It required a horrifying ignorance of history to write this. Also present are depressing levels of dumbassedness about art, economics, math, psychology, management, cause and effect, music, political science, human motivation, human rights, climate, agriculture, science, culture, and individualism.
If I have the time, I'm going to Fisk every sentence. The Communists made the Nazis look like amateurs.
In the meantime, check out this book.
The Black Book Of Communism. If I can get contact for Jesse Myerson, I'm going to mail him a copy. For the good of the human race.
I've given up on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for coverage of anything remotely controversial. I don't think they want to irritate the one little old lady who still puts her garage sale notices in their classifieds.
Sports scores? The betting line on the Super Bowl? If my cell phone can't pick up Google, I'll buy a Star-Telegram for that info.
Here's where I've been finding myself going for local news lately: The Star-Telegraph.
For instance....If you live in Fort Worth, you're probably aware that JD Granger and his Mama are trying to fleece the taxpayers via a multi-billion dollar "flood control" project.
Here's what The Star-Telegraph had to say about the Flood Control Wakeboard Park after our recent heavy rains. (And I can't find a word in the Star-Telegram about this):
The Cowtown Wakeboard park, part of the Trinity River Vision "flood" control project in Fort Worth, failed to save anyone from flooding today. Apparently, it couldn't even save itself.
The Trinity River took back the wakeboard park. And left a sign of just how clean the river is. Remember that when they invite you to Tube the Trinity during the Rockin' the River events brought to you by the Trinity River Vision Authority and the Tarrant Regional Water District.
With all the flooding footage today, WHY did you not see any of the wakeboard park? Ask. While you're at it, ask what it cost YOU and what it's going to cost YOU to repair it. After all, it's YOUR money.
Here's another for instance.... We've also been burdened with a Flood Control Bar-B-Que Joint.
Was there open bidding between restaurants for this prime real estate? Did the city give notice that some Flood Control Restaurants could open on the banks of the Trinity?
Hell to the No.
Here's DFW.COM on the sweetheart deal that celebrity chef Tim Love got for his new restaurant, The Wood Shed:
Love and the Trinity River Vision Authority have taken some heat because the TRVA signed a 10-year lease with Love without open bidding. But Love says he hopes the restaurant, located just west of University Drive not far from Hoffbrau Steaks, will help open the door for other restaurants along the river.
"I've gotten beat up a little bit in the last couple of months," he continues. "But I'm trying to make [the river area] better. When I did the lease, I said, 'I want to do something for the river.' Somehow that backfired on me. I thought people would be excited about the fact that they could come here and drink a beer and 6 percent of it goes back to the [district]. I mean, that's pretty cool."
I could spend the rest of the morning dissecting that quote, but work beckons. "I want to do something for the river????" Good Lord in heaven, Tim, they spent $970,000.00 in public money to build your Bar-B-Que joint !!!!!
"Ask not what you can do for your river. Ask why I'm having to build your freakin' restaurant for you." - not John F. Kennedy
After behind-the-scenes negotiations, without public input or competitive bidding, the Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD) has spent $970,000 of public money to build a restaurant near a popular trail head along the Trinity River. Along the way, the Water District signed a 10-year lease with celebrity chef Tim Love to run it, without a competitive bidding process.....
Instead of paying rent on the building, the Woodshed will pay a percentage of its total sales to the TRVA. According to the lease, the Woodshed would pay the Water District 6 percent on its first $500,000 of sales, 5 percent on the next $500,000 and 4 percent on sales of more than $1,000,001. Love is also responsible for utilities, maintenance and upkeep of the building.
The lease was drafted and approved by Ken Brummett, the water district’s general counsel, but not voted on by the district’s board.....
Board member Jim Lane denies there’s anything untoward about the deal.
“People say there’s no transparency but there is plenty of transparency,” he said. “Other restaurateurs were contacted and no one had any interest until Tim Love stepped up. I’m sorry other restaurateurs feel, now, that they didn’t get a chance to be part of that. But we’ve been discussing this for a long time.”
Other restauranteurs were contacted? Did Jim Lane decide which ones would be contacted? The Massion on Turtle Creek? Tavern on The Green? Whose clientele is so high-toned that they would turn down something like this?
That's not the way it is supposed to work. Was there a public notice that a restaurant spot was going to be available? Can you imagine the feeding frenzy that would have erupted with legit businesses competing for that site?
The Fort Worth Stock show didn't produce this much bullshit.
If you live in Fort Worth, you GAVE Tim Love a restaurant.
If you live in Fort Worth, you're giving the Grangers a billion dollar boondoggle.
It really is that simple.
A blog and a freebie mag are the only ones to criticize the travesty.
The last three Democrat adminstrations have produced three Nobel Peace prize winners.
Carter/Mondale - Carter won it, and then went off into full-time Foreign Policy interference.
Clinton/Gore - Gore won it, and then went off to be a Green Scam Billionaire.
Obama/Biden - Obama won the Peace Prize, and then went off to bomb the crap out of Libya, get involved in Pakistan, and then carefully maintain the other wars that we had on our plate.
So....There's long been talk of replacing Biden on the 2012 ballot with someone who is marginally sane. Now there's talk of replacing Obama on the 2012 ballot with someone who is marginally electable.
If this happens, and the new Democrate Duo happens to win, is the Nobel automatically awarded to one of the new Statists? Should it be, just to save time?
Please enjoy this terrifying propaganda piece while contemplating the following info from Don Surber:
Today in settled science: A bird expert sees blobs in a photo, and promptly declares polar bears headed to extinction.
Remember the U.S. government report report five years ago that polar bears were drowning? Kassie Siegel, director of the U.S.-based Center for Biological Diversity, cited the report in her call to place the polar bear on the endangered species list. Never mind that we now have 5 times as many polar bears today than we did 50 years ago. We must take action immediately. Based on one report. Because that’s how science works. One report is all it takes to leap to a conclusion that may cost society billions.
In December 2006, Kassie Siegel told the Ottawa Citizen: “This is a watershed decision in the way this country deals with climate change. The science of global warming and the impact to polar bears are so clear that not even the Bush administration can deny that polar bears are threatened with extinction because of global warming.”
Well, it turns out that report was likely crap. The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of the Interior is investigating the veracity of the report.
From the Independent: “The 2006 report from American wildlife researchers Jeffrey Gleason and Charles Monnett told of dead bears floating in the Arctic Ocean in 2004, apparently drowned, and focused attention on the vulnerability of the animals to the melting of the Arctic ice, which they need for hunting. Widespread references were made to the dead bears and they figured in the film An Inconvenient Truth, made by Al Gore to highlight the risks of global warming.”
Drowning polar bears made no sense since polar bears are sturdy swimmers. But then considering Jeffrey Gleason is an avian biologist, perhaps the researchers did not know that. In July, the government suspended Charles Monnett from his job as an Arctic wildlife biologist at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, a Department of the Interior agency. He has since returned to work.
But Jeffrey Gleason now faces a lie detector test to determine his integrity, the London newspaper reported. Jeffrey Gleason’s lawyer, Jeff Ruch, told the Independent: “There appears to be kind of a desperate, almost fierce nature to pursue this until they find something.”
ERIC MAY: When you did take the photos, were you able to tell what they were?
JEFFREY GLEASON: Most of the time, yeah. We saw some dead polar bears at one time, and it was pretty obvious with the naked eye what it was. But the pictures, they just kind of turned out to be a white blob in the photos. And I can’t remember, we probably took three or four pictures, and it’s sort of white blob floating in the ocean, so it’s pretty hard to tell.
ERIC MAY: Dead polar bears, how far off the land were you?
JEFFREY GLEASON: I can’t remember. We published a paper on that as well, 20 to 50 kilometers I suppose.
And there was this:
JEFFREY GLEASON: And it was not just the dead polar bears that was of interest to us, but it was the number of swimming polar bears and the distance we observed some of those polar bears offshore. And we went back, you know, you noted at the time and I was pretty curious. So we went back into the database, which is, you know, 30 years of records, and it was the most swimming polar bears that had been observed and the distances. And there were no records of any dead polar bears floating out there.
You start thinking about probabilities, detection probabilities, which is basically what is the potential that I’ll actually observe an individual on these surveys, on these transects. It’s not like you’re covering the entire ocean. It’s a needle in a haystack. And when you start thinking about seeing a swimming polar bear or a dead polar bear out in the middle of an ocean from an aircraft moving that fast, covering roughly an observation transect of maybe a mile, half a mile out of each window under ideal conditions, it’s staggering what the potential is. I mean, it’s really low.
So when we started putting it together, that particular paper, there was a windstorm that came up. I’m trying to remember how that fell out that year. There was a windstorm. We had done some survey work about three days prior, and there was about three days of very strong winds. And we had seen these animals swimming offshore that last survey. And then, following that windstorm, it was pretty calm, and that’s when we saw the dead ones.
ERIC MAY: So is that what attributed to them dying?
JEFFREY GLEASON: We attributed it to that. Of course, we have no way to determine actual cause of death. We can’t pick them up. There’s no way. But given the distances and the number of polar bears we saw preceding the storm, and then the dead polar bears after the storm, it seemed probably the most parsimonious explanation for what happened.
JOHN MESKEL: The most what?
JEFFREY GLEASON: The simplest sort of rationale and reason.
So we have an expert on birds guessing that white blobs on a photo are drowned polar bears.
That’s it.
That’s the science.
He called it a parsimonious explanation. I call it Rorschach.
I have taken in a climate change refugee family of four. They were driven out of their home in the Mekong Delta because of the flooding from the melting polar ice caps.
We are working to place 8 other families, and I hope you can spread this appeal to everyone on your email list.
In the meantime, please pray for the people in the Southeastern U.S. as they begin abandoning their homes in a quest for higher ground.
Oh. Wait a minute. None of that happened. False alarm. Chill out. Never mind.
Back in 2005, the U.N.'s Chicken Little Climate Outfit put out an alarm designed to scare the crap out of everybody living less than half a mile above sea level. We were going to have 50 million climate refugees by 2010.
Fifty million climate refugees by 2010. Today we find a world of asymmetric development, unsustainable natural resource use, and continued rural and urban poverty. There is general agreement about the current global environmental and development crisis. It is also known that the consequences of these global changes have the most devastating impacts on the poorest, who historically have had limited entitlements and opportunities for growth.
Why the screen shot, instead of a link? Well, the representatives of truth at all costs decided that their predictions were a bit embarrassing and scrubbed the site. We still have this Inconvenient Truth of a relic thanks to the miracle of Google cache.
The also tried to delete the delightful map that showed which parts of the world would most likely be under water by now. With that many climatologists leaning all over each other at the U.N., you'd think that one of them would know that this stuff stays out there on the internet forever....
And here it is in full-sized hi-resolution glory, suitable for printing, slides, or coffee mugs…wherever it might be appropriate to show the folly of these boneheads.
In the month of February, the Boehner/Obama/Reid Axis Of Weevils spent $223 billion that they didn't have. Multiply that by 12 months with plenty of ups and downs, and you get a really, really big number. Something like 1.5 trillion last year.
Last night, in an episode that both factions called "historic" and "unprecedented, Congress hacked $38 billion from the budget.
$38 billion. That's all we got from about 4 months of Kabuki Theatre.
That's nothing but the interest on the current debt level for just 11 days.
If you vote for members of the Libertarian Party, the Libertarian Party will show you the government spending that is "non-essential".
The Department of Education does nothing but take tribute money from the states, swipe some off the top, and then send a portion of it back to the states with rules and regulations attached.
The Department of Energy was created by Jimmy Carter to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. They've spent billions, and the "dependence" hasn't budged, but DOE employees have increased their incomes nicely.
We have more troops in Germany than in Iraq.
We have more troops in England than we have defending the Texas border.
And it goes on and on and on and on.
Please consider the Libertarian Party. We want to march on Washington and demand.....nothing. We want less.
Environmental policy is not driven by tree-hugging activists, earnest liberal bloggers, or ecologically minded citizens. Instead, it flows from the lobbyists and executives of well-connected multinational corporations and built-for-subsidy startups that see profit in the loan guarantees, handouts, mandates, and tax credits Congress creates in the name of saving the planet.
K Street is the epicenter of this green-industrial complex, and ground zero might be the firm founded by Democratic revolving-door earmark lobbyist Steve McBee.
McBee, a former top staffer for Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and powerful House Appropriations Committee member Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., reportedly wrote key provisions in the stimulus bill to open the spigot of green corporate welfare. Also, he has hired up the Capitol Hill staff at the center of big environmental legislative pushes like cap and trade.
Exploring corporate lobbyists' central role in Obama's "green energy" push provides us two important lessons. First, it reveals as hypocritical the Democratic attack that opponents of cap and trade and other green policies are simply shills for big business.
Second, it ought to heighten our skepticism that these "green" policies are really crafted with an eye to helping the environment -- they are more likely skewed toward the bottom line of lobbied-up Big Business.
McBee's clients include SolarCity and the Green Tech Action Fund as well as electric-car maker Better Place Inc., waste-to-power company Ze-gen, and solar-power developer BrightSource Energy. But the big guys -- Boeing, JP Morgan, and Google -- also hire McBee to lobby for green-energy subsidies.
Electric car company Tesla signed on with McBee days after Obama's election, and soon won a $465 million loan guarantee to aid in building a new all-electric car.
With McBee's former boss being a senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, McBee Strategic used to be an earmark factory. After Obama's election, though, McBee pivoted to green energy and saw revenues soar in 2009.
"I attribute it to the bets we've made on clean energy and energy," he told Roll Call.
Late last year McBee hired Kathleen Frangione, described by Politico as "Sen. John Kerry's top climate staffer." You see the play: advance green legislation, then lobby for the companies trying to make money off that legislation.
Hit the link up top to read the whole thing. The pictures of the Room Cleaner (a space heater with a feather duster taped to it) and the gasoline powered alarm clock, both of which were approved as "Energy Stars" by regulators, came from here.
Ok, we've got the flags at half-mast, Barry and Michelle have stood outside the White House for their moments of silence, we've had a memorial/rally/cometogether moment in Arizona, complete with T-shirts, and I can only imagine the levels of fake emotion we're going to be exposed to at this weekend's NFL playoff games.
For the love of God....The stadium opened the concession stands for this memorial service....
How in the hell are they tying this to violent political rhetoric? Is the goal to get people to shut up while this Chicago con artist and his goons continue to loot the Treasury? Do we need to be polite and civil while pointing it out?
My employer, Jukt Micronics, uses Aetna for employee medical insurance. Our Human Resources Manager knew I would want to do something with this letter that Aetna sent him yesterday. We are about to get screwed, glued, and Bar-B-Q'd on the healthcare scam. Get ready for it.
March 24, 2010
Dear Plan Sponsor,
Yesterday, President Barack Obama signed health care reform legislation passed by the Senate in December and the House on Sunday. As a result, millions of Americans can look forward to gaining access to health insurance, a significant milestone for this country. The challenge unmet by this bill, however,is how to effectively deal with the critical issue of affordability, which has become a burden for so many people, particularly individuals and small business owners.
The phrase "The challenge unmet" is an ancient bureaucratese expression meaning "Nobody even thought about paying for it". That would also be "the challenge unmet" if we were to give everyone a yacht, a G.M. vehicle, or even a free pony. "The challenge unmet" in this bill is that it does nothing, absolutely nothing, to reduce scarcity of medical care. Therefore, "millions of Americans can look forward to" costs and prices going through what one of our salespeople recently called The Next Stratosphere.
We are aggressively working to weigh the impact of this legislation on our various businesses, customers, and members. In the meantime, the Senate is still wrestling with a “reconciliation” bill that contains “fixes” to the legislation signed by the President today.
Note the scorn quotes around the words "reconciliation" and "fixes". In other words, the Senate believes that with enough sanitizing and cleaning and sculpting and power-washing, it will be possible to pick up this turd by the clean end.
It is important to remember that most of the legislation will not go into effect until 2014 or later.
I remember going to hear Candidate Obama speak at Reunion Arena in Dallas, back in February of '08. It was inspiring, even to a skeptic. One of the phrases that Obama used was Dr. Martin Luther King's quote about "the fierce urgency of now". Whatever happened to now? If this thing is wonderful, why not now? Why the fierce urgency to delay implementation until 2014? Election cycles, anyone?
The details of implementing legislation can take months, even years to work through the regulatory process. Much of what Congress has passed will require additional regulations that will bring further clarity to this new law, and those regulations will truly shape the impact on consumers and employers.
"...that will bring further clarity..." "...that will bring further clarity..." "Those regulations will truly shape the impact on consumers and employers." "Those regulations will truly shape the impact on consumers and employers." Can clarity be furthered? Or can it only be increased or added? Can impacts be shaped? That sentence is so poorly written that it is almost unfiskable.
We will continue to play an active role in the detailed discussions during the lengthy implementation process.
Translation from bureaucratese: "We've been working with Obama to divide your carcass for about a year. We've got 30 million new customers. You're on your own. Keep them checks coming !"
Given what we know about the mandates and taxes included in the legislation,we do anticipate the likelihood of additional new costs.
No shit. I now anticipate the likelihood of Polar Bears refusing to migrate southward to Miami. I now anticipate the likelihood of compass needles pointing north. I anticipate the likelihood of....
The longer I go with it, the worse it gets. You anticipate things, and sometimes you think things are likely. Anticipate the likelihood of something is like making a bet that something is probable.
I didn't mean to become the grammar/style Nazi, but this dude is distracting me from the topic at hand, which is Obamacare. Sheesh. Say that the our prices are going to go up.Speak English.
We intend to focus our efforts in the rulemaking process to lessen the financial impact of these changes on our customers and members.
How about this: We're going to lobby for less government so you don't have to pay as much. There. Is that better? Sometimes I get wordy, but I'm usually trying to be colorful or mildly entertaining at the same time. Intend focus efforts process lessen impact....Christ almighty, I started this post thinking this guy was on my side.
Aetna plays a significant role in helping both employers and individuals meet the cost challenge. Our role won’t change with this legislation. But, as a nation, we need to come together to bring greater focus on addressing the many underlying factors that are driving soaring health care costs. When the nation inevitably turns to finding ways of reducing this alarming trend, we stand ready to help.
We will continue to keep you updated as this process moves forward.
Yes. Move the process forward. Forward moves the progress, addressing that which is focused upon, lest challenges go unmet, not just in helping, but by playing a significant role in helping when mere helping is not enough. Or something.
Sincerely,
Anonymous Bureaucrat,
Vice President of Sales and Service,
Southwest Region
If you think this is confusing, verbose, and intentionally vague, go here to see the Healthcare bill. Everyone involved in this debacle - Congressional Staffers, Insurance Execs, Legal Vultures, and Lobbyists - learned English from the same set of Taiwanese DVD player instructions.
Professor Stephen Schneider of Stanford faces an untamed journalist, apparently for the first time, at the Copenhagen Global Cooling Global Warming Climate Change Rent Seeking Conference....
Hey, this is what happens when you try to get yer science info from science sources.
From a Social Security newsletter, which can be found at SSA.GOV , entitled "What Young Workers Should Know About Social Security And Saving".
"....Because people are living longer and the birthrate is low, the ratio of workers to beneficiaries is falling. Therefore the taxes that are paid by workers will not be enough to pay the full benefit amounts scheduled.
However, this does not mean that Social Security benefit payments would disappear. Even if modifications to the program are not made, there would still be enough funds in 2041 from taxes paid by workers to pay about $780 for every $1,000 in benefits scheduled."
Consider the nerve it takes to publish a statement like that one. I'm going to take your money under false pretenses. I'm going to claim that I'll give it back to you based on a certain schedule. But I know that I'm full of crap. Everyone knows that I'm full of crap. But hey, I'm probably good for 75% of what I promised ! !
No one has the nerve to stand up and claim that I'm not full of crap, including me. But if people don't start saving more on their own, it's going to be an even bigger mess. Therefore, you must continue contributing.
And I'm going to issue press releases that show how badly screwed my system is.
Some more Global Warming/Cooling/Climate Change scientists may have been naughty.
Here's the latest update in the Tree Ring Circus (Mark Steyn's term):
The New Zealand Government's chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn't there.
The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate science is not confined to just Britain's CRU climate research centre.
In New Zealand's case, the figures published on NIWA's [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century:
Wow. Hotter than a whore in church. Hot enough to make you return things that you didn't steal. Hotter than the hinges of hell. Hotter than two bears fighting in a forest fire. Hotter than two cats in one pair of long johns. Hotter than a two dollar pistol on Georgia asphalt. Hotter than the Presbyterian hell for dead babies. It looks hot.
But what happens when you look at the raw numbers, before the guys in the white lab coats massage them to weed out politically incorrect readings ?It doesn't look as hot. In fact, the trendline looks erratic and random. Surely not hot enough to give the Hopers and Changers near-control of the rest of the economy.
I've been wrong about this ever since I started blogging, having always acknowledged that there have been wild swings in earth's temperature but denying that those swings were caused by man. Well, the swings recorded in the first chart were man-made, weren't they? Man caused the earth's recorded temperature to increase by using erasers and hitting the "delete" key on their computers, not by running factories or driving SUV's.
I apologize for my earlier hardheadedness. Man does indeed cause Global Warming. Men with doctorates, mostly.
The damage here goes far beyond the loss of a few billions of taxpayer dollars on bogus scientific research. The real cost of this fraud is the trillions of dollars of wealth that will be destroyed if a fraudulent theory is used to justify legislation that starves the global economy of its cheapest and most abundant sources of energy.
If you haven't read Ayn Rand's novella "Anthem" yet, now is a great time to do so. You can read it standing in the aisle at Barnes & Noble in about 30 minutes. One of the great moments in the book comes when you realize that the government in the story won't allow the hero to supply everyone with his new discovery - the light bulb. Why not? Because it would endanger the livelihood of the candlemakers.
It sounds so ridiculous doesn't it? But we're getting so close. Imagine all those ridiculous Green Jobs slowly circling the drain, about to disappear forever unless somebody does something to preserve the ongoing farce.
Obama is going to Copenhagen soon, to help re-invent the flat tire. The Fix is in.
Here's Al Gore on Conan O'Brien trying to explain one of the perpetual motion machines that he will soon force upon the gullible:
Here's some of the transcript, compliments of the good folks at Hot Air:
Conan: Now, what about … you talk in the book about geothermal energy … The Goracle Of Music City: Yeah, yeah. Conan: ....and that is, as I understand it, using the heat that’s generated from the core of the earth … The Goracle Of Music City: Yeah. Conan: … to create energy, and it sounds to me like an evil plan by Lex Luthor to defeat Superman. Can you, can you tell me, is this a viable solution, geothermal energy? The Goracle Of Music City: It definitely is, and it’s a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy — when they think about it at all — in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, ’cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot …
Several million degrees? Do some Googling. Maybe he was thinking of the Sun. It doesn't really matter. His heart is in the right place and he means well. Give him your money. Give him control over manufacturing, trucking, and your thermostat. Who you gonna believe, Al Gore, or a thermometer?
Can anyone really describe how badly they're going to screw this up?
Buy something from my constituents, or you're going to go to jail? (Granted, we have similar requirements on auto insurance, but that is to protect other drivers from you.)
Unbelieveable.
I'm gonna go to The Texas Motor Speedway, and watch people drive around in circles. Y'all have a good weekend.
Barack Obama, the leader of the U.S. forces killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last 261 days, has won the Nobel Peace Prize. I read something about it around 4:00 this morning, but assumed it was a send-up by The Onion or Iowahawk.
Lord have mercy, it was just a few weeks ago that The Teleprompter Jesus ordered a dozen Bunker-Busting Bombs for a potential attack on Iran. (Bunker-Busters are the most devastating weapons available without going nuclear.) Here's The Debka File:
All this urgency indicates that the Obama administration has been preparing military muscle to back up the international condemnation of Iran’s concealed nuclear bomb program, its sanctions threat and his willingness to join the negotiations with Iran opening on Oct. 1 in Geneva. Tehran may have to take into account a possible one-time surgical strike against its underground enrichment facility as a warning shot should its defiance continue. In particular, the world powers this week demanded that Iran open up all its nuclear facilities and programs to full and immediate international inspection. Failure to do so could bring forth further US military action.
I heard the folks on NPR fumbling around this morning, trying to explain the Nobel committee's decision. Even that gang of White House Sock Puppets were bewildered. They decided that it was probably awarded for Obama's desire for "Multilateral Approaches" to world conflicts. Note the dark type in the article above. I wonder if Iran is worried about France building up Bunker-Buster stockpiles.....
Everyone knew Obama would get this award, but I figured they would have the decency to wait until he was out of office, the way they did it with Jimmy Carter or The Goracle Of Music City and any other Democrats that I may have overlooked.
Unbelievable. They've given the world's highest honor to a marketing campaign. He's doing everything that Bush did - Gitmo, Two Wars, Wiretaps, etc etc etc - but he's so much nicer about it ! ! And he's willing to get France involved !
Whether our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is just or unjust, our President is the military leader in both wars. He's ordering people to kill other people. If Barack Obama has any sense of shame, he will thank the committee for their consideration and return the prize.
This is the official list of the top 10 new vehicles purchased under the Cash For Clunkers program.
1. Ford Focus 2. Honda Civic 3. Toyota Corolla 4. Toyota Prius 5. Ford Escape 6. Toyota Camry 7. Dodge Caliber 8. Hyundai Elantra 9. Honda Fit 10. Chevy Cobalt
Now that is a wholesome looking list, wouldn't you say? Except for the Ford Escape (and maybe the Civic) it reeks of earth-saving virtue. The downside is that it's the government's list you're looking at, and therefore it's total horse crap.
On a list like this, do you think it's honest to distinguish between the Ford F-150 with seats of rich Corinthian leather, and the F-150 with seats carved from the tanned, preserved buttocks of gullible Democrats? And dilute the sales of the F-150 by acting like those are two different vehicles? Should Hummers with radio stations preset to National Socialist Radio, Air America, and 1360 AM Rational Radio count as different makes and models from the Hummers with stations preset to right wing AM rants? Please stay with me. This is good stuff.
Here's the real list, according to Edmunds, a respected auto industry sales guide: 1. Ford Escape 2. Ford Focus 3. Jeep Patriot 4. Dodge Caliber 5. Ford F-150 6. Honda Civic 7. Chevrolet Silverado 8. Chevrolet Cobalt 9. Toyota Corolla 10.Cobalt Ford Fusion
Wonder why the lists look so different? Here's CNN:
For example, the Ford Escape is available in six different versions including two- and four-wheel drive and hybrid versions. The government counts each version as a different vehicle using guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency. Only the front wheel drive, non-hybrid version made the government's top ten list.
The Ford Escape crossover SUV, instead of being the seventh-most popular vehicle under the program, as the government ranked it, was actually the best seller, according to Edmunds.com. The government pegged the Ford Focus as the top seller.
But wait, there's more ! ! ! Want to get $3,500 off the price of a Hummer, virtually synonymous with gas-guzzling American excess ????
But will buying a new Hummer H-3, Chevy Suburban or Ford F-250 Super Duty pickup really reduce America's craving for crude? Somebody thinks so, because they're all eligible new cars under the Cash for Clunkers program, which gives a $3,500 to $4,500 credit to car buyers trading in older gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient cars.
But a close look at what qualifies as "more fuel efficient" in the program reveals loopholes big enough to drive a GMC Yukon through (yes, that's eligible, too.) The guidelines in the House-passed bill state that large SUVs and trucks, typically considered gas guzzlers in everyday conversation, qualify for the $3,500 credit, and in some cases the $4,500 credit, depending on the trade-ins that come through the door for them. New Category 2 trucks -- like the Hummer H-3, Ford Explorer, Chevy Silverado, and Toyota Tundra -- qualify if they get at least 15 MPG combined, and get at least one mile per gallon more than the car or truck being traded in.
This farce has nothing to do with saving the earth. This farce is about saving Detroit for one more election cycle.
The next time you see someone in a brand new Hummer, the neo-fascist military limo, stop and make conversation with him. Ask him how he likes it.
Tell him you hope he's happy with it. After all, you probably helped him buy it. Fresh coats of Whitening all around to The Agitator and The Take for the links.
I just watched The McLaughlin Group segment that ran yesterday. Eleanor Clift said that the Cash For Clunkers program was highly "succesful".
Larry Summers, who was a Free Market kind of guy until he went to work for The Teleprompter, was on Meet The Press an hour later. He pointed to the Cash For Clunkers programs as something they'd done that was "succesful".
The follow-up on Meet The Press was Harold Ford, Jr. (Mommy Party - Tennessee) and J.C. Watts (formerly Daddy Party - Oklahoma). Ford said that Cash For Clunkers was "succesful".
I think we can safely say that the Talking Points Memo for Sunday morning, August 2nd, included instructions to call the Cash For Clunkers program succesful.
Those three acted like the administration had performed miracles along the line of the loaves and fishes.
Let's break it down into comparable situations, shall we?
If Tim Geithner and I stand outside Wal-Mart with guns (it's legal when Timmy does it) and we force everyone who passes by to give us some of their money, and then we give $7.00 of that money to everyone who is going to purchase a pair of jeans (if they'll trade in one of their old pair), we'll probably be succesful. But only if you're looking at nothing but the number of jeans sold.
If Tim Geithner and I stand outside Home Depot with guns and we require everyone who passes by to give us money, and then we give $40.00 of that money to everyone who is going to purchase a lawnmower (if they'll trade in their old one), we'll probably be succesful. But only if you're looking at nothing but the number of lawnmowers sold.
If Tim Geithner and I stand outside Neiman Marcus....$2,000....purchase a chocolate covered skink....we'll probably be succesful. ....the number of chocolate covered skinks sold.
Can you imagine the furor that would erupt if the nation learned that Neiman Markups, Home Depot, or, God help 'em, Wal-Mart, had actually lobbied for Timmy and me to execute this robbery? Wouldn't there be protesters in Bentonville, Arkansas by now????
So why in the heck aren't people totally outraged over this wealth transfer to Detroit? Beats the heck out of me.
Barack Obama really is our shepherd, and we are The Sheeple of his pastures.
Have you ever been in charge of implementing a totally ridiculous program in your workplace? Have you ever known ahead of time which employees would give you a hard time over it? Have you ever had to put on your game face, and charge ahead with the rollout, even though you knew that every word you were saying was totally insane?
I've had to do that before. So has Rep. Russ Carnahan, (Mommy Party - Missouri)
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Rep. Carnahan, and we all wish him a speedy recovery.
