Genghis on Debt Ceiling II: Return of the Boehner
Gallup: Obama 45, Romney 45
Fact That Things Suck Cited As Impediment To Re-Election
Book of the Month
From the Readers
- Another Trope 8 hours ago
- NCD 2 days ago
- bslev 2 days ago
- cmaukonen 3 days ago
- Wattree 3 days ago
- Wattree 4 days ago
- Another Trope 4 days ago
- tmccarthy0 5 days ago
- coatesd 5 days ago
- Richard Day 6 days ago
Creative corner
- MrSmith1 5 days ago
- tmccarthy0 1 week ago
- MrSmith1 1 week ago
- Donal 1 week ago
- ironboltbruce 2 weeks ago
From the Dagbloggers
Hits of the Day
News From the Future: U.S. Passes "Straight To Scrap" Auto Subsidy
by Genghis 5/6/2009 - 2:55 pm
|
May 6, 2029
President George Prescott Bush signed into law a ground-breaking automobile subsidy that will pay the United States' last remaining automaker, General Chrysford, to build cars that will be shipped straight to the scrapyards. The Automotive Repurposing Act is designed to help the Big One survive a global glut of automobiles that has driven the price of cars below the break-even point. Lisa Lemmon, the CEO of General Chrysford, has lobbied hard for the bill and argued in a recent USA McNews editorial that the auto company could not survive without assistance:
"General Chrysford isn't just a car company. It's a way of life. Families around here have been building cars for generations. But small companies like GC can't compete with the Asian megamanufacturers. Without Federal assistance, it just doesn't pay to build cars anymore."
The bill's sponsor, Senator Otto Poppet, D-MI, explained the advantages of the straight-to-scrap approach.
"The World Trade Federation won't let us subsidize production, but since this bill pays manufacturers to repurpose automobiles, it doesn't violate international trade laws, and since it decreases the supply of vehicles on the market, our manufacturers...uh...manufacturer can charge more for the cars that it does sell. Plus, it's a bonanza for the nation's scrap metal industry, and by putting fewer cars on the road, it even helps the environment. That's a win-win-win-win, which is a heck of a lot of wins."
Senator Trey De Voett, R-AZ, who voted for the bill, believes that it will also help states without automobile industries:
"By voting for the Automobile Repurposing Act, I was able to secure Senator Poppet's vote for the Cactus Redistribution Act, which is very important for Arizona's economy and America's status as the world leader in cactus redistribution."
Celebrities also helped galvanize support for the bill. At the Car Aid 2029 benefit in Flint, MI, 80-year-old Bruce Springsteen performed his hit single, Ballad of the Certified Diesel Technician, and joined Rap-Country sensation, Redneck Killa and da Lonely Boyz, in a moving rendition of their hit, Ain't Nev-a Gonna Quit Makin' Caddies.
But critics contend that the subsidy is nothing more than welfare for factory workers, many of whom already receive food stamps after the Mostly United Auto Workers union agreed to a 5-hour work week last August. Dewie Givaschitz, a spokesperson for Concerned Citizens Against Helping People, contends that the bill will lead to a slippery slope,
"What's next? Paying grocery stores to compost their groceries? Airlines to fly empty planes? Dog walkers to walk around without dogs?"
News From the Future is a series of dagblog exclusives about events that have yet to occur. We've received the articles through a glitch in the blogosphere known as a bunghole. Previous headlines:
-
- Genghis's blog
- Add new comment
- 721 reads
In the News
-
SPIN METER: Rivals airbrush anti-Romney words
By Nancy Benac, Associated Press, May 16, 2012
After the nastiness of the Republican primary race, former candidates have collective amnesia about Romney disses
Note to self: you think you're so smart about this kinda stuff, but you yourself fell for it once again.....so much for all the prognostication about one of our political parties disintegrating from all the primary campaign animosity.
Read the article at http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/spin_meter_rivals_airbrush_anti_romney_words/ -
Assessing the Representativeness of Public Opinion Surveys
Pew Resarch Center for the People and the Press, May 15, 2012
For decades survey research has provided trusted data about political attitudes and voting behavior, the economy, health, education, demography and many other topics. But political and media surveys are facing significant challenges as a consequence of societal and technological changes.
It has become increasingly difficult to contact potential respondents and to persuade them to participate. The percentage of households in a sample that are successfully interviewed – the response rate – has fallen dramatically. At Pew Research, the response rate of a typical telephone survey was 36% in 1997 and is just 9% today. The general decline in response rates is evident across nearly all types of surveys, in the United States and abroad. At the same time, greater effort and expense are required to achieve even the diminished response rates of today. These challenges have led many to question whether surveys are still providing accurate and unbiased information [....]
-
Ride of Silence
On May 16, 2012 at 7:00 PM, the Ride of Silence will begin in North America and roll across the globe. Cyclists will take to the roads in a silent procession to honor cyclists who have been killed or injured while cycling on public roadways. Although cyclists have a legal right to share the road with motorists, the motoring public often isn't aware of these rights, and sometimes not aware of the cyclists themselves.
...
The Ride of Silence is a free ride that asks its cyclists to ride no faster than 12 mph, wear helmets, follow the rules of the road and remain silent during the ride. There are no sponsors and no registration fees. The ride, which is held during National Bike Month, aims to raise the awareness of motorists, police and city officials that cyclists have a legal right to the public roadways. The ride is also a chance to show respect for and honor the lives of those who have been killed or injured.
Read the article at http://www.rideofsilence.org/main.php -
Sugar makes you stupid: Study shows high-fructose diet...
A new UCLA rat study is the first to show how a diet steadily high in fructose slows the brain, hampering memory and learning — and how omega-3 fatty acids can counteract the disruption. The peer-reviewed Journal of Physiology publishes the findings in its May 15 edition.
"Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think," said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of integrative biology and physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science. "Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain's ability to learn and remember information. But adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage."
While earlier research has revealed how fructose harms the body through its role in diabetes, obesity and fatty liver, this study is the first to uncover how the sweetener influences the brain.
The UCLA team zeroed in on high-fructose corn syrup, an inexpensive liquid six times sweeter than cane sugar, that is commonly added to processed foods, including soft drinks, condiments, applesauce and baby food. The average American consumes more than 40 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"We're not talking about naturally occurring fructose in fruits, which also contain important antioxidants," explained Gomez-Pinilla, who is also a member of UCLA's Brain Research Institute and Brain Injury Research Center. "We're concerned about high-fructose corn syrup that is added to manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative."[Better write this down]
-
Insider tells why Anonymous ‘might well be the most...
Christopher Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, sits atop a hillside in an undisclosed location in Canada, watching a reporter and photographer make their way along a narrow path to join him, away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.
It’s been a few weeks of encrypted emails back and forth, working out the security protocol to follow for interviewing Doyon, one of the brains behind Anonymous, now a fugitive from the FBI.
Doyon, who readily admits taking part in some of the highest-profile hacktivist attacks on websites last year — from Tunisia to Orlando, Sony to PayPal — was arrested in September for a comparatively minor assault on the county website of Santa Cruz, Calif., where he was living, in retaliation for the town forcibly removing a homeless encampment on the courthouse steps.
The “virtual sit-in” lasted half an hour. For that, Doyon is facing 15 years in jail.
Latest Comments
-
in Sugar makes you stupid:...PeraclesPlease
-
in Debt Ceiling II: Return...Resistance
-
in Dr. Boyce Watkins on Gay...Resistance
-
in Police to SCOTUS: Need...Resistance
-
in Police to SCOTUS: Need...Qnonymous (not verified)
-
in You Can Take It With You...artappraiser
-
in Police to SCOTUS: Need...artappraiser
-
in You Can Take It With You...artappraiser
-
in Sugar makes you stupid:...cmaukonen
-
in Police to SCOTUS: Need...Donal
-
in Bilateral BreathingDonal
-
in Police to SCOTUS: Need...Another Trope
-
in Police to SCOTUS: Need...Another Trope
-
in Police to SCOTUS: Need...Another Trope
-
in Bilateral Breathingacanuck
damn, these are funny. better than a lot of the stuff the onion does.
awesome, awesome names of people, songs, and organizations, too. (Lisa Lemmon ... Trey de Voett ... Dewie Givaschitz ... Mostly United Auto Workers? Concerned Citizens Against Helping People? and perhaps my favorite of them all, Springsteen's future classic, the Ballad of the Certified Diesel Technician,
Thanks, D. This one was possibly my favorite of the bunch (I like the Cactus Redistribution Act), but it seems to have generated a big yawn so far, both here and at TPM. I'll keep 'em coming.
Just because we don't comment, it doesn't mean we don't enjoy it. We just have nothing to add. Perhaps you need to add a little flamebait or something if you want to see how many people are reading it.
Actually, our super secret blogger technology does allow me to see the reads. And of course, TPM has the recs. (But at TPM, if it's not about republicans or undergarments, it's not going anywhere.) What I need is an enjoyment detector.
Or I could just shrug my shoulders and keep writing.
Oh man, I'm writing a piece about undergarments! Thanks for the idea Genghis!
For bonus credit, I suggest that you write about Republican undergarments.
Read and enjoyed the writing, but conflicted about it. Yes I know the American auto industry is to blame for putting gas guzzling SUVs and short term profits about being reponsible re: the environment, but the eff the entire industry mentality bugs me. I give this piece in order of emotions stirred a
given my socialist sympathies for the autoworkers and the demise of manufacturing in this country in general.
This is not really an eff auto-industry post. It's about not preserving industries in formaldehyde.
Since this is turning into the First Annual Genghis Appreciation Day, I must acknowledge that exile to Philly has stirred the man's creative juices. He's virtually cornered the market on reporting from both the distant future and the dawn of creation.
Thankfully, he can write only so many posts a day, so he's left a gap between the Middle Ages and today for the rest of us to comment on. But we'd better work fast; I hear his treatise linking the Industrial Revolution to the invention of underpants is going to be a blockbuster.
Nothing in the middle is worth discussing.