I Had Some Dreams

… they were clouds in my coffee:

  • President Obama is so vain, he probably thinks this article is about him. Oh, wait. It is.
    Why has Barack Obama failed so spectacularly? Is he too dogmatically liberal or too pragmatic? Is he a socialist, or an anticolonialist, or a philosopher-president? Or is it possible that Obama's failures stem from something simpler: vanity. Politicians as a class are particularly susceptible to mirror-gazing. But Obama's vanity is overwhelming. It defines him, his politics, and his presidency.
    You'll find it hard to disagree. Although to be fair to Obama, vanity is a pretty common trait in the political class. Obama may just be doing a poorer-than-average job of hiding his.

  • The New York Times has a neat interactive game: you check your desired options for Federal spending cuts/tax increases and they will show you how that impacts the deficit. If your choices "balance the budget" in 2015 and 2030, you get a nice pat on the cyber-back: "You solved the deficit!"

    Most readers will guess that I "solved the deficit" well before I even made it to the tax increase proposals, with a few spending items to spare.

  • Out-of-power Democrats decried corporate welfare when it was convenient, but Henry Payne details the "green" coziness between GE and GM, funded with billions of tax dollars from you, me, and that guy behind the tree:
    The Detroit News reports this week that "General Electric will convert half its 30,000 worldwide fleet of vehicles to electrics, including purchasing 12,000 cars from GM beginning with the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. In all, the Fairfield, Conn.-based company, which makes charging stations, will purchase 25,000 plug-in electric cars by 2015."

    Yes, those charging stations -- GE makes the GE Wattstation -- are also subsidized by up to $2,000 of your tax money.

    To quote Iowahawk: Pay up, sucka.

  • If that didn't spike your blood pressure to stroke-inducing levels, see if George Will's column on the Volt will do the trick. Final para:
    Meretricious accounting and deceptive marketing are inevitable when government and its misnamed "private sector" accomplices foist state capitalism on an appalled country. But those who thought the ethanol debacle defined outer limits of government foolishness pertaining to automobiles were, alas, mistaken.
    Lotta big words there, George.