Back Home Again

Some just don’t get it. Battery maker A123 Systems the one time darling of the electric car visionaries has gone bankrupt. Another federal loan of 250M for a technology that cannot financial compete.

The far left crowd would like nothing more than to install all sorts of consumption taxes designed to make a success where none exists nor will exist until non renewable fuels finally no longer become cost effective. In the meantime they will have zero sympathy for those who cannot afford the fuels we have now let alone subsidizing anything that may be the future but not at this time and place. The potential consequences on the environment are clearly trumped by silly stuff like food and shelter.

Just got back from Texas and I saw one strip mall that trumped another one on a previous visit. The last time I was in Houston a mall near our hotel had a store front church, a strip joint, a pawn shop, a liquor store and a gun shop. I now saw one that had all of those accoutrements previously mentioned along with a tattoo parlor and a place to have vasectomies reversed.

In Texas you go into a place that warns of penalties for having concealed and unlicensed weapons. OK to have concealed if licensed.

San Antonio is a dump. Always has been. The redeeming feature is Riverwalk. Riverwalk is actually quite long with the new extension going into the museum area well over a mile from the main plaza area that is actually a man made bypass channel. But once you get a few blocks away from the downtown - which is quite small - it is nothing more than closed store fronts and businesses on the edge of failure. Been like that the twenty years I have visited the city.

One of the best attractions in SA is San Antonio Shoe Factory outlet. Five cent popcorn and ten cent cokes and $100 American made shoes.

The main mode of transportation in Texas is the car or more appropriately the pick up truck. The highways systems are a thing on confusing beauty. Even a GPS gets confused. The interstates will have a nice 75MPH limit.

Property values go down and taxes go up.

Some high end business types gave a slap to Congress over the deficit.

Hack holiday OT pay. Only in Massachusetts. Why is it that when a legislator attempts to address this issue he/she always has an “R” next to their name?

The stark reality is the budget has to be balanced and can only be balanced with spending cuts. IMO tax increases should only be targeted to deficit reduction and should only be implemented once you have a balanced budget. And, of course, part of the budget is always interest on public debt that is now about 10% of the budget. Without first balancing the budget the old spending behaviors will continue.

The story in Benghazi continues to get interesting. Seals on the roof of the annex compound repeatedly called for help during the 7 hour firefight but what is worse the fact that they had a laser designator that would allow air assets to precisely target shined on the mortar team that was targeting them. They called for air assets, they called in coordinates, they repeatedly told those listening that they had the target 'painted' and were ignored. The air assets were only one hour away.

The absolute worse part of this dereliction is that the drones were sending live feed to Washington of the firefight the entire time and no doubt saw the mortar rounds that killed two of the SEALS on the annex roof top from the mortar that they begged to take out.

It is absolutely sickening the dereliction, the malfeasance, and criminal negligence that this administration perpetrated and continues to this day with blatant attempts at cover-ups.

Romney will win the popular vote and probably lose the election. It also looks like no shift in Congress. In Massachusetts Warren will probably win the Senate race. Keiko will probably continue as part Middleboro rep.