Couldn’t Help But Comment (121308, Morning)

The most accurate interpretation of the breakdown in the GM-Chrysler bailout talks in the Senate is that the UAW chose bankruptcy for its employers over concessions. The about-face being considered by Bush and Paulson to (probably illegally) use TARP funds to bail out the two companies would thus be a total sellout to a bunch of crybabies.

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British kids won’t be learning as much about their rich heritage, thanks to the dictionary cleaners (”Words associated with Christianity, the monarchy and British history have been dropped from a leading dictionary for children”):

Oxford University Press has removed words like “aisle”, “bishop”, “chapel”, “empire” and “monarch” from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like “blog”, “broadband” and “celebrity”. Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.

The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society.

But academics and head teachers said that the changes to the 10,000 word Junior Dictionary could mean that children lose touch with Britain’s heritage.

Read the whole thing. This is no innocent enterprise in improving learning.

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We have eyewitness proof that my POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid Economy appellation is accurate:

I caused part of this job loss and I know precisely why; the election. The results portend big trouble for small business.

….. Atlas has shrugged all over the country.

Like many business owners, we are no longer willing to take all of the financial and legal risks and put up with all of the aggravation of owning and running a business. Not with the prospects of even higher taxes, more regulation, more litigation and more emboldened bureaucrats on the horizon. Like others we know, we are getting out while the getting is, well, tolerable. Many who aren’t getting out are scaling back.

….. Entrepreneurs instinctively understand the danger posed by larger liberal majorities in power. The risk-reward equation and fierce independence spirit of start up businesses are anathema to the class warfare, equality of outcome and spread the wealth mentality of the left.

We have very little appetite to have our lives run by elected or un-elected officials like Barney Frank and Jamie Gorelick. We have no appetite to be taxed even more by the likes of Charlie Rangel. These clowns destroyed Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and our entire economy as a result. Congress, by their own admission, cannot even run their own damned dining room with a captive customer base!

….. We got into business to be independent. We will get out for the same reason.

The fact that Obama is not in office yet is irrelevant. Businesses must see “around the corner” and plan accordingly.

Read the whole thing. I would only add that the fact that Obama hadn’t yet won election in June is also irrelevant for the same reason. Business people saw what Pelosi, Obama, and Reid were doing to the economy with their energy-starvation stances and would likely do once in full control, and acted accordingly.

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I remembered that “someone” at the end of the Clinton Administration destroyed computer files and deleted hard drives in defiance of legal orders.

Michelle Malkin remembered that this “someone” was Obama’s designated “energy czar” Carol Browner:

On her last day in office, nearly eight years ago, Browner oversaw the destruction of agency computer files in brazen violation of a federal judge’s order requiring the agency to preserve its records. This from a public official who bragged about her tenure: “One of the things I’m the proudest of at EPA is the work we’ve done to expand the public’s right to know.”

Asked to explain her track-covering actions, the savvy career lawyer Browner played dumb. Figuratively batting her eyelashes, she claimed she had no clue about a court injunction signed by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth on the same day she commanded an underling to wipe her hard drives clean. Golly gee willikers, how could that have slipped by her?

According to testimony in a freedom of information lawsuit filed against EPA by the Landmark Legal Foundation, a Virginia-based conservative legal watchdog group, Browner commanded a computer technician on Jan. 19, 2001: “‘I would like my files deleted. I want you to delete my files.” Not coincidentally, the Landmark Legal Foundation had been pressing Browner to fully and publicly disclose the names of any special interest groups that may have influenced her wave of last-minute regulatory actions. Two days before she told her technician to purge all her records, EPA had gone to court to file a motion opposing the federal court injunction protecting those government documents.

Plausible deniability? Not bloody likely.

This is over and above the problem that Brown is an enviro radical of the worst kind. The last thing this supposed “energy czar” cares about is producing energy.

If the GOP Senate can’t filibuster this nomination, they might as well go home and tell their kids, and constituents, that crime pays.

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It’s hard to work up a lot of sympathy in reaction to Newsweek’s job cuts given their irresponsible support of flat-out heresy. Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, in a hard-drive saver, kicks to the curb Judith Miller’s breathtakingly irresponsible essay.

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IBDeditorials.com had a great editorial and accompanying graph on the middle class tax burden and real incomes:

Willisms emphasized the valid point that the middle-class tax burden has gone down under Bush.

Of course, the long-term consequences of the bipartisan SUCKUP (Seemingly Unlimited Cash Kitty Under Paulson) could ruin all of that in the coming years.