Well I've been "off the air" for awhile and there's a very good reason for that. I've had a quasi-epiphany when it comes to politics. There is little to no point in me getting all huffy about these issues like I have in the past. Quoting Jeremy Clarkson, arguing politics is "like blowing on an oil rig fire". It does no good for, even before I open my mouth, people already agree with what I'm about to say or they disagree. I sincerely doubt I have even changed someone's mind about an issue. What it boils down to is people either believe that the government should assume all responsibility or they believe the government is an overgrown bully who takes your lunch money (as I and my family and friends believe). The latter already agree with me so my rants do no good there and the former refuse to change their beliefs (or, more typically, don't read my postings at all). It is rare to find any audience member with an open enough mind to be critical of their own views and beliefs (I consider myself to have this ability most of the time). So what good am I doing if I am just supporting already held beliefs and not enlightening anyone?

I have to admit that I do enjoy writing about societal issues. It allows me to think things through better than if I just do it in my own head (it's a scary place, trust me). So, right now, I am considering if I should even continue writing at all. If I do, there will be a drastic change in subject matter. I will write more about entertainment, cars (including British car television shows), issues that my generation face, and random crap that happens to me. So we shall see if anything comes from this. In any event, I feel I am a more informed individual for keeping this site up and running. Thanks for reading and stay tuned next week to see if I'm back.

Cheers

Classless Eco-Mentalists

The caption at the top reads "The Tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11".

Really classy WWF. Whoever made this ad should be fired and then hunted down by an angry mob (led by me)

Tomorrow

The Most Essential Skill of Any President

I think everyone, no matter what political party they aspire to, can agree that the most crucial skill for any President is to surround themselves with intelligent advisers who will guide them to the best decisions. Kennedy did this with McNamara and his own brother (who did deserve the job). Bush "did" this with Rove and Cheney (good choices? probably not). But I see this as Obama's serious downfall. I know I don't agree with any of his policies, but, barring that little detail, he can't seem to appoint an adviser that hasn't evaded taxes or done something extremely reckless politically.

Back in March of last year, Samantha Power (Obama's foreign policy advisor) called Hillary Clinton a "monster" (forget for a minute that she was right, you still can't say that and hope to have a job under the President of the United States). Also, last March, it came to light another foreign policy adviser Rob Mailey, had been meeting continually with the terrorist group Hamas. And then we have Tim Geithner who evaded large amounts of taxes. Then we have Bill Richardson (corruption), Nancy Killefer (payroll tax evasion), Hilda Solis (tax evasion), and Tom Daschle (more tax evasion). You starting to get the picture yet?

The latest in this trend of poorly thought through and piss poorly vetted advisers (or czars if you prefer the Soviet term like Obama does) is that of Van Jones (read about him here and here), the Green Jobs Czar. He came out last week with all guns blazing and called all Republicans "assholes" (they generally are but you can't say that on the record and hope to hold a political office). He also signed the 9/11 Truth petition arguing that the Bush administration either turned a blind eye to 9/11 or perpetrated the attack themselves (which could be the case but you don't want a special adviser to the President holding that belief). He also founded the ColorofChange.org which "addressed black issues" (aka he's a racist).

Now, I am torn over the "assholes" comment. I believe that people should be able to say whatever they want and if that was Jones's only slip up, I would have wanted to keep him around. But he's a racist and a conspiracy theorist, good riddance.

But this highlights a bigger problem. Obama cannot choose staff intelligently (a simple Google or Wikipedia search would have told him all he needed to know about Van Jones). This scares me more than his socialist-leaning policies. I think the ability to choose your comrades is the most important ability a President has to have....... and Boh'Rock ain't got it.

A parting thought: Maybe Obama needs a Czar for Appointments of Czars

The GM Volt Revisited

Awhile back I wrote about GM's new hybrid, The Volt (here's my write up: http://daily-cynic.blogspot.com/2009/08/getting-away-from-politics-for-minute.html)

As those who know me personally know, I am a huge car guy and, more specifically, an avid Audi enthusiast (have been since I was 16 with my first A4 which was followed by my father's S6 and now my new S4). The reason I mention Audi in relation to GM's Volt is that Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen just came out with a prediction that the Volt will "fall flat" and "the federal government, having publicly forced GM to develop electric cars, will subsidize the Volt to save face and boost sales." See the entire article here: http://editorial.autos.msn.com/blogs/autosblogpost.aspx?post=1247701 .
You know what? He's 100% right. I pointed out in my article on the subject that the Volt had no advantage over existing hybrids like the Prius or Honda Insight. I didn't really go into why hybrids are terrible investments and not the best choice if you are a true environmentalist but de Nysschen goes as far as saying people who buy hybrids over more fuel efficient, practical, and powerful diesels are "the intellectual elite who want to show what enlightened souls they are" (as Jay Leno says "here in America, we like to make known the good deeds we are doing annonymously"). He hit the nail on the head again. The big draw to hybrids is PR. People value the appearance of being environmentally friendly over actually being environmentally friendly. Hypocrites, all of em.

The question for the Volt is are the faux environmentalists willing to pay up to $15k over the price of Japanese hybrids for an American product? My answer: No. Japanese cars usually have a higher snob appeal than American cars. The hierarchy of snob appeal for cars goes like this: Italian>German>British>Japanese>American, at least in my book. So I sincerely doubt the Volt will take any significant market share away from Toyota or Honda with the Volt. If there were charging a lower price than the Japs, then it might, but definitely not when GM is selling at a premium.

The final question brought up by de Nysschen is that of "the federal government, having publicly forced GM to develop electric cars, will subsidize the Volt to save face and boost sales." I think this will make or break the Volt because it will effectively price the Volt below its Japanese rivals and that is probably enough to shift sales to GM. Judging by our government's recent actions (and the fact that Boh'Rock feels he has the right to run GM), this subsidy is a pretty safe bet so you can expect to see some solid sales numbers as a result.

The Volt is already a failure in my book even if it does sell well as a result of government intervention.

You People Make Me Sick

Remind you of anything?



Anyone that pledges to a single person (outside of marriage) is no more than a drone.

Now I understand that most of what was said in the first video were things we can agree on about being nicer and all that feel good stuff, but there were quite a few things in there that are political in nature. And that is how this crap starts, make everyone feel good about following a leader (this is EXACTLY what the Nazis did in Germany, got everyone to feel good about being German and following Hitler). After the people are following the leader, the leader starts to make bolder and bolder policies and without anyone to challenge those policies and decisions, he is free to do pretty much whatever he wants (no one really protested Hitler's international belligerence or treatment of the Jews). So the question is, where does Obama want to take this?

Gay Marriage in DC (or anywhere for that matter)

For those of you living in and around the District, you most likely already know a lot about this. Back in late April, DC Council voted to recognize gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions (AKA if you get gay married in Massachusetts, Vermont, NH, Connecticut, Iowa, or Maine, you can move to DC and still be considered married). The April decision said nothing about actual gay marriages being allowed or forbidden in DC.

Now it has come out that a group of various religious figures in the DC area (Bishop Harry Jackson, Rev. Walter Fauntroy, Robert King, and others) organized under "Stand4MarriageDC" to put together a ballot initiative that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. This would strike down the previous ruling that recognized gay marriages performed elsewhere.

Now, being a straight, conservative male, I usually don't side with the gay community on any issue but, this time, I am. The DC Council has already decided to accept marriages from elsewhere and now these religious leaders want to revisit and reverse that choice. What gives these guys the right to impose their subjective beliefs and values onto others? I will grant you that the largest religion in the US is Christianity of one form or another (and that means the rampant homophobia that comes with it), but, even so, that doesn't give the religious right the power to impose their completely and totally subjective beliefs onto an entire city. There is a major difference between voting on a government policy and standardizing a set of religious values and forcing people to adhere to them.

So, if the religious folks have their way, DC residents will be voting on whether or not to take rights away from people that already have them. Anyone who lives in DC and was married elsewhere will have that marriage actively un-recognized (is that a word?). This is the first instance I can remember where a group is in danger of having their rights actively stripped for no good reason. What do I mean by "for no good reason"? I mean that homosexuals have done nothing dangerous or illegal. They have not endangered our national security or flew planes into buildings (if you can't tell, I am unabashedly in favor of profiling in airports but that is a conversation for another day).

So where's the beef? Why are these people so adamant about taking rights away from a group of people who have done nothing wrong except for being themselves (I think there's a term for this...... discrimination if I am not mistaken)? I can only speculate here. Some say that people who exhibit these staunchly homophobic views are secretly homosexual to some extent and want any reminder of that banished from existence (wouldn't surprise me). My guess is that there are some deep seeded insecurities in these "devoutly religious" folks of one kind or another that forces them to take their anger and frustrations out on others. And now they are using the government as their tool.

An afterthought: There is a lot of talk about civil unions vs. marriage. These two terms mean the EXACT SAME THING. I hate it when the religious camps claim that marriage is a religious term and that it is a union under God. You know what? It's not. It is when two loving people commit to each other for a lifetime. Creed, color, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, tax bracket status, or how fast you can run the 40 have no bearing on if you can get married.

Another afterthought: I hate gay pride parades. Its the same thing as a Black Pride parade or a White Pride parade (which will get you branded as a racist). Amounts to the same thing: looks at us because we are who we are. Get over yourselves.

September 1

Today in 1939 Poland was invaded by Germany, jumpstarting what would end up being the largest armed conflict this planet has ever seen. A few details most people don't know about the invasion of Poland:


-It was actually a joint Soviet-Nazi invasion with the Germans invading from the West and the Russians from the East, Poland never stood a chance.
-The ideological inspiration for conquering Poland was Hitler's misguided notion that there was a section of his Reich that laid on the opposite side of Poland and had been cut off from the rest of the Aryans after World War I and the resulting Treaty of Versailles (the Nazis called this the Polish Corridor).
-The event that triggered the invasion was dubbed the "Gleiwitz Incident" in which the Gestapo dressed as Polish soldiers blew up a German radio station near the border with Poland. This has been come to be known as "The Eve of World War II"
-The Polish high command saw the invasion coming and understood they had little chance. They initiated The Peking Plan on August 20th where Polish war ships were evacuated to British controlled ports. Live to fight another day as they say.
-The invasion started with the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) bombing the Polish town of Wielun at 4:40am. Over 75% of the town was destroyed
-Over 20,000 Poles were executed by the German army during September
-The total Polish death toll during the invasion was ~200,000

RIP the 65 million that died in the following years.


















German soldiers executing Poles