I recall renting a Grand cherokee in 2016 and being disappointed to find it was like driving a caravan in a lot of ways. Nothing like the older Grand and regular Cherokees I use to own.

The “new” Cherokee seems to be like a slightly larger Patriot clone. It’s like the movie industry creating new movies with old names. The new stuff is usually not as good or completely different.

Years ago when I worked for a dealer one of the salesman pointed out it’s the “F series” which includes everything with the F all the way up to delivery / commercial trucks. Nothing is going to touch the volume of all of those different categories of sales combined.

Still suspect the F150 numbers are pretty good.

Seems like they have come along way since the grousing about the laws in the 80s coming into effect to ban a hard working person from enjoying a couple on the way home from work…

https://youtube.com/shorts/BVk-_xhccK4?si=aMU_vedYJAYnKg0y

Mix this in with the freeway speed limits are 80MPH on the highway in. Texas and often 65 for work zones on the smaller 2 lane highways. One can’t even go that fast on the I5 in Oregon with the Max being only 60 mph without construction delays. Can’t imagine adding a couple of drinks into the mix on the way home from a 12 hour day…

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I know some still working on this with their AOL accounts…

I noticed this in my travels through the Southwestern US. I’ve never seen so many flags on RVs, offroad vehicles, trailers, homes, trucks, etc.

The Trump ones must have been a big uptick in new business. I suspect it’s displaced sports teams which perhaps the flag companies prefer as there are no trademark royalties?

Same in Canada. Traditionally we aren’t as flag waving as our southern cousins unless its Canada day or international sporting events but the anti-jab and the Convoy types took over the Canadian flag to be displayed with F*ck Trudeau and Trump flags to make displaying the Canada flag mean you’re with them.

Canada does have a tradition of voting governments out, not in, so some of it is understandable when many blame their personal woes on the current government of the day but this was beyond the usual BS.

I don’t think many realize how stirred up the followers of these people are. Even in Canada I see them sharing photos of themselves on the gun range claiming they are “battle ready”, how they will shoot anyone that forces their children to have mandatory sex changes in school, or force vaccines on them by coming to their houses to jab them, and how they would like to gather up all the liberals into a building and blow them all up.

I ask them have they heard of Timothy McVie or the OK city bombing and they usually haven’t, heck even Waco was too long ago for their collective memories despite this rhetoric sounding familiar.

There"s a real problem coming and those that are trying to be civil and decent are not prepared for this powder keg that has been created to explode. I’m really concerned there isn’t going to be the right amount of push back when the time comes to these enraged people that aren’t educated beyond their alternate news sources or their own research in their echo chambers. “Due process” has been eroded with claims of the left corrupting the legal system, judges, FBI, CIA and police forces against them.

I think people expect others to be at least as educated as them, but honestly many of these people can’t even point out the US on a global map let alone read a book beyond what they were “forced to” in high school.

Trump and his like have figured out how to use these people to further their means. I’m just surprised more haven’t turned on Trump after he didn’t back his fellow “Patriots” from arrest after Jan 6th or pay their legal costs. Mind you this is the same group that thinks a dead Kennedy was coming back to save the US from these evil child rapists on the left so I’m not sure there’s a pathway back to common sense for many of them as it is.

Does anyone use Block This!. I’ve been using it for years but I hardly see it come up in these posts as a suggestion.

I was in Phoenix camping this spring. When I was on a short local hike to a waterfall I came across a family wearing MAGA hats. The fresh out of the trailer park attire to match.

One of the young boys had a Brandon hat on while the other had a “let’s go Brandon” shirt. I would have guessed they were 5 and 7. I wasn’t even interested in saying hi as we passed on the trail and they weren’t interested either.

I find it hard to find clothes without any branding for myself. I swear identity by politics has replaced sports team apparel for many now. The sport team flags that use to hang as curtains in those trailer parks have been replaced by Trump flags now. Those flag makers must be making a killing…

In some ways it’s a great move beyond the human cost, Russian uses up their military personnel, equipment, and resources while NATO and the US commit some of their resources and older equipment to the cause but nothing new and no losses of people beyond the Ukrainians in theory for the most part.

I know many in the US think the Russians are good guys now (Patton is probably doing cartwheels in his grave at the thought, but Nazis are good now too so maybe not) but if there is going to be future conflict, the Russian machine will be spent and tired which will help some.

Gigglejuffs might not be a recognized American Freedom unit, but honestly I’m surprised Stones isn’t, innit that strange?

It’s become worse dealing with Google over these play cards since covid. They shut down all phone support. I made 13 attempts to get a $100 card deemed with them and I got all kinds of reasons why I couldn’t redeem the card by email despite providing the receipt, card and codes and my utility bills. I even called other departments within google to try to get it fixed. Nothing.

I wasted way more of my time on principle. It happens quite often I read online for many people.

I think Google should be barred from selling these cards. There’s no recourse and they keep the money. It’s a racket and there’s no way to recover the money unless you pay by credit card with a charge back. Those that used cash or debit are out the money as there are no refunds from the store.

There appears to be a good example of Spain in the 30s before the civil war. Both sides saw each other as the devil incarnated. There was no talking with each other,no middle ground. Bloodshed was the only way they were going to sort it out in the end.

Well that’s a time the science was wrong bro and since it’s changed I don’t believe in the science now. I do my own research and come up to my own conclusions even though I spent most of high school in the smoker’s pit ditching class. /s

Only alternative facts these days please

This is not a car, this is a tribute…

Was the Mindchop channel about video games? If so I recall watching a video about the NCIX auctions. I recall the mission being to buy back the youtube play button from Linus’ early days there.

I was watching due to the local uproar in the media of all of the customer data on the servers being sold to the highest bidder at the time. Being a former customer of NCIX for my personal system builds I wasn’t excited about this.

I thought this guy was an adult if it is the same thing I was thinking about. It was spun as the guy built a cool smaller channel and couldn’t get his play button for reasons I didn’t understand and at the time of the video Linus decided the guy should have it as his channel was pretty cool. Since I wasn’t a rabid LTT viewer I never saw anything more about it and honestly I probably didn’t see another LTT video for a while after that.

With them being in Canada they have a potentially big bogeyman in the human rights tribunal to worry about. Over the years outside Labour relations lawyers I’ve been in touch with have advised no employer wants to end up there as the rules of law sort of no longer apply and the penalties can be off the charts beyond legal precedent.

Employers need to do better jobs regardless of this bogeyman or a unions being needed avenue as they can present their own challenges for staff and employers with the additional level of bureaucracy. The more layers, the more complicated everything becomes beyond the egos of the various layers involved.

It’s a shame to read all that’s going on or alleged to have gone on. I love tech but I’ve not worked in the tech specific industry. I was aware of Linus back to my PC building days and seen some of his videos over the years and the surprising overlaps into the auto channels eventually.

I wondered what it would have been like to work in a smaller at the time company like his, but I saw some of his frustrations in a media system setup video a couple of years back that kind of had me wonder what is he like to work with? Linus seems really high energy and not super polished in his interactions. Being honest tech people don’t always have the best social skills, much like those that excel at social skills are not the best tech people in broad terms.

I’ve heard rumblings of (as they aren’t a part of my online world) gamer gate and heard of other issues for women in tech. Thinking about it more I could see how a lack of social awareness and tech bros culture not being a good mix in a growing environment trying to include women. They can’t just think of them as being just another one of the guys with the usual stupid crap they do to each other. I’m getting old now because that statement leads to all kinds of new world issues with the extra gender labels that need to be accounted for today and there are other concerns that arise which the old bros culture cannot accommodate. The locker room behaviour was questionable at best and it’s always been dangerous to have in a workplace, which can really be a huge issue for them to change (if it exists). There is some smoke without a doubt and it reinforces its not easy to be a woman in these types of tech environments especially when companies grow beyond the initial friends group.

Since I did not really watch more than a couple of videos a year of the LTT I did not realize how large they have become. Their converted warehouse space must just be jammed full of people at 100+ staff now. It was kind of small when they were smaller as it was. With the work load, overhead to cover, the youtube grind, the issues of trying to run during Rona, and the brave new world of big company issues and accommodations needed for a not friends anymore workforce with the workloads, it is easy to see how things can spin out of control with all that is going on. The silos that have developed could have become big blind spots along with the other issues discussed in the social media posts. Wolves of public opinion and of the disgruntled are at the door now.

I suspect at some point it will be mentioned in hindsight that it would have been better for them to sell with the 100 million offer they had received but I wonder how much of this stuff would have surfaced before the sale went through from due diligence by the potential buyer?

It’s going to be a big mess ahead to sort out and I hope they are sincere in their intentions to figure this out, make the changes needed (if they are needed, which it sounds like they are) and to repair the damaged incurred to those along the way. It’s a bloody big job and its going to be tough to do in the court of public opinion making their own decisions along the way about what is really going on inside the situation.

Like that meme of the person trying to make the exit from 4 lanes away on the highway, Good luck everyone! The pile up is going to be big.