The repayment of auto bailout loans that isn't

It's all a bunch of lies. Of course.

I'll use the same criteria I've used many times before: anyone in the private sector, like a bank manager approving a new loan to repay an existing loan, would go to jail for doing the same thing the government does with legal impunity.

What doesn't Romney understand about "Thou shalt not steal"?

He supports ethanol subsidies, and subsidies are only one thing: theft. It's the forcible taking of one person's property to give to another person, and it matters not a whit how noble the end goal is.

Ask yourself, with subsidies or any other thing government does: if it's such a good idea, why do you have to be forced into it? Why can't your neighbors convince you to join, instead of forming a "government" and making you join in or die?

Justice for Jerome Ersland -- another villified hero

Like Bernie Getz three decades ago, Ersland did absolutely nothing wrong. He disposed of a worthless piece of shit who didn't deserve to walk among us, and now he's been convicted of first-degree murder.

It would be fitting justice if these jurors someday stare down the barrel of a robber's gun, then have to wonder if they should defend themselves, or if they should chance the robber on the ground should regain consciousness. What was Ersland supposed to do, check for a pulse?

There's an old joke about a reporter asking a policeman why he shot a criminal a certain number of times. "Because I didn't have any more bullets." Ah, yes, police have the authority to use lethal force, but the victim directly threatened does not?

This comment says it all: "As far as I'm concerned, the second these scumbags entered the store with guns is the second they gave up their right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness." Look at the video: who had pulled a gun first?

So now Ersland will probably never breathe free air again, while the surviving robber got away. The small solace is that Ersland saved other people in the future from being robbed, even killed, by the punk he put under.

The Treasury made a profit selling 15% of AIG?

That's what goddamn morons at Reuters, Time and the New York Slimes would have us think. Actually, it's true only from the perspective that a robber profits: the Treasury gained, and taxpayers are stuck with the losses. Is anyone stupid enough to think taxpayers will get that money back in tax rebates, or that the "profit" will be used to pay any of the national debt? Hell no -- it's new-found revenue that the feds can spend. A "surplus."

An utter imbecile at the WSJ actually claimed that "taxpayers win."

Let's look at what happened today. The Treasury dumped 200 million shares on the open market. Reuters reported, "The shares were sold for $29 apiece, just above the $28.73 average price the Treasury will need to break even on its record bailout of AIG during the financial crisis."

Oh really?

There are 1.8 billion AIG shares total, giving it a market cap of $50.81 billion. In November 2008, the feds poured a total of $182.5 billion into AIG. In order to break even, it would actually have to sell each share at $101.39 per share.

Then how can Reuters tell us that the Treasury will break even at $29? Well,

So far, Treasury has raised $5.8 billion of the $47.5 billion it needs to break even on the equity portion of its investment. Treasury cut its stake in AIG from 92 percent, but, by far remains the majority shareholder, with 77 percent. It has another 1.5 billion shares to sell.

Aha! The Treasury is telling us only about its equity portion, ignoring all the warrants that the feds bought with taxpayer money. In the private sector, this would be properly accused as accounting fraud, and any CEO or CFO claiming "We'll break even" would be sent to jail. Of course, the feds have told us how all these banks have repaid TARP loans, ignoring those that haven't, and especially ignoring AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Consider this: after the Treasury's "profit" of less than $9 billion today, it could still sell AIG three times over (like a "The Producers" scam) and still not recover what taxpayers poured into it. And that's assuming the stock price wouldn't plunge, of course. I don't think it's that the Treasury is full of idiots, it's just full of thieves who don't have to care about the consequences of suddenly offering 11% of the shares for sale.

No pigs were harmed in the making of this video

Clearly this man in a goddamn wheelchair was such a threat that it took two of New York's Bravest to deal with him.

Race is not the issue. The only issue is people empowered by "the state" to use force with near impunity. Sensible people would have cuffed him to his own wheelchair (in case he was faking), then rolled him to the precinct house.

Harold Camping can go to hell, not that he needs any help

Today is indeed the day of judgement -- for Harold Camping. Let this finally fish this fraud, liar and false prophet.

Camping makes Jesus Christ out to be a liar. In claiming he knows, he's saying the Son of Man wasn't telling us the truth in Matthew 24:36 or Mark 13:32. Tomorrow morning, those two verses should be the only sermon preached throughout the world.

If the Almighty really is warning us through a turd like Camping, such a deity is so unworthy of our worship that I'd sooner go to hell out of principle. If Camping really is right, I'll have excellent company in hell. Could you imagine an eternity of "salvation" next to Camping with his smug self-righteousness? It would be far better to laugh with the supposed "sinners" than cry with such "saints."

It pains me that a good friend has been so caught up in this, deliberately scheduling vacation this last week for what she believes is her last week on the planet. I asked her, why was she bothering to show up to work at all? She could have used her savings to pay this month's rent, food, etc., since after all it no longer matters after today. Right?

Because of my friend and all others he led astray, it would have been better had Camping tied a millstone to his neck and thrown himself into the sea.

Two days: it's amazing Obama took even that long to reverse on Israel

May 17: Obama vows 'support' for Israel

May 19: Prodding Israel, Obama embraces Palestine borders

Two days after declaring support (which I should point out he had no right to make on my behalf or anyone else's), Obama tells Israel to give land back to the instigators of "Three Wars and an Intifada."

When the Jews began the modern exodus back to Israel in the 19th century, the Arabs in fact didn't care, so long as the Jews settled only on the worst land (after paying well for it, too). It was essentially desert, courtesy of centuries of Arab neglect. Once the Jews cultivated the land back to green, suddenly the Arabs wanted it back. That's it in a nutshell. Balfour as a method certainly didn't make Arabs happy, but it wouldn't have elicited a peep had it been half a century earlier.

My father had spent quite a bit of time in the Middle East. In the early 1960s, Cairo and Tehran were welcome to everyone, and the old man especially liked telling me what a jewel Beirut was. He passed on to me a story from one of his friends, an Arab Christian. This fellow was once on an airplane flight next to an Arab Muslim, who spent the entire time railing against Jews and Christians. Suddenly he turned to my father's friend. "You're not one of them, are you?" My father's friend calmly replied, "I am...Arab!"

Chuck Schumer really is a piece of shit

Here he is, again preening himself on the news, accusing oil companies of intentionally shutting down refineries.

This is not the first time he's blathered about this.

Actually, shutting refineries during late spring is not new. It happens every year. Refineries must switch over to "summer blend" gasoline, which they do so damn well and so transparently that most people don't realize it. Summer gasoline must be less volatile (i.e. it can't evaporate as easily) because of the greater temperatures. It must also meet additional "environment-friendly" requirements, such as producing less smog. So if anyone's to blame for higher gas prices in warmer weather, it's the feds and their God-damned EPA. The same feds so graciously allowed one, one refinery to be built in 2008. The last refinery before that: built in 1977.

Why don't oil companies simply produce the same warmer-weather blends all year round? Because colder-weather blends are cheaper, thus people will buy more and maximize profits. If oil companies really were trying to "gouge" via higher prices, they would never produce this blend at all. The fact is that, with all the oil companies competing, it's in any given company's best interest to always provide the best blend at the lowest possible price. And that's what they're doing at any given time. A particular company could try producing summer blend year-round, but they've all calculated that it's more efficient to shut refineries temporarily at appropriate seasons to switch blends.

There is so much tripe again about "oil company profits," though nobody was crying a decade ago, or especially two years ago, when oil was cheap and profits were low. Nothing is preventing these idiots from partaking in the profits by investing in these companies who provide us with a valuable product. Any Joe can own shares of Exxon-Mobil or whoever, directly or through a simple mutual fund. (Disclosure: I don't.)

I wonder: has Schumer double-checked his personal investments to make sure he has no shares of these evil companies he rails against?

The tryanny of RomneyCare

My reply on Facebook to an old schoolmate, who thinks RomneyCare doesn't have a mandate:

Stop with the sophistry already. It's a mandate to have insurance, whether your own or through the state. Tell me how a Massachusetts resident can NOT have insurance and not be penalized? You claim there's no "mandate" yet ignore those who don't want insurance at all.

Look what Romneycare has done, making Boston doctor wait times the longest in the nation. Good job!

How strange, I thought all these years that your church believed in free will. Or don't you remember the history of 160 years ago when you were driven across the continent for not following the laws of men?

There is a special place in hell for Romney. Take care you don't let him drag you down with him.

His reply:

Is it your right, Perry, to demand that I pay for your emergency health care because you don't want insurance?

Please do not insert church into this, by the way. That's sloppy and distasteful, my friend.

PS - You speak of being penalized by choosing not to have health insurance. Do you know who is really penalized? ME. Or the people in your state. Because guess who pays for it when you go to the emergency room without insurance? Yep. Your neighbors. What is freedom-loving and personal responsibility about that?

To which I wrote:

That's a strawman. You're labeling everyone without insurance as the same who go to emergency rooms without paying. I don't demand that you pay for ANYTHING in my life. I will pay for my own health care, thank you very much. By the same token, I don't demand that you pay for anything in my life. THAT, my friend, is the essence of freedom.

You support this MANDATE because of free riders. Perhaps if you stopped paying for them entirely, you wouldn't have to worry about making things "efficient." But the truth is that if you're of low income and could have never afforded health insurance anyway, the Commonwealth will still subsidize your care. So this law did absolutely nothing for the problem of those who'd go to an emergency room and not pay, except to say that it's now ok. What this law DOES do is force healthy people to get insurance, no matter that they would have never gone to emergency rooms without paying.

I'm reminding you of your church's history because so many of your members seem to have forgotten it. (I'm likewise critical of my own denomination.) Or do you not believe in a person's freedom to not buy something he doesn't want?

Every person who claims to believe in Jesus Christ needs to remember one scripture in particular: "Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather. or he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God."

In Massachusetts, thou shalt buy health insurance no matter that thou needest it not. Pharaoh has spoken. So it has been written, so it shall be done.

I don't suppose with all his wealth, Romney ever once thought of offering to pay for these destitute people who went to emergency rooms, knowing they couldn't pay.

There is no depth of idiocy to which public schools can't sink

Now it's war on chocolate milk. However, this war is hardly new: I've personally experienced it in a slightly different form, when I began elementary school in the Bay Area. Back then it needed no excuse. "We're the school and we'll tell you what you'd better damn well do."

Milk was the sole beverage offered with school lunch. I've always found its taste positively horrid, for the same inexplicable reason that I like broccoli and am oversensitive to salt. So one morning, my father prepared a tiny jar with Quik powder for me to bring to school. With that, I could make the school lunch's milk palatable and therefore not waste it. I never had a chance to get away with what that young boy couldn't fathom was a horrible, horrible crime. The next thing I knew, the cafeteria nanny (a mutated den mother) and principal flanked me at the table, demanding to know what I had poured in. It's no exaggeration to say that with the nature of their interrogation (it could be called no other thing), and their cowardice in brow-beating and threatening an excellent student who never caused trouble, I might as well have been smuggling for a drug cartel.

So they put a very quick stop to my father's good idea, and I returned to not taking the pints of milk. The school officials flatly refused my father's reasonable demand of a credit for what I wasn't consuming, and they refused to give any explanation of the most remote plausibility. They didn't merely not try, they didn't want to try to defend their idiocy. "We're the school and we'll tell you what you'd better damn well do." The solution was that I started bringing my own lunch, which sometimes included milk and the same banned Quik, mixed in at home. What was it, that school milk has such a different molecular formula that it would go critical after adding Quik?

As a practical matter, bringing my own lunch was the only solution. As a matter of principle, it was the only solution, being the right thing to do anyway. Freedom, practicality, efficiency and happiness -- is it any wonder the four are inextricable?

Part of the blame rests on the fellow students, who were jealous they couldn't do the same. Once they saw me enjoying a beverage they didn't have, up went their hands. Yet not a thing in the universe prevented their parents from following suit. They didn't because they lacked desire and original thought to improve the conditions of their children, even when someone showed them something they could easily do themselves. No doubt they've grown up to be the most brain-dead of liberals, demanding "equality" no matter that it means bringing everyone to a rock-bottom level.

God knows what would happen if I had been going to school now. One of my oldest friends and I would have been shot by SWAT for play-slashing at each other with pocketknives, no matter that we never hurt each other. (Mr. Borders knew we never meant harm, so he'd just tell us to behave.) Another friend would have been drugged with Ritalin for ADHD, because in boring classes he'd routinely get caught up in the textbook and ignore the teacher's droning. Students are suspended, even expelled, just for having an aspirin. Do any of you think that part's even new? It's been happening for at least twenty goddamn years. Schools sometimes put up the defense that they would be responsible, but that's just the point: reasonable parents don't ask them to take the responsibility in the first place!

Naturally, when my sister fell during PE and broke several bones in her hand, the school disclaimed all responsibility. The officials even had the chutzpah to blame my parents for not buying the optional health insurance. It didn't matter that she was very much physically coerced into playing: refusing meant punishment by running laps or jumping rope, and if you refused to do that because you knew you had done nothing wrong, you'd fail PE. Remember: "We're the school and we'll tell you what you'd better damn well do."

Note to Charlie: power to you, I hope your kids never see a day of public school in their lives.