Define “had to build.” In the oldern days, that meant “because there’s a demand for it.” I see no indication that there’s anything but extremely weak demand for this piece of crap. I could be wrong, and if I am, feel free to enlighten me, but I don’t think I am.

This is the problem when government meddles in business. Companies stop making what will sell and start making what they’re “encouraged” to.

Because they “have to.”

This, clearly, cannot attach itself to that phrase.

And what’s with the self-pumping movements? I mean, really dude?

via The Stall Seat

Incidentally, that really cute chick wearing the bear? She plunked down $130 for that bad boy. Must suck to be in such terminal debt that you have to protest on the street about it.

A liberal group’s TV spot features a working mother who says she’s like “Warren Buffett’s secretary” and pays lower tax rates than “many billionaires and millionaires.” Not quite. With her $40,000 income and three kids, she’d actually pay a far lower rate than Buffett says he paid on his income. So, she’s not like his secretary. Furthermore, her rate would also be lower than the rate paid by the vast majority of those making more than $1 million a year.

The article goes into great detail explaining how this canard just won’t die.

Here’s a note to Warren Buffet: If you want to pay more in taxes, instead of taking your income from capital gains (after, of course, the 35% corporate tax), take an actual salary. I promise, you won’t be disappointed with the results if you truly want to pay more.

Any way, a very good dissection by Fact Check here, and one that needs to be read by you if you’re one of the intellectual lightweights who think the “Buffet Rule” is a good idea.

Source

I guess it’s the “de.” Without that, the whole thing makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

He may have been censured by his House colleagues, but Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) will have his visage permanently displayed on Capitol Hill.

The House Ways and Means Committee, which Rangel chaired until he lost his gavel following accusations of ethics violations, is hosting a ceremony and reception Thursday to unveil Rangel’s official portrait in Longworth House Office Building.

House leaders including Speaker John Boehner, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer will speak at the ceremony. Two New York senators, Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, will also give remarks.

The ceremony comes less than a year after the full House voted 333-79 in a public rebuke after Rangel was found guilty by a House ethics panel of 11 counts of ethics violations. Allegations included charges that he improperly solicited money from corporate officials and lobbyists for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York, did not disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of income, kept a rent-stabilized apartment in New York as a campaign office, and did not pay income taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic.

Rangel’s office on Wednesday couldn’t confirm how much the portrait cost nor how it was being paid for. A spokeswoman instead pointed a reporter to a 2007 Washington Post article that listed the cost of the artwork as $64,500 and that Rangel’s lawyer had asked the Federal Election Commission if the congressman could use his campaign funds to pay for it.

I know it’s a bit late, but I’d like to suggest a pose…

Seriously… Is it typical for criminals to get their own portraits?

Source

To which Ken Shepherd noted:

I don’t know, Contessa, maybe because the primary mission of the federal government is defending the nation from foreign enemies?

It is, but since when does that have anything to do with spending?

As we speak right now, contractors are building two different engines to go into a fighter that is unwanted. As of right now, we’re engaged in foreign wars that could at best be called Wilsonian Adventurism. In fact, in both of those wars, we could’ve had our soldiers sitting at home on their couch in 2 weeks after a massive bombing campaign. Instead Obama and Bush just keep committing more and more boots to the ground, more equipment to the region, more supplies to the people, and more blood in the name of democracy.

The primary mission of the federal government is defending the nation. Right now the primary mission of the military is building governments, training police, and training foreign armies while propping up a corrupt leader we installed (Afghanistan) and delaying pulling out because the people we’re “protecting” have no interest in protecting themselves (Iraq). All told, these wars are costing millions and millions of dollars per day, all the while doing nothing to increase our ability to defend ourselves.

A few cuts to the military won’t kill it; it’ll force us to use it like it was intended: to protect America.

Imagine that.

The NY Times is about to charge its online readers for its articles.

Free web people (read: freetards) are losing their minds and pointing out how this represents an outdated business model and is doomed to failure. This can’t succeed.

Doesn’t the NY Times know anything about the link economy? Don’t they understand how easy it is to monetize content through ads and inbound links? Surely this will be the end of the NY Times!

Let’s assume the freetards are true. My question is: if that’s the case, who gives a damn? Let them fail! If it’s as predetermined as you all say it is, it should be a foregone conclusion that this escapade into pay-to-read journalism will fail spectacularly, and if that’s the case, what the hell do you care? It’ll only strengthen your argument!

Unless…

It won’t hurt the NY Times, and because of the quality of the content provided, people will pay. If they don’t the Times will still survive, but the only thing that will change for the short term is the availability of content you don’t have to pay for and that you’re not buying their paper to read.

In other words, it would completely invalidate their argument.

That, my friends, is the problem. When the Times doesn’t go belly up over making their web content pay only, it will enforce the idea that people in actual businesses that make actual money already understand: you don’t make money on things you give away for free and you don’t surprise if you give away what people will pay for.

I know that’s blasphemy in the Web 2.0 world, but such is life.

Sima Samar, women’s rights activist in Afghanistan: “With dogged persistence and at great personal risk, she kept her schools and clinics open in Afghanistan even during the most repressive days of the Taliban regime, whose laws prohibited the education of girls past the age of eight. When the Taliban fell, Samar returned to Kabul and accepted the post of Minister for Women’s Affairs.”

Read the rest of the “losers” at the source. Quite eye-opening.

Source

President Obama yesterday rolled out the red carpet — and handed out doctors’ white coats as well, just so nobody missed his hard-sell health-care message.

In a heavy-handed attempt at reviving support for health-care reform, the White House orchestrated a massive photo op to buttress its claim that front-line physicians support Obama.

A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama’s pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.

The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.

But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.

So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.

All this to provide a visual counter to complaints from other doctors that pending legislation is bad news for the medical profession.

“Nobody has more credibility with the American people on this issue than you do,” Obama told his guests.

“See what we have to do here is manufacture opinions, and the best way to do that is for all of you to look like doctors… So go ahead and put on your provided coats and come take a picture with me,” Obama said. “And, no this isn’t astroturfing in anyway. This is a true grassroots movement. With wardrobe.”

Source

Take this idiocy highlighted in USA Today by Autoblog:

USA Today reports that the 28 states that voted for Barack Obama have requested nearly $2.13 billion in rebates. On the other hand, states that voted for John McCain (a.k.a. “Red States”), have only requested $757 million.

Political analysts are puzzled, as there is no clear-cut indicator to explain the findings.

Oh really? They’re puzzled?

Obviously they’re too busy hanging out with left wing Ozombies.

I don’t know a single solitary conservative who thinks C4C was a good idea. Most people, myself included, saw it as a stupid entitlement that took able and functioning vehicles off the road, took their used parts off the market, and created mountains of new debt for people who had paid off vehicles to begin with.

Knowing that, it’s not that hard to figure out why the blue states bought into this program hook line and sinker. It was portrayed as helping the American auto worker (ie: the UAW) and the environment, two causes I reckon most mid-westerners don’t give a damn about, and if they do, not to the degree their hybrid driving urban hipster cousins do.

It’s easy to chalk this up to some strange unexplainable phenomenon, but when it comes down to it, the answer is much simpler. Red staters didn’t buy into it, and blue staters were told by The Great One^tm that they should.

And they did.

And it shows.

Next question?

Not that Bush was a stirring speech giver, but Barack Obama, many times since he’s been our President, has just put his foot deeply into his gaping maw after basically being called the greatest orator ever to hold the Oval Office.

I’m sorry, but if this is what his devotees call a great orator, I’d have to wonder if they’re even literate.

What’s so special about the Trailblazer?

Well nothing, unless you consider the fact that they stopped making it a year ago! And not for nothing, but this paragraph particularly made me barf.

Those three models, in particular, tell the story of the most overpriced autos currently on the market: Our entire list is comprised of vehicles manufactured by Detroit’s Big Three. No foreign brands make the list, as those automakers’ cars tend to be priced fairly when considering supply and demand as well as their high rankings on consumer-satisfaction surveys.

Really? Has anyone read Consumer Reports’ opinion of the much-touted Honda Insight?

Consumer Reports really dislikes the 2010 hybrid Honda Insight. It blasted the vehicle for its “ride quality, handling, interior noise, acceleration, rear-seat, access, and visibility,” and ranked it 21 out of 22 among tested small hatchbacks and wagons. Only the Dodge Caliber got worse marks. The Insight was the only vehicle not “Recommended” in the Consumer Reports study. Consumer Reports said it is “the most disappointing Honda Consumer Reports has tested in a long time.”

Or maybe you would rather read the best review of a car ever written…

So far, though, you have not been told what it’s like as a car; as a tool for moving you, your friends and your things from place to place.

So here goes. It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.

The biggest problem, and it’s taken me a while to work this out, because all the other problems are so vast and so cancerous, is the gearbox. For reasons known only to itself, Honda has fitted the Insight with something called constantly variable transmission (CVT).

It doesn’t work. Put your foot down in a normal car and the revs climb in tandem with the speed. In a CVT car, the revs spool up quickly and then the speed rises to match them. It feels like the clutch is slipping. It feels horrid.

And the sound is worse. The Honda’s petrol engine is a much-shaved, built-for-economy, low-friction 1.3 that, at full chat, makes a noise worse than someone else’s crying baby on an airliner. It’s worse than the sound of your parachute failing to open. Really, to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham slicer.

So you’re sitting there with the engine screaming its head off, and your ears bleeding, and you’re doing only 23mph because that’s about the top speed, and you’re thinking things can’t get any worse, and then they do because you run over a small piece of grit.

The Insight also gets dinged in numerous reviews for its “cheap” build quality, plasticky feel, and overall ickiness of the interior. That’s not surprising because despite Honda’s stellar reputation and untouchable status as the kings of automobiles, no one ever mentions their horrible interiors. The Accord’s interior is one of the worst I’ve ever seen with a driver’s seat so close to the pedals that my 6’1″ legs can’t press the pedal without being bent as if I’m riding a bicycle.

Considering the overall crap that is the Insight, it’s hard for me to believe that all import cars were taken into consideration when this crap list was made and yet none of them were so bad as to make the list. I just don’t buy it. There’s plenty of import crap out there, but its become fashionable over the past few years to just continuously (and often unfairly) rip into American vehicles for things that haven’t been true in about 5 years.

A woman sued General Mills because “The plaintiff, Janine Sugawara, alleged that she had only recently learned to her dismay that said ‘berries’ were in fact simply brightly-colored cereal balls.”

Recently?

To her dismay?

Has she ever seen a damn crunchberry in the produce section?

Luckily, a judge (who by rights shouldn’t have even given this case a hearing) laid the required smackdown upon this dope.

This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a “crunchberry.” Furthermore, the “Crunchberries” depicted on the [box] are round, crunchy, brightly-colored cereal balls, and the [box] clearly states both that the Product contains “sweetened corn & oat cereal” and that the cereal is “enlarged to show texture.” Thus, a reasonable consumer would not be deceived into believing that the Product in the instant case contained a fruit that does not exist. . . . So far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world.

Judge England also noted another federal court had “previously rejected substantially similar claims directed against the packaging of Fruit Loops [sic] cereal, and brought by these same Plaintiff attorneys.” He found that their attack on “Crunchberries” should fare no better than their prior claims that “Froot Loops” did not contain real froot.

This really is worse than the dopes that keep spilling coffee in their crotch and suing the coffee companies because their hot coffee is hot.

via Gizmodo

Finally, there was the conversation weaving between, of all things, Miss California U.S.A. Carrie Prejean, the same-sex marriage opponent who the panel had already mocked at length, and Bo, the Obama family’s Portuguese water dog.

When Mr. Axelrod was asked how involved he was in the selection of Bo, he jokingly answered that he “only got called in for the final three.”

But as Mr. Axelrod was trying to set the record straight – he actually was not consulted – Mr. Sagal asked about the two runner-ups.

“One was Miss California,” Mr. Axelrod cracked to the audience’s laughter.

So it’s okay for him to call Miss California a bitch? Wow… I have to say that this administration certainly has brought change to Washington. What makes her a bitch? Oh right… Her agreement with our illustrious saint, leader, and God-given gift, Barack Obama that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Way to change the tone, Mr. Axelrod.