Why It’ll Stay Government Motors For A While Yet

Great Moments In Socialism 16 Comments

In the NY Times, no less (business section of course):

General Motors posted its ninth consecutive profitable quarter on Thursday. But almost three years after its taxpayer bailout and bankruptcy, the nation’s biggest automaker still can’t shed the stigma of being “Government Motors.”
Because the Treasury Department still owns a 26 percent stake in the company, G.M. remains saddled with pay restrictions that limit its ability to recruit new talent, a ban on corporate jets, and lingering image problems in the eyes of some consumers.
Company executives usually deflect questions about the effect of government ownership on their business, or their frustration with it. But in a rare interview on the topic, G.M.’s chief executive, Daniel F. Akerson, said he longs for the day that G.M. can finally say goodbye to its biggest shareholder…

Sigh.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Climate Cult 19 Comments

All part of the population reduction strategy; (pdf)

Cumulatively, WHO (2009) attributed 11.2 million deaths and 379 million lost DALYs to these nine poverty-related risk factors. By contrast, 0.14 million deaths and 5.4 million lost DALYs were attributed worldwide to global warming (see Figure 1). Obviously, at present, the health consequences of global warming are trivial relative to the cumulative non-global warming impact of hunger and poverty. Under either criterion, poverty-related health
risks easily outrank global warming as global priorities.
The 70- to 80-fold mismatch in scale between the diseases of poverty and global warming indicates that even a small increase in poverty due to, for example, either lower economic growth induced by efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or an increase in biofuel production, could outweigh the public health benefits from the associated greenhouse gas reductions (Tol and Dowlatabadi 2001; Tol and Yohe 2006).

h/t John

An Anarchists’ Fashion Guide

entitlement generation 28 Comments

anarchist-labels-600x465.jpg
Original caption: “The modern northwestern anarchist has an embarrassment of riches to choose from. You can see every combination from the easily oh-so-wearable Nike/Gap/North Face ensemble to a full-body monochromatic jumpsuit over the course of a rebellious year. Fine tailoring has been outsourced all over the world – from China, Indonesia and even Argentina – to keep prices in line and will never go out of fashion. Be it May Day or a WTO conference, scrupulous conglomerates have survived the revolution in outdoor anarchist clothing to kit you out for a proper 21st-century uprising!”
More here

Forward!

2012 19 Comments

That is what “Forward” really means. The “Forwardism” of that future which never seems to work, but is on the edge of working, with enough money, enough laws and enough marching orders, mankind will finally set foot into that mechanical state where leaders look upon us from their balloons and tell us how to live and how to die.

h/t Me No Dhimmi

In 1992, NBC Stuck Explosives To A GM Truck And Blew It Up

Media 19 Comments

In 2012, they stuck em to a guy named George Zimmerman.

A third NBC employee has been fired from the network after yet another misleadingly edited George Zimmerman 911 tape surfaced from the Trayvon Martin shooting.
Lilia Luciano, a Miami-based correspondent, “is no longer working for the network,” TVNewser reports. Her firing follows the axing of an NBC producer who edited the original 911 call that caused so much controversy as well as a local NBC reporter, Jeff Burnside, who was found to have used a similarly-edited recording

Hashtag Of The Entitlement Generation

entitlement generation 13 Comments

Treacher;

Just because the Cleveland 5 are all Occupiers, spout Occupy rhetoric, and used an Occupy camp to plan their attempted bombing, that doesn’t mean Occupy has anything to do with it. How were the peace-loving, violence-abhoring Occupiers supposed to know that these solid citizens were plotting a bombing right in their midst? The Occupiers are completely blameless. Just like the Tea Parties would be blameless if they spawned something like this, right?
[…]
Read the whole Plain Dealer piece for more about these winners’ rap sheets. Suicide threats, felonious assault, inciting violence, vandalism, theft, trespassing, drug charges, fraud, receiving stolen property, harassment, breaking and entering… No wonder they fit right in with the rest of the Occupiers.

Operation Fast and Furious

Radioactive 10 Comments

Laws are for the little people;

Congressional Republicans Thursday took the first formal steps toward holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, issuing a draft of their complaint against him for his handling of the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal.
The 44-page complaint, issued by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asks the full House to hold Holder in contempt for “failure to comply with a congressional subpoena.”

(Related)

Is There Nothing That Obama Can’t Do?

Ethical Energy 3 Comments

IBD;

Today the Obama administration brags about its “all of the above” energy policy, but two years ago it temporarily banned oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill, a move that cut oil output and cost thousands of jobs.
At the time, the Interior Department report called its recommendations “peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.” But that was not true. None of the seven advised a drilling ban then.
[..]
Interior’s estimate was that well closures temporarily cost 8,000-12,000 jobs and $1.2 billion in economic activity. Mason put job losses at 13,000-19,000, lost wages at $800 million and lost tax revenue at $200 million.
When Interior said the engineers backed the ban, the engineers were shocked. The idea of a moratorium never came up in their sessions and was not recommended, five of the seven told IBD. There was no need to stop other wells, they said.

Y2Kyoto: Ve Haf Vays Of Making You Varm

Climate Cult 19 Comments

“How conveeeenient…..”

The number of in-orbit and planned Earth observation missions by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is projected to drop “precipitously” from 23 this year to only six by 2020
That means the number of instruments monitoring Earth’s activity is expected to decline from a peak of about 110 last year to fewer than 30 by the end of the decade.

First they came for the thermometers….

h/t Bemused

The Caldwell Folk Music and Art Society

Political Animal 23 Comments

Dance taxpayer, dance!

In March of last year, the [Brandon Folk Music and Art Society] submitted a 200-page funding application to the federal Department of Canadian Heritage, seeking a contribution of $2,088,066 from the Harper government toward the projected cost of the project. The balance would come from the provincial government ($1,114,065), the City of Brandon ($474,000) and from society fundraising ($500,000)
[…]
In addition to a copy of the society’s articles of incorporation, which show that BFMAS was incorporated by [Brandon East NDP MLA Drew Caldwell] and others several years ago, the application also contains a feasibility study which identifies Caldwell’s taxpayer-funded constituency office as a committed tenant of office space in the building.
Also in the application is a copy of a letter (on “Manitoba Legislative Assembly” letterhead) signed by Caldwell, in his capacity as MLA for Brandon East, in which he strongly endorses the project. It does not disclose that his wife is chair of BFMAS.

In NDP Manitoba, there’s a word for these schemes – “Thursday”.
Related: “Winnipeg Free Press reporters making an access to information request to the provincial government are told it will cost 1.9 million dollars to fulfill.”

Reader Tips

Reader Tips 46 Comments

Everyone has heard Elvis Presley’s 1960 version of “Are You Lonesome Tonight” but not many people realize that the song was already an older-than-oldie at the time he recorded it. Tonight, we listen to one of the earlier versions, delivered in a bracing Presbyterian burr that makes the old-timey melody that much more persuasive: From 1927, here’s Canadian tenor Henry Burr singing Are You Lonesome Tonight?
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

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