Everybody loved the debate. The electric teevee jabberwockies loved it more than most because it had drama and conflict. Well, I agree. I haven't seen anything so exciting since I watched a couple of older parties get riled over a call in patty-cake badminton.
It was a cage fight between eunuchs.
If Eunuch A had cleared his throat and declaimed to Eunuch B , "Sir, you are a lying, pandering sack of yak droppings with an intellect substantially inferior to that of Yogi Bear," I might have become more interested. Either could have said it without straying far from strict truth.
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The debate was accurately summarized by Dr. Ron Paul some 12 hours before it occurred. He was on CNBC and asked if he expected more substance in Debate 2 than he found in Debate 1. He said "no." Both Romney and Obama would simply promise fatter pick-a-nick baskets in the great Jellystone Park once known as the United States. Good call, Doctor.
Painfully to me, His Ineptness slithered slightly closer to the point at hand when he said something about long-term planning -- where the nation would be in 30 years or so. Unfortunately he uttered it only in a context of green energy -- solar and wind and ethanol mandates, all of those schemes touted by Mother Earth News types 50 years ago. They would flood America with free pixie dust fuel by 1999 . Our troubles would end in a national group hug as Peter, Paul, and Mary grunted 69 choruses of Kumbayah.
So no real points for His Ineptness, just a nod to his mild suggestion that we might want to give a thought to the fate of the nation in the decades after his personal interest in it ends, on January 20, 2013 or the same date in 2017. I mean, Hell, he knows he can fulfill his zillion-dollar book contract in Switzerland or Kenya or someplace.
Fairness requires me to say something equally nice about Governor Romney. His hair stayed in place.
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It's the debt, Stupid. And the deficits. And Ben's printing press.
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 16, 2012
Why we're broke
Can't pay our bills, says battery maker A123, so lets all go to bankruptcy court.
You won't be invited, however, because of the distinction between a big creditor with a hot lawyer and a taxpaying chump who probably didn't even know about this particular rat hole.
A123 has been around for about 12 years as the brain child of a professor -cum-business tycoon with ties to China. It has always been a snacker at the public trough, so it isn't wholly a partisan issue,
But, Solyndra-like, it discovered joy of big-time slurping under the Obama administration. The president's DOE handed the company $249 million in 2009. Many more millions were sucked from from local and state tax spenders. (Routing note: The money passes from you to a bureaucrat to a company that doesn't quite know what the Hell it's doing besides scarfing up your personal wealth and having a ball with it.)
A123 promised to create smarter batteries, and possibly it did. But some of them didn't work and had to be recalled. More important, too few private investors believed the proposition was viable enough to risk their own money. Not a problem, mate. We'll just tell a nice green story to Uncle Barack and he'll tell Tim to tell Ben to print a few million more C-notes and give them to us.
We've seen so goddam much of this that it seems almost futile to restate the honest man's premise: If a proposed enterprise holds out a reasonable degree of success, the money to finance it will be available in the free market. If it's a sky-pie ploy to capitalize on politically fashionable adventures, only elected and appointed government officials can be gulled.
I'll bet you're not a bit surprised that the batteries that broke the company are for everyone's favorite cause, ta-da, electric cars.
You won't be invited, however, because of the distinction between a big creditor with a hot lawyer and a taxpaying chump who probably didn't even know about this particular rat hole.
A123 has been around for about 12 years as the brain child of a professor -cum-business tycoon with ties to China. It has always been a snacker at the public trough, so it isn't wholly a partisan issue,
But, Solyndra-like, it discovered joy of big-time slurping under the Obama administration. The president's DOE handed the company $249 million in 2009. Many more millions were sucked from from local and state tax spenders. (Routing note: The money passes from you to a bureaucrat to a company that doesn't quite know what the Hell it's doing besides scarfing up your personal wealth and having a ball with it.)
A123 promised to create smarter batteries, and possibly it did. But some of them didn't work and had to be recalled. More important, too few private investors believed the proposition was viable enough to risk their own money. Not a problem, mate. We'll just tell a nice green story to Uncle Barack and he'll tell Tim to tell Ben to print a few million more C-notes and give them to us.
We've seen so goddam much of this that it seems almost futile to restate the honest man's premise: If a proposed enterprise holds out a reasonable degree of success, the money to finance it will be available in the free market. If it's a sky-pie ploy to capitalize on politically fashionable adventures, only elected and appointed government officials can be gulled.
I'll bet you're not a bit surprised that the batteries that broke the company are for everyone's favorite cause, ta-da, electric cars.
Oct 11, 2012
Maybe it's the long, dark nights
Sometimes when Sitemeter shows an unusual number of hits from an exotic locale, such as Norway, I look a little deeper. This time I found a half-dozen guys (I presume) hitting on May recently.
Of course it could be that some Norwegian social studies teacher assigned a class to look into racial relations in the United States.
Naah, probably not. Most likely some randy little devil caught the old post by mistake and spread the word. Can't say I blame him. :)
Of course it could be that some Norwegian social studies teacher assigned a class to look into racial relations in the United States.
Naah, probably not. Most likely some randy little devil caught the old post by mistake and spread the word. Can't say I blame him. :)
Score one for The Associated Press
A friend and I were debating the flap over the AP photo showing the girl seeming to ogle Romney's butt. That led to a little research on AP caption corrections in general. I stumbled across this one. It is a dated (2010) but neat story of a cut line change on a captured enemy photo once thought to be of the Bataan Death March.
It shows GIs carrying bodies of their comrades, and for years everyone just accepted it was the march. Decades later, a Bataan survivor said the Japs allowed nothing to slow the gory parade. The bodies were left where they lay. He believed the image was of a burial detail at POW Camp O'Donnell where the brutalized victims were taken.
AP did some checking, decided the veteran had a point, and, some 65 years after the fact, rewrote the caption.
It shows GIs carrying bodies of their comrades, and for years everyone just accepted it was the march. Decades later, a Bataan survivor said the Japs allowed nothing to slow the gory parade. The bodies were left where they lay. He believed the image was of a burial detail at POW Camp O'Donnell where the brutalized victims were taken.
AP did some checking, decided the veteran had a point, and, some 65 years after the fact, rewrote the caption.
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