Those little rubber bracelets that decorate the wrists of everyone from Lance Armstrong fans to women fighting breast cancer have shown up at Ford Motor Company world headquarters. At the Glass House in Dearborn, execs are wearing blue rings around their wrists, stamped with the words “red, white, and bold.” The Detroit Free Press says the rings are one way the company is trying to rally its workers behind the latest turnaround plan at the world’s third-largest automaker. Earlier this year the company distributed similar bands at their display stand at the Frankfurt auto show; Dodge did the same this year for its launch of the Charger sedan.

Kia's new Detroit concept is called the Soul - fitting for a car shaking its moneymaker in Motown, despite being born in Seoul. We embrace Kia's almost total lack of ironic awareness in its nomenclature.

The AFA is resuming its shopworn threats of a boycott of Ford, now that the company has done the morally correct thing and decided it will advertise to whichever consumers will buy its products. How many Promise Keepers own XKR convertibles, anyway? Blessed are the Christians who see through a political grab guised as religion.

Nissan's deepest, darkest Urge will surface at the Detroit auto show. The big surprise is that that Urge is actually Carlos Ghosn's letter-writing campaign to keep Alias on the air after this season is over.

Okay, so last year we thought it would be a good idea to run a story on the Camaro concept coming to Detroit next month. Now that every other Web site has the story, should we tell you which one has dead-nuts accurate photos of the concept? Nah - you'll just have to come back here in a couple of weeks for the story.

Meanwhile, some other Web sites are taking credit for the TCC scoop about Mazda's Kabura concept we told you about before the Tokyo motor show. If you saw it here first, you'll know where you saw it first. Right?

Audi's taking the bold step of running a diesel-powered car at Le Mans. Peugeot will do the same in 2007, but for a year, Audi will have the green title all to itself.

It's Howard Stern's last day on free radio, kids. Warm up the Sirius tuner or be consigned to a morning commute sans strippers, uncomfortable ethnic epithets and the longest commercial breaks you've ever experienced.

And on an up note to end the week, used Porsche Boxster prices have finally sunk below the magic $20,000 barrier. Get psyched, bring checkbooks!

Will Ford ultimately have to choose between gay rights groups and Christian conservatives?

Don't bet on it. The automaker figures to try and play a waiting game as the two sides fight over which gets to claim victory with the beleaguered automaker in the middle.

It all started when the American Family Association (AFA), which is in favor of family units of its own choosing, organized a boycott of Ford products because the automaker has a gay-friendly human resources policy that provides benefits for domestic partners and has supported gay media and gay organizations with sponsorship money. Specifically, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo have supported gay media and advocacy groups with ads and sponsorships.

Last week, the AFA dropped the boycott and took down its boycott Web site when it learned that Jag and Land Rover had dropped a sponsorship of a gay advocacy group's annual awards dinner and a few media buys—despite the fact that Volvo has no intention of dropping gay media from its ad schedule.

The move sent a mixed message to the marketplace. Senior Ford executives met with the leadership of national gay and lesbian organizations on Monday in Washington, D.C., to try and quell anger and concern on the part of gay special interest groups that had counted Ford as a supporter. "We have asked that Ford repudiate its relationship with this extremist group, reinstate its advertising of Jaguar and Land Rover and continue investing in organizations working for equality," Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest U.S. gay rights organization, said in a statement after the meeting.

Ford had hoped that it could quiet the AFA by pointing out the dropped ad buys by Jag and Land Rover, which executives said was part of its 2006 business plan anyway, and not anger the gay advocacy groups with Volvo's continued support.

But it isn't working. The AFA is claiming victory, hollow as it is. And the right-wing group has the appearance of victory on its side. The only way HRC gets to snatch victory back is by getting Ford to do something overt now to show support for the gay community---like Volvo picking up the slack on the sponsorships Jag and Land Rover vacated. Ford, Lincoln and Mercury have not been advertisers in gay media.

Ford executives are sticking to official statements. "We value all people -- regardless of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and cultural or physical differences," Ford Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr. said in a statement released after the meeting with gay rights groups. Indeed, privately, Ford executives say they do not value the AFA, nor what it has tried to do. But dealers, feeling pressure from already falling sales, asked Ford Motor Co. to meet with the AFA and get them to drop the boycott.

The AFA had insisted that Ford stop donating cash and vehicles to gay causes and stop endorsing activities such as gay pride celebrations. The AFA has warned it could reinstate its boycott if its demands that Ford stop supporting gay causes are not met.

The whole debacle could force Ford to choose sides, or face a restart of the boycott by January, just when the car company will be busy laying out its "Way Forward" restructuring plan, which it hopes will please analysts and investors and restore profitability to its auto business.

The AFA has also tried to pressure other companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Walt Disney Co. with little success. In May, for example, the AFA ended a nine-year boycott of The Walt Disney Co. over Disney's decision to extend benefits to same-sex couples and promote gay-related events at its theme parks. The boycott appeared to have little effect, since Disney reported higher earnings and increased theme park attendance during that time.—Jim Burt

I've been driving for 59 years and the other day I observed something I'd never seen before: red "quarantine" tags on gas pumps at a neighborhood BP station near my home in suburban Detroit.

Upon inspection, it seemed the tags were from the Michigan Dept. of Weights and Measures. The tags declared the pumps had been tested that day and found to be inaccurate. The station was given, as I recall, five days to correct the problem. A State of Michigan truck was parked in the gas station.

I drove away to a neighbor "unquarantined" station to fill for a penny more ($2.099 vs. $2.089), but the event was something new in my experience and caused me to ponder. A day or so later, I noticed that red tags still were attached to some pumps at the offending station.

The message here is to be wary of retail gas operators who cheat, either deliberately or through faulty equipment. But how can you tell if a pump is rigged to charge you for drawing off more gas than actually flowed? I don't think the motorist can, which is why states have weights-and-measures cops with measuring devices.

Of course, gas stations have their problems, too. There have been scattered reports of "driveaways" in the metropolitan area, especially when gas exceeded $3 per gallon for a period right after Katrina. If the driver of a full-sized van with 42-gallon dual tank capacity, like the Econoline Club Wagons I used to have, drove off without paying, he'd be guilty of a felony for exceeding the customary $100 threshold.

A mirrored problem with pricey gas is siphoning theft. I once caught a bunch of kids filling their outboard boat's tank from my '55 Plymouth, and that was when gas was 25 cents a gallon, so it's all relative. A quarter-century ago, after the Iranian Revolution induced a gas crisis, there was a big movement to equip cars with locking gas caps or filler doors. The need or demand seemed to wither away in subsequent years, although many vehicles still have the feature as standard. One wonders if locking caps will make a comeback. In the short run, that's a need that aftermarket auto supply stores ought to be able to fill.—Mike Davis

Here's an official illustration released this morning by Ford, trumpeting the January debut of its new crossover, the Edge. Ford promises the Edge will come with its new 3.5-liter V-6 and a six-speed automatic transmission in a thinly worded release. Left unsaid: Does the "E" name mean the Edge should be considered a truck, unlike the lame-duck Freestyle? And does the six-speed automatic mean Ford's CVT experiment is heading to the same scrap heap? Tell us what you think by clicking on the "comments" tab below.