Common sense tells you that if you want to sell something, you want as many venues to sell that thing as possible, so the question that logically follows is “why are Chrysler and GM closing dealerships if they need to turn a profit?”

The answer? Well… As could be predicted, it’s complicated…

[M]any analysts don’t believe closing dealerships will make an immediate impact on the bottom lines of the automakers.

“I personally don’t believe it does help the car manufacturer,” said Steve Hewitt, the partner who heads the Dealer Services Group of WIPFLi, a Minneapolis accounting and consulting firm.

“Once the car leaves the dock of the manufacturer, it’s the dealer’s problem,” explained Hewitt. “The dealer carries the cost of financing that inventory. The dealer carries the cost of advertising. And the dealer carries the real estate associated with selling that product.”

He called the distribution system of the automakers “virtually no-cost” to them. However, carmakers do have some costs in dealing with dealerships. There are trainers who travel the country teaching technicians how to repair the cars. There are auditors who analyze all the requests for warranty reimbursement from the dealers. And there is a sales force that sells cars to the dealers.

If training and sales are the primary costs, why not cut those teams down? In the business model as it is now, the dealer bears the brunt of the costs with inventory, so the benefits to closing dealerships are, at best, small.

The “leaner and meaner” thing is all well and good, but no one has explained to anyone’s satisfaction why these dealership closings will help, only a passing dismissive “it will.” Sorry, but when thousands of people are losing their jobs and their businesses, I expect better.

(video of the above quoted story can be found here)

My mom sent me this today…
(more…)

I was really disappointed when I watched the pre-finale interviews with Leah D’Emilio and Andrea Rene this morning. I honestly thought the best two had won, and my only other choice that didn’t make the finals was Sarah Atwood whose hula dancing video suffered only from being a bit over everyone’s head.

Andrea Rene’s video struck me as oddly arrogant, and I was surprised because I liked her bubbly smiley personality. Here’s the final video…

Here’s her defense of it:

Hey y’all! Andrea Rene here, just wanted to say. I totally agree that my comment about my competition came off the wrong way. For the record, I think all of the girls have potential, but it is no secret that Leah was the best, let’s be honest. I don’t think any of the other girls would have been as tough as she is, because, like I said before, she is incredibly talented. Please don’t misconstrue my meaning.

P.S. I look forward to seeing both our videos next week!

Cheers,
Andrea Rene

Now, I find it hard to take that as anything but “I could’ve beaten anyone else pretty easily.” Remember, I’m a fan of what Andrea had done up to this point. Sarah Atwood responds, also in the comments.

Dear Andrea Rene,

I see that you are concerned that your comment “came off the wrong way” and want to clarify that Leah is the best. I agree that Leah is the best for this position. But, to clarify, what you said was… “This is actually going to be a challenge for me now, because if I was with one of the other girls I think it would be, you know, kind of easy for me to beat them ’cause I have more experience.” Please, expand on exactly what you DID mean by this. I’d really hate to take that the wrong way.

Yours truly,
Sarah Atwood

I’d like to hear that explanation, too. What would misconstruing what she said versus outright explaining it change? I find it hard to understand how anything she said could be misconstrued, and I’d love to know what it meant as opposed to what it said at face value.

If I read Sarah correctly, she’s more than slightly pissed about the remarks, and in my opinion she has every right to be. I can’t wait to see how this one plays out.

Update: Andrea Responds

To Sarah Atwood:

Since you asked me for a response, here it is:
Contrary to the comments posted here, I did not intend to insult any of the other women in the competition. Am I insecure? Of course! I’m in the entertainment business! But I have worked really hard to get where I am, and I should not have to apologize for being proud of my accomplishments. My comment about having more experience was not intended as a personal attack on the other contestants. It was merely a comparison of the amount of experience between myself and the other contestants (which other contestants have commented on during the competition). I’m definitely shocked at the responses to my interview, and hope this has clarified any perceived maliciousness to be nothing more than a resumé comparison.

Once again, I look forward to meeting Leah in the final round of competition and would be extremely happy for her if she should become the next host of Mahalo Daily.

Cheers,
Andrea Rene

Beth and I saw this photo on the Goethals Bridge going to my parents’ house this weekend… I can pick out at least one misuse of the apostrophe here… What do you think?

According to this, the top two are right but the bottom one definitely looks wrong to me.

From the NY Times:

There is, it turns out, a great deal more than yogurt in those costly white cups.

The ingredients list for Original Pinkberry has 23 items. Skim milk and nonfat yogurt are listed first, then three kinds of sugar: sucrose, fructose and dextrose. Fructose and maltodextrin, another ingredient, are both laboratory-produced ingredients extracted from corn syrup.

The list includes at least five additives defined by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as emulsifiers (propylene glycol esters, lactoglycerides, sodium acid pyrophosphate, mono- and diglycerides); four acidifiers (magnesium oxide, calcium fumarate, citric acid, sodium citrate); tocopherol, a natural preservative; and two ingredients — starch and maltodextrin — that were characterized as fillers by Dr. Gary A. Reineccius, a professor in the department of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota and an expert in food additives.

Some of them can be characterized as natural, while others are clearly not, he said.

“Isn’t it amazing how many additives it takes to make something taste natural?” Dr. Reineccius said.

Indeed.

It’s okay, though. It’s trendy. Fallout = nill.

Anyone have any idea why Chikezie’s jacket looked like it was a hotel sheet under ultraviolet light? Ewww…

Anyway, he’s gone. I don’t think he was bad, and had some moments, but overall, he’s not in the same league as David Cook and Michael Johns.

Pandora is a cat truly enamored with her litterbox. She loves playing around in it and spends an inordinate amount of time rooting around, but not actually “going.”

Any other cat owners have something similar with their bundles of feline joy?

This reminds me of the old joke headline: “World to end tomorrow; Women and Minorities Hardest Hit”

“We found an unusually high number of reports that the Clinton campaign was insisting that 11:30 was the deadline,” said general counsel Bob Bauer, adding that at least 300 complaints had come in.

“We are not calling the results into question at all. We want to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Bauer said.

“We are going to notify the Nevada Democratic party that we want a full review of this, and make sure we have in front of us a full picture to make sure this behavior is highlighted and discouraged in the future.”

Asked by reporters why an early close would have particularly affected Obama supporters, Bauer said “a campaign that departs from the rules and disenfranchises voters has to be held accountable for that.”

He added: “We care about all the voters who would have been affected by this rule.”

Yeah. Sure you do.

I didn’t see anyone worrying about how it gives people an unfair advantage to work in the casinos… I mean, that would make it much easier for a Casino worker to vote than anyone else in the state… Is it possible we’re “overenfranchising” instead of disenfranchising? Nah… Can’t be because those rules were expected to benefit Barack Obama in which case any positively influential actions are just removing the glass cieling and affirmative action.

I’m sure Daddy is really proud…

A 2005 gender discrimination claim against East Hardin Middle School has been settled out of court. Melissa Barner, mother of Bobby Thorn, agreed to a settlement that included a $3,000 cash payment and requires East Hardin’s staff to undergo nondiscrimination training.

The principal, teachers and Jo Edwards, the former cheerleading coach who works as a school counselor, also must report to the commission any claims of discrimination made against the school in the next three years.

The discrimination claim Barner filed with the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights accused Edwards, the school’s former cheerleading coach, of not allowing a boy on the squad solely because of his gender.

“It wasn’t ever about money,” Barner said.

School officials denied any wrongdoing.

Her son, Bobby Thorn, now 13, has been cheering since he was 6½ and is an avid gymnast.

Barner said students and parents knew Bobby would try out for the squad, so it should have been no surprise for the school.

After three days of tryouts in the spring of 2005, Bobby, then 10, learned he had not been chosen.

“He cried for 45 minutes,” Barner said. “It broke his spirit.”

Honestly, good for the kid. I’m sure he’ll put that $3,000 toward charity since it wasn’t about the money to begin with *cough* and continue his meteoric rise to gymnastic and cheerleading fame and fortune.

But, “nondiscrimination training?” Honestly, has that ever been proven to actually do anything? Have these programs ever actually turned someone around? Or has it just taught them to be much more clever in how they discriminate.

My guess is that it’s much more of the latter.

Link to the actual book.

This is just weird… Apparently, in Quebec and Ontario, you can now vote with a burqa on if you really really super secret swear without your fingers crossed that you are who you say you are.

Ottawa, Canada The Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD) regards as unconscionable Elections Canada’s reported new policy of allowing Muslim women to wear identity-concealing face veils, including full burqas, when voting in upcoming federal by-elections in Quebec and Ontario. Canada’s federal elections’ regulator says Muslim women can “vote veiled” merely by identifying themselves with a driver’s licence and second piece of identification. As an alternative, “covered” women need only swear an oath and have another voter vouch for them.

This reminds me of the driver’s license controversy in Florida a few years ago where a judge ruled that:

“Although the court acknowledges that plaintiff herself most likely poses no threat to national security, there likely are people who would be willing to use a ruling permitting the wearing of full-face cloaks in driver’s license photos by pretending to ascribe to religious beliefs in order to carry out activities that would threaten lives,”

When your ID (and in this case your vote) is determined by affirmatively confirming your identity, isn’t it a little weird to try and see identity in eyes? Look at the picture above. Would you recognize someone you love wearing one of those? I know I wouldn’t.

The other funny part is that this is probably just a “sensitivity” type rule. even in the most oppressive backward regimes in the world, women are not required to remain cloaked for ID. Check out the graphic to the right. Makes you wonder where all these Americans and Canadians got the idea? I mean, in Saudi Arabia, women aren’t allowed to drive at all, but look at the other countries…

Just a weird decision. I’m all for religious liberty, but your right to religious liberty does not surpass an official’s right to positively identify you in the case of voting in an election or obtaining an official state ID.

Case closed.

Technorati Tags: islam, id, canada, silly

I almost want to try this to see if I can replicate the result…

My husband has been dealing with a particularly nasty summer cold and it’s making it difficult for him to fall asleep. Shortly after midnight one evening, he asked me to run to the store and pick him up some medicine. I agreed because I’m nice like that.

After selecting a bottle of Nyquil and my Husband’s favorite brand of ice cream, it was time to check-out. I elected to go through the self check-out lane because the group of kids who normally jockeyed the registers looked thoroughly engrossed in a conversation about their parents sucking or their jobs sucking or who de-friended them on myspace recently or whatever and I didn’t want to interrupt them. Besides, I have two fully functioning arms. I am capable of scanning and bagging my own ice cream.

However, after I scanned my items, the computer started beeping.

“You have selected an age restricted item. Please wait for a cashier,” it said.

“What the Hell?” I mused, “Ice cream and Nyquil is age restricted now?”

A teenager with a lip piercing and bad dye job came rushing over. “Can I see your ID?” she chirped.

“What did I order that needs ID?” I asked.

She looked over my purchases and shrugged. “I guess it’s the Nyquil.”

Read the rest. If it ended there, it would be hysterical enough, but of course it doesn’t which is why I actually posted it.

Enough of me. Go read her.

A couple weeks ago my family came to New York, where I live, from my hometown near Salt Lake City. Before leaving, my mother had purchased a small tube of lotion and put it in her purse. When she got to the security checkpoint at the airport, she realized she still had the lotion. She handed it over to the TSA worker who told her that it would be donated to a local homeless shelter. Could it be that the FAA ban on liquids is really a plot to rid the country of homeless people, through the use of explosive liquids?

Sure makes you start wondering about the stupidity of making people give up their toothpaste and lotion… I mean, if the stuff is truly dangerous, why are we giving to homeless people? And if it isn’t dangerous, why are we making people give it up?

squabbling couple finally realizing they can’t live without eachother — or a parasite fusing with its host — Photobucket has concluded terms of a sale to Myspace, News Corporation’s social network. The photo sharing service, which had a quarrelsome but symbiotic relationship with Myspace, may announce the deal as early as this morning. After final negotiations at the end of last week, Photobucket has called an all-hands staff meeting for 10am PST this morning. We don’t have the financial details of the deal, but Photobucket, and its bankers Lehman Brothers, were looking for at least $300m.

Welcome to Boom 2.0…

This is gucking fross… Check out what happened when Simon went to K-Mart to get him some bacon…

Yep… That little bit of red is all the meat on that bacon…

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll happily head to the toilet and leave my breakfast behind.

via Consumerist where you can find even more pictures.

Cory calls this “hilarious.”

Am I missing something?

Technorati Tags: boingboing, cory doctorow, joe sayers

When the city’s Education Department said it would not let students from the Beacon School on the Upper West Side take a spring break trip to Cuba this year, the school turned to a powerful friend for help: Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson, whose stepdaughter went on the trip as a Beacon student in 2005. His call did not make a difference; city officials would not budge.

But the students went anyway, chaperoned by one teacher and two parents. And yesterday, city officials, including Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein and even Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, were left struggling to explain why the trip went forward, and how Beacon students had managed to get to Havana again this year in defiance of the government’s ban on travel to the Communist nation.

Mr. Klein, at a news conference yesterday, said that the trip had not been approved by the Education Department and that the matter was now under investigation. “It should not have happened,” Mr. Klein said. “We expressly said no.”

Officials said yesterday that they had been unaware of the school’s previous trips to Cuba, in 2004 and 2005, prompting questions from Mr. Paterson.

“As a parent,” Mr. Paterson said by telephone, “I was a little concerned that a group of schoolchildren went to Cuba and the Department of Education didn’t know about it.”

Read more here.

A retired New York couple who hailed a taxi for their 2,500-mile move to northern Arizona arrived with their two cats at their destination on Monday.
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Neither Betty nor Bob Matas drive and they wanted to spare their cats, Pretty Face and Cleopatra, a trip on an airplane to their retirement home about 90 miles north of Phoenix.

They left the couple’s Queens neighborhood April 10 in Douglas Guldeniz’s canary-colored Ford SUV cab and traveled about 10 hours a day for a $3,000 flat rate plus gas, meals and lodging. The SUV is a hybrid-electric vehicle, which helped lessen the cost of fuel.

Source

You don’t think traffic is chaotic enough? Well, AutoWeek magazine reports that a Texas company called SameLane has developed software that would enable drivers to make connections with strangers on roadways via cellphones.

Here’s how it would work: Motorists would register their license plate and phone numbers with the company’s website and receive bumper stickers letting the world know of their availability.

Other parties could then call a central number (for a charge), enter the license plate number and be put in touch with the bumper-sticker owner’s phone.

Doesn’t this all seem seriously passive to you?

(heh… Passive… I made a funny)

The LA Times via Consumerist

First of all let me state clearly and unequivocably that I wish the Edwards family all the best in getting through Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer. I have a great deal of respect for anyone who has the courage and strength to fight through such a horrible illness and the prayers of me and my family are certainly with them.

That being said, something needs to be explained to me.

Two weeks ago, he came out and announced that Elizabeth’s cancer had returned, this time in the form of bone cancer. He then proceeded to reassure everyone that the campaign was going forward regardless.

My question is if he wasn’t stopping his campaign, why bother making what amounts to a public announcement of a private matter?

It goes a bit further now, because on 60 minutes tonight, he said the following:

“Do not vote for us because you feel some sympathy or compassion for us. That would be an enormous mistake,” Edwards told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview airing Sunday night. “The vote for the presidency is far too important for any of those things to influence it.”

Maybe someone can explain the rationale for releasing Elizabeth’s health into the public because I’m seriously confused.

If you don’t want sympathy, and you don’t want it to affect the election, and you haven’t pulled out of the race because of it, what was the point in telling everyone in the first place? I mean, it’s completely possible that he released the story to get the sympathy vote and doesn’t want to own up to it, but that seems a bit on the low side no matter who does it.

Any theories?