Motor Trend Bitch-Slaps Lush Rimbaugh

¡Hola! Everybody...
If I don’t get a chance, and for those leaving out early... may you have a holiday full of good cheer in the company of loved friends and family. Please (!!) be careful and don’t drive drunk!

Felicidades!

* * *

-=[ Rush Breathes Fumes ]=-

It is clearly apparent with anyone with a relatively functioning pre-frontal cortex that Rush Limbaugh is so dedicated to destroying Obama at any cost that he is doing everything he can to undermine the prospects for GM’s rebirth from the ashes of bankruptcy. The reality is that General Motors is gaining business and reducing the government ownership share. Nevertheless, that hasn’t deterred the Lush from beating the war drums against “Obama motors.” Politico reports:

Limbaugh told listeners that his radio program last year canceled an advertising campaign with General Motors because he “knew this was coming.”

Wow, Rush! Why not just actively discourage companies from hiring people, since that would help destroy what’s left of the middle class.

The fact is that GM’s plug-in hybrid electric car, the Chevy Volt, has been rolled out to rave reviews by car magazines across the board and was named 2011 Motor Trend Car of the Year. Motor Trend raved:

This is a fully developed vehicle with seamlessly integrated systems and software, a real car that provides a unique driving experience. And commuters may never need to buy gas!

… This automobile is a game-changer.

Now, you know this shit got the prissy-assed conservatives’ panties in a collective wad. In fact they went into their patented, feces-flinging act. This also forced Limbaugh to expand his attack to include the respected car enthusiast magazine. ThinkProgress has the story (and Motor Trend’s too-pretty counterpunch):

... Motor Trend announced that it had named the breakthrough plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt as its 2011 car of the year. Conservatives immediately picked up on the story and attacked Motor Trend. The magazine “awarded the Obama-approved, government-subsidized Chevrolet Volt its annual ‘Car of the Year’ appellation,” the Weekly Whore Standard whined. Referring the federal government’s auto bailout -- which turned out to be hugely beneficial for GM and the ailing industry -- conservative Washington Post columnist George Will complained about the government “spending some of your money” to produce the Volt. But right-wing radio blow-hard Rush Limbaugh was perhaps the most vocal critic. The Volt has been in Limbaugh’s sights for quite some time. His campaign against the innovative car was launched last August (!!). Staying completely in form, Limbaugh said of the Motor Trend award this week, “[O]f all the cars in the world, the Chevrolet Volt is the Car of the Year? Motor Trend magazine, that’s the end of them. How in the world do they have any credibility? Not one has been sold [and] the Volt is the Car of the Year.” Last week, one of the magazine’s editors, Todd Lassa, shot back at Limbaugh, noting that GM hasn’t sold any Volts “because it’s not on sale yet”:

So, Mr. Limbaugh; you didn’t enjoy your drive of our 2011 Car of the Year, the Chevrolet Volt? Assuming you’ve been anywhere near the biggest automotive technological breakthrough since… I don’t know, maybe the self-starter, could you even find your way to the front seat? Or are you happy attacking a car that you’ve never even seen in person? [...]

All the shouting from you... can’t distort the fact that the Chevy Volt is, indeed, a technological breakthrough. And it’s more. It’s a technological breakthrough that many American families can use for gas-free daily commutes and well-planned vacation drives. It’s expensive for a Chevy, but many of those families will find the gasoline saved worth it. If you can stop shilling for your favorite political party long enough to go for a drive, you might really enjoy the Chevy Volt. I’m sure GM would be happy to lend you one for the weekend. Just remember: driving and Oxycontin don’t mix. [emphasis added]

That was a bitchslap if I ever saw one... LOL!

Lassa also noted that the Volt isn’t some left wing “tree hugging, Obama-supporting Government Motors” conspiracy, but was in fact conceived of well before Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006 and well before Obama began his campaign for the presidency. Lassa even points out that former GM executive “Bob Lutz, who famously decreed, ‘Global Warming is a crock of shit’ introduced the car two years before Bush gave GM its first bailout from TARP pocket change.” [emphasis added]

“Limbaugh’s beef with the Volt isn’t a question of automotive aesthetics or engineering,” MLive.com’s Jeff Wattrick notes. “He just doesn’t like the Volt because it’s one of them librul eel-eck-trick cars that Muslim-Socialist Obama forced on the real ‘Mericans in Detroit.”

Bingo! I give major props to Motor Trend for standing up to and deflating the hypocritical right wing draft-dodging, chickenhawk, dope fiend.

Finally, many other independent reviewers are raving about the Volt. Here’s Pulitzer prize-winning automotive columnist Dan Neil, writing in the (Murdoch-owned) Wall Street Journal on the Chevrolet Volt:

A lot of people don’t like GM because: 1) the bailout, or 1a) Obama; or 2) the United Auto Workers; or 3) because some Monte Carlo or Cutlass Sierra or deuce-and-a-quarter left them walking a long time ago. That’s understandable. These are sour times. But for the moment, we should suspend our rancor and savor a little American pride. A bunch of Midwestern engineers in bad haircuts and cheap wristwatches just out-engineered every other car company on the planet. And they did it in 29 months while the company they worked for was falling apart around them. That was downright heroic. Somebody ought to make a movie…. [emphasis added]

... it works like a champ. Actually, it’s extraordinarily efficient...

USA Today notes, “Chevy’s easy-driving Volt could be your only car”:

Most impressive, though, is that the Chevrolet Volt is a premium execution of a pleasant-looking, easy-driving small car -- one you’d probably be satisfied to have as your only vehicle (assuming you don’t need a big car or roomy back seat)...

Instant torque of the electric motor made the car quick in traffic, less so at highway speed.

Volt lacked the road racket and wind noise that mark some small cars. The drivetrain was quiet, free of the whine and other faint, unpleasant noises that accompany some electric machines. Smooth, too -- electrics inherently are….

CNN/Fortune/Money’s judgment from “Chevy Volt can go the distance”:

The Volt, it turns out, is a really good, fully functional automobile that could just save you a lot of cash on gasoline, too...

The Volt has a sophisticated, almost luxury-like, feel over the road. The steering is very responsive and the battery pack, which runs down the center of the car and across the back, provides a nice weight balance. Braking, often a weak point in hybrid and electric cars, is also smooth and predictable. The Volt’s interior is trimmed out in a way that makes it look appropriately high tech. It has few buttons or knobs, mostly touch-activated bumps. It all works pretty nicely.

I could list tons of examples of rave reviews of this car from a wide range of magazines. The bottom line? The Volt is a very good car and oh, it can drive for 40 miles without using any gasoline. This should be good news and applauded, but apparently anything that makes Obama look good, even if it’s beneficial for the nation a s a whole, will be torn apart by corporate cocksuckers like Rush, Beck, George Will, and the rest of the hyenas.

Eddie

(h/t to Climate Change and ThinkProgress for the original reporting)

Bunning the Hero! All Hail the Hero!

¡Hola! Everybody...
There are people all over the internet and the right applauding Sen. Bunning as some kind of principled hero. Standing up to the excesses of the depraved tax-and-spenders -- the “left” ::snicker:: --the effete democrats.

One word: BULLSHIT!

Principles are something you adhere to in a consistent manner. That’s why they’re called principles...

* * *

-=[ Right Wing-nut Hypocrisy ]=-

I’m trying to keep a sense of humor about this, I really am.

That prick from Kentucky, Jim Bunning, was so concerned about federal debt that he held up extending unemployment benefits for over a week. Because of his single NO vote, millions of people could have lost their unemployment benefits. Some may still might lose their benefits and the costs of this obstructionism runs into the millions. Additionally, thousands more were furloughed from their jobs.

Refusing to meet with reporters in order to explain his stance to the people of the United States, he did manage to blurt out that he was “for the people.” As usual, neocons mistake trenchant ideology for policy.

Let’s put aside the moral issue for a moment. Any normal human being could see this action as immoral. These selfish, fascist-nihilist-narcissists mistake their own good fortune and opportunism as some form of superiority. Their smug contempt for those they deem beneath them compels them to believe that the poor deserve their life of illness and poverty. They mistake greed, ingratitude, and cruelty for moral superiority. Their morality has nothing to do with reality or even fairness and everything to do with greed. I’ve stopped appealing to any sense of morality from the right has because they are amoral.

Forget about compassion. They view compassion as a weakness. But even from an economic standpoint, Bunning has no leg to stand, as UI benefits bring more bang for the buck than tax cuts for the wealthy (which have a negative economic impact). But forget appealing to reason because that too has no effect on the dumb twats.

Here’s what gets me about Bunning and those slobbering on his dick today:

How concerned has Mr. Bunning been about debt, and about everyday people, in the past? Let’s take a look, shall we?

• 2005 -- Voted WITH the credit-card industry on the bankruptcy bill.
• 2005 -- Voted WITH oil companies by giving them more tax breaks.
• 2006 -- Voted FOR higher deficits by extending the Bush Tax Cuts.
• 2007 -- Voted AGAINST children by opposing S-CHIP.
• 2008 -- Voted AGAINST helping people facing foreclosure.
• 2009 -- Voted AGAINST women by opposing the Ledbetter Act.
• 2009 -- Voted AGAINST children again by opposing S-CHIP.
• 2010 -- Voted AGAINST reducing the debt by opposing the Debt Commission.

Given a chance to stand for fiscal responsibility, Bunning voted for the Bush tax cuts and against the Debt Commission. And given a chance to help the poor and helpless, Bunning has voted against them almost every time.

His belligerent NO vote on unemployment benefits isn’t a principled stand against unrestrained spending, as he and his supporters claim. It is a pathetic attempt by a dumb twat of an old man to prove to himself that he is still relevant. Or perhaps he is the sacrificial lamb, not having anything to lose since his old wrinkled ass will soon be put out to pasture.

Up to this point, Bunning's votes have followed a predictable Republican pattern. With this vote, he fell below even that standard, and set a new low for cruelty. Even a couple of his Republican peers are embarrassed by your hatefulness.

The only good thing that may come out of this is a change in the Senate rules. Republicans and Democrats alike are trying to figure out a way to prevent this in the future. I think they should name it after the Senator: the Bunning Don't-Be-a-Dumb-Twat Rule. How fitting a send-off!

This isn’t meanness, it’s cruelty. This isn’t about policy, this is about ignorance run amok.This isn't about caring about people, it is an outright insult to the American people.

Eddie

Addendum:

[Because I know neocons will be squealing like the "pig" in the film Deliverance]

Take a deeper look at Jim Bunning’s voting record and then tell me that he’s just a fiscal conservative who believes in only spending money that we already have (or as Limbaugh, Beck and the like call “a hero”):

• Bunning supported the 2008 supplemental war spending bill, which included a provision to extend unemployment insurance benefits for 13 weeks.
• The bill also extended benefits for an additional 13 weeks for workers in states with unemployment rates of 6 percent or higher. Since this was a supplemental bill, there were no budget offsets for the extensions. Bunning voted to end debate on the bill, allowing it to advance through the Senate, and he also voted in favor of the final bill.
• In June 2009, Bunning voted in favor of the Senate’s $106 billion spending bill to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars through September 30, 2010. The bill included $7.7 billion to prepare for a flu pandemic and $1 billion for the “Cash for Clunkers” program, as well as other projects.
• Bunning also voted in favor of the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, as well as President George Bush’s Medicare drug benefit plan, all of which added to the federal deficit.
• In January, Bunning voted against increasing the statutory limit on the public debt and has supported several other measures aimed at curbing the deficit, including provisions to establish 5-year discretionary spending caps.
• He also backed a failed amendment that would have terminated further spending under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the widely criticized bank bailout of 2008.
• Bunning argues that extending jobless benefits without cutting spending elsewhere violates the newly reinstated “pay-as-you-go” budget rules. Bunning voted against that legislation, which was signed into law last month as part of the bill that raised the debt ceiling. President Barack Obama urged Congress to bring back the provision in his State of the Union address, calling it “a big reason we had surpluses in the 1990s.”

Update #2:

Sen. Jim Bunning apparently has a hold on all presidential nominees last week. “It turns out that not only has he [Bunning] been blocking the unemployment insurance bill, he has also been blocking the confirmation of nominees since last week as well,” said Reid spokesman Jim Manley.

Right Wing-nuts vs. Science

¡Hola! Everybody...
Stupid is as...

LOL!

* * *

-=[ The Right Wing War Against Science ]=-

To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.

-- Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888)

The e-mail archives stolen last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist-Tin-Foil-Hat-Brigade as a propaganda windfall. To these quacks, the scientists’ scathing remarks about certain controversial palaeoclimate reconstructions qualify as the proverbial “smoking gun”: proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe.

I am blessed with a talented and intelligent son, my only child (as far as I can tell). He is now 25 years-old. I treasure many memories from his childhood. Early on, I sold him on the notion of training to become a “scholar/ warrior.” Basically, I wanted to give him the best education possible. That education included learning in many different disciplines, from art and music, martial arts, poetry, philosophy, the healing arts, and so on. Luckily, for me, he bought my sales pitch, completely.

Today, he is a talented as a musician, as well as having received a degree. He was also born with a natural aptitude for drawing and painting, something we tried to support as soon as we discovered his childhood doodles were actually accurate portraits.

When he was around 8-9 years-old, we all joined a martial arts (Wing Chun) school. There he learned the trick that gave him some expertise in the art of self-defense. Please note that I am deliberately choosing the word trick. Our sufi (instructor) used it often in our martial arts training when guiding him in the trick of mentally registering attacks before they became dangers, aiming his focus ahead, learning to anticipate. I also showed him the trick of avoiding unnecessary confrontation. He once told me that he was especially proud of learning that trick. It helped embolden him and gave him confidence.

I recently posted a link exposing of how quack Climate Crash deniers (Beck, Rush, Drudge, Faux news, etc.) have had some fun with stolen emails. Essentially, the piece showed how these Climate change deniers have taken lines from these emails out of context in an effort to refute decades of scientific research. If you go there, you will find one individual who calls himself “weinerfest” posting outright fabrications.

He stated, for example, that one scientist admitted purposely excluding data from previous warming periods. I then posted the full email showing the scientist never said anything of the sort. There were several more attempts to pass off disinformation and each time, I used either the emails themselves or citations from scientific bodies to show he was posting, at best, falsehoods. I would say he was intentionally lying, but that’s just conjecture (LOL)!) His stance, like the rest of the clowns on the right, is that these emails prove that decades of basic research in climate science has been one elaborate hoax. One such email, out of thousands hacked from a public research university in Norwich, England, has attracted a lot of attention. The line reads thus:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Utilizing “neoconservative logic,” the word “trick” and the word “hide,” you see, prove that all this “research” and “data” about climate is phony and the GOP Clown Car headed by Beck & Co., know better than the scientists! Of course, the fact there is isn’t one scientifically recognized body in the world that disagrees with the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by human activity has no bearing in this “discussion.”

Almost every scientific organization from almost every scientific discipline has issued statements that agree with the scientific consensus. Not one internationally recognized scientific body has refuted the consensus. For those unfamiliar with the scientific method, this is indeed a rare occurrence.

There are some groups, consisting mostly of unpublished scientists, individuals, as well your local weatherman and bodega owner (and possibly Ms. Cleo), that have signed on to a public statement saying they disagree with the scientific consensus, but few have been able to submit a rigorously researched study that can pass academic muster.

In fact, empirical studies show that among scientists that have been published in peer-reviewed journals, the consensus is overwhelming.

Now, back to the word “trick.” Trick is used in the sense of “method” as in... “the trick to blocking a punch... ” “Hide” refers to a well-known (to scientists) anomaly in reconstructing climate after 1960. Tree ring density is reliable before then, but diverges later, due to human-caused environmental reasons unique to the last 50 years. Meaningful graphs omit or hide that part of tree ring based measurement in favor of more scientifically reliable and direct measurements.

Science is based on evidence and re-examination. That is why “cold fusion,” having initially created a excitement, fell so fast. Outright fraud is found very quickly. Ask DNA falsifier Hwang Woo-Suk, who caused a stir in cloning research and was quickly debunked. Scientists love to disprove flawed research. It makes them famous.

It comes from the Scientific Method.

Back to the Tin Foil Hat Brigade. To them, anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change is a hoax. Why? Because of a few emails, taken out of context, shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that there’s been a hoax!

Yeah right...

The impressive thing about this so-called “conspiracy” is that the scientists managed to convince the planet’s glaciers, sea ice, and hydrological cycles to play along.

Deniers from the right, like Weiner, who have waged war on science on many different fronts, should consider the methods of science sometime.

Love,

Eddie