Dave Ramsey Explains Life and Economics to Occupy Wall Street Supporters

Go to Dave Ramsey's website and listen to his show from yesterday (Archives for October 19, 2011). He sets the Occupy Wall Street crowd straight. They are VERY confused.

Automotive Engineers Wary of 54.5 mpg CAFE Rule.

Here's an excellent article from Ward's Auto, regarding the feasibility of meeting the 54.5 mpg CAFE standard by 2025.  Automotive engineers weigh in on whether or not it is feasible (it is not), and what cars will look like if it were.

Nearly 1,100 engineers and designers who currently work at auto makers and suppliers express doubts about being able to meet the target without affecting vehicle safety, size and cost. The WardsAuto survey was conducted by Paramount Research and sponsored by DuPont.


While environmental groups such as the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council claim a corporate fleet average of 60 mpg (3.9 L/100 km) or better could be reached with currently available technology, only one in four automotive engineers and designers agree.

“A C-segment car will be considered huge by 2025; bye bye to the CUV/SUV, light-duty pickup trucks and D-segment or larger cars,” another says.


“Consumers don't understand what this will cost, and environmental groups don't care,” is a typical comment.


“The diametrically opposed demands of ever-increasing safety requirements and ever-increasing fuel efficiency will require materials that currently may be feasible from an engineering standpoint but are not feasible from an economic and sales viewpoint,” one engineer says.


“Anytime government regulates industry, the outcome is usually disastrous. (Government regulators) are pushing for electric cars that are not feasible except possibly for urban commuting unless there are major new technologies developed that address range and costs. Ultimately, the government will drive the market to subcompact cars to support their agenda,” a respondent says.

You can read the article in its entirety here.

Smithers, Release the Hounds.

Lacrimose "Occupier" Mocked in YouTube Comments.

The only original thing I have to say about this is, "Thank God for their nitwit 'call and response' method of communicating ... otherwise they would have made twice the progress they have actually made!"  Because, as you can see, it takes them twice as long to communicate as it does for normal folks.



There were some great reply Comments to this video on YouTube, so I'll just let the YouTube wags do my work for me today:

I'm glad you'd like to hear (I'm glad you'd like to hear) what I have to say (what I have to say). 

I say, "Please read about the horrors of Communism. The attempts to implement a Communist utopia have resulted in countless dismembered bodies: over 100 million innocent people have been killed in the attempts to enslave the people to the state. Stop demanding that the people turn over their power to the govt so the govt can make things 'fair,' and start fighting for liberty and limited govt."

This one was insightful:

They claim to have jobs. And obviously these "jobs" have given them 5 weeks vacation time with no end in sight. They have nice clothes, cell phones, laptops, video cameras, camping equipment, etc...

So what are they complaining about again?

Another of my favourites was:

I am not a mindless robot. (I am not a mindless robot.)

I, also, am not one of this chick's "dismembered bodies":

Wow... whatever she smoked last night, I want some of it.
In all seriousness, I'm not part of the "dismembered bodies"... I'm part of the 53% of Americans who pay for the idiots who have nothing better than to sit on their ass and tell ridiculous stories that have made me lose about 100 IQ points trying to figure out what the hell they're talking about!!!

This suggestion seems only prudent:

We seriously need to find out this raving moonbat's name and make sure it is permanently linked to this video --- so that any time any future potential employers Google her name, they get this video as the first hit.

You can go read the rest yourself.  Many LOLs are to be had there!

I've Got Your Hand Signal Right Here!

I offer this as a Public Service Announcement, for the enlightenment of those of us confused by the various hand signals employed by the Occupiers.

(I love the blank looks on the listeners' faces when the young woman says that they have probably heard of Robert's Rules of Order!)

Hippie Imperialists.

It's a bit off from the topic of this post, but this is the best piece of seen on the "Occupy" movement.

In Afghanistan, a young American soldier with a locked and loaded M4 assures a band of nervous Pashtun mothers that her platoon will make sure the Taliban don't come and butcher their daughters for the sin of attending school.

A FaceBook friend recently posted this as his status update:

The Pentagon should remarket our wars: I'm looking forward to supporting "Occupy Iraq".

It got me to thinking about the similarities between a military occupation and what the Occupy Wall Street hippies are doing.  By taking over the property of another entity, they are effectively saying:  "We have the right to come wherever we wish, camp out, and do whatever we wish on that property, for as long as we desire.  Because you lack the power to stop us."

There's a word for that, but it is eluding me at the moment.

Oh, yes, it's called Imperialism.

Hypocritical hippies.

I Reflect Upon My Own Reaction to OWS.

Well, clearly, the Occupy Wall Street folks have been able to get under my skin lately.  My thoughts, words, and tone regarding them has not always been up to Christian standards, for which I am sorry.  I am reflecting upon how I can do better, and upon why my reaction to this and the related protests has been so strong, so visceral.

In my defense, these people do sorely tempt me.  Take, for example, this blurb from the front of their web page:

Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions.

Look, you dolts, there are only 2 genders:  male and female.  Well, I guess neuter is a gender also, which may explain a lot about OWS.  Look, there I go again.

I think much of my reaction has to do with the fact that I tried to be a hippie myself.  (I failed; I was not able to overcome the Protestant Work Ethic instilled in me by my dad.)  This blog entry about my acid-drenched trip to a No Nukes rally back in 1979 will help you understand the old hippie me from which I have escaped.  I was actually on Wall St. that day, too, ironically.  I know what demonic lies I believed when I was in that state, and part of my anger at the Wall St. hippies is their seduction of many people with those same lies.

Part of my frustration stems from the fact that a leaderless, nearly directionless movement like this is impossible to critique.  Every time some hippie defecates on a police car or on an American flag, my Leftist friends on FaceBook chime in to tell me that these people are not representative of the movement.  Likewise, when any of the hippies says something incredibly stupid, I am not allowed to count this against the movement as a whole, for no one person speaks for the movement.  It is a baffling and unnerving exercise to battle against such a chaotic, fluid, inconsistent, and formless foe.

Another facet to my anger is that this sort of thing is forcing me to become political again, which is a thing I hate.  I used to like it, getting involved in Texas and Michigan Republican Party politics.  But eventually it came to bore me to tears.  I no longer like to ruffle feathers, or talk politics with anyone.  I don't think that I have ever convinced anyone of my point-of-view in any political discussion.  I know that it is possible to change minds and hearts, but it has long seemed to me that this sort of change (which is sorely needed today!) comes through the Holy Ghost, and not so much through human talking and reasoning.  My own conversion from a young man who twice voted for Jimmy Carter (oh, the shame!) to being a die-hard Republican came more as a result of reading the Bible than from any human agency.

Political upheaval is inconvenient for me at this time.  I am trying to recover from my own economic folly (scarily parallel to that of our nation as a whole), and the entire political discussion right now takes my time and energy away from that.  But it is probably a sin (selfishness) for me to feel this way.  However, thinking about politics depresses me.  I clawed and scraped my way out of depression earlier in the year, and I know I am happier just getting on with normal life, and sidelining myself from the political game.  I don't know how possible that will be for me, since we are only 13 months out from a major election.

And about my economic folly ... it is easy to see and loathe the sins of others.  It is child's play to critique OWS or We Are the 99 Percent.  Their sins are many and obvious.  But what of my own sin?  My covetousness has been ruinous.  I am greedy.  Perhaps I should rejoice that people are out there with signs protesting greed.  Perhaps they should actually be massing in front of my house, for I am the chief of sinners, worse than any Wall St. pirate.  These protests, then, force me to confront my own sin, the many places where I have failed my family, church, and community.  Where I have failed my Savior.  The entire sad parade just makes me so sad for all of humanity, in our degradation, stupidity, and sin.

Part of me tries very hard to love Occupy Wall Street.  I want it to be like my imagination of the civil rights, anti-war, and other protests of the 1960s:  colorful, self-sacrificing innocents parading without a license", as in this groovy Ultimate Spinach song:

I saw a funny freak parade, marching down the street.
They were acting very strange, kissing everbody they meet.
Bananas hanging out of their ears, daffodils in their hands.
Someone asked, "What's happening here?"

A fat policemen's getting uptight, 'cause they're pelting him with flowers.
He knows they smell very sweet, but his face is very sour. 
He wants to bust the whole company, but he really doesn't know why. 
Maybe it's because they act kind free ... who knows?

But it's not like that.  It totally mischaracterizes this sort of hippie protest.  And maybe that is at the very bottom of my dissatisfaction with these protests:  they destroy my childhood imagination of things.