Why not? Get on it Ford.
It occurred to me my oldest will meet the minimum age required to receive an Arizona learner’s permit in in the next 90 days. I’m actually having more of an issue with the idea he be behind the wheel from the standpoint of overall maturity rather than the fact I am old. So I began the arduous task of determining the cost benefit of finding myself a new car and just giving him the Grand Cherokee. Its 12 years old, so nobody in their right mind will actually want it for a trade in. I don’t drive a ton since WFH became the norm in health insurance so I looked at the used market thinking I can save a few bucks because who cares what I drive, right?
Then what hits me—why did Ford stop making the Crown Vic? Is there really no market for an enormous sedan that will run forever as long as you’re not chasing them Duke boys? Yeah…I’m old.
¡Enlaces!
Mexico is willing to secure the border fro:their side in exchange for…removing sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela.
Meanwhile, the House reconvenes their impeachment crusade against the DHS chief while the cartels are apparently engaging in drone warfare.
Cuba raises prices on fuel, which apparently is now $0.20 per liter after the subsidy.
Ecuador declares a national emergency when a crime lord disappeared from his prison cell. This includes martial law and a national curfew. This was reported a day prior to their president announcing multiple referendums on various subjects ranging from criminal extraditions, to allowing contractual arbitration. Then there are the guys taking journos hostage—on live TV!
I don’t always troll with my music choice, but sometimes I do.
“So I began the arduous task of determining the cost benefit of finding myself a new car and just giving him the Grand Cherokee”
Sound like a good excuse.
Sounds like an arduous bout of justification.
I’ve never seen a crown vic that didn’t belong to the cops or funeral home.
The drove the Mercury version of a Crown Vic. What a piece of shite. I’d be driving along, wondering what was going to suddenly break next.
Mainly the window roll up mechanisms. I finally “fixed” that by never rolling down the windows.
Modern problems require modern solutions.
Listen to your first world problems. Kids are starving somewhere, and your windows won’t roll down.
My parents gave me an 82 CV as a first car.
1977 Olds Cutlass. 260 V8 and a wimpy 5 speed.
Now THATS how you learn to drive in snow.
I was not kind to that Crown Vic.
My first was a ’67 Ford Galaxie. Crown Vic predecessor. Lot of fucking steel.
I had a 96. When I cleaned it out I found a Mecgar magazine under the passenger seat—fully loaded.
My parents had a series of them. I ended up with them twice.
The first (actually a ’77 Crown Vic “LTD II”) was my hand-me-down car in HS and after I graduated and was saving money. For awhile, every time I stopped I had to pop the hood and blow out a small fire on top of the intake manifold, right beside the carburetor. Turns out a hole in a power-steering line was spritzing fluid on there.
The last was maybe an ’06 or something. It was the car they had when Dad died 2.5 years ago. I bought it from Mom (dementia) and sold it to somebody here, but drove it for maybe 6 months in between.
77 Buick Electra.
I used to own a Crown Vic. I’m not a cop and I don’t work for a funeral home.
I love Crown Vics. I used to drive the Police package versions all the time when I worked for the “emergency vehicle” shop. The Vic is so much nicer than the Charger or whatever it is that Dodge offered at the end of the Panther bodies life span. The Vic had style, oomph, and presence.
And a shotgun.
My truck is destined for the trash heap soon enough, I suppose. It’s got 370,000 miles on it, the dash is bashed in, the defroster doesn’t work (yet) (still in the shop). So I asked my mechanic if anybody would buy this business, and he said, “There’s a hot market for used cars of any type or condition.” Wellallrightythen.
I saw your a.m. comment about credit card charges. I had someone charge about $6k to one of my cards via VRBO (or AirBNB; don’t remember now). Only happened to see it as I was killing time waiting for my wife one day. I called the bank and, after a little Q&A they said, “yep your account’s been hacked. We’ll close it and send you a new card.” Apparently, they had a pretty good idea it was fraud but were waiting for me to contact them. I will say getting a hold of someone at my bank on their fraud line was fairly easy.
One time I was stopping at a bank to take out money from the ATM. Card was rejected, and kept by the ATM. Park and walk inside to talk to someone, turns out that someone had spent several hundred dollars on Crocs using my card information. The manager looked at me, waited a beat, and just went, “Yeah. That’s fraud. We’ll get you a new card sent out.”
I dunno. I could see you in these
They had to be Crocs….
I’m mad they didn’t have at least a fraud alert text protocol set up. Coulda called, emailed, texted, anything. Never said a word and didn’t hit my account because it was flagged first. I didn’t know anything was wrong until my Hulu bounced.
“Used car prices are down 7% in a year after reaching record highs – but is Tesla, Ford or Ram best value and will prices fall more in 2024?”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/cars/article-12943103/cost-used-cars-2023.html
I’m pretty sure people will pay to have those taken off their hands. The hazardous waste disposal costs alone…
It looks like a 12 year old grand cherokee is still worth at least $10k.
That makes no goddamn sense.
Well, much depends on mileage and condition. Mrs. Dean’s FJ is 16 years old (damn, where did that time go) and is still worth around $12K with 200K miles on it, in v. good condition. And that’s for a standard FJ, not one that’s been lifted, supercharged (with cold air intake and cat-back exhaust), and very heavy duty bumpers. (ponders) Yeah, that’s pretty much what we’ve done to it.
Oh yeah, programmable after-market ECU.
I can see that with the FJ, its a specialty vehicle they ended production. Grand Cherokees are everywhere.
Honestly, I don’t think the sanctions do anything. At least in regards to getting their governments to give up communism.
The one on Cuba is particularly stupid since just about every other country in the world doesn’t have one with them. All it does is allow Cuba to blame the embargo for their economic problems.
Yes, everything has always been the Americans fault. Batista was the Americans fault, and Castro was the Americans fault.
Cuba is apparently a popular budget vacay destination for Canadians.
I remember that being a shocking revelation to teenage me up in Toronto for a high school trip.
Yep. Stayed at an Iberostar resort while on vacay in Cuba. Nice enough place, the food was a little lacking (not surprising considering the average Cubano has a hard time securing enough cooking oil, rice and beans in an average month). The trip into Havana was eye-opening; parts of it look like a Potemkin village for the tourists, and the waterfront is a hilarious mix of stuff that looks bombed-out right next to a swanky renovated café catering (as usual) to touristas.
Oh, and the staff at the Iberostar hated Quebecois, ’cause the kayBeckers treated ’em like shit. Staff called ’em “tabernacks.” ;-)
Why Ford and most US car makers are abandoning the car market in favor of SUV’s and CSUVs.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/small-cars-are-getting-huge-are-fuel-economy-regulations-to-blame
Your tax dollars at work.
This has been “well-known” for at least a decade and a half.
Subaru Forrester started as a station wagon. In 2009 (and maybe before), it was a SUV. It got bigger and higher ground clearance. It was actually a damn good vehicle.
Remember when a pickup was referred to as a “half-ton”?
No. I don’t recall that term used for pickups. Was it their curb weight or their carry capacity?
My car is three and a half times that curb weight.
Payload. A half-ton like the Ford F-150 is meant for “light duty”.
https://www.cars.com/articles/what-does-half-ton-three-quarter-ton-one-ton-mean-when-talking-about-trucks-1420690417808/
Very common terminology from the 80s and before in my part of the world.
Pretty common in rural Texas, too.
Still common in non-rural Texas actually.
Yeup.
Like it was yesterday, because it was. I’m surprised this is considered old, maybe it’s just more common to us blue collar guys.
Russia also has ridiculously cheap gas.
Apparently they’re not on board with Obama’s “gas prices necessarily have to skyrocket” plan.
I had a 96 Grand Cherokee. Loved it, and planned on driving it until it fell apart. Then some woman ran a stop sign at a 4-way intersection and t-boned me, and bent the frame beyond being fixed. Of course the insurance company offered me peanuts. I’m still salty about that.
I see what you did there.
Which time? I feel like I set up about 5 responses while typing that.
peanuts…salty
A woman boned him so hard he couldn’t get fixed?
There’s a lot of “these euphemisms” in there too.
That cute little red headed woman t-boned you, eh?
These euphemisms.
Yeah…I’m old.
Mother Nature’s little bitch-slap does get your attention.
Meh. I go to the gym, see other men in their 20’s struggle to squat a similar weight I can bench press. I’m comfortable with it.
why did Ford stop making the Crown Vic? Is there really no market for an enormous sedan that will run forever as long as you’re not chasing them Duke boys?
You might want to reconsider that “run forever” claim.
But- get out there and start beating the bushes for a Mercury Marauder.
I drove a retired police cruiser in HS. I don’t understand your claim its shit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They do. Detuned V8, will last 300,000 miles if basic maintenance is performed. They even have plastic intakes starting in the late 1990s, and you could take it off, clean it in detergent and slap it back on. Piece of damn plastic. And it would work and not leak.
Granted, the shiny bits all broke. Ford can’t abide a perfect car, that would be bad for business.
Apparently they were very popular with NYC cab drivers. But now the fleet is mostly shitty minivans.
Some people still race in the Crown Vic.
https://youtu.be/alug_H3MZnE?si=aEuPyMerZBfC2AYA
After working at an auto electricians/cop car shop, I would say that even with cop use, a Crown Vic will outlast any Honda, Subaru, BMW, or VW.
Not a Mercedes though, they last forever.
Any car that can do police duty for the first hundred thousand miles, then taxi duty for the next two-three hundred thousand miles is pretty durable. As a side note, I’ve been turning wrenches professionally and have only ever replaced 2 water pumps on the Ford modular V8s. Both engines had over 300k when that had to be done. I’ve replaced at least one water pump and in some cases 2 water pumps on everyone of my customers vehicles with the newer 5.0 V8s in trucks and Mustangs.
Trumponomics
What could we have to look forward to, or dread, in economic policy if Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025?
The challenge here is separating whatever might germinate in his brain or that of his advisers and which long-standing priorities of the Republican Party remain. We saw the difference between 2017 and 2020. In important cases, Trump deferred to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the Republicans in Congress. He swallowed their prescriptions on judicial appointments, and he helped push through a bill to cut taxes, primarily benefiting the rich and corporations. But in other ways he left the reservation.
——-
Otherwise, I would expect an erratic path for policy, which is what we observed in the first Trump term, except for continuous cruelty directed at immigrants, people of color, LGBTQI persons and women.
You can fill in the blanks. Needless to say, it will be bad. You all remember what things were like in 2018.
“except for continuous cruelty directed at immigrants, people of color, LGBTQI persons and women”
This shit is so tiring.
What cruelty? He tried to give them all amnesty.
I experienced no LGB-specific hardships during his administration. Nor did I fear for beatings from roving MAGA gangs.
It was the stationary gangs?
Yeah, but you could just walk around ’em.
They hand-wrote mean messages on nice paper?
Like, in cursive? *shudder*
Cursive is how old people will send secret messages that young people can’t read.
Mrs. TOK had a roller derby teammate who posted she “literally feared for her life” on FB when Trump won. Last I checked she was still alive and unscathed. Although she does live in Chicago so maybe not for long.
HOW DARE YOU FORGET JUSSIE SMOLLET ALREADY!?!!
Juicy is still alive.
Chappelle did a good job with that.
I remember the concentration camps, rounding up of the gays to dig their own mass graves and annexing Mexico. Don’t you?
What was net neutrality, chopped liver?
FTA: ” The Biden Administration itself has declined to reverse all of Trump’s tariffs from his first term.”
So, a second Trump term would be the same as the first and the same as Biden’s?
I mean, the tariffs are not helpful, but how is Trump’s economics going to worse than Biden’s if they don’t change much?
And, yes, I know what some of the differences are but the article is self-contradicting.
It’s like this person has been asleep for 8 years.
Translate. Why no mention of translation on the Z axis and instead upwards?
https://nypost.com/2024/01/09/news/panel-that-blew-off-boeing-jet-may-not-have-been-bolted-down-ntsb-says/
The Z axis is down. Right handed coordinate system. X goes out the nose, Y goes out the right wing, Z goes down.
Jargon from all professions cracks me up, including my own.
Does the article mention the other five planes found so far with loose bolts all over the door? I am too lazy to go read.
Closer to 10 now.
Sloopy is the Bee-Glib connection?
My boss would get a kick out of that…if I explained the entire premise and plot of the Book of Job to him. 🙄
We might see the future in the form of an expansion of Medicare Advantage, to the disadvantage of the rest of Medicare. This is a way of segregating beneficiaries by income, and letting the better-off and healthier suck resources out of the program for everybody else.
I can only assume he means, by “letting the better-off and healthier suck resources out of the program for everybody else” Trump might not force everybody into the highest risk pool to subsidize the costs of extraordinary levels of care.
I’d been planning dinner and was convinced the two butcher paper-wrapped packages in my fridge contained pork chops and sausages. I decided to cook up the pork chops today. The first pack I picked up was the sausages, so I just grabbed the other one. When I opened it up, it turned out to not be pork chops, but NY Strip steak. Turns out I ate the pork sunday.
I’m going to call this a win.
So you are saying pork causes amnesia?
What’s pork?
You can’t forget me.
That’s because you’re magic.
Pork is a verb.
I don’t see how. Those strips need to be salted and rested over night in the fridge.
You should be eating sausage tonight and strips tomorrow.
You people…
.|.. ..|.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12932035/Jeremy-Renner-accused-lewd-photos-felon-girlfriend.html
There is a huge difference between those two pictures.
I feel the need to spray the room with Skank-B-Gone just from looking at those pix.
Hmmm….. Something tells me he suffered some mental damage in that accident as well.
“Monson is a colorful figure who has had several run-ins with the law – including stealing a government car and taking it on a high-speed chase near schools in 2021, according to local news reports.”
How have I not dated her?
Maybelline is a helluva drug.
I am off to dig out the drive way.
Those mudstorms are brutal.
Just shy of two hours. That’s about as bad as it gets. 6 to 8 inches of wet heavy snow.
In staking out their own economic platform ahead of this year’s election, Democrats can point to some helpful industrial policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act, but these are not easy to explain, and Democrats are generally not very good at explaining anyway. There are constructive, progressive trade policies which have been pursued that support well-paying manufacturing jobs, but these aren’t easy to explain either.
Tariffs are bad except when they prop up union jobs. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Trust me. Bidenomoics is working.
“helpful industrial policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act, but these are not easy to explain, and Democrats are generally not very good at explaining anyway.”
So many lies packed into less than one sentence. The IRA is easy to explain, unless you want to give specifics that make it seem like a good idea. Democrats are really good at explaining, it’s just that those goshdarn proles keep finding fault because they prefer to look at real world outcome, and won’t believe hard enough.
Yeah, but just look at all the inflation its reduced.
You just have to understand how high it would have been if we didn’t do it!
That story linked this morning about the tunnels under the Hasidic synagogue just keeps getting weirder. What the hell were they doing?
Not a good look that the initial photos of the tunnel included a highchair and a stained mattress.
https://nypost.com/2024/01/09/news/riot-breaks-out-after-secret-tunnel-is-found-under-brooklyn-chabad/
Allegedly headed toward the women.
Wonder if they let female cops in the place?
The trouble is Mel Brooks is dead, so nobody is left alive to help us make any sense of this.
Somebody better tell Mel. He apparently didn’t get the message.
97 years old. Everyone who ever worked for him is dead, so maybe he’s a vampire?
Hope everyone is surviving the crazy extreme weather event. We had a few inches of snow and now it’s raining. This is how climate change kills us.
In other TOK news, the youngest has decided she’s not going back to live at her college and she’ll continue doing online school from home. We don’t blame her, she hated the college experience, made no friends, and had a party animal roommate who was possibly date raped in their room late one night after a lot of drinking. Being closer to her boyfriend in the Navy has a bit to do with it too. But we do like having her home.
Lots of rain – the back of a creek along my property line broke and the water is running through my yard. When this dry out, I’ll have some work to do. Also need to plant some more trees over there to hold things together.
I admit I kinda like having my kids home. XY is in transition in that he’s going to school in August, out of town. XX is indefinite verging on limbo. She won’t advocate for herself to get full-time status at work, so until she does, she’ll never be able to move out. However, I’m not sure she really wants to, either.
So far it’s been a mild winter here, hasn’t gotten below freezing yet. Supposed to get really cold by local standards starting Monday, tho.
I was murdered by high winds yesterday. It was horrible. I blame climate change.
I still turned in GlibFlick, no worries.
About a week ago the local news had an article talking about how terrible global warming was. It was so bad last year that Cleveland did not record a day of single digit temperatures for the first time in FIFTY years!
Now, we need to remind people about the dangers of single digit temperatures as we look to be hitting that over the weekend.
If it’s warm, global warming. If it’s cold, climate change.
Damn climate change.
Dallas has never been windy before.
Seriously the gale wind speeds were fun from inside the house.
One of the hardest things has been The Boy moving to the other side of the country. Damnit, why didn’t he move someplace west coast shitty.
Oh, weatherwise, we are getting dumping rain and sunshine five minutes later. Rinse. repeat.
In a press conference on Friday, López Obrador called on the U.S. to approve a plan that would deploy $20 billion to Latin American and Caribbean countries, suspend the U.S. blockade of Cuba, remove all sanctions against Venezuela and grant at least 10 million Hispanics living in the U.S. the right to remain and work legally.
Lol, damn.
I could live with something like the Bracero program for those already here along with a moratorium on further immigration for a defined period of time (12 months?).
Fuck. No.
I would settle for the immediate cessation of all government aid to illegal immigrants – including so-called NGOs that are mostly financed with our tax dollars anyway.
You know, the way it used to be.
“Mexico is willing to secure the border fro:their side in exchange for…removing sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela.”
Sounds like they want $20 billion, too…
https://www.newsweek.com/mexico-wants-biden-pay-20-billion-stop-migrants-1858294
Biden’s had the check book open for anything besides border security, so why not?
Or….we could just secure our own border with Mexico and not give into the demands of some shitty third world country that has opposing interests to our own on this subject.
Yes but this way an ultra corrupt third world country is in charge of securing the border instead of an ultra corrupt rich country.
It just makes sense.
We might have to actually pay for our own wall.
Alas I think we lack the technology for a flat vertical surface.
I’m thinking we need some sort of strategic laser defense system that shoots Mexicans from space.
I’m not saying no.
Also think about how much more politically feasible it is.
What’s a politicians #1 job? Keeping defense contractors happy.
I believe both parties could come together on this.
*ahem*
Go fuck yourself.
The NGOs who are shipping these folks to us are already drowning in American cash.
With 10% going to the Hunter Biden Home for Wayward Girls, of course.
Just when the SEC thinks its can approve a Bitcoin ETF, those clowns on the internet hack into the SEC TwiX account….
https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/sec-account-posts-fake-spot-bitcoin-etf-approval
Maybe the SEC should concentrate on football.
Maybe the SEC should leave football to U of M.
The SEC should leave football to the Lost Cause (PAC12)
I just read that and was about to post it. The country is in the best of hands!
Obligatory.
And X rates below website.
Neighborhood update. The migrant encampment was shut down last week…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlnP7WpIyg8
Residents were given a week’s notice. Some of them have found decent housing…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2z6fdByQAM
Migrants are keeping their stolen vehicles near a camp in Brooklyn.
lol
When the migrant encampment referenced above was broken up, scores of cars showed up to take people/property away. Yesterday it snowed an eighth of an inch. A ramshackle pickup truck came down my street and a guy jumped out with a shovel seeking cash for shoveling. It had melted off my sidewalk by noon.
filthy gypsies
Do the needful, but don’t do the mindful.
Ack. That was supposed to be a new post.
Damn. I thought the link was somehow going to address my racism.
Here they hid chop shops in their weird tent camps, and end up with meth fires.
The RV’s a-rockin, and not because of sexy times
You had Chipotle ?
Is that your best effort at new material?
And I was gonna buy you a new CO monitor, too.
It suddenly decided to snow.
Wacky here – from 30 this morning to 52 by 1am supposedly. And rain rain rain. Snow gone tomorrow 🙂
Sure you could do it, should you?
Unleashing the Power: Thomas Short’s V6 Chevette
Even with the bigger tires on the back, I doubt you can get that thing to hook up at just 2300 lbs.
Correction
It has become an article of faith among many economists that China’s pro-market reforms of the 1980s and 1990s ushered in a sustained reduction in poverty.
This narrative relies on figures from the World Bank, showing that over the past 40 years the number of people in China living in “extreme poverty” (less than US$1.90 per day) fell by almost 800 million. That’s a fair chunk of the world population, which is currently about eight billion.
The World Bank’s calculations suggest China’s rate of extreme poverty has plummeted from one of the highest in the world – 88% – in 1981, to virtually zero today, with the fastest gains in the 1980s and 1990s during the capitalist reforms of Chairman Deng Xiaoping.
——-
In a new paper published in New Political Economy we calculate extreme poverty rates for China using data published by the OECD, assessing people’s incomes against the prices of necessary subsistence goods; among them 2,100 calories per day, essential nutrients, three square meters of housing per person, clothing, heating and soap.
In contrast to the World Bank, we find that from 1981 to 1990 – at the end of the socialist period – China’s rate of extreme poverty was one of the lowest in the developing world. It averaged only 5.6%, compared to 51% in India, 36.5% in Indonesia and 29.5% in Brazil.
We find extreme poverty increased dramatically during the market reforms of the 1990s. It reached a peak of 68% as price deregulation pushed up the cost of basic food and housing, cutting the buying power of low-income people.
Take that, capitalist running dogs.
That seems…. highly unlikely.
Haha.
Oh great, just light the Winston signal why doncha.
Titty Tuesday bringing the babes.
https://archive.is/SOhT7
Looking at Thomas’ Chevette, you’d never guess there are 400 horses just waiting to pounce at the next red light.
It’s cute.
I prefer this one
I confess to wanting to take the awful Mustang II and put a real 302 into it with an appropriate drivetrain, brakes and suspension. Everything would be stock shitty 70s interior and exterior.
why did Ford stop making the Crown Vic?
Blame the government. Ford decided it wasn’t worth it to keep updating the Crown Vic for newer regulations, and so stopped selling it except for fleet sales and the Middle East. Eventually, fleet sales went. Middle Eastern sales went too.
Turned the fireplace on (gas). We’re relatively warm right now through Friday (32ish). Had about 6″ of snow (not penis measurement). But Friday we’re going to be in single digits with high winds for the next 5 days.
I hope Miami is bringing their mittens Sunday. They’ll need them.
Honestly, I wish this weather would happen in December and then be spring starting on Jan 1.
As usual its working its way this direction. Low Saturday is going to be 9.
Surprised it took this long. I’ve been expecting it, but don’t recall similar over the Ukraine. Funny that.
Emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have ‘immense’ effect on climate catastrophe
Saw that yesterday and lol’ed.
See. The Jews control the weather too.
I hope Miami is bringing their mittens Sunday. They’ll need them.
I was rooting for Buffalo, partly for that reason. Two cold outdoor games.
Buffalo was trying their best to lose that game until that guy ran the punt back all the way.
I confess to wanting to take the awful Mustang II and put a real 302 into it with an appropriate drivetrain, brakes and suspension. Everything would be stock shitty 70s interior and exterior.
Cobra II
That’s a sweet looking Pinto.