. It was accepted by many scientists, by elite society, by politicians. It's a black stain on science history now, and very few wish to discuss it, but it is nonetheless there.
Science needs to be questioned, results need to be doubted and tested. It's doubly more important for the individual scientist to question and doubt his or her own work, to prove it time and time again, to ensure that what they are learning is true and real, not tainted. Once a researcher begins to quell that and tries to stop others from disproving it, they are no longer scientists.
As far as CC science goes, I also don't deny the idea of CO2 affecting the climate. I don't know that I believe that it is the armageddon that it is being made out to be. I don't believe it's science's place to attempt to social engineer the populace through FUD either. Which is what this move by the climate science community is.
No guns allowed to be owned by the citizens in Australia, but... this still happened. According to the anti-gun crowd, this should NEVER EVER EVER happen in gun-free paradises like Australia, and note how quiet those groups are on this incident.
Disarming the public can not work, will not work, and does not work, and the Australia hostage crisis has proven it. Firearms are a "Pandora" situation, and have been since the invention of gunpowder. Permitting only the cops and VIP bodyguards to be the only people who have firearms is not realistic; one of those will sell their firearm at the right cost to a bad guy, and the whole plan goes to hell. In order to stop heinous situations like this from happening, you have to change the instincts and mindsets of the human animal. Until that can be done, these situations will continue to happen, no matter the laws.
AHEM. Back on topic. "invisible smoke doesn't mean it's better" is exactly why diesel is better than gasoline. And yet, soot isn't even the worst emission that cars produce! It's unburned hydrocarbons, also known as raw fuel. And by their nature, diesels which are running properly run lean all the time, that's just how they operate
I'd like to add to this, to emphasize exactly how important this point is. Because I think this is glossed over and ignored way to often, and it's a very important distinction.
Anyone who has ever performance tuned gasoline and diesel engines knows this point to a fault. To get the best performance out of a gasoline engine, the tuner gets the fuel to air ratio as lean as possible. However, on a gasoline engine, if the tuner goes too lean, it will damage the engine to the point that internal components will be damaged and require replacement!
However, you can lean a diesel out to the point where it just will no longer run, and NO DAMAGE WILL OCCUR. You can err on the side of "lean", and if you make a mistake, there is no consequence, other than the need to richen the mixture. Nothing will break. Diesel engines make more power by increasing the mixture, running the fuel to air mixture richer. They will break if the tuner gets too rich, as the exhaust gas temperature rises to the point of melting something or even to the point of a hydrolock, where the piston cannot physically compress the mixture due to an excess of fuel.
Why does this matter? Because, the leaner you can run an engine, the more efficient you can get. With a diesel, there is no drawback to running lean, so you have a much safer environment to make efficient power. With gasoline, there is always the specter of lean-burn damage waiting there in the efficient zone.
I live in an extremely rural, farming state. Better than 90% of my co-workers would easily be able to manage with a 90 mile range, and unless they are actually FARMING, that percentage would hold up in a more widespread fashion in the retail and service businesses here. People are very needlessly range-conscious, in my opinion, and if they would actually look at their odometers each day (as they cross their garage thresholds), most would realize that even 40 range miles would be plenty for day-to-day use.
I disagree... The only really "shite" modern American Diesel engine (by popular opinion, anyway) was the Ford 6.0 Powerstroke engine. That engine was plagued with design issues because of misunderstandings between Ford and International (who made the engine for Ford).
By and large, the American diesel engines are actually very good. Cummins makes all the diesels for Dodge, which is arguably one of the finest diesel engine companies in the world. Chevrolet has made their own for many years, and was at one time (still may be?) partnered with Detroit Diesel. Ford is now making it's own and from what I have heard they have a winner in the 6.7. I see many, many used Diesel trucks for sale with close to or more than 300,000 miles on them. That's unheard of with gasoline powered vehicles.
The problem with American diesels is that they are only available in heavier duty trucks. "Normal" half-ton and smaller pickups and other trucks have not had a diesel option until very, very recently, and those options are very few and far between. No American made car has a diesel option, due to the poor experience people had in the '80s with the horrible deployment of sub-par diesel engines in the Chevys.
I have owned a diesel for many years, and it far outperforms a gasoline engine in just about every way, except for the fact that I need to drive a larger sized truck to have this option. I get much better mileage (under a load, better than twice what a gasoline powered truck can get), more power, and fewer problems. If the automakers would make a smaller version of their diesel engines and put them in their half-ton and quarter-ton trucks (like VW with their Amarok), they'd have a big, big win on their hands in the American market. As I said, that is starting to come about, but it is taking a long time as the automakers are skittish, and the importers are not pushing their diesel offerings to their customers.
Also, the cost of diesel (in the US) is 20-30% more than gasoline at the pump, which also scares away consumers... even though that cost is easily compensated for by the MPG increase of the diesel over the gas versions. People don't really understand that. It's really a consumer education problem.
The US is the severe weather capital of the world.
Because global warming. Oh sorry, it's called "Climate Change" now, isn't it? And it's all our fault...
All kidding aside, no one has mentioned the size difference between the US and Japan/Europe either. That, IMHO, is one of the largest hurdles that the US faces when considering more thorough rail service, that could possibly compete with air service. Not to mention the competition for rail time between passenger and freight (read OIL) trains. There just isn't enough infrastructure, and probably never will be, for country-wide, universal service like they have in Europe.
You think you are smart but you're really an idiot. The slippery slope is a valid argument because that's THAT THE WAY THAT US LAW WORKS. The whole thing is a slippery slope that goes back 1000 years.
Ummm... might want to really proofread before posting with an insult like that. Makes YOU look like the idiot here.
The US is only 238 years old, so the slippery slope can *only* be 238 years long, less than a quarter of the exaggerated length you stated.
No comment on the rest of your post; I agree with some of it but not all... and some of it I am indifferent to.
No, no, no. You've got it mixed up. "Are they a union or is it a union".
Examples:
The United Nations is an organization. The union is made up of members, who are individually governed. The United States of America is a member. The United States of America and the European Union are members.
The United States of America is a country. The union is made up of states, who are individually governed. Texas is a southern state. Texas and Arkansas are southern states.
The European Union is a collective. The union is made up of countries, who are individually governed. Austria is a landlocked country. Austria and Switzerland are landlocked countries.
The same rules hold true in each case.
When looking a proper, recognized collection of any group of foobars, the proper, recognized collection itself is an individual entity (the UN, the USA, the EU).
When looking at the foobars themselves (members, states, countries), each is treated as an individual in and of itself, but they are treated as a group of individuals when speaking outside of the proper, recognized collection, therefore plural.
So, saying "the United States of America is..." is more logically, grammatically, and politically correct (not in the "feely" sense) than "the United States of America are". Using those rules it should be "the European Union is...", not "the European Union are...". It would be less confusing if it would have been called "the American Union", getting the plural word out of the name (states).
One more reason to move this country to a pure democracy. The republic model worked fine in colonial times because of the logistical nightmares of getting everyone's vote. But now in the digital age all those nightmares are effectively vanquished.
Landlines being taken out would CAUSE cell towers to be also taken out. Cell towers are not magical devices that are fully independent: they require a fiber connection (now) to reach their networks. During an emergency, it is much more likely that the tower is overloaded (radio side) rather than the landline (fiber) connection being dropped, as, typically, those fiber connections are redundant and much more resiliant than the radio side of the tower.
The meat of your post is correct, however. ARES is an awesome service that LEAs and ERs can utilize, and it's all done as volunteer work. That group needs more recogition, respect, and thanks.
And everywhere it's been tried it has flopped spectacularly. The municipality goes with lowest cost (which is NOT the way to build a robust network), they don't hire anyone with any skillset to run it, and they don't charge enough to get the little money they have invested into the project back, justifying the low cost hardware and lack of wetware.
Municipal governments are too ignorant to be trusted to run something as complex as a last-mile network. It's not their fault, nor the fault of the voters, it's just the way it is.
This. And with the oil industry in control of the US Gov't, the funding won't come from THIS country. Maybe China or Russia have a stash that they would part with to forward Lockheed's R&D. Then they can control the future of energy production and sell it to us at insanely high prices.
I understand that many people (including myself) want "freedom," but the real "freedom" does not come with privacy and/or security. Unless you live alone in the middle of no where and completely no interaction with others in anyway, you have to pick the scale between freedom and privacy/security.
This comment is so wrong in so many ways. True freedom includes all the privacy and security the citizen desires for himself, his family, and his community. Freedom and security are not opposite sides of a coin, they harmonize and reinforce the other.
There's a fundamental untruth being propagated by the U.S. government (by the left and right equally), that personal security can only be achieved by the gov't, and freedom and privacy of the citizens are the cost of that security. This is not only a lie, but also an abuse of power over the U.S. citizen. However, there are enough voters that have decided to believe this, and it is costing each and every person of this country their constitutionally guaranteed liberties.
How can you be free, if you don't have security? How can you be secure, if you aren't granted freedom (the definition of liberty)? Were the slaves of 18th and 19th century America "secure"? They certainly were not free, and they certainly did not have any security or privacy in their lives! However, freedom, security, and privacy all require action and personal responsibility, and the typical American today shuns those concepts. People would rather receive handouts and allow Supermom (the U.S. Gov't) to take care of them, protect them, control them, and make the decisions for them, because the alternative is "too hard" or "too expensive".
Agree with most of your post, but you missed an important event. GM *forced* many of their dealerships to close, to reduce competition.
We had a very good GMC/Buick/Cadillac dealer here, and a crappy Chev/Pontiac dealer. GM told them that one of them was going to buy out the other, and gave them the opportunity to decide amongst themselves or GM would. As it turns out, the GMC dealer decided to sell out to the Chevy dealer (personal reasons: he was ageing, and none of his kids wanted to take over the dealership), and now prices have gone up, selection has gone down, and there's no "dealing" anymore: pay thier price or don't buy.
So, basically, GM removed the competition. At least, for it's own brands. So now there's a monopoly in this region and sticker price is where it's at.
In fact, many drivers don't "see" me on my 800+ pound Goldwing. They look right at me, make eye contact, and then still pull out in front of me (or into "my" lane, or enter the intersection, etc.). And it doesn't happen just in "cities" - small towns are just as bad. And it isn't a subset of the population - young, old, middle-aged, even professional drivers (ie: taxis, semis, etc.) do this.
Something is broken in certain humans minds, that they don't either recognize a cyclist (motorized or not) as a threat, or as a legitimate user of the same roadway as them. Until it's almost too late, after I have laid on my horn and cussed them out at a the top of my voice. Then they have a "Oh, sorry, I didn't see you", look on their face when they shotgun their brakes.
Slashdot Mirror
...There might come a day, say in some "Planet of the Apes" future where being compared to a monkey is meant to be a compliment, but that obviously is not today.
Calling an ape a monkey in POTA was an insult to the ape... Just sayin'.
Sounds pretty plausible to me.
Nice twist.
P.S. "America" is much larger than just the U.S. -- I do not like USians or "yankees" any better, but if "Americans" do not even know what to properly call themselves, I find 50% "not deceived" as unlikely.
I know I shouldn't feed the AC trolls, but I am so tired of hearing this lame-ass statement. Americans DO know what to call themselves - Americans!. I have never, ever heard an American citizen refer to themselves as "USians" or "Yankees" (unless, of course, they play for the team or are talking about northerners). No other country in either North or South America (the Continents) have the word "America" in their name: only the United States of America has that word in it's complete and proper name. Therefore, it is not only logical but sane to use the word Americans to describe citizens of the US. Canadians, Mexicans, Venezuelans, Brazilians, Portugese, etc. have made no claim to the "Americans" name, as they do not associate the tag as pertinent or descriptive to their country.
Nor have I ever heard anyone from another North or South American country complain that the USA co-opted the "Americans" name and stole it's use from all of the other countries. Never.
Reading through your post, I have to guess that, when you use the word "Americans", you mean all citizens of all countries in both North and South America, since you seem to have such a problem with the citizens of the US using it as a description. Your post makes much more sense that way... There are many, many corrupt governments on these two continents; the US not being the worst. And, there are many, many corrupt governments on other continents as well. Don't take this as me defending my government: it's a fucking mess and needs a hell of a lot of housecleaning, and I am willing to bet that more than 50% of the US citizens agree with me. However, unlike most other parts of the world, the US citizen sees revolution as the absolute last resort, not the first, and will try many, many alternatives before resorting to such a destructive choice.
Hear, hear. Well stated!
I find it quite interesting that the only group of scientists involved here is the climate change group. This move sounds suspiciously of getting the media to discredit any and every attempt at questioning the "science" of CC.
Eugenics was once accepted by EVERYONE (or so the proponents of the time wanted the public to believe). It was a "proven" science. It was accepted by many scientists, by elite society, by politicians. It's a black stain on science history now, and very few wish to discuss it, but it is nonetheless there.
Science needs to be questioned, results need to be doubted and tested. It's doubly more important for the individual scientist to question and doubt his or her own work, to prove it time and time again, to ensure that what they are learning is true and real, not tainted. Once a researcher begins to quell that and tries to stop others from disproving it, they are no longer scientists.
As far as CC science goes, I also don't deny the idea of CO2 affecting the climate. I don't know that I believe that it is the armageddon that it is being made out to be. I don't believe it's science's place to attempt to social engineer the populace through FUD either. Which is what this move by the climate science community is.
To answer the first part of your query:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/15/...
No guns allowed to be owned by the citizens in Australia, but... this still happened. According to the anti-gun crowd, this should NEVER EVER EVER happen in gun-free paradises like Australia, and note how quiet those groups are on this incident.
Disarming the public can not work, will not work, and does not work, and the Australia hostage crisis has proven it. Firearms are a "Pandora" situation, and have been since the invention of gunpowder. Permitting only the cops and VIP bodyguards to be the only people who have firearms is not realistic; one of those will sell their firearm at the right cost to a bad guy, and the whole plan goes to hell. In order to stop heinous situations like this from happening, you have to change the instincts and mindsets of the human animal. Until that can be done, these situations will continue to happen, no matter the laws.
AHEM. Back on topic. "invisible smoke doesn't mean it's better" is exactly why diesel is better than gasoline. And yet, soot isn't even the worst emission that cars produce! It's unburned hydrocarbons, also known as raw fuel. And by their nature, diesels which are running properly run lean all the time, that's just how they operate
I'd like to add to this, to emphasize exactly how important this point is. Because I think this is glossed over and ignored way to often, and it's a very important distinction.
Anyone who has ever performance tuned gasoline and diesel engines knows this point to a fault. To get the best performance out of a gasoline engine, the tuner gets the fuel to air ratio as lean as possible. However, on a gasoline engine, if the tuner goes too lean, it will damage the engine to the point that internal components will be damaged and require replacement!
However, you can lean a diesel out to the point where it just will no longer run, and NO DAMAGE WILL OCCUR. You can err on the side of "lean", and if you make a mistake, there is no consequence, other than the need to richen the mixture. Nothing will break. Diesel engines make more power by increasing the mixture, running the fuel to air mixture richer. They will break if the tuner gets too rich, as the exhaust gas temperature rises to the point of melting something or even to the point of a hydrolock, where the piston cannot physically compress the mixture due to an excess of fuel.
Why does this matter? Because, the leaner you can run an engine, the more efficient you can get. With a diesel, there is no drawback to running lean, so you have a much safer environment to make efficient power. With gasoline, there is always the specter of lean-burn damage waiting there in the efficient zone.
I live in an extremely rural, farming state. Better than 90% of my co-workers would easily be able to manage with a 90 mile range, and unless they are actually FARMING, that percentage would hold up in a more widespread fashion in the retail and service businesses here. People are very needlessly range-conscious, in my opinion, and if they would actually look at their odometers each day (as they cross their garage thresholds), most would realize that even 40 range miles would be plenty for day-to-day use.
I disagree... The only really "shite" modern American Diesel engine (by popular opinion, anyway) was the Ford 6.0 Powerstroke engine. That engine was plagued with design issues because of misunderstandings between Ford and International (who made the engine for Ford). By and large, the American diesel engines are actually very good. Cummins makes all the diesels for Dodge, which is arguably one of the finest diesel engine companies in the world. Chevrolet has made their own for many years, and was at one time (still may be?) partnered with Detroit Diesel. Ford is now making it's own and from what I have heard they have a winner in the 6.7. I see many, many used Diesel trucks for sale with close to or more than 300,000 miles on them. That's unheard of with gasoline powered vehicles. The problem with American diesels is that they are only available in heavier duty trucks. "Normal" half-ton and smaller pickups and other trucks have not had a diesel option until very, very recently, and those options are very few and far between. No American made car has a diesel option, due to the poor experience people had in the '80s with the horrible deployment of sub-par diesel engines in the Chevys. I have owned a diesel for many years, and it far outperforms a gasoline engine in just about every way, except for the fact that I need to drive a larger sized truck to have this option. I get much better mileage (under a load, better than twice what a gasoline powered truck can get), more power, and fewer problems. If the automakers would make a smaller version of their diesel engines and put them in their half-ton and quarter-ton trucks (like VW with their Amarok), they'd have a big, big win on their hands in the American market. As I said, that is starting to come about, but it is taking a long time as the automakers are skittish, and the importers are not pushing their diesel offerings to their customers. Also, the cost of diesel (in the US) is 20-30% more than gasoline at the pump, which also scares away consumers... even though that cost is easily compensated for by the MPG increase of the diesel over the gas versions. People don't really understand that. It's really a consumer education problem.
While we're at it, an even better idea... would be indexing the gas tax to inflation...
While we're at it, an even better idea... would be indexing wages to inflation...
FTFY
The US is the severe weather capital of the world.
Because global warming. Oh sorry, it's called "Climate Change" now, isn't it? And it's all our fault...
All kidding aside, no one has mentioned the size difference between the US and Japan/Europe either. That, IMHO, is one of the largest hurdles that the US faces when considering more thorough rail service, that could possibly compete with air service. Not to mention the competition for rail time between passenger and freight (read OIL) trains. There just isn't enough infrastructure, and probably never will be, for country-wide, universal service like they have in Europe.
You think you are smart but you're really an idiot. The slippery slope is a valid argument because that's THAT THE WAY THAT US LAW WORKS. The whole thing is a slippery slope that goes back 1000 years.
Ummm... might want to really proofread before posting with an insult like that. Makes YOU look like the idiot here.
The US is only 238 years old, so the slippery slope can *only* be 238 years long, less than a quarter of the exaggerated length you stated.
No comment on the rest of your post; I agree with some of it but not all... and some of it I am indifferent to.
Just sayin'.
No, no, no. You've got it mixed up. "Are they a union or is it a union".
Examples:
The United Nations is an organization. The union is made up of members, who are individually governed. The United States of America is a member. The United States of America and the European Union are members.
The United States of America is a country. The union is made up of states, who are individually governed. Texas is a southern state. Texas and Arkansas are southern states.
The European Union is a collective. The union is made up of countries, who are individually governed. Austria is a landlocked country. Austria and Switzerland are landlocked countries.
The same rules hold true in each case.
When looking a proper, recognized collection of any group of foobars, the proper, recognized collection itself is an individual entity (the UN, the USA, the EU).
When looking at the foobars themselves (members, states, countries), each is treated as an individual in and of itself, but they are treated as a group of individuals when speaking outside of the proper, recognized collection, therefore plural.
So, saying "the United States of America is..." is more logically, grammatically, and politically correct (not in the "feely" sense) than "the United States of America are". Using those rules it should be "the European Union is...", not "the European Union are...". It would be less confusing if it would have been called "the American Union", getting the plural word out of the name (states).
One more reason to move this country to a pure democracy. The republic model worked fine in colonial times because of the logistical nightmares of getting everyone's vote. But now in the digital age all those nightmares are effectively vanquished.
Vanquished? Really!?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/E...
Can't believe that some troll hasn't yet replied, "VOLT!"
Landlines being taken out would CAUSE cell towers to be also taken out. Cell towers are not magical devices that are fully independent: they require a fiber connection (now) to reach their networks. During an emergency, it is much more likely that the tower is overloaded (radio side) rather than the landline (fiber) connection being dropped, as, typically, those fiber connections are redundant and much more resiliant than the radio side of the tower. The meat of your post is correct, however. ARES is an awesome service that LEAs and ERs can utilize, and it's all done as volunteer work. That group needs more recogition, respect, and thanks.
"MEAN" in a statistical sense, not a behavioral sense, correct? C'mon, someone on /. is going to misread that without clarification, and you know it. :)
And everywhere it's been tried it has flopped spectacularly. The municipality goes with lowest cost (which is NOT the way to build a robust network), they don't hire anyone with any skillset to run it, and they don't charge enough to get the little money they have invested into the project back, justifying the low cost hardware and lack of wetware.
Municipal governments are too ignorant to be trusted to run something as complex as a last-mile network. It's not their fault, nor the fault of the voters, it's just the way it is.
This. And with the oil industry in control of the US Gov't, the funding won't come from THIS country. Maybe China or Russia have a stash that they would part with to forward Lockheed's R&D. Then they can control the future of energy production and sell it to us at insanely high prices.
Excellent response.
This response is so disjointed and confusing it should be modded down even more than it is.
But it's written by an AC, so...
I understand that many people (including myself) want "freedom," but the real "freedom" does not come with privacy and/or security. Unless you live alone in the middle of no where and completely no interaction with others in anyway, you have to pick the scale between freedom and privacy/security.
This comment is so wrong in so many ways. True freedom includes all the privacy and security the citizen desires for himself, his family, and his community. Freedom and security are not opposite sides of a coin, they harmonize and reinforce the other.
There's a fundamental untruth being propagated by the U.S. government (by the left and right equally), that personal security can only be achieved by the gov't, and freedom and privacy of the citizens are the cost of that security. This is not only a lie, but also an abuse of power over the U.S. citizen. However, there are enough voters that have decided to believe this, and it is costing each and every person of this country their constitutionally guaranteed liberties.
How can you be free, if you don't have security? How can you be secure, if you aren't granted freedom (the definition of liberty)? Were the slaves of 18th and 19th century America "secure"? They certainly were not free, and they certainly did not have any security or privacy in their lives! However, freedom, security, and privacy all require action and personal responsibility, and the typical American today shuns those concepts. People would rather receive handouts and allow Supermom (the U.S. Gov't) to take care of them, protect them, control them, and make the decisions for them, because the alternative is "too hard" or "too expensive".
Sounds a lot like the "Prime Directive"...
Agree with most of your post, but you missed an important event. GM *forced* many of their dealerships to close, to reduce competition.
We had a very good GMC/Buick/Cadillac dealer here, and a crappy Chev/Pontiac dealer. GM told them that one of them was going to buy out the other, and gave them the opportunity to decide amongst themselves or GM would. As it turns out, the GMC dealer decided to sell out to the Chevy dealer (personal reasons: he was ageing, and none of his kids wanted to take over the dealership), and now prices have gone up, selection has gone down, and there's no "dealing" anymore: pay thier price or don't buy.
So, basically, GM removed the competition. At least, for it's own brands. So now there's a monopoly in this region and sticker price is where it's at.
Gotta agree with this...
In fact, many drivers don't "see" me on my 800+ pound Goldwing. They look right at me, make eye contact, and then still pull out in front of me (or into "my" lane, or enter the intersection, etc.). And it doesn't happen just in "cities" - small towns are just as bad. And it isn't a subset of the population - young, old, middle-aged, even professional drivers (ie: taxis, semis, etc.) do this.
Something is broken in certain humans minds, that they don't either recognize a cyclist (motorized or not) as a threat, or as a legitimate user of the same roadway as them. Until it's almost too late, after I have laid on my horn and cussed them out at a the top of my voice. Then they have a "Oh, sorry, I didn't see you", look on their face when they shotgun their brakes.