Obama on Passover

Jennifer Rubin:

"Obama, as presidents have traditionally done, released a Passover message. It is typical Obama — off-key, hyper-political, and condescending. The core of the message is this:

'The enduring story of the Exodus teaches us that, wherever
we live, there is oppression to be fought and freedom to be won. In retelling this story from generation to generation, we are reminded of our ongoing responsibility to fight against all forms of suffering and discrimination, and we reaffirm the ties that bind us all.'

No, he didn’t have the nerve to recite the emphatic exhortation 'Next year in Jerusalem.' And frankly, it sounds like Eric Holder and his civil rights lawyers drafted it. Is Passover really about discrimination? Or is it about the deliverance of God’s Chosen People by God from bondage to the land of Israel? Hmm. Obama notes the 'rich symbols, rituals, and traditions' but skips the God part. What is missing from Obama’s secularized spiel is the unique, historic, and, indeed, religious message of the Jewish holiday.

....As Rachel Abrams noted then: 'This religion without God thing is a tricky business.' And indeed a Passover message without Jerusalem is not only off-putting but it also reveals Obama’s mindset and lack of sympatico with the Jewish state and its centrality in the history and religious memory of the Jewish people. After all, the president who delivered the Cairo speech suggesting that Israel’s legitimacy rests on Holocaust guilt is really not the sort to get the Passover message right."

Obama is clearly saving the "Next year in Jerusalem" part for his Palestinian pals.

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More on the dangers of "Net Neutrality" and "Big Broadband"

The Thugocracy currently in power thinks they now have carte blanche to move The Cherished Agenda (TM) forward on all fronts. It won't be long now before they turn their attention to "net neutrality" and "big broadband"


Noteworthy re: "net neutrality":

"However Genachowski and the Obama FCC are placing these kinds of sensible cost-cutting and efficiency-gaining innovations in jeopardy with their talk of heavy-handed government regulation of the industry. The Internet has flourished since it came out from the thumb of government control when it was the ARPAnet, and became the free-wheeling marketplace it is today. Clearly, that scares people who want government to be in control of things.

And it’s total control they want, too. Because the second principle Genachowski asked for, 'transparency,' doesn’t mean transparency of government. No, it means that the government is to claim the right to have access to every router in America, every switch, and every other piece of hardware that makes the Internet go. Public or Private, the FCC wants to be able to snoop on how it runs, to be able to control how it runs.

Does that scare you? It should. When you connect to the Internet, your home computer network (even if it’s just one computer) is now on the Internet. The Internet is not like a public road. It’s a vast series of private networks, all connected together. Government wants control over the whole ball of yarn, how everyone configures and runs their own private computers routing the packets of the Internet."


On "big broadband":

"It’s the same reason that American Internet access varies from Europe and Asia, that our need for the automobile varies from the rest of the world. We’re spread out, and we value our freedom to be spread out. And just as you can’t run public transit to every little suburb and rural area, so too can’t you immediately and cheaply get the best Internet access out to everyone at the same time. Higher costs, delayed implementations. These are facts of geography, and no amount of FCC regulation can fix that."

Our local Google GaGa crowd doesn't seem to worry about any unintended consequences of what they so fervently wish to happen.

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Our new and improved Constitution

....as assumbed by the victorious powers that be who rule in our Banana Republic of Obamastan.

Via IBD

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The Corruptocrats waste no time, do they?

They've pushed the financial "overhaul" legislation out of committee in the Senate.

If the Corruptocrats maintain their arrogant insufferable bastards routine on this, we take it to the streets.

This is going to become the moral equivalent to war all the way through the election.

Regarding the Sunday Night Massacre of Health Care

It's going to be a long, hellish trek for the better part of this year for those responsible for inflicting this monstrosity on us against our will.

For those interested in getting this image in a decal, click here.

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Health care "Reform": The Ends DO NOT Justify The Means

"The House can't approve the senate legislation by which it approves changes in the Senate bill."

Noteworthy:

"The Supreme Court might well hold that Field governs only questions of historical fact, while Munoz-Flores governs questions of constitutional interpretation. In Field, the question was what text passed the two houses of Congress; there was no doubt that only what the two houses passed could be treated as law. Here, by contrast, there will be no dispute about what occurred in the House; the question will be whether using a self-executing rule in this way is consistent with Article I, Section 7.

It is one thing for the Supreme Court to defer to Congress on questions of what Congress did, and quite another to defer to Congress on the meaning of the Constitution. Indeed, in United States v. Ballin, decided the same year as Field, the Court ruled, 'The Constitution empowers each House to determine its own rules of proceedings. It may not by its rules ignore constitutional restraints . . '

One thing is sure: To proceed in this way creates an unnecessary risk that the legislation will be invalidated for violation of Article I, Section 7. Will wavering House members want to use this procedure when there is a nontrivial probability that the courts will render their political sacrifice wasted effort? To hazard that risk, the House leadership must have a powerful motive to avoid a straightforward vote."

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"Obama at the Bat"

Game 7 of the Health Care "Reform" World Series.....

Corruptocrat Spotlight: Another Eric Holder Lie

Holder conveniently forgot to mention seven legal briefs he signed while being vetted for the AG job.

Imagine that!

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Hype, Fraud Over Toyota "Unintended Acceleration"

Many folks smelled the rat on the "Prius from Hell" story last week, but the shills in the media pressed fast forward with the overwrought coverage.

Micael Fumento details the nonsense and the chicanery.

Noteworthy:

"In fact, almost none of this was true. Virtually every aspect of Sikes's story as told to reporters makes no sense. His claim that he'd tried to yank up the accelerator could be falsified, with his help, in half a minute. And now we even have an explanation for why he'd pull such a stunt, beyond the all-American desire to have 15 minutes of fame (recall the "Balloon Boy Hoax" from October) and the aching need to be perceived as a victim. The lack of skepticism from the beginning was stunning. I combed through haystacks of articles without producing such needles as the words 'alleges' or 'claims.' When Sikes said he brought his car to a dealer two weeks earlier, recall notice in hand, and they just turned him away, the media bought that, too. In Sikes We Trust. Then the pundits deluged us with a tsunami of an anti-Toyota sanctimony."

Read the Car and Driver story, one which I relied upon on another blog to express skepticism over the hysteria.

Excerpt:

"Certainly the most natural reaction to a stuck-throttle emergency is to stomp on the brake pedal, possibly with both feet. And despite dramatic horsepower increases since C/D's 1987 unintended-acceleration test of an Audi 5000, brakes by and large can still overpower and rein in an engine roaring under full throttle. With the Camry’s throttle pinned while going 70 mph, the brakes easily overcame all 268 horsepower straining against them and stopped the car in 190 feet—that’s a foot shorter than the performance of a Ford Taurus without any gas-pedal problems and just 16 feet longer than with the Camry’s throttle closed. From 100 mph, the stopping-distance differential was 88 feet—noticeable to be sure, but the car still slowed enthusiastically enough to impart a feeling of confidence. We also tried one go-for-broke run at 120 mph, and, even then, the car quickly decelerated to about 10 mph before the brakes got excessively hot and the car refused to decelerate any further. So even in the most extreme case, it should be possible to get a car’s speed down to a point where a resulting accident should be a low-speed and relatively minor event.

But Toyota could do better. Since the advent of electronic throttle control, many automakers have added software to program the throttle to close—and therefore cut power—when the brakes are applied. Cars from BMW, Chrysler, Nissan/Infiniti, Porsche, and Volkswagen/Audi have this feature, and that’s precisely why the G37 aced this test. Even with the throttle floored and the vehicle accelerating briskly, stabbing the brakes causes the engine’s power to fade almost immediately, and as a result, the Infiniti stops in a hurry. From speeds of 70 or even 100 mph, the difference in braking results between having a pinned throttle or not was fewer than 10 feet, which isn’t discernible to the average driver. As a result of the unintended-acceleration investigation, Toyota is adding this feature posthaste.

We included the powerful Roush Mustang to test—in the extreme—the theory that 'brakes are stronger than the engine.' From 70 mph, the Roush’s brakes were still resolutely king even though a pinned throttle added 80 feet to its stopping distance. However, from 100 mph, it wasn’t clear from behind the wheel that the Mustang was going to stop. But after 903 feet—almost three times longer than normal—the 540-hp supercharged Roush finally did succumb, chugging to a stop in a puff of brake smoke."

Note that the Prius model in the Fumento story weighed significantly less than the Roush Mustang, and possessed about one fifth the horsepower. These are all factors in determining the effectiveness of an automobile's brakes under circumstances of "unintended acceleration". We won't even begin to talk about driver pedal misapplication, or the other common sense things drivers can do if an event like this actually happened.

2/14/10 UPDATE:

NHTSA agrees with my assessment:

"During two hours of test drives of Sikes' car Thursday, technicians with Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration failed to duplicate the same experience that Sikes described, according to the memo prepared for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

'Every time the technician placed the gas pedal to the floor and the brake pedal to the floor the engine shut off and the car immediately started to slow down,' the memo said.

The report says that, according to Toyota's 'residential Hybrid expert,' the Prius is designed to shut down if the brakes are applied while the gas pedal is pressed to the floor. If it doesn't, the engine would 'completely seize.'

The memo continued that in this case 'it does not appear to be feasibly possible, both electronically and mechanically that his gas pedal was stuck to the floor and he was slamming on the brake at the same time.' "

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