Obama Motor Company

Obama was just on T.V. (surprise) telling us how great it was that Chrysler was going into bankruptcy---even though he has spent billions of our money trying to avoid Chapter 11. He also says that we should go out and buy an American car. He made it clear that he considers Chrysler which is merging with a European company (Fiat) is an American company, but those cars built by Americans in the southern states do not qualify. In addition, you don't have to worry about a warranty with Chrysler since the government will honor them---since Chrysler is an Obama Motor car. Our new president will choose winners and losers in the U.S. it seems. Just amazing.

This should be good

The future model of the Detroit automobile companies is evidently going to be a marvel of entrepreneurial genius. It looks like the United Auto Workers (UAW) would own 39% of GM. The federal government would own 50%. The creditors will be shafted with just 10%. In the Chrysler plan being discussed, labor would own 55%, making it effectively a subsidiary of the UAW. BestView looks forward to the labor negotiations between the Obama administration and the union bosses. Maybe we'll just stick with Toyota products.

Miscellaneous Observations

When the teleprompter breaks down, our new president doesn't sound much more articulate than the previous one.

The Jews and Muslims have found common ground in objecting to calling the illness spreading out of Mexico "swine flu".

Matthew Stafford, the quarterback from the University of Georgia, was drafted first by the Detroit Lions and given a contract worth some $71 million. That would buy a large part of his new city.

The media are giving the Obama administration some grief over the photo-op staged by sending Air Force 1 flying low over New York City, but imagine the blow-back if it had happened on Bush's watch.

Astronomers tracking a mysterious blast of energy called a gamma ray burst said on Tuesday they had snapped a photograph of the most distant object in the universe -- a smudge 13 billion light-years away.

The Truth Commission

It is well known that politicians of both parties name legislation in such a way as to disguise its true effect and usually is completely contradictory in its implementation. We now have one of the most liberal senators, Leahy of Vermont, calling for a Truth Commission to find out why the Bush administration did what they did in its interrogations of terrorists. In fact, Leahy does not really want to know the truth about everything---such as how firmly the democrat leadership signed off on everything at the time.
As was pointed out in the Wall Street Journal this morning, the dems were in full voice against torture and passed legislation in February 2008 that would have limited the U.S. to techniques found in the Army Field Manual. This was easy since they knew Bush would veto it and the veto would be sustained. Now the dems have a large majority in both houses and a president who would sign it, but they do not want to go this route and are instead calling for a Truth Commission. The reason, of course, is if they now make waterboarding illegal, they are admitting that up until now it was legal.

China Gold

BestView has mentioned several times that the devaluation of the dollar by the Bush/Obama spending will drive an appreciation of gold.
This article in the Financial Post discusses the accumulation of gold rather than more of the dollars which will lose their value over time. Since the Chinese own so much of our debt, one might conclude that they share BestView worries about our currency.

SHANGHAI/BEIJING - China revealed on Friday that it had secretly raised its gold reserves by three-quarters since 2003, increasing its holdings to 1,054 tonnes - or a pot worth about US$30.9-billion - and confirming years of speculation it had been buying.

Hu Xiaolian, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, told Xinhua news agency in an interview that the country's reserves had risen by 454 tonnes from 600 tonnes since 2003, when China last adjusted its state gold reserves figure.

Royal Climate Change

If you want to even consider the possibility that "climate change" nee "global warming" is an important factor in your life, keep in mind that you will be reaching the same conclusion as this idiot:

Prince Charles is being accused of hypocrisy after it was revealed that he is chartering a luxury private jet for a five-day tour of Europe to promote environmental issues.

The Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall, plus ten Clarence House staff, will fly from London to Rome this evening. Then they will fly on to Venice and Berlin, before returning to Britain.

Clarence House aides stress that the trip is at the request of the Government to promote its climate change policies.

But instead of using scheduled flights, the Royal party has hired a private plane, thought to be an Airbus A319.

Beware Israeli Security

An Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people on board fended off a pirate attack far off the coast of Somalia when its Israeli private security forces exchanged fire with the bandits.

Six men in a small, white Zodiac-type boat approached the Msc Melody at about 1730 GMT Saturday and opened fire with automatic weapons, Msc Cruises director Domenico Pellegrino said. They retreated after the security officers returned fire and sprayed them with water hoses. The ship continued its journey with its windows darkened.

"It felt like we were in war," the ships commander, Ciro Pinto, told Italian state radio.

None of the roughly 1,000 passengers and 500 crew members was hurt, Pellegrino said. The passengers were asked to return to their cabins and the external lights on board turned off.

Pellegrino said all Msc cruise ships around the world are staffed with Israeli security agents because they are the best trained.

More Nonsense

The following statement from Dennis Blair is patent nonsense. Evidently, our interrogation techniques prevented another al Qaeda attack which one must presume saved lives, but these are less precious than our "image" abroad. Here is the quote:

The Obama administration's top intelligence officer, Dennis C. Blair, has said the information obtained through the interrogation program was of "high value." But he also concluded that those gains weren't worth the cost.

"There is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means," Blair said in a statement. "The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

New Flu Strain

There is enough different about this strain of influenza coming out of Mexico (and it will come out) to raise my concern. First, the virus is genetically different from that complex of antigens to which most in the U.S. have been vaccinated. It is being spread at a time of year which is not usual for influenza. Lastly, it is evidently striking individuals who are not usually so vulnerable. Young, healthy individuals rather than infants and the elderly are affected severely. I recommend staying out of crowds and keeping your hands clean and away from your face. This could be a bad one. A recent article is published here.

This won't be in the NY Times

A Philippine appeals court overturned Thursday the conviction of a U.S. Marine who was sentenced to 40 years in prison for raping a Filipino woman in 2005.

The court also ordered the immediate release of Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, who is being detained inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Manila.

The acquittal came a few weeks after the victim recanted, saying the sex was consensual.

The mother of the woman said her daughter decided to change her story and left the country.

The acquittal also came amid clamor for Smith to be turned over to Philippine authorities.

A lower court sentenced Smith in December 2006 for the rape of the woman in a van at a former U.S. Navy base in Subic north of Manila.

Three other defendants -- Lance Cpls. Keith Silkwood and Dominic Duplantis and SSgt. Chad Carpentier -- were all cleared of rape.

The case has stirred strong protests from women's and left-wing groups in the Philippines and strained ties with the United States.

The rape charges sparked a strong debate on whether an existing Visiting Forces Agreement between the United States and the Philippines should continue or be abrogated.

Another bad liberal idea

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is moving ahead with a plan for mandatory GPS devices in cars that would be read at gas pumps and automatically charge drivers for miles driven.

Global Warming Poll

Just one-out-of-three voters (34%) now believe global warming is caused by human activity, the lowest finding yet in Rasmussen Reports national surveying. However, a plurality (48%) of the Political Class believes humans are to blame.This is from a recent Rasmussen survey.

This indicates that the voters are smarter than the politicians, but BestView would still like to see some recognition of the fact that we are not in a period of global warming, haven't been for several years, and the global cooling we are experiencing is not caused by human activity either.

Save the Globe

It appears the Boston Globe, a liberal rag owned by the New York Times is in some financial difficulty and Senator John Kerry says the potential demise of this reliable leftist newspaper is unacceptable. He is going to save it. O.K. Does this mean he is going to ask his uber-wealthy wife Terresa to throw some of her money toward propping it up? Bake sales or car washes by school students? Of course not. He is going after tax payers to ante up to save the Boston Globe because there will be serious consequences for our democracy where diversity of opinion and strong debate are paramount if this paper is allowed to fail. Poppycock. Read the sad story here in a more conservative paper which is not in financial trouble.

Torture Politics

BestView knew Obama was a liberal and would appoint liberals to government positions and would, at certain times, be inclined to cater to his liberal loon supporters. This nonsense over the released CIA documents goes well beyond my worst fears. After 9/11 we capture some of the principals in the terror attack and want to know who else was involved and what other plans were in play to attack us. The CIA asks for guidance from the lawyers in the Attorney Generals office detailing what they could do and several opinions were forthcoming which green-lighted interrogation tactics which were used to gain information which even the Obama administration admits was valuable and saved lives of U.S. citizens.
Now that the loons have a pliable neophyte in the White House, they want to go back and not only second guess the legal opinions, they want to prosecute the lawyers who rendered the opinions and hopefully be able to reach up to Bush and Cheney so they can be frog-marched to prison. The only way they can do this is to call the tactics employed "torture". It is fair to say that Americans do not endorse torture, but BestView holds that what we did---waterboarding, sleep deprivation, head slapping, and talking harshly to those who killed Americans was not torture. Torture is what BestView would impose on an Al-qaeda leader with information which would prevent the death of a single U.S. citizen. Some might not agree with the tactics we would use, but at least my interrogation could, if need be, progress to a point where the loony leftists would be able to use the term "torture" appropriately.

This will go nowhere fast

On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband’s real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.

Mrs. Feinstein’s intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn’t a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars.

The Carbon Dioxide Threat

The EPA has now declared carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. Very few of those who aren't paying attention realize that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from numerous sources and man's activities are responsible for about 3% of this. No matter, the liberals in Washington want to control man's activities with laws and regulations so we can now look for the Obama administration to use their control of the automobile companies to impose fuel standards which can only be met with small cars which in a crash is more likely to kill more of us. When this occurs, our government will be addressing a non-problem by imposing a "solution" which will literally kill us.

Spending Cuts Obama Style

This is a great depiction of the budget cuts BO sternly demanded of his cabinet yesterday.

Generous Joe

Vice-President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill have given about 0.2% of their income to charity in each of the years between 2000 and 2008. Less than ½ of one percentage point given to persons in need, to ministries of their Catholic Church, to agencies that serve the poor and the hurting. In fact, this year they gave a total of $1885 to charity, marking the first time they had even given a sum larger than $1000 for the entire year. In every year of this decade, the Bidens' income has exceeded $200,000, and for the first time they gave away more than $1000 of their own money. The Bidens reported income of $253,866 and paid $46,952 in federal taxes in 2008.

The Tax Problem

There are many problems with the way our country taxes its citizens and spends the money raised, but none of them can really be solved when the least educated, least productive, least knowledgeable, and, yes, the least intelligent among us pay no federal income tax. Appropriate outrage will not be forthcoming and that is exactly what our craven politicians want as they continue to complicate our tax policies.

Where is the love?

The New York Times and the Washington Post have been grappling with a steep drop in print advertising revenue, steadily declining circulation and the migration of readers to free news online.

Earlier this month, the Times threatened to shut down the Boston Globe which was purchased by the Times Co. for 1.1 billion dollars in 1993, unless unions at the daily agree to pay cuts and other cost-saving measures.

Is this any way for good liberals to be treating union members? Shocking.

My sentiments exactly

From a Texas Tea Party:

Mike Smart, a 51-year-old oil field worker from West Texas, held up a white handwritten sign that said, "I'll keep my freedom, my $ and my guns. You keep the change."

"I just want the government to stay out of my way. I won't get in their way if they don't get in mine," said Smart, who described himself as conservative but not a Republican.

Obama Passes Pirate Test

It is looking like Obama avoided his Jimmy Carter moment and let the snipers do their thing as suggested by BestView. Now the sanctuary sites in Somalia need to be visited from the sky and a sufficient number sent to awaiting virgins that piracy is not considered such a great enterprise.

Pretty good analysis by Neal Boortz

The United States tells them not to do it. The useless United Nations tells them not to do it. They do it. It has been five days since North Korea launched a missile capable of reaching Hawaii. What is America's response? What is the international response? The silence is deafening. What are we showing here? Weakness or strength?

The mad man that runs Iran is bragging that they now have 7000 centrifuges up and running making enriched nuclear weapons-grade fuel. He also brags that they have developed a technology that enhances the enrichment progress. At the same time the Iranian president continues to say that Israel's days are limited. In the meantime Vice President Joe Biden warns Israel that they had better not even think about attacking Iran. No strong warning to Iran. What are we projecting here, strength or weakness?

The Islamic pirates continue to hold an American hostage off the coast of Somalia. We're talking, not acting. So far I have not heard about any search for the pirate mother ship and there's no talk of blockading Somalian ports. The pirates may well end up with millions of dollars and safe passage to Somalia where they will release their American hostage. Strength or weakness?

The American the ragtag Islamic pirates are holding tried to escape. He dove out of the boat and into the water and tried to get away. Our Navy was standing off and not close enough to help him. The Islamic pirates overtook him and took him into custody again. This man tried to escape in full view of American forces. They were either unable or unwilling to help him. Perhaps the American Captain thought that when he was out of the pirate's boat the Navy would blow them away. Didn't happen. Strength or Weakness?

America - once strong, now cowering.

Read it here.

This guy needs a new sport

Worst boxer ever? View it here.

Surrender Monkey? Shocking!

Not everyone in Europe was struck mute in the aura of our new President's visit to their continent. This snippet from a column in the Telegraph from the U.K. makes that quite clear, but read it all here and then watch to see if there is any blow-back from using the word "monkey" in a reference to our black President.

President Pantywaist is hopping mad and he has a strategy to cut Kim down to size: he is going to slice $1.4bn off America's missile defence programme, presumably on the calculation that Kim would feel it unsporting to hit a sitting duck, so that will spoil his fun.

Watch out, France and Co, there is a new surrender monkey on the block and, over the next four years, he will spectacularly sell out the interests of the West with every kind of liberal-delusionist initiative on nuclear disarmament and sitting down to negotiate with any power freak who wants to buy time to get a good ICBM fix on San Francisco, or wherever. If you thought the world was a tad unsafe with Dubya around, just wait until President Pantywaist gets into his stride.

Bad Vibes

BestView has a pit of the gut feeling that Obama is not up to facing the challenge posed by 4 pirates in a small motor boat who have taken an American hostage. This is despite the world's greatest navy at his disposal. If we get a Jimmy Carter response from this new President, it will be a disaster for our country. Get your best snipers out there, take the thugs out in one volley, get the captain back, and put an end to this nonsense. Right now Obama is acting like the dog who catches the fire truck and no idea what to do with the actual presidency now that the campaign is over.

Too idiotic for words

The president’s new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air.

John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

“It’s got to be looked at,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”

Don't worry your pretty head about the banks

"The U.S. Treasury Department is planning to delay the release of any completed bank stress test results until after the first-quarter earnings season to avoid complicating stock market reaction, a source familiar with Treasury's discussions said on Tuesday." Read it all here.

In other words, the government does not think you are ready to learn how healthy your bank may be.

Feckless squared

Obama says if North Korea launches a rocket it must be punished so they launched and by golly Obama went to the U.N. and they said ----"Let's talk about it". Feckless doesn't even begin to describe this debacle.

Bad Transmission?

Obama says he and his government workers will stand behind the automobile warranties issued by his new auto companies. Won't it be fun waiting in a Social Security style waiting room to see a GS-5 about replacing your bad transmission?

Do I really need this?

The following is part of a pitch for a product that few men would find especially necessary.

"It will be hard for women to resist the temptation not to sleep with you."

Inflation

We are attempting to print our way to prosperity. That can't be done, any more than we could speculate our way to prosperity during the stock bubble or borrow our way to prosperity in the real-estate/credit bubble. Got gold? Get some.

Obama Priorities

President Obama’s European visit this week has strained Air Force heavy-airlift capabilities and obliged the military to hire more foreign contractors to help resupply U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, according to military sources. The large delegation traveling with the president in Europe required moving several transports, including jumbo C-5s and C-17s, from sorties ferrying supplies to Afghanistan to European bases for the presidential visit, said two military officials familiar with the issue. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid any misunderstanding with White House officials.”

Sex and Genes

There have been articles lately that report on a study into the effect of one's genetic makeup on how early virginity is lost. See here, for example. Once you look at the data and attempt to understand what it actually revealed, you get to the following conclusion:

Some people probably have genes that make them extremely likely to lose their virginity at a young age. Some others probably have genes that make them delay sexual activity for many years. Still others have genes that leave them more malleable to the environment. We are not all equally genetically driven on each type of behavior we engage in.

In other words, the research is meaningless.

More Tax Coming In

Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius recently corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding "unintentional errors"—the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee. The Kansas governor explained the changes to senators in a letter dated Tuesday that the administration released. She said they involved charitable contributions, the sale of a home and business expenses.

Where does Obama find all these tax cheats?