Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Chrysler Closing All 30 Plants for One Month

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Chrysler, the smallest of the three remaining U.S.-headquartered auto makers, has announced that they will be closing all 30 of their manufacturing plants for at least one month. I am particularly saddened by this and the other recent developments in the U.S. auto industry. I’ve owned one Chrysler product—a 1998 Chrysler Cirrus sedan—and it was a fine car. I bought it with about 22,000 miles on it, and drove it up into the mid-60,000 range. It had a few problems, but relatively minor ones given its age in years and miles. It was light-years ahead of my two preceding cars—both Mercury Sables (1988 and 1994) made by the Ford Motor Company. I also drove a 1978 Jeep J-10 ‘Honcho’ pickup, but it was made before Jeep (and its parent company, AMC) were purchased by Chrysler.

When I first started looking to replace our oldest car (an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera), based on a generally positive Chrysler experience, I looked at other Chrysler products. I looked at the Dodge Charger and the Stratus, and while they were each decent cars they were priced much higher than comparably equipped Honda Accords and Civics. Thus, the Hondas became our finalists and we eventually settled on the 2006 Civic (which Melissa still drives today). When we looked to replace our Chrysler with an SUV, I had been hoping to find a Jeep but their overpriced nature on the ‘used’ market (and questionable reliability) led us to the Ford-manufactured 2002 Mazda Tribute, which wasn’t bad, and then ultimately to our new 2008 Subaru Outback.

But I’ve had a Chrysler soft-spot for a long time. Their style and quality (for some models, anyway) during the late 1990s was great, and I was optimistic that the misrepresented ‘merger of equals’ that made DaimlerChrysler would make them even better. It didn’t. Despite a win with the Chrysler 300 and its brother the Dodge Charger, many of their other recent designs—particularly the horrible Chrysler Sebring—need a lot of work and they’ve diluted the Jeep brand with embarrassments like the Compass and the [salvageable] Patriot.

When Chrysler was brought back under American ownership as the new Chrysler LLC, I was again optimistic. A private owner—not beholden to shareholders or unions or, really, anybody but themselves—seemed like a wonderful opportunity for my favorite automotive underdog. But they missed every opportunity to break the abusive UAW contracts, and made small, incremental product changes but no major improvements. All-in-all, Chrysler LLC is failing (for no obvious reason) just like DaimlerChrysler and the previously-independent Chrysler did.

All that can save them now is Chapter 11, and even that isn’t a sure thing.

The Joys of Marriage: Virus Sharing

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So the virus that Melissa caught from work last week has now set its sights on me. Thankfully, so far anyway, it hasn’t hit me too hard. I’m feeling pretty bad—sore throat, congestion, general bad feelings—but I’m still capable of functioning. I stayed home from work today, but mostly as a courtesy to my coworkers (I was, in fact, working from home most of the day). I have noticed no strong improvement or worsening through the day. I feel about the same right now (9pm) as I did when I woke up.

In Melissa’s case, this virus started weak and then hit hard. I’m hoping that an overdose of vitamin C and green tea (with a healthy addition of Nyquil—I need my beauty sleep) will hold it at bay in my case.

Of course, like usual, illness strikes at the most inconvenient time possible. There’s a lot to do as we approach Christmas, and a lot of last-minute things to get out of the way at work before everybody goes on vacation. Go figure.

I can’t really complain too much though. Last time Melissa was sick, I managed to slide through without catching it. I guess I was overdue ;-).

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Made In America

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I was chatting with Melissa this weekend and made an off-hand comment that I was a bit disappointed that a product I was considering buying at some point was was actually made overseas by a foreign company and imported/re-branded as an American product. Melissa, probably annoyed at me bothering her while she is suffering from the flu, asked me if I would decide what product to buy simply on country of origin. This led to a discussion of what constitutes an ‘American’ product and how to weigh country of origin vs. other factors in making a purchase decision.

I am patriotic, and all-else-being-equal I prefer to support my own country’s economy and people by buying American. Having said that, I am a big proponent of unfettered free trade between nations and won’t hesitate to buy a foreign product if it is a better product for a fair price. I am also cognizant of the fact that the lines have become very blurry about what constitutes ‘American’ any more. Apple Computer is based in California, but is a MacBook Pro manufactured in Shanghai, China really ‘American’? Chrysler is based in Michigan, but is an automobile assembled in Mexico ‘American’? How about Japan-based Honda making a car in Ohio out of, primarily, American-sourced parts? Is that an American car?

This madness occurs in almost every industry these days. Walther, a German firearms company, licenses many of their designs to Massachusetts-based Smith & Wesson. Smith & Wesson provides many of the parts and performs assembly of these weapons independently of Walther, but sells them in the U.S. market branded as Walthers. On the other hand, Springfield Armory of Illinois imports pistols designed and manufactured by HS Produkt in Croatia, slaps their own logo on them, and calls them the Springfield Armory XD line. In some respects, the foreign-branded Walthers are more ‘American’ than the U.S.-branded XDs.

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Carter Cavorting Again With Terrorists

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President Jimmy Carter (D), who presided over a period of general national malaise and foreign policy calamity in the late 1970s, periodically jumps back into the news and generally in ways that most thinking Americans would find unpleasant.

Well, he’s at it again. Carter has met with the exiled leader of Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel, the Jewish people, and their allies, in Damascus, Syria. When Hamas, which holds de-facto control of the Gaza strip, isn’t busy blowing up city buses and killing innocent Israeli civilians, they pretend to be a legitimate political power.

Under the Logan Act (USC Title 18, Part I, Chapter 45, §953), attempting to act in a foreign policy respect without the authority of the President (who definitely did not approve Carter’s idiotic trip) is a felony—one that Carter has committed before, as has Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 8th). Further, I consider Carter’s actions to be giving ‘aid and comfort’ to enemies of the United States, which is the definition of treason.

People who would meet with terrorists are, in a sense, terrorists themselves. They are criminals and traitors, and should be treated as such. It is incredible that people like Carter, who would undermine rather than uphold U.S. foreign policy, are revered in certain circles. They are not deserving of reverence.

Finally, A Relaxing Weekend

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So for the first time in quite a few weeks, there’s basically nothing on the schedule for the weekend. So far I’ve slept in, put 200 rounds through my Smith & Wesson M&P 9 at the shooting range, and that’s been about it today. It’s a nice change of pace.

Of course I do have things to do. I haven’t made much progress this week on my office, which is still a chaotic mess (though slightly less so than the last time I wrote about it). That’s what I suppose I really ought to be working on, but it’ll take another day or two for my motivation to kick back in.

Tomorrow it’s church, maybe a couple of errands, and then I’ll try to get a bit of work done in my office. Then the insanity kicks back in on Monday (and will probably continue most of the way through to the end of the year).

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Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.