The Mother of All Executive Orders

Hopefully a less draconian Patriot Act or removal with Habeus Corpus and warrants for wiretapping will follow.

I wonder how long the Repubs and their idiot brigades will start screaming about a unilateral Executive Branch?

TJ/ Greedy people fight over hidden money in wall and get next to nothing: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OH_HOUSE_HIDDEN_MONEY_OHOL-?SITE=WBNSTV&SECTION=HOME

the only thing news worthy about these matters of urgent attention finally getting some, is the fact they are news worthy. these issues should have been the very top priority for a long time now. shows you how 8 years wore down the most outraged of us to some extent.

I hope the man comes up with an omnibus executive order to undo all of Bush’s retardery to the extend that the law allows, to be deployed after he and Michelle get home to 1600 following the parade, and just before they get ready for the inaugural ball.

@rptrcub:
hey, the man gave us reason to hope, right?

are you feeling better today cubbie? we’re all pissed about ‘8’ but it’s in our sights to be be shot down one day soon. and, um……rejoice, wouldja!
BARRY IS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
let’s luxuriate in that for a few days at least!

Hatred of gays “Sanctity of Marriage” to be basis for rebuilding GOP.

@baked: I’m stable, I guess you can say, though I really should pull myself from some parts of the gay interwebs (the newsy bloggy side) because it angries up the blood (looking at the Prop 8 contributor database and looking through people from Georgia who donated in support of it makes me wonder about marching on their houses. Which probably wouldn’t do a lot of good). Also, there’s a delicious irony that because of the protests on the Mormon temples, Mormons can’t get married because they shut the doors. In the LDS, you can only get married in the church for it to be all holy and crap.

@redmanlaw: How is this any departure from the way these fucktards have been for the last, oh, three decades?

@rptrcub: Technically, they can still get married in the chapel cultural centers (read: gymnasiums), but they can’t get sealed outside the temples, and sealing is a must if you’re to have your forever family on your own planet where you and your wife/wives pop out spirit children for your own other planet to be born by your people you populate your planet with. So, yeah. Close down the temples, and there will be no more sealed families, no more planets and stuff like that. BTW, the Mormon God of this planet lives on a planet named Kolob that lies somewhere near the sun. True story.

Everybody has a list for Obama. My guess is that jobs will be job no. 1. If we bail out GM, which seems likely, we ought to damn well tell them what kind of cars they need to make, and when.

@Dodgerblue: Oooh, ooh, we can haz our EV-1 back? Pleezes?

@IanJ: the Chevy Volt (see http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar) looks like it may be a decent vehicle. If Chevy lives long enough to get it to market.

@IanJ: Were they the electric cars I saw in “Who Killed the Electric Car”? That documentary made me stabby.

@Dodgerblue: If they make an Impala SS convertible with Toyota quality and 68 MPG Hybrid I am SO. FUCKING. IN.

@blogenfreude: My dad would like a hybrid Buick Electra 225 convertible. Thank you.

@blogenfreude: I preferred the Malibu, but yes, I’m in too.

I’m sorry but I’m still in la-la-floaty-land, and this post made me totally get choked up. MORE NEWZ LIEK DIS PLZ.

@Dodgerblue: I’ll take a hybrid Chevy Sierra pick up, 4 WD, crew cab.

@redmanlaw: I drive an Outback wagon now. You can haul a lot of crap in it, and I can sleep in it with the seats down — I’m 6-4. If Subie made these hybrid, they’d sell a bazillion of them.

@nojo: Damn … the Electra 225 was the ne plus ultra of BIG MURRICAN CARZ. I remember the ’64 version. More metal than 13 Honda Civics.

@Dodgerblue: Tried to get Mrs RML to get one of those when her Crown Victoria got totaled in a parking lot accident. We got a shit ass Ford Escape 2WD instead, although the price was very good as it was the dealer’s son’s college rig. The difference was $8-$10k. Two hippies showed up at the range in an Outback yesterday for target practice. One has an elk hunt this coming weekend in a real gem of a place, the Valle Caldera National Preserve near Los Alamos. These guys looked like they lived in a shack with an outhouse and a wood stove way the hell up in the woods.

@Dodgerblue: A Chevelle wagon mit serious MPG. My mom’s ’98 Malibu (which I helped her buy) has been unstoppable, and the new Malibu is chock full of quality, but tell the Accord/Camry buyers that. We came back on quality (e.g. Ford Fusion), but it’s too late.

I have a ’00 Buick Century which gets 20-22 mpg. As much as it totes helps add to ATL smog (I take public transit when I can to mitigate this) and helps with our dependence on foreign oil (ditto), the thing is paid for and I bought it for very cheap from my grandparents. The A/C doesn’t work anymore; the total mileage is 138,000, and it has some other problems, but it runs and can get me to-and-fro. Car loan right now = DO NOT WANT.

The problem is that these wonderful conserving cars are out of the reach of many Americans who are barely able to keep their mortgages in check, along with food on the table. I know they never should have bought SUVs in the first place, but still. Unicorn, save us with your tax cuts! And please to be giving me something to make up for the fact I do not have childrens and can’t get the EICs.

@blogenfreude: We had a 225 in the ’70s — and, about the same time, one of the first Civics. (Dad car, Mom car.) Those early Civics were truly tin cans, rivaling Beetles for their inability to stay in their lane during wind gusts.

These days I have a late-model Civic, and Honda learned something about Murrican tastes in the interim. You can slam its doors hard. In fact, the car insists on it. My post-explosion model Pinto would be jealous.

TJ: New Jersey councilman pulls an R. Kelly while at da club.

@rptrcub: Club sources also tell the Daily News that this is not the first drunken incident involving the New Jersey councilman at the Washington nightclub, adding that it was, however, the first time he had urinated on someone.

Just what do Club Sources keep in their database?

@nojo: Perhaps diaper incidents, coke binges and accidents in the champagne room.

Got a ’92 Legend with 212K on it. I’m thinking it will get Jr, SFL and me to the inauguration in style if the fender doesn’t fall off. Recently sold my ’97 Accord with 44K on it. Sad times. I was broke. But I will never ever buy another Ford after the nightmare Escort and Taurus I owned. My red convertible Solara was a dream. Too bad that went in the divorce. Sigh.

But on a lighter note, I just finished my first 15 minute guided meditation CD. JR says I look stoned. I’m amazed that that shit really works. My only problem is my breathing — my inhales are much longer than my exhales. Maybe it’s the nascent emphysema I’m sure I have.

@rptrcub: Diogenes Ian peed on people, too. What’s a little pee amongst friends?

’91 Buick LaSabre. What a piece. The heat doesn’t work, and the driver’s side window is permanently open about 1/2 an inch.

@Dodgerblue: Subaru needs to reissue the 1987 GL station wagon with hybrid drive. I remember getting unreal mileage with the thing in 2WD mode – and it still hauling power to carry 5 musicians, their stuff and stands – with the air conditioning running. Very safe and cheap car to make and very aerodynamic. Hybrid, it could probably get 65 mpg, easy. Old Subaru afficianados would go completely nuts.

@JNOV: That’s the one, but don’t believe the movie, it definitely had its biases.

DB, I agree that the Volt looks very promising. That’s how hybrid should be done. A single-speed IC engine can be made highly efficient, and an electric motor starts out highly efficient. Pair them together, and you get a great system that can be kept topped off via distressingly cheap (compared to gas) electricity.

@blogenfreude: I tried to find one when I needed a car for work and morning classes in college. Ended up with the 1969 Buick LaSabre convertible. Pretty rusted out but it had great heat, so you could drop the top in snow storms and cruise around with a cup of Dunkie’s coffee and pretend you were in a sleigh.

The Aptera is probably my next car, even though it looks kind of Logan’s Run-y. And built right here in Sandy Eggo!

@FlyingChainSaw: I recall a similar car – ’68 or so LTD convertible or something similar … first car I ever drove w/ power brakes, and that was in the snow. We did donuts in the high school parking lot. All I remember is a lot of brake bleeding in my pal’s driveway, b/c we had to replace LOTS of components.

who remembers the olds 442? high school, my first car, it ate about 5 bucks a minute in gas, but we were clueless and gas was .45 a gallon.
the car was an animal-FAST.
and the engine when idling went babababababa.
god, i loved that ride.
used to race it near philly’s NE airport where they had great straightaways. decater road anyone?
then the parentals sent me to miami with a pinto, really! (with the exploding gas tank!)
is it wrong of me to think they knew?

That pooping elephant, and the woman catching the poop, is grossing me out. Can we get a new post with a new picture, please? Pretty please?

Support for bringing back assault weapons ban scrubbed from change.gov.

@rptrcub: Oh good god. I go there for shows all the time. I usually grab a spot up top to see the stage better and to avoid even the remote possibility of some idiot dropping a glass on my head. It had never occurred to me to be on the lookout for golden showers.

@Pedonator: Good God, that looks like something straight out of every 70s futuristic type movie. It’s kinda frightening, in a way.

@redmanlaw: Had to. The Adkisson Brigades are clearing out stocks of AKs and AR-15s and they had to assuage their fears of a general dis-arming of America. It would be a good business news feature to find out the going rate for conversion kits to bring these assault rifles up to full-auto spec.

@blogenfreude: You can still run them dry, can’t you? Had a 68 Fury III – no paint, all flaked off leaving this psycho pastiche of blue paint flakes, primer and bare metal. Normally aspirated 383, no brakes and an electrical system so gone I had to jump on the trolley with the battery to have it flashed charged before driving to work. In the winter, I couldn’t use the heater or the lights and to keep the windows from frosting I had to keep the windows open. Insanely powerful. In the predawn hours, I’d punch it to get home fast so I could get some sleep before morning classes, and the freaking thing would sound like it was tearing itself off of the motor mounts.

@JNOV: I dunno how many people I know who have an Accura something or a Honda something with 200+ or 300+ miles on them who’ve just given them away still working well to family members.

@FlyingChainSaw: Seriously. The winters have been hard on its body, but the engine still purrs and the transmission doesn’t slip. I’m thinking we’ll put 300K on it before it gives up the ghost.

@JNOV: Yeah, from all accounts you will whiz by 300K and even if the body has disappeared the drive train will just keep on humming onto 400K.

Some self-serving Wall Street types have recommended that Honda get out of the car business and just develop drive trains like Intel makes CPUs because they’d perfected the technology. A lot of crap. Just an interest in making money chopping up the company.

I can’t wait until battery drive is main stream – and Sony, Samsung, Sharp, Matsushita, Rayovac and Tonka can start popping out automobiles.

@baked: The 442 was an awesome car. Insanely overpowered, handled well with the police package, had the weird Hurst shifter option. But, y’know, in LA traffic — I was next to a guy in a new Ferrari on the freeway last week, and we were going nowhere at the same snail’s pace.

@Dodgerblue: OOohh, government cars, can I has a Lada, or maybe a Trabant? Just kidding, dodger, but we could change the classification of sport utes and light pickups to “car” so their fuel efficiency gets included in the fleet averages, that would be huge. Hybrids and electrics will come, and will gradually become dominant, as gas will never be cheap again, what with the hyperinflation to come soon making our money worthless on the international oil market.

@baked: I had the Ford equivalent, a 1972 Torino with a genuine, real, 351 Cleveland Cobra Jet. It was 330 horsepower off the showroom floor, I had a Holley double pumper, a 3/4 cam, and glasspacks, probably got me a few more, it burbled at Idle and roared when you punched it, and it had a four on the floor, would smoke them in all 4 gears.

Oh, there is a huge nostalgia for the old muscle cars, but people, do you have any idea what Detroit is putting out now? The new mustangs, the performance versions they put out now, get up towards 500 horsepower, and the equivalents from chevy and chrysler do as well, more power than anyone dreamed of back in the 60s and 70s. They’re flat out dangerous.

@FlyingChainSaw: Ohh, subaru, noone here is a hot rodder, do you all know that the current Subaru CRX can beat a porsche in the quarter mile? 0 to 60 in 4.3 seconds. Ugly as sin and to look at them you would just think they are a little rice burner tricked up with a hood scoop and a spoiler, but they perform like german cars that cost 3 times as much. The golden age for muscle cars is right now, in 10 years, as we drive our electrics around, we will look back on these days as the high point of internal combustion performance cars.

@blogenfreude: My sister had a chevy Caprice coupe, remember big two-doors, like the Caddilac Eldorado, a block long, the doors were six feet long, the bench seats were sooooo wide you coould sit 4 people across, if you and your date were angry, you could get so far apart you coould not reach the other person, and if you were feeling friendly, car sex was not just possible, it was comfortable, not the gymnastics feat it is now.

I loves me some car sex, its like nostalgia mixed with pervy thrill, yum yum. Once a year at least, you got to make a point of it, even just road head.

We used to stuff thirteen teenagers into an Impala for pizza after the football game, but you people are starting to frighten me. How many of you will fess up to reading CARtoons?

As far as what really is the first priority, its the economy, stupid.

The republican meme now is that its all negative economic gloom and doom reporting that is depressing consumer confidence, the stock markets, and retail. In other words, its the liberal media’s fault.

The fact is, the media is downplaying and ignoring the real situation.

What happened is this: the US economy collapsed 2 months ago. Construction died a year ago, but that happens all the time, and it hurts, but we get through it. The real estate market died. But in September, everything else crashed.

Modern business is based on hair-thin calculations, mortgaged and leveraged to the hilt (MBA’s think its criminal NOT to try to leverage all the equity you have) fixed costs, most importantly debt service on all the loans, “leveraging” really just means borrowing a lot, and businesses now run on the modern model of maximizing leverage simply cannot cut costs in a significant slowdown enough to survive, they call them “fixed costs” because they can’t be cut when sales fall. Our retail economy cannot, simply cannot survive 2 months of sales reduced by 50% to 25%.

Over the next few months, the effects of what has already happened and cannot be reversed, by anything, no possible measure can prevent the effects of what has already happened from continuing their negative ripple effect through our economy.

It is gonna get significantly worse before there is any possibility of improvement. We are gonna see double digit unemployment, even by the fraudulently jiggered numbers we use now, and we are gonna see double digit inflation again, too, again, even using the fictitious measurements now used.

We will survive, I am not predicting an apocalypse, but its gonna be worse, and for longer, than ever in our lifetimes.

@nojo: I read Jalopnick, its the most entertaining of all the Gawker sites. Except Fleshbot.

@Promnight: The Tesla electric car will allegedly do 0-60 under 4 seconds. But I don’t think you’d hear anything except tire and wind noise. No engine growl, howl, yowl.

@Dodgerblue: My FSM, yesterday when Mr. SFL and I were driving home from Napa, we were talking about my dream of someday making enough money to buy a Prius for me, and how much we wished his Subaru Outback came in a hybrid mode, since he actually has to drive on fire trails and backroads for his job. We figure that our non-breeding status and daily use of mass transit for our commutes makes up for his 22 mpg wagon that sits out on the street and is used only on weekends and work trips.

@rptrcub: I love the 9:30 Club! All my favorite techno-rock-goth-punk bands played there in the late ’80s/early ’90s.

@Dodgerblue: Alas, the company is going under. They appear to be doomed.

@SanFranLefty: I absolutely demand that you stop feeling guilty and stop thinking you personally must be an early adopter in order to be virtuous. The problem is ginormous and won’t end until the solution is universal. The stage is set now for the solution, we must support our automakers as they produce one.

And I am gonna go all off the reservation here. The Prius is a public relations thing. My diesel Jetta got much better mileage. If americcans could all just decide to go with the same cars with less powerful conventional engines, I bet we could reduce gasoline consumption by 25%. I mentioned earlier, that modern muscle cars have much much more power than cars in the heyday of muscle cars, in the 1970s.

In the 1970s, when emissions standards came into effect, the modifications made to reduce emissions destroyed horsepower, from the mid 70s to the mid 80s a chevy V-8 350, a big engine, a very big engine, put out like 160 horsepower, and got 15 mpg. Thats what we put in our biggest american cars. Japanese cars were more fuel efficient in those days simply because they were small and weak, this example is not a japanese car, but an early very fuel efficient car, the diesel Rabbit, put out only about 50 horsepower.

Today, as I mentioned, big american engines put out 250 up to 500 horsepower. My Toyota Rav 4 V-6 is like 220 horsepower, way more than a 70s corvette.

Whats been happening is that as engines have gotten way way more efficient, people have opted in choose more power and the same mileage, rather than less power and better mileage.

We could do better than having everyone buy a Prius, tomorrow, if everyone just opted for the smallest engine available for the car they buy, and just live with the fact that they are gonna accelerate slower.

Cars are more powerful now, especially when you look at power to weight ratios. My Rav-4 is ridiculously overpowered, its scary.

If people were willing to live with the power output they got from inefficient engines in the 70s, they could reduce their fuel usage very very considerably.

The Prius is great public relations, great marketing, but its not the answer. They want you to feel guilty for not having one, its marketing genius.

But just buying a small car and driving sensibly, that would do more. Thats how europe has dealt with $4.00 a gallon gas for the last 15 years.

@JNOV: I am going to agree. I drank WAY too much last night (I was like seriously falling down, not-able-to-walk drunk, which I actually don’t recall ever being in my life) and I was so hungover this morning that when I saw this picture I almost yakked (again).

It has not been a pleasant day.

@homofascist: Was it a mere physical hangover or a metaphysical hangover? Live through it, bro. (On 2d martini after being sick and tired all day, and spending three hrs cleaning the garage. I even inventoried the ammunition.)

And you know what? Sometimes you have to kick out the jams, but alcohol being the random drug it is, perhaps the 7th whiskey sour or 12th beer or 10th double martini may not have been the best idea. Make sure you got all your body parts, significant others still (however guardedly) love you, and you’re not in jail and move on.

Nothing like a early winter buzz – the smell of woodsmoke, candles, the bracing air . . .

@Dodgerblue: @Promnight:

first of all, i ain’t buying the tesla beating my 911 that’s sitting in florida.
not with me behind the wheel anyway.
and whoa, does my jeep rubicon have power! it’s a very thirsty machine but drives straight up verticle buildings! it’s my 2nd fave car after the 442. my friends used to say, don’t honk, i can hear the engine.
muscle cars need to make noise dammit! bababababababa.
i’m a bad american, i like power in my cars, there are too many assholes on the road and one must be able to manuever and quickly!
i bought my daughter a saturn for her 16th b-day, and if ever a kid earned it, she did. anyway, still running, still, with over 100k mi. dreamy car. as was her jetta and mazda, other gifts for academic achievment, long sold, but still running.
we change cars a lot in our family. my dad has some mystical calculation re resale, (he hates interest and taxes above all things)

i remember the 442 meant 400 horse, duel exhaust, but what was the other 4? that car was not meant for commuting…meant for dragging!

a good compromise is the boxter. rat had one, that i commandeered, and it was a sweet ride. easy to handle, not terrible on fuel, the engined purred, lettig you know it was waiting when you were ready to hit the pedal to the metal.

fun fact: porsche drills holes in the pedals–less weight=more speed

@baked: Look up the power:weight ratio of your average sportbike sometime, say a Honda CBR600RR. Makes a Boxter look like a grandma wagon, plus they get 40 MPG. Which is not so much to rag on the Porsche as it is to suggest that yes, indeed, less weight = more go-fast. (Cliff’s notes version: Honda CBR600RR weighs just under 400 lbs, and puts out something like 110-120 HP, from my spotty memory. I would guess a Boxter weighs upwards of 3000 lbs, no clue on power, but it ain’t over 825 HP, which it would need to be to beat the CBR on power:weight.)

@IanJ:
i’m sold. put me on one of them and point me to the autobahn (sp?)

oh and i remembered what the other 4 was in 442–cylanders, right?

why is my spell check broken. the stinquer most spell challenged.
computer is 6 months old, the Q is loose, the alt has a cig burn, and i should only be trusted riding a tricycle, honestly.

true fact: the only time i drive is when i’m alone in the car. anyone liscenced to drive along with me, doesn’t even let me in the front seat.

@homofascist: I hope you’re feeling better, baby.

Of course I’m not surprised. And now, the unspeakable Republicans still in the House and the Senate, will grandstand against the stimulus package necessary to save us peons.