Latest GM SUV: Big and 30MPG

I don’t have all the details, but a quick look at this article shows that GM’s plight was, at least in part, avoidable. The base model comes with a 182 horse power 2.4 liter engine, and gets you 30 mpg. There is no reason in the world that GM could not have produced this vehicle two years ago. In doing so, they would have seen demand shift from some of their other lines, but also from Ford, Toyota, and Dodge. In addition, they could have easily picked up some gas guzzler trade-ins. Why did they wait? It’s quite simple: they have absolutely no foresight. The GM motto could be “what works today will work tomorrow”. Of course, that motto doesn’t work.

This to me supports the Obama position that if these guys want help they have to change. I remain uncomfortable about the government running a company, and when this administration can force out long time CEO Rick Wagoner, that is what is happening.

Where then is the balance? When should the government not use its coercive power when it doles out money to broken companies? When should it let them fail? And what does one do with the thousands upon thousands of individuals who have been mishandled by bad leadership? I don’t know, but somewhere somehow they have to shoulder some of the burden. Some of this is their poor decision to tie their fates to people like Wagoner, who really did need to go.

SCHIPP: More dumb Republican politics

Over the last year, healthcare for poor people took a beating as State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIPP) lapsed, and Congress was unable to override a Bush Administration veto – twice. A smaller version of the bill was signed, but now President Obama has promised to sign the original bill, expanding coverage for poor children from 7 million to 11 million people. Here is a lesson in politics: recognize the reality of a situation. Had Republicans understood the implications of the oncoming beating that Senator McCain was about to receive, perhaps they would have comrpomised with Democrats.

Now Republicans are attempting to stand in the way on new ground: they want children of illegal immigrants not to be covered, even if they are American citizens. Putting aside the constitutionality of it, the point of SCHIPP and programs like it is to provide for preventative care so that those children can do what they’re supposed to do – learn and grow – instead of becoming a burden on society by ending up in an emergency rooom, where astronomically higher expenses must be absorbed by society. At the same time those children end up out of school, and their parents (illegal or legal) either become a burden, or at the very least, can contribute less to our economy.

More dumb opposition. I say, mow ’em over, President Obama.

What’s the cure for Steve Jobs’ Illness?

Apple A lawsuit? That is what some shareholders are rumoured to be considering, because they feel as though they were kept in the dark about the struggling CEO’s health. While Jobs is known to be an aggressive man in many respects, his health is something he may have very little control over, as we probably know lots less than we don’t about the human body.

One thing we do know is that stress isn’t good. And would could be more stressful than having to worry, not only about one’s continued survival, but also about having answer depositions about that subject? What if such a lawsuit prevails? Would it mean that it is now tortous to become ill or to simply to be optimistic about one’s own chances?

Many AAPL shareholders have done remarkably well, thanks to Jobs. The least we can do is let the man deal with his illness in peace.

The Next Terrorist Threat: Canada Geese

Evil Geese But for some fancy flying by Captain Chester “Sully” Sullenberger and his co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles, a menacing flock of geese would have managed to pull of the same feat that Osama Bin Laden’s gang of thugs took pains to plan and execute. La Guardia Airport is as close to Manhattan as an airport can get. It wouldn’t have taken much for that plane to kill many people. The geese almost got their way.

Now it has been shown that geese can wreak havoc on our infrastructure, especially those Canada geese that crap all over the east coast. Probably the Canadians planned it that way. Blame Canada, too. Next we should probably invest in goose protection technologies. I’m sure DARPA is already on it. Harboring geese? Better beware. I’m sure you’re being watched already. How do you think Bin Laden managed to get them positioned? Did he pay them off? Did he seed their trail right through Queens? Let us flock to investigate and excoriate the guilty.

In the meantime, as we evict the 43rd president from the White House, a man who defined his administration by the war on terror, who led from a place of fear, and who capitalized on the fears of others, let us shut the door on this sorry chapter of our history by endeavoring to remember the miseries we have to go through at airports, the violations of our privacy that were made in our names, the destruction of our international reputation through the reckless disregard for human rights and international law, and now goose poop, which perhaps is best cleaned up with the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, as they have no better use.

Apparently, we have legalized torture

Scales of Justice This past week Eric Holder went before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee so that he might be confirmed as the next Attorney General. In that hearing, he was asked whether waterboarding was torture, and he gave a pretty unequivocal answer of “yes”, much along the lines that his soon-to-be boss President-elect Obama has said.

According to an article in the New York Times, and a separate one in the Wall Street Journal, the statement itself, obvious as it may seem, will have consequences for those who committed the acts, and for the United States government itself, who is party to a treaty that requires prompt investigation of all credibly alleged acts of torture.

The Times article mentions, however, that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (where they probably mean the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, PL 109-148 §1004) protects officials from prosecution if they acted in good faith based on the opinion of the Attorney General and the President.

Let’s put this another way: if the President and AG say it’s okay to torture, then according to that law, ain’t thing one a future president can do about it. Furthermore, simply changing the law would not remove the protection for officials, as any prosecution would be considered ex post facto, which is prohibited by our Constitution.

Of course nobody ever said that the President or AG said torture was okay. They just defined it in such a way that waterboarding wasn’t included. Well, why not do that with electrical shock, or caning? It’s a hole of infinite size through which any numbskull could step through.

What, then, does it mean when we say that the United States doesn’t torture people?