POLL: Americans Are Ready To Take On The Deficit.
Plus, in the interests of fairness, pairing a gas tax with a latte tax.
Archive for 2011
April 28, 2011
WHEN THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY is pro-freedom. Hey, it happens.
TEST DRIVING THE TOYOTA RAV4 electric vehicle. “As an EV, it works fine—brisk acceleration, quiet operation and surprisingly good handling. But it suffers the same disadvantages as all EVs. Its 100-mile real-world range, though good for a modern EV, limits the RAV4 to second-car status. And the price will likely be quite high when the car hits the open market.”
A SALE ON GPS UNITS FROM TOMTOM.
AT TOWN HALL MEETING, Paul Krugman is a laugh line. More here.
FROM RAND SIMBERG, thoughts on multiculturalism.
UPDATE: “What really struck me was how merciless they were. They really enjoyed my pain and suffering. It incited them to more violence.” Barbarians.
EVIL NINJAS TERRORIZE PITTSBURGH. If they’re smart, they’ll take a break while the NRA Convention is in town.
SPACE ADVENTURES’ $150 Million Lunar Flyby.
CARNIVAL BARKERS: Study: MSNBC and CNN Covered ‘Birther’ Issue Far More Than Fox News.
MARKDOWNS ON PCs from HP.
BRENDAN LOY: Tornado calamity among the deadliest U.S. disasters of the last 60 years. We got off comparatively light in Knoxville, and it was still a big deal.
ETHAN WATTERS EMAILS: “You posted a piece from some fellow who summarized an article I wrote in the independent. I don’t think he quite got what I was trying to get across. Thought you might like to see (or link to) the original piece.” Always happy to!
UPDATE: A reader emails:
The PTSD article linked was quite solid but one facet it didn’t seem to highlight is that there is a major monetary incentive in PTSD for US soldiers as well in the form of higher VA disability payments after separation. Add in the fact that the military’s medical corps also has a major incentive to broadly diagnose PTSD “just in case” to ward off criticism that they are not doing enough and you end up with very few people involved in the diagnosis process who don’t have an incentive to lean towards PTSD.
I know when I got back from my Iraq tour (mine was an easy tour by anyone’s standards) the psychologists and medical assistants who were required to interview us over and over again frankly seemed to be pushing for us to answer yes to the questions that would require more PTSD follow-up and that was for a unit who never went outside the wire.
Hmm.
RIGHT TRACK OR WRONG TRACK: 21% Say U.S. Heading in Right Direction, A New Low.
Also: Four in 10 approve of Obama’s handling of economy; marks all-time low.
UPDATE: Obama Approval At Lowest Level Ever In Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds. “President Obama, who carried Pennsylvania 55 – 44 percent in the 2008 election, is underwater mostly because of his deterioration among independent voters, who disapprove of his performance 57 – 37 percent, compared to 50 – 46 percent approval in February.” But he’s even losing Democrats.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Bill Archer writes:
As a PA resident I can attest to the sea change in attitudes towards Barack Obama here.
It’s public, it’s palpable and it’s entirely due to inflation.
It’s astonishing to me that a bunch of guys who are supposed to be so smart think that women aren’t going to the grocery store and leaving in a state of shock, disbelief and, occasionally, panic.
And a Democrat who frightens women cannot win anything. Period.
I just started playing a sort of instant citizen poll at stores. It began a week or so ago at Sams’ Club:
I was in one of THOSE lines and ended up chatting with a well dressed middle aged woman with a cart half full of grocery items.
I made mention of the fact that while I didn’t normally make the hike to Sams’ that with prices going up I figured I had to make the effort.
She exploded: Prices are sky high, she’s feeding three kids, eating store brands and sale items but can’t afford to stock up, on and on.
Then the lady in front of HER piped in: if prices keep going up she doesn’t know what she’ll do, their budget is already at the breaking point, trying to keep a daughter in college, off she goes.
Then a man in the next line over heard them and HE jumped in: this is ridiculous, Washington is killing us, economy broken, he’s off to the races.
I thought maybe this was just a coincidence, so I’ve started the same conversation in store lines twice more in the past week and it’s exactly the same: people are frightened and EVERYONE wants to talk about it out loud.
The interesting thing to me is that everyone used to be very reluctant to speak out in public against Obama. You were always afraid some leftie whackjob would hear you and tear into you. You know what I mean.
But now the gloves are off, people are freaking out and Obama can raise FIVE billion dollars for his campaign and organize until the cows come home and call everyone in the country a racist until he turns blue but it’s not going to convince anyone that they’re not paying an arm and a leg for half a cart worth of food.
There is no more basic thing to people, and it’s off the hook.
I don’t see how the Republicans could possibly mess this up. Then again, after a lifetime of watching them do just that, if there’s way they’ll find it.
Indeed. They don’t call ’em the stupid party for nothing. But yeah, it’s hard to hide inflation. Unemployment only hurts the unemployed; EVERYONE feels inflation.
“ENTIRELY FEASIBLE:” Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s $10K college degree plan.
ARMADILLOS ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS: Indigenous Cases Of Leprosy Found In The United States.
BEWARE THE TOFU OF DEATH: Soy Isoflavones Block DNA Repair. For my health, I’m sticking with prime rib.
RANGE ANXIETY: Is the Toyota FT-EV’s 50-mile range too low?
IN THE MAIL: From Eric Best, Into My Father’s Wake.
GOOD LUCK WITH THAT: Leon Panetta’s Top Priority: Credibility.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED REPUBLICAN THIS KIND OF THING WOULD HAPPEN: Government Says Biotech Companies Can Be Their Own Safety Testers. And they were right!