Quickies

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A round-up of blog posts, articles, news items and columns that caught our eye this past week.






Yeah, we suck:

Look at what Obama did to try and get our economy going. He had this big, hundreds of billions of dollars stimulus that was designed by all the great economists who work in his administration — the top minds. It should have worked. The economy should be roaring right now and unemployment a thing of the past. America should be a utopia. So what was missing from the equation? That the people the stimulus was used on are a bunch of lazy dimwits. Obama did everything he possibly could, but apparently Americans just aren’t very good at running businesses and creating jobs. Obama has given us so many advantages that even chimpanzees should have been able to create jobs, but we just sit there like useless blobs while our companies crumble around us. We’re failing the country. We’re failing him.

As Frank J. Fleming suggests, we don't deserve him so in 2012 let's elect someone else so he can go on to bigger and better things.






With respect to the stark incuriosity displayed by Big Media regarding scandals like Fast and Furious and the wacking of U.S. citizens overseas, Glenn Reynolds suggests:

. . .fans of civil liberties should always vote for Republican presidents, since they’re the only ones that get press scrutiny.

HuffPo author shocked... shocked and dismayed to learn that Wal Mart makes big profits.

Commenters less so.

Awww.... Charlotte looking to ban Occupy encampments during the Democratic National Convention.

It's starting to look an awful lot like 1968.

The NY Times suddenly very concerned about the stifling and corrosive effects of cronyism and over-regulation of the private sector... in China.

After more than a decade in which private companies have been the prime engine of China’s economic miracle, the Chinese government is eager to control more of that wealth — even if that means running roughshod over private companies.

Chen Zhiwu, a professor of finance at Yale University and a harsh critic of the state’s dominant role in the economy, says the Chinese government is smothering the private sector. “When the government is involved in business, it’s hard for private companies to compete,” Professor Chen said.

The usurping of private enterprise has become so evident that the Chinese have given it a nickname: guojin mintui. That roughly translates as “while the state advances, the privates retreat.”

Really bad idea of the week...

The unveiling of pictures of planned luxury residential towers scheduled to be built in Seoul, South Korea, has sparked instant controversy. The reason is obvious. The towers, which include a so-called “cloud” feature connecting them around the 27th floors, clearly resemble the World Trade Towers in the process of collapsing following the 9/11 attacks.

What ever happened to the good ol' days of government-sponsored witch hunts to get to the bottom of automobile-related issues?

Apparently, way back in June, General Motors heard about a Volt fire that happened three weeks after said vehicle was crash tested, yet it wasn’t until November that the company, or NHTSA disclosed there was a potential problem, urging both dealers and customers to drain the battery pack immediately following an accident.

As a result the public relations nightmare surrounding Chevy’s halo vehicle appears to be deepening, though a good deal of the blame in this case also rests with NHTSA.

Joan Claybrook, a former adminstrator at NHTSA believes part of the reason for the delay was the “fragility of Volt sales.” Yet she also believes that “NHTSA could have put out a consumer alert, not to tell them [customers] for six months makes no sense to me.”

Oh, it makes perfect sense to us. Despite the furious spinning from the administration, the government's owenership stake in General Motors is an albatross and any bad news, especially approaching the 2012 elections can and will be suppressed.

And speaking of which, last time we checked, GM stock was trading in the low 20s, a drop of around $10/share from the initial public offering. So, here's Team O's dilemma: do they just dump the stock as soon as possible, take the PR hit in front of the elections or hold on to it and risk it being a thumping point for the GOP nominee? The stock needs to get into the low 50s for the government to just break even so they are pretty much screwed either way.





Sir Charles at Doo Doo Economics has a nice write up on the suppression of the Little Ice Age.

Information on the Little Ice Age is not widely known due to academic censorship and climate change propaganda. Using Google's NGRAM technology the above graph shows how "Little Ice Age" has been suppressed by publishers in two key time frames. First, between 1985 and 1987 a sudden dip in books discussing the "Little Ice Age" coincided with the launch of "Global Warming." This suppression of discussion allowed global warming to get off the ground without typical scientific review.

The Little Ice Age contributed to the fact that we are a beer-drinking nation instead of a wine-drinking one. We should be celebrating this fact, not censoring it.





And speaking of celebrating, B-Daddy took the family down to Naval Station, San Diego for the Navy's Holiday Lights festival.

Check out more of the pictures at the link.





Dueling Barstools on the gay marriage pledge signed 3 of the GOP Presidential candidates.

Sigh.... While we believe in the traditional definition of marriage our passion level for it would definetely prevent us from signing any sort of pledge. Where our passion lies, rather, is in the politicization of the debate where judges are fashioning rights out of thin air and where opponents of gay marriage are called hate mongers.



OK. That's it for today. We'll catch up with you all tomorrow.

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