Utterly Off Topic Wednesday: Saying Goodbye to Five Star Service in Trenton

I am not now, nor have I ever been, an Obama supporter.

But I grow more incredulous daily as I read about the strange and terrible things that are happening in this country I love since he became President.

Like the closing of Chrysler dealerships.

We have a dealership here locally - in fact, I bought my 2000 Chrysler minivan from them. Since 1972, Irv Roth's Hamilton Chrysler has provided Mercer County, NJ with Five Star Service.

Big deal, what is a Five Star dealership, anyway? According to the home page of Quinn Chrysler Dodge in Bartlesville, OK:

In order to make that claim, the dealership must comply with the Five Star quality program as set forth by Chrysler. It should be noted that there are no official one, two, three, or four star Chrysler dealerships.

To qualify, a Chrysler dealership must:
- Contact every sales and service customer for feedback after the sale or service.
- Survey dealership employees on a regular basis.
- Act on feedback given by customers and employees.
- Maintain high survey ratings.
- Provide training to employees.
- Keep the dealership grounds up to standards.

The Chrysler Five Star quality program has no outside source of certification, and is handled completely within Chrysler. Chrysler pushes its dealers to create a continuous cycle of improvement and measurement in order to counter customer dissatisfaction. The benefit to the consumer is that they can rely on the Five Star program to ensure that they are purchasing products and services from a dealership that has met the rigorous requirements of the program and is focused on customer satisfaction. The benefit to Chrysler is increased quality and satisfaction reports, increased profits, customer retention, and improved relations with their high-standard dealerships. The benefit to the dealership includes increased satisfaction reports, increased profits, customer retention, access to the Chrysler lead generation program, and access to additional incentives for sales.

Well, no problem, then. Hamilton Chrysler has been this, and more, since at least 1987 when I moved into the area. They have an A+ rating with the BBB. So I was fairly certain that they would not be on the chopping block when I heard that Chrysler was closing dealerships. So I was stunned - and mystified - to discover that they were closing after all. Why??

Hot Air reports some strange goings-on in the continuing saga of the Chrysler dealerships that are being abruptly shut down in just about two weeks.

Actually, Hot Air's post references Doug Ross @ Journal, who asks "does it seem odd that the list of closed dealerships appears to have contributed a grand total of $200 to Barack Obama and millions to GOP candidates/causes?"

Please tell me you are kidding.

By the way, I don't have any idea who Mr. Roth or the folks at Quinn Chrysler may or may not have supported. But if these allegations are true, this bodes ill for our beloved country. It's Nixon's enemies list all over again. The list in question actually reveals that these dealers did not support only Republican candidates, but any candidate other than Obama.

If this doesn't upset you, it should. This is just one more evidence that dissent is being stifled in this country. Where is the press? I have not heard a whisper of this in the mainstream press.

Why are Americans not fighting back? Are we asleep? Or worse, are we dead already?

Democrats' Next Target: the Internet

Democrat Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia has introduced two senate bills that may severely regulate traffic on the Internet.The Canadian Free Press explains it this way: The White House will have new powers to access private online data, regulate the cyber security industry and even shut down Internet traffic.

From the article: "When most of us think of Big Brother, we think it would be some invasive government device coming in to our house with a camera and a screen like 1984. But this law makes me realize it will be much more subtle and sinister than that, at first at least. Right now Citizens of the USA are voluntarily inputing, creating and surrendering their "private" information for Big Brother, and they don't even realize it! Everyone who has "private information" and "private messages" and "private images" and "private friends" in their "private" facebook, my space or any other social website, will have their privacy invaded with this new law. Even if a citizen uses every security feature of the website available, to keep people they don't know from viewing their "private" information, they will not truly have privacy because government can enter. Also every medical record that the government wants on the internet will be subject to privacy invasion as well. Perhaps all e-mail services too?"

A must read, if you value the internet.

read more | digg story

The Civic Impact of College - Part One

Are you more knowledgeable than the average citizen?

Our Fading Heritage is the third major study conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute on the kind of knowledge required for informed citizenship.

Its conclusions are appalling. But lets look at the background.

In 2006 and 2007, 14000 college freshmen and seniors were given a multiple-choice quiz containing 60 basic questions about America - the kind of stuff high school seniors and new citizens are expected to know.

The kind of stuff homeschoolers eat for breakfast.

In both years, both groups utterly failed. And worse, the seniors only had a 1.5% advantage over the freshmen. So, basically, this means that after spending a fortune on college, the students do not gain any appreciable knowledge about America's unique form of self-government. Moreover, the more prestigious the college, the LESS likely the seniors were to know more than freshmen about government, economics, American History, and foreign affairs.

This year, ISI decided to take it to the streets. They asked a random sample of American adults to answer a basic test of only 33 multiple choice civics questions, plus a few other additional questions, then analyzed the data in such a way that enabled them to compare the "civic impact of college with other societal factors."

In other words, do colleges help our students become better citizens?

Now for the appalling part. The answer is a resounding NO.

• 71% of Americans fail the test
• Fewer than half of all Americans can name the three branches of government
• Only 24% of college graduates know that the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of an official religion in the US
• Only 54% can identify a basic description of our free enterprise system
• Elected Officials score even lower than the general public

Thirty percent of elected officials do not know that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps this is the reason we have gotten into such a mess.

You can read the whole sad story at the ISI website.

If you are very brave, why don't you take the test yourself and see whether you are more knowledgeable than the average citizen?

Then contrast this with the good news about homeschooling and civics education Homeschooling Grows Up, a report by the National Center for Home Education about behaviors of adults who were homeschooled. According to this report, 76% of those 18-24 have voted in a state or national election within the previous 5 years, compared to 29% of the general US population, and a staggering 95% of those 25-29 have voted versus 40% of the general population.

Now, in the wake of the Obama campaign and his subsequent election, those statistics are probably no longer accurate as far as sheer numbers of younger voters in the general populace are concerned, though a case could still be made about whether those who voted could be considered "informed citizens."

Large numbers of young white voters from elite colleges voted for Obama. Tomorrow's post will examine some interesting information about the "civic impact of elite colleges."

Utterly Off Topic Wednesday: Obama Won - Now what?

The Onion takes a fantastically lighthearted look at something that many of us noticed in all seriousness during the campaign.

Tell the truth - didn't you know at least ONE (hundred?) Obama supporters who didn't respond to reason, facts or anything at all that contradicted their Obama obsession?

What are these people going to do now?


Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Utterly Off Topic Wednesday: Trick or Treat?