Author: Kate

We Don’t Need No Stinking Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy 66 Comments

Via Truth About Cars;

I’m a Chevrolet dealer… we have a Chevy Volt on the lot, it’s been there now for four weeks. We’ve had one person come in to look at it, just to see what it actually looks like… Here’s a car that costs $45,763. I can stock that car for probably a year and then have to sell it at some ridiculous price. By the way, I just received some additional information from Chevrolet: in addition to the $7,500 [federal] tax credit, Pennsylvania is going to throw another $3,500 to anybody foolish enough to buy one of these cars, somehow giving them $11,000 of taxpayer money to buy this Volt.
When you look at this, it makes absolutely no sense. I can stock a Chevy Cruze, which is about a $17,500 car and turns every 30 to 40 days out of inventory… or I can have a Volt, which never turns and creates nothing for me on the lot except interest costs… So a lot of these things that we’re seeing going on have a tremendous economic impact on people who are being asked to stock them and sell them. There is no market for this car. I do have some friends who have sold them, and they’re mostly to people who have an academic interest in it, or municipalities who are asking to buy these cars.

h/t
Related! You’ll get a charge out of this.

It’s Probably Nothing

It's Probably Nothing 15 Comments

Via Mish;

In Long Beach, the second-busiest container port by volume, August imports fell by 14.2 percent from August 2010. While the port has not yet released September volumes, a spokesman, Art Wong, said it expected about a 15 percent drop from September 2010.
The reports from the remaining container ports in the top five were equally gloomy. In New York-New Jersey, the number of incoming containers in August was about flat with last year. In Savannah, Ga., imports in August fell by 4 percent. Oakland reported that August imports were down 0.9 percent from a year earlier. And Los Angeles, the nation’s highest-volume container port, counted 5.75 percent fewer containers in August than a year earlier.

Reader Tips

Reader Tips 20 Comments

Last month an amateur rocket enthusiast named Derek Deville launched a rocket, dubbed Qu8k, from a Desert in Nevada; 90 seconds later, it had reached an altitude of over 120,000 feet. Here’s a 17-minute video of the enterprise, including footage from two onboard video cameras. (Shorter version here).
Launch those Reader Tips into the comments.

4600 Miles Later…

Dogblogging 30 Comments

And we’re home from the annual Michigan – Montgomery County suicide run. We have some major successes to report, but I’ll just narrow it down to the “big ones”.
We began at the Michigan Terrier Ass’n, in Mornoe, where Am.Can.Ch.Minuteman Goldikova won the schnauzer specialty and went on to place in a huge terrier group, defeating 251 dogs in the cold and driving wind.

golda_table_michigan.jpg golda_michigan.jpg
Minuteman Metropolis scored both of the major wins required for his American title with a Best of Breed win in Michigan and Best of Winners at the American Miniature Schnauzer Club national specialty at Montgomery County. (pictured here with my friend, Karen). gothamsda.jpg

Over the four days that make up the most important weekend for terriers on the planet – “Montgomery County” – Venus took home “select” and “Award of Merit” wins, as did Golda, who was also “best female” at Hatboro, while our young male, Am.Can.Ch.Minuteman Underworld was Best of Breed at Devon – the most prestigious win of the trip.
racket_and_friend.jpg
(Underworld congratulates his cousin new Am.Ch. Mystique Runway to a Legacy on finishing her title at Hatboro.)
In all, dogs with Minuteman breeding in their immediate pedigrees (represented by a variety of US kennels) made up about 25% of the entry, and took home 75% of the major awards over the weekend.
amsc_2011.jpg
(After “the cut”. Part of the final lineup at the National. Golda and I are at the front where we would go on to win “Select”.)
We have one more short jaunt to South Dakota in a week, and after that (I think) we’ll be drawing the campaign to a close. According to my records, Am.GCh.Can.Ch. Minuteman Venus Flytrap is currently the number one female in the breed in the US, all systems. Thanks to everyone for making this “once in a lifetime” year possible!
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(Click on the photos to view in larger format.)

Saskatchewan’s Rolling Canvas Revitalization Project

Gopher News 20 Comments

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Saskatchewan’s NDP gov’t puts tax dollars to work in 2007;

Work on the $1 million dollar project will be complete by July 31, 2007. The tender for painting the [100 government owned] hopper cars has been awarded to GE Railcar Repair Service Company of Regina and the contract for the decals has been awarded to Arco Graphics Inc. of Saskatoon.

Your tax dollars, still at work four years later;


Just one of 5 similarly redecorated redecorated government hopper cars spotted yesterday at Aylesbury, SK.

OWS

Uncategorized 15 Comments

Made in Canada:

Soros and the protesters deny any connection. But Reuters did find indirect financial links between Soros and Adbusters, an anti-capitalist group in Canada which started the protests with an inventive marketing campaign aimed at sparking an Arab Spring type uprising against Wall Street. Moreover, Soros and the protesters share some ideological ground.

A Day in The Hood

Great Moments In Socialism 13 Comments

Since September of this year, I am no longer involved with any organization as I have found the City of Winnipeg is in no way interested in making the North End a better place. The organizations seem to be in place to placate the masses, spend tax payers money, and turn community volunteers into unpaid social workers. And we seem to just keep feeding people. Events seem to always include giving food to whoever shows up. We have become another level of soup kitchens in the city.
[…]
Right now, many people are crying victim, staying on social assistance, pulling themselves down, carrying on the alcoholic lifestyle of their parents, and contributing to criminal behaviour that is pulling the North End down, and nobody is calling them on it. They can ride the victim train the rest of their lives because anyone who questions it would be called racist. And the social services agencies give power to the victimization label, protecting the rights of those who are labeled, or label themselves as victims.
People need to be held accountable for their actions, and they need to learn to make correct decisions. They need to learn to live within Societies norms and they need to respect the laws of the land. People will never be accountable for their actions if they are given the option of being a victim.

h/t Mike

Predator-in-Chief

Uncategorized 15 Comments

The pilotless aircraft are nearly invisible and, without warning, can deliver instant death from thousands of feet away in the airspace above. Foreign governments often give us permission to cross borders with Predators in a way they would not with loud, manned aircraft.
These advantages explain why President Obama has exponentially expanded the program. After five years of use under George W. Bush, such drones had killed around 400 suspected terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Under President Obama, in less than three years, Predators have taken out more than 2,200.
The program is uniquely suited to Obama’s “leading from behind” approach to warfare: killing far out of sight, and therefore out of mind — and out of the news. Once the war on terror’s fiercest critic, Obama has become its deadliest practitioner.
….more by Victor Davis Hanson HERE

It’s Probably Nothing

It's Probably Nothing 6 Comments

What is the problem behind the Markets/Economy? The problem is Debt began to implode in 2008. As you can see on this first chart below, debt has been growing constantly since the 1930’s, it got into a parabolic rise in the 1990’s and 2000’s and all these new dollars in terms of IOU’s are what supported the Real Estate Blowoff of ’06, the Tech Bubble ’00, and the Stock Boom in general of ’07.
That Debt/Credit supply reversed in 2008, had a slight bounce during market/economic recovery from 08′. But this trend is exhausted….
DEBT%3ACREDIT.png
..more charts HERE

Baiting the Left

Baiting The Left 35 Comments

Scramble their Brains (more likely Fire and Forget)
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation

Extra-judicial Activities

Terrorism 16 Comments

From an editorial in the very conservative Washington Times:

…
Precedent always makes policy, but this is both a dangerous precedent and bad policy. The memo may attempt to explain how this utilitarian argument for assassination overawes constitutional guarantees of due process, but so long as the report remains locked away in the White House, we may never know…[via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs]

Then Richard Cohen in the Washington Post (not as liberal a paper as some might think, compare to the Gray Lady editorially) :

…
The Justice Department memo and its acknowledgment of Awlaki’s citizenship are ample proof that the Obama administration realized it was crossing a line. But it did so on the sneak — a memo, still secret, written by two lawyers you and I never heard of…

Otherwise:
1) Bush tortures foreigners;
2) Obama kills an American.
Go figure. Very nasty things may sometimes be needed for raison d’État. But one then keeps them covert when they may offend commonly accepted legal, and other, principles–instead of effectively boasting of them.

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