AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes

You Vill Like Ze ObamaVolt!

Sure, it'll expensive and can only travel about 40 miles per battery charge.

(It can putt another 340 miles on a gasoline powered generator, but wasn't the whole point to eschew the evil-gasoline powered engine?) Thinking of passing that Beamer on the highway? Think again, Kemo Sabe. The ObamaVolt includes many patented SafetyPerformanceRetarding features (SPRFs) for the convenience of regulators. For example, its emisson-free engine delivers next to no horsepower so you won窶冲 even be tempted to speed. Think how much you窶冤l save in tickets!

And consider these pluses:

1. The car will be available only in various shades of green (Bilious Green, Envy Green, Lettuce Green, Edamame Green etc.), thus declaring to the world that its owners are environmentally sensitive persons.

2. The radios are specially calibrated to substitute any station carrying Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or other unacceptable talk show hosts with a local NPR station, so no one who rides in an ObamaVolt need worry about second-hand pollution from racist, right-wing views.

3. Offsetting the high sticker price for what is really a glorified go-cart, the United States government, in addition to bailing out G.M., has extracted billions more from taxpayers like you and me in order to provide the suckers, er, proud buyers of the ObamaVolt with a $7,500 federal tax credit.

Snap Quiz: which of these three implausible pluses is actually true?

-- Answer at: Roger's Rules ｻ My contribution to the car industry

Facebook Messages I'm Currently Ignoring

"Bill Whittle

suggested you like Girls Are Unable to Stare at This for 10 Seconds, but Guys Can."

Clever and insidious malware from Facebook that seems to be sucking in everyone this morning. What can I say? Men are pigs.

Your Say (2)

Obama Speech Templates ! & 2

Listen to Obama talk about something that doesn’t have to do with race:

I, I, I, Me, Me, I, I, Me, I just think, seems to Me, Michelle & I, I, I, I, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me. The subject shifts to race, and all of a sudden it’s we, we, we, we, America, Ms. Sherrod, bloggers, talk shows, Cambridge police, we. He stops talking about Himself, because He’s cataloging sins…things that have been done wrong. When that happens, He isn’t part of us anymore. Suddenly, He can grind out entire paragraphs without mentioning Himself one single time. He’ll re-join us when the lecturing is done. Then He’ll be happy to tell us, once again, what He thinks about things. -- House of Eratosthenes

Why Teachers Unions Need to Shut Up & Piss Off

NJ Gov. Chris Christie on "Morning Joe":

This teacher complaining, they're getting four-to-five percent salary increases a year in a zero percent inflation world; they get free health benefits from the day they're hired--for their entire family--until the day they die. They believe they're entitled to this shelter from the recession when the people who are paying for that shelter are the people who have been laid off, who have lost their homes, had their hours cut back, and all we asked them to do was freeze their salary for one year and pay one-and-a-half percent of their salary for their health benefits. For the average teacher in New Jersey, you're talking about $750 a year for full-family health coverage. Now, I don't think that's a lot to ask, and I don't think we can continue anymore to be having the good people of New Jersey who have been laid off and all the rest--as much as I love teachers--you know, everyone's got to be part of the sacrifice. -- Gov. Christie on Saving Money & the Hard Decisions We Have to Make

A Monarchy of Monsters

While it can’t feed or house North Koreans, [The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] is a world-beater in longevity, a record-setter among totalitarian states.

Stalin led a government for 29 years, Mao 27 years, Hitler 12 years. The dictatorship of Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jongil, one continuous government, has now reached the outlandish age of 65. Having established inheritance as its method of choosing a leader, it may replace Kim Jong-il (who is said to be ill) with his third son, Kim Jong-Un. One family has found a way to make its own special variety of radical evil permanent. Barack Obama is the 11th U.S. president to deal with it. -- Robert Fulford: North Korea, an antique nightmare | Full Comment | National Post

11th eh? My bet is he'll just grant it favored-nation status.

Your Say (4)

So a blonde walks into...

The First Time

Wait for it.

Your Say (4)

Only Known Tweet of T.S. Eliot

Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.
-- Burnt Norton

Clearwater's lifeguard station needs to be handicapped-accessible

It's not clear yet exactly how much the lift will cost. Dunbar recalled that, years ago, the city also was ordered to install a wheelchair lift for the home dugout at Bright House Field, where the Philadelphia Phillies have their spring training.

That one cost $18,000.

"It has sat unused for seven years," Dunbar said. -- State mandate - St. Petersburg Times

The Left's culture insures that the poor will always be with them

What happens when the poor come to their senses?

They find that it is nearly impossible to get their lives back. To begin with, they have no manners. Wealthier people know when to turn on the manners and when to turn them off, but poor people don’t. They use inappropriate language at the wrong times, and they pay for it. Or they have offputting tattoos that make any advance into a decent management position nearly impossible. Even if their manners are tolerable and their tattoos are hidden or nonexistent, their rebellious attitudes toward their employers may make it impossible for them to advance and may even get them fired. -- We Need a Cultural Revolution - I Want a New Left

Your Say (3)

The New Old Barbarians

In many ways, the radical Muslim culture we face today is the most significant barbaric opposition to civilization.

Not all Muslims are barbarians; many live in the western world, enjoying western culture and ideals which do not interfere with their faith, like any other religion. Yet there is a strong, dangerous, and loud portion of the Muslim world which certainly is barbaric. -- Christopher Taylor: DEALING WITH THE BARBARIAN

It's Always Something

World Will Run Out of Internet Addresses in Less Than a Year, Experts Predict [The fact that "experts" are predicting makes me sure everything will work out fine. In fact, I'm in favor of taking measures so that the world runs out of "experts."]

Your Say (2)

Don Colacho

There is an illiteracy of the soul which no diploma cures. -- #1,570

What It's Really Like To Be A Copy Editor - The Awl

The word is "douche space bag"

This Man Gets Paid $787K to "Manage" Bell California

Compare, contrast, and vomit:

Bell Chief Administrative officer Robert Rizzo: $787,637 -- Los Angeles City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana: $256,803 -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: $173,987 (Schwarzenegger has declined to take his salary) -- President Barack Obama: $400,000 His last raise was $84,389.76. Next July, he will receive a $94,516 pay hike.
Rizzo defended his salary and that of his staff and the council by saying they don't receive car or cellphone allowances and must pay their own way to out-of-town conferences.

Even fired "Rizzo is entitled to a state pension of $650,000 a year for life."
-- The Scavenger

Perhaps a just God will call him to his eternal "reward" before he can collect.

Your Say (7)

Quote of the Day

"Meanwhile, the names of intel sources, which were classified to protect them from violent retribution, are now public. Fuck you, Wikileaks." - J.

I think the time it took Julian Assange to weigh the moral choices involved with publishing these documents was roughly equivalent to the time it took the make-up artist to powder Assange's face for his latest television interview. -- | Center for a New American Security

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And Now a Word from Our Sponsor

Your Say (3)

Obama's "Cabinet:" Their Function is Fellation

Obama’s cabinet doesn’t know what it’s doing; you don’t need a study telling you that. The evidence is all around us.

And common sense should tell you that if there are some smarts in that cabinet, they aren’t going to be of very much use are they? How on earth could they be? Imagine yourself as a high ranking official in the Obama administration. A decision comes along, and what do you do? Answer: You don’t. If you say “peanut butter and jelly” and the Little Emperor says “roast beef on rye” you look like a complete dork. You’ll be backpedaling like crazy, claiming that your remarks were taken out of context — and that’s among your friends, before word even gets out. So no, this isn’t a relevant statistic. For all practical purposes, the experience of this cabinet must be zero percent. -- House of Eratosthenes

Don Colacho

The press always chooses what to praise with impeccably bad taste. -- #1,555

Logo of the Week

After all the blather, bluster, and babble, one simple image sums it all up:

Created By the indefatigable Big Fur Hat

neo-neocon's Talking to liberals:

Discussion of the Day

Joseph Beuys’ How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965)

"I have come to believe that they are enemies to liberty, although not intentionally. Do intentions matter? I think they do. Will they wake up? Perhaps if things get much worse -- but then will it already be too late? And in the meantime, what do I do with my own anger?"

Numerous and multiple suggestions ensue.

Charles Krauthammer weighs in on the dark future today with Beware the lame duck

Krauthammer Late to the Party with a Kool-Aid Cocktail

"Assuming the elections go as currently projected, Obama's follow-on reforms are dead. Except for the fact that a lame-duck session, freezing in place the lopsided Democratic majorities of November 2008, would be populated by dozens of Democratic members who had lost reelection (in addition to those retiring). They could then vote for anything -- including measures they today shun as the midterms approach and their seats are threatened -- because they would have nothing to lose."

Sadly, Krauthammer is a full month behind the sphere. In June, NeoNeoCon had this all laid out:

Pajamas Media » Harry and Nancy's Last Stand This "fierce urgency of now" comes from the obvious political consideration that a lame duck Congress has nothing to lose. Once it'sbeen thrown under the bus and lies there bleeding (actually, you might say it threw itself in front of the bus, but let's not quibble about the finer points), it might just as well enact a piece of legislation that will further bankrupt the country and please the left fringe and nobody else. Beware a group that's still in power but has stopped fearing any consequences from the public.

Krauthammer's Kool-Aid cocktail? He closes his essay with:

"The Democrats could, of course, make the pledge today and break it tomorrow. Call me naive, but I can't believe anyone would be that dishonorable."

I hope he's being more sarcastic than naive, but either way he needs to pay closer attention and invest in hemp futures.

Your Say (4)

How to Write About Africa

A classic. A brilliant classic by BINYAVANGA WAINAINA in Granta Magazine Excerpt:

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.

Your Say (6)

Do Congresspeople really believe that drinking bottled water kills polar bear cubs?

Congress Spent $604,000 on Bottled Water -- in 19,000 individual line items, many for Nestle's Deer Park water-delivery subsidiary --- Tom Nelson