The brilliant and eloquent Stephen Fry. A fantastic speech...
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Death of Hummer
By NICK BUNKLEY
Published: February 24, 2010
DETROIT — General Motors said on Wednesday that it would shut down Hummer, the brand of big sport utility vehicles that became synonymous with the term gas guzzler, after a deal to sell it to a Chinese manufacturer fell apart.
The buyer, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines, said in a statement that it had withdrawn its bid because it was unable to receive approval from the Chinese government, which was trying to put a new emphasis on limiting China’s dependence on imported oil and protecting the environment.
Tight financial markets also hurt the deal. When the commerce ministry did not bless the transaction, the well-capitalized Chinese banks became reluctant to lend money to Tengzhong, even though it tried to set up an overseas subsidiary to buy Hummer. That left Tengzhong trying to borrow money from Western banks that have been curtailing their lending even to established borrowers, much less a little-known company from western China.
A spokesman for Hummer, Nick Richards, said G.M. had no specific timetable for completing its wind-down, but left open the possibility that G.M. would be open to new bids.
“We just reached this decision today, so we’re just beginning the process,” Mr. Richards said. “Typically, winding down a brand can take several months. If there are viable alternatives for part of the brand or all of the brand during the process, we’ll consider them.”
G.M. had been trying to sell Hummer for nearly two years, and struck a preliminary deal with Tengzhong in June. The two companies had planned to complete the $150 million deal by the end of January, then delayed the deadline by a month in the hopes of receiving approval from China.
“We have since considered a number of possibilities for Hummer along the way, and we are disappointed that the deal with Tengzhong could not be completed,” John Smith, G.M.’s vice president for corporate planning and alliances, said in a statement. “G.M. will now work closely with Hummer employees, dealers and suppliers to wind down the business in an orderly and responsible manner.”
Over the years, Hummer shifted from a brawny status symbol that drew attention on the road into an automotive pariah. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California helped the brand become popular and once owned a fleet of Hummers, but more recently, he described the brand as prime evidence of the Detroit automakers’ failings.
Still, dealers and fans were optimistic that Hummer could live on.
They expected to see smaller, more fuel-efficient models introduced under Tengzhong that would help the brand “get away from people just thinking it was a big gas hog,” said Danny Hill, the general sales manager at Classic Hummer in Grapevine, Tex.
“It is a great, great vehicle that really does anything you want it to do,” Mr. Hill said. “It had a great concept to it. It’s a real shame that it’s going away, because the people who own Hummers, they just love them.”
It was the third time since G.M. emerged from bankruptcy protection last year that a deal to sell one of its unwanted brands collapsed. The company is shutting down Saturn, and it began to halt operations at Saab after a deal with Koenigsegg in Sweden was called off. G.M. later reached an agreement with a Dutch company, Spyker Cars; that deal was completed on Tuesday.
G.M. is also closing Pontiac, but it never tried to sell that brand. The carmaker is focusing on its Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC brands as it works to recover from bankruptcy.
G.M. said it would honor Hummer warranties and provide service and parts to Hummer owners worldwide. Hummer has nearly 400 dealerships globally, including 153 in the United States.
The announcement was celebrated by environmentalists, who have long pressed G.M. simply to kill the brand, which was born from military Humvees in 1992. G.M. acquired it in 1999.
“Closing Hummer simultaneously improves the health of G.M., China and the planet,” said Daniel Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign at the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. “Hummer should rest in pieces.”
About 3,000 jobs in the United States could be affected by the shutdown, including positions at G.M. and dealerships. A factory in Shreveport, La., that builds the Hummer H3 and H3T, as well as other G.M. trucks, already was scheduled to close by 2012.
The larger H2 was built for G.M. by A. M. General in Mishawaka, Ind., until December, when production was temporarily halted to allow the sale process to conclude.
Mr. Richards said Hummer dealers in the United States had about 2,500 vehicles in their inventories. In January, the brand sold just 265 units in the country. Hummer sales plunged 67 percent in 2009, to a total of 9,046.
The deal would have made Tengzhong the first Chinese company to sell vehicles in North America, though it planned to keep Hummer’s operations in the United States.
“Tengzhong worked earnestly to achieve an acquisition that it believed to be a tremendous opportunity to acquire a global brand at an attractive price,” Tengzhong said in its statement.
Its bid for Hummer was an audacious move, particularly by Chinese standards. The company is privately held, so it did not have the connections that many government-owned enterprises enjoy; by contrast, government agencies own part or all of China’s 10 largest automakers.
Tengzhong concluded the initial deal with G.M. in June and was supposed to close the deal by September. Some in Detroit were furious that the Chinese review process then dragged on for eight months, during which the American auto industry showed few signs of recovery and the potential value of Hummer continued to decline.
The timing of Tengzhong’s bid was bad from the beginning. High oil prices in the summer of 2008 led to a broad move by the Chinese government to improve energy efficiency and limit oil imports.
Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
Published: February 24, 2010
DETROIT — General Motors said on Wednesday that it would shut down Hummer, the brand of big sport utility vehicles that became synonymous with the term gas guzzler, after a deal to sell it to a Chinese manufacturer fell apart.
The buyer, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines, said in a statement that it had withdrawn its bid because it was unable to receive approval from the Chinese government, which was trying to put a new emphasis on limiting China’s dependence on imported oil and protecting the environment.
Tight financial markets also hurt the deal. When the commerce ministry did not bless the transaction, the well-capitalized Chinese banks became reluctant to lend money to Tengzhong, even though it tried to set up an overseas subsidiary to buy Hummer. That left Tengzhong trying to borrow money from Western banks that have been curtailing their lending even to established borrowers, much less a little-known company from western China.
A spokesman for Hummer, Nick Richards, said G.M. had no specific timetable for completing its wind-down, but left open the possibility that G.M. would be open to new bids.
“We just reached this decision today, so we’re just beginning the process,” Mr. Richards said. “Typically, winding down a brand can take several months. If there are viable alternatives for part of the brand or all of the brand during the process, we’ll consider them.”
G.M. had been trying to sell Hummer for nearly two years, and struck a preliminary deal with Tengzhong in June. The two companies had planned to complete the $150 million deal by the end of January, then delayed the deadline by a month in the hopes of receiving approval from China.
“We have since considered a number of possibilities for Hummer along the way, and we are disappointed that the deal with Tengzhong could not be completed,” John Smith, G.M.’s vice president for corporate planning and alliances, said in a statement. “G.M. will now work closely with Hummer employees, dealers and suppliers to wind down the business in an orderly and responsible manner.”
Over the years, Hummer shifted from a brawny status symbol that drew attention on the road into an automotive pariah. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California helped the brand become popular and once owned a fleet of Hummers, but more recently, he described the brand as prime evidence of the Detroit automakers’ failings.
Still, dealers and fans were optimistic that Hummer could live on.
They expected to see smaller, more fuel-efficient models introduced under Tengzhong that would help the brand “get away from people just thinking it was a big gas hog,” said Danny Hill, the general sales manager at Classic Hummer in Grapevine, Tex.
“It is a great, great vehicle that really does anything you want it to do,” Mr. Hill said. “It had a great concept to it. It’s a real shame that it’s going away, because the people who own Hummers, they just love them.”
It was the third time since G.M. emerged from bankruptcy protection last year that a deal to sell one of its unwanted brands collapsed. The company is shutting down Saturn, and it began to halt operations at Saab after a deal with Koenigsegg in Sweden was called off. G.M. later reached an agreement with a Dutch company, Spyker Cars; that deal was completed on Tuesday.
G.M. is also closing Pontiac, but it never tried to sell that brand. The carmaker is focusing on its Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC brands as it works to recover from bankruptcy.
G.M. said it would honor Hummer warranties and provide service and parts to Hummer owners worldwide. Hummer has nearly 400 dealerships globally, including 153 in the United States.
The announcement was celebrated by environmentalists, who have long pressed G.M. simply to kill the brand, which was born from military Humvees in 1992. G.M. acquired it in 1999.
“Closing Hummer simultaneously improves the health of G.M., China and the planet,” said Daniel Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign at the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. “Hummer should rest in pieces.”
About 3,000 jobs in the United States could be affected by the shutdown, including positions at G.M. and dealerships. A factory in Shreveport, La., that builds the Hummer H3 and H3T, as well as other G.M. trucks, already was scheduled to close by 2012.
The larger H2 was built for G.M. by A. M. General in Mishawaka, Ind., until December, when production was temporarily halted to allow the sale process to conclude.
Mr. Richards said Hummer dealers in the United States had about 2,500 vehicles in their inventories. In January, the brand sold just 265 units in the country. Hummer sales plunged 67 percent in 2009, to a total of 9,046.
The deal would have made Tengzhong the first Chinese company to sell vehicles in North America, though it planned to keep Hummer’s operations in the United States.
“Tengzhong worked earnestly to achieve an acquisition that it believed to be a tremendous opportunity to acquire a global brand at an attractive price,” Tengzhong said in its statement.
Its bid for Hummer was an audacious move, particularly by Chinese standards. The company is privately held, so it did not have the connections that many government-owned enterprises enjoy; by contrast, government agencies own part or all of China’s 10 largest automakers.
Tengzhong concluded the initial deal with G.M. in June and was supposed to close the deal by September. Some in Detroit were furious that the Chinese review process then dragged on for eight months, during which the American auto industry showed few signs of recovery and the potential value of Hummer continued to decline.
The timing of Tengzhong’s bid was bad from the beginning. High oil prices in the summer of 2008 led to a broad move by the Chinese government to improve energy efficiency and limit oil imports.
Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
Letter From a Soldier
Letter from a Mountain Soldier
An infantry officer in Afghanistan explains the personal relevance of DADT
Sir,
This is indeed revolutionary stuff. Not the deliberate reconsideration of the DADT issue, but that you're actively encouraging such an adult, open dialog.
I'm one of your officers, currently deployed supporting a WIAS tasker and I look forward to my Division meeting up with me here in Afghanistan. My partner of 10 years and I have happily accepted the various assignments the Army has given me this past decade and have weathered my two 12-month-long and one 15-month-long deployments like, I would imagine, nearly every other couple - save for one detail: the partner I leave behind has no support from any official channels. He would be notified after my brother who is listed as my Emergency POC/NOK. After 10 years, my partner has earned the right to be told first about my death. He has earned the right to make my health emergency decisions. And, he has earned the right to be recognized for his sacrifices just as any other spouse. The exception being that he is not a spouse. We are not a recognized couple. And the very fact that he and I live in a marriage-like relationship could cause us to lose my pension and our financial security later in life.
As a former combat arms commander, I've had to face the DADT issue not just because I am gay - an imutable characteristic that is no more a choice for me than someone could choose their race - but because I've had 4 gay men in my command who I have known to be gay. I knew about two of them because they believed that living a lie was counter to their ethical charge as Soldiers. One was chaptered and the other was transferred. I knew about another because he was outed by an Evangelical roommate who had "baited" him into admitting it to him. He was not chaptered because we were a week from deploying and no one believed he really was gay. When he left the Army after we redeployed, he came back to tell me that indeed, he was gay. And, I knew about the fourth one because after he died of wounds from an IED, his partner of four years wrote me - not knowing my orientation - to tell me how much SSG ___ loved the Army, how we were the only family he'd ever known, and how much he appreciated the support of his fellow NCOs who knew about his personal life and whose spouses back home had taken care of him (the partner).
The "there's a gay dude looking at me in the shower/coming on to me in the fox hole" argument is a pathetic, lame canard. Having been through more than my share of the Army's best lodging - Ranger School comes to mind, as do the Hindu Kush, the desert in Iraq, and multiple Army gyms across world - I can tell you that the only thing I've ever thought about while showering was getting in and getting out. I'd be lying if I was to say that I've not worked with attractive people. We all have. But the difference between being an animal and a professional is, among other things, our ability to control ourselves. And, the only thing I've ever thought about in actual combat was living long enough to take care of my guys and to make it home alive.
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this ongoing discussion. And, I hope that if GEN Ham and his panel ask you what your opinion is, that you answer based on the facts, on the beliefs of this current generation of Soldier, and that you eschew the bigoted hypotheses of those who do not believe that the only way for Soldiers to truly be the Soldiers they are ethically charged to be, is to be honest with their buddies, honest with their chain of command, and honest to themselves.
V/r,
Mountain Soldier (fwd)
An infantry officer in Afghanistan explains the personal relevance of DADT
Sir,
This is indeed revolutionary stuff. Not the deliberate reconsideration of the DADT issue, but that you're actively encouraging such an adult, open dialog.
I'm one of your officers, currently deployed supporting a WIAS tasker and I look forward to my Division meeting up with me here in Afghanistan. My partner of 10 years and I have happily accepted the various assignments the Army has given me this past decade and have weathered my two 12-month-long and one 15-month-long deployments like, I would imagine, nearly every other couple - save for one detail: the partner I leave behind has no support from any official channels. He would be notified after my brother who is listed as my Emergency POC/NOK. After 10 years, my partner has earned the right to be told first about my death. He has earned the right to make my health emergency decisions. And, he has earned the right to be recognized for his sacrifices just as any other spouse. The exception being that he is not a spouse. We are not a recognized couple. And the very fact that he and I live in a marriage-like relationship could cause us to lose my pension and our financial security later in life.
As a former combat arms commander, I've had to face the DADT issue not just because I am gay - an imutable characteristic that is no more a choice for me than someone could choose their race - but because I've had 4 gay men in my command who I have known to be gay. I knew about two of them because they believed that living a lie was counter to their ethical charge as Soldiers. One was chaptered and the other was transferred. I knew about another because he was outed by an Evangelical roommate who had "baited" him into admitting it to him. He was not chaptered because we were a week from deploying and no one believed he really was gay. When he left the Army after we redeployed, he came back to tell me that indeed, he was gay. And, I knew about the fourth one because after he died of wounds from an IED, his partner of four years wrote me - not knowing my orientation - to tell me how much SSG ___ loved the Army, how we were the only family he'd ever known, and how much he appreciated the support of his fellow NCOs who knew about his personal life and whose spouses back home had taken care of him (the partner).
The "there's a gay dude looking at me in the shower/coming on to me in the fox hole" argument is a pathetic, lame canard. Having been through more than my share of the Army's best lodging - Ranger School comes to mind, as do the Hindu Kush, the desert in Iraq, and multiple Army gyms across world - I can tell you that the only thing I've ever thought about while showering was getting in and getting out. I'd be lying if I was to say that I've not worked with attractive people. We all have. But the difference between being an animal and a professional is, among other things, our ability to control ourselves. And, the only thing I've ever thought about in actual combat was living long enough to take care of my guys and to make it home alive.
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this ongoing discussion. And, I hope that if GEN Ham and his panel ask you what your opinion is, that you answer based on the facts, on the beliefs of this current generation of Soldier, and that you eschew the bigoted hypotheses of those who do not believe that the only way for Soldiers to truly be the Soldiers they are ethically charged to be, is to be honest with their buddies, honest with their chain of command, and honest to themselves.
V/r,
Mountain Soldier (fwd)
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Miracle of Love
You stand there, against a distant shore, gazing at me - are you looking right through me?
The sunlight dances with the water, infinite reflections blind me temporarily. I'm wondering if I deserve to feel this way... spirit soars, body tingles, heart pounds.
My weathered and damaged vessel magically drifts toward you like a magnet finding true North.
Have you always been there? Or has the dancing light been playing tricks on me?
The familiarness is almost too much to bear - almost. How parallel our lives have been for so long.
So, take my hand - climb in and grab an oar. For together we will maneuver the rest of the river together, blinded by the beauty of the sunlight, as it dances with the waves, lapping on undiscovered shores....
The sunlight dances with the water, infinite reflections blind me temporarily. I'm wondering if I deserve to feel this way... spirit soars, body tingles, heart pounds.
My weathered and damaged vessel magically drifts toward you like a magnet finding true North.
Have you always been there? Or has the dancing light been playing tricks on me?
The familiarness is almost too much to bear - almost. How parallel our lives have been for so long.
So, take my hand - climb in and grab an oar. For together we will maneuver the rest of the river together, blinded by the beauty of the sunlight, as it dances with the waves, lapping on undiscovered shores....
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Mary Chapin Carpenter
FYI - I am a huge fan of Mary Chapin Carpenter. The way she writes makes you feel as if she has stolen pages from your current journal, and put them to music. I've never experienced that before with an artist....
Her new album, "The Age of Miracles" is due out on April 27th, 2010 - the day before my beloved Grandmother, Frances' birthday, who would have been 93 this year.
Looking forward to the new disc, Chapin. :)
Peace always,
Tre
Her new album, "The Age of Miracles" is due out on April 27th, 2010 - the day before my beloved Grandmother, Frances' birthday, who would have been 93 this year.
Looking forward to the new disc, Chapin. :)
Peace always,
Tre
More Sarah Palin Hypocrisy...
Well, it turns out that Tripp Palin actually has government provided health insurance. Interesting - I guess the "death panels" thing-y was just a platitude to earn political points. Honestly...
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Welcome!
Hello and welcome to GibbsSpeak. There's a lot happening and a lot to talk about. I welcome everyone and all points of view. Stay tuned...
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