Cash 4 Clunkers is poorly thought out

Forget all the debate about whether the government should be taking such an active role in the car industry. It is and will continue to. How about doing so in an intelligent way. The bill includes a requirement to kill the engine by replacing the oil with sodium silicate and running it until gums up and destroys the gaskets. Jesus what a waste. I'm sure some assclown like Ted Kennedy made a speech on the Senate floor "Gad by you harrible engines saurce of all aur problems" in his thick Northeastern accent and got all the other retarded ideologes into a fury.

We've got millions of older cars on the road. Most of the tradeins are going to come from a few of the more popular models. Lets go with the Ford F-150 as an example, the best selling vehicle for 23 years straight through 2005. Now in an effort to be on equal footing with your typical Congressman I've done no research, but I can guarantee you the engines aren't that inefficient. It's a small miracle and testament to their design they get their piss poor gas mileage with the 5000-6000 pounds they're dragging, block like aerodynamics, A/C, and other power options.

Here's an opportunity for someone. There will be thousands of F-150s being traded in. The engines will be treated as scrap. You can incorporate what 10 years ago was millions of dollars of R&D on the cheap.
Here are the potiential downsides I came up with:

1. There's a variety of different model years with differing specs. Really? You think they change that much? Most years I think they just slap a new badging on it and change a spoiler. Maybe the engine gains a few HP, but I think you can just black box it. The engines coupling to the driveshaft isn't changing because I'm positive they aren't working on the drivetrain and chasis every year.
   
2. They're heavily used and will require work. Possibly, but you're selecting from a big group which allows you to be discriminating and you're pick them up for your transportation costs and a trivial amount. You'd have cash to be able to work on them.
3. You're not assured a steady supply. No arguement here.
   

The ideas that came to me were generators, plunking them down in a smaller, lighter car with a better drag coefficient, or if you have a death wish souping up go-karts. I haven't really thought any of them out and I'm sure there's plenty wrong with the ideas. However, I'm sure other people could come up with uses if Congress would give them a chance.

What kills me is that Cash for Clunkers is supposed to be an effort at greater conservation and responsible use of resources. They're not even considering ways to use these engines. Just permanently disable them and send them to be scrapped. This is what happens when you have a bunch of lawyer and other social parasites running your nation.

The month in politics

Arlen Specter changed parties. He didn't like the direction Republicans are going. Understandable. So you jump ship to the Democrats? What are you a fucking moron? Did you grow up on a steady diet of paint chips?

You're an incumbent and well-known to your constituency. The only reason anyone needs a party is that they've become indispensable to getting initially elected. Political parties have wedged themselves in to the system in the same manner that the Candiru fish jams itself into an unsuspecting native's bladder while they take a leak. Its gotten to the point where major surgery is the only option. No matter how hard you groan and grunt you can't excrete these parasites. They've got a stranglehold on America's collective cock and balls.

The two keys to being elected in America are:

1. Running for the dominant party in your district
2. Spending the most money
   

~70% of the country votes on the basis of whether there's an R or D next to your name.

Wikipedia's image revised to take into account reality

Yes, unfortunately 7 out of 10 Americans are autistic cunts. If your district is predominantly your party you win by default. There's a short list of things that can ruin the deal. Any kind of sex act involving feces and children is strictly verboten. Help the old lady across the street, don't push her into oncoming traffic as she drones on about her grandchildren. Don't kill anyone and leave enough evidence behind to convince voters you actually did it (Anything less than a fully commented video tape, gallon of semen, bloody knife with your prints, and a notarized confession falls into the reasonable doubt category for party voters) . Avoid that and you're golden.

Here's my problem with political parties. They encourage a one size fits all mentality. They put out a platform that runs the whole gamut on every issue under the sun. The Republicans' is 67 pages, the Dems' 58. It was all put together by committee and is mostly self aggrandizing bull shit. There should not be a single person on this goddam planet that agrees with more than half of either document. If you can accurately sum up your positions in one word I've got a shorter one: fucktard.

What if I believe in a small government, but would prefer a stance on civil rights that doesn't resemble the Spanish Inquisition? I like guns, but don't need a fucking assault rifle to protect myself. Nor do I want Jimbo or Jamal running out to grab one. For that matter neither would the Founding Fathers. The Constitution was written in a time when state of the art firearms were inaccurate and slow. Hold on I'm powdering my flintlock and loading a small irregularly shaped ball.

There are nuances to these issues that are bulldozed by the parties to encourage a homogeneous meshing. Hot button issues are propagated as a way of dividing the country so we don't focus on the truly colossal failure of these 2 institutions. It rallies morons from bible colleges and political science departments alike to go canvas shopping malls and annoy everyone. It brings out the extremists.

In 15 minutes with a fucking crayon I could fairly solve what legislators have spent years putting together intricate bill signing ceremonies, stocking courtrooms with similarly biased judges, etc.

Here goes:
The golden rule: Morals start at home. Don't expect anyone to teach them to your children. You want them, you better instill them yourself.

Follow up: Don't try to force your morals on anyone else. This is America. The only time my rights should be restricted is if they are in conflict with yours.

Given those two principals my stance on everything else should be evident, but in the next post I'll go through it. I've already sat on this one for 2 months, time to put something out.

What's a trillion dollars?

With billions of dollars being thrown around like change we've become desensitized to the reality behind these outrageously large numbers. Here's a sense of what this number actually represents:

http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=159954&t=01006124249416869148

And we're in debt to the tune of 11 Trillion dollars and climbing as a result of every Congress and President since
Reagan being a combination of too cowardly, greedy, stupid, arrogant, and self aggrandizing to limit themselves. Making this even more shameful is the fact that throughout the last 30 years we've had unparalleled prosperity and no major external threat that we had to deal with.

Dick Cheney's heart: Proof God exists

I've been holding my tongue mostly because I'm so disgusted with this SOB and can't adequately express my contempt or even hit on all his transgressions of the law and common decency. He's truly the James Brown of douchebaggery. No one works so hard to so flagrantly flaunt the law.

This most recent Blitzer interview broke the camel's back.

CHENEY: You know, when we get into talking about the application of specific techniques to prisoners, then we get into the business of signaling to our adversaries what we might or might not do and they can train for it. It has been publicly acknowledged that we did use water boarding.

We should rethink this policy. Hell, I'd come out and say not only do we water board we've begun shooting guys in the knee caps and hooking their testicles up to a car battery. Start training Achmed. Allah and an eternity with 70 virgins depends on your ability to outlast a Duralast.

Paradise is only 45 Amp-hours away, grit your teeth.

BLITZER: John McCain says it's torture.

CHENEY: Well, John is wrong. He and I have a fundamental disagreement on this point. But what the agency did was they sought formal guidance from the senior leadership of the administration, as well as the Justice Department in terms of what was appropriate and what wasn't. And they got that guidance. And they followed that guidance, as far as I know. I have no reason to believe anybody out at the agency violated any tenet of the obligations and responsibilities we have in terms of statutes or our treaty obligations. I think it was done very professionally.

This kills me on two levels. First, I'm super reassured that the torture was done professionally. Nothing pisses me off quite like sloppy torture.

Second, I thought the elite with their fancy theories and degrees lacked the experience, vision, and common sense to lead. The Administration is rejecting McCain and his 6 years of experience being tortured and taking the advice of a bunch of panty waste lawyers (although in their defense the increasing politicization of the DOJ means there are fewer lawyers and more Regents University hacks). Despite this, the damning reality remains that the architect of the brilliant call-a-prisoner-an-enemy-combatant-so-you-can-do-whatever-the-fuck-you-want strategy is John Yoo ( a law professor, from Berkeley no less).

John Yoo, Championship Level Cock Sucker*

This in an Administration where an advisor talking about Sunni Shiites violence would receive a low, friendly response of:

"John ... Jimbo .. Bob? Whatever your name is let's call a spade a spade. So you're saying crazy Arabs are killing crazy Arabs. Anything else?"

Shades of gray and nuances are feared. They introduce complexity into an otherwise elegantly simple world view where every decision is right if you just get the proper (and distant) historical perspective.


Finally to top it off he backs away from responsibility.

BLITZER: And if necessary, would you authorize it again?

CHENEY: Well, I'm not in the chain of command, but if necessary, I would certainly recommend it again.

January 20th 2001 George I and Barbara handed their baby boy off to Dick's stewardship with explicit instructions to keep him from eating paste, running with sharp objects, and licking outlets. He took advantage of W's childlike innocence and intelligence to become one of the most powerful VPs ever. Few things are more detestable than betraying a child's trust. A new big brother to a troubled inner city youth who brought a a fifth of Jack Daniels, a new sports bike, and a handgun on their first meeting would have been a better mentor.

The English language doesn't have a word that describes my disgust, so I invented one.

Fecethroat

intransitive verb

1. The desire to kill someone by shitting down their throat and inducing suffocation

*John Yoo gives new meaning to the phrase "Beef, its what's for dinner" as the first human being to deepthroat an erect bull.

A Day Late, A Testicle Short: The Scott McClellan Story

I can't think of a more appropriate set of circumstances under which to write this review. The book was released 6 months ago and anyone who would have bought the book has probably already done so. I haven't read it, but I did skim the book cover and the blurb on Wikipedia.

Not only will this information be too stale to have any meaningful impact, it's also coming from a position of ignorance. We can now begin in earnest.

Let's start with the premise. Scott had major ethical qualms with what the administration was telling the public, so he resigned April 19, 2006. Hats off, if there were more people like you the world would be a better place. Then he leapt into action and blew the whistle... 2 years later. Way to sack up.


Your memoirs criticize the press for being too accepting of the administration's perspective on the war. My head damn near exploded. Are we talking about the same perspective that you, a White House insider with the benefit of additional, publicly unavailable information swallowed and regurgitated? You're criticizing people for eating the BS you served on a platter as the President's mouthpiece?

In a Washington Post article on June 1, 2008, McClellan said of Bush: "I still like and admire George W. Bush. I consider him a fundamentally decent person, and I do not believe he or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people." Seriously, I'm done. Fine, you like the President. I'd agree, he seems like an affable guy. But the title of your book is "Washington's Culture of Deception". Where'd you spend your time? Where'd you see all this shit happening?

This guy is surreal. If his mother was raped by the entire Cabinet, W, and Shooter McGavin he'd blame it on her being in the wrong places, on the floor spread eagle, bent over a chair, and pressed against the wall naked as those individuals, also naked, through no fault of their own, tripped and fell into her. I take it back. He'd say its really not her fault either. No one's to blame. Its the culture. Let's ignore the fact that culture is just the cumulative actions of individuals. Put down the Kool-aid. I hope he's still touring to promote the book. I'd love to take a dump on his table. You're a tremendous cunt, one day I hope you realize it.

RIP Michael Crichton

I'll miss his beautiful synthesis of science and suspense.

If you haven't read any of his stuff get down to a library or bookstore. I'd recommend Jurassic Park, Timeline, or Sphere, but I don't think you can go wrong.

Called It

2 Posts ago I posed the rhetorical question :"What will Washington's reaction be when banks have the ability to lend, but not the desire?"

Its happening, the White House is beginning to demand banks make loans they don't have the stomach for. No real action yet, but this is just a clusterfuck waiting to happen.

Excerpts below:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An impatient White House served notice Tuesday on banks and other financial companies receiving billions of dollars in federal help to quit hoarding the money and start making more loans.

"We're trying to do is get banks to do what they are supposed to do, which is support the system that we have in America. And banks exist to lend money," White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

Though there are limits on how much Washington can pressure banks, she noted that banks are regulated by the federal government. "They will be watching very closely, and they're working with the banks," she said.

"The way that banks make money is by lending money. And so, they have every incentive to move forward and start using this money," Perino said.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081028/financial_meltdown.html