Capitalism at its Finest

Kids Without Health Insurance Die Because Republicans Punish the Parents

If you aren't moved by the death of a 12 year old you're not human...or you're an evangelical.

Isn't it odd that Jesus judged the preachers and helped the poor but evangelicals judge the poor and help the preachers?

All the Republicans Have to Do Is Tell Us Their Plan

Problem is They Don't Have One

Michigan Republicans whine more than a spoiled child. Instead of waiting to hear their (non)plan for Michigan's budget crisis, Governor Granholm went ahead and took some matters in her own hands. The Republicans are shocked and hurt.

Yo, do-nothings...get a freakin' plan and tell us about it.

Firing all of Michigan's union employees and outsourcing their jobs to your buddy's company is NOT an option, you putzes.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Family Guy Flips Off Falwell and Robertson

When I rant about Cheney and Scalia I forget that snake oil salesmen like Pat and Jerry totally screw things up under God's imprimatur. Poor God. I hope he likes this too.

Strategy Talk from a Draft Dodger

A Chicken Hawk Squawks

Amazing how much more Dick Cheney knows about war than John Murtha. I guess those of us who didn't go to Vietnam really do know a lot about how wars are fought. Good thing we stayed home so we'd be around to critique and micro-manage this chicken hawk war

I Hope Cheney Takes Scalia Hunting Again

The Robert's Court Will Not Be Known For Compassion (Unless You Are Rich and Connected)

Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia has so few principles I suspect he'll join Cheney at Halliburton while he's still on the bench.

When the Court was to hear a case involving Cheney the two of them flew down south to duck hunt together. Scalia was too dumb to see why most folks thought that was inappropriate.

When asked why he voted to throw the election to little Georgie in 2000 he replies "Get over it!"

Fellow Judges on the Court know he's a prick who enjoys being a prick so they let him write the decision on this screw-over.

Why Bush is the Worst President Ever Vol.5

If Rumsfeld Was the Worst and Georgie was the Decider...

There aren't any metrics that can save Bush from being the worst President ever. Now his appointments appear to reflect his abilities as McCain says Rumsfeld was the worst.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow did the Fox Cha-Cha (one, two, spin, spin, spin) to defend Rumsfeld and, by extension, our noble Commander in Chief.

When the Posturing is Over

The FCC Will Cave Like a Lobbied Republican

The biggest "who cares" rivalry of the tech world in the 21st century has to be the Sirius vs XM radio battle.

Since America doesn't seem to be able to actually make things anymore, these Bozo's figured a way to make a buck by charging for something that's already free, in the true American capitalist spirit (think Dasani or oxygen bars).

Now they want to merge, something they specifically promised not to do when seeking initial regulatory approval.

I'm not a fan of subscription radio, so the fact that this would create a monopoly doesn't bother me. A monopoly on farts would be about as worrisome.

The FCC is playing coy but we're talking millions of dollars here, only a few of which go to the middle class.

My money says the FCC caves by summer.

Rush Says Obama Should Make Up His Mind

If Obama Wants To Be White He Should Just Say So

Generally I avoid video links. I like to write.

But this video shows that the right wing can't discuss race. They want to make race an issue for Obama, so they're going to yap, yap, yap about it as a "non-issue" until one of Murdoch's henchmen gets a video of someone talking about "that nigger Obama". Fox will play that tape for 24 hours and then apologize.

Until then Rush's buffoonery will have to do.

Dick Cheney Should Be Very Scared

Chinese Know How to Deal With White Collar Crime

Although I'm generally against capital punishment, the Chinese may have found a way to make it palatable.

Of course, as long as there is a Calvin Coolidge leftover sitting on the Supreme Court like Justice Scalia we'll never see justice for white collar crime in America.

Livingston Republicans Are Still in Denial

Offered Without Further Comment

The comments of former Rep. Joe Scarborough on MSNBC.

Even if you agree with me that this war was worth fighting as long as we believed Saddam Hussein had WMD’s aimed at America, at some point you have to face the facts: the Bush administration was wrong about those weapons, wrong about the nuclear program, wrong about their refusal to quell rioting early, wrong about Bremer’s gutting of the Iraqi army and police force, wrong about refusing to kill or capture al Sadr in 2003, wrong to tell the generals not speak of the coming insurgency, wrong to stubbornly refuse to give generals the troops they needed to win this war, wrong to make the “Mission Accomplished” declaration, wrong for the VP to claim that the insurgency was in its death throes and wrong to push a surge plan that the president’s top generals opposed.
The list could continue for pages but I will be generous to the White House and leave it at that.

Maybe I'm Amazed

Intel Demonstrates a Teraflop Processor...PC Style

Ten years ago a super computer reached a trillion calculations per second. It was so experimental there wasn't an immediate use for it. In less than ten years you may have a PC capable of doing the same.

Considering that the PC I'm using right now eclipses all NASA's computing capability when John Glenn first flew, I guess it shouldn't be that shocking...but it is.

Thanks for Nothing: Major Players Show It's

So Easy to Screw the Poor and Needy

This article detailing how major world powers are reneging or delaying fulfilling their pledges of aid for tsunami relief shows there's truly no honor among thieves. The third grade defense "Well he did it too" is pathetic. If Kuwait (didn't the US bail their asses out a decade or so ago?) wants to cheap out that's fine: announce publicly that you're going to welsh on your pledge, then next time don't pledge.

If Republican Jobs Relied on Protectionism

We'd Build a Wall Around Our Country

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said America should reject " a growing clamor for protectionism" because it would "virtually guarantee we become a second class economy.
Mitt must be pretty comfortable with the US trade deficit running over $675 billion each year. The US has lost over a half million jobs since 1998 directly because of our trade deficit. I guess they weren't Republican jobs.
So let's take a look at how horrible tariffs are and how they've crippled trade in the countries that use them to protect their industries.
The Japanese seem to be pretty smart traders.We buy $75 billion more of their stuff each year than they buy of ours. So they probably don't have any tariffs, right? Well actually Japan's 400% tariff on imported rice has riled rice farmers in the American south for years. Worse, the yen was manipulated for years creating an inflated dollar, a de facto tarriff making all US imports play on a slanted field.
Korea exports a slew of merchandise to America. In fact they enjoyed a $30 billion trade surplus in 2005. But Korean cars captured 6% of the US auto market (731,000 cars in 2005) while shutting US automakers out of the country. The Republicans must be amused at what poor economists they are.
The Chinese seem to know a thing or two about global trade. In 2006 our trade imbalance with China was at least $175 billion. But Chinese tariffs on imported cars run 25 - 28% while imported auto parts tariffs were cut to 10%. Mitt should warn them that they're only hurting themselves.
Romney also endorsed extending Bush's tax cuts for the rich which will expire in three years. He claims the economy will be hurt if they expire.
So America loses a half million jobs solely due to the trade deficit and the average Joe watches the rich enjoy bountiful tax cuts, but hey, Republicans think things are working out just fine.
I dunno, do ya think Mitt maybe has his silver baby spoon still stuck in his mouth?

It's Safe, Clean, Powerful

And it Exhales Hydrogen - As in Fuel Cell Hydrogen

What the neo-con goons at the Heritage Foundation and Accuracy in Media forget is that radical change isn't bad unless you're heavily invested in the status quo. The reason they argue so ardently against global warming is that confronting the problem threatens the ample revenue streams of the wealthy who just happen to fund their work.

But imagine slashing greenhouse gas emissions in twenty years, or even ten. Better yet, by turning the energy market on its head political equilibrium will weaken the strangle hold that international bullies like the Saud family, Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, etc. has on all of the industrial and industrializing world.

What technology could offer such short term results?

Modular pebble bed nuclear reactors. Rather than explaining their inherent safety and adaptability, check out this Wired article.

Watch dog groups convulse at the mention of nuclear power and wax rhapsodic about solar, wind, etc.

Those technologies are not going to replace fossil fuel in the next fifty years. We're all hopeful, but we've been hopeful for over 30 years.

Environmentally these reactors are so promising that even MIT is enthusiastic.

You've heard of Shell and Exxon: ever heard of PBMR? The old order gives way to new?

This is the energy shift that will slowly decrease global petroleum demand. Even better, if energy independence is a worry, the US has enormous uranium reserves.

The greenies can fear what they don't understand, the conservatives can deny the winds of change are blowing around the world, but rational people embrace workable technologies.

The Chinese and South Africans lead the research but if safety is inherent in the design, it's time for American ingenuity to step up to the plate.

Oh yeah. Detroit is slowing its fuel cell experimentation because it sees no reliable way to generate hydrogen cheaply. The research is ongoing (see pages vi and vii), but apparently modular pebble bed reactors would be efficient making hydrogen even if that's all they were used for!

If You Think It's Expensive Now...

What Will It Cost When It Happens?

The Heritage Foundation, the conservative apologists that believe Dick Cheney is (not far enough) right on just about everything, have published their opinion on the Summary released after the International Climate Change conference. I noticed they picked up on the study's baseline climate data from 1750, which just about perfectly coincides with the era conservative's consider their Golden Era.

Of course to them it's all about money and what it would cost the American economy. Ya know, I hope their grand kids are on a beach on Long Island when...ah never mind.

To get the Neanderthal perspective on the summary I suggest reading those zany writers at Accuracy in Media, at least the ones not running around Iraq looking for Cheney's "yellow-cake uranium". Notice how carefully they dissect communist newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are the only path of knowledge I guess.

Anyway, consider this before abandoning all hope. Whether conservatives like it or not (they don't even like the idea of evolution) there is real science being done in America.

Record Companies Have Always Been Run By Swine

Can You Kill Recording Companies Committing Suicide?

The industry has a history of cutting costs to the point that brand new LP records couldn't be played without popping and skipping, even on very expensive turntables. CD quality got so bad people were going back to vinyl.

The industry has a history of screwing over artists whenever opportunity presents itself.

And when digital distribution became practical it clamped the corporate anal pore shut and screamed for justice.

A few billion downloads later, they're still trying to figure out how to use digital distribution and screw their customers.

Kazaa / WinMX / Limewire live on.

Tax and Spend Clinton Ran a Budget Surplus

Bush Sucks Up to the Rich, Screws The Rest of Us

God forbid those who have most benefited from living in the United States pay more in taxes than those who may not have benefited quite as much.

Those who don't require Medicare or Medicaid don't worry about this deficit budget. All they seem to worry about are the Bush tax cuts that expire in 2010.

But Warren Buffet, the second richest man in America and a true entrepreneur says the very rich benefit from winning the "Ovarian Lottery", born in a country with an established legal system, investment capital, solid infrastructure and an educated work force.

The poor and middle class can't support the ambitious budget of this President. His solution is to shackle our children with debt while subsidizing the businesses of the wealthy through tax breaks, favoritism and outright graft.

If people truly voted their economic interest Bush would have gotten 2% of the vote.

Another Company I Lost Money On

So If Dell Leaves Texas Will It Be The Governor's Fault?

Last night I mentioned Pfizer has really lost its way and its corporate cutbacks aren't any one's fault but the CEO and the Board of Directors. It's not in a troubled industry like Ford and GM. Pfizer thought selling a drug was better than inventing a drug. Oops.

Now comes word that another one of my loser stock picks has real problems. First, Dell founder had to take back the CEO position from the poor sucker who agreed to slave under Dell's overprotective eyes. He was truly doomed.

Now it's revealed the only way Dell survived was through kickbacks. Thank God Dell isn't a Michigan company 'cause it would be Granholm's fault.

Folks, ignore your stock broker. They're little robots prattling on about Wall Street theories. Do your homework like an adult. Remember the broker gets paid when you buy and when you sell.

My Dad Loves O'Reilley

Sorry Pops, He Makes Bush Look Like Einstein

2 quick links before I knock it off.

Is Pfizer the Compaq of Big Pharma?

Can You Kill A Terminal Company?

My former neighbor has an interesting Letter to the Editor in today's paper. Apparently Pfizer's decision to shutter its Ann Arbor Campus and layoff or transfer 2100 employees is the result of Democratic malfeasance.

Yesterday a similar letter was printed concerning Pfizer from a Jerry Lovett of Brighton who thinks the displaced Pfizer employees got what they deserved because they were a bunch of elitist foreign car owners.

I owned a bit of stock in Pfizer for awhile, sold it, lost a bunch of money on it, and am damn glad to be rid of it. I've continued to follow the company since then and can't see it surviving without a merger with another big pharma corporation. And I'm not the only genius of this opinion.

Some say the management team is a marketing team, not a bio-science team.
Some say Pfizer doesn't have a workable fresh "block buster" in the pipeline and their best-selling drugs have patents about to expire.

And then there's the opinion that the managers are simply a bunch of mean spirited pricks insensitive to the lives in the third world.

Blaming Michigan government for this move seems to be a real leap (although it's been a Republican legislature for so long I'd love to nail it on their door.) A whole bunch of American companies from Polaroid to Sunbeam and Sylvania are now just corporate shells trading on names but employing very few Americans.

And if it's all about taxes someone needs to explain why Manhattan seems to attract so much business so effortlessly.

As for kissing big pharma's ass? It appears Michigan is the only state in the Union to offer lawsuit protection for pharmaceutical companies if their drug was FDA approved and it met the quality and dosage standards that the approval was based on.
But Dunny may be right that the Democrats are somewhat to blame for this downsizing and subsequent move. You see part of the 100 Hour agenda that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Dems pushed through was a repudiation of Bush's "no negotiation" purchasing policy for Medicare prescription drugs. It's not like it's un-American...the VA Hospitals save millions buying in massive quantities at negotiated prices.
Folks like pinning the blame for these flame-outs on the unions and the government. But Delphi and Visteon were management accidents waiting to happen. Funny that the Chinese manufacturer looking to buy some of their divisions claims not to be interested in moving the work off-shore.
Republicans can't believe there are bad CEOs who can take down a business. It must be someone elses fault.
Well, consider K-Mart, Enron and Global Crossing.