Greece ... Just Another Poster Babe for the Success of Socialism

Much ado in the media about the financial fiasco of the EU ... those of the same ilk that brought socialism to Europe in the past century ... those moral and intellectual superiors who schemed  and  enveigled their way into yet another great plan to impose a bureaucratic regime to govern the peasants of Europe.
And of course the inevitable result ... failure and discontent. Because ... all of Europe ... all of it...  is about failure ... failure is the zeitgeist that drives the European soul. Fear, loathing and avarice and the inescapable fact that Europe is failing. Europe has been failing since the 19th century ... the 20th century was all about the failure of Europe and the 21st is now about the final spasms of cultural death.
The inevitable result for a society that has abandoned the concept of responsibility for the security blanket of cradle to grave state management.

Which brings us to the topic of Greece. Without having embraced the totalitarian sort of state that those great 20th century successes were able to accomplish in hundreds of millions of dead peasants... the next-gen socialists of Europe ...like Greece ... have chosen the slow strangulation that comes from government dependence and reliance upon the meddling government .

Greece ... being a democratic nation ... has freely and willingly placed its life and lives of its children at the mercy of black hearted, self important and self serving bureaucrats within the borders of the nation and ultimately with the even more black hearted commissars of Brussels.

I'd say Greece has become another poster babe to highlight the success of socialism. And it looks good on them. But they have not learned anything from the experience so far.

Greeks do not actually care that they are broke. What they care about is continuing the free ride on the gravy train. And as much as they love to bitch about the demands of the EU and especially the evil Germans ... they have no desire to take responsibility for their own future.

The Germans are NO better. What they and the rest of EU care about is the faint hope of recovering something from the billions of E$ they have pissed down the sewer. Same goes for the pending Spanish and Italian debt defaults.

We should hope and pray that our own government can keep the hell out of this mess.


OMMAG

Seeing the Enemy Within ...

For American voters .... especially Conservative American Voters .... the real problem is not choosing between Newt and Mitt.

The problem is that they are being denied any other choice. So ... from the GOP caucuses to next year the die is cast. There are big consequences looming for everyone and these clowns think the whole show is about them and what they want.

When Mama Bear has to step in and explain to the brats where they are going wrong ..... you know there is a problem.
It is a very real problem .... the Washington Establishment is the reason that an asshole like Barack Obama can become president .... the reason why FannyMae and FreddyMac got bankrupted .... the reason why those companies and others like Goldman Sachs and General Motors get to suck the blood out of American taxpayers and avoid the consequences of their own greed and incompetence.... and on .... and on it goes.

Americans are being force fed still MORE Washington insiders as the only choices in the upcoming election thanks to the GOP establishment ... and there is probably nothing they can do about it.


Except of course get behind every Tea Party candidate coming up for Senate and Congress ... and state election.

It's bad enough that liberals thrive on and depend on the insider establishment to hold onto power and influence. It is a thousand times WORSE when the supposed alternative to the architects of destruction fall into the same behaviours.

What America needs is an enema administered to the capitol.

OMMAG

American Enterprise Blog

Good finds on the webs...............

Obama Advisor Larry Summers .... knew damned well the damage that would be done by the Obama doctrines .... so did the O... and didn't really give a shit!


What makes Western Civilization BETTER than Everyone Else ... a primer on how we got to be the best  damned society EVER.

OMMAG

Been Waiting for This ...

State of The Union?

Or ...  just crass disregard for facts and the intelligence of the audience?


 

The further he tries to spread it .... the thinner it gets.
Like I said in 2008 ... this man is a phony.

What level of respect has this person earned?

As much as he has shown for the USA ... it's institutions and it's people....

Related ...


OMMAG

Nice Bike ............

From Bike EXIF on Facebook .............. a few pictures of a Concept Enduro Bike based on a Huskvarna 650cc liquid cooled four stroke and using what looks like cross over high performance suspension  .... this is the sort of machine that gets my blood boiling.

One look at that beast and I see myself blasting down dirt and gravel backroads in the hills .... mega fun!

Sun TV Experts ... Just as Smart as OTHER network's wonks

Just a passing chance today that I caught a bit of the Sun TV news financial segment.
Now I do not know who the guy was who they had on presenting himself as an authority but I can lay out for you what he had to say...
The subject was this weeks status quo interest rate non-story and the fact that 1% is a hell of a low prime rate. Among much speculation about the potential for either raising or lowering of the Canadian prime this joker offered the viewers this little nugget from his ... ahem .... mind?
Mr. expert .. opined that the banks like higher interest rates ... because ... they make more money when the prime is higher!

Prime Rate History


Yup!  Sure they do sparky .... like when they charge 5% interest on money they pay 1% for? That's a 500% markup by the way. So ... Mr. expert ..... when the prime is ... let's say 4% and the banks mark it up to say 7% .... then you say that is more profit? Or perhaps sparky can actually cite some example where a Canadian Bank marked up the prime MORE than they are doing in today's environment?

Not friggin likely sparky...........

So called expert seems to be both unaware that there are limits to how many points the lenders can get away with adding to borrowed money. Historically .... a few points is about it and the higher the base or prime rate the smaller the margin. Apparently ... Mr. Expert hasn't been around long enough to recall primes that were in the double digits... or ... even what a 5% base rate from the central bank looked like in the lending market.

The last time prime rate started pushing toward double digits banks were lending at 1 point above prime.

Ignorant and innumerate .... some EXPERT you got there SUN TV!

OMMAG

Thinking About Cars ... and Auto Journalism

There's some rumors running around that Ford is planning to re-introduce a four cylinder engine to the Mustang lineup.

To me this seems like "Deja Vu ... all over again.." (borrowing an old Yogi-ism ). Basically ... remembering these horrendous failures :
Mustang II - possibly the worst car ever made
EXP - The evolutionary joke
Early Fox Bodied Mustangs with four bangers

The Merkur - a quirky misfit with some redeeming qualities in the performance and handling departments
The SVO Turbo - which was not all bad either ... but still a failure as a true performance/enthusiast car

However, the thing that gets me about this train of thought in motoring design/marketing is that it follows the behaviour that leads to the most common trap that North American car companies are prone to find themselves in. The error they make is in thinking that the opinions of motor journalists, who are grasping for something to write about and thus justify their existence, are a sound source of ideas that need to be developed. This is essentially a failure of vision in the design/engineering and product development groups, but the willingness of the marketing people to embrace the perceived wisdom of the chattering cretins in the press combined with the executive office willingness to be guided by false assumptions about what public demand is really based on ... sadly ... seems to wind up on the showroom floors.
Why this bothers me is that it is instead of being offered vehicles that actually are better we ... the automobile buying public ... get crap shoved at us with the attitude that we ... as in you and I ... are too stupid to know what we want or what is good for us. In the process of getting to this point the manufacturers waste hundreds of millions of dollars that could be otherwise used to actually make their products better. The fact that they continue to do this time after time is one of the reasons I have never invested in auto manufacturers and is also one of the reasons the so called Big Three are in the financial state that they are today.

As in the 70s and the 80s the cycle of car development is once again being impacted by the government meddling and arbitrary regulations being imposed by people who simply have no idea what they are doing but are bent on doing it anyway... hang the cost and screw the consequences. The auto company brass are cravenly eager to placate the meddlesome pols and bureaucrats .... foolishly pandering to demands they imagine the public to making.

Hence .... once again ... the Four Cylinder Mustang idea.

Now ... realistically ... the current mustang is a bloated little lump of steel and plastic. It's not bad looking but it has NO SOUL. It is overweight for it's dimensions. It has terrible driver feedback and most of the power plants it comes with are weak feeling if not just sedated and unsuitable for a performance car. The reality of the Mustang is that it is a vehicle with bland characteristics and sporting pretensions. Of course ... if you lay out the cash for one of the high performance packages you do actually get some kickass horsepower. But what is the point of a car that is being sold as raucous driver satisfying beast when it fails to actually inspire? Looking at recent motor-press efforts ... they seem to be mightily confused about just what a Boss 302 or Cobra or GT is supposed to be ... how many of these dummies actually did comparisons between the Mustangs and BMWs?

Frankly ... I don't care how a car that is supposed to be a muscle car/ pony car/ hooligan ride compares to some Euro sedan that is sold primarily to wankers and their girlfriends. I don't really care what they use for a motor and I don't care what knob polishers in the motor-press think.
But ... let's assume for just one moment that the Ford guys were actually serious about producing a four cylinder Mustang. Let's also assume that the reasons for this would be to make the car better.
Then the underlying goals would seem to be less weight and better handling. Part of the rumor mill take on the supposed new mustang is also supposed to be Independent Rear Suspension... which is something that Ford should have made standard in the Mustang decades ago... and the overall benefits to the car and the driver experience would be a lighter and more responsive and more FUN car.
I would heartily approve a a lighter and more responsive car that is more fun to drive... wouldn't you? The speculation on the four banger and the tone from Ford seems to indicate that the four will be an especially potent little mill.  All right ... let's say we have a quick revving four that kicks out some impressive numbers and actually has some character.
What is stopping  Ford from putting the same character into the V6 or the V8s? The 6s and 8s are NOT currently free revving motors ... they are tuned for low and mid-range torque and have far too much flywheel plus they are severely rev limited ... all in the supposed name of "drivability" which is really marketing wonk code for safe and easy to drive. Same for the handling ... these cars all push the front end when driven hard and are overly soft. Again a lighter and more fun car could be built even with a four banger .... or the 6s or the 8s.

But sadly the guys at ford could have done this years ago by keeping the mustang lean and mean. There never was the need for this car to weigh in at the 3500 lb plus range ... even with the V8 engines. And most of all there never was a need to make the Mustang anything BUT a sports car. And that is the root of the problem.

Please ... DO ... give us a lighter and better handing Mustang ... but don't try to do it while shoving another  four cylinder powerplant down our throats.

Related...
While I'm on the topic of motor sports and the motoring press ... I watched a few minutes of Motoring 2012 today. I've never really enjoyed the Motoring TV production because the show is much more of an effort to display and market the cars as products than to actually evaluate and inform in any meaningful way. But today ... one of the talking heads ... Jim Kenzie ... found the need to offer his opinion on the merits of building prisons versus the merits of the federal government regulating traffic safety programs. For the record ... Jim Kenzie clearly does not know what the hell is talking about and should stick to talking about cars .... keeping his political opinions to himself.

Also related ...

The word "bespoke" .... this seems to have cropped up in the last couple of years ... originating as far as I can tell in the British motoring press. The term itself refers to tailor made clothing ... specifically made to order men's clothing and suits. Somehow ... some person in the Automobile Journalism field though it would be clever to describe some car as "Bespoke" ... it seems to have caught on as well in marketing circles and is not limited to the auto industry. However, the frequency of the word "bespoke" appearing in articles related to the automobile and  the enthusiast automobile is on the rise.

I think the guy or gal who first applied this esoteric little adjective was being somewhat original and witty. The trend seems to be leading to mindless copy cat repetition and misuse of the word as a pronoun which I find annoying and unnecessary.
In short ... most people you will see using this term are in fact nothing but pretentious knobs who have glommed onto something they think makes them sound more clever and intelligent than they will ever be.

Rant Off /

Something to think about :




OMMAG

Seven Traits of Failure

Forbes Magazine ... has a short list of executive traits that are common  to failed and failing or about to fail companies.

See the list   Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Execs .

Seems to me that every company I've ever worked for has promoted or hired these types ....

Another good reason to go find a new job right now.

OMMAG

Climate Gate 2.0 ... Lying Liars and Big Environment $

At Watts Up With That ... WUWT a sizable list (250) of the over 5000 e-mails contained in the second installment leaked out of CRU and the climate cabal of Jones, Mann, Briffa et al ............ digging done be one Tom Nelson ... well done Tom.

What stands out is the raw determination to justify their preconceptions and in crafting and telling of the big lie.
That and the blatant collusion with the BBC ............
Also notable is the work done by a WUWT commentor ... EM Smith who captures filtered search results of the FOIA emails list using key word searches.

He notes that there are   "A Lot of hits..." See the Chiefio ...

What is there to say?
Basically anyone who still thinks this whole climate/disaster/IPCC/UN panic propaganda is legitimate is either willfully blind or just another lying SoB with an agenda.

Now wasn't it just this last week when a bunch of NDP and Liberal types were badmouthing our government for getting out of the UN climate scam??

OMMAG

A Cool take on a retro sport bike....

I'd definitely want to put some REAL tires on it before I'd try to ride it.

The RD 350 is a real sport bike .... in spite of it's age. Even a stock 350 can smoke the rear tire and break traction in corners at speed. Light weight and quick handling make you want to ride the little bike hard.

And even GOOD tires can be pushed to their limits by an RD 350.......

Nice build and finish by the Analog Motorcycle Shop (Tony Prust) ...

More at Bike EXIF


Cheers!

OMMAG

I Bet Theres Some Harper Bashing On the Way

Globe & Mail busy pimping doom and gloom .... Vast Majority of Canadians Believe .... country is in recession!

Yeah ... sure ... whatever YOU say.

Apparently it takes three staff writers to craft  a non news opinion article based on a poll and some commentary from the  rolodex of "experts".

Strangely enough, they never seem to actually get to any discernible point .... although the pre-formed conclusion .... that "Canadians" are unhappy with the economy gets re enforced through repetition.Stay tuned to the G&M  ... if you have the patience and stomach ... where you will likely see a number of articles highly ... and most likely falsely ... critical of the government and PM Harper in particular.

This is how the agenda driven media work their memes into the news.

OMMAG

2012 .... It's Going to be a lot of FUN!

iNoPasaran! found this interesting example of a lefticle's brain spewing.

Not really surprising that the source of this   informed opinion  shitbrained spew ... is a Hollywood actor ....

Steven Weber

“The scale of Right Wing sociopolitical sabotage necessitates a Nuremberg-scale trial for all the corporate agents and treasonous capitalisto-fascist architects of our democracy’s current and most pressing misery......."

 It's almost like he's been taking classes at Columbia U

Either that or an education at columbia is about as useful as a career in television ............

OMMAG