Friday, November 7, 2008

GM asks taxpayers for some of what the banks got. HELL NO!

Holy crap! I'm getting a sense of deja vu from General Motors' cries for taxpayer help in the form of a government bailout.

U.S. car companies have had decades to change to leaner companies with better and more fuel efficient cars that consumers would buy, but did they do the smart thing?

Hell no.

Instead they hitched their wagon to bigger cars and refused to look around the corner at the coming oil shortage and the alternative energy push.

Should we bail them out? Hell No!

Of course the economy will take a hit. Of course workers will suffer.

Those are the consequences of poor management decisions over decades and consumers who've bought into the whole Hummer/SUV/Land Rover phenomenon.

Whose fault is it that U.S. auto manufacturing has shed jobs affecting the whole economy? It's management's fault. They could have made better, more forward-looking cars that people wanted, but they chose to maximize present profit at the expense of future viability. That's poor management and the cost of these bad practices should not be externalized to the rest of us. The free market should deal with this, not the U.S. taxpayer.

Let them fail. Maybe the actual threat of failure will provide the necessary impetus for them to do what they should've done all along...being a real American company. Americans are in front of the market instead of being behind the curve and getting hammered by excess and inertia.

GM's timing is highly suspicious. They stood back and watched what happened with the bank bailout. Now, their hands' are out. They're hoping a lame duck Bush will help before Obama takes office.

Republican message is to blame for their losses, not people

Republicans are quick to try to blame a person for their stunning loss on November 4.

Campbell Brown calls them to task for blaming Sarah Palin. Rightly so.

Blaming a person for the loss is bullshit, even if that person wasn't qualified for the job. Perhaps it was the Republican message that was at fault?

If the republican message is to blame shouldn't that be re-tooled?

That's a hard pill to swallow for the Republican faithful. Like religious fanatics, they'll scapegoat people without the power to damage a whole movement rather than look to their own beliefs as the source of their failings.

Until the Republicans look at their message, the real cause of their failure, they'll be stuck in limbo.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Conclusive proof that human activity the cause of global warming

Rush Limbaugh actually is a big fat idiot after all.

Rush is a strong opponent of human-induced climate change.

Well, there is now conclusive proof that climate variability has exceeded natural variations.

Of course, like holocaust deniers, Rush will point to the scientists as being some liberal cabal of pointy-headed intellectuals and are therefore not to be believed.

Here's what I say to that: If you're standing on a train track with lights approaching and horns blowing, you can deny the fact that a train is coming up until you get run down.

Or, you can take the evidence and take action.

GOP should move toward fiscal responsibility and away from conservative orthodoxy

The GOP has some tough times ahead.

Although I don't consider myself a Republican, due in large part to the overly religious nature of the party, I share some common values with the Republicans on the fiscal front.

The Republicans need to attract more moderates if they wish to regain some measure of power in the future. The conservative wing will fight this, but the party cannot afford the orthodoxy of the extreme right if it wishes to return from the wilderness.

I suspect that the Republicans will come out of this newly chastened. I also suspect that they will adopt many of the attitudes and practices of the New England Republicans. Specifically, Mitt Romney.

Those values are less wingnut and more economics driven.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Rush Limbaugh gives Republicans some stunningly stupid advice for winning the next election.

Here's some advice to Republicans from everybody's favorite stink-wind, Rush Limbaugh.

Rush advises Republicans to run to the Right even more if they want to win.

All I can say is this: I hope the Republicans take the supreme bloviator's advice. If they do, that will ensure continued Democrat dominance.

Rush is known for ignoring reality in the service of his religion--Right-Wing Ideology.

Must be nice to get paid so much to live in a fantasy world and spew idiocy to like-minded sycophants.

Go Rush!

Lessons of this election for Republicans

It's over. Now comes the gnashing of teeth and the rending of clothes by the Republicans.

What has this election determined:

1. John McCain was better than his campaign. He allowed Lee Atwater -type operatives to hijack his genuine nature and run the campaign into the ditch of defeat.

2. Tough economic times moves the electorate toward a we're in this together philosophy and away from the individualist attitude of every man for himself.

3. Fear no longer drives votes enough to win. Hope is better in the end. This fits with American optimism anyway.

4. Exploiting factions for electoral gain has limited efficacy. Finding common ground and looking for compromise ultimately wins the day.

5. America is not a conservative nation. America is a moderate nation that flirts with conservativism and liberalism.

6. Race remains an issue. I spoke with a number of people who voted for McCain, but none could give a cogent reason for their vote, except that Obama was an other and their fear wouldn't allow them to vote otherwise. A nice-sounding pretext doesn't excuse a racist rationale. Maybe the wish to move beyond race is ahead of the reality on the ground.

7. The Republican party faces a choice. If they continue like they have for the past 20 odd years, their only pockets of support will be in the deep South amongst white rural voters. Most Americans live in urban areas or close to them, so that dog won't hunt for too much longer.

8. Latino voters opted for the Democrat ticket. This bodes ill for today's Republicans, since Latinos are set to become the largest minority group in the U.S. Combine Latinos with African-Americans and you have a very large Democrat voting bloc.

9. Due to number 8 above, the Republicans are paying the price for their reliance on pretext racism to drive uneducated whites to the polls. Uneducated rural whites are an endangered breed. The Bubba vote, although staunch, is diminishing in value as the population shifts toward cities.

Republicans have their work cut out for them. If they manage to re-invent themselves, they won't look like Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh--they will look like Bill Richardson and Colin Powell. Republicans will need to cut loose constituencies that depend on subtle, code-word driven bigotry if the party hopes to capture those targeted by such petty prejudice.

It's a hard choice.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

West Wing laid the groundwork for the Obama campaign

Here's a reason why I like the West Wing. In a dramatic display of art imitating life, I give you the following.




Enjoy.

Old Wive's Tale is shot down by science

As a child, my mother always told me that boys were made of "Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails" whereas girls were made of "Sugar and spice and everything nice."

The clear implication of that early training was that boys are dirtier than girls.

Girls readily buy into this and regularly call boys dirty.

Science has shot that notion all to hell in this study.

Apparently, women are the nastier of the two sexes if bacteria are the criteria used to judge nasty-ness.

Well, at least now I can begin the healing process.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Old story from the Onion nailed the last 8 years -- before Bush took office!

I love The Onion. Probably the only good source for satire.

Here's a story produced by The Onion in January 2001.

I defy anyone to read this and not choke on the creepy similarities to the story and the results of the last 8 years.

The Onion is spot on with its prediction, even though it was intended as humor.

Read it and laugh, cry, or pound your fist on the desk.

Scary how life imitates art.