Problems just keep on coming for Toyota. They may be recalling 1.19 million Corolla and Matrix models, model years 2005-2007, for electronic issues which cause them to stall.
Toyota has said it wants to meet US officials to discuss this issue. They say that “Toyota does not believe that the alleged defect creates an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety.” They’re probably right, but let’s be honest here, if you know about this issue and can’t be bothered to get it fixed, that’s not going to do your image any good, and Toyota’s image is already pretty battered.
This stalling issue has been under investigation by the NHTSA since November 2009. At the time, they had 26 complaints of Corollas and Matrixes stalling due to failures in the ECUs. The failures happen completly randomly, with cases ranging from highway cruising to passing through an intersection. Toyota believes the failure occurs because of a crack in soldered joints in the unit or because of an electrical short. In both situations, the engine will stall or fail to start.
“On March 8, a California Highway Patrol officer helped to stop a Prius that had suddenly accelerated to 151 kilometres an hour after the accelerator became stuck on a San Diego County freeway.
The car’s owner, James Sikes, called 911 after his car sped up. Police told him to push his brakes to the floor and pull on the emergency brake. After the car slowed to about 80 km/h, Sikes turned off the ignition and the car came to a halt. A police officer put his car in front of the Prius as a precautionary block.”
Bullshit. First lets google James Sikes.
Ahh shit whatever…Thats the story. American (San Diego) media is quick to jump on the band wagon.
So glad to be home for a few weeks… My car is still for sale, I’ve had a few nibbles but nothing major. At least I still have something nice to drive while I’m here although I do want to change car by this summer, hopefully.
I really want to go shoot some cars this holiday so I’m going to visit a couple of events and some other random stuff.
In the mean while:
The state settles its $37 million lawsuit against URS for $5 million, avoiding “a trial that could have shed light on who was to blame for the disaster that killed 13 people and injured 145.”
“There’s a close relationship between the state and URS, and [the state] didn’t want to sue them to start with,” said Kyle Hart, an attorney for Progressive Contractors Inc. (PCI), whose workers were atop the bridge for the repaving project when it collapsed and which earlier settled a lawsuit. “They still do business. … People have moved back and forth between those two entities. They are very close.”
“It never seemed to us [that] the state had much of an appetite to fight this whole battle,” said Hart, referring to the state’s efforts to collect damages from URS and PCI. “They always seemed to want to settle relatively quickly … and just get out of the thing.”
Rep. Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley, who took a lead role in the victims compensation fund, said he thought the settlement was reasonable.
But he added: “In the end, I’m not sure how well the public interest is really served. I think there could be an advantage to continuing litigation because it would really expose the facts.”
I don’t call him Gov. BridgeFail because I’m mean, I call him that because eventually we’re going to learn that negligence by the state killed those people.
Eventually.
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Pat Pheifer:
The Ramsey County attorney’s office said Friday that it has hired an outside expert to inspect Koua Fong Lee’s 1996 Toyota that was involved in a June 2006 crash that ultimately killed three people in St. Paul.
The office also has asked officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to participate in the inspection.
Assistant County Attorney Phil Carruthers said it could take “a few weeks” to coordinate schedules and bring Wade Bartlett, a forensic mechanical engineer, to the Twin Cities to inspect the Camry that has been sitting in the St. Paul police impound lot for more than three years.
“The game plan is to get on this pretty soon,” Bartlett said when he was reached Friday at his home in New Hampshire.
Pretty soon? I guess it’s never a rush when you’re not the one sitting in prison.
Free Koua Fong Lee now, test the car later. The sentence was clearly disproportionate and Lee has already served more time than any crime related to that crash would justify. Drunks who kill don’t serve that much time.
And they’re still setting the bar impossibly high.
Neither Carruthers nor County Attorney Susan Gaertner would speculate on the impact of any new evidence or the car inspection.
“To date, we have received nothing from Mr. Schafer,” Gaertner said. “We read about, along with everyone else, what he says to the media, but we haven’t seen any evidence.
In other words, Lee’s attorneys will be expected to prove what no one’s been able to prove: that Toyota’s experience sudden acceleration.
Stalling. Stalling until this summer when people are up at the lakes. For reasons that will not vary one iota from the evidence now available.
The right thing to do would be to free Koua Fong Lee, putting Gov. BridgeFail and Lt. Governor InspectionCutbacks in prison to serve his time until both the Snelling Exit Ramp and the I-35 Bridge Collapse mysteries are solved.
That would be the kind of rough justice I could live with.
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Justice deferred, econo-links:
Bob Herbert on A Ruinous Meltdown
Publicly owned banks — fuck yeah!
Boehnernomics
WINston’s video of what healthcare reform may look like
Justice deferred, Jesus style:
Pope apologizes for having to apologize for something he’s not apologizing for and God forbid he accept any Irish bishops’ resignations because it’s really society that’s to blame (forgiveness is for suckers, smart young boys know how to get into heaven….)
Ignoring the shrinks
Justice served, Texas style:
Death Row inmate’s last request? A DNA test
Justice served, of some sort:
Man shot Murder Incorporated style while sitting in a barber’s chair
Original owners of 2006 Toyota models report very high vehicle reliability according to an independent survey by J. D. Power and Associates. The survey, which is used throughout the world, asked 46,000 original owners of new vehicles about hundreds of possible reliability issues that could occur.
Toyota boasts one of the best records for fewest problems reported, with Toyota coming in at #4 and Toyota-owned Lexus Division #3.
Toyota Rated Near Top In Vehicle Reliability - Fewest Problems
I see headlines like, Stocks climb after Fed pledges to hold rates low, and it’s hard not to think that the real hed should have been, Hostages released after the terrorists’ demands were met.
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Kucinich did what the prOg bloggers wanted him to do, so today they’re beating him up all over again for having been the nail that stuck out.
I don’t use the DFH nomenclature popular among lefty bloggers, but in this case it’s hard not to see this as the pro-corporate bloviators kicking dirty fucking hippies while we’re down.
It does get old, and for me, it’s past tiresome. If lefties never get to win any battles despite providing more than our share of cannon fodder, it’s time for us to find a new party, a party of convenience from which we can endorse real Democrats but go galt on the saggy assed poseurs who keep talking the talk while walking Wall Street’s walk.
Am I trying to destroy the Democratic party? No more so than Alan Simpson will destroy the Republicans.
“Alan Simpson’s a great guy, but he’s not going to bring along Republican votes on Capitol Hill,” said Vin Weber, a former congressman from Minnesota who was part of a younger generation of Reagan-era tax-cutters. “He’s always been a Republican that would be willing to raise taxes, but that’s not where today’s Republican Party is.”
The faux Republican party has all but destroyed the Lincoln brand. Simpson’s a true conservative, and no one hates Fox News/Rush style faux Republicans like a real conservative does. From Wikipedia:
Simpson’s father, Milward Simpson, also served in the Senate and was among six Republican members who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on constitutional grounds. Alan Simpson, however, has been an outspoken advocate for access to abortion, gay and lesbian rights, and equality for all persons regardless of race, color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation. In an article in the Washington Post, the former senator wrote an article criticizing the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy stating ” ‘Gay’ is an artificial category that says little about a person. Our differences and prejudices pale next to our historic challenge.”
In 2001, Simpson became Honorary Chairman of the Republican Unity Coalition (RUC), a gay/straight alliance within the Republican Party. In this capacity, Simpson personally recruited President Gerald R. Ford to serve on the RUC’s Advisory Board.
He’s not one of us, but he’s not one of the current crop of them, either.
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From the comments, a link to UAW Local 2244’s president’s statement regarding Toyota’s plant closure in California.
I can’t fault Toyota for stealing a page from Corporate Team USA’s playbook, but conditioning workers’ final pay settlement on the union shutting the fuck up is, to put it mildly, upsetting.
One of the most important reforms this country needs is legislation clarifying that no contract, settlement or judgment can be sealed.
Privacy is not a judiciary value.
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You know who I really feel sorry for? Catholic Boy Scouts from Ireland.
“The Boy Scouts of America actually set back the child abuse prevention movement in this country, held it back, because of their secrecy,” Kelly Clark, a lawyer for Lewis, said in opening arguments.
Parts of the files have emerged in other lawsuits, and officials with the Boy Scouts, based in Irving, Texas, have previously acknowledged concealing some abuse. But in court on Wednesday, Chuck Smith, a lawyer for the Boy Scouts, said the files — sometimes called “the red-flag file” or the “confidential files” — showed that the group had been ahead of national trends in tracking abuse, and he said the files had been kept confidential only to protect victims….
Clark said the files, which were not made public on Wednesday, showed that national and regional scout leaders had allowed troop leaders and volunteers to work with scouts for years after complaints arose that they had abused children, sometimes even after they had been convicted of sexual abuse. He said evidence would show claims of abuse as early as the 1920s.
It’s very difficult for me to imagine why any Boy Scout files would need to be shrouded in secrecy.
And these claims are about the historical BSA organization. Now that all control has been ceded to batshit insane Christianists, this situation can only be getting worse.
It does not matter that the founders of the movement, including Baden-Powell himself, had little interest in promoting religion beyond a very generalized belief in a Supreme Being, a fact that should make it as easy for the Boy Scouts as the Girl Scouts to change the oath (in practice, if not in wording) from a belief in God to a belief in a Supreme Being. The religious conservatives who control the national office of the Boy Scouts see themselves as important troops in the culture wars. If religion, masculinity, and citizenship are as tangled as the rhetoric of the Boy Scouts and others seems to make them and if, as so many historians and social critics have suggested, there is evidence everywhere of a “crisis in white masculinity,” a status revolution in which white males feel like the beleaguered class, then it makes sense that the men running the Boy Scouts see the atheists and their ACLU lawyers as agents of an assault upon masculinity and whiteness (symbolized by certain European religions and the very American religion of Mormonism). The link between white masculinity and religion at century’s end explained why the Boy Scouts would not make this compromise, while the Girl Scouts would; the Girl Scouts, quite simply, have no stake in the masculinity part of the tangle.
See also Natzinger’s letter, coming soon to a Catholic apologist near you.
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A Gazan rocket killed a Thai worker in Israel this morning. As usual, the NYTimes doesn’t mention the aggregated body count. American news media never does.
GAZA — A foreign worker in Israel was killed Thursday by a rocket fired from the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory of Gaza, according to the Israeli military, soon after the European Union’s top foreign policy official arrived here on a rare visit by such a high-ranking official.
The foreign agricultural worker, who the Israeli military said was from Thailand, was the first fatality from Gaza rocket fire since the end of a three-week Israeli military offensive into Gaza in January 2009. Israel said the primary purpose of its military campaign was to halt years of rocket fire from Gaza against southern Israel.
The Times of London doesn’t mince any words about the attack, but they do provide actual context:
A radical Palestinian group with suspected ties to al-Qaeda killed a worker in southern Israel today when it fired a rocket from the Gaza Strip, just as Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the EU’s deputy foreign policy chief, was visiting the blockaded territory.
The rocket killed a Thai immigrant worker at a farming community just across the heavily guarded Gaza border, Israeli medical officials said.
Lady Ashton was visiting UN facilities in the coastal enclave, which was hard hit in a war 14 months ago when Israel launched a major offensive to try to stamp out constant rocket fire by Hamas, who rule the territory, and other militant groups.
Despite the fragile ceasefire that resulted from the conflict, in which around 1,400 Palestinians and a dozen Israelis were killed, there has been sporadic rocket fire from Gaza, although usually without causing any casualties.
The claim by the Ansar al-Sunna brigades was significant, as aid workers and analysts have been warning that the dire conditions in Gaza – under tight Israeli and Egyptian blockade for three years, and devastated by the war – were spawning a new generation of even more radical Islamists with ties to al-Qaeda.
Hamas, which Israel and the West classify as a terrorist group, is considered by the new breed of radicals to be too moderate and not enforce strict enough Islamic codes.
The London Times has no kind words for Hamas yet they successfully convey the lopsided nature of the dispute. 1,400 dead Palestinians versus 11 Jews and one Thai. Those are numbers that explain all you need to know about what’s going on in Gaza.
Then again, the London Times didn’t base its report on what Israel’s military told them. The NYTimes finds space to write about how many rockets have been fired so far this year, but doesn’t even acknowledge that the first 29 generated no casualties. The NYTimes doesn’t speak truth to power, at least not to NY Jews.
It’s like firing a gun into the sky. Sooner or later someone will get hit, but I have yet to hear of a single Israeli bulldozer ever missing its target.
To be continued.
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Etc.:
Perfect hashbrowns made with butter (actually, olive oil is easier and healthier)
Kraft cutting salt by 10% (which means their canned goods and processed meats now only have 4x as much salt as you need)
Sholom Rubashkin’s sentencing date set
78 ill from Shigella outbreak at a Chicago area Subway
ChiTrib on neti pots
Monsanto’s patent on Roundup Ready seed expires in 2014, and Monsanto has responded by jacking seed prices up 64%
How Wellpoint turned $30 million into $6.2 million
Harold Meyerson on the mess that is California
Details on the beating Bernie Madoff got in prison
Ken fucking Cuccinelli
The Scientology diet
Why sane people don’t go on Fox
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Btw, it’s not the Daylight Savings time. The Wolves have been out west and I’ve been staying up late to watch their games.
No, there’s no excuse for that. Not the way the Wolves have been playing.
Corporate Greed Gone Global. Toyota Sales & Marketing Spin Control at Congressional hearings today; rings of criminal negligence.
By D. Maradei Ugel
February 23, 2010
I find it interesting that some say Mr. Lentz was the wrong man to be answering questions at today’s hearing because he’s not equipped to answer the questions that relevantly pertain to “manufacturing”.
I beg to differ with that opinion; Who better to send then a Sales/Marketing expert. Sales & Marketing is essentially one of the major area’s wherein Toyota was in my opinion criminally negligent. Mr. Lentz more or less has opened himself up to be crucified because he was made aware of the acceleration issues in europe years prior to having complaints in the U.S. The complaints reported to Toyota in the U.S. increased 400% yet for the most part it appears that they were not only negligent in denying the issue to consumers for almost 10 years, but in doing so they were in my opinion “criminally negligent”. Choosing to ignore the deaths caused by their product to consumers in the U.S. when they were fully aware of the issues is what makes it criminal.
Toyota’s failure to test specific cars that were part of a fatality is yet another blatant example of their lack of sincere concern to the public’s safety. Mr. Lentz made so many excuses it almost seemed as if I was watching Saturday Night Live; it was that bad. Mr. Lentz is a marketing expert and this is a marketing & sales disaster of their own creation.
Mr. Lentz gave the impression that he has no power over manufacturing and no power when it comes to his position in terms of making the kinds of changes and tests that were necessary to significantly correct the issues. Mr. Lentz implies that those choices are made by “higher ups” at Toyota in Japan.
Mr. Lentz responded so many times when asked a question that , “he didn’t know”. So much in fact, that it was transparent and obvious he was holding back more fully detailed answers; that he surely had to be aware of considering his position with Toyota over the last 4 years.
This isn’t sales or marketing in the sense that we would normally think of it in terms of selling automobiles. This is sales & marketing to congress and the American people as a whole. This is the selling of pure horse shit. It will boil down to “what did they know” & “when did they know it” and Mr. Lentz has already admitted that they were aware of the acceleration issues in europe long before they were reported here in the U.S.
I have no doubt Mr. Lentz is answerable to the heads in Japan, however at the end of the day, the neglect of this company and their representatives is nothing short of criminal. The choice to willfully endanger the public, resulting in the deaths of some and life long injury to others which will require life long medical care; this lack of corporate conscience is what I see to be the most criminally liable of all.
Mr. Lentz continually made promises that they would test this or that, and they would create this group for quality control for such things, and they would test the cars that were part of fatalities . The overwhelming question is why haven’t these things been done already? Why are they in the process of creating these things when in fact they should have done so back in November 2009 at the latest and yet it is nearly March of 2010.
Mr. Lentz made many excuses, lack of knowledge, lack of authority and power to affect changes on his authority alone and if this is true then there should be some sort of correspondence that reflects his attempts to passionately persuade & encourage the heads in Japan to make the appropriate tests and changes here in the U.S. for the safety of the public
I have a friend in Orange County, California that had the acceleration issue on the 2001 or 2002 Lexus which caused the death of the passenger and resulted in life in a wheelchair for my friend.
My personal belief is that when an individual such as Mr. Lentz, accepts a position with a company it is their choice. If the company is endangering the public welfare of their consumers, Mr. Lentz should have blown the whistle or left the company rather then choose to be part of such “inaction” on the part of those in power. When Mr. Lentz reported issues & test results to Japan’s Toyota corporate heads and became aware they were not going address the issues, but choose to deny and ignore them instead; this is where their actions including Mr. Lentz ; become morally and ethically corrupt.
There are some who say that we should not be so quick to judge until all of the evidence is in. However based on the testimony of Mr. Lentz today it seems clearly evident that Toyota was aware of the problems and complaints and they chose to deny the issues. As a company Toyota has blatantly refused to act in a moral and ethical capacity and failure to do so, in a timely manner has cost additional harm to the public safety and further hardship and pain to the families that have suffered a loss due to Toyota’s greed.
At the end of the day, this companies greed cost human lives and that in my opinion, is neglect by choice and that in and of itself is criminal corporate behavior. Toyota’s prolonged denial and willingness to continue to endanger the public in my mind, is nothing short of criminal, resulting in the loss of human life, pain and suffering and they should be dealt with and prosecuted as an example to other corporate greed mongers in the future.
After watching today’s Toyota Hearings with Jim Lentz, President & Cheif Operating Officer of U.S. Toyota; whose primary background, based on his statements today, is Sales & Marketing; There were many things that were glaringly apparent as I watched muttering to myself during the entire hearing.
