Heh! I DARE YOU!

Premature Orszagism

Annals of Orszagism: Virginia Postrel calls the Obama administration's bluff on health care costs. A White House Council of Economic Advisers report recently asserted that

30 percent of Medicare’s costs could be saved without adverse health consequences.

Postrel's answer: What's stopping you?

Notice the words at the end of the statement....

Krugman:

"The Democratic strategy for health reform is based on a political judgment: the belief that the public will be more willing to accept reform, less easily Harry-and-Louised, if those who already have health coverage from private insurers are allowed to keep it."

If this doesn't give you pause regarding Krugman's motives and thinking, then I guess you really don't give a shit about anything......

Yup!

Justices Gone Wild:

"The Supreme Court regularly shows up in polls as the most respected branch of government. But settling so many vexing controversies with 5-to-4 votes — effectively making Anthony Kennedy the nation’s philosopher king — is an awfully poor way to run a republic."

Finally, some good news!!!

Deal to Sell Saturn to Penske Reported

Hail and farewell....

General Motors, RIP

General Motors used to build cars that mattered. Cars with great names like Rocket 88, Sting Ray, Coupe DeVille, Starfire, Road Master, GTO, Gran Sport, El Dorado, Electra, and others. Big, fast, chromey cars that cruised toward the horizon, windows rolled down, AM radio blasting out the Beach Boys or Jan and Dean or Elvis or maybe Ike Turner. The world was full of promise and horsepower.

A GM car told the world that you were somebody. Wealthy business owners drove Cadillacs, doctors drove Buicks, lawyers drove Oldsmobiles, up-and-comers drove Pontiacs, and regular folks drove Chevys. Young men drove fast cars that had mag wheels, glass-packs, Mickey Thompson drag racing tires, Hurst shifters and a necker’s knob on the steering wheel so you could steer with your left hand while your right arm was around your girlfriend.

I can still remember that evening in 1957 when my father drove home in his first Cadillac - an all white convertible with red leather interior! A beastly thing with a steering wheel the size of a planet, fins ready to pierce anything that got in their way, and 6 inch wide whitewalls that looked like Bozo's hairline. Boy, was that cool! It was one of Dad's great status symbols, and a tradition he continued every two years as the brand got bigger and more posh until that final diesel Seville in the 1980's was such a piece of crap that he gave up on the marque and went with the much hated German brand. Like the rest of us, he never looked back....

Heh...

Abbas’s Three No’s:

"Old Joe the Plumber saw it.

He didn’t have a degree, didn’t have any advanced degrees, but he saw it, and stated it clear, that if Obama wins, “Israel is up the creek.”

How many ostensibly well educated out there were fooled, were mentally befogged by Obama’s speeches, were seduced by media agitprop?"

Quote of the Day...

Hugh Hewitt:

"Governments can do very few things well and almost nothing efficiently."

Gee! I think he's been reading my stuff.....

RIP - What's Good for GM isn't What's Good For America

Megan McArdle:

So. Alea iacta est, as Julius Caesar might have said, if there had been a major Roman chariot manufacturer in putative need of nationalization. The nation's largest automaker, our most iconic firm, is bankrupt, GM and Citigroup exit the Dow in favor of Travelers and Cisco."

Could it be?

The End of Our Love Affair with Cars:

"The phrase “bankrupt General Motors,” which we expect to hear uttered on Monday, leaves Americans my age in economic shock. The words are as melodramatic as “Mom’s nude photos.” And, indeed, if we want to understand what doomed the American automobile, we should give up on economics and turn to melodrama.

Politicians, journalists, financial analysts and other purveyors of banality have been looking at cars as if a convertible were a business. Fire the MBAs and hire a poet. The fate of Detroit isn’t a matter of financial crisis, foreign competition, corporate greed, union intransigence, energy costs or measuring the shoe size of the footprints in the carbon. It’s a tragic romance—unleashed passions, titanic clashes, lost love and wild horses."