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Detroit, 12:59 AM
Sat Nov 21
28 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/04/09
And speaking of Nazis, and cars, Henry Ford, anyone?
10/05/09
And there was also a nasty question about whether the some children of the forced laborers at this factory were deliberately killed. He may have been too busy testing Kubelwagens and designing tank engines to notice.
He did pay for his efforts with some time in a cozy French lockup, but deft finagling by family and friends sprung him out before the ultimate vengeance could take root.
10/04/09
Here is good article about an everyday man named Franz Jagerstatter. He was abandoned by all except his wife, but he stood his ground and was executed by guillotine.
[en.wikipedia.org]
[www.catholicpeacefellowship.org]
A majority of the population when faced with someone like Hitler will give in to save his life, rather than take a chance and be destroyed. My question to you is this, what would you do?
10/04/09
I like to keep them in the refrigerator. Keeps the powder dry and the action quicker.
10/04/09
10/05/09
@powermatic: This is true, and by working closely with Hitler he helped to further the Nazi party more than many. I’m sure if you asked him why he did, his excuse would not have been much different than the general population. In fact, some of the original concept drawings of the VW Beetle came from ole Adolph himself, which he probably copied, see my next posting.
10/05/09
Something kind of interesting about the Volkswagen is that there is good evidence that the idea of the car, and even the Volkswagen name, probably came from a man named Josef Ganz, a Jew. This car was first shown at a car show in 1933, at which Hitler was present. Ganz was arrested within the year and charged with blackmail, by the Gestapo, for attempting to protect his patent rights.
10/04/09
In 1932, Porsche visited the USSR and the Soviets offered him a high ministry position with extremely generous perks and basically a blank check for vehicle development. Porsche turned it down, but what if it was Stalin rather than Hitler who sponsored and pushed the Volkswagen?
10/04/09
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10/04/09
To begin with, Porsche worked with Hitler as early as 1934, long before the war, when the engineer took the Nazi leader's commission to design the KDF-Wagen, what became known as the VW Beetle. The KDF program, ostensibly to provide German workers with automobiles, was really a Nazi scam, and few if any workers got the cars they'd paid for with paycheck deductions. I don't know exactly when Dr. Porsche got the idea that the VW platform would make a good utility vehicle for the Wehrmacht, but before many KDFWagens could be built, the factory was changed over to produce the Jeep-like Kubelwagen. During the war, Porsche designed other weapons, including the main battle tanks for the German army.
Yes, Detroit was the arsenal of democracy and Chrysler built tanks, Ford built bombers (and jeeps), and GM ended up building the Saturn V if I'm not mistaken. But Dr. Porsche seemed a bit too eager to work with the Nazis for my tastes. YMMV
Ironically, just as Ludvigsen's book on Dr. Porsche is released, so is Dutch engineer Paul Schilperoord's work Het Ware Verhaal van de Kever: hoe Hitler het ontwerp van een Joods genie confisqueerde, The True Story of the Beetle: how Hitler confiscated the design of a Jewish genius, about Josef Ganz, whose design for the Volkswagen may have been stolen by Hitler and used by Porsche.
[www.ganz-volkswagen.org]
Here's the 1934 Standard Superior, based on Ganz' design.
10/05/09
08/09/09
I love those little thumbnail cartoons in the Vauxhall ad: It has a big nose to better smash unruly boys; contains both a speedometer AND a fuel gauge; the rear window is included, even though they couldn't be bothered to build the middle of the back seat.
But I would totally rock that Daimler, if it didn't have a slushbox. Why, it's practically the practical man's Rolls Royce!
08/09/09
08/08/09
They were saying that even before my parents were born. Valentino Balboni put it well when he said 'You have to become one piece only.' With a manual transmission, you are an integral piece of the machine, stirring coals deep in the heart of the fire, while computer controls have very little need of you being there, and would eliminate you entirely if they could. Silicon transistors do not require and do not respond to any change of force or delicacy, reason or subtlety; they are creatures of absolutes. And while their absolutes and boundaries have been made smaller, they have become far greater in number, their scope more expansive, their control more complete, your input less relevant. You are placed ever further from the nerve center of the machine, replaced by digital senses. The tide has turned: destroyers of machinery gave Luddites their name, but now it is the machines, electrified and calculating, that destroy the human.
08/08/09
08/08/09
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08/09/09
08/08/09
Not sure it's technically post-war, but have to have a Bently
08/08/09
08/08/09
@Murilee Martin: There is one with the guy running from a shiny side up Gremlin, but I agree with your sentiment.
08/08/09
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08/08/09
This is a British car company, so clearly they're referring to some strange kind of traditional Druid witchcraft alchemy unfamiliar to us Americans.... you know, you bring home some hay today, shape a few handfuls of strands of it into an effigy of a chicken, whisper some incantations under the light of a full moon, burn the straw chicken effigy; then mysteriously, the next morning you have a yardful of chickens.
08/10/09
08/08/09
Forget Corvettes. Porsches, and Ferraris. You're not going to win over the really cultured hot babes unless you drive a 1954 Wolseley. Never mind that it's built on a stretched Morris Minor platform and only might manage 75 mph with a strong tailwind. Sex appeal is more important than these trivial concerns, right?
07/14/09
Round and round
Round and round
The money at Tesla goes round and round
Some goes in Elon's pocket.
07/14/09
07/14/09
It's just like Hearts--pass your trash.
07/14/09
07/14/09
One or more formulas contain a circular reference and may not calculate correctly.
Opening Help.
07/14/09
@Ash78: Here's the 'circular reference' you're looking for, Ash.
07/14/09