Whittle on fire

Whittle remains one of my favorites.



Thanks to Moonbattery for the video.

Semi-automatic

From The Real Revo comes word of a true danger to Americans that must have immediate attention.

7,630 men, women and children killed

That’s how many Americans were killed by automobiles in the US during the first quarter of 2012. That is 910 more in the first three months of 2012 than in the first three months of 2011. This tragedy is another grim reminder that cars are the enablers of mass killers and that our nation pays an unacceptable price for our failure to keep cars out of the hands of dangerous people.

U.S. traffic deaths jump 13.5 percent in 2012

NHTSA said the rate of traffic deaths per 100 million miles of vehicle travel increased substantially. For the first three months of 2012, the rate increased significantly to 1.10 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled, up from 0.98 fatalities per 100 million miles in the same period last year.

NHTSA said it estimates 7,630 people died in vehicle crashes in the first three months, up from 6,720 in the first quarter of 2011. Cars kill 12 people in America every three and a half hours, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. At what point will be ban semi-automatic assault automobiles? Why don’t the police just go on strike until the assault cars are banned?

Do you realize that there is no federal licence required to own an automobile? There isn’t even a background check. People under the age of 18 are allowed to use automobiles unsupervised.

Auto deaths are on the rise and yet the federal government refuses to implement common sense car control laws. For example, the federal government should immediately…

1) Ban certain types of sports cars that have styling that makes them appear more dangerous than other cars
2) Implement a federal background check before a car can be purchased
3) Limit the number of cars a person can purchase in a given period
4) Require a three day waiting period before a car can be removed from the lot
5) Eliminate private sales of cars at car shows
6) Make illegal high capacity gasoline tanks
7) Alert the FBI if an individual attempts to buy more than 20 gallons of gasoline

We must work to reform the auto industry by enacting and enforcing sensible regulations to reduce automobile violence, including regulations governing the auto industry. In addition, we should represent victims of automobile violence in the courts. We must work to educate the public about car violence through litigation, grassroots mobilization, and outreach to affected communities.

Together we can end the death and destruction automobiles cause in America.

Too good. H/T to I Own the World for the pointer.

Who built it?

A truly great ad from the Romney campaign:



Now, to hammer home this point, day after day, so that the mass of Americans truly learn what Obama believes.

Who you gonna believe?

During an interview with KTIV, Obama says that Obamacare doesn't impact and hurt businesses.



The transcript:

 KTIV-TV (Sioux City, Iowa) reporter Matt Breen: "One of those businesses that I mentioned said very specifically when they said they needed to close up shop and move their jobs back to Wisconsin was that it was a direct result of the health care reform that you initiated, that Congress passed. How do you react to that?"

President Obama: "That would be kind of hard to explain, because the only folks that have been impacted in terms of the health care bill are insurance companies who are required to make sure that they’re providing preventive care, or they’re not dropping your coverage when you get sick. And so, this particular company probably wouldn’t have been impacted by that. I know that there’s a perception sometimes that there’s all kinds of regulations coming out of Washington, the truth is actually we’ve seen fewer regulations coming out of my administration than the previous administration. But obviously, you know it’s tough running a small business no matter what. And we’re going to make sure that we continue to provide whatever financing help that we can provide.”

How out of touch with reality can you get.  I guess it's part of the continuing narrative from the White House that everything is someone else's fault.  That only sweetness, light and wonderful comes from The One.

And what about the whopper that fewer regulations have come out of the Obama administration?  Straight from Pinocchio himself.

Hat tip to RCP via Weasel Zippers.

Government Economics

From 2010:



How did that work out for government planning?

Layers of management

A little humor for diversion on a Sunday.

Stolen from Simply Because It Is.

Investors on the Sidelines

The brilliant Victor Davis Hanson, writing at National Review Online, looks at why the economy isn't moving.

We recently saw lots of sit-down strikes and demonstrations — the various efforts in Wisconsin, the Occupy movements, and student efforts to oppose tuition hikes. None of them mattered much or changed anything. There is a sit-down strike, however, that has paralyzed the country and has been largely ignored by the media.

Most economists since 2009 have been completely wrong in their forecasts, reminding us that their supposedly data-driven discipline is more an art than a science. After all, a great deal of money is invested and spent — or not — based largely on perceptions, hunches, and emotions rather than a 100 percent certainty of profit or loss.  And the message Americans are getting is that the Obama administration is hostile to investment and business, and thus should be waited out.

Barack Obama’s original economic team — Austan Goolsbee, Christina Romer, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag — have long fled the administration, and have proved mostly wrong in all their therapies and prognostications of 2009. Despite the stimulus of borrowing over $5 trillion in less than four years, near-zero interest rates, and chronic deficits, the U.S. economy is in the weakest recovery since the Great Depression and mired in the longest streak of continuous unemployment of 8 percent or higher — 38 months — since the 1930s. The Mexican economy is growing more rapidly than is ours. Why did not massive annual $1 trillion–plus deficits spark a recovery, as government claimed an ever larger percentage of GDP, and new public-works projects were heralded by the administration?

Read the whole story for the details.  And the undeniable conclusion.

The Green scam with OPM

OPM - Other People's Money.  It's amazing how many things are done with those three letters.  Solyndra was a scheme with OPM.  The GSA scandal - again, spending OPM.  People are never as careful with OPM as they are with their own.

Today's story via Human Events:

One of the big recent “green energy” epic failures is A123 Systems, which raked in $300 million from the “stimulus” bill, plus another $135 million in Michigan state funding.  They’re currently teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and just got slapped with a class-action lawsuit for allegedly “making false and misleading statements” about manufacturing deficiencies in their products.

One of those products was the electric battery used in the Fisker Karma, a $100,000 electric sports car that literally dropped dead when Consumer Reports took it for a test drive.  A123 Systems was betting heavily on Fisker’s success – so heavily that they pumped $20 million of their own equity and cash into the auto maker.

Fisker got $529 million of your money from the Obama Administration, producing 500 manufacturing jobs.  Unfortunately, those manufacturing jobs were in Finland, not America.  Fiskers executives were quite proud of their wise decision to keep those jobs overseas.

Confronted by this horrific embarrassment, Obama apologists pointed to the Fiskers plant in Delaware, the lovely state from whence our Vice President hails.  They bought an old GM factory (built when the “G” stood for “General,” not “Government”) and planned to build a much more affordable $50,000 car for the common man in their American facility.  It’s called the “Atlantic.”  It doesn’t actually exist, and it probably never will.

That’s because Fisker has begun laying off workers left and right at its Delaware plant, “because it ran out of government loan money,” as USA Today put it.  “Fisker had failed to meet production and sales milestones it had promised in the loan agreement with the Department of Energy, so loan cash was shut off last May.”  They’re up to 66 layoffs now.

Fisker can't make it without OPM propping it up.  A123 is all about taking OPM.  Read the whole story at the above link.

And there's more.  Think of politicians who tout local pork projects with lines like "And 90% of the funding will come from the federal government - we only have to provide 10%".  That 90% is OPM.  But it just doesn't appear from the ether.  Ultimately, with any of these government funding projects, it's the American people who, in one way or another, provide the money that someone else gets to use.

At its root comes the fundamental question:  Is it better for the individual or the central planners to decide how to spend your money?  Those who want central planning say they know better and can make wiser decisions.  Look in the mirror and ask yourself "Do I really believe that some bureaucrat or politician knows more about what's best for me than I do?"  If the answer is "NO!!", remember to vote in November.  If the answer is "Yes", why are you reading this blog??  (And by the way, remember to vote in December)

Juxtaposition of the Day

State Of The Union, Jan 24, 2012;

"In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries."

State Of The Battery, Jan 26, 2012;

Obama-backed electric car battery-maker files for bankruptcy

From Small Dead Animals.

Yeah, let's encourage small business

From Dan Danner at Big Government:

Imagine for a moment that you are a small-business owner looking to hire a new employee. As tough as the economy has been, you’ve managed to put your firm on track to expand.

Now imagine facing a lawsuit for requiring perhaps one of the most basic qualifications for job applicants – a high school diploma. You don’t have to imagine that last part. It’s now an unfortunate reality thanks to guidance recently issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The “informal discussion letter” states that requiring a high-school diploma as a qualification for employment may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, which the EEOC enforces. Therefore, an employer must prove a high school education is “job related and consistent with business necessity,” or face potential fines or lawsuits brought under ADA.

So, not having a high school diploma puts you in a protected class for discrimination enforcement from the EEOC?  Under the Americans with Disabilities Act?  Have we gone mad?  (or just madder?)

It's all part of the war against business being waged by this administration.  Read the whole thing HERE.

The logic within the SOTU??

From Hugh Hewitt comes this logical arrangement of initiatives put forth in yesterday's State of the Union speech.  It's a bit long, but worth following.  Because it truly points out that the SOTU was nothing more than a laundry list of political talking-points and campaign slogans.  This was written by Clark Judge:


But let me get this straight:

1) banks will be punished (do I understand this right, by a committee headed by Eric Holder?) if their lending is too risky,

2) and they will be required (by the same committee) to give more home loans (meaning, it must be, to people who would otherwise not qualify for the loans, or else the government would not have to be involved) at lower rates (which means rates that do not compensate them as much as the market says they need to be compensated for the risks they are taking, all of which sounds like a new edition of the policies that brought on the financial collapse),

3) which must mean that they will have to pull back on risky lending someplace other than homes,

4) the only place that most banks would be able to pull back on riskier customers would be loans to small and new businesses,

5) but these are the businesses that have created just about all the jobs over the last 20 years and he said early in the speech he wants to encourage them,

6) so maybe their growth capital will come from selling stock to the kinds of people who invest in new and small businesses,

7) but through the Buffet Rule he’s going to double the tax rate on investment income for those people, meaning that, like the banks, they can’t be fully compensated for the risk of backing small and new businesses,

8) so they will not invest more in small and new companies but in big established firms,

9) so more of those small and new firms will have to turn to the government for capital,

10) which luckily he said would up its investing in early stage businesses with “the best” ideas,

Quote of the Day

If they wanted him (Obama) to close Gitmo they should have put a factory there, or an oil rig.

-- Dan McLaughlin


Hat tip to Proof Positive.