“Now California’s mostly Democratic political class will petition Washington for a bailout to nourish the public sector that is suffocating the state’s dwindling — and departing — private sector. The Obama administration, which rewarded the United Auto Workers by giving it considerable control over two companies it helped reduce to commercial rubble, will serve the interests of California’s unionized public employees and others largely responsible for reducing the state to mendicancy. … “

California, the sunny incubator of America’s future, has relished its role as a leading indicator of political trends. Tuesday it became what it thinks it should be, the center of attention, but not in the way it wants to be.

….read full article HERE

“It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy.” “Normally, Hondas feel as though they have been screwed together by eye surgeons. This one, however, feels as if it’s been made from steel so thin, you could read through it”. Much has been written about the Insight, Honda’s new low-priced hybrid. We’ve been told how much carbon dioxide it produces, how its dashboard encourages frugal driving by glowing green when you’re easy on the throttle and how it is the dawn of all things. The beginning of days.

So far, though, you have not been told what it’s like as a car; as a tool for moving you, your friends and your things from place to place.

So here goes. It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.

The biggest problem, and it’s taken me a while to work this out, because all the other problems are so vast and so cancerous, is the gearbox. For reasons known only to itself, Honda has fitted the Insight with something called constantly variable transmission (CVT).

It doesn’t work. Put your foot down in a normal car and the revs climb in tandem with the speed. In a CVT car, the revs spool up quickly and then the speed rises to match them. It feels like the clutch is slipping. It feels horrid.

And the sound is worse. The Honda’s petrol engine is a much-shaved, built-for-economy, low-friction 1.3 that, at full chat, makes a noise worse than someone else’s crying baby on an airliner. It’s worse than the sound of your parachute failing to open. Really, to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham slicer.

So you’re sitting there with the engine screaming its head off, and your ears bleeding, and you’re doing only 23mph because that’s about the top speed, and you’re thinking things can’t get any worse, and then they do because you run over a small piece of grit.

Because the Honda has two motors, one that runs on petrol and one that runs on batteries, it is more expensive to make than a car that has one. But since the whole point of this car is that it could be sold for less than Toyota’s Smugmobile, the engineers have plainly peeled the suspension components to the bone. The result is a ride that beggars belief.

There’s more. Normally, Hondas feel as though they have been screwed together by eye surgeons. This one, however, feels as if it’s been made from steel so thin, you could read through it. And the seats, finished in pleblon, are designed specifically, it seems, to ruin your skeleton. This is hairy-shirted eco-ism at its very worst.

However, as a result of all this, prices start at £15,490 — that’s £3,000 or so less than the cost of the Prius. But at least with the Toyota there is no indication that you’re driving a car with two motors. In the Insight you are constantly reminded, not only by the idiotic dashboard, which shows leaves growing on a tree when you ease off the throttle (pass the sick bucket), but by the noise and the ride and the seats. And also by the hybrid system Honda has fitted.

In a Prius the electric motor can, though almost never does, power the car on its own. In the Honda the electric motor is designed to “assist” the petrol engine, providing more get-up-and-go when the need arises. The net result is this: in a Prius the transformation from electricity to petrol is subtle. In the Honda there are all sorts of jerks and clunks.

And for what? For sure, you could get 60 or more mpg if you were careful. And that’s not bad for a spacious five-door hatchback. But for the same money you could have a Golf diesel, which…

read more HERE

Some businesses see nothing but profits in the green movement.

Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets.

The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the might of the “military-industrial complex,” cautioning that “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” He worried that “there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.”

…..read more HERE

OnThursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that my Dodge franchise, that we purchased, will be taken away from my family on June 9, 2009 without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them.

Letter to the American Thinker editor

My name is George C. Joseph.  I am the sole owner of Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu, a family owned and operated business in Melbourne, Florida. My family bought and paid for this automobile franchise 35 years ago in 1974. I am the second generation to manage this business.

We currently employ 50+ people and before the economic slowdown we employed over 70 local people.  We are active in the community and the local chamber of commerce. We deal with several dozen local vendors on a day to day basis and many more during a month.  All depend on our business for part of their livelihood.  We are financially strong with great respect in the market place and community.  We have strong local presence and stability.

I work every day the store is open, nine to ten hours a day. I know most of our customers and all our employees.  Sunshine Dodge is my life.

On Thursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that my Dodge franchise, that we purchased, will be taken away from my family on June 9, 2009 without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them. My new vehicle inventory consists of 125 vehicles with a financed balance of 3 million dollars.  This inventory becomes impossible to sell with no factory incentives beyond June 9, 2009. Without the Dodge franchise we can no longer sell a new Dodge as “new,” nor will we be able to do any warranty service work. Additionally, my Dodge parts inventory, (approximately $300,000.) is virtually worthless without the ability to perform warranty service.  There is no offer from Chrysler to buy back the vehicles or parts inventory.

Our facility was recently totally renovated at Chrysler’s insistence, incurring a multi-million dollar debt in the form of a mortgage at Sun Trust Bank.  

HOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN THIS HAPPEN? 

THIS IS A PRIVATE BUSINESS NOT A GOVERNMENT ENTITY

This is beyond imagination!  My business is being stolen from me through NO FAULT OF OUR OWN.  We did NOTHING wrong.

This atrocity will most likely force my family into bankruptcy.  This will also cause our 50+ employees to be unemployed. How will they provide for their families?  This is a total economic disaster.

HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN IN A FREE MARKET ECONOMY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

I beseech your help, and look forward to your reply. Thank you.

Sincerely,

George C. Joseph
President & Owner
Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu

City Councils across Britain are calling upon its citizens to become “citizen snoopers”–people who will report on loud neighbours, litterbugs, and even people who take their garbage out on the wrong day. Children as young as seven are being recruited, and so far over 9000 Britainers have signed up.

After basic training, volunteers are expected to be the ‘eyes and the ears’ of the town hall.

They are given information packs about how to collect evidence, including tips about writing down numberplates, which could later be used in criminal prosecutions.

Luton Borough Council’s Street Seen scheme encourages its 650 volunteers to report ‘environmental concerns’. It is also recruiting ‘Junior Street Champions’, aged between seven and 11.

Primary schools could also be involved within two years.

Similarly, Islington Council in north London has recruited 1,200 ‘Islington Eyes’ to report crime hotspots, fly-tipping and excess noise from DIY.

Volunteers are given a list of things to do when confronted with fly-tippers, including taking photos ‘without being seen’.

Last year the council undertook a recruitment drive for youngsters aged nine and above, called Junior Eyes.

Children are given special books to write down reports on littering or graffiti in their schools, which they then send to the council.

A spokesman for Islington town hall said: ‘It’s not possible for the council to see what’s going on in the borough at all times, so our Eyes for Islington are.

I’m not Kreskin (although I am deep and foreboding), but I can pretty much see what’s going to happen to this program: Since not everyone loves a rat like the good folks on council do, the rat-people might do alright for a spell, maybe two days. After a few days of ratting on neighbours and the fines start to pile in, people are going to start to get angry. Not as angry as the gangs in certain areas though. When the neighbourhood folk start to find out the names of the neighbourhood rats, said neighbourhood rats are going to find the boots of neighbourhood folk crashing down on their rat-like skulls.

Little Simon and all the other snoops are going to become targets of angry people with pitchforks. You see, people who put an egg carton inside a green box instead of a blue box aren’t criminals and shouldn’t be fined, but when they are fined because some little puke pervert with binoculars was spying on them, well, I’m telling you right now, even though the Brits are a mellow folkage, they are going to become unglued.

The neighbourhood snoops are a sign of things to come. Government seems intent on pitting neighbour against neighbour. This way, it takes the pressure and hatred off the government and places it on petty rivals between people that have no business hating each other. Americans take note of this–your President for life, Owebama, has already started a program that *trains* kids to become, I’m not sure what they will become, but there will be hundreds of thousands of them and they pretty much hate you and will do anything their leader tells them to do (like, arrest and detain *terrorists*).

Paranoid? Who, me? No. But it doesn’t mean I’m not stacked to the roof with weapons and ammunition, a 6 month survival kit, and a few dozen gold coins.

Contributed by Kate McMillan of Smalldeadanimals.com.