Chrysler has now filed for backruptcy, after a trip or two to the taxpayer bailout trough, and a swilling of a few billion. Today, what should have happened from the git-go finally did.

President Obama predictably railed against some Chrysler investors, who took a huge risk by buying debt in the hapless automaker, and who wanted more than 30 cents on the dollar:

“Some demanded twice the return that other lenders were getting. I don’t stand with them,” Obama said of the hedge funds. “I stand with Chrysler’s employees and their families and communities. I stand with Chrysler’s management, its dealers and its suppliers. I stand with the millions of Americans who own and want to buy Chrysler’s cars.”

This from a man who wants the private sector to get involved. Sheesh.

Anyhow, with Chrysler soon to be in Fiat’s capable hands, Chrysler is sure to rise, phoenix-like. Yeah, right. The Fiat 500 pictured here gives me great hope. It couldn’t hold the corners in Martinsville, let alone on a Bristol, Daytona, or Talladega.

First, fiat money. May as well drive cars with the same name. No, I think I’ll wait for the GM/Yugo team offerings.

-k-

I’ve spent all my years on Earth.
I plan to spend whatever time I have left on Earth.
When I’m gone from the Earth, my mortal remains will be buried in the Earth.

I’ve been partial to the Earth for all my years, without the necessity of an Earth Day.

I’ll celebrate the upcoming Earth Day, God willing, by celebrating another day on, well, Earth.

With me, every day is Earth Day.

OK, then.

-k-
Update: For all those Earth Day folk, rock on!
You don’t tell me how I should live, and I’ll return the favor. In other words, Leave me Alone.

Via The Liberty Papers, reportage on the recent Alabama Tea Party. There’s a longish video of this on the site as well. I’ll post the transcript; as you read it, imagine Jeff Foxworthy reading it, and you’ll be all set.

Since I work in Washington, I contacted my source at the Department of Homeland Security and asked him what I should be on the lookout for. And I’ve got my notes from that interview with me. You might be a right-wing extremist if . . .
. . . you refuse to bow to Saudi royalty.
. . . you think the only good pirate is a dead pirate.
. . . you don’t think it’s a good idea for politicians in Washington to borrow another trillion dollars you grandchildren will have to repay.
. . . you think you know how to run your life better than a bunch of ‘experts’ in Washington.
. . . you believe in God, but don’t think that Obama is the Messiah.
. . . you believe the only reason you have First Amendment Rights is because of your Second Amendment rights.

-k-

I made the grade. Thanks, DHS!

Take the test yourself.

-k-

Our tax filing is on the wire to Uncle. For the first time in I know not how many years, we owe nothing; our refund is probably a twelver of Shiners worth.

I’m tempted to dance the Dance of Joy, until I remember that the Federal Income Tax is, at its core, immoral.

-k-

Timely video. Clicky, clicky.

-k-

I’m beginning to wonder…

-k-

H/T: Jimbo.

the chief causes of this condition were the disastrous policies pursued by our government since the World War, of economic isolation, fostering the merger of competitive businesses into monopolies and encouraging the indefensible expansion and contraction of credit for private profit at the expense of the public.

Those who were responsible for these policies have abandoned the ideals on which the war was won and thrown away the fruits of victory, thus rejecting the greatest opportunity in history to bring peace, prosperity, and happiness to our people and to the world.

They have ruined our foreign trade; destroyed the values of our commodities and products, crippled our banking system, robbed millions of our people of their life savings, and thrown millions more out of work, produced wide-spread poverty and brought the government to a state of financial distress unprecedented in time of peace.

The only hope for improving present conditions, restoring employment, affording permanent relief to the people, and bringing the nation back to the proud position of domestic happiness and of financial, industrial, agricultural and commercial leadership in the world lies in a drastic change in economic governmental policies.

We favor maintenance of the national credit by a federal budget annually balanced on the basis of accurate executive estimates within revenues, raised by a system of taxation levied on the principle of ability to pay.

We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards and an international monetary conference called on the invitation of our government to consider the rehabilitation of silver and related questions.

Two excerpts from the Democratic Party Platform of 1932, after Republican Herbert Hoover spent us silly in a last-ditch, failed effort to stop a recession.

The myth that Hoover was a laissez-faire capitalist is right up there with the one that “free, unregulated markets” brought us to our current economic state.

-k-