Toyota Expects to Be World’s No. 1 Automaker Next Year

Call it the sign of the times. Sholnn Freeman and Dale Russakoff, of the Washington Post report, “Toyota Expects to Be World’s No. 1 Automaker Next Year:”

Toyota said yesterday that it was on track to become the world’s largest automaker next year, dethroning General Motors and underlining how far auto manufacturing has fallen from its once-pivotal place in America’s economy and politics.

Relegated to a rear guard action, John Conyers pledges to help Detroit:

Members from Michigan, led by Rep. John D. Dingell, have pledged to use Democratic control of Congress to help U.S. automakers.

Mean while the rest of the democrat caucus has firm plans to help Toyota:

Instead of coming to Detroit’s defense, other Democrats, including Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, said Congress will be more inclined to push U.S. automakers in a new direction. Given how far the companies have fallen, members of Congress are likely to target issues of environmental awareness and fuel economy, areas where the Japanese automakers lead.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said she wasn’t surprised by Toyota’s growth. “I have long said that fuel-efficient automobiles in America would be the ticket to larger and larger market share,” she said.

Good luck to Representative Conyers in fighting off the democrat wolves like Obama and Boxer. May the Force be with you.

Update and comment:(Bit) Here’s another WaPo story on the same topic

It seems to me rather suspicious that the Democratic members in Congress from Michigan and elsewhere, are picking now to try and help the U.S. automakers. Where have they been the past 30 years?

Oh, that’s right. They’ve been helping, already… pushing legislation after legislation, about the types of cars that Detroit should build… and what kind of cars are these? Increasingly, governmental regulations force the automakers to build cars Americans simply will not buy.  They’ve also been placing unwanted financial demands on them as regards labor law, while trying to buy union votes. And finally, they’ve been busy making sure that fuel for such cars as ARE produced, is less and less available. All the while, the automakers are caught in the squeeze that government created.

“Good government” has been the problem. Now, Conyers, is proposing it as a solution?

As to the future, it’s not like we don’t have a pattern of failure to go by; a quick look at the failure of passenger railroads under the weight of government should give us a clue. Given Amtrak, and Conrail, we should also have a clue as to the ultimate outcome. The proponents of government, run private businesses into the ground, with their legislation. Then they decide they are going to be the salvation to the problem, and perform a government takeover. Of course, because this happens over a period of 70 years, the individuals alive at the time of the takeover don’t see the pattern.

But here it is; All in all, the Democrats in Congress have done just about everything possible to destroy the U.S. auto industry that they possibly could. I fail to see what Conyers has in mind in that circumstance other than the total government takeover of the U.S. auto industry, which, while I’d certainly not put it past the likes of Conyers, I fail to see how such would HELP the US auto industry.

Government has already ‘helped’ enough.

Twas the Friday before Christmas and all through the town,

The entire population was considering how best not to drown.

It’s raining like crazy outside, right now, and has been all day.  Rochester finds itself on the northern end of a 2000 mile long storm.  There’s snow behind it, the weather novel make it here before warming up, who knows? Strange to hear the sump pump going this time of year.  But, the area’s, that’s all we’ve had all month; rain, and 45 degrees. Makes keeping the Christmas lights burning a little troublesome, if you gotta keep the water out of the wiring.

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I’ve made additions to the Blog.

For those of you who like to use Bloglines… or you have an ATOM reader, here’s your link:

http://bitsblog.theconservativereader.com/?feed=atom

RSS2 is at:

http://bitsblog.theconservativereader.com/?feed=rss2

And we have plain old RSS, at:

 http://bitsblog.theconservativereader.com/?feed=rss

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Why is anyone taking John McCain seriously?  All one really has to do is look at the name Keating, to show clearly the guy is easily defeated by his own history.  Come to think of it, maybe the allegations over all of them were why he spent the last several years kissing Russ Feingold’s backside. Interesting, now, how the whole thing is starting to melt away in the courts.

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 But that’s just IT, Billy...

Dogs, for the most part never DO learn to be cool about anything, even the ones who live longer. Our dog…A mixed breed, a Genuine American Whodunit, is quite gray on the muzzle, these days.  We raised her from a pup, when we first bought this place.  And, perhaps that’s why, but she’s never learn to chill out about much of anything.  Still a lot of puppy in that old girl.  Still loves being on the road, still loves camping, still loves romping around the yard, is protective as hell of Donna and the boys, and will often get playful with me at the weirdest of times. I welcome those times, and will never turn her down, because I’ve begun recently to suspect that when the puppy goes away, the dog won’t be far behind.

Good news of sorts, rape, but not kidnapping and sexual offense, charges, have been dropped against Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, Duke lacross players falsely charged with rape. 

Aaron Beard reports: DURHAM, N.C. (AP) – Prosecutors dropped rape charges Friday against three Duke University lacrosse players accused of attacking a stripper at a team party, but the three still face kidnapping and sexual offense charges, a defense attorney said.

On the depressing front, K.C. Johnson, Durham-in-Wonderland, reports, “The Cascade Continues:”

Two more stinging rebukes of Mike Nifong appeared today.  The first came from Jeff Taylor, who had penned a similarly incisive piece on the case in June. Taylor correctly point out that Nifong’s has forced “fans of limited government confront an ugly truth. Despite the sensible urge not to federalize every issue, sometimes only another layer of government can fix bad government.

Even not so rich white guys like, Evans, Finnerty and Seligmann, are supposed to have civil rights   Sadly it appears that nobody is the least bit interested in protecting them.

From the Israel Insider…. A verrrry interesting article as regards where Jimmy Crter has been getting his funding from. It explains quite a bit as regards his actions, today, and where his loyalties really lie. It doesn’t excerpt well, so I won’t try. Just go and read.

From The Detroit News today, we get a rough idea of how left wing ideologues operate;

DETROIT — The state’s largest city has no immediate plans to stop giving favor to businesses owned by minorities and women, despite the state ban on racial and gender preferences that begins Saturday.

Detroit gives extra points to minority- and female-owned companies when assessing bids for city contracts. Those efforts to encourage diversity will continue beyond Saturday, said Matt Allen, a spokesman for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

The city will not be violating the state law, Allen said Thursday, because city officials believe affirmative action is a federal issue, not a state one.

And the idea that discrimination… of which this set aside is clearly an example… is not a moral one, eh?  And what of the morality, or more correctly the lack thereof, of not following the will of the voters?

And on a side note, in the same paper, we see that Michigan’s population is dropping, rather dramatically.  Given that people are exiting California at a similar rate, and their politics are similar in each state.. increasingly moonbat left, one might almost detect a pattern, here.

The phenomenon that we witnessed following hurricane Katrina, where most of the people from New Orleans didn’t bother going back, was about as damning a judgment against the city and state administration… all Democrats… as you could find.  Most news outlets, however didn’t bother making the connection between the two situations.  Those people who didn’t come back apparently don’t count for much.

But given what we see going on in Detroit, versus the population trends there, and what we’ve seen for many years going on in California, and the population trends there… well, it actually somebody’s going to figure out that there’s a connection between the politics and the people leaving.  The press has already tipped its hand on this; they’re not going to report on the connection between the two situations.

But one could wonder, logically, if eventually that exodus would change the politics in the affected areas, at all?  And the likely answer, is, alas, no.  Mostly, because by the time people figure out two plus two dozen equal four, all that will be left in the affected areas is the moon bats.  In short the asylum is being run by the inmates, now. 

The problem with this article is that it is news, and in a better world it would not be.    In Wisconsin, a federal court actually upheld the First Amendment, kind of, sort of.  

Matt Apuzzo reports that a federal court in Wisconsin has partially rolled back McCain-Feingold:

WASHINGTON -(AP)- A federal court on Thursday loosened restrictions on corporations, unions and other special interest groups that run political advertising in peak election season.

The 2-1 ruling said groups may mention candidates by name in commercials as long as they are trying to influence public policy, rather than sway an election.

Free speech what a radicial idea.  What will our federal government allow us to do next?

Well, my Christmas shopping is complete.  It would appear that I have a little less to worry about in terms of having to run up to the store and fight the crowds.  Having completed all of that, however, I am left with one overwhelming feeling ; I’m tired.  Put another way; did anyone see the license plate of that truck?

You can understand that this one isn’t going to be overly long this evening.  I usually take a while and look around the neighborhood to see what’s going on, and comment on it.  Trouble is, that requires keeping your eyes open.

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McQ notes:

Since we often hear it said that moderate muslims need to step forward at certain times, an example of that happening is always welcome and should be highlighted

Quite correct.

And yet I wonder what the limitations of that empathy are.  Do the people lighting candles there, agree that Israel has a right to exist?  Are they willing to take action to that end? Do they agree that the 50 years of war against Israel has been unjust?  Would they agree that what is being done in the name of Islam in the middle east today, is out of line and must be stopped?  Would they be willing to call for the ouster of the current regime in Iran?  Would they be willing to take action to that effect?

You see therein lies the problem; there’s a major difference between going through the motions, actually getting in there and doing the deeds.

Put another way; I have often said, “Those who tolerate everything stands for nothing.  What do you stand for?”  in this context, that question comes down to what you tolerate, revealing what your true inner thoughts are; what your goals really are.

These people may actually come out and surprise me by coming down on the proper side of the questions I’ve asked, here.  And no one, in that circumstance, will be more pleased to say I’ve misread them. but I don’t think I have, and even for those holding out more hope than I on this point, I suspect it’s gonna take a lot of convincing and a lot of action to get us to that point.

Hoboken Mike, a reader at Q&O, raises an important point, too, about numbers.

It’s just a shame that this is rare enough to be newsworthy.

Even assuming that we were dealing with people who were willing to come down on the right side of the questions I’ve asked, here, will those rare events , will those small numbers, be enough to turn the situation?

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Hey, Billy; You got one of those, too?

That’s OK. I didn’t know I had until I checked my spam filter, a couple days ago.
What’s funny is, he told me he’d read my Blogspot site… which has been down for weeks, now. No question but that this guy is automated…. and I’ve added his mail server to my spam sheets.

Mrs. Clinton thinks it take a villages to raise a chld.   Pamela Geller Oshry, a.k.a. Atlas, says:

It takes a village, my ass. I’ve got four kids, I do it all. If I left it to the village, they’d be smoking crack cocaine. My kingdom for a Jacksonian Democrat.

Note Mrs. Clinton’s  prefered (pictured above) method of child care.  I’ll go with Mrs. Oshry’s.

My message on tolerance and intolerance is a simple one, straightforward , and can be expressed very quickly:

Those who tolerate everything, stand for nothing.

What do you stand for?

Check out this little snip from Memeorandum, this morning:

(Striped of links)

 Agence France Presse:
Congressman says Muslim lawmaker’s election threatens US values

+      

Discussion: cair.com and Think Progress

There seems something of a pattern developing, here.

Let’s see… We get a Republican defending American values, and the French raise hell, so does CAIR, and the American left, too.

Like it or not, Rep. Virgil Goode  is quite correct; It DOES represent a threat to our society. Accuse me of bigotry and intolerance, if you like, but the fact remains that what we’re talking about is allowing a foundational shift in our society. I’m willing to bet many of you don’t think so. Then again, I’m equally sure the French didn’t think so, either, a while ago.

You see, here’s the problem; There has never been a great culture, inclduing those of the west, that did not have one religion or another at or near the root of it. Even the more secular cultures, have such religions… and the moral values of those religions… at their root. The problem, here is being mis-cast, as in this article in the NY Times:

“Keith Ellison serves as a great example of Muslim Americans in our nation, and he does not have to answer to you, to me or anyone else in regards to questions about his faith,” said Mr. Pascrell, whose district includes many Arab-Americans.

 While this controversy that Goode brings to the fore,  is certainly driven by religion, where the problem really comes in, is in the cultural morality and values that eminate from the religions in each culture… values and moralities which in majority have adherents throughout the culture… even the not particularly religious.

“I’m not a religious scholar, I’m a politician, and I do what politicians do, which is hopefully pass legislation to help the nation,” said Mr. Ellison

But what is politics, but a reflection of one’s personal values? And are not one’s personal values at least affected by if not directed by, one’s religion?

And all this would be true even without the more visable threat involved, that Dennis Prager brought up:

“Ellison’s ..(taking the oath of office on the Koran)… will embolden Islamic extremists and make new ones, as Islamists, rightly or wrongly, see the first sign of the realization of their greatest goal — the Islamicization of America”

This stuff simply cannot be discounted, folks. The French, the Brits, and to a lesser degree the Canadians are our coal-mine-canaries… and they’re choking to death.

Update:  (DavidL)   Larry King, Wolf Blitzer interviewed Ellison.  Scott at Powerline, writes “CNN has a lot to learn about Keith Ellison:”

Before CNN turns itself over to Ellison again for instructions in the American way, it might want to take a look at “Keith Ellison for Dummies”and “Louis Farrakhan’s First Congressman.” It might want to ask Ellison what branch of Islam he follows in reconciling Sharia law with the United States Constitution, or with homosexual rights, abortion rights, and the feminist agenda. Surely one of these days a bigfoot journalist like Wolf Blitzer will ask Ellison a serious question.

To what brand of Islam does Ellison profess to believe, and to what extent do Ellison’s professed beliefs conflict with fundamental American values?   We are willing to ask Mitt Romney.   Why not Ellison?

Allahpundit sums it up well,

“There’s no rooting interest here. It’s the equivalent of a Saudi-Iranian standoff: all you’re hoping for is heavy casualties.”   

It is the Mouth, Rosie O’Donnell versus the Ego, Donald Trump.   If you have the stomach for it, you can view the dueling videos, here.

Almost done with shopping, but not quite.

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In an indication of just how nutty Winamp can get when given permission to mix at will, my system just cross-mixed Mannheim Steamroller, Alan Sherman with the Boston pops, and Ozzy’s ” Crazy Train” into a set. It was akin to shifting a non- synchro transmission without the aid of a clutch.

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I went through the trouble of installing a new switch, this evening, in my server room.  It’s an old 3com Super Stacker II… a 24 port job. This to add to the 16 ports of capacity I already have running.  Even on a straight replacement, it apparently has more capacity than I will ever use in this particular environment. And it looks really sharp having a piece of commercial grade networking going.  However the cooling fans add an element of noise to the small room that I call an office, and I’m not sure I’m going to stick with it.  Actually, however, it does raise the possibility that a move the servers outside of the office and into the equipment rack that I’ve had waiting up in the garage, for some time.  The problem with that is that I’ll probably ruin myself getting that rack down to the basement. Speaking of networking, I just about completed the swap over of all the network cards in the house to 3com’s 3c905-TXM cards. I’ve installed literally thousands of these things, over the years, and they are my personal favorites for the 100 mbit type. Mostly, it’s because of the way they offload their networking.  I’ve also found them to be superior in bad wiring situation… these things connect through wet string.  It’ll be interesting to see how they perform with the big switch in my LAN being made by the same folks.

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My ISP is Road Runner, at the moment.  They are in a bit of a speed war, around here, and I just took a measurement of ten mbit from my servers in Kentucky to here. Not too bad, given it has three hops to make from the cable modem to my desktop, here. Now if they can only keep the stupid thing running for any length of time.

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In checking the forecast, for the Rochester neighborhood, I find that the chances of snow happening between now and Christmas day, are minimal at best.  I suppose I’m going to have to go over and take some additional Christmas light pictures without the snow.

Meantime, I see that Kansas is getting two to 3ft. worth of snow.  Colorado and Nebraska too, apparently.  How well, Colorado at least can use it for skiing.  I have no idea about skiing in Kansas, however.
Oh, well.

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Speaking of Colorado, did you see what held up the Democrats decision on which city will host the 2008 DNC?  That’s right, labor unions.

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David Zucker’s at it again.

Check This Video….

0-0

Tom DeLay, yes the Tom Delay, at Tomdelay.com, detals Mrs Pelosi’s woes, “Nancy Pelosi has clearly stumbled out of the gate:”

In politics, I believe it is never a wise idea to underestimate one’s adversaries. Rather, we conservatives must watch the liberals carefully, do our research, stick to our principles and be unafraid to take on the other side. Nancy Pelosi has clearly stumbled out of the gate. While she seems focused on paybacks and personal vendettas, we must focus on the future and remember that the starting gate is not nearly as important as the finish line.  

Personally, I want to do my upmost to make Mrs. Pelosi’s two year tenure as speaker an intereting, and well documented one.   It will not be boring.

The way we write affects both style and substance. The loquacious formulations of late Henry James, for instance, owe in part to his arthritis, which made longhand impossible, and instead he dictated his writing to a secretary. In this aspect, journalism as practiced via blog appears to be a change for the worse. That is, the inferiority of the medium is rooted in its new, distinctive literary form. Its closest analogue might be the (poorly kept) diary or commonplace book, or the note scrawled to oneself on the back of an envelope–though these things are not meant for public consumption. The reason for a blog’s being is: Here’s my opinion, right now.The right now is partially a function of technology, which makes instantaneity possible, and also a function of a culture that valorizes the up-to-the-minute above all else. But there is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. Traditional daily reporting–the news–already rushes ahead at a pretty good clip, breakneck even, and suffers for it. On the Internet all this is accelerated.

The blogs must be timely if they are to influence politics. This element–here’s my opinion–is necessarily modified and partly determined by the right now. Instant response, with not even a day of delay, impairs rigor. It is also a coagulant for orthodoxies. We rarely encounter sustained or systematic blog thought–instead, panics and manias; endless rehearsings of arguments put forward elsewhere; and a tendency to substitute ideology for cognition. The participatory Internet, in combination with the hyperlink, which allows sites to interrelate, appears to encourage mobs and mob behavior.

That’s Joe Rago, in this morning’s WSJ… a company which has made a fairly decent living with an online presence. it looks rather suspiciously like Mr. Rago is feeling threatened. He proceeds to advise us that the phrase “Mainstream Media” is “a term redolent with unfairness and elitism.”

Tell me how he’s not being defensive. And unjustifiably so. Far from being unfair, it is the mainstream media itself which is turned its own name into a pejorative.

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.

The fact remains that the scraps of which you mention help to bring down the Canadian government at one point, and for that matter the Clinton administration at another. Two examples…. Two separate occasions where the mainstream media didn’t bother to open its yap apparently for reasons of it’s own. The blogs stepped into that space, and not only did the MSMS’s job for them, they had the public asking why this needed to be done… why the MSM wasn’t doing their job. I guess I can understand why you forgot that. And why you’re so defensive.

Appendum: (DavidL) Ok, I agree with Mr. Rago.  All bloggers are not as important as some bloggers think they are.  Then journalism is a process and not a profession.  The bloggers at Powerline are all lawyers by profession and damn good journalists to boot.  A whore is paid for her services but not for any level of expertise.  Then at least a whore is real person as opposed the fictious person, Jamil Hussien to whom the Associated Press attributed over sixty stories.  Absolutely the best reporting on the faux rape in Durham, North Carolina has been provided by K.C. Johnson, a professor of history at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, at Durham in Wonderland.

There is some good reporting in both the MSM and in the blogosphere.  The trick is to know how to find it, and how to avoid the lame stuff.

But things change.

They sure do, Baldilocks. However…there’s an important point you’re missing.

The difference between you that you don’t mention, is that while you’ve proved that change and have a rather public track record on the matter, as well as very publicly held positions on the matters of the day, Obama does not, having nearly no record at all.

I don’t blame the right for being skeptical, here. The Democrats have a long history of putting up somebody for office who has nothing going for them other than the ability to mouth all the correct noises.

You have built up a trustworthy record, and have it out where anyone with a computer and the time to read it, can.

Obama has no record at all. None.

And therein lies the biggest question of all to his candidacy, much less the fervor of with which Democrats have been treating it. what has this guy done, what are his positions on the matters of the day, that causes them to wet their pants every time he enters the room?