It’s getting too late to jump ship

This is a must read.

According to that article, China owns 95% (other places I’ve read 97%, but who’s counting?) of rare earth metals and has bought up another 11% in the last year, probably in Africa.

Rare metals: cell phones, flat screen tv’s, computers, the Chevy Volt.

Ah, the Chevy Volt, with the $10,000 battery. Check that out and prove me wrong.

Soon it will be too late to jump the sinking ship of state.

And Obama wined and dined this dictator like he’s an ally. Oh wait – I guess he is now that we’ve tossed Britain and Israel off the boat.  But they should really consider themselves lucky to be off the USS Sinking America.

LaHood to push for disabling cell phones in cars

I wrote last year about Ray LaHoods desire to “coerce Americans out of” their cars. His plan is to make driving as uncomfortable, inconvenient and expensive as possible.

So now he wants to prevent the use of cell phones in cars due to the “distraction” factor. He says the technology is out there to disable phones in cars. I keep asking myself, is this what the progressive left really want? Do all those college students who support the Obama agenda really want to give up their phones?

And where do distractions in cars end? How many parents will be leaving their kids at home because the “Mom! he’s looking at me again!” screeches from the backseat are a distraction?  How about a bottle of water while you’re driving, not to mention a burger and fries? Or God forbid – a cigarette!!!I don’t want my family out on the highway without a cell phone. Hell, I don’t want to be out on the highway without mine.

Where does it end? At $10/gallon gas? Not only will that “coerce” us out of our cars but out of the grocery store and malls, too. Which in turn, means job loss to millions more.

A year ago LaHood was talking about chips in cars that would monitor gas consumption which would then be taxed as part of the carbon footprints BS, which in turn would be part of crap-n-tax that the EPA will be trying to enforce on us, all the while walking around congress.

Oh, what a tangled web they weave . . .Non-elected officials writing laws that will dramatically and fundamentally change our lives and our nation.

It’s all about protecting us right out of our jobs, our healthcare, all our civil liberties in what has become an obscene desire to control every aspect of our lives, by the ruling class. They know better than the rest of us how to spend our money and what’s best for our health and welfare. How many rights will be enough? When do we finally say enough?

2 years of this has been scary. Another term with this regime will mark the end of America as we’ve known and loved it.

New taxes to bail-out print journalism

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 84% oppose a three percent (3%) tax on monthly cell phone bills to help newspapers and traditional journalism.

Similarly, 76% oppose a proposed five percent tax on the purchase of consumer electronic items such as computers, iPads and Kindles to help support newspapers and traditional journalism. Seventy-four percent (74%) oppose the proposal to tax web sites like the Drudge Report to help the newspapers they draw their headlines from.

Although I lament this because newspapers have been a big part of my adult life, how many 20-somethings do you know who read a newspaper on a regular basis? I don’t know if there are any statistics about this but I’d venture to say that the percentage is in the single digits.

According to a new study from Experian Simmons, 87 percent [of] Americans have at least one mobile device, and it’s not just young people. Though adults under 50 are most likely to have a mobile phone, at 93 percent, 78 percent of adults over 60 also own a mobile. Part of the reason for this high adoption rate is the phones’ increasing versatility. Seventy percent of users now take pictures with their mobiles, while 31 percent access the internet…

Most of them, and us, get our news online or on television. They aren’t reading newspapers and fewer of  us are reading news magazines.  Many of us have Kindle, Ipad and Iphones with internet access and almost all of us have access to home computers. That’s where the news is being disseminated.

So this is why the new idea being floated by our government to force a 3% tax on our cell phone bills to save print journalism is going to sink. Not only is it going to sink, it’s the stupidest idea yet. Do my kids want to pay this? Do they want to bail-out newspapers with taxes on their cell phones? My kids have ink in their blood (my daughter does still read the newspaper, after she’s done the crossword puzzle) but I’m quite sure that they will not want to pay an extra 5% tax on the next purchase of some electronic device to bail out the NY Times – a newspaper they don’t read – or any other newspaper, for that matter.

Has the NY Times, print journalism et al, became the next “too big to fail” segment of our private sector? If the age has outpaced print journalism, so be it. We did, after all, leave the horse and buggy behind for cars and those manufacturers had to diversify or fail. Print journalism will have to do the same. Why should people who have no vested interest in it, be responsible to save it?

But be not mistaken. This is not a bail-out as much as it is another attack on the free market. If the truth be really told, nationalizing car companies, banks and possibly, oil companies in the near future, were not bail-outs, either. All of this is nothing more than the dismantling of the American free-market system by the communists who are now in charge.

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.” That means that everything the government has given (in bail-outs) can also be taken back. Those industries that have accepted the bail-outs and government take-overs, are at the mercy of the powerful who can pull the money rug out from under them if they decide that keeping a “too big to fail” industry going is not in their best interests.

Newspapers beware.