David Brooks calls government-run GM motors a quagmire:
The end result is that G.M. will not become more like successful car companies. It will become less like them. The federal merger will not accelerate the company’s viability. It will impede it. We’ve seen this before, albeit in different context: An overconfident government throws itself into a dysfunctional culture it doesn’t really understand. The result is quagmire. The costs escalate. There is no exit strategy.
Scary. David, of course, understands all dysfunctional cultures–such as the NYT.
Meanwhile, the Australian guy, apparently, who was stabbed for masturbating in the shower brings sad news:
Comment by Furnurgen Dirty on 9/27 @ 7:02 am # |Edit This
Hey I wasnt to sure whether to continue masturbating using that blade….it fucking hurt and not to say I did not have any kids in my permission giving me permission if you know what I mean I am the guy who got caught and no flogging was done to satisfy a magistrates decision to enble a sure quick witted lesbian ho bag fucked up stripper who walks and talks like a man, she even planted fake drugs in my sneakers and a used syringe so that I would get caught, she also took camera shots like a mini snuff movie all of her very own and shared them around her friends. Take care all of you and keep writing funny shit cos shell die extreme cancer one day soon I hope.Yours sincerely Daniel
Comment by Furnurgen Dirty on 6/2 @ 9:19 am # |Edit This
The chick involved just fucking hung herself!!!!!! Must of been the guilt of lying in court dumb slut i told you cancer or something would get her and no it wasnt me she left a full suicidal note and guess what her boyfriend told her to piss off so she went acrosss the road and tried to hang herself in a tree but it brokem then got tied up in a fence which just finalised yhe job if you know what i mean. I mean how fucking bizarre………not to say the least and yes i occasionally treat my hand to a laughing dinner or two thank you Daniel
His name is Daniel, you see. But my question is: how much of the guilt for this suicide ought I accept?
Did Daily Beast mischaracterization contribute to the shooting of William Long?
Last Thursday, the Obama administration asked a federal court to block the release of images that depict detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The court had sided with the American Civil Liberties Union in its request that the administration release the photos. The administration’s move seemed to lend credence to swirling rumors on the Internet that the administration was suppressing a cache of images showing sexual abuse of detainees. The day of the administration’s request to the court, Britain’s Daily Telegraph published a story claiming that the images included rape and sexual abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Friday, the Daily Beast reported that many of the photographs were “sexually explicit” and included images of “a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner” and “penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.”
What do these unreleased images actually depict? A Defense Department official who has seen the unreleased images consented to give Salon some details. Salon agreed to keep the identity of the defense official private in exchange for the opportunity to interview a person with firsthand knowledge of the images.
Specifically, the official said there are about 2,000 images related to detainee abuse, none of which are from Abu Ghraib, and the images do not include depictions of sexual abuse. The official said the government does not have secret images of rape buried in its files.
I’m confused and appalled. Not necessarily in that order.
Shorter Brooks:
O! knows him some Niebuhr, but automaking, not so much…
Brooks is still a douchebag. As I read that, it seemed like he could not criticize Teh One wiþhout taking his obligatory shot at Bush for Iraq.
That Daniel Aussie? Wow, just wow.
Tied up in a fence? No, I don’t know what you mean, whack-job.
Thing in Oz are getting rough though. From Australian Age, The Cruelest Cut:
That suicide thing seems to be going around down under.
especially the educated car buyers who flock to European and Japanese brands
This is David Brooks explaining why you shouldn’t look at him to buy some dirty socialist car what smells like UAW thug armpits.
Earlier he used an oblique Nazi reference in relation to Obama and the Auto companies. He seems very conflicted. He has built his entire world view on a foundation that has turned out to be sand. Not a happy time to be a moderate. You could break your neck from twisting it around so much.
The lefty fantasy of secret images of rapes has a long pedigree. Wasn’t it a Boston city councilman who “bravely” presented a set of them to the rest of the council? Of course, that they had come from a staged photo shoot for a porn site was of small importance — it was the “truthiness” of them.
The goal of a smaller company in a largely monopolized industry is often only to make itself seem threatening to the monopoly, so it will be absorbed by it.
In a monopsony, too, a threat by a seller to go under can sometimes inspire the buyer to absorb that seller, if the seller seems irreplaceable.
GM showed at least one of those threats by seeming like it might fail — the latter, mostly, with a creepy touch of the former.
It’s an exceptionally successful company. It’s not a car company. Some of the people there were confused about that. Showed them.
I don’t know what the hell Brooks is talking about. Never have.
Just announced that Hummer’s being sold to the Chi-Comms.
One of those lefty fantasies (though of a slightly different sort) fell into the presumed internet blackhole the other day. Caleb Howe had the vision to preserve it for posterity so it isn’t quite as disappeared as had been hoped (if you link click, be patient as it’s a very slow loading site).
Hummers being sold to Chinese men. Who’da thought?
al,
There’s a long history of Chinese selling hummers; it’s something that some have come to count on…
I guess I’ll have to sell my H3 soon…
Lest anyone mistake me for having sent a nickel of my money directly to China…
“…some dirty socialist car what smells like UAW thug armpits.”
Oh boy, lunch isn’t much of a thought with that image running around the brain.
The best thing the Government can do is promote restructuring of GM, let bankruptcy take its course, and get out of the way. That should have happened months ago, but it definitely has to happen now.
Run, don’t walk. It may be considered racist to bring up Uncle Remus, but GM is definitely a tar baby. It is better for GM, better for America, and better for Obama if he does this.
Don’t even get me going about Little Black Sambo.
This is one educated buyer that refuses to flock to Japanese and European brands…
Call me a xenphobe, or jingoistic, or whatever. But I’ve always gone out of my way to patronize US auto companies…
I know, I know; many of the foriegn cars sold here are built here too; but that doesn’t change the fact that the profits are ultimately being shipped back to another country…
And I kinda resent the implication that folks who buy American cars are somehow less educated, less intelligent, or less nuanced than thise who choose to do otherwise…
If it’s any consolation Colonel,
Assembly robots don’t sweat, nor do they have well defined armpits!
Maybe lunch can be salvaged…
sorry, LTC. Also monopsony is one of the words I have to look up every time. It’s like syncretic or bildungsroman to where it’s a word I never use and it just doesn’t stick in my little brain.
I don’t know what the hell Brooks is talking about. Never have.
In a nutshell, Dave Brooks has no quarrel with the Leviathan State, psycho, he just gets crabby when the Frankenstein’s monster he’s cheered on from the sidelines starts to run amok. It never occurs to him that his creation might have a will of its own.
Oh. Still today nobody in my whole family on either side has ever ever bought a foreign car. I’m over that idea now though, Bob. I will never ever again ever buy a car what has the taint of the UAW or Barack Obama on it.
But I think Barack Obama mostly likes socializing GM for how demoralizing it is. What a fucking loser country what can’t make a fucking car is the message I think.
It will be discovered that all the images in question came from some porn site. You name the fetish, there’s probably a site for it, and if there isn’t one, you have a market waiting for you to create one.
I buy used. And I buy big. When they come wearing their t-shirts to force me to turn in my SUV’s and Pickups for electric-chairs-on-wheels, I will fire one warning shot.
oh. Just to be clear, by “educated” what Brooks means is “has done or completed post graduate work” … So this excludes about 75% of the population. It’s sort of a curious bit of market analysis.
Okay, now I’m depressed.
I understand your position happyfeet,
And I’d like to make it clear that, rant notwithstanding, please don’t read any sanctimony into my discussion of buying cars that are made by US owned companies; after all I’m all in favor of exercising ones economic freedom of choice and letting the market forces do their job…
I hate giving my money to the UAW, either indirectly through purchases, or directly through O!s redistribution tactics…
I guess I’m reduced to buying Ford motor company products exclusively…
Maybe I’ll simply bicycle more!
I used to be very patriotic.
HF: As some who has completed a lot of post-graduate work, let me say that while it can convey a lot of knowledge in a very narrow way, it does not seem to do much in the wisdom department.
BR: Lucky for me I like Fords. The newest Mustang appeals to me greatly, but it’s not exactly in my price range. Oddly enough, no new car is in my price range. Funny how that works.
Also cranky having done post grad a lot affects where you end up living so it’s sort of a given that you are less inclined to drive SUVs and light trucks. Brooks is obnoxious. Someone should kick him in his shin really really hard and run away.
But cranky,
Surely they told you that’s an outgrowth of post-graduate work!
Look! More outreach to Iran. Will the hotdogs be all-beef?
I’ve had so much schoolin’ my nose bleeds sometimes when I think about it…
And I wouldn’t be caught without an SUV on hand here in New Yawk!
Besides, they’re fun to drive down the beach and have a cook-out…
While it’s true that I do live out in the country and that does warrant the pickup truck (for street cred), I also require the SUV, for my own physical body style. (tall)
Obama hates tall people. I can’t even get into a Prius. I didn’t choose to be tall. Now I’m a freak.
Thta’s because the prius design engineers knowingly, and wantonly, discriminated against guys like you and me, al…
At what price should you buy the stock or bonds of a company that has shown that it can repudiate said investments and render them worthless?
Or similarly, If a man has shown that he will cheat on, beat on, torture and kill his spouse, does that make him a good prospect to marry if he promises to be good this time?
wow I think just cause I think people take it for granted if you’re super rich your face don’t end up looking like that at 58 but I guess sometimes it does is the takeaway here
happyfeet: Someone said that by age 50 everyone has the face he deserves.
I drove a Pius oh I mean Prius as a rental car and the interior was acutally roomy (in the front seat). I found the computer system subject to some annoying glitches though and this was a new car. Overall the Prius is a good vehicle, but I to not think it pencils financially and there are a lot of better vehicles out there at less cost. It is a pretty expensive political statement for a car that arguably (with its batteries) really does not make the planet greener.
Happyfeet, Sir Richard made his start hanging around with rock stars in the sixties. That’s why he looks like Jagger or Richards.
I like that.
The Hot Air link hypothesizes what if a lefty killed Rumsfeld. That reminded me of the flap caused by this tidbit, from 2002:
The Prius may be roomy inside, but the seat is too far down. Getting in and out of a Pepsi can is hard on the body.
Until they invent lightweight batteries that can power a car for at least two or three hundred miles and go through ten thousand charge/discharge cycles without degrading to the point of uselessness, the electric car will be a novelty.
As for hybrids, having to drag round a generator to keep the batteries charged is not an efficient solution to anything.
alppuccino–agreed. I like sitting higher too.
Yeah but good luck stopping the Democrats from taking over health care. What’s that David? That’s not what you meant? Sorry.
The Fiskers/EnerDel electric is sweet.
This is all about how much money Obama can shovel into UAW coffers before the public realizes the only thing he is doing is shoveling money into UAW coffers.
GM is just a front for money laundering, just like Chrysler.
Ford will be next.
The Obama administration is again playing the fear card, threatening that if the Chrysler deal is not consumated by June 15, then Fiat will probably walk – resulting in catastrophic economic losses! Yet Fiat is underwater, fighting for survival, has its own labor & political issues back in Italy. They believe their best bet is to go BIG, be one of the companies left standing (in gambling and in the stimulus industry, this is called “chasing”). They sure can use their share of the $10 billion from the U.S. and Canadian governments. Plus, they want to get into the lucrative North American market as well as gain SUV & crossover resources.
Along with other industry experts, Fiat insisted that it was necessary to streamline the dealership structure. But are they really in a position of strength to push people around?
Other parties have been pushing dealership closures for years, including Autonation, which was used as an example of a “Republican” dealer who was alright with the deal. Well, only 4% of their sales are Chrysler, they lost 7 dealerships out of how many? and they would look pretty silly to complain about it now.
Was a controlled bankruptcy the plan all along so that dealers could be phased out? Was the original April 30 “deadline” a charade? NYT article about the 31 yr old auto wunderkind: many in the Obama administration wanted Chrysler to be liquidated. Was there also more to the strong-arming of the preferred creditors than met the eye?
Best possible arrangement for all rent seekers involved: Fiat, UAW, Obama administration, and friends of Obama?
Just announced that Hummer’s being sold to the Chi-Comms.
I hear they are changing the name to the Kyoto.
Which after taking a percentage for themselves will pour it right into the Democrat Party and their various 501(c)(3) and community organizing groups in order to get reelected and do it all over again. Power is the end sought but the perks from the skim are good too.
Agreed, geoffb.
geoffb,
Exactly. The Robert Mugabe plan, but, with more money and bigger Treasury printing presses.
I would get a smart car if I could get one painted with Bentley blue paint.
THe modded ones are kind of interesting. This place has all kinds including one painted to look like the A-team van.
I dunno Sarah,
I can hug one of those they’re so little…
Would you be safe toolin’ round SW Va in that..?
Would you be safe toolin’ round SW Va in that..?
Someone at my wife’s company, here in SW VA, drives one. I think. She always calls it “the egg.”
Just announced that Hummer’s being sold to the Chi-Comms.
Save ’em the trouble of counterfeiting it.
How about a SmartCar painted with Obama’s personnel pre election presidential logo. Then the President, VP Plugs, and all the administration officials can pack into it, drive to important events together, and then tumble out of that vehicle at opportune times. Always of course being filmed doing so.
After Hot Air reported on it yesterday Playboy site closed that article down right away (leaving some R rated photos in its place). Obviously Playboy realized the term “hate fuck” was going to cause them some problems.
But I did not get what Playboy actually said, let alone a list of those targeted conservative women. Well here is the dirt: http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2009/06/playboys_hit_piece_on_conserva.php
They listed Peggy Noonan? I thought Hugh liked his women young?
David Brooks voted for Obama. Every chance I et in the comments on his pieces, I remind him of this.
This is the guy we HAD to vote for. This guy will be different – ignore all the background evidence suggesting that he would in fact be no different.
Now he gets to walk back from it and pretend he didn’t help put this buffoon in charge.
YOUR BOY, DAVE.
Can we blame Code Pink, ANSWER, et al, for creating a climate of hate that killed this recruiter? If not, why not?
Dick Durbin, Jack Murtha – their blood is on your hands!
Terribly OT:
After seeing the abuse that Ford trucks and tractors went through at Camp Dearborn, and still came up running (I did not think you could get a 1982 F-pick-up airborne – seriously), I am impressed by what Fords can do. And that has nothing to do with my being from Dearborn.
Once, the gas company cleared the pipeline routes and there was a lot of cut wood that could be removed. So we went in and loaded 165 (a 1984 F-150 short bed) with as much as she could carry. We followed the cut out and it got swampy so I put it into low gear and floored it. We splashed and roared our way out, hit a hillock, and landed on Commerce Road, right in front of a gravel truck. There was the sound of brakes, airhorns, yelling, swearing, putting ol’ 165 into drive and flooring it. We got away with the load of splittable wood, but resolved that we would be a bit more discrete with our off-roading experiences.
Note: We still got multiple loads of wood out of that pipeline cut. (That pipeline was in an undeveloped, unimproved ‘park’ owned by Milford Twp. It was all woods and that was about twenty years ago, so staute of limitations applies.
So that’s where Jeff G got picked up that phrase, this morning, from Playboy’s article? I had wondered.
Talking about hate fucks:
Andrew Sullivan used this graph to point out the danger of printing too much money to solve a bear market, it can backfire.
Well that is that! I can no longer support that out of control spending by George W. Bush and the GOP. Who will reel them in!
Screen capture of the original article linked above at 10, Serr8d.
I worried he would bring up his defense to the crypto-nazi slur like Levin, Coulter, and Goldstein have; He didn’t, and I for one salute him for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li73RRLEyW8
Nice version of the defense to the slur, considering the technology of the period.
ot nice story:
?
newrouter, that is a very good story about Justice Thomas.
[IMG]http://i696.photobucket.com/albums/vv321/easyliving1/CT.jpg[/IMG]
http://i696.photobucket.com/albums/vv321/easyliving1/CT.jpg
I love Clarence Thomas, both as a Justice and as a man. Smart, humble, pious, the very soul of a judge.
A serious question is how is Obama going to eff with Ford to allow Guvmotors to compete.
‘Just announced that Hummer’s being sold to the Chi-Comms.
I hear they are changing the name to the Kyoto.’
>chuckle.
The Chinese also seem proficient at utilizing the most egregious principles of Reaganomics in their quest for unregulated ‘yen’.
Will it take them the same 25 years it took us to recognize the flim-flam?
Oh, Good Allah. The psychic MissKKKleo is babbling about something. Is there no end to the infestation?
The great Cat 5 troll storm of ’09!
As Kanye West said, “Barack Obama doesn’t care about blog people.”
Why not just invite Alphie, parsnip, PIATOR, heat, frameone, and Oliver willis back and have a party?
No, they’re already figuring out the flim-flam. The pull quote leads the second paragraph.
BTW, we figured out the flim-flam 29 years ago. And then we forgot and fell for it again.
Party? If Oliver Willis is coming, JD, I don’t think we can afford to cater out.
bh – a pallet of pork rinds and lard is surprisingly inexpensive.
A, singular, pallet? That’s the nicest thing anyone has said about Willis in quite awhile.
That was just for the amuse bouche.
There you go, JD.
Sometimes when I want to ponder the nature of infinity, I consider how many layers of those nested Russian dolls Willis could theoretically contain.
It is not nice to speak about the fat articulate O-Dub like that, bh.
MSNBC is having a Tiller-gasm tonite. Some Dr. Hern just claimed that Bush and Reagan’s words as inciteful to this murder, and that the pro-lifers are no better than the Taliban. MadCow is one angry beeyotch.
OMG you rightwingnutters are terrorist killers !!!!!!!
I equate MSNBC to the proverbial tree falling in the woods.
Nobody is there.
The network will eventually be bailed out by Opie, Geithner, Rattner and the new MEDIA CZAR DEESE!!
Jeffersonian. Do liberals celebrate the richness of diversity as regard Justice Thomas. Did they embrace Mr.Thomas unique upbringing. Did they Champion his unique empathetic viewpoint as a black man and the unique experiences therein???
No they didn’t.
Did Opie vote affirmatively for the eminantly qualified Samuel Alito. Son of immigrants.
Did Opie vote to approve Chief Justice Roberts who is extremely able and is brilliant as well as measured and even keel as leader of the court??
No.
There are so many many liberals who are stooges and who are bought and paid for. Millions. There are libs who are tactical and dishonest.
The latter sucker the former. Mrs. Sotomayor is activist and racial by her nature. Cutting to the chase. Like President Opie, she has a race chip on her shoulder. That is exactly why he picked her. IT’S COMPLETELY POLITICAL.
…and that the pro-lifers are no better than the Taliban.
That’s the only thing the libs learned from 9/11: using the term “Taliban” as an anti-conservative epithet.
TSI – I watched almost a full MadCow show tonite. Rather is now on claiming that we are still torturing people at Gitmo.
Rather just claimed that the lack of comment from Bush and Rumsfeld proves that they do not agree with Cheney. Huh?
Let’s examine:
a) Taliban kidnaps and murders people who will not comply with their brand of Islam. Thousands and thousands and thousands dead, mutilated, raped or harmed. The Taliban allowed Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to operate, plan, and implement the deaths of 3000 Americans on 9/11.
b) George Tiller has performed 60,000 late term past 5 month abortions. Hundreds on 7th, 8th, 9th and even completely full term babies. The procedure in the latter abortions involved reversing the position of the child in the the mothers birth canal and THRUSTING A SCISSORS INTO THE BASE OF THE CHILDS SKULL.
c) One nut murders Tiller.
d) Pro-lifers are to blame for the one nut.
e) Who is to blame for the Taliban and Tiller???
Libtards are easy.
It’s like the libtard gambit. Killing terrorists creates more!!!
Opie even played the “IT CREATES MORE OF xyz” card recently when he said that Guantanamo was a recruiting tool for terrorists.
O.K. Opie when we bring the “DETAINEES” to the Continental U.S. won’t the places we “DETAIN” them ERGO….CREATE MORE OF THEM???
For fuxsake, libtards are easy prey.
Did Rather have any “papers” to prove this theory??
Rather is way way too stupid to know he pissed all over himself as he jumped the shark. He was the MANAGING EDITOR and SPOKESMODEL for CBS and now all he has left is, Keith Obamaman, Christine Thrill leg Matthew and some Lesbian with a boys hair cut.
Congratulations Dan Rather…. and……..COURAGE……remember??
Dan Rather still has a career?
Do your Russian and French blow up dolls know about your new Swedish one, thor? Could get ugly if you aren’t careful.
Brevity is the soul of wit, thor. You might could make it the soul of idiocy and save us all a bit of time. It’s worth a try.
Much better. It’s perhaps the most coherent thing you’ve said in weeks.
You could always ignore the ignorant fuck, Pablo.