Monday, June 01, 2009

Creative USB Flash Drives


IZI has the complete collection. These five were my favorites.





Click any picture to see the whole collection.

Stillborn Motors


They have forced taxpayers like you and I to spend $60 billion to keep the UAW whole, without a vote and without a voice.

They have arbitrarily fired seasoned executives and created management teams consisting wholly of inexperienced bureaucrats who have only a minute chance of success.

They have intervened in the auto markets using tax laws, favoring GM over Ford through mechanisms like $7,500 tax credits for consumers who purchase Chevy Volts.

They have avoided a serious reorganization provided for under existing bankruptcy law by kowtowing to the unions whose greedy and ham-handed bosses were largely responsible for the manufacturers' inability to compete with foreign competitors.

They have arbitrarily closed dealerships without transparency, without explanation, and -- seemingly -- by favoring certain political allies and some minorities over others.

In many cases, these dealerships were lynch-pins of their communities; by dint of what seem to be arbitrary closings, they have transformed hundreds of thousands of loyal customers and employees into a cadre of mortal enemies.

They have robbed millions of direct and indirect senior creditors -- from senior citizen bondholders to mutual funds and everything in between -- by contravening bankruptcy law in favor of paying off union bosses.

Would you buy a GM or Chrysler product having just taken a pennies-on-the-dollar haircut forced upon you by an out-of-control federal government?

Would you buy a GM or Chrysler product knowing that the U.S. government favors those companies -- unfairly, using tax breaks and other means -- over Ford?

Would you buy a GM or Chrysler product knowing that some faceless bureaucrat devastated your community without a hearing, without even a sentence of explanation?

They have disenfranchised millions upon millions of prospective customers, breaking bonds that lasted generations and whom, I believe, will avoid the federal GM and Chrysler entities even if they were the last brands on Earth. I've heard people tell me so. And I suspect you have as well.

There's a name for the new GM and Chrysler. Doomed.

And there's always Volga, which seems more fitting these days.



Update: See the music video of this post at Vimeo, courtesy of Jim Durbin at 24th State.

Update II: Similar sentiments expressed at Wizbang's President Obama says 'Buy Foreign!', The Examiner (Hugh Hewitt) and Parkway Rest Stop's What could possibly go wrong?

Larwyn's Linx: Lost in the Labyrinth of Race

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email!

Nation

Lost in the Labyrinth of Race: Hanson
Justice Department disdains voters' rights: Protein
Energy bill is windfall for greedy Gore camp:News-Leader

The Orwellian Left's Rainbow Hypocrisy: Dr. Sanity
Why Public School Teachers Burn Out: PJM (Forster)
Quote o' the day: Janice Rogers Brown: B & R

Democrats pushing to up cost of drilling by 50%: Times
Quantitative analysis finds Dealergate is real: Examiner

World

Hammer's take on Obama's meeting with Abu Mazen: Corner
President Obama's anticipated speech to the Muslim world: Examiner
Useful idiot Dershowitz admits he was duped by Obama: INN

Terrorist use feared; Iran's program divides U.S., Israel: Times (De Borchgrave)
Will Judea be Judenrein?: JOdysseus

Media

Fairness Doctrine Being Repackaged as 'Localism': NewsBusters
CNN No Longer Top Dog?: NewsBusters
Daily Kos: Internet Cops: Blatt

Featured Snippet

Obama, ACORN & the truth: PittLive (Malkin):

...I have obtained the lists -- not only of Obama donors but also lists of Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry contributors. The records include small donors to the Obama campaign, who are not disclosed in public campaign finance databases. It's information only a campaign could supply.

[ACORN whistleblower] MonCrief testified under oath last fall that her then-boss, Karyn Gillette, gave her the Obama donor list and told her the campaign had furnished it. Moreover, e-mail messages between ACORN, Project Vote and other affiliates, including ACORN subsidiary Citizens Services Inc. (CSI), make explicit references to working on "Obama campaign related projects."

Why does this matter? Transparency, tax dollars and electoral integrity. ACORN's own lawyer Elizabeth Kingsley acknowledged last year that a vast web of tax-exempt ACORN affiliates were shuffling money around -- making it almost impossible to track whether campaign rules and tax regulations were being followed.

ACORN receives 40 percent of its revenues from taxpayers. Americans deserve to know whether and how much commingling of public money with political projects has occurred over the last four decades -- and what role the Obama campaign played in this enterprise...

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Dealergate: Zero Hedge understated 'The Clinton Effect'


Few doubt that Zero Hedge is among the finest quant blogs on the planet. Its amazing work in analyzing the relationships between campaign contributions and Chrysler dealership closings resulted in a stunning conclusion: "a noticeable and highly positive correlation between dealer survival and Clinton donors" (87% confidence interval).

Put simply, Zero Hedge found that dealer owners who contributed to Hillary Clinton had a far-better-than-expected "survival rate" than any other set of donors.

And, oddly enough, "car czar" Steven Rattner's wife (Maureen White) is described on her own website as the "National Finance Chair of the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign".

Now, analysts will point to 90% or 95% as a "gold standard" confidence interval and the ZH data is stuck at 87%. But there's a simple reason that the Zero Hedge correlation is (perhaps dramatically) understated: the database of dealership owners lists only a single party in each record. But many dealerships are owned by multiple parties.

And, in some cases, those parties are billionaires who do not want their names listed as primary owners in these types of documents.

Who owns RLJ?

The RLJ dealer group, first identified by Joey Smith, is reported to have three owners:
  • Steve Landers - a long-time car dealer who is listed as the primary owner;
  • Thomas "Mack" McLarty - former Chief of Staff for President Clinton
  • Robert Johnson - founder of Black Entertainment Television
It is important to note that neither McLarty's nor Johnson's name appear as owners in the database utilized by ZH.

Landers, who would have appeared in most of the RLJ records during the Zero Hedge analysis, donated a modest sum to GOP candidates (a few thousand dollars).

McLarty, on the other hand, is a huge Democratic donor. The search I performed showed dozens of contributions, approaching a hundred thousand dollars. And not a dime to a Republican cause or candidate.

Johnson, on the other hand, makes McLarty look like a piker. The Washington Post reports on Johnson's largesse when it comes to Democrat causes:

Since 1990, Johnson has donated $2 million to congressional and presidential candidates, and 99 percent of that has gone to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He has given $14,800 to Hillary Clinton since she first ran for the Senate in 2000. He gave $4,500 total to Obama during the 2004 and 2006 cycles...

So, in fact, a half dozen -- or more -- records appear to be non-Democrat donors in the Zero Hedge database, but actually mask millions in Democrat donations.

How did RLJ fare?

Thanks to Joey Smith's work, we have an excellent picture of how RLJ fared when the smoke cleared.


Bentonville, Arkansas


The two Springdale dealerships gave no money to any political candidates since 2004. The two dealerships will close in June while the RLJ-owned dealership in Bentonville will remain open. The Landers-McLarty dealership will have no other Chrysler dealers within a 20-mile radius of the dealership.
Huntsville, Alabama


The dealerships in Athens and Decatur gave no money to any political candidates since 2004. Landers-McCarty and the Athens dealership will remain open while the Decatur dealership will close in June.
Branson, Missouri


The RLJ-owned dealership in Branson will remain open while the other three dealerships will be forced to close in June. Tri-Lakes Motors in Branson (RLJ owned) will have no other Chrysler dealers within a 30-mile radius of its dealership.
Lee's Summit, Missouri


The RLJ-owened dealership will remain open while the other four in Raytown and Harrisonville will close. The RLJ dealership will have no other Chrysler dealerships located within at least a 20-mile radius. All of the local competition will be wiped out due to the Chrysler closings.
Shreveport, Louisiana


The Bossier City dealership owned by RLJ-McCarty-Landers and the Shreveport dealership owned by Marshall Hebert will stay open. The Shreveport dealership owned by Stinson (a major GOP donor) will be forced to close.
Kansas City, Missouri(Olathe area)


Olathe DCJ (RLJ-owned dealership) will remain open. Bud Brown Chrysler and Keystone Chrysler will both close their doors. It looks like Olathe DCJ will not have any competition from other Chrysler dealers within at least 15 miles of their dealership.

Suffice it to say that none of these selective closings -- that provided dramatic improvements in the competitive landscape for McLarty and Johnson -- showed up in the Zero Hedge analysis.

Summary

Though Zero Hedge found a "eyebrow-raising" correlation between Clinton donors and dealerships that remained open, instances like these show that the effect is understated. Perhaps dramatically understated.

More analysis is needed and will be forthcoming, but until then, the Obama administration's vaunted "transparency" pledge appears as empty as a promise that Michael Moore will pass the potato chips "in a minute".



Update: Red State, Libertarian Republican and Disenfranchised 6909 have the crucial coverage.

Gary Trudeau channels Jimmy Carter


Gary Trudeau has always been a despicable loon, but this time he's really gone off the deep end. Today's cartoon (no link, intentionally) pillories "the moneylenders".

Here's the dialogue in the eight-panel strip:

Reverend: "The wrath of God is being revealed in heaven!"

Girl: (thinking) "Again?"

Girl: Reverend Sloan, I've been noticing something about the readings in church...
Reverend: What's that, Sam?

Girl: Whenever you read from the Old Testament, God is always crabby and snarky to everyone...

Girl: But the New Testament isn't about anger at all -- it's about love.

Girl: God's only son is this total pacifist -- he wouldn't harm a flea. He's jus this humble dude who's mellow to everyone -- even the Romans.

Girl: He only really snaps once, right?
Mom: With who, honey?

Girl: The money-lenders, Mom!
Mom: Oh, right. What is it about moneylenders?
Reverend: They do seem to set people off, don't they?

And we know who they are, don't we?

This seems to be a consistent thread -- from the Obama administration to Doonesbury.


Hat tip: Papa B. Linked by: Weasel Zippers. Thanks!

RED ALERT: Dealergate -- Quantitative Analysis Indicates Clinton Donors Rewarded By Selective Closings


The blogosphere's preeminent quant gurus over at the brilliant Zero Hedge crunched the Chrysler dealership data along with the dealers' political contributions (caution: language warning). For those unfamiliar with quantitative analysis, it revolves around the pure numerical evaluation of the relationships between different types of data.

Preliminary Zero Hedge Findings: Clinton Contributors Rewarded

Using raw donor data from OpenSecrets.org (865 megabytes of 2008 individual contribution records) and the list of Chrysler dealerships (both closed and open lists), their preliminary conclusions align with the anecdotal evidence. After a major data cleansing effort, they matched the information against dealer status (safe or nuked); the party affiliation of the contribution recipient; the presidential candidate to whom the dealer contributed (if applicable); the amount of the contribution; and the ZIP code of the dealership.

Conclusion: "a significant and highly positive correlation between dealer survival and Clinton donors":

...it seems clear that something is going on here. Specifically, the somewhat low probability that the Clinton data showing higher survivability of Clinton donors could result just from pure chance.


But why not better significance with any of the other variables? Why [would] this stand out?

Why indeed.

The Car Czar's Wife: National Finance Chair for Hillary Clinton

Those closely following the Dealergate story might recall this tidbit posted by Glenn Reynolds on May 28th:

A reader notes something about "car czar" Steven Rattner: “Rattner is married to Maureen White, the former National Finance Chair for the Democratic Party.” The comment: “So one of the guys advising SecTreas on this thing is married to someone who used to be one of the people in charge of fundraising for the Democratic Party. This explains so much it’s scary." Well, it bears a close look.

Zero Hedge:

Then we got to thinking. Steven Rattner, the Car Czar, is married to Maureen White, one-time national finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee. What does Maureen do now? From her website: "Maureen White is currently Chairman of the Board of Overseers of The International Rescue Committee (IRC), a member of the North American Advisory Board for the London School of Economics, and a National Finance Chair of the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign. (emphasis ours).

Further analysis is underway, including an in-depth geographic analysis of nuked dealers who are GOP donors. The concentration of these in Detroit is "interesting to say the least".

Affirmative action for me, but not for thee

Thomas Lamb was one of the first bloggers to pick up on this story. He has begun reviewing closings and minority-owned dealerships.

Originally, it was thought that 140 minority owned Chrysler dealers out of the 170 minority owned Chrysler dealers were going to be closed.

But the facts on the closing of the Chrysler dealerships are; out of some 170 minority owned Chrysler dealers, only about 32-38 minority owned Chrysler dealers were closed.

The original reason for the high number was; the minority dealers were smaller in size and offered only one brand. So given that thought process, why did so many stay open? My guess is Obama, Maxine Waters and politics.

...because most minority owned dealerships were single brand, Chrysler had plans to close more than 100 minority owned dealerships, but Chrysler backed off on that.

The reason why? That is the $65,000 question

...[of 19 Hispanic-owned dealerships, 8 were closed or 42%, so if] the trend continues on the closures of African American dealerships versus Hispanic ones, then you are looking at a civil rights lawsuit.

Affirmative action for African American owned dealerships and not for Hispanic owned dealerships does not work out too well.

MIA: Full Transparency

It is incumbent that "Car Czar" Rattner and the Obama administration immediately disclose -- with their vaunted "full transparency" -- the methods used to select dealerships for closure.



Linked by: Michelle Malkin, The Washington Examiner and FiveThirtyEight. Thanks!

Larwyn's Linx: Pravda Mocks America's March to Marxism

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email!

Nation

Scholar Warns Of "Stealth Nominee": LegalIns
A theory behind Ted Rall's diatribe: Instapundit
Birds of a feather: Surber

Dealergate's Conservative 'Message' Problem: RSM
The troubling 'wise Latina' roundup: Instapundit
Judge Sotomayor: A Nation of Cowards on Race: LR

Artificial Selection In Dealer Closings: Zero Hedge
Is Dealergate About Politics and Racism?: IAKL
Sotomayor's Damned Statistics: LegalIns

The scandal at Rezko U.: Trib
How you doin' on that free ride to college: Kass
Malpractice lawsuits a huge issue for PA: PennLive

It's Date Night!: GWP
More food for molar-grinding: Protein Wisdom
Don't give Sotomayor a free ride: DenPost

What's wrong with a little wealth redistribution anyway?: CFP
Outrage: American Indian-Run Charter Schools Indoctrinate Students in Bizarre, Out-of-the-Mainstream Ideologies and Discredited Theories: Ace
Chrysler, GM CEOs Summoned To Washington To Testify On Dealership Closures: Autospies

World

Billionaires Agree on Plan to Rid Earth of a Billion People: TAB
Israel to U.S.: 'Stop favoring Palestinians' : Haaretz
Japan Apologizes for Bataan Death March: ABC

Media

An Unhealthy Infatuation With Obama: IBD
American Capitalism: Gone With a Whimper: Pravda
Unreal: Patterico Banned from BillOReilly.com: Patterico

The full interview with Jack Fitzgerald: GretaWire
Exactly what will the TuckPo be?: Greenroom

Sci-Tech

Miniaturizing the Sun: LGF
Market disruptor -- or destroyer: Cnet
World War One Color Photos

Cornucopia

Spring finally arrives in the northwoods: PJM (Priestap)
I am so old: The Old Jarhead
Identity of traffic-stopping billboard bra model revealed: Daily Mail

Comment o' the day (Comment by kelly on 5/29 @ 3:36 pm):

...If only we had a…I don’t know, say a nationwide organization of…inquisitive people who really like to dig below the…uh…headlines and attempt to find the truth with a skeptical zeal in learning more about issues and fervently holding the government to a genuinely high and noble standard.

Maybe we could carve out room in higher ed for the express purpose of tutoring these naturally curious types and put them to work in…say, a medium that sets itself apart from government propaganda and works as…say, arbiters of truth and judicious concern for the greater public’s need to know the whole story. Y’know to provide a check against goverment over-reach and provide a much needed backstop for citizens to monitor there governments. An unelected–what to call it?–some kind of estate, if you will.

Nah, too far-fetched.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Pictures from life


IZI has an intriguing collection.





Click any photo to see the complete album.


Daily Dealergate: A 'Dealer Council' & Reverse Discrimination


DEALERGATE DAILY DIGEST
Dealergate: 40 Democrat-friendly Dealerships Become 42; Their Competition Gutted As Well
Joey Smith's Blog: Analyzing Various Aspects of the Chrysler Dealer Shutdowns
Shock: Democrat Dealers Support Chrysler Closing Plans: Gateway Pundit

Olbermann, 538.com accidentally confirm bias in dealership closings
Dealergate 5: Chrysler’s Dealer Council Speaks: Red State
Gibbs Denies Politics In Chrysler Dealership Closings; Unofficial Figures Tell a Different Story: Gateway Pundit

RESEARCH
Scrubbed Spreadsheet of Dealerships Remaining Open: Source G
Donation History for Closed Dealers: Joey Smith
Maps: Chrysler Dealerships Slated for Closing: NYT (caution: I've found inaccuracies in this data)

You know you've hit a nerve when Robert Gibbs and Chrysler LLC have consolidated their talking points around the Dealergate scandal.

The latest development: Chrysler's "Dealer Council" posted a letter at the new Chrysler LLC website. It says that the remaining Chrysler dealers are as pleased as punch with the way the dealership shuffle turned out.

One tiny little problem. Freeper Exit82 noticed some unique characteristics of the "Dealer Council" letter's signatories.

It turns out seven of the dealers were Democrat contributors while three gave to GOP candidates (one was Ron Paul, so the figure is really two).

Josh Painter then sinks the knife in deep with a spot-on coup de grâce:

"If, as the Obama apologists claim, that most car dealers are Republicans, why does the Chrysler Dealer Council have more than twice as many dealers on it who donated to Democrats than those who gave to GOP candidates? Let them chew on that one for a while. I'm sure they will come up with something."

Business blogger Tom Blumer adds a new and interesting revelation.

All other factors being equal, given NADAM’s [National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers] expressed fears and the general comparative dealer profile it provided the Journal, the minority-owned dealer termination rate should have been higher — probably much higher than the 25% overall average. In fact, it’s clear that NADAM expected that outcome, even if you heavily discount their worry that over 80% of minority-owned Chrysler dealers would be told to go away as overblown hyperbole.

But it would appear that all other factors were far from equal, and that influences other than bottom-line business considerations were prominent.

The last thing a bankrupt, taxpayer-underwritten Chrysler needs as it struggles to emerge from bankruptcy and regain viability is a less than optimal dealer network. Yet it seems that the company deliberately chose exactly that — or had it chosen for them.

Hellooooo... mainstream media? Anyone? Bueller?



Update: Jonah Goldberg and Reliapundit were the first to call attention to the minority-owned dealership anomaly.

Linked by: Protein Wisdom. Thanks!

"As close to a dictatorship as this country has ever seen"


Mark Levin made that statement on Thursday evening. Was he overstating things? Consider the following steps taken by the Obama administration and then judge for yourself:

Silencing Dissent: The SEIU, Organizing for America and ACORN have coordinated a campaign against broadcast networks that could air commercials opposing Obama's socialized medicine agenda. Consider this message, painting any dissent against single-payer, socialized medicine as "swiftboating".

As Sweetness & Light observes, "just in case there was ever any doubt as to who is calling the tune here, these groups are [all] using the exact language that was dictated to them by the Obama administration."

The group "Organizing for America" is Obama's personal political organization, completely outside the confines of the Democrat Party. And it uses the same creepy logo -- the Obama-Sauron evil eye -- that reminds me of something out of the 1930s. Has any other President in history had his own cadre of brownshirts -- yes, I said brownshirts! -- that do his bidding outside the control of any political party? Or his own special logo?

Encouraging Voter Intimidation: Remember the case where several "New Black Panthers" intimidated Caucasian, Hispanic and Asian voters at a polling place in Philadelphia? They flaunted billy clubs at at the polls until the police showed up. One of the defendants, Jerry Jackson, is an elected member of the local Democratic Committee and, at the time of the incident, was a "credentialed poll watcher for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party".

Guess what? Attorney General Eric Holder's Department of Justice (i.e., the Obama administration) is attempting to kill a civil complaint related to the incident. A prominent 1960s civil rights activitist called the case "the most blatant form of voter intimidation" he'd ever seen, including the Mississippi voting rights crisis. A former commissioner at the Federal Election Commission stated, "In my experience, I have never heard of the department refusing to take a default judgment."

When it comes to voter intimidation, the Obama administration chooses to look away. This invites further incidents of voter intimidation by pro-Obama supporters in future elections.

Encouraging and Supporting Voter Registration Fraud: do I really need to describe all of the skulduggery with which ACORN is associated? Despite its claims of non-partisanship, it is inarguably partisan. The organization is under investigation in 15 states with dozens of indictments and allegations of hundreds of thousands of fraudulent voter registrations.

Despite all of the legal issues swirling around the organization, ACORN affiliates in just 11 states are reported to have received more than $31 million in taxpayer funding. And ACORN has plenty of affiliates. Hundreds, in fact. ACORN founder Wade Rathke also founded the huge public sector union, the SEIU (Service Employees International Union), which also happens to funnel funds to ACORN. Other ACORN affiliates, like the American Institute for Social Justice, also send millions directly to its parent. Worse, ACORN is competing for $8 billion in Stimulus funding and is likely to get a good percentage of it, given the predilections of the Obama administration.

By supporting a legally troubled group with taxpayer dollars, the administration is tacitly encouraging vote fraud and undermining the rule of law.

Suppressing Criticism: the massive "Stimulus" package and deficit spending bills passed by Democrats and the Obama administration appears to be nothing more than a gargantuan boondoggle. Experts like the Congressional Budget Office and the Comptroller General have criticized the approach, calling it "unsustainable".

A new White House policy, which dictates permissible lobbying on the Stimulus package, directly attacks the First Amendment by shielding the spending plan from criticism. The Washington Examiner reports on language proferred by the White House itself:

...we will expand the restriction on oral communications to cover all persons, not just federally registered lobbyists. For the first time, we will reach contacts not only by registered lobbyists but also by unregistered ones, as well as anyone else exerting influence on the process. We concluded this was necessary under the unique circumstances of the stimulus program.

In other words, the first rule of Stimulus Package is: you do not talk about Stimulus Package.

Abrogating the Rule of Law: Much has been written about the bizarre activities of the federal government related to Chrysler's bankruptcy. Giving junior creditors (i.e., the UAW) precedence over senior creditors and "[s]elling Chrysler to a shell corporation for the purpose of divesting lenders of their rights [are] a stunning abuse of U.S. bankruptcy laws."

Furthermore, it guarantees that Chrysler and GM, because they've been spared from a true bankruptcy reorganization, will remain ineffective and uncompetitive for they will not have instituted the deep reforms required in the current situation.

And it deeply wounds unions: what investor will deal with any unionized company, knowing that their rights as a secured creditor could be shredded at the whim of an administration with its own social and political agenda?

As Andrew M. Grossman testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee "The bankruptcies of Chrysler and soon General Motors are a microcosm of the lawlessness that threatens our freedom and our prosperity."

And coming soon: We will soon see talk radio silenced, which is truly nothing less than a direct assault on the First Amendment. It will be presented under the innocent-sounding principles of "localism" and "diversity". Note that newspapers, which have had little in the way of localism or diversity over the years (e.g., Associated Press wire stories that dominate content) are under no such scrutiny.

Is this, then, as Levin claims, "as close to a dictatorship as this country has ever seen"?

We're only four months in.

I will let my dear readers consider the facts and judge for themselves.



Other Items of Interest

Somali Coast Cruise Brochure
Dealergate: 40 Democrat-friendly Dealerships Become 42
Star Trek: The Stimulus Doomsday Machine
Rx for Disaster
An open letter to Colin Powell
Illustrated Results of Barack Obama's Community Organizing
True Life Fannie Mae Testimony
Jamie Gorelick, Mistress of Disaster
The Bidens: Hedge Funds, Hair Plugs and Ponzi Schemes
Unintended Consequences

Linked by: Instapundit, Yahoo! News, Memeorandum, Blogrunner and Sister Toldjah. Thanks!

Larwyn's Linx: Now with Daisy Fresh, Genuine Larwyn!

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email!

Nation

EXCLUSIVE: Career lawyers overruled on voting case: Times
American education needs a monopoly-buster: AIP (Priestap)
White House backtracks on Sotomayor's Diatribe: GWP

Obama's auto taskforce calls Lauria a terrorist: WSJ
Would Sotomayor qualify as a juror?: Corner
Obama/SEIU Try To Stop Healthcare Ads: S&L

ACORN document drops reveal damning information: Wizbang
Get Your At-Risk On: Crittenden
It's okay when Democrats politicize Justice Department: PJM (Rubin)

Suicidal impulses of the American Electorate: Sanity
Is Dealergate about Politics and Racism?: Lamb
Ambassador "Vacuum Cleaner" Gets Company: LegalIns

Identity Politics and the Sotomayor Nomination: PJM
Judge Dredd's Grenade Launcher: Ace
Would you buy a car from this man?: GoV

Business & Economy

GM tailgating Chrysler bankruptcy: Times
The great auto dealer closure debate: B & C

Climate & Energy

Global warming and Antarctic ice: Examiner
Falsified data at Nature: Watts

Media

Robert Gibbs should apologise to the British press for his sneering rant: Telegraph
Exclusive Interview with Michelle Malkin: Blatt
Dealergate: what we have so far: Red State

Rachel Maddow eviscerates Barack Obama for lying: CFP

SciTech

Google Wave: A Complete Guide: Mashable

Cornucopia

Checklist for the next four years: AmerDig
Hot: Lady Gaga and Small Wars Journal: Crittenden

Friday, May 29, 2009

Awesome: Olbermann and 538.com echo-chambers inadvertently confirm Dealergate findings!


Some moonbat whining in one of our comment threads alerted us to coverage of Dealergate by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

In the broadcast, Olbermann cribbed the lefty blogosphere once again, parroting Ned Sliver's findings over at 624.com.

Using a series of HuffPo keyword searches (eh, just ignore the half-assed methodology for the moment), Saliver computed the odds that your random Chrysler dealer would have donated to the Republican Party.

Ned started with those who listed their professions as "auto dealer". The ratio in donations was 8.6 to 1 (GOP to Democrats).

Then Fred tried "Car Dealer". That ratio was 3 to 1.

Then Frank tried "Automobile Dealer" and that ratio was 10 to 1.

Finally, Frodo used the profession "Automotive Dealer" (like I said, ignore the idiotic methodology). The ratio was 16 to 1.

Of course, Olby and Bilbo neglected to include one additional slide. They somehow forgot to ask the key question: what was the ratio of GOP-to-Democrat donations for the dealerships that were closed by Obama and his minions?

I mocked up my own slide to give you the answer that Olby and Naif "forgot" to show.

The ratio of donations for dealers that were shuttered was 42 to 1, GOP to Democrat.

Gee, I wonder if that difference is statistically significant?

* * * * * * * * *

p.s., It's been a while since I've bothered to watch Olberloon (and, given his ratings, that seems to be typical). His smooth, unchallenged lies are absolutely stunning!

For example, he said that the GOP had opposed the auto bailouts; thus "...if the GOP had their way [forcing Chrysler to undergo a normal bankruptcy proceeding,] it would've been every Chrysler dealership being closed!"

Say, don't companies go through bankruptcy proceedings all the time and emerge on the other side without shedding every employee? Of course they do, that's what most large bankruptcy proceedings provide for -- think Delta Airlines, for instance, where the operation kept chugging along.

Who watches MSNBC? What kind of person could tolerate that sort of idiocy?