Government Motors

How lucky is the American taxpayer? Not only do we get to guarantee union pensions, but we also get to guarantee union products, so says President Obama:

If you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired, just like always. Your warrantee will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it's ever been. Because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warrantee.

Today General Motors becomes Government Motors. GM is dead, long live GM!

The Answer

While out and about, I came across a sign on a church that said something like:

Christ is the Answer No Matter the Question.

Okay, I have a question - what is two plus two? Or how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

Doesn't work so well now, does it?

Maybe if Christians would stop sloganeering and take their religion seriously, so might more non-Christians.

Daniel Hannan for President

Sure the Constitution would forbid it, but it'd be nice to have a president with cool accent, not to mention the fundamental understanding of economics most of our political class lack:

[Hat tip: Instapundit]

Growing the Ranks

My kid brother* joins the ranks. Good for him, and good for us!

* by "kid" I mean nearly 30. He's not really a kid anymore, but despite the facial hair I always see him as much younger.

"Being President is Hard!"

Listening to President Obama's discussion with the press tonight, and he keeps repeating "fixing this is hard" and "getting that done is not easy".

I recall the media giving President Bush a hard time for similar statements. I'm not holding out for equal treatment.

Tax Control

The last few days Congress has been up in arms about AIG meeting its contractual obligations to current and former employees by paying bonuses. So Congress in its infinite wisdom has decided to tax those bonuses at 90%, because AIG (who put those bonuses into place before they were bailed out by the taxpayers) shouldn't be allowed to compensate its employees as it sees fit.

How long until Congress decides that the little people (i.e., anyone not an elected official or party member) should make no more than x, and taxes everything above x at confiscatory rates? That'd be fair, right?

More importantly, when did income taxes go from being a tool used to generate revenue for the government to a weapon of control and punishment?

Socialism not for Soldiers

So let's get this straight - the current administration wants to socialize healthcare because it's some kind of "right", but they want to cut government funding for the treatment of men and women who were injured in the line of duty? Does this make sense to anyone?

Progressive and Conservatives

Today I took a quiz that would tell me how "progressive" I am. Here, you can give it a try.

I scored a mere 75 out of 400, which makes me "Extremely Conservative." I would have scored zero if the test were intelligent. Many questions were vague: "Immigrants today are a burden on our country (blah blah blah)." - okay, what kind of immigrant? One may enter the United States either legally or illegally, and each impacts our economy differently. I couldn't answer the question.

But "progressive vs. conservative" is asinine to begin with. There are two kinds of people and they don't break out as progressives or conservatives. One group are people who love freedom, and the other are progressives or conservatives who do not. Progressive and conservatives don't respect any freedom except for the handful of freedoms they happen to approve of.

Had more questions been phrased as "Should government force people to do x or should individuals choose to do x as they see fit?" then there would have been a useful difference.

Hypovehiculation

• (n) hypovehiculate (to throw under a vehicle, i.e., a bus) "Charles Freeman, the screwball erstwhile diplomat who was briefly slated to be chairman of the National Intelligence Council, blamed the 'Israel Lobby' for his hypovehiculation."

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ὑπο- (hypo-), combining form of ὑπό (hypó), 'under') and French véhicule. First usages found here and here.

Global Warming: Not as Bad as Originally Thought

Or should it be "poor and minorities hardest hit"?

[B]oth Northern Hemisphere and overall Global hurricane activity has continued to sink to levels not seen since the 1970s. Even more astounding, when the Southern Hemisphere hurricane data is analyzed to create a global value, we see that Global Hurricane Energy has sunk to 30-year lows, at the least.

In other words, this climate change thing might be good for us.