Friday, April 3, 2009
Obama's Own Report on GM Says Plan to Build Non-Gas-Burning Car Would Not Save Company
The report on General Motors released by the White House says the company’s restructuring plan will not lead to a stronger company, in part because the beleaguered auto giant’s proposal to rely more heavily on advanced, fuel-efficient cars is not commercially viable.
The report’s findings stand in stark contrast with the President’s chief goal for America’s auto industry: leading the world in green car production.
“I am absolutely committed to working with Congress and the auto companies to meet one goal: The United States of America will lead the world in building the next generation of clean cars,”
Obama declared Monday at a press conference marking the report’s release.
In fact, the report found that even if GM can successfully make and sell green cars, it will still not lead to a viable company because it will not be able to make enough money to weather future economic slowdowns... [snip]
Labor costs are left out of the administration’s recommendations for returning GM to profitability. The four areas the government will focus on are: sustainable profitability, healthy balance sheets, operational restructuring, and technology leadership (green cars)...
[Idea: let them make cars people want to buy.
Government: the end of thinking.]
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Budget Debate Shows Washington Politicians in Denial
Americans who are looking to Washington for leadership in a time of economic turmoil are likely going to be disappointed by this week's debate on the budget. Instead of seeing a new kind of politics and an honest debate that asks hard questions and contemplates tough choices between competing priorities, taxpayers will see more partisan role-playing and accounting sleight of hand.
Before the budget 'debate' even began, the script was already written.
In the majority's war room, aides are continuing the script of 2008 presidential campaign. In this script, every decision that contributed to our budget and economic challenges occurred during George Bush's tenure. President Obama, as Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) said this week, inherited this mess and is merely "part of the clean-up crew."
Finally, in this script, the congressional majority has no real responsibility for any of the fiscal mess in which we find ourselves. Anyone who counters this script is merely recycling old ideas and old talking points...
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A BUDGET TO BEGGAR US
The president's budget makes clear that a huge expansion of government is not just about today's economic downturn. Once the recession is behind us, this budget will continue pushing for more and more government in our everyday lives.
Instead of tightening Uncle Sam's belt the way so many American families are cutting back these days, the president's proposal spends so aggressively that it essentially adds $1 trillion to the debt, on average, every year, says Gregg.
Except for some accounting gimmicks, the budget makes no attempt to cut wasteful spending or find savings:
- It ignores reform for major entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, which are on track to cost us $67 trillion more than we have over the next 75 years.
- The new spending is coupled with the largest tax increase in U.S. history -- $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
- Under the president's budget, the national debt doubles in five years and nearly triples in 10 years.
- Our debt will exceed 80 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2019 -- the highest level since World War II.
Sadly, in 10 years, we will spend more on interest payments on this debt than we spend on education, energy and transportation combined -- almost four times as much...
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Shocked?
SHOCKED? Should we condemn a man for doing What he said he was going to do? There isn’t much change ensuing That is news to me or to you.
For months Mr. Obama touted His wealth-spreading plans quite clearly. For those who refused to listen, Their neglect will cost us dearly...
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"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."James Madison, "Father of the Constitution"image toon - 1st mny sclm bbro libs - Toad to change-scorpions = hop on
Imaginary Islamist Think-Tanks
Despite what the pessimists say, there is one industry that is still flourishing in the UK. It consists of Islamists establishing their own think-tanks and pressure groups. They serve little purpose other than to bestow legitimacy upon ill-informed, extremist Muslim speakers, who can then attend conferences and get media access under the façade of expertise.
This is a surprisingly easy bandwagon to jump on...
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California’s Shariah-Compliant Newspaper
The pull quote, “If everybody was Shariah-compliant, there would be no recession,” comes courtesy of Farouk Fakira, a Yemeni immigrant who last recently moderated a discussion on Islamic finance at Sacramento's Masjid Annur Islamic Center. Imam Abdul Azeez of the Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims (SALAM) defines Sharia as 1,400 years of Islamic legal knowledge based on the words of the Prophet Muhammad, and which guide Muslims in daily life."
The piece also cites Mohammed Memon, a Pakistani American who has a 401 (K) through Amana Mutual Funds “a Shariah-compliant fund” based in Bellingham, Washington. Such funds, he says are “relatively better than other funds.”
In a news story it is customary to balance sweeping assertions with contrary information. At no point, however, does the Bee’s Stephen Magagnini do anything but record the statements of his Islamic subjects. Readers are evidently to assume that Shariah prevents inflation, that Shariah-compliant funds are indeed “relatively better” and that Shariah-compliant retirement plans “socially responsible.”
This amazing page-one story, with multiple photos, gives no clue that there might be any clash between Shariah law and the Constitution of the United States. The treatment of women under Islamic law, for example, does not exactly square with U.S. law and general practice in Western societies, likewise the treatment of homosexuals. Criminal law in Western societies is decidedly at odds with the Shariah approach. And if Islamic law is such a flywheel of prosperity and security, one wonders why anyone would bother moving to the United States.
And if a local minister had proclaimed, “If everybody was a Baptist, there would be no recession,” one may be sure, contrary opinion would be mandatory, along with a quote from the ACLU...
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Islamophobia is a fabrication
I've been considering a request from a post-graduate student who wants to do a thesis on Islamophobia in Australia. She writes:
"I am researching the topic Islamophobia, and I am trying to prove whether Islamophobia is based on religion fear or cultural fear of Islam."
What about proving that Islamophobia exists at all? That would be the logical, ethical and scholarly starting point...
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Obama bows down to Saudi King (updated)
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I am quite certain that this is not the protocol, and is most unbecoming a President of the United States.
Update (for the doubters who claim this was not a bow). Here is a video of the unmistakable bow: (hat tip: Michelle Malkin)
Update: See Miss Manners on the protocol. Americans do not bow to foreign monarchs because that act signified the monarch's power over his subjects.
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Obama seeking Muslims for high administration positions
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From the Denver Post:
In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation's most qualified - Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted - has been submitted to the White House.
The effort, driven by community leaders and others, including U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., was bumped up two weeks because White House officials heard about the venture, said J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, who sifted through more than 300 names.
This is evidently the change Obama believes in.
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Nato welcomes Albania and Croatia
Albania and Croatia have officially joined the Nato military alliance. The two states became Nato's 27th and 28th members after their ambassadors to the US filed their instruments of accession at a ceremony in Washington. Correspondents say Nato wanted to mark its 60th birthday at a summit this week with a symbolic expansion into a region.
Croatia's ambassador said his country intended to assume its share of the security burden in Afghanistan...
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New government may face EU sanctions over two-state solution
At a closed-door dinner of European Union diplomats held Friday in the Czech Republic, several senior officials said Israel must be required to present an explicit commitment accepting the principle of "two states for two peoples," and if it fails, the process of upgrading Israel-EU relations should be frozen. [Like 'Palestine' has been required to accept the existence of Israel?]
After the dinner he told a Czech newspaper that a decision had been made to cancel a summit between the Israeli prime minister and EU leaders planned for late May or early June.
The message also indicated that several ministers spoke of the "need to teach Israel a lesson about its treatment of the Palestinians."
[The EUNuch Union is worse than worthless.]
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54% Count On U.S. Business Leaders More Than World Leaders To Help U.S. Economy
So much for the hoopla and highly publicized activities of this week’s G-20 economic summit.
Fifty-four percent (54%) of Americans say the U.S. economy will be helped more by the decisions of U.S. business leaders to grow their own businesses than by the actions of world leaders on behalf of the global economy.
Thirty percent (30%) say decisions made by world leaders to help the global economy will benefit the U.S. economy more.
Republicans and adults not affiliated with either major political party have more confidence in the private sector than do Democrats. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republicans and 57% of unaffiliateds say the decisions of U.S. business leaders will benefit the American economy more.
Democrats are closely divided.
“Adam Smith would be proud. While all the media attention is focused on the G-20, the American people are looking in a different direction for solutions to the global economic slowdown,”
Scott Rasmussen, founder and publisher of Rasmussen Reports, explains.
“By a nearly two-to-one margin, voters say decisions U.S. business owners make will do more for the economy than pronouncements by the world leaders gathered in London.”
Americans, in fact, are closely divided over whether the Group of 20 summit of world leaders will produce anything of note. Forty-one percent (41%) say the participants are at least somewhat likely to agree on a significant plan to help the world’s economy, but just eight percent (8%) say that is Very Likely.
But forty-one percent (41%) believe the G-20 meeting in London is not very likely to produce a significant global economic plan, and an additional eight percent (8%) say it’s not at all likely.
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Movin' On Up
A Treasury study refutes populist hokum about "income inequality."
The study shows beyond doubt that the U.S. remains a dynamic society marked by rapid and mostly upward income mobility. Much as they always have, Americans on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder continue to climb into the middle and sometimes upper classes in remarkably short periods of time.
The Treasury study examined a huge sample of 96,700 income tax returns from 1996 and 2005 for Americans over the age of 25. The study tracks what happened to these tax filers over this 10-year period.
One of the notable, and reassuring, findings is that nearly 58% of filers who were in the poorest income group in 1996 had moved into a higher income category by 2005. Nearly 25% jumped into the middle or upper-middle income groups, and 5.3% made it all the way to the highest quintile.
Of those in the second lowest income quintile, nearly 50% moved into the middle quintile or higher, and only 17% moved down. This is a stunning show of upward mobility, meaning that more than half of all lower-income Americans in 1996 had moved up the income scale in only 10 years.
Also encouraging is the fact that the after-inflation median income of all tax filers increased by an impressive 24% over the same period. Two of every three workers had a real income gain--which contradicts the spin about stagnant incomes.
This is even more impressive when you consider that "median" income and wage numbers are often skewed downward because the U.S. has had a huge influx of young workers and immigrants in the last 20 years. They start their work years with low wages, dragging down the averages.
Those who start at the bottom but hold full-time jobs nonetheless enjoyed steady income gains. The Treasury study found that those tax filers who were in the poorest income quintile in 1996 saw a near doubling of their incomes (90.5%) over the subsequent decade.
Those in the highest quintile, on the other hand, saw only modest income gains (10%). The nearby table tells the story, which is that the poorer an individual or household was in 1996 the greater the percentage income gain after 10 years.
Only one income group experienced an absolute decline in real income--the richest 1%. Those households lost 25.8% of their income. Moreover, more than half (57.4%) of the richest 1% in had dropped to a lower income group by 2005.
The key point is that the study shows that income mobility in the U.S. works down as well as up--another sign that opportunity and merit continue to drive American success, not accidents of birth. The "rich" are not the same people over time.
The study is also valuable because it shows that income mobility remains little changed from what similar studies found in the 1970s and 1980s.
Some journalists and academics have cited selective evidence to claim that income mobility has declined in recent years, but when reviewed comprehensively just the opposite proves true.
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Lost In An Energy Wilderness
Energy Policy: The House approves a Senate-passed omnibus bill that puts 2 million more acres of energy-rich land off-limits. We need a government that leads us out of the energy wilderness and not into it.
S.22 is a smorgasbord of 160 bills totaling more than 1,300 pages and, no, we're not sure how many who voted for it actually read it. A stimulus bill it is not, for it locks up an additional 2 million acres to the 107 million acres of federally owned wilderness areas. That total is more than the area of Montana and Wyoming combined.
Speaking of Wyoming, 1.1 million of these newly restricted acres are in that state. This bill, which also provides $1 billion for a water project designed to save 500 salmon in California, takes about 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil out of production in that state, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The energy resources walled off by this bill would nearly match the annual production levels of our two natural gas production states — Texas and Alaska. As Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., points out:"We are not suffering from a lack of wilderness areas in the United States. According to the Census Bureau, we have 106 million acres of developed land and 107 million acres of (officially declared) wilderness land." [snip]
Most of the locked-up lands are in Western states where there's enough oil shale to satisfy America's needs for the next 200 years. Modern technology can extract these vast resources from the earth with a minimal footprint.
Technology for shale-oil extraction is certainly further along than getting energy from switch grass or producing cellulosic ethanol. If we're going to stimulate anything, let's stimulate shale-oil production.
It took Moses 40 years to lead his people out of their wilderness to the Promised Land. The green lobby and its friends in Congress are leading the American people in the opposite direction.
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The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S
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You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.
-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.
-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.
-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing.
-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said it in the House of Representatives.
There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:
It's just not true. In fact, it's not even close.
By all accounts, it's probably around 17 percent...
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Border upgrades announced
Inspections of vehicles crossing into Mexico will be stepped up under a $400 million effort to improve security on the border, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said yesterday during a visit to San Diego.
The southbound inspections will include canine teams trained to sniff out weapons and cash, the deployment of 100 Border Patrol agents borderwide to inspect vehicles headed into Mexico....
[400 M $ to search things leaving the country]
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The Soros Doctrine in Obama Foreign Policy
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"I have made rejection of the Bush doctrine the central project of my life."
-- George Soros, Wall Street Journal; March 3, 2004
The relevant question here would seem to be, Why? What was it, specifically, about the Bush Doctrines that so roiled George Soros?
Krauthammer (who was himself the first to use the term, "Bush doctrine") delineated four distinct and superceding elements to Bush foreign policy:
- #1 (pre-9/11) - unilateral withdrawal from the ABM treaty, the Kyoto protocol and other international initiatives, which were deemed by President Bush harmful to U.S. interests.
- #2 - the "with us or against us" speech to Congress nine days after 9/11, re: the assisting or harboring of terrorists plotting against America or its interests.
- #3 - in the wake of our invasion of Iraq, President Bush gave his justification for preemptive defensive measures if America is threatened.
- #4 - enunciated in President Bush's second inaugural address, that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to aid the spread of democracy throughout the world - again as it's in America's interest.
The bottom line for Bush was what was in America's interest, and we know for certain the Bush Doctrines kept us safe for seven whole years, kept our IslamoFascist foes magnetized in Afghanistan and Iraq and kept other enemies balanced on their toes with the full knowledge that any belligerent move would be met with U.S. force.
Say whatever you will, Charlie Gibson, the cowboy kept us safe. [snip]
Soros, the Anti-Bush
Soros published his own book on the subject in 2003: The Bubble of American Supremacy, in which he contends that the desire to spread American democracy to other regions is based on a false set of documents, namely the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
Soros' belief that there is no such thing as a universal truth, that all things are relative and all moral systems are essentially equivalent leads him to conclude that our founding documents are fundamentally flawed in that they claim to rest upon "self-evident truths."
So, what doctrines does Soros specifically advocate?
- The United States should increase foreign aid to all who need it. Soros believes that by giving grants, as opposed to loans, to developing countries, we make friends and give people what they need, thereby decreasing the incentives for making war against us.
- Terrorists have always been with us, Soros insists, and terrorism requires "police action," not wars based upon "imperialist intentions." [I.e., trials after the attack - now think WMD...]
- Only an international body (such as the U.N.) can solve the problem of terrorism as it is an inherently international problem.
- The Bush Doctrine of holding host nations responsible for their support and protection of terrorist entities shuts down the necessary diplomatic channels, which would otherwise lead to joint solutions.
The bottom line is that George Soros is an internationalist; he always has been. He has even said that the only thing the U.S. does for him is issue his passport, which is itself an obsolete instrument of the even more obsolete nation-state concept.
Soros Doctrines and President Obama...
[Recommended > ]
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61% Are Confident Online and Other Sources Can Replace Newspapers
This is the finding that struggling daily newspapers don’t want to hear: 61% of American adults are confident that online and other news sources will make up the difference and report things people want to know about if many newspapers go out of business.
The Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that only 35% still lack confidence in other news sources to make up the difference.
Thirty percent (30%) are now Very Confident that sources other than newspapers will provide the news they want, while only eight percent (8%) are not at all confident of that.
“It’s ironic that traditional media outlets are missing one of the biggest communications stories ever because it is happening to them,"
says Scott Rasmussen, Founder and Publisher of Rasmussen Reports.
"Frustrating as it may be to the old media firms, traditional reporters are now viewed as little more than a Wikipedia reference, a source of potentially interesting information that requires verification.”
In terms of income, those who earn more than $60,000 per year tend to be more confident that other news sources will take the place of newspapers than those who earn less than they do. Adults aged 30 to 49 have more confidence in the new sources than those younger and older.
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Newt on G20 Protests vs. Tea Party Protests
To former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the media's flag-to-flag coverage of the G20 protests are a glaring contrast to the recent "tea party" protests - which have had more attendees and have been peaceful.
"Look, I got a note from a friend of mine in Orlando who pointed out there were more people at a taxpayer tea party in Orlando a week ago than there are in London,"
Gingrich said on Fox News Channel's April 1 "On the Record with Greta van Sustren."
"They just didn't get any coverage out of the media. There were more people recently in Cincinnati at a taxpayer tea party than there have been demonstrating in London.
But the London demonstrators are breaking windows, they're being violent, and you know, the media is always happy to cover the anarchic and violent left."
Even as he highlighted the tea parties, Gingrich, who is the chairman of the organization American Solutions for Winning the Future, didn't dismiss the significance of the G20 protests. He said the pockets of unrest - whether they're peaceful or not - are a sign that there is a real frustration around the world with government leadership.
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When Affirmative Action Is A Quota System
According to dictionary.com, a quota is a required amount. One of the several definitions given was "A number or percentage, especially of people, constituting a required or targeted minimum: a system of quotas for hiring minority applicants. " (Italics in original.)
Affirmative action is not the same thing as equality or equal opportunity.
Hiring and civil rights policies are often about affirmative action quotas -- privileges for certain groups -- and not equal opportunity, which would be everyone having a fair chance to compete for the position. Failure to recognize the difference between equal opportunity and quotas results in policies that can generate much racial separation or hatred.
It is not politically correct to talk about affirmative action as often being a quota system, but it needs to be said...
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Dems Failure to Fast Track Cap-And-Trade a Terrific Omen
Yesterday, a genuine bi-partisan coalition (twenty-six Democrats and forty-one Republicans) denied cap-and-trade legislation a filibuster-and-amendment-proof path through the Senate.
The move effectively prevents overzealous Senators the likes of Boxer and Waxman from turning their paranoid green dreams of citizen-control into law by circumventing Senate procedures.
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Hidden Video Camera + Tanning Teens = Arrest of Oak Hill (FL) Man
A local man has been charged with three counts of video voyuerism after Oak Hill police said he had secretly recorded video of teenage girls using a tanning booth in a shed behind his house. Officers arrested David Russell Brown, 48, Baywood Drive, Wednesday night after serving a search warrant at his residence.
[Why did they think a 48 year old man would have a tanning booth in a shed behind his house?]
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