Aww....just throw it out there. They'll buy it.

 Dad had a pale yellow one with a black vinyl roof.
 

I was raised in a GM house.  My dad always bought General Motors automobiles.  We at one time or another had them all, from Chevy Impalas to Cadillac Land Yachts.  Dad wouldn't have owned a Ford or a Chrysler if you gave it to him.

So when it came time for me to spend my money for a car all I knew was GM.  My first car (bought with dad's money) was a used Mustang....a non-GM product, because it was cheap.  But with MY money I bought a brand new 1971 Camaro SS 350.  

In short order I followed that with an Olds Cutlass, a Toronado (what was I thinking?) a couple of sporty Buicks, and then it dawned on me:  they're junk.  (I since have moved on to Honda's, Mazda's and Audi's, with excellent success.)

That was the low point of GM products.  For years their market share had gone up and up and they got fat, dumb, and lazy.  They could roll out any old thing and people would just throw money at them.

That's what happens when the bean counters get the upper hand over the engineers.  No doubt GM had the know-how to build fine cars.  But when they'd come up with something really good the accountants would tell them to make it cheaper, use thinner plastic, find some supplier from deeper in some Third World jungle, or whatever they had to do to save a few pennies.  They shot themselves in the foot. Their reputation went down the tube. 

Enter the Age of The Public Relations guys.

You want to improve your image?  Just build a car that can stay glued together for 90 days.  That's all....just 90 days. If you can do that, JD Power will put your name on a trophy.  GM filled up a trophy room with 'em.  Ta-da!  Quality improved, reputation fixed, problem solved.

"Crash?  What crash?  I didn't see a crash" said one GM lawyer to another.

So far this year General Motors has issued 44 recalls covering 20,000,000 cars.  The big newsmaker was the ignition switch that would fail causing the car to lose all power, steering, braking, etc and crash spectacularly.  

Turns out they knew about the problem for years, but their lawyers covered it up because they didn't want to pay the $.50 to fix each one.  It seems the lawyers trumped the PR folks, the bean counters, and the engineers.

I can't help but wonder what the net cost would have been to GM if they had just let the engineers build the car they wanted in the first place?  So it would have cost $___ more.  So what?  If their cars had a reputation for being top-quality and bullet proof, I'm convinced people would have paid the price. 

Today they'd have better cars and fewer dead-weight lawyers, PR guys, and bean counters.  Win-win-win and win.  

S

So what shape should we make the wheel this time?

Can any of you remember the first Persian Gulf war in Iraq, circa 1990-91?  That was the one where we bombed everything Iraq had of military value for a couple of months, then turned the Army and Marines loose on what was left. 

After only 100 hours, literally, President George H.W. Bush called them off and dictated terms to Saddam Hussein, allowing him to remain as Iraq's dictator.  Ever wonder why that was?  

It was because the King of Saudi Arabia counseled Bush 41 to stop pursuing Saddam, telling him he might stir up (an even bigger) hornet's nest if he wasn't careful.   

And these Boy Scouts should know

What the King meant was, even the region's really despicable tyrants like Saddam Hussein looked pretty tame compared to the other nut jobs itching to step into their shoes.

Truth is, as I've stated before, the people in that part of the world have a different value system, a different way of thinking.  Our Western ideas of "logic" and "decency" just don't translate.  They are simply an uncivilized society. 

No, of course I don't mean every single one of them.  But enough that it makes my statement valid.  While we in the US have our Westboro Baptist Church types, they are just tiny little cells of crazies scattered here and there.  

In Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, on and on....their extremists are a huge percentage (a majority?) of their population.  Say something unkind about their religion or publish an offensive cartoon and they issue a fatwah on your ass.

My point is, they always have and always will fight and kill each other.  That's all they know how to do.  At times they might subscribe to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and work together, but it's a fleeting arrangement.  Blink twice and they're right back at each others throats.

Now the Sunni Muslim minority in Iraq are on a roll and are vowing to take over the entire country by brute force.  Our concern is that if they do it will open the door for more extremists to train there and eventually threaten us here in America.  

The truth is, even if the Sunni militants (the ISIS) DON'T take over all of Iraq by brute force (they're unlikely to capture Baghdad proper or other Shia strongholds) they can and likely will still train others to come after us.  Count on it.  While it would be nice to keep the bad guys "over there", I'm afraid we're past that.

Make no mistake, this is not an American failure.  It's an Iraqi failure.  We set them up with every material advantage they could possibly need to succeed.  What we can't give them is new gray matter between their ears.

So what do we do?  (Q:  Why does the entire world look to the USA when something "needs to be done"?)  IMHO, and as seen through my pragmatic eyes, here's what I think we should do:  Get some chips and dip and maybe a few beers, sit back, and if we're lucky watch the militants on both sides annihilate each other.  While we should pray they spare the innocents, it's simply out of our hands.

LATE NEWS:  It was just reported that the US will soon send 275 Special Forces to "advise" the Iraqi Security Forces.  So the 150,000 troops we once had there couldn't "fix" Iraq, but now these 275 can?

DUH!  Even rocks are smarter than that.

S

My kinda weekend

For the first time in a long time I had a very relaxing weekend, start to finish.  No dreaded chores, no funerals to attend, just pleasant things.  On Saturday I went to see grandson Parker play T-ball, and see his sister Blakely, too.  Then later back home I almost fell asleep in my big chair.  (I'm not usually a napper.)

 

Then I settled in to watch the 24 Hours of Le Mans....well, at least a few hours of it.  How anyone can drive 200+ MPH at night baffles me.  And the mechanics those guys have!  One car had its entire transmission changed in 4 minutes.  My guy takes takes longer than that just to look up "transmission" on his computer.  Audi finished 1-2.  Wonder if I can get me one of these with a back seat and a hatch?  :)

Then Father's Day I visited with all 3 of my daughters.  We're going out for dinner together tomorrow with my 2 kids and their families who live here locally, and my San Antonio daughter and her family will be here in a few weeks for a visit.  And of course I quietly wished my Dad a nice Fathers Day, too.  I'm sure he heard me.  It was a nice day.

The news is dull today, so I won't bore you with any unrequested commentary from me.  (Hold your applause, please.)

When is this World Cup thing going to be over?  More important, how many days until REAL football season starts?

While channel surfing last night I saw a short piece on Jay Leno featured on 60 Minutes.  What a classy guy. 

Finally, I saw on The Presurfer this morning that Kan-yee West says he is the most influential artist of our time, that he's the modern Shakespeare, etc.  Really?  (No Yee-Aren't.)  I'm still trying to figure out what his talent is.

Back to work today.  I'm covering for bro this week while he troops around the Alps.  Y'all have a good week.  :)

S

Pragmatism 101

More of my Political Pragmatism series:

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has introduced a bill that seeks to allow those with pre-2010 student loans to refinance them at interest rates that are about half what they have now, going from in excess of 7% to 3.86%, the rate set by Congress several years ago for federal student loans.

Many economists, bankers, and others are now saying the average student loan....over $25K each, totaling $1.2 TRILLION dollars....is hampering economic growth.  And everyone agrees (or at least pays lip service) that an educated workforce is vital to our national health, now and even more so in the future.

Sen. Warren's bill died in the Senate when it failed to secure enough votes to stop a threatened Republican filibuster.  The sugar in the gas tank?  It was to be paid for with a higher tax on those making over $1M per year.

Meanwhile Bloomberg Business News reported this:  *stay with me here*

Using a tax shelter known as the "Double Irish" the most profitable tech company in America (the world?), Apple, is paying only a 2% tax rate on one of it's shadow companies that declares 60% of Apple's total profits.   

This subsidiary buys (on paper) all iPhones made in China, immediately sells them to another Apple subsidiary based in (low-tax) Singapore, then books the difference as Apples' profit.  Ireland's already-low 12.5% tax rate is massaged by their tax lawyers and eventually becomes a miniscule 2% rate (thanks to Irish tax loopholes, hence the "Double Irish").  This saves them BILLIONS of dollars in US taxes.

I don't blame Apple for doing this.  I blame an international system that ALLOWS it to happen.  Take this, multiply it by all the other international companies who are using smoke and mirrors to dodge their taxes, too, and you can imagine how much money we're leaving on the table.  

I know, I know....Businesses don't PAY taxes, they COLLECT taxes.  But as it is, consumers are paying the tax (in the price of their iPhone), but instead of it going to the treasury, it's going back to Apple's shareholders.

The liberal position:  Business is greedy.  The conservative position:  Taxes are too high.  Neither side can see past their own short term talking points.

My pragmatic position:  If we put an end to all these tax dodge shell games and just had a realistic modest corporate tax rate that could actually be collected, we would have the money to subsidize worthwhile things like reduced student loan rates.  

This would likely lead to a better educated, more competitive workforce, and some of those brainiacs just might be the ones to invent Apple's next iGizmo, making Apple and its shareholders even MORE money.

We used to call this "priming the pump".  Sometimes you've gotta spend a little more up front to make a lot more later on.  Win / win!

I know my example is overly simplistic, but the concept is sound.  Why can't anyone look a bit farther into the future and see it?

S

FOR SALE: Iraqi Army rifles....

....never fired....only dropped once.
 

 

The pride of the 10th Annual Baghdad Jaycees Goat Roast and Labor Day Parade has proven they aren't worth a damn when it comes to defending their country.

Observations of a non-military man:  What is it about middle eastern / Arab armies that makes them such lousy soldiers?  I've read that the Egyptian Army fought fairly well at the opening of the Yom Kippur War with Israel in 1973, but other than that they seem to fold up like a card table when faced with anyone actually shooting at them. Snappy parade performers, lousy fighters.

After investing a decade of our time, thousands of American lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars helping get Iraq to the point they can become a self-sufficient, stable, law-abiding citizen of the world, it seems they can't even stand up to the first hint of determined opposition they faced.

Shades of the Fall of Saigon!  Al Qaeda affiliated rebels have seized control of the northern city of Mosul while the Iraqi Army was loading up and making a run for it.  

Now the insurgents are even in control of a formidable armored force left by the Americans for and now abandoned by the Iraqis.  Emboldened, the insurgents are now marching towards Baghdad while the Iraqi Army is melting away.

It's a sad situation.  On the one hand I feel sorry for all the downtrodden in the region, all the women who are treated little better than cattle, the little girls who are denied an education, etc, but the bottom line is it seems beyond our ability, anyone's ability, to bring them into the 21st 20th 19th Century.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and all the rest are simply from a different branch of the Homo Sapien family tree.  Our values are irreconcilable, our brains wired differently.  We can build them all the sewer treatment plants they could possibly use, but they're still gonna crap on the sidewalk.  The only reason we have anything to do with them at all is because of a freak of geography....they're sitting atop an ocean of oil.

I say we learn to live without their black gold, keep far, far away from them all, and let them stew in their own juices.  F___ 'em.

S

We sure could use Pat Paulsen right now (look it up)

Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you a man with no heart.  Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you a man with no brains. ~~Winston Churchill

Whoa!  Last night Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, the #2 guy in the House of Representatives, was defeated in his Virginia district primary race.  This is both good news and bad news.

Cantor was one of the Republican "Young Guns" along with Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy, a small group of virtually inflexible super conservatives who, IMO, were preventing our government from "governing".  Think "government shutdown".  He'll be gone after the first of the new year.  That's the good news.

The bad news is that the guy who defeated him is even MORE inflexible, as in absolutely rigid.  He's a Tea Party fave and one of those "my way or the highway" kinda people.  If enough people like him are elected our political polarization, our gridlock, will get even worse.  Sales of pitchforks and torches will surge.

While the Tea Party has been swatted down in many primary races so far this year, this was a BIG win for them.  As a student of politics (among other things) this intrigues me.  It's going to make for a fascinating fall election.

I'm tickled by all the fuss over whether Hillary Clinton will run for President in 2016.  My first prediction: She might run, but she won't even get her party's nomination.

She'll be in the headlines all right, and might win some early primaries, but her party will eventually realize she's a lightning rod.  

Her fans love her, but her foes are reviled by her.  That's not a recipe for winning an election.  She comes with a lot of baggage....I'm guessing even more than most politicians.  There's gonna be lots of mud (shit?) slinging.

Get one of her bumper stickers and buttons as soon as you can 'cause they will some day be political novelties.

I'll add Hillary's to my collection.  :)

S

The true essence of baseball

What do you get when you cross an Aston Martin with a Premiership Champion (rugby) Northampton Saints fan?  This:

I'm impressed!

Here's a question for you baseball fans....when you go to a game do you actually go to watch the game, or to just eat hot dogs and nachos and drink beer?

Last night about 8:30 I took Luke the Wonder Dog out and noticed they were playing a Frisco Rough Riders game at our minor league ballpark a couple blocks away.  It was a delightful evening, about 72 degrees, no humidity, slight breeze, and I was suddenly overcome by the desire to go to a game there tonight.

All I really wanted was some ballpark food, which is always better than the same thing if it were served at home.  Sorta like eating some canned crap food sitting around a camp fire.

But, hey, sometimes you gotta take the bitter with the sweet.  I would willingly sit there and dodge foul balls for some gooey junk food.  I aaaaalmost had K convinced we should go, but then she had a momentary flash of sanity and laughed in my face.  

When negotiations concluded she'd promised me some fake cheese (the staple of world-class ballpark nachos) over some fresh chips /w plenty of jalapenos, served to me in my chair high up on our balcony if I would let her off the hook.

Cold beer is a given.  SOLD!  Congress should take note.....THIS is how you compromise.  :)

S