Ok, here it is! You’ve heard about it on the news. Some think this is the best thing that ever happened to the United States, some think it is Armageddon! Now you can see for yourself. The link below is to a search-able PDF copy of the “Cap and Trade” bill that you can download and read.
American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009
If you find something interesting in the bill, please share it with us via a comment to this posting! Happy reading!
Bankruptcy won’t save Chrysler, it will only prolong the misery. Bankruptcy could have saved Chrysler, but the way the U.S. Government (read Obama) stepped in and structured the process, giving 55% of the company to the UAW, it isn’t likely that Chrysler will survive. What Chrysler needed to do was a true bankruptcy that would have allowed them to get out from under their UAW contract and hopefully negotiate a better deal.
Chrysler was being crushed by its debt but worse than that for Chrysler, and all of the U.S. automakers, is the choking effect of the UAW. It is a double hit for the automakers. High salaries for the UAW workers on the line and old fashioned work rules that stifle the company’s ability to increase productivity and throughput.
Ford built a new modern plant in Brazil. It has often been referred too as “The plant that Ford couldn’t build in the U.S.” The plant is an integrated plant, meaning, the suppliers workers are located inside the plant. The automakers have outsourced many of the parts and sub-assemblies to outside suppliers. This reduces cost and increases flexibility. However, the UAW insists that these outside suppliers not be co-located with the UAW assembly people. ( I guess they are afraid they may infect them! ) An example would be that the seats in a car are supplied by Lear Corp. In the U.S. Lear would have a plant that builds seats near the Ford plant and the seat assemblies would be transported to the Ford assembly plant in a “Just-in-time” fashion. At the Camacari plant the suppliers employees work inside the plant right along side the Ford workers. When there is a problem you don’t have to “call the supplier” because they are right there in the factory! Additionally, each of the suppliers workers may perform many different jobs depending on what model car is being run, something that the unions don’t typically allow. This reduces the number of workers required as well as providing more job satisfaction for the workers. The link below will give you some more information about the Camacari Ford plant.
Read more about the Ford plant in Brazil.
I have never worked in a union shop, but when I was in field service and support I had several system installations in union shops. I got to see first hand how the unions made being productive impossible due to the union work rules. At a Rohm and Haas plant I had to wait for over thirty minutes for a union mechanic to come and take the cover off a Teletype machine. I could have done it in less than one minute, but since it was considered an operation that required a mechanic it had to be a union mechanic. So I waited, along with several other people, for a mechanic with a tool belt to come to take two screws out and lift the cover off the teletype machine. When he got there I had to show him how to remove the cover and adjust the teletype machine. Yep, that’s the way to be productive.
And, how about the Chrysler bond holders that took it in the shorts. I heard Obama in speech the other day referring to the Chrysler bond holders as “speculators.” The word wasn’t uses in a favorable way either. The problem is, the “speculators” as Obama called them are really investors. Mutual funds, IRAs, pension plans that belong to regular working people. Here is a link to a article in the Wall Street Journal describing how an Indiana teachers pension fund that lost $4.6 million in the Chrysler restructuring. The Obama Administration ignores the rule of law on bankruptcy and takes the bond holders which would normally be at the top of the list of creditors to be paid and puts them back in line so that they get 29 cents on the dollar, and at the same time gives 55% of Chrysler to the UAW. Do you think he’s paying off some “debt” to the unions for helping him get elected? Do you think?
I also saw where the bond holders were dropping their lawsuit, it wasn’t mentioned in the articles but I suspect that the Obama Administration strong armed them into that too, probably threatening them if they didn’t drop their suit.
Businesses in this country should consider carefully before they take bailout money from the U.S. Government. You need to be very careful when you are dancing with the Devil!
It seems that the winner of the Miss USA pageant Kristen Dalton, Miss North Carolina, has been overshadowed by the controversy regarding Carrie Prejean, Miss California, comments on gay marriage. When asked, she stated her opinion, “I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody there. But that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be.” Bravo for Carrie Prejean!
The question to Miss California was asked by Perez Hilton, a celebrity blogger, and apparently a gay man. If he isn’t gay, he sure missed a good opportunity to be gay. After the pageant, Mr. Hilton posted a video blog on his website, and in typical “progressive” style has to start calling names.
What is it about progressives (a.k.a. liberals) that anyone that has a different opinion has to be labeled? Then, once labeled, they feel the need to ridicule their target. What happened to having a different opinion. The left doesn’t respect different opinions! If you have a different opinion, instead of discussing the matter they are going to give you a label and ridicule you. If you say something they don’t agree with, you are using hate speech, especially if you don’t like something.
Then there is the left wing labeler of all time, Janeane Garofalo. Apparently she considers herself quite the intellectual. Listen to this line of psycho babble in this interview on MSNBC where Ms Garofalo, labeled as an “activist” is interviewed:
Wow! Us poor redneck rasists! I wondered what was pressing against my frontal lobe…..But I digress……I say a big “Thank You” to Carrie Prejean, Miss California, for stating her opinion on marriage as the union of a man and a woman! It has been said in the media that she lost the crown because of her answer to this question. If that is true, then she deserves an even bigger thank you for her comments. It takes a lot of courage to give an opinion that could be politically incorrect with the knowledge that it could cost you the win. What Perez Hilton interprets as being ‘dumb’ is actually an individual with a moral compass and the fortitude to stick to her opinion.
What do we do now? As Ripley would say, “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
If there ever was a question that the mainstream media has a bias toward the left, these clips from You Tube certainly answers the question.
This reporter asks a man a question and then won’t let him answer it when she senses it isn’t the sort of response she wanted! What’s happened to CNN?
I remember the days when CNN was the top news organization in the country. When the first Gulf War started I was watching NBC Nightly News as they were speculating that something was going on in Baghdad. I flipped over to CNN and they had reporters in Baghdad with a sat link showing video of the AA fire and bombs exploding! They really had it going on then. Over they years CNN has hired more executives and reporters from the big three networks and has basically become just another left wing support system.
And take a look at this report on MSNBC.
Requel Maddow can hardly contain herself during the report, so quick to make fun of the participants of the Tea Party demonstrations. They even bring in a Air America commentator to add “color” to the report! MSNBC wants to link these demonstrations to Ron Paul and the right wing millionaires.
Update - Since this was posted, as a part of the budget information that the Obama Administration has released, it has come to light that there will be no middle class tax cut because of the budget deficit. Wow, that was really unexpected - NOT!
Well, a question that has come up with several people I have talked to over the past couple of weeks is, where did B.O.’s money come from? Who provided all the financial support for B.O. during his two years of campaigning for the Presidency? Also in the news yesterday was B.O.’s tax return. According to the reports the Obama family income was $2.7 Million for 2008. That’s a pretty good chunk of change for a guy that wasn’t holding down a job while he was out campaigning! Was he living on his investments, money that he has saved while he worked as a US Senator, a Illinois State Senator, a “Community Organizer?”
By the way, just exactly what is a Community Organizer? I’ve never seen the job description on that position!
What do you think?
Easter Sunday here was a beautiful day! Clear skies and the temperature very quickly was up in the middle 60’s with a promise of reaching near 70 degrees in the afternoon. We’ve had some really changeable weather in the ATL area this year. Winter seems to be hanging on as long as it can. One day it is 70 degrees, the next it is a high of 40 and raining, or even snow flurries!
So I was particularly delighted that Easter Sunday was nice, because I wanted to get out and do some riding. Seems like it had been a least a month since we had a good Sunday ride. Upon returning from church, we quickly changed clothes and headed to the garage to jacket up and ride out on the ‘08 Electra Glide. Started up, mounted up, garage door down, ready to roll. As I went to put the bike in gear, something felt funny as I put my toe on the shifter to chunk the bike into first gear. (Anyone even slightly familiar with a Harley knows that they “chunk” into first gear.) I looked down, and the shift lever was obviously loose. Very loose. Too loose.
Now, this is not exactly what I had planned. With the crazy weather we have been suffering through, I was ready for a ride! But it looked like my riding time was going to be cut short by some repairs. It seems that will all the improvements that Harley has made over the years, they still make some of the same mistakes. On every Electra Glide I have had, I have had this problem. The shift levers will not tighten down against the shaft and after some period of time they get loose. Back on my ‘96, my first Electra Glide, I ran into this problem and came up with a simple fix for it, cut an additional slot in the back of the shift lever so that the small 1/4 inch bold can pinch the lever down against the splined shaft. I wasn’t really planning on doing this on a nice sunny day when I should be out riding. I guess if I was smart, I would have brought the bike home from the dealer and fixed this rather than waiting for the shifter levers to work loose.
Maybe I would be lucky and the bolt was just loose. I opened the garage door and made a bee line for the toolbox. A few minutes later I knew that this wasn’t my lucky day, the bolts were tight. Time to put the fix on the shift levers. I pulled the bike back into the garage, pealed off my gloves and jacket and started taking the shift levers off.
The modification is rather simple, just cut an additional slot into the back side of the shift lever. Remove the shift lever and cut a slot in the back side of the spline hole with a band saw.
Modified shift lever
The shift lever is about 3/4 of an inch thick and without the additional slot cut there is no way the little 1/4 inch bold can pull the spline end of the lever closed to adequately tighten it down around the shaft. So after about a half an hour of wrenching the bike was back together, the shift levers all tight, and we’re ready to ride.
You would think that after all these years, the Motor Company would catch on, wouldn’t you?