The New LATimes.com: Love The Redesign, Search Engine Still Sucks

The Los Angeles Times did something right. They redesigned their Website, from top to bottom. I've only been there a couple of times, but I have to say that it looks great. It may even be better than nytimes.com, and that's high praise from me. It feels comfortable but comprehensive, and it looks like I can find my way from there to anywhere in the paper. I might actually start going there just for fun. That would be a major change; I really did not like the old latimes.com. So, kudos to the LA Times. It's nice to be able to take some pride in my hometown paper.

In the print edition, the LA Times is still struggling. I like what they have done with the Op-Ed page over the last several years; they've experimented quite a bit, which is good in and of itself, and now they seem to have found a structure that works, although I miss Joel Stein. So the print edition still struggling, but some parts are getting better.

However, a caveat: I still don't like the search engine on latimes.com. I have a standard test that I run on latimes.com to see if it is working the way I want it to work. Their car critic is a guy named Dan Neil, who, for my money, is one of the best newspaper columnists in the country on any topic. He's the only car critic to win a Pulitzer. I like the fact that the LA Times has given him a second column, on general cultural topics. Good call.

My test is this: Dan Neil wrote a column on November 3, 2004, reviewing the Ducati 999R, an Italian motorcycle. I remember this because it's my birthday, and that was the day John Kerry lost the presidential election. He described the bike as evil on two wheels:

Its 150-hp V-twin motor runs on damned souls and is lubricated with the fat of unbaptized children.

I test latimes.com by trying to find that article using the search function on latimes.com. This time around, I tried several combinations. Nothing. This article is less than 5 years old - it's not exactly archivable material. But you may have noticed that I linked to it, and quoted from it. How did I find it? Simple. I Googled "Dan Neil los angeles times ducati unbaptized children," and voila! There's the article. On latimes.com. So I can find this article using Google, but not the LA Times' own search engine.

One step forward, yay! Still waiting for the next step. Newspapers complain that they can't make as much money from the Web as they can from their print editions, and some are threatening to force users to pay for content on their Websites. Here's a hint about how to make money on a newspaper Website: get the basics rights. Execute well. Make sure the damn thing works the way users want it to.

GM, bankruptcy, the self-referential problem, the Red Wings, and brains vs. brawn

General Motors has declared bankruptcy. I'm not going to link to any of the zillion of articles on it, because it's too depressing to have to read about it yet again.

Except for Dan Neil's article. He has a great take on it, recounting GM's glorious couple of decades, the '50's and 60's. He has an intriguing idea as to what was the turning point for GM:

I have my own theory. In 1999-2000, GM had a golden opportunity to right its ship by backing Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. This might seem counter-intuitive. . .

Yes and no. It is counterintuitive in the immediate sense, because Al Gore wasn't really a Detroit kind of guy. He is quite the egghead, very cerebral and sensitive. The quintessential liberal intellectual type. But he was in favor of universal healthcare, which, as Neil points out, could have saved GM a bundle.

I think Neil is capturing something here, although he doesn't quite put his finger on it.

Something else happened in Detroit over the weekend, much more trivial, but a reason for celebration: the Detroit Red Wings won the first game of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Neil's colleague on the sports pages, Helene Elliott, put it this way:

the Red Wings on Saturday withstood the young Pittsburgh Penguins' energetic middle period by using their brains as much as their brawn.

Brains vs. brawn. The classic human dilemma. Whether to conquer with brute force or win through better planning and strategy. Hands vs. head. Football players vs. computer geeks. White collar vs. blue collar.

Pickup truck vs. sedan. Gas-guzzling but macho vs. small but efficient.

The Big Three have spent the last few years making oodles of money off of pickup trucks and big cars. I think the reason for this may be found in the ranks of their employees. GM, Ford and Chrysler have something like a million retirees. They have several hundred thousand current employees. Their dealers and parts suppliers employ another several hundred thousand. Throw in their retirees, and you easily have at least another million. Most of those employees and retirees have families, spouses, wives, kids, parents, brothers, sisters, etc.

Almost all of those people get a discount when they buy a new American car.

Then there are people who have other reasons to buy American cars, like politicians. If you are an elected official in Michigan, and you want to keep your job, you drive an American car.

I'm guesstimating here, but let's say that there are somewhere between 6 and 7 million people in this country with a direct economic interest in buying an American car. At least two million employees and retirees of the Big Three, their dealers and suppliers. Each of those has an average of two family members who buy a car. That's another four million, for six million. Then another million miscellaneous. 6 to 7 million. Most of them with some kind of discount. Let's say each one buys a new car every three years (Big Three executives used to be famous for getting a new car every year). That's two million cars a year going to this customer base. Until recently, cars were sellling at an annual rate of about 16 million a year in the US. If the Big Three were selling half of that, they were selling 8 million cars a year. 2 million of those would be a quarter. So a quarter of the Big Three's cars were being sold to people with a direct economic interest in buying American cars. People, in other words, who were already sold on them, and needed very little convincing.

Talk about insular. Most of those cars were being sold to blue collar workers, or retired blue collar workers. In other words, old white guys with little education beyond high school. How many black lesbians with advanced degrees do you think there are among the Big Three retirees? Not a whole lot.

Sound familiar? Big Three employees, retirees, and, effectively, customers, were and are the same constituency as the Republican party. It is no coincidence that the GOP and the Big Three are collapsing at the same time. It is, on the other hand, intensely ironic that Obama is the instrument of destruction of the one, and yet the savior of the other. Irony is 9/10th of the law.

Brawn vs. brains. The GOP and the Big Three represent brawn. Muscles. It is also no coincidence that Dick Cheney has emerged as the face of the Republican party these days, after being so invisible during the Bush administration. It is also no accident that Bush, his father, and Cheney were all in the oil business. They represent the "brute force" school of capitalism (although maybe "school" in the wrong word). Men (and it's almost always men) make money by the application of brute force - drilling for oil, mining, making steel, or, as (I think) Alfred Sloan put it, "bending metal and thereby adding value to it."

It is no coincidence that Cheney is the most forceful advocate of torture, the ultimate application of brute force to try to get something done, and that he is spending so much time attacking Obama. Obama represents brains. Obama represents the triumph of the intellectual, the egghead, the geek. But at this moment in history, he also represents a repudiation of the "brute force school," essentially because he has already begun to expose the flaws of that approach to life.

GM has failed in part because its employees believed their own hype, that there was something special about American cars. There are special American cars, sure - the Corvette, the Mustang, the Jeep. Those are arguably the three most iconic American cars ever - each has been made for decades. And each is a very macho car.

My family history is deeply intertwined with that of Detroit and the automotive industry. One of my great-grandfathers was the construction foreman on Henry Ford's mansion. My paternal grandfather started out life as a coal miner, moved up to the assembly line at Ford, went to trade school at Ford, and became an engineer. He only finished eighth grade, but all four of his kids went to college, and three of them have Master's degrees. I was going to be the first one in the family to earn a Ph.d.

My grandfather worked hard on the assembly line. But he also worked hard to make sure that that was exactly the kind of job that I would never have to have. I disagreed with my grandfather on just about every topic in politics, but I am forever grateful to him.

The old white guys whose world is disappearing are scared and angry because they don't understand this new world, and they don't feel like they have a place in it. What many of them don't appreciate, and what the rest of us should be grateful for, is their role in creating it.

Brains has triumphed over brawn because that is what brawn has been working towards. Not just in America, but all over the world, and not just in the last few years, but forever.

History always marches on, but sometimes it tramples. Conservatives celebrate capitalism because it holds people accountable. But they don't like the process of being held accountable any more than the rest of us.

Chrysler declares bankruptcy

Chrysler has declared bankruptcy. Not unexpected, but kind of a bummer. Megan McArdle takes a look at it; she thinks the unions won a Pyrrhic victory, sort of. She thinks that they got a better deal than the hedge funds, which will work out for the unions in the short term, but not in the long term, as it will make it very difficult for Chrysler to raise capital. The logic is that if you have a lot of money to invest, but you run the risk of losing your money to unions, then you don't have much incentive to invest your money, unless you get a really high rate of interest. Good point. I'm not sure how much I agree with it, but I think she has something there.

Dan Neil is not terribly optimistic. He doesn't see a lot of synchronicity between Chrysler, which makes a lot of money - or did make a lot of money - selling big trucks, and Fiat, which makes small, fuel-efficient cars. The one bright spot might be California's greenhouse gas regulations, which would benefit Fiat and, therefore, Chrysler.

Ironically, California's pending waiver request to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that would allow the state to regulate greenhouse-gas auto emissions would actually play in the new company's favor.

The state's request would in effect raise fuel efficiency for new cars by 30% by 2016. A dozen other states and the District of Columbia have said they would hew to the new California standards.

If California succeeds in imposing its own auto emissions/fuel economy rules, the Chrysler-Fiat alliance would be well positioned to quickly deliver smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles to market.

After years of fighting California's clean-air rules, Chrysler may in the end depend on them for its survival.

I have a cousin who does PR for Chrysler in the western United States. He has an interesting job these days.

My thots are that if Chrysler does survive this, it will be in diminished form. One long-standing problem that Chrysler has had is that of finding and retaining top talent. I don't know any of this in detail, and I don't have any facts to back this up - it's pure speculation on my part. There are, I'm sure, lots of great people at Chrysler, like my cousin. But there are far more people at Chrysler who are, I suspect, merely good at their jobs, or maybe even not that good. Anyone who is essential to a car company and who is very good at their job - engineers, car designers, manufacturing experts - has a strong incentive to work for another car company. Traditionally, that would have meant Ford or GM. In the last twenty or thirty years in this country, it has also meant the Japanese companies. If you have skills that are not industry-specific, you have even less incentive to work for Chrysler. If you're a crackerjack software designer, and your options are working for Google or Chrysler, you're going to work for Google. If you have a Harvard MBA in finance, chances are somewhere between slim and none that you are going to choose Chrysler over, say, JPMorgan. The same could very well be true to a lesser extent in dealerships around the country.

Speaking of whom, the LA Times interviewed some Chrysler dealers around LA. These guys are masters of spin, but I am not encouraged by some of their comments. Some of them actually seemed to suggest that bankruptcy was a good thing, because it ends the speculation.

"It's all for the better to get the mysteries and question marks behind us."

I've got news for you, dude: the mysteries and question marks are not behind you. They are in front of you. One question has been answered: will Chrysler declare bankruptcy? Answer: yes. Two far more important questions have not been answered: one, can Chrysler make enough cars that Americans want to buy? and two, will Chrysler emerge from bankruptcy as a stable, flourishing company? Those questions have not been answered, and the first one in particular is going to take a long time to answer. Chrysler did not get into this situation overnight. It will take a long time for Chrysler to convince lots of the American people that it's a good idea to buy a Chrysler. This is particularly unhelpful:

"We've all been zigging and zagging these last few months, but now we're talking about facts," Gray said. "Everybody has a bounce in their step now. It's a good day to be a Chrysler dealer."

No, it's not. Chrysler has a huge, some would say impossible, task ahead of it. It's not just about negotiating between the UAW and hedge funds. It's not about negotiating the minefields in Washington, DC.

It's about regaining the faith of customers. The Big Three having been losing mindshare for at least a couple of decades. Chrysler has made some interesting cars lately - the PT Cruiser, the Viper, the Crossfire. But it has to make beautifully ordinary cars. It has to make cars that fit the average American like a great pair of jeans - utterly comfortable. It has to make them really, really well. And dealers have to provide world-class service on a constant basis and as if their jobs depend on it - because they do.

The one thing the UAW can do to help the process is stop whining. The whole "Buy American" argument is, at this point, an albatross. The idea that Americans should buy American cars puts the interests of the American car worker ahead of the interests of the American car consumer. I should buy a car because a guy in Flint made it? Great, is that guy going to read my blog, just because I'm an American? If I make a movie, is he going to watch it just because I'm an American? No, he's not. He's going to read my blog or watch my movie because he finds my blog interesting or my movie funny. You want me to buy a car because I should be proud to be an American? Fine, then make a car that makes me proud of American cars.

UAW workers get a great deal. They work hard, but they also have the "30 and out" thing going - they can retire after 30 years. Imagine this: a guy starts working for GM in 1930 at the age of 20, and retires at 50 in 1960. He could be alive and well, 49 years later, at the age of 99. He has been retired for almost half his life. Most Americans do not get anywhere nearly that good of a deal from their employers, and they feel no special affinity for people who do. And don't get me started on the jobs bank.

I would like to see Chrysler succeed, but my hope is fading. Many people - several hundred thousand - would suffer if Chrysler went under. But many more people - many, many more people, like tens of millions - wouldn't miss it.

Dan Neil drives the Tesla Roadster

You've probably heard of the Tesla Roadster, the all-electric brand-new sports car being built by a brand-new car company in Silicon Valley. It's very hot - George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio were some of the first people to order one. Dan Neil, car critic for the LA Times, drove one. He loves it.

He toasted a Porsche Carrera C4 on Sunset. Ooooh, that must feel good. Remembrances of my adolescent past surge through my brain. Neil is at best his writing about the extremes of the automotive experience, the best or the worst of shaped steel sitting on chunks of round rubber.

The Tesla Roadster is apparently one of the best.

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration is less than 4 seconds, which is Ferrari quick. Around a tight, technical racetrack, the Telsa will beat the pants off your garden-variety supercar.

I'm unclear on the concept of a "garden-variety supercar," (is that like your average, everyday superhero?) but that is clearly high praise.

One of Neil's better qualities as a writer is his ability to come up with perfect analogies that no one else would have thot of. This one would never have occured to me:

And it's tough, too. I only had the car for 24 hours but I caned it like the Taliban caned Gillette salesmen and it never even blinked.

The car is not perfect, apparently it isn't quite as explosive above 100 mph as your average supercar. But for $109,000, I guess you can't have everything.

But damn does it sound you like can have environmentally correct fun.

A smidgen of good news for the Big Three

There's a little bit of good news for the Big Three. Well, at least for one of them. Dan Neil loves the new Ford F-150 pickup. Rarely is he so effusive.

Yes, Dearborn has its troubles but this is the best pickup truck on God's little acre. Yes, the Japanese have beaten up on the domestics, but Toyota and Nissan only wish they knew how to build a full-sizer as tight, as tough, as well-sorted, as keen and mean as the thing behind the Blue Oval. I mean, people, it isn't even close.

My Car of the Year is a truck.

He also makes the obvious political point:

Pickup trucks have an ideology and that ideology is conservative, Red State Republicanism.

Pickups just lost the White House.

Once again, I'm conflicted. I am fine with pickups losing the White House - maybe now the Big Three will remember that they should be making cars for the rest of the country as well as their macho customers in the heartland. But I have some connection with Ford: my grandfather started working there in the late 1920's, and didn't buy a different brand of car until he was in his '80's (when one of his sons-in-law got him a deal on a GM car).

I actually think Ford is in a better position to ride out this recession better than GM or Chrysler; they're bigger than Chrysler, with a better selection of cars, and they don't have the dysfunctionality of GM's excess brands. I'm expecting Ford to close the Mercury division. That would be a good sign of permanent change, the kind of sign that Democrats in Congress are looking for. Right now, tho, I'll take my good news for the American car industry from wherever I can find it.

Bailing out the Big Three

The topic of the week is whether or not the federal government should bail out the Big Three American car companies. If it doesn't, there are a number of foreign car companies poised to step in. Megan McArdle tries really hard not to be a heartless libertarian. Turning whimsical (complete with Tom Lehrer videos!), she proposes bailing out journalism, of which group she is one. She also proposes an analogy with the film industry (she's from upstate New York, home of Eastman Kodak). The problem with this analogy is that film was rendered irrelevant by a new technology - digital cameras - that didn't use film. Nothing is going to be replacing cars any time soon.

Thomas Friedman takes a few blasts, not only at the management of the Big Three, but at the entire Michigan Congressional delegation, for their mistakes. Then he admits that he's terrified of what would happen if GM actually declared bankruptcy. As are most people.

I have a complicated view of this. As a Democrat, I would normally be defending the union, but I've heard enough to know that the UAW made sure that they were taken care of really well when times were good, and unwinding that legacy has been, and will be, a big part of the problem.

But can you blame the union for making sure they got theirs? They got what they could out of their negotiating partners. They demanded, and got, great pay and benefits because that's what the companies could afford to pay them. There's a reason some Detroiters refer to as GM "Generous Mother." Friedman grudgingly admits that something is going to have to be done, but demands conditions. Which I think the Big Three are going to have to agree to. The UAW is not quite as agreeable, as they feel that they have been paying the price for a long time. They're right. The Big Three have been downsizing for years.

In a sense, that's a good thing. A lot of the hardest work has already been done.
That's one of the reasons I support a bailout (with conditions). The Big Three have already offered a chunk of people buyouts. They've already written massive losses. They've done some of the necessary restructuring - GM killed Oldsmobile a few years ago. Ford sold Jaguar. Chrysler killed off Plymouth. The current recession will force the closure of some unnecessary dealerships. There will be a great deal of pain. There already has been a great deal of pain.

Politically, I can't believe the Republicans are opposing this. I understand that most of them opposed the Wall Street bailout as well, but it ain't going to play well in Peoria to write a check for $700 billion to white guys in suits, but deny a fraction of that amount to blue collar workers in the Midwest. Obama did very well in the Rust Belt this year. If the Republicans really oppose this bailout, they can pretty much write off Michigan and her neighbors for a long time.

I'm not a fan of nostalgia in politics, but this is, in some respects, deeply personal for me. My family history is deeply intertwined with that of the American car industry, going way, way back. On my mother's side, one of my great-grandfathers was the construction foreman on Henry Ford's mansion. My paternal grandfather only finished eighth grade, but went to trade school at Ford, became an engineer, and eventually ran his own tool and die shop. His roommate in the 20's was a man named Walter Reuther, who was president of the UAW for 24 years, and one of the most important labor leaders of the 20th century. My grandfather hated unions, but he always told us that Walter Reuther was the most honest man he had ever known (and one of the cheapest - Walter didn't like paying for gas, so they would double-date, and my grandfather would always drive).

Someone in my extended family has worked either directly for one of the Big Three, or for a supplier, for decades. My father got his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from General Motors Institute (now Kettering University). I have a cousin who currently does PR for Chrysler. I have an uncle who tried to change GM from the inside for many years. So I'm not a fan of nostalgia in politics, but I can't help but be nostalgic about the American car industry.

Economically, it would be a catastrophe of the first order to let the Big Three go under. I hope and pray that no one demands that they declare Chapter 11, because that could very easily lead to Chapter 7. Ron Gettelfinger, president of the UAW, explained the problem this morning on NPR: would you buy a car from a bankrupt car company? Many people wouldn't, so Chapter 11 could very easily be the beginning of a death spiral. The people affected wouldn't just be the workers and their families - the ancillary effects would be felt by their suppliers, and many other companies who serve the populations of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, etc.

Apart from the hardheaded economics, I think the most important reason to save the Big Three (or Big Two, if GM takes over Chrysler) is one that I have to admit borders on nostalgia: to let the Big Three go under would be an admission of failure on the part of this country as a whole. We have already seen many industries leave for other shores, and each loss has a certain poignancy, but nothing compares to the importance of the car industry, on many levels. Sure, we've all had "Kodak moments" shot on Kodak film, but I don't notice a much of a difference when it's captured by a CCD instead of 35mm (motion picture film excepted, for all my DP friends).

In purely romantic terms, there is a sizable piece of American history carried in the icons known as the Corvette, the Mustang, and the Jeep, among others.

I'm not advocating spending billions of dollars on preserving sheet metal memories. I'm a romantic, but I don't like using nostalgia to save doomed projects.

What I am advocating spending billions of dollars on preserving is the incredible insfrastructure - physical, corporate, industrial, cultural, intellectual, and even artistic - that the Big Three represent. Unwinding the Big Three would cost billions, just for dealing with car dealerships. The psychic cost would be staggering. But I'm not advocating a $25 billion Xanax.

Millions of people have put incalculable amounts of blood sweat and tears into the Big Three. There is still an incredible amount of brainpower and willpower in those companies. I'm not sure whether or not current management is up to the task of saving these companies. I'm perfectly willing to see the boards all tossed. In fact, I have a suggestion for someone who should be on the GM board: Dan Neil, the car critic for the LA Times. As a critic, he has intimate knowledge of pretty much the entire range of the automotive market. He's the only automotive critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for criticism. He knows the issues backwards and forwards, and he can explain them extraordinarily well, and usually with a fair amount of humor. He could rally the troops inside GM, and set for them the standards they know they are capable of meeting.

I don't know who else I would nominate for any of these boards, besides my uncle, Len Allgaier. I spent many a Thanksgiving listening to him explain to me what exactly was wrong with GM. He's been retired for a few years, and I'm not sure how my Aunt Gwenne would feel about it, but I think he would jump at the chance.

There are many people like my Uncle Len. There are many people who have lots of ideas about how to fix the Big Three. And there are lots of people who are running the Big Three who have been ignoring those voices of dissent for years. There is a lot of deadwood in Detroit. There are a lot of people who are terrified of change, or in denial, or who still cling to that idiotic idea that Americans should buy American cars. I believe that Americans should buy American cars when Americans make great cars for Americans. But I also happen to believe that that is still possible.

Actually, I'm pretty sure my Aunt Gwenne, the daughter of a man who lived with Walter Reuther and started his own tool and die shop, would love to see her husband go back to work fixing GM. It would be the fulfillment of a dream; the culmination of a lifetime of work. It would give him something to fight for, something to believe in.

There are many people like my Uncle Len, and many people like my Aunt Gwenne, people who love solving big, huge, impossible problems. Problems like putting a man on the moon, or putting a black man in the Oval Office a very short time after the civil rights movement flourished.
This is why I believe we should try to save the American car industry. Not because we should. But because we can.

Memorable metaphor of the day

Dan Neil, the great and wonderful car critic of the LA Times, reviews the Pontiac G8. It's a product of GM's worldwide presence, imported from Australia. My favorite automotive writer shares some colorful impressions of Australia, particularly Foster's, of which, apparently, neither he nor Australians approve:

Foster's makes Pabst Blue Ribbon seem like the scintillating golden cataract from Bacchus' boundless fountain.

I think Mexicans have the same opinion of Corona. This is a good review, fun as always, but Neil is at his best either praising automotive excess and genius, or damning and shredding garbage dressed up in sheet metal. He is also at his best when throwing out a metaphor that just would not occur to a less-talented writer:

I noted today, while I was standing at the pump putting $4.85-a-gallon hi-test in the galling muscle car, that I kind of felt like a guy standing at an ATM next to a bordello. The reek of monetized sin was upon me.

I am going to have trouble getting that image out of my head the next time I pump gas for $4.85 a gallon. Bottom line on this review? Good car, not great, a little late:

It would be a shoo-in for Car of the Year, if the year were 2005.

So the conclusion that we can draw today is that Australian products that wrap metal around leather and plastic and cost thousands of dollars are good, but Australian products that wrap metal around generic yeast-modified water are not so good.

Dan Neil on the Porsche GT2

Dan Neil, car columnist for the LA Times, reviewed the Porsche GT2, apparently one hell of a machine. Reading Dan Neil when he has a strong opinion is a joy unto itself. The car is nothing if not fast, and has been stripped to the bare essentials, all extraneous weight and creature comforts excised in the interest of getting from A to B at speeds comparable to that of a small airplane. Some simple numbers evoke wonder and inspire questions: 530 horsepower. There are three car garages that don't have that much horsepower. 200 mph. For absolutely no good reason. What is the difference between going 100 miles over the speed limit and 130 miles over the speed limit? Beats me. Just looking at the engine fires up the imagination:

"Lift the engine lid and all you see are the car's enormous lungs ducted from air intakes integrated into the dual-foil spoiler, which looks like something Klingons would carry into battle."

And how does something like that sound?

"the deep chortle and hiss of the turbocharged engine is something out of Dante."

Nothing like a good old-fashioned fire-and-brimstone image. How about another one?

"From the extraneous metaphor file: The GT2 is like lighting a cigarette on an erupting volcano. It's like cutting a line out of a kilo of cocaine and then snorting the kilo."

Of course, the best adrenaline rush comes when you can do 0-60 in less than, say, 5 seconds. In this case, that can be done in 3.4 seconds. What does that feel like?

"For a similar sensation, put a rodeo barrel on a train track, climb in and wait."

But how's the handling? Lots of cars can go fast in a straight line, but what about turning a corner? Steering tight? Close to the road? It has a

"fully adjustable suspension inspired by the paint-shaking machine at Home Depot."

So maybe not too comfortable?

"The resulting car (3,270 pounds) is 225 pounds lighter than the 911 Turbo and is about as cozy as an MRI machine."

It requires a certain machismo just to step into this thing.

"To love the GT2 is to embrace its malign indifference to your well-being."

Maybe not a great option for taking the kids to school. Unless there's a punctuality issue.

"But it's the sort of performance you dare not access on the street. Drivers a half-mile ahead can dutifully check their mirrors before changing lanes, and in the time it takes to signal and turn the wheel, the GT2 can materialize beside them like it's dropping out of hyperspace."

Warp factor 10, Mr. Sulu. We're late for soccer practice.

So what exactly is the issue?

"This brings me to a truism, a Zen koan of automobility: It's more fun to go fast in a slow car than slow in a fast car."

Ah, yes, how true. But so much fun to dream about how fast you can go in a really, really fast car.

LATimes.com still sucks

I read the dead-tree edition of the LA Times every morning, because I live in LA. I moved here in 2000, and I think the LA Times has actually gotten much better since I've moved here. They've revamped the Op-Ed section a couple of times, and I think they now have a very good selection of columnists. They don't have any stars on par with the NY Times, but they do have a wider range, and they do have columnists like Meghan Daum, who has a talent for writing about highly topical subjects in a way that others don't.

And they have Dan Neil, who is the only automotive critic to win a Pulitzer. He's not just a great car writer - he's one of my favorite writers in the country, in any medium. Several years ago, he wrote a review of a Ducati motorcycle (the LA Times now has a columnist, Susan Carpenter, who only covers motorcycles, which I think is quite cool. She's also a good writer). It was a great piece of journalism, and included the line that the bike "runs on damned souls and is lubricated with the fat of unbaptized children," which is a very clever way of saying that it is hell on wheels.

I once impressed a woman with that review (which I found on another Website, NOT on LATimes.com). I tried to find it today on LATimes.com and couldn't. So, although I constantly link to LATimes.com for recent news articles, as far as I am concerned, until I can find that article with one or two searches, LATimes.com still sucks.