Geeto67

Joe, whether you realize it or not you are feeling compassion for someone in a bad situation. You are angry at how they fucked it up and trying to blame a whole generation for the emotion you are feeling from this one situation. I'm proud of you buddy, compassion and sympathy for your fellow man feel like they are in short supply these days, esp in situations like this. I don't know if this will make you feel better or not but I think when it comes down to employment and substance abuse, as a society we have actually become less forgiving. There was a time when it was socially tolerated to drink on the job as long as it didn't interfere with ones work product. as programs like AA and CA developed and tort law held more companies accountable for the actions of their employees, it became harder to socially justify giving people a second chance. I'm surprised the place employing this kid didn't offer probation and rehab as a possible option, but if the job was something that involved operation of machinery I can sort of see why they wouldn't. Everybody at some point suffers for the inability to get out of their own way. It's human nature. It has always happened and it always will. If it is any consolation I'm sure the guy will end up ok in the end, it's just going to be hard going for him for a while. Hopefully he will learn a lesson from this. If you want to feel better about the situation maybe offer to help the guy get some rehab counseling. There could be a chance that he's self medicating to deal with some problems in his life, or he could have just been a kid and fucked up, either way some rehab might show his next employer that he put this behind him. Point is joe, what you are seeing is nothing new. It's happened for generations and will continue to happen for generations, it's not a sign that one generation is lazier than the last, but may be indicative that as a society we have become less tolerant of people's mistakes when it comes to drugs and alcohol. I'm sorry that you are frustrated with the situation, it's a bummer for sure, but you'll get over it too. I'm not saying you need to take on the worlds problems but, sometimes a little of the right help in the right situation can go a long way too.

No I just don't think you will ever be able to prove that it is rigged the way you say it is rigged (because how you view it is not actually how it works).

Joe, I don't know what to tell you...only you can look at a steadily decreasing unemployment rate and a decreasing public assistance rate and extrapolate that more and more people are unemployed and lazy. This is all in your head, the only thing consistent and comforting is that the older you get the more you sound like my depression era grandparents. Truth is people are no more or less lazy than they have always been, but the jobs have migrated from manual labor to virtual, just as they moved from farms to cities in the twenties and thirties. We are just repeating the age old cycle, just as you are repeating the same feelings generations before you when they ceased to be able to relate to youth culture.

That's the c4 ZR1, going to be hard to get a convertible since they only made 1 and it fell into a sink hole. Still, as someone who grew up with a c4 zr1 targa, the car is fucking fantastic.

you really have not mastered the concept of correlation vs causation. It could be you are right, or it could be evidence of an epidemic. neither is actually proof of anything. Lots of people believe in santa claus too so he must be real. http://www.stats.org/causation-vs-correlation/ and yes I win.

Tim, either every single thing is corrupt and rigged or you are just crazy. Hint: not everything is corrupt and rigged.

you know why it will never happen? because it is a fiction. If there was anything to come out it would have happened already. Maybe there is something in the future but I'm pretty sure the people whose job it is to actually investigate crime at this level know more about this than you.

Open discourse is always going to be opposing viewpoints. The way a person's knowledge grows is to understand the opposite position. It's a bit of a rabbit hole but that's not anything new. It is not disrespect to a person's opinion to see the flaw that they don't and point it out - it is supposed to cause them to think about their own opinion and whether it is as strong as they need it to be. Where this falls apart is when you run into those who just have a blind ideology or faith which marries them to their opinions and are unwilling to consider alternatives. If your answer to this specific problem is "we should jettison those fuckers back to the land they came from" then it's a bit hard to have an actual intelligent discourse because on it's face it is just unrealistic and inflammatory. the good news is we are all just talking about opinions here so it isn't like it's anything that really matters. If people want to get all butt hurt that someone else thinks their opinion sucks it's their baggage - these things shouldn't be so precious. At the end of the day it is entertainment, I mean nobody here is going to solve all the social ills with their words. The point of me being "that guy with the unpopular opinion" was to offset some of the conservative bullying that plagues this site. Like everyone here I am a car guy, and I am genuinely interested in what car guys think about in all facets of life - not just cars. Having a largely one sided rhetoric drives people away, but having a lively conversation with opposing views draws people in.

That's simplifying it a bit to say there is only one "actual problem" here. There are many and they all have different solutions, some of them are opposed to each other.

I think Tim has a right to his opinions as much as I have a right to my opinions that his opinions suck. I am not advocating he be shipped out of the US or killed, or any other number of remedies he has suggested for those that don't support his version of "American Values", and there in lies the difference.

You could write many many many books about how fractured inter-agency communication is in the American government or how badly government intelligence reporting fails. this is proven by the many many many books written on these very subjects. Slow your roll there...the FBI has a long standing history of being fairly independent of the Executive office, despite the lead position being appointed by the president. It is the only agency in government that can, and has (Nixon), investigate the president for wrong doing. You can't really claim the FBI is lackey of the president where 108 years of the FBI clashing with the executive office and winning say otherwise.

This pretty much sums it up Tim. It isn't about killing people vs not killing people, you just aren't tolerant of people that don't think the same as you.

Don't be a cynic.

See this is nice and normal and here is where you go off the rails into batshit crazy land. There is no communal American "values" - the American experience is different for everyone. The concept of not murdering people for a political ideology - that's pretty much a global value and not exclusive to America. It's hard to take you seriously when you talk about "American values" when you don't recognize that the American system is still struggling with institutionalized racism and sexism. Tim, In every discrimination law written in this country "national origin" is the thing that usually follows racism. Why? because hating a person because they hail from a certain country is a form of racism. This rant you have above? it's a form of bigotry, and an ugly one at that. The core values of the US are it's constitution and subsequent laws, a person is not hiding behind them if they are protected they are just being an American. Are they doing something you don't like? sure. I don't like it when people burn the flag either (the stench is terrible) but the value of America is protecting individual liberties - not the individual liberties that you don't find objectionable. The strength in the US is in it's diversity of experience. If you don't understand that than maybe you don't really get what makes this country special. TL; DR: Tim, you have said some very ugly things. Maybe you are trolling, maybe not, but either way dude - get a grip.

The problem is political ideology because as a country we thought we were smarter than the British and could pull off post WWII imperialism without actually colonizing by just installing US friendly leaders into foreign governments. Religion, immigration, etc these are exploitative tools (Hemingway called them "Opium of the People") of what are basically political organizations to radicalize followers for their agenda. There in 2 sentences. If you are talking about this brand of "terrorism" being a religious problem or a national origin problem you aren't seeing the bigger picture, just the distraction. Every country that participated in colonialism is having their own version of this same problem. People think groups like isis and the Taliban hate America, but yet they buy kit kat bars and dodge chargers like they were made out of gold plated pussy. What they hate is how badly we fucked their countries over politically from the 1950's to now, but a lay person isn't going to understand that and army for army they aren't going to stand a chance against the US so they exploit religious extremism to raise their ranks. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Edit: Actually I take that back - some situations are so complex that they sometimes defy summary in 3 sentences. In this scenario alone we have mental illness, colonialism, domestic terrorism, immigration, American constitutional liberty, the gun control debate, etc...I mean it's a shit storm of different things going on. I touched upon the "why they hate us" concept in the above two sentences but really I think this shooter is an isis operative the way my local good humor ice cream truck is an extension of the management of carvel ice cream store in denver (I mean they both sell ice cream that looks and tastes the same and that's about it).

Blah blah blah ignorant liberal hate rabble rabble rabble.

996 Porsches are the bargain of the century right now. Nobody wants the convertibles too so you can get them cheap. IMS bearing fix is like $2k for a competent shop to do if the Internet is to be believed. I have heard from many that 99 is the year to have because lots of stuff is still analog (throttle, etc...) and its lighter than later cars. Why get a boxster, when you can get a 911? If you can't find a clean RWD vert 996 for $15k you aren't trying. Merc slk? Kind of a chick car but they are stick, vert, and RWD. Nobody mentioned corvette? If you get the right options they are pretty great, and in your price range there isn't much depreciation left if well cared for. Cheap to own. Also, I'm going to be that asshole and suggest Ferrari mondial. Have seen some clean ones in $20-25k price range recently. Yes you need to be able to do an engine out service in your garage if you are going to own one and yes they are the Ferrari everybody loves to shit on because the internet sucks. But fuck it, small price to pay to own the only RWD, rear engined, 4 place production convertible with a motherfucking gated shifter.

You do know this guy was a natural born US citizen right? Born here in the US. Even his parents are saying he wasn't particularly religious or ideological but he was a raging homophobic bigot. But now tell me again how immigration is the problem? Also, 40 years later and we are still feeling the effects of Ronald Reagan's defunding of mental illness treatment in his country because gov't sponsored healthcare is "socialism" (unless it threatens your guns, then it is suddenly the alternative to gun control, LOL).

That was an....um...interesting way of explaining how this type of car is "performance art". I'm not saying I disagree, it was just a really awkward analogy that was trying too hard. Paint on a canvas, LOL. The only part of this culture I don't get is stance/hellaflush. All others, the car is still useable as a car. It may not be a fast car but bags or hydraulics you can raise the car up to drive, 25" rims? No problem with ground clearance. Stance/flush is the only one where your car is most authentic the less drive able it is.

Wow. Still, systems like onstar tracked where you went - they just didn't track your position in the lane. From a privacy standpoint the tech moved faster than the objections to violating your privacy could keep up, the only question that remains is are they adequately disclosing this info to consumers.

Ask Ben, he's had one since new.

Look at that orange peel. Good you passed.

Xplain. The way I see it they aren't collecting new data points so much as collecting the same data points in real time instead of storing events in the ecm for later extraction. The volume increased not the criteria. And some cars collect in real time anyway like any Chevy that had onstar - they just didn't do as much with the data.

this. so much this.

you own a tesla, what does the Tesla privacy policy say? First place to start. I don't think tesla is monitoring anything else other cars aren't already monitoring. This same issue came up in the Prius cases where toyota could tell you the throttle position and brake application prior to accident. Again that data was only released when allegations were made in the media. If the auto mfgs are halfway smart (and I think they are) they would have hired lawyers to write into the privacy policy an exclusion for privacy related to legal action. The difference in that case it is likely that a Toyota dealer had to retrieve the data from the cars ECM vs tesla who was able to pull up the data because it was sent to them over the internet directly. I think the age of the mfg spying on your driving crept up on us and implemented while we were distracted with other things and is now extremely common place - if you don't want the dealer or mfg collecting data on you, don't drive a modern car.