Re: Wheelin'

[farna@xxxxxxx]

On March 5, 2006 andrew hay wrote:

> heard michigan's gov interviewed on radio last week.  she said that
> last year for the first time in history more cars were built in
> ontario then mich.  most were still 'american' cars...  she attributed
> it to the business and healthcare climate in ca vs. the us.

I can see that. Basic health care is so costly in the US that I think we really do need to adopt something similar to Canada's program. That will only take care of the basics -- nothing cosmetic or fancy, so the insurance companies won't be out of business. You won't something more than aspirin for those aches and pains, you still gotta have insurance to pay the extra for the "good stuff". The big problem with that, as I see it, is people going in to clinics for minor little things. We've had that problem with military hospitals. If junior has the least little cold, mom takes him in. It's hard to say don't -- there are problems that have the symptoms of a cold that are more serious -- could be pneumonia setting in or even antrhax (okay, that last one is a bit far fetched, really, but symptoms do appear like a cold, and by the time you realize it's not just a cold it's to late to treat). But people going in for little things just to get a free prescription of Sudafed does clo!
 g the system. Having a $10 surcharge per visit eliminates most of that though. 

> 
> " The last car built by Studebaker --- whose carriages carried America's
> " Presidents --- in South Bend still is -in- South Bend, in a new museum
> " designed to seem old.  American Motors, the next "last independent" is
> " present in many ways in that place on Chapin Street.  Romney's compact
> " and Teague's cormorant and AMC and S-P --- alive in auto history's mix.
> 
> teague's cormorant?  i don't get it.
> 
> i read a nero wolfe mystery recently and noted rex stout named wolfe's
> car a cormorant.  connection?


Me either. In fact, I looked it up. Other than a sea bird, cormorant means "greedy and rapacious", which further means "given to seizing for plunder or the satisfaction of greed; inordinately greedy; predatory; extortionate: a rapacious disposition." Maybe in the Wolfe mystery it was meant as a gas guzzler (greedy for fuel). 

Now how was AMC any of those? I think she mis-used the word and really meant something else. Maybe you heard it wrong? Or did you see a transcript and it got written wrong? Sounds like she meant to say something positive, not negative. 


> " The panel gaps along M-B's new decklid make AMC spaces appear narrow!
> 
> saab used to design wide gaps deliberately, so their doors etc.
> couldn't freeze shut.

Americans tend to judge other cars and cultures by our own conditions and standards, not withstanding any real reason there may be for others to think/do otherwise. Hmm... I have to say other cultures do us the same way -- human nature, I guess. 

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