Partial Zero Emission Vehicle? [Spotted on a Toyota Camry]
Ahhh:
This vehicle category was created as part of a bargain with the California Air Resources Board (CARB), so that the automobile manufacturers could postpone producing mandated zero emission vehicles (ZEVs), which will require the production of electric vehicles or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
I might have guessed it was California where words cost more and mean less than you think they do.
[Updated Feb. 6, 2015, just 8 days later]
Turns our “Asshole Brown” isn’t alone. Comcast has just added “Super Bitch” Bauer to the ranks, along with “Dummy,” and “Bitch Dog” Govan.
And those are just the ones we know about. Comcast has created a company culture where to lie, to cheat, to malign, and to malinger isn’t just common; it seems to us mere mortals to be company policy. I have a lot of trouble believing the fine hand of CEO Brian L. Roberts isn’t in here somewhere.
Pants On Fire.
“If you’re allergic to Farxiga…”
The most annoying ads on television, now that the political circus has moved back inside the beltway, include a phrase straight from Jonathan Gruber’s playbook.
That annoys me. I’m smarter than most fourth graders. I’m pretty sure you are, too.
• “Do not take if allergic to Farxiga,” the upbeat announcer tells us 38 seconds into the ad.
Maybe Mr. Gruber was right.
Maybe Americans have proven their stupidity.
The FDA has regulated prescription drug advertising since the 1962 Kefauver amendments of the Food and Drug Act of 1938. AstraZenica wouldn’t put almost a minute of caveats into this ad without regulations.
Or maybe We the Overtaxed People aren’t smart enough to know not to take a drug we’re allergic to. More likely the lawyers included the Do not take if allergic line to keep us from noticing the This stuff can kill you line.
There’s plenty of stupid to go around.
• The Unaffordable Care Act requires each and every one of us to have health insurance. It’s a tax. It’s the law. Which makes me wonder about the radio ad running here in South Puffin: “Thank goodness for Urgent Care! I don’t have insurance…”
Hello? ObamaDon’tCare? I’m thinking a provider maybe shouldn’t advertise that people are still not covered.
Or maybe We the Overtaxed People aren’t smart enough to notice.
• And we’re now in the “open enrollment” period for health insurance. Americans with employer-supplied health insurance can freely join or change plans. Americans with ObamaDon’tCare can freely join or change plans. Americans with Medicare can freely join or change plans.
Whichever category is yours, your premiums are going up.
Premiums for coverage under the Unaffordable Care Act will increase dramatically in the Florida Keys for 2015. A 52 year-old Marathon man in with a Florida Blue “gold” plan paid $645 per month for his insurance last year. Florida Blue will raise his 2015 premium to $879 per month. That’s 36% even with common core arithmetic.
It’s bad on Medicare, too. A 71 year-old woman in Vermont with a United Health Care Medicare Advantage plan paid $0 per month last year. UHC will raise her 2015 premium to $43 per month. That’s a gazillion%. A 66 year-old man in Vermont with a Blue Cross Medigap “Plan F” paid $140.70 per month last year. Blue Cross will raise his 2015 premium to $155 per month. That’s “only” 10%.
By jeezum, the Federal Bureau of Living Management says the cost-of-living has risen just 1.7%. Have any of the MSM nightly news broadcasts reported how wrong that one is?
Dammit. Jonathan Gruber was right.
ObamaDon’tCare had the chance to fix all this. We had hope. He promised change. He really could have changed the health care system. Instead, We the Overtaxed People got the Unaffordable Care Act. Some Americans voted for this. Some Americans approved this. And now all Americans are paying for it.
A friend posted this: “I guarantee you’ll hear the phrase ‘My ancestors came here legally’ in the aftermath of President Obama’s immigration address. It’s almost impossible to find any conversation about immigration — between elected officials, pundits, online commenters – in which at least one participant doesn’t use the phrase.”
While the Obamanation and his Kool Aid quaffing crowd distract us with illegal executive orders and net neutrality, we still have crumbling roads and bridges, failing schools, and the slowest and most expensive Interwebs in the world.
Oh, yeah. And a still-broken healthcare system (dammit, I thought the Unaffordable Care Act was supposed to change things).
This newspeak argument over the illegal aliens the left wants to recast as “undocumented immigrants” is a decent stand-in for the criminal behavior across government.
If you are Abenaki, Eastern Pequot, or Mi’kmaq, your ancestors illegally displaced the Red Paint people. If your ancestor came over in 1642 at the invitation of Billy Penn with my greatx6 grandfather, you maybe displaced the Lenni-Lenapi. Mr. Penn had a legal charter and my greatx6 grandfather was a British subject because there was no United States. His grandson became an American citizen. His greatx2 grandson was born one. If your ancestor came in with my other great-grandfather, they used the then-normal immigration process and became citizens. They followed the law on the ground at the time.
No matter how they got here, the problem isn’t our ancestors (unless they were criminals). The problem is anyone who is here illegally now because they are criminals. The problem is this attempt on the part of so many to pretend that that ain’t so.
crim·i·nal /’krimənl/ noun
1. a person who has committed a crime.
The Obamanation has accumulated an extraordinarily long list of major crimes in just six years. The following is just the short list. If a business or a crime family got caught at all of this, we’d see million spent on RICO prosecutions.
• Mr. Obama stole General Motors from its owners and gave it to his cronies so they would vote for him. Grand theft is kind of against the law. Of course, car theft on that scale is now laudable.
• Mr. Obama stole your doctor and your health plan from you and gave it to the Big Insurance so they would pay for his election. Graft is kind of against the law. Of course, graft on that scale is now laudable.
• Mr. Obama exchanged five Taliban terrorists for an American deserter. That’s not just against policy; it’s against the law. Of course, breaking the law in the oval office is now laudable.
• Mr. Obama’s Justice Department illegally sold thousands of guns to criminals and refused to comply with congressional subpoenas about the operation. A sting is deceptive, probably unethical, but common; Fast and Furious wasn’t a sting. Supplying weapons to criminals and terrorists is kind of against the law. Newspeak calls it merely a “management problem.”
• Mr. Obama’s people falsely portrayed the Benghazi terrorist attack as a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim YouTube video, and then lied about White House involvement. Perjury is kind of against the law. Newspeak calls it merely a “management problem.”
• Mr. Obama’s IRS illegally targeted conservative groups for heightened IRS scrutiny. Using government agencies for political acts is kind of against the law. Newspeak called it merely a “management problem” — Liberals said the IRS did it to liberal groups, too.
• Mr. Obama’s IRS refunded more than $46 million to nearly 24,000 illegal aliens using the same Atlanta, GA address. Fraud is kind of against the law. Newspeak calls it merely a “management problem.”
And there you have it.
A crim·i·nal /’krimənl/ is a person who has committed a crime.
The newspeak argument to recast crimes as “hope and change” or “management problems” or “good politics” is worse than giving the burglar the keys to your house or the murderer a deadly weapon or the used car salesman your checkbook. We trust burglar and the murderer and the used car salesman to do us wrong. We’re supposed to trust those we elect to do us right.
The Obamanation has not only violated the law, they have shredded that trust.