AMERICA'S OTHER AUTO INDUSTRY

The men from Detroit have come to Washington this week to make another pitch for a taxpayer rescue. Meanwhile, in the other American auto industry you rarely read about, car makers are gaining market share and adjusting amid the sales slump, without seeking a cent from the government, says the Wall Street Journal.

The root of this other industry's success is no secret, says the Journal. To put it concisely, the transplants operate under conditions imposed by the free market. Detroit lives on Fantasy Island. Consider labor costs:

• Hourly labor costs are $44.20 on average for the non-Detroit producers, in line with most manufacturing jobs, but are $73.21 for Detroit.

This $29 cost gap reflects the way unions have made themselves uncompetitive -- increasingly so as their market share has collapsed. Over the decades the United Auto Workers won pension and health-care benefits far more generous than in almost any other American industry. As a result, for every UAW member working at a U.S. car maker today, three retirees collect benefits; at GM, the ratio is 4.6 to one.

The international producers' made sure not to get saddled with such costs. One way was to locate in investment-friendly states. The South proved especially attractive, offering tax breaks and a low-cost, nonunion labor pool. Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina -- which accounted for a quarter of U.S. car production last year -- are "right-to-work" states where employees can't be forced to join a union.

The absence of the UAW also gives car producers the flexibility to deploy employees as needed. Work rules vary across company and plant, but foreign rules are generally less restrictive. At Detroit's plants, electricians or mechanics tend to perform certain narrow tasks and often sit idle. That rarely happens outside Michigan. In the nonunionized plants, temporary workers can also be hired, and let go, as market conditions dictate. Not so at the union shops.

[No no no, it wasn't the unions: they were mismanaged...]

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California wants to raid Big 3 bailout cash for green cars

Think the $25 billion is to help save the Big Three automakers and preserve manufacturing facilities essential to national security? Think again.(Snip)In fact, Tesla Motors, a struggling San Jose start-up manufacturer of electric cars in Feinstein's back yard, has already applied for $400 million in EISA loans to build a new plant for making a luxury $60,000, battery-powered family sedan.

So while some members of Congress tut-tut Detroit executives for wasting money on private jets, Washington is entertaining taxpayer-financed loans for an automaker that caters to Silicon Valley millionaires... [snip]

But a letter from U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., on Thanksgiving Eve makes clear what few taxpayers know: The billions in auto loans are a giant honey pot intended for any auto manufacturer in the nation. [snip]

Is its federal loan application seed money -- or bailout money? Auto analyst James N. Hall sees a grim future for the company: "If the market wants (electric cars) in the number Tesla is talking about," he told Business Week, "a larger auto company will bury them on cost."

[I.e., it's just another component of the Great Green Scam being perpetrated against us from every direction. Serious/big auto makers will make them in mass when the public wants them, and not before: all money prior to that change is waisted.]

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Face of Defense: Medal Recipient Chooses Third Iraq Tour

CAMP TAJI, Iraq – Army Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Nein didn’t have to come back here. He served in Iraq twice before and was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions as a squad leader under fire. If anyone could have gotten a pass, it was Nein. But he wouldn’t take it.

"This is my job," he said. "This is what I chose to do, and it's what I'll continue to strive to do. I love what I do." [snip]

Under heavy fire, Nein and his squad put themselves and their vehicles between the insurgents and the convoy. Nein and Army National Guard Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester led a counterattack that saw 27 insurgents killed, seven captured and no deaths in their unit. Two soldiers were wounded.

Nein was awarded a Silver Star Medal that was upgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross. Only the Medal of Honor trumps the DSC among awards for valor in battle. Nein was the first member of the Guard to receive the award.

One reason Nein wanted to return to Iraq is to continue to witness, firsthand, the dramatic changes there.

"I probably didn't have to be here this time, but I don't think that I would have missed it," Nein said. "I feel honored to be a part of this."

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Operation Christmas Stocking Spreads Cheer to Deployed Troops

A little piece of Christmas has started to arrive in Iraq and Afghanistan for troops away from home during the holidays.

“Even in hard times, if we can find a way to help support our troops, we do,” Paul Holton, founder and president of Operation Give, said. “Something as simple as a Christmas stocking is easy for people to handle. They stuff these stockings, knowing their little act of kindness is going to improve troop morale.”

Operation Give, a Salt Lake City-based troop-support group, has had a “steady stream” of Christmas stockings coming in from all over the nation since they announced the event in the media and on their Web site earlier this year, Holton said.

FedEx has provided free shipping of stockings to the group’s warehouse. This is the fourth year the group has sponsored the stocking drive.

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http://www.operationgive.org/
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WMD Terrorists

[HT:BS]
“Terrorism is only as important as you let it be,” wrote syndicated columnist Gwynne Dyer last week. [see prior pieces quip re: downgrading the threat] Tthere is one situation where it is almost impossible for policymakers to overreact: terrorists possessing unconventional weapons.

“Unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013,” states a report to be issued later this week by the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism, a Congressionally sponsored panel. “America’s margin of safety is shrinking, not growing.”

Once they get them, however, the odds shift dramatically in their favor. On a typical day, people successfully smuggle 21,000 pounds of cocaine and marijuana into the United States. On a typical day, 31,000 trucks, 6,500 rail cars, 1,200 buses, 50,000 cargo containers, and 334,000 cars cross into America. On a typical day, 134,000 pedestrians enter our country legally and another 14,500 people do so illegally.

We may catch shipments now and then, but all it takes is one failure to change the course of history.

If we are going to avoid history of this sort, we will have to pursue, capture, and kill terrorists with greater efficiency and speed than we do at present. Yet far more important, we need to go after dangerous states, the parties supplying lethal materials. We must, for instance, disarm North Korea, stop Iran and Syria, and stabilize Pakistan.

And to do that, we have no choice but to summon the political will to end Russian and Chinese proliferation of nuclear technologies.

President Bush, following on the initiatives of his predecessor, has tried to enlist the support of Moscow and Beijing in stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately, Dubya has ended up tolerating their grossly destructive behavior while obtaining little in return. If President-elect Obama cannot do significantly better, the odds say we will transition to an unimaginably horrible world...

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NATO Membership for Ukraine, Georgia Looks Doubtful

Ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers to review the question of membership for Ukraine and Georgia, leaders of the two former Soviet republics are stepping up appeals for a positive decision, but with little signs for optimism. (Snip) But few western European countries are expected to risk antagonizing Russia, a major source of oil and natural gas which has shown itself willing and capable of using its energy supplies as a political lever.
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[our insane energy policy empowers our enemies the world over. Not to worry, NATO is working on some important things...]

The lamb busters... Nato investigates claim that US pilots 'massacred sheep'

NATO is investigating claims that scores of sheep were massacred by American Apache helicopters after being mistaken for Taliban fighters. Nomad farmers in Laghman province, eastern Afghanistan, claim US pilots killed and wounded 140 sheep during a botched counter-terrorism operation. (Snip) A Nato spokesman said the Americans denied being involved in last Tuesday’s shooting.
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Climate Realists Twofer...

Kevin Rudd cools on carbon targets
Federal cabinet is finalising a cautious emissions trading scheme offering higher compensation to big trade-exposed polluters and a ''soft'' start in pollution-reduction targets. With concern growing in the Rudd cabinet about the emissions trading scheme's potential to exacerbate already rising unemployment, particularly in crucial marginal regional seats (Snip) the Government will offer significant changes to its original formula offering wider compensation to trade-exposed emissions-intensive industries...
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Merkel: Jobs More Important Than Climate Change
Chancellor Angela Merkel has been keen to promote herself as a tough actor on climate change, but with a new EU climate deal in the making, she's issued a new caveat: It must not jeopardize German jobs [American jobs, ok.]. With the recession tightening its grip on the German economy, Merkel is betting that job reassurance is more important to the average worker than being a pioneer in tackling climate change. [apostate!]
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[Evidently climate realists aren't the only one who can be, well, climate realists {this is going to get confusing}]
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Meanwhile, in America...

For farmers, this stinks: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if a federal proposal to charge fees for air-polluting animals becomes law, says the Associated Press (AP).

The executive vice president of the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, Ken Hamilton, estimated the fee would cost owners of a modest-sized cattle ranch $30,000 to $40,000 a year; he said he has talked to a number of livestock owners about the proposals, and all have said if the fees were carried out, it would bankrupt them.

EPA spokesman Nick Butterfield said the fee was proposed for farms with livestock operations that now* fall under federal Clean Air Act provisions.

[the harm bad judicial appoints can cause]

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Switch to 'green' inhalers costly

WASHINGTON -- Last warning: Asthma inhalers go "green" Dec. 31, forcing patients using the old-fashioned kind to make a pricey and even confusing switch.

"There's still significant confusion," said Dr. Harvey Leo of the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. "Patients will tell you, 'I don't feel the puff anymore.'

[oh c'mon, what's your health compared to saving mother earth...]

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With Gas Prices Down Brokaw Wants To Tax Them To $4 A Gallon

If you needed any more proof that liberal media members don't give a darn about the state of the economy or the American people, and instead just want to raise taxes, you got it Sunday when Tom Brokaw advocated gas prices, which have plummeted recently, be kept at $4 a gallon with government keeping the added cost.

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Obamanomics

The failure of American media to properly vet the political beliefs of Barack Obama during the just concluded presidential campaign was on full display Sunday when the president-elect made clear just how much of a socialist he really is, and did so with nary a challenge from "Meet the Press" moderator Tom Brokaw.

BARACK OBAMA: Well, I think what Joe meant is exactly what I described which is that if, if our entire economic policy is premised on the notion that greed is good and what's in it for me, it turns out that that's not good for anybody. It's not good for the wealthy, it's not good for the poor, and it's not good for the vast majority in the middle.

Stop the tape. Worrying about one's own finances is not good for anybody? Have you ever heard a more socialist statement from a president or president-elect? Makes you wonder what the results might have been on November 4 if the press had done its job in exposing Obama's radical economic beliefs before the electon.

And why didn't Brokaw jump on this?

[A: because Brokaw shares his sentiments {see 4$-gallon tax piece above}, and he's an advocacy journalist]

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(God) Bless America

Normally, I'm for keeping church and state out of each other's business as much as humanly possible, mostly to protect religion from government intrusion and idolatry, but also to protect us from zealots who think Jesus wears an American flag lapel pin.

But lately, I'm beginning to think that Christians [and some of us atheists] who are complaining about the "War on God in America" have a point.

"There's a terrible movement to rewrite our history and obscure our faith,"

J. Randy Forbes, a Republican congressman from Virginia, told the National Review this week.

Take the new $621 million capitol Visitor Center, which opened this week to mixed reviews. Among the critics were Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican who several weeks ago noticed that something was missing from a center's replica of the House Speaker's rostrum. The words "In God We Trust" -- engraved over the actual rostrum in 1962 -- were not included in the replica.

The center identified "E. Pluribus Unum" (rather than "In God We Trust") as the official national motto.

Displays deleted these words from Article 3 of the Northwest Ordinance; "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind..."; and the words "in the Year of Our Lord" from Article 7 of the Constitution. [snip]

"This is an intentional misrepresentation of our nation's real history and an offensive refusal to honor America's God-given blessings,"

DeMint told James Rosen of McClatchy Newspapers. DeMint and others say this is only the latest in a series of attempts to erase God from public life in Washington.

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TAKING BACK THE STREETS

[HT:TK]
The growth of transnational gangs has been a dangerous side effect of our failure to control the U.S.-Mexico border and our tolerance for high levels of illegal immigration. Transnational immigrant gangs are spreading out across the United States, researchers found MS-13 activity in 48 states.

The aliens arrested under Operation Community Shield (ICE) collectively represent a significant menace to the public, says CIS. The vast majority (80 percent) have committed serious crimes in addition to immigrant violations, and a large number (40 percent) have violent criminal histories.

ICE gang arrests have occurred nationwide, with the largest numbers made by the offices in San Diego, Atlanta, San Francisco and Dallas:

• Nearly half, or 3,080, of the aliens arrested over the two-and-half-year period studied were affiliated with MS-13 and Surenos-13, another notorious gang with largely Hispanic immigrant memberships.
• Some jurisdictions with serious gang problems had just a few arrests. - These same jurisdictions also had controversial "sanctuary" policies on immigration status in place over the time period studied.

Therefore, policymakers should take further steps to institutionalize partnerships between state and local law enforcement agencies and ICE in order to address gang and other crime problems with a connection to immigration, says CIS.

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Making the World Safe for Marxism

It is almost commonplace to accuse someone of being like Hitler or acting Nazi-like. (Googling "bush hitler" yields 1,300,000 hits, for example.) Yet you are considered beyond the pale, and possibly insane, to even suggest that someone might harbor Marxist sympathies. To question someone's dedication to traditional American or merely Western ideals = calling him communist = being Joe McCarthy = we now know you're nuts.

Case number one is Representative Michele Bachman. She merely suggested that the press should look more intently to see if some Democrats and Barack Obama in particular harbor anti-American attitudes. The headline at the Huffington Post? "Michele Bachman Channels McCarthy. Obama Very Anti-American. Congressional Witch Hunt Needed." Contributions to Bachman's political rival poured in.

Of course Rep. Bachman neither called Obama "very anti-American" nor called for a congressional investigation of any kind. But in a world where facts no longer matter, so what? (You can read the transcript of her Hardball interview here.) Even the Republican Party abandoned her, until it found out the controversy was bringing contributions into her campaign like crazy. Amazingly, she survived her re-election bid.

[thanks to those of you that joined me in responding to the influx of >1M$ from Moveon.org to Michelle's opponent by donating to her website - it was a near thing. Read why this topic has moved from the lunatic fringe toward a rational, potential concern - Highly Recommended > ]

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Former Calif. State Democratic Pol's Son Arrested in Connection to Murder, No Party ID Mentioned

School buds: 20 Harvard classmates advising Obama

[marvelous]

Ottawa university boots cystic fibrosis from charity drive

OTTAWA -- The Carleton University Students' Association has voted to drop cystic fibrosis as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, arguing that the illness is not "inclusive" enough. Cystic fibrosis "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men" said the motion read to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it.
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The Spin is in: Obama Cabinet ‘Bunch of Flaming Moderates’

On Thursday’s "CBS Early Show," co-host Harry Smith talked discussed the Obama transition with Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, who observed: "...a lot of people said this is going to be a very extremist president and all that, that he's a very liberal Democrat, but as we have seen in appointment after appointment, he's hewing to the center. He's picking a bunch of flaming moderates here, when you come right down t it.

In reality, Obama’s pick for secretary of state, New York Senator Hillary Clinton, has a lifetime American Conservative Union voting score of 9 [out of 100]. Obama’s pick for commerce secretary, New Mexico Governor and former Congressman Bill Richardson, had an ACU score of 18 while in Congress. Obama’s chief of staff, Congressman Rahm Emanuel, has a score of 16.

One would think that "a bunch of flaming moderates" would have ACU ratings around 50, voting liberal only about half the time, not 80% of the time or more.

[the old ploy: succeed in labeling them 'moderates', and anyone who disagrees with them are 'extremists' to be dismissed...]

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WHY CANADA LOVES NANCY PELOSI

[ACTION ITEM]

The Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement will expand bilateral trade by lowering tariffs on a wide variety of products. Some Canadian agricultural products -- including wheat, barley and lentils -- and many manufactured goods will enter Colombia tariff-free immediately. Running in the reverse direction, Colombian producers will find a more open Canadian market and Canada's consumers will have more choice at better prices.

The agreement will also give new legal protections to investment and improved market access in services. It's what you call a win-win. But not for American exporters, who compete with Canadians in Colombia. Because Speaker Nancy Pelosi has blocked a vote in Congress on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, American goods will automatically be more expensive than those from Canada by the amount of the existing tariff.

Her protectionist stance has helped open markets for everyone other than the United States and harming what Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper "one of South America's most historic democracies improve the human rights and security situation in their country."

[because American unions don't want the competition. Sound familiar?]

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"PASS THE COLUMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT"
US President mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Obama transition http://www.change.gov/page/s/contact
Your Senator http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Your Congressman https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

Barbara Boxer web mail http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/email/policy.cfm?CFID=9716973&CFTOKEN=89336911
Dianne Feinstein webmail http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.EmailMe
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Strip shows to get tax breaks
The Hague - The Dutch Supreme Court has decided sex shows should be thought of as theatre - at least when it comes to taxes. The Netherlands' highest court has ruled that a peep show owner is eligible to pay sales tax at a lower rate because his establishments are a form of theatre. (Snip) The judges say in their ruling on Friday that because the strippers are on a stage being watched by a paying public their acts are theatrical.
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