Auto Boston

Ford on the nose in a big way0
Paul Ritchie posted in News on April 24th, 2006

Thank goodness the saddle was kept warm during my absence.

Anyway, as I type, the news according to the Boston Herald is that Ford’s financial woes look like matching those of General Motors, but instead of maximising opportunities in China, Ford’s boss announced the company is going to focus on doing more of the same as what caused the financial crisis in the first place, with the exception of the shedding of 30,000 workers between now and 2012.

Smart money has removed itself from the influence of the board at Ford in a bid to multiply in volume elsewhere. Who can blame its owners? In a word, Mr Ford, DUH!

Did I mention GM? I’m sure I did. Eric Bryant at Autoblog is asking if a GM public relations rep offered NPR a bit of cash to say nice things about their employee buyout plan. Eric thinks this is noteworthy. I am of the opinion that public relations people did that sort of thing as a matter of course. As long as NPR says it’s sponsored by GM, there’s no subterfuge. And let’s face it, if people wanted GM vehicles in high enough numbers, there wouldn’t be a problem. It’s not like Fox News being in bed with the Republican Party now is it? There’s a massive difference between a vote and splashing out $30,000 on a new car.

Speaking of dollars, how, may one ask, can there be any justification for a difference in the price of gas of $0.35 a gallon? We’re talking regular here, none of this fancy stuff about which I was writing before I got scriptus interruptus and to which I shall return by this time tomorrow when I can find all my links again.

All I can say is those at the top end of the scale better have some damn fine chocolates in the shop if they’re charging that much for gas.

Share news0
Paul Ritchie posted in Finance on April 9th, 2006

Another oil share newsletter article on which those who prefer the value of their dollar to fluctuate faster than the international exchange rate may like to do their due diligence.

Remember, I don’t endorse anything, I just bring you the stories. If you have a bit of loose market fodder hanging about at 1.5%, you might like to throw it at these shares. Do your homework, my money’s staying in my pocket. Let me know if you get rich.

KOKO PETROLEUM (KKPT) - This is their #1 pick for next week!
Our last pick gained $2.16 in 4 days of trading.

Current Price: $1.10
5 day expected price $3.25
This has been a great producer in our last PR Campaign

KOKO Announces Corsicana Re-work Project and Production Results for its Barnett
Shale Wells
Thursday April 6, 3:51 pm ET

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA–(MARKET WIRE)–Apr 6, 2006 — KOKO Petroleum, Inc. (Other
OTC:KKPT.PK - News) -
KOKO Petroleum, Inc. announced today that its operator for the Corsicana Field, JMT
Resources, Ltd. (”JMT”) will commence a re-work program on its Pecan Gap wells in
the next week. The re-work program will consist of drilling six lateral bore
production strings from the existing well bore. This process, known as Radial Jet
Enhancement, will utilize high pressure fluids to drill the lateral well bores,
which will extend out approximately 350′ each.

JMT has contracted with Well Enhancement Services, LLC (www.wellenhancement.com) to
perform the rework on its Pierce nos. 14 and 14a. A small sand frac will follow the
drilling of the lateral well bores in order to enhance permeability and create
larger access to the Pecan Gap reservoir. Total cost of the re-work per well is
estimated to be approximately $50,000 USD.

Well Enhancement Services has reported increases in production for wells where the
lateral was successfully placed. Average increases are reported to be from 300% to
1000%, which justify the incremental cost associated with the re-work project.
Assuming positive results, JMT will re-work the second well, which is adjacent to
the first and schedule the rework on its remaining Pecan Gap wells, which currently
total 8.

KOKO announces that JMT has completed drilling the 4th pilot well for the Corsicana
Flood Project. We plan on drilling 7 production wells and 6 injection wells prior to
the implementation of the alkaline-surfactant-polymer technology.

Here they come…0
Paul Ritchie posted in News on April 9th, 2006

Still haven’t had any word back from those lovely people who produce bio-diesel or ethanol. Way to go guys.

Before I get on with all that though, and since GM has been in the news recently and therefore on a how’s-your-mother kind of a level, China has also been in the news, mine eye was captured and gulpage occured when news.com.au filed a report that the big C is eyeing off the big island in the south as a potential market for hatchback cars sneaking under the $10,000 price barrier.

That’s $5,500 to make plus freight and duties and all that, totalling a smidge under $10,000. That’s roughly US$7,200 per car.

Kia Motors Australia spokesman Jonathan Fletcher said the Korean brand, which made its name with cheap cars, did not intend to compete with Chinese and Indian makers on price.

“We know the Chinese are coming and we at Kia don’t intend to remain at the cheap and cheerful end of the market. Instead we’ll be concentrating on value and innovation,” he said.

Source: http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,10166,18744636-462,00.html

No doubt, if they’re successful in Australia, the next destination will be shores of the U.S.A.

Big Brother on our side for a change?0
Paul Ritchie posted in News on April 7th, 2006

Those clever Japanese tech people are working on vehicle to vehicle transmissions which would alert drivers of traffic snarls and possibly collisions. If that were not enough to interest motorists, the boffins at Nissan have mooted the possibility of children carrying the devices in congested areas with blind turns to alert drivers there’s congestion ahead and they should slow down.

The obvious question was asked - do we really want kids broadcasting their whereabouts to motorists?

So a good idea takes a turn for the absurd when our boffinmeisters suggested a panic button could be installed in the walkie version to alert parents their kids are in danger.

Nice try fellas. Let’s just stick the things in cars, huh? Let the cars talk to each other and the infrastructure networks and let the kids take the walking bus home.
Source: techsearch.

More on General Motors and this isn’t going to please anyone who firmly believes that company is in as much trouble as it’s making out. Remember I told you just on two weeks ago that GM is the largest car manufacturer in China, well news out of Abu Dhabi this morning says the ACDelco brand of batteries is the biggest brand in the entire middle east region, commanding an impressive 30% of that market with their maintenance free batteries. You know the ones - drop ‘em in and forget about them until 3 years after you’ve sold the car…

But this is old news and new news is strangely difficult to come by. I got this from an old link at ameinfo, an Arab/Middle East news source.

I don’t know what the financial arrangements are between GM’s US operations and all these subsidiaries, but if they’re owned by GM, they must be paying dividends of some description and so far, the subs seem to be doing remarkably well.

Not so for Tower Automotive, and this strikes me as typically stupid left-wing commie pinko insanity on the part of the unions “protecting” the workers. Tower, as is fairly common knowledge, has been trading under bankruptcy protection since last year. They have to cut costs if they’re going to trade their way out of their financial woe. They want to cut wages and benefits to employees, the unions won’t have a bar of it.

The unions say they’ll go out on strike rather than let Tower cut wages by 23% and if that happens, production at the Ford plant could be jeopardised. The Chicago Tribune is carrying the story, but how happy are thousands of employees at Ford going to be if a good-for-nothing union kills one industry and hurts thousands of people in a client facility?

What will the unions do if Tower goes out of business altogether and those employees find their wages cut by 100% and their entitlements reduced to a bus fare home?

Not happy, Jan, and we mean it.

Rep Brad Hill says…0
Paul Ritchie posted in News on April 4th, 2006

(My comments to Mr Hill’s response are italicized in parentheses.)

Dear Mr. Ritchie,

Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding the different proposals being
floated by the Legislature dealing with the junior operators license. I
believe better education, more experience and more parental involvement
will help our teen drivers become better.

(Without doubt, Mr Hill, without doubt.)

What I am proposing is to increase the hours that are mandated for behind
the wheel experience in driver’s ed from 6 hours to 12 hours. I am also proposing
that the parental driving within the learners permit phase of driving be
increased from 12 hours to 30 hours and that parents fill out a log that
will show that the kids have driven and they must sign the log before
the child can take the road test.

(It’ll work for the honest ones, but I was forging my mother’s signature for
school stuff from the time I was 14. (Homework diary and getting out of sport.)
The news crews will pick that up as quickly as I have. I would hope they see
the point of the exercise is the lives of our teenagers and focus on that positive aspect
rather than take the negative view that it’s just one more impost on those poor old
parents. The experiences of truancy monitors might come in useful here.

Again, I would hope such a system would not be abused, that parents would take
the issue of the safety of their kids seriously enough not to short circuit this system,
but I’m afraid I don’t have that much faith in some of them.

You can lead the horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, and all that. But
having said that, it’s the responsibility of elected representatives to create the
framework, not to see to it that every individual dots their i’s and crosses
their t’s. My apologies for the two metaphors.)

I also propose that we increase the penalties for those who do not obey the child
and time restriction laws. We also need to give the police the tool of a primary
offense in enforcing the current law. The way it is now is that police cannot pull
over these jol offenders without first pulling them over for another
offense.

(Commonsense! It seems absurd to see one offense occuring and not be
able to act on it until another offense has been committed. I hope they see that.)

My proposal also looks at the curriculum of driver ed courses
and how we can make change to better educate our young drivers.

(The first thing my driving instructor told me was he will teach me to get my
license and that getting my license and actual driving are two different things.
It would be a good move to do something about that mindset.)

I do have some concerns with the proposal that is being forwarded by the
Committee on increasing the age to 17 1/2. The Studies I have seen show
that the more experienced the driver the better he or she is. I feel by
increasing the age may give an incentive for kids not to take drivers ed
and therefore would have no experience or education before getting ones
license.

(Good point, though I’m inclined to disagree. I’m afraid I don’t
put a great deal of stock in driver ed classes, but I’m happy to defer to your
experience on that point. It seems 17 being the mid point may turn out to
be the compromise which is reached.)

Please know that I am working with the Leadership of the House and
Senate on this issue and I believe working together that a bill that we
can be proud of will make its way to the Governor’s desk for his
signature. Thank you for your comments on this issue and if I can be of
further assistance to you do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Rep. Hill

I would like to point out that so far, Mr Hill is the only representative who has
contacted me and I’m taking this opportunity to express my thanks. I will also
go on record as saying I knew Mr Hill’s position before I contacted him by email
to offer support for his position and coverage in this blog. Yep, I’m biased as a lawn
bowl on this issue and unashamedly so. Mr Hill did not make any comment about
coverage or this blog, as you see. The reply he sent has been posted here in its entirety
and unedited.

Mondayitis0
Paul Ritchie posted in News on April 3rd, 2006

I just thought I’d tell you about my adventures in peak hour traffic going home from work on a stinking hot afternoon on a Monday.

Four lanes of bumper to bumper traffic going absolutely nowhere and even with the air conditioner on, the sun coming through the windows is making every square nanometer of exposed skin morph into pork crackling while I listen to it.

It’s days like this, except there has never been a day like this, I feel like just getting out of the car, finding the nearest McDonalds and comparing my burger with the one in the picture on the wall over the high school drop-out’s head.

But, of course, I don’t because (among other reasons) I’m not Michael Douglas.

But the stereo is noticeably unfriendly. My favorite tracks are marvelous when I’m driving, I could listen to them for ever. When I’m driving. When the only thing moving is the heat haze from the tops of the endless otherwise stationary river of cars in front of me, my favorite tape starts to give me the unmistakably sinister impression of conspiring with the traffic and Ra the dashboard splitting sun god to mock me as I slowly broil in my own perspiration.

The alternative is listening to KRUD Yet 99.9 FM where the dj who thinks he’s it and a bit reminds me it’s hot outside and a bad day to be stuck in traffic, but I should stay tuned because coming up there is going to be 20 minutes of ad-free hit music courtesy of Burnham, Black & Ashe Barbecues, the hottest shots in the cook-out business. That’s right, no ads, but they’re going to tell me loudly and with as much sincerity as a “Welcome” sign on the door of Slickfingered Sam’s Clip Joint that this is 20 minutes ad free until I’m begging for ads to break the monotony of being told it’s ad free so many times.

Despair sets in and as my eyes wander, movement in the rear view mirror catches my eye and my sensibilities are assailed with the realization the guy in the car behind me has his index finger buried two knuckles deep in his left nostril and it looks like he’s trying to tighten a loose screw or adjust the height of his left eyebrow.

Dear God, no.

Stuck in traffic, heat haze threatening to hypnotize me into a coma, an autolobotomist behind me trying to disembowel his head, hits coming out of the radio that I’ve never heard before in my life (ad free) my tape even less attractive, with mounting despair, I turn the air-con fan to maximum and stereo off altogether. It’s bad enough having one station play song after song of obscure rubbish interspersed with Fozzie Bear on crystal meth and extreme smugness pills, but station surfing the radio is worse than channel surfing the television.

Over the dull hum of my car’s motor, I can hear the dull thudding of the stereo coming from the car next to me. Naturally, I cast my eyes in the direction of the thumpity thump and there’s a mid to late 40s something guy tapping the steering wheel gently in sync with the beat. I think it slowly dawns on me because of the difficulty I am having coping with this nightmare I’m living. Had I been relaxed, it would have struck me as fairly funny. The guy is tapping merrily away to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”

How sweet.

“And that was the latest chart topper from the new grunge band Avril Lavigne Eats Worms with “Fry Your Eyeballs”, and watch out for the new CD coming out on Thursday at your local Rocksnot Music store. You’re listening to K, R U Dead Yet, it’s 99.9 degrees outside and a cool 65 in the studio as we rock your afternoon on the way home with 20 minutes of back to back hits, ad free….”

I can hear that from the car to my left. The girl with a purple stripe in her hair and 16 bits of metal in her face starts fighting with her seat belt for permission to headbutt the steering wheel to the next ‘hit’ to be totally forgotten in 3 short weeks.

(I think the guy behind me has just brought forth a nose monument big enough to have its own social security number.)

In my distraction, some jerk has squeezed their stationwagon into the space in front of me.

Just when I think things couldn’t possibly get worse, there are two kids sitting in those seats that face backwards. They’re staring straight at me. This just isn’t fair. Nobody offends God that badly. Not by error or omission anyway. I must somehow change lanes like 5 minutes ago.

The headbanger chick next to me on one side has edged up to within one quarter of an inch from the back of the guy in front of her. Well that must have been pure chance. The middle aged woman in drag on the other side of me - the one pretending to be a man listening to “I Will Survive” on repeat - is trying not let anyone else know she’s tending her eyebrows in the mirror. The facial expression, however, is a dead giveaway. It’s the same look I make when I’m eating something that’s way too hot and I think going “Huhhh Huhhh” is somehow going to save the top of my mouth from third degree burns.

Perhaps if I smile nicely and express my interest in getting my car into her lane, she might just be accomodating of my need. If only she’d leave her face alone so I could catch her eye.

The kids stare blankly. Maybe they’re just convincing looking manequins.

The guy picking winners behind me appears to be thinking he’s giving birth to twins, or he’s found a baseball in there…

The psychedelic headbanging android woman next to me continues to go completely nuts and…

I just realized I’ve left my ThinkPad at the office and I need to pee.

In 35 minutes, I appear to have traveled the best part of a mile, though it feels more like 17 feet.

There’s an exit not 100 yards ahead and I put my indicator on. It’s amazing how many trees a man notices when he can’t actually get to one.

But I’m sure I have an empty soft drink bottle on the floor behind the passenger’s seat amongst the burger wrappers, chip packets and Coke cans.

So, nonchantly I begin the back seat fish. Easing down in my seat slightly, looking at anything but the two kids in front, my hand lights on several items of indeterminate nature before finding that blessed cylinder of plastic which I bring to the front. The kids continue to stare at me but they can’t see what I have in my hand. Headbanger girl hasn’t missed a beat and the she-man has produced a pair of tweezers and a compact mirror and is tending his/her eyebrows with more conviction now. God only knows what the nasal fruit picker behind me is doing, I’m too disgusted to look and morbidly fascinated with what I’m about to do next.

I remove the lid from my soft drink bottle, cursing the fact I didn’t get one of those sports drinks with the big opening. It’s just one of those half inch jobs. Too bad. Still slouching and trying to look nonchalant, I suck in my guts and ease the lidless bottle into my trousers and down my right leg.

The traffic inches forward and the make-up man has graciously allowed me to get in front of him. Either that or she/he wasn’t looking. I take advantage of the space, nevertheless. However, tactically, this was a bad move. Those kids are now next to me, they’re still eyeing me steadfastly and it doesn’t appear they’ve so much as blinked for the last 12 minutes.

I have an empty soft drink bottle in my pants and it’s getting to the stage I really need to get a connection happening with it before I have a single vehicle accident whilst stationary in traffic. So I edge close into the door to obscure any activity from their view. Now I’m ready to start the docking manouevres.

Yes, there’s the top of the bottle, now hold steady. For the benefit of those two guards, I give the impression I’m listening to classical music allowing myself to get completely relaxed. They can’t see what my other hand is doing and I doubt they can see the sweat building on my brow.

It’s gotta be an exact fit though or else I’ll flood the driver’s seat of the car, so with much prodding and poking and twisting to make absolutely sure I’m in the right place, I’m as satisfied as I can be that all is well and, to the relief of my lower abdomen, I let it rip. Success! I can hear the bottle filling.

Fast.

Um… yeah, how full before it overflows?

Can’t wait to find out, time to shut off the flow and so with what amounts to super human strength, I clench every muscle in my body. Hell, even my ears have pinned themselves back with the strain. Finally it’s over.

Now all that remains is to get the bottle out of my pants without spilling it. I was slightly slouched in my seat before, but in order to get the bottle to a reasonable level of perpendicularity, I had to sort of arch up in the middle so it could fit sort of underneath me a bit. It meant I had to jam my foot into the brake pedal, but I wasn’t going anywhere anyway so that didn’t matter. All of a sudden, we are moving again and I have to do something about it. Jamming my left leg into the floor to hold myself up, I bend my right knee slightly to ease the pressure on the brake pedal. The trouble is, it looks like I’m trying to get a basketball out from underneath me and those two kids are right up next to me now and they might as well be sitting next to me.

I’ve got one hand on that bottle but that’s not what it looks like from their point of view, and they appear to have told their mother in much lurid language. She’s got the window down and is craning out of it screaming some sort of barrage of obscenities at me and that’s attracted the attention of everyone else as well. The whole world, it seems, is looking at me all arched up in the driver’s seat of my car with my hand gripping an unholy bulge in the front of my pants.

I can’t move that bottle quickly and safely in this condition, there’s only one thing for it before I get to panic stations, and that’s to get the lid back on it while it’s still in there.

So I grab the lid, throw my other hand inside my pants and fumble for the top of the bottle which I’m holding from the outside. The kids are ecstatic - they’ve busted a pervert. Their mother is on her cellphone screaming at it, and looking at me. I’ve dropped the damn lid.

I’m still gripping the top of the bottle with my right hand, but I’ve had to reach around the back of me to find that wretched lid and that involved a lot of squirming on my part, the sweat is now running down my forehead and dripping off my nose. Finally I find the lid, withdraw my arm from the back, shove it back down the front and manage to secure the bottle. Sod it, it can just stay where it is until I’m somewhere a lot more private. After that several minutes of frantic activity, I let my body relax completely so I can get on with the task of getting myself home. I grab a napkin from the glove compartment and wipe my brow. I even light up a cigarette.

Those kids look serious now. Their fun appears to be over and their mother is ready to chew a hole in my car to tear me limb from limb. For twenty minutes as we crawl along the highway, that woman is cursing me. She didn’t get out of her car and actually try to assault me though, maybe she thought I might have a gun - who knows.

I’m at a turn off point and I take it. In the blessed mercy of a side street, I remove the bottle from my pants and turn the radio on and they’re telling motorists to be on the lookout for a bronze Ford Taurus with MY LICENSE PLATE, that the police are going to want to talk to me about some indecent behavior involving her two kids.

WTF?

In a moment of outrage, I call the radio station and tell them straight up, I was peeing in a bottle I had stuffed down my trousers, and if they like, I’ll mail it to them. A shortish conversation ensues during which the person on the other end finds much about which to be amused and I think finally I can make the rest of my journey home in relative peace and quiet. Ten minutes later, as I pull into my driveway, a new broadcast goes out to the effect of the conversation I had with the operator at the radio station and I’m made out to be the ultimate in unfortunate fools.

At least I’m not a criminal pervert anymore. That’s one thing. I just wonder what the people at work are going to say to me the next day.

Oh, and the cause of the traffic hold-up? A cute blonde broke down in her Corvette and 28 guys stopped to help her put water in her radiator. Who said chivalry is dead…