| March 2008 |
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Is this the last we see of the great American muscle car? With its diverse blend of concept cars, luxury rides and economic vehicles, New York�s auto show usually puts some zing into the auto show circuit. This year�s show, with its focus on muscle and power, signified nothing less than the end of an era for some who attended its preview days last week.
"Everyone is talking about how this show is irrelevant because it�s all about muscle cars," said John Wolkonowicz, senior markets analyst at Global Insight�s Automotive Group. "But it�s not because we are witnessing the end of an era that will be remembered fondly for years to come."
Since when do Americans make muscle cars? These are largely Australian cars. I thought the last we�d seen of a great American muscle car was the GTO Judge. Everything after that has been piss-poor. Charger, Challenger, Camero, El Camino, Mustang, Dodge/Chrysler putting a HEMI in any thing with four wheels...HEMI technology was behind the times in the 1980�s, why is it still in production? yeah, were definitely seeing the end of muscle cars... Chrysler is trying to kill every legendary vehicle off. First, they destroyed the Jeep brand.. now they�re going to go after the 1970�s muscle cars. The idiot that wrote that article obviously drives a prius. Technology will continue to make more horsepower out of less displacement- the american high-displacement beasts are dying. Someone at GM has to look at what the rest of the world has know for the last 30 years. Electric vehicles will bring a renaissance in performance cars once ultracapacitors/silicon nanowire batteries become commonplace. Electric motors are worlds better for moving around a vehicle than combustion engines, mostly due to the fantastic torque available at 0 rpm. As an example, the motor on the Toyota Prius actually makes 295lb-ft from a dead stop, to the extent that Toyota had to add a traction management system for it, otherwise punching it from a stop would smoke the tires all day long. Control circuitry for brushless DC motors have been around for years, and as for the motors themselves, well, 95% efficient electrics are the norm for mass produced units. Imagine this: an all-wheel-drive, 600hp car with perfect regenerative braking and traction control, four-wheel steering, that gets 300 miles of range on $9 of electricity, does 0-60 in 2.5 seconds, and seats six comfortably. This is more or less precisely the performance sedan of the future. The battery/capacitor tech is nearing production-level quality; check out EEstor, or MIT�s nanowire battery projects (okay, so MIT�s nowhere close to EEstor). Next-gen nanophosphate lithium-polymer batteries are available now, albeit in somewhat limited supply, but even they have the capacity and energy density to get about a third the range of the car I just described. Add to this the fact that you get to pitch a massive amount of weight in the transmission, engine, and fuel tank (a 160hp motor weighs about 60lbs), and it only gets better. Not being sarcastic - but I can imagine a whole lot - teleportation-at-will even. But how plausible is the the above technology ,in our lifetime? Haven�t you guys seen this yet? It actually does zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds, and it is pretty quiet as you imagined it would be... TESLA MOTORS
But how will girly men make up for their small penises without muscle cars?
Meet "Kristen," (Ashley Alexandra Dupre) the high-priced hooker who trysted with "Client-9" New York governor Eliot Spitzer last month at that Washington, D.C. hotel.
Click here for an assortment of photos from The Smoking Gun of the young prostitute that were previously uploaded to a music web site, a talent agency's site, and her MySpace page, which describes Kristen/Ashley as an aspiring musician who left home at 17 and has been in New York City since 2004 She looks like any other self centered, spoiled little bitch from Long Island, Staten Island and Westchester. She's good-looking, no doubt. But, I seriously doubt if she's worth $4K (although, in fairness, I'm not sure that anyone is worth $4K in bed). That's bar pussy, not lose-the-governorship pussy. Definitely NOT worth destroying his marriage, career, and the national ridicule. He could have boned that for the price of 5 tequila shooters. At least Spitzer and I have something in common. We'd both do her. But unlike Spitzer, I don't have four grand to throw away on a prostitute. Say what you will, but Spitzer's got good taste. Better than 9/10 of the other politicians-stuck-in-sex-scandals (Clinton, Craig, Foley, McGreevey) See, at least a Democrat has the good taste to be caught with a quality woman.
Larry Craig? Waiting in a men's room stall. Hillary and Obama should give Spitzer a long look as a possible running mate. His name recognition is off the charts, right now and that's important. The NY Times is reporting that Ms. Dupre is middle of the pack in terms of whore diamond ratings, and her hourly rate is $1000. $1k an hour ehh? That's fine. I only need 5 minutes. Which would be about $82, which I can afford. Someone please put me down for client number 11. For $4K I'd want my hooker to fuck me and re-roof my fucking house or pour me a new concrete driveway. What gives??? Spitzer is definately a hypocritical scumbag, and that chick is not only a filthy Jewish whore, but a media whore. But she didn't bring down Spitzer. Spitzer brought himself down. He used shady money moves to pay for an expensive prostitute, and the IRS noticed. He dropped the dime on himself. It was Spitzer's own odd bank transactions that led to his downfall, not this ho shooting off her mouth. Still, it's been funny to hear the FBI guys practically apologizing for this bust. "We didn't mean to be going after guys with whores, it was a routine financial/money laundering investigation that went bad". Im very amused by the big moral debate on this.
Add me to the 'prostitution should not be a crime' list. This is fucking stupid - people are getting more worked up over this prostitution bust than the government torturing people. With prostitutes, at least the torture is consensual.
A new $5 bill sporting some touches of color for the first time. It's the latest in a series of redesigned notes aimed at foiling counterfeiters, who over the years have grown increasingly sophisticated. To the naked eye, the most notable difference is color � splashes of light purple at the center of the bill that blend into gray near the edges. The old $5 bills will continue to be accepted and recirculated until they wear out. Editor Coment: I wonder how long it'll take strippers to realize it's real American money and not silly Euro notes. (Yeah, a Euro is worth more than a dollar but strippers don't know that) Note to government: American money is GREEN, stop destroying it. Color will not prevent counterfitting. What good is this going to do against counterfeiting if the older bills are still accepted? I don't get it. And you don't use paper money if you want to prevent counterfeiting. You use polymer money. They said they needed to redesign the currency to combat the "Super Note", a forgery created with the same kind of presses the US Mint used, damn near impossible to detect. Iran and N. Korea were suspected of doing this (We all know that foreign powers need more fives). I wish someone would buy the treasury Department a copy of Photoshop so they could quit using MS Paint.
Hey, maybe I can use it to buy half a gallon of gasoline next month.
The most important issue of the day is this: How long is Luke Skywalker on Dagobah? It seems, on the surface that it�s a couple weeks, right?
But if you give a pause, and start to analyze the timeline, the possibility arises that it could be 6 months to a year. "Now, of course, a month of training to be a Jedi seems just silly after watching Episodes 1-3... Let�s dismiss that for a second". Never bring up episodes 1-3 in a serious Star Wars discussion. Force training took a lifetime for most Old Republic Jedi, and Luke had to get a crash course from both Obi-wan and Yoda. The thing to understand is that Lucas had no understand of the terms used for astronomical distance, speed, travel, or pretty much anything else, when he wrote the first script. This is why there were so many stupid errors. As far as time passing... What is a day/week/month on Dagobah anyway? Unless it happened to have the same orbit/rotational speed as Earth, it could be anything. And interstellar travel? They could be using anything for time increments. Anyone who looks to patch up all of Lucas�s oversights is working too hard. George can�t write! You think he�s creative? Oh hardly, he just took every single successful movie before him and jammed it all into one and then dared to claim that it had continuity! All such things must simply be thrown aside because they are minor to the story at large. If you start breaking down the lack of any physical sense to the science in Star Wars, you will never begin to enjoy the movies for what they were. Man, I hate to be nerding it up THIS much, but I�ve seen Episodes V & IV hundereds of times, I�ve read almost every book, I have encyclopedias, so I can honestly say I�m an authority. And here�s my authoritative answer... ...who gives a shit? You do realize this is fiction, right? Daghoba does not exist anywhere in the tangible universe. One thing I would like explained is how a sword made of light, which is intense enough to effortlessly cut through steel support beams, occasionally knocks people over instead of slicing through them. Is there a "flat side" to the blade? The "physics" of how lightsabers interact with objects constantly change throughout the series and even within each movie.
And I really want to know how long were Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru�s corpses smoldering in the sand before Luke arrived back home with Obi Wan? And how long did it take the sand people to chow down on the crispy Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru "beef jerky"? |