…the watermelons show their true colors:
Watermelons: green on the outside, red on the inside. This is the theme of my forthcoming book on the controlling, poisonously misanthropic and aggressively socialistic instincts of the modern environmental movement. So how very generous that two of that movement’s leading lights should have chosen the anniversary of Climategate to prove my point entirely.
I think he’s right. This nonsense is politically dead in the US.
Suckers found:
Suckers: GM found a lot of them, even though a) by its own admission, it lacks “effective internal controls” over its finances; b) it’s still saddled with the UAW, which is already pledging ‘no more concessions’ and even making some trouble; c) its Opel subsidiary is hemorhaging money at a rate of billions a year; d) a high Opel official declared the IPO “premature” while noting that “there is still too much red tape and inefficiency;” e) it has surrendered a majority stake in its promising Chinese joint venture to its Chinese partner f) its bailout plan assumes it will maintain a market share of 19 percent, but its share most recently fell to 18.3 percent, part of a decades-long decline; g) who knows what accounting gimmickry was used to dress up the books; h) the government has intervened in GM’s decisionmaking more than it’s let on; i) we don’t know if GM’s new products (like the Chevrolet Cruze) will have traditional GM reliability–the company better hope not; and j) the name “General Motors’ is now so tarnished that the company is removing it from auto show displays, hoping buyers will not associate “Buick” or “Chevrolet” with such a negative brand …. P.S.: GM stock purchasers won’t be suckers, of course, if their shares rise. So far, they’ve risen 3.6 percent, even though the NYT reported that “several of the people involved in the offering said they expect to see a potential 10 to 20 percent jump in the share price on Thursday, typical for an initial offering.”
Too bad the taxpayers weren’t given an option of whether to buy or not.
Does Google hard-code bias into its search engine?
It makes you wonder what they might do politically as well, considering where most of their employees’ political contributions go.
Courtney Stadd pled guilty to a single count and got 41 months in prison?
I have to say, I agree with the commenter over at Space Politics, this seems fishy:
One wonders if there are any investigative reporters left on this planet.
Stadd pleads to conspiracy and no one else is similarly charged. Stadd is sentenced for two crimes within a year and both are related to MSU. Stadd is charged six years after the crime occurred, just before the statute of limitations would otherwise expire. Stadd is sent to jail with more time than Jack Abramoff. Anyone else smell dead fish around here?
When did all this happen? Let’s see. If memory serves, right around the time O’Keefe was booted out and Griffin took the NASA helm. And along with Griffin in walks Stadd (oh, and Sarsfield too – ain’t it amazin’). Stadd was fired by O’Keefe in 2001. Definitely a dust up going on inside of NASA I would say. Now add the befouled NASA IG Moose Cobb to the mix. Cobb was repeatedly investigated and accused of being an O’Keefe crony and incompetent tyrant. O’Keefe was also investigated for malfeasance and was later sacked from LSU (gee, Louisiana – O’Keefe’s home town and the state right next to good ‘ole Mississippi, what a coincidence!). O’Keefe and Cobb were stepchildren of Dick Chaney and, naturally, neither were prosecuted. And who would have led the investigation against Stadd? – you guessed it, Cobb.
Prosecution or persecution? None of the facts makes a lot of sense. Stadd, who’s not a registered lobbyist, was sentenced for steering an earmark while in his NASA position. Okay maybe that’s a no-no, but a criminal charge is way out of line. Sarsfield pled guilty to a conflict of interest charge which also makes no sense. NASA offered him a personal sole-source contract in 2005 worth a lot of money which he turned down. I guess we’re supposed to believe he was too busy stealing money from the same agency. Then six years after the “crime” Sarsfield suddenly pleads guilty and Stadd is immediately indicted – again. This reads like a dime store detective novel.
And speaking of ATK; wasn’t it Griffin who quickly ditched the O’Keefe/Steidle plan. Let’s see, a few billion to ATK for a rocket to nowhere; the same company which otherwise would have taken a shellacking from the termination of Shuttle.
Money and politics, a crushing combination – especially if your name happens to be Courtney.
I hope he can get it reduced on appeal.
The idea of alternatives to shuttle- and Ares-derived concepts, both of which used solid rocket motors, is anathema to the Utah senators and congressmen. “I join my colleagues in admonishing NASA to strictly adhere to the law and use solid rocket motors in the development of the new Space Launch System,” Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) said in the statement. “Today’s meeting confirms that we are in a long-term fight over the future of NASA’s manned space flight program,” added Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT). “I remain very concerned that NASA continues to delay the transition from Constellation systems toward the new heavy-lift program while they needlessly explore private start-up technologies that remain unproven, require more money and are unfit for human-rated space travel.”
What complete nonsense. They require much less money, and are far safer than solids. And ULA doesn’t employ “start-up technologies.” Both Atlas and Delta have been flying for years, with no major failures. I wonder if he really believes this, or if he’s lying? Time to get Pork Busters and the Utah Tea Party after them. And this is a battle over the future of NASA’s manned space flight program, they’re the ones endangering it, by insisting on unaffordable solutions that will wipe out its budget. But it’s not — it’s just a battle over Utah jobs. I hope that Hatch loses his primary in 2012, as Bennett did this year. I sure won’t miss him.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. Right.
Of course he is — it was obvious to me all through the 2008 campaign, and the more I learned, the more clear it became (the Joe the Plumber incident was a huge tell). Now Paul Mirengoff makes the case that he was at least through 1996, and even up until the election. So why would he suddenly not be one upon entering office? The next installment will address that question. I think I can guess the answer.
[Update in the afternoon]
With regard to the comments about how the GM bailout somehow (illogically) proves that Barack Obama isn’t a socialist (as though simply having a political belief completely relieves someone from being politically pragmatic), the GM IPO isn’t as big a deal as some might make it:
Look, no one is rooting for GM to fail, or for thousands of autoworkers to be laid off, or for the taxpayers to lose their entire stake in the company. But it is just ridiculous to start popping champagne corks left and right over the fact that an industrial problem child like GM managed to put its pants on today without falling on its face. Let’s hope the company continues to see sustained profitability and that the losses to taxpayers from the auto bailouts end up being small. But the defenders of those bailouts who are now calling them a “success” haven’t even come close to proving their case.
There’s a lot more at the link.
He can’t even win a show trial. But he’s corrupt, so I guess that compensates.
It was nice while it lasted, but it’s over.