So, where's the "No-Fly Zone" in the Ivory Coast?

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1,000 bodies discovered in massacre...
Forces for UN-backed candidate accused...
FRANCE SENDS IN SOLDIERS...
US 'deeply concerned'...

 
WHAT ABOUT IVORY COAST?  

Well?  Where are we?

What's the matter?  Doesn't the Ivory Coast have enough oil?

Or hasn't enough blood been spilled?

Why Libya... and not here?

Hypocrites.

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That GM bailout? Why, that was cheap. It only cost us $84 BILLION.

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I likes me a GM product.

I own a 69 Camaro that I've actually taken racing.  I own the next racer for me, a 3rd gen 87 Camaro.

If I had the cash laying around, I'd give a hard look at a 5th gen Camaro SS2, a 400 plus horsepower troublemaker if ever there were one.

There's nothing else in the inventory I'm remotely interested in.

As a car guy, I rate the Savior Chevy Volt as an automotive abortion.

I was one of the many in favor of letting GM go bankrupt, because that would have been MUCH cheaper than the ultimate outcome... of Obama screwing us out of $84 BILLION.

Chicks on on the Right have the low down.  But don't be surprised... someone (me) warned you all it was going to turn out this way.

Math And Obama Are Not Friends

Written by Mockarena  //  April 3, 2011  //  Money Rocks  //  6 Comments

According to this, taxpayers lost a crapload of money on that whole GM bailout.

SHOCK.

Remember when Obama said we were all “positioned to recover more than my administration invested in GM?” And when GM actually went on tv to tell us that they’d repaid our loan to them, which turned out to be a huge lie all on its own?

Well, it turns out the whole deal, that Democrats still think is a big fat giant ball of success, COST us $84 billion. A Congressional Oversight report says that we’re out $25 billion, and that there’s no way we can expect full repayment unless the government can sell off its remaining GM shares at a waaaay higher price. Plus, GM got a $45 billion tax break during the whole bankruptcy thing. They’re about to get another $14 billion one.

More:

I'm stunned.

You stunned?
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More bogus democratian fringe left loot rail propaganda.

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We all know how addicted the rag is to what increasingly appears to be a drug-induced haze over loot rail.  After all, while we know loot rail is the entire basis for replacing a bridge with costs that will bury us into billions of debt for generations to come, and that the people of this community actually don't want this steaming crap pile dumped on our doorsteps.

Today's Goebbelian effort introduces a warped concept of that they refer to as "logic."

If you used the bridger's/looter's logic, loot rail will solve every transportation issue known to man.

It won't, of course.  It doesn't come close to the positive impacts of a 3rd Bridge, which could be built for a third or so less while reliving congestion on the entire I-5 corridor in Clark County and the Portland area.

Loot rail and a new bridge, oddly with precisely the same capacity as the current bridge, will somehow end congestion and freight mobility problems we currently experience?

That's the lie at the heart of the matter.  Anyone taking a sober assessment and reviewing the reams of data available is well aware that this is not being built to solve a problem, because it solves no problem impacting our community.

This morning's rag has gone to work using yet another propaganda effort to get us to ignore the laser of crime loot rail represents.  It stupidly tells us

"This is not rocket science, and it’s not so much a transit issue as it is a matter of law enforcement. It is no coincidence that in 2010, when crimes on MAX trains increased 14 percent, TriMet also reduced the number of fare “supervisors” from 30 to 13 due to severe budget restrictions. (These are the security officers who patrol MAX trains looking for fare evaders and potential crime suspects.) So, rather than jumping to the conclusion that light rail is a crime conduit, it’s more logical to deduce that, when enforcement goes down, crime goes up. And that applies to most areas of our society."

Typical of the rag's blinding bias, they mention the alleged problem (More of that "restricted when used to discuss Jacks, but perfectly acceptable speculation when THEY want to use it.")  of crime as if it were just a footnote.

Presuming they are accurate and the issue is a matter of reduced enforcement based on reduced budgets, how would they propose to fix that?  How is it they seem to believe that we can stop a system, a system that would be controlled by the incompetents on the other side of the river could be fixed... except by tolls that pay, not only for that steaming manure pile, but loot rail maintenance and operation as well?

The democratian attacks the logic of those of us concerned about crime on loot rail... crime that has been going on for years... crime that government seems incapable of addressing, controlling or paying to stop.  The people in the zoo to our south have been clamoring for years to get this situation fixed... and what do they have to show for it?

No, the rag's "logic" argument falls apart when you begin the review process.

"Logic" must start with the premise that the bridge needs to be replaced.

It doesn't.

"Logic" must start with the idea that loot rail, crime-ridden or crime-free, would have any measurable favorable impact to either congestion or freight mobility issues.

It won't.

"Logic" must have, as the most important underpinning, the idea that this community actually wants this horrific waste of money.

We don't.  And they know we don't.

For the rag to condemn the logic of others when they, themselves, have no logic for any of this is, well, typical of both the LACK of logic they're using to get their agenda rammed into place AND their all-too-typically-rank hypocrisy.

Crime is not, by any stretch, the only reason to dump this project.  It is but one of many.

In this instance, it might have been helpful if what they had to say made sense.  Maybe, one day, it will... but only if their position were to actually reflect the needs... and the will... of the people they allegedly serve... the community that attempts to sustain them.
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When politics interferes with automotives: Motor Trend "Car of the Year" the Volt? Are you kidding me?

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This will be the last year I subscribe to Motor Trend, a heretofore reliable gauge of what is good, and what isn't, in the automotive world.

Calling the Volt the Car of the Year is as moronic as believing that the local Three Liateers (Leavitt, Stuart and Boldt) give a damn about what the public they govern actually wants concerning the I-5 Bridge/Loot Rail extortion they're cooking up.

With that decision, MT has lost all credibility.  The Volt is too expensive, too slow, corners like a cow, and is completely impractical for the average consumer... precisely the thing you DON'T want a car to be.

For example:

Chevy Volt Sales Slump, Prompting GM to (a) Ask for More Taxpayer Handouts; and (b) Introduce New, Unsellable _Convertible_ Volt

"It’s electric unless you’re driving in it."
Need a $41,000 gas-electric-nuclear-and-coal-powered hybrid? Well, neither did everyone else in America.

Recent reports find that General Motors (GM) is lobbying for the passage of legislation by Michigan [Democrat] Senator Debbie Stabenow that would turn a $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit into a rebate that will be available to all consumers at the point of sale. It's been dubbed "Cash for Clunkers II".






...Apparently, Chevy is not pleased with its sales -- 321 units sold in January and 281 in February -- out of 30,000 cars made for 2011, and a planned 45,000 to be made in 2012... At that rate, just 3,600 of the cars will be sold this year, [only] 12 percent of the supply.

...Since GM's initial public offering in November, the government sponsored automaker has been desperate to boost overall sales on a monthly basis. As such, GM boosted buyer incentives for the past four months. GM's incentive spending averaged about $3,663 per vehicle in January, and $3,732 in February, more than $1,100 over the industry average.

...According to the CarConnection.com, "That's increased GM's market share - albeit at the expense of image, resale value, and even company profits - oddly, at a time when most other automakers have admitted that such a strategy doesn't make long-term business sense."

Since they can't sell units to actual customers, GM has convinced Barack Obama to buy costly, inefficient, ghastly vehicles on your dime.
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More:
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Reviews on this massive waste of money, which has trashed almost as much cash as it would have taken to build The Liateer's Nightmare, are, at best, mixed to awful.
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Consumer Reports says, among other things:

Consumer Reports has deemed the most-anticipated car to come out of America in years a lemon.

GM's electric Chevy Volt is "a tough sell to the average consumer."

Chief product tester David Campion tells the Detroit News: "When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn't particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it's not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy."

Among other failings, the car traveled only 25 to 27 miles on electric power alone, while testing on winter roads. GM says the car regularly achieves up to 33 miles.

And it's "annoying" that the car takes five hours to charge.

And it costs twice as much as Toyota's Prius, a hybrid which is more fuel efficient when driving long distances.

Read more at Consumer Reports.

These results speak for themselves. And to MT, it's been a long trip... and now it's over..

Connecting the dots: Axel Swanson now works for Clark County.

We already know that Ridgefield Barbie bribed former Clark County GOP Chair Ryan Hart with a 5 figure job offer to get him to violate the tenets of his position with an endorsement during a contested primary, seconds after Babs entered the congressional race in her own, cowardly, ubiquitous way.

But let's roll the video back a few years, shall we?

Cathy McMorris has a BFF here locally, one Marc Boldt.  In the interests of full disclosure, Boldt is, to my dismay (a feeling shared equally, I'm sure) my brother in law.  I also worked directly for Boldt as his legislative assistant for almost 6 years for his first 3 terms in the House.  McMorris, who I greatly admired at the time, was also there, and served as CoChair of what was then called Labor and Industries.

Boldt was a friend of McMorris.  McMorris would cheerfully go out and work to slay many of the same dragons, working very hard to stop, for example, handing over the keys to the pharmacy to the druggies... aka "collective bargaining" to the unions.  One particularly contentious hearing resulted in Marc asking me to sit in the front row of the hearing to make sure no union goon got their first, a task I cheerfully undertook for the two hour time frame.

McMorris's mother lives over here, I'm given to understand, but I was still surprised to see her and her brother show up at Boldt's house for a birthday party for Marc after she was elected to Congress.

Which brings us to connecting the dots.

When the Curtis debacle started, McMorris got a hold of Marc and asked him to grease the skids for Ridgefield Barbie to get the appointment.

Never mind that Babs hadn't lived here in 11 years; had no idea what the issues were, had no private sector experience, no business experience, no real experience of any kind.

She had been completely absent from the local political scene (or any other local scene, for that matter), and the Camas Manikin had actually told me to my face that her schooling, her weeks-long internships and her junior girl scout position with McMorris was "the same thing as being in the military."

So, Marc made the deal.  He got ahold of a couple of Cowlitz County Commissioners... democrats, like Swanson, and got the deal set.

So, while everyone was scrambling to make a case, none of them knew that it was all a sham, that Boldt had the deal, and it didn't matter who was on the top 3 list as long as Babs was on it, she was going to get the gig.

And she did.  And so, the next thing we know, a failed Cowlitz County Commissioner gets a job working for.... who?

Now.... how did THAT happen?

How do you think?

Cross posted on Jaime Herrera Watch.