Macs, Cars, and other things I love (like stimulus checks)

In car news, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Aston Martin are all releasing four-door sedans. 

Lamborghini has previously released a Hummer-like behemoth of an SUV during the cheap-fuel days of the 1980s. Porsche, during the cheap-fuel days of the early-2000s, realeased a gargantuan sports car of an SUV known as the Cayenne. The Reventon and the Panamera, however, are the first real sedans for the companies. Aston, on the other hand, has a long--if mixed history with four-door vehicles. In 1944, they released a striking concept called the Atom, which failed to make production. They continued making sedans, stopping only after the love-it/hate-it Lagonda, styled by William Towns, which ended production in 1989. Personally, I think it's aesthetically pleasing with a few exceptions. However, I will now post pictures of the three new sedans from each company and you can tell me in the comments which one you favor. 

The Lamborghini Estoque. This car is a concept, which means that (1) it is not cleared for production, and (2) it takes design liberties that will not be present in the production model if there is one. In other words, it looks cooler.

The Aston Martin Rapide. This is the production version, so this is what it will look like driving down your street. Stunning, eh?
And finally, the Porsche Panamera. Which one's your favorite? Vote in the comments. 

Sorry about the video. Pirates of the Carribean does not equal Porsche Panamera...honestly.

In other car news, many kudos to Ford for refusing the "free money" offered to the Big Three by Congress. This proves what I've said all along: Ford is the best car company in existence.

Several more things I'd like to cover. First of all, why do I always get the urge to post when no one has commented on my previous post? I am, by bumping it down a notch, consigning my last post to perpetually unread status. Anyone visiting this blog while this post is the first in the line-up will, by some quirk of the human mind, believe that every time they visit there is one--and only one--new post, and thus will not scroll down. At least, that's how it works for me. Ah, well. Scroll down, guys! 

I've decided my next computer will be a Mac, probably a MacBook. I hope my OS isn't laced with insidious Microsoft warez ready to take over my system at any sign of switching to McKintosh...or whatever it's called. However, I'm trying to convince myself that it would be completely selfish and irrational to buy a new computer--especially an $850 (refurbished) Mac. I know I'll be getting a refund from the government if I file my taxes--probably about $100. Mom also thinks I might get a "stimulus check" as part of the government's response to the economic crisis--a response that makes my foolish selfishness look like gospel wisdom. If I did get a stimulus check for, say, $200, then my net contribution to the government since I first got a job in mid-June would be approximately -$150. 

I was a conservative republican and against a minimum wage hike until I became a minimum-wage worker. It is frighteningly easy to thoughtlessly dismiss something you've never experienced. It's basically impossible to live on minimum wage--no one should have to. It's very easy to be selfish about "government regulation of the economy," which does sap jobs. But now that I'm in the position of a low-wage worker, I...still don't support a raised minimum wage. Nor universal health care. Nor high taxes if and when I ever become wealthy. Nor government-funded social-engineering programs--like "abstinence-only" and "no-abstinence" sex education programs--basically any publicly funded sex-ed programs. I'm still a conservative, even though I have a low wage job. That's one hurdle I've crossed. The bottom line is that I'd rather be poor and free than poor and dependent on the government to spoon the protein mash and anti-fertility drugs into my mouth. 

I'd rather do it for myself, thanks much. 

Macintosh is a rabidly corporate company. Behind that silver-plated, trendy New-Left visage, however, it is a competent company that makes computers so far above the Microsoft standards that the mind simply can't take it in. My grandma has had an old iMac, circa 1998, that runs better eleven years on than my fourteen-months-old laptop. Mom is on her fifth computer since then: (three desktops and two laptops--all of which, it should be said, are still running. But only after extensive repairs and modifications.) Apple trumpets the fact that it makes the OS and the computer itself to fit each other, so that there is no conflict between the two. 

Apple Computer is an odd, clannish company. There is so much mythology surrounding the company it could be cut with a knife. Apple itself has done nothing to discourage this: Steve Jobs' introduction of the original Macintosh should prove that to you. It's a cross between exultant over-competence and shameless egotism. Very dated, yet interesting. 

And Mac's famous 1984 ad parodying--you guessed it--1984 by Orwell, urging consumers to fight the system (Microsoft.) 

I really, really want a MacBook. But they have discounts for college students, 

so I will definitely wait till then. And maybe I'll just wait until this poor Acer conks out (or I get a good offer for it.) 

I got this laptop for $450, and I've definitely had my money's worth. I don't intend to stop now.

United States of France: Thoughts on the "Bailout"

Frankly, I've never been particularly interested in economics. In fact, this might be the first post devoted to it in the history of this august blog. The federal government has unveiled a massive plan to nanny the financial sector of our economy, something the decaying remnants of civilization left in the Old Continent have mastered the art of, but which is relatively new on these shores (forgetting, of course, the FDR aberrant, more on that later.)

America has joined our cheese-eating, socialist, surrender monkey "friends" across the Atlantic. I speak, of course, of the French. More in a minute, but this perfect quote from--whodathunkit?--TIME, is the perfect introduction.

"Admit it, mes amis, the rugged individualism and cutthroat capitalism that made America the land of unlimited opportunity has been shrink-wrapped by half a dozen short sellers in Greenwich, Conn., and FedExed to Washington, D.C., to be spoon-fed back to life by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. We're now no different from any of those Western European semi-socialist welfare states that we love to deride. Italy? Sure, it's had four governments since last Thursday, but none of them would have allowed this to go on; the Italians know how to rig an economy."

From: "How we became the United States of France" by Bill Saporito. TIME Magazine, September 21, 2008.

The economic situation, which is in a mild recession, is slightly disturbing. The proposed government bailout, however, is more than slightly terrifying. The federal government, is descending back into the New Deal chaos of government entitlement which only the combined efforts of Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 41--and grudgingly Clinton--were able to undo the first time around. Ladies and gentlemen, entitlement is back.

The Treasury Department, with Bush appointees Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke at the head, has steamrollered over the legislative process and is buying, according to CNNmoney.com, "from firms up to $700 billion in troubled assets - mainly mortgage-backed securities - whose values have declined as the housing market imploded. The goal is to stabilize the companies and prompt them to lend again."

This is big-government interventionism at its worst. It took the FEMA bureaucrats to get three days to get water to the Louisiana Superdome after Katrina, but in barely that time, more bureaucrats have come up with a bullet-proof, enormous, multi-tiered leviathan of a proposal to essentially bail out their Wall Street masters while simultaneously consolidating their control over the free market.

Thomas Sowell estimates that this vast handout to the Wolves on Wall Street might cost taxpayers, not merely $700 billion, but more than one trillion dollars. Yes, that's $1,000,000,000,000.

$1,000,000,000,000

Let's put this incredibly vast figure in perspective.

Sowell explains what that means: "A trillion seconds ago, no one on this planet could read and write. Neither the Roman Empire nor the ancient Chinese dynasties had yet come into existence. None of the founders of the world’s great religions today had yet been born." And now the government is putting a dollar sign in front of that figure and sucking it out of our pockets.

Even in terms of government spending, this is unprecedented. According to a 2005 MSNBC article, the government put about $200 billion into rebuilding the Gulf Coast after Katrina. One-fifth of what it now plans to spend to ease the worries of a few thousand, high-and-dry white males in one tiny part of the country--Wall Street.

The joint cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to present? $6.4 billion. Add those two numbers together and you have $8.4 billion. That's still much less than this gargantuan figure. Fighting two wars for almost six years, plus recovery from the biggest hurricane in two decades? Laughable beside this.

Heck, this is THREE BILLION DOLLARS MORE than the entire projected Federal budget for 2009 (pre-"bailout"). $997 billion, according to globalissues.org. This is staggering. Incredible. Unthinkable. Impossible. The federal government, has doubled itself and split into two: the government and the government-backed and controlled financial sector. We're supposed to be evolving, but the government is taking it all back to a cellular level. This isn't government growth, it's mitosis.