Nobrainer’s Think Tank

From Jacob Sullum at Reason

Last week Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said “the Obama administration believes that decisions about medical care should be made by a woman and her doctor, not a woman and her boss.” Yet her boss not only retained the market-distorting, price-inflating tax policies that create an artificial incentive for employer-provided health insurance; he made the connection between employment and medical coverage mandatory, then decreed exactly what it would include, thereby precipitating this whole controversy. If President Obama does not want employers involved in medical coverage, why is he forcing them to be?

I must say, I love the concept of the Volt, at least from a technological perspective. An electric car with a relatively efficient on-board motor makes sense to me. It’s unfortunate, then, that there is little else to love. I’ve got a list of three major Volt blunders.

1) The advertisers of the Volt are clearly quite skilled. In print and in commercials, none of the images capture what I see every time I see one of these cars in real life. Each Chevy Volt looks like the bastard offspring of a Prius and a Kia.

2) GM opted for a 40-mile, electric only range. Unfortunately this jacked up the price by something like $10k over what it would be with a 20-mile range. For the life of me I can’t figure out why they aren’t selling cars with a smaller battery, lower all-electric range, and lower sticker price. Well maybe I can. Which leads me to point 3.

3) It’s all political. This arguably is the cause of problem 2. It is also leading to terrible advertising. “It’s The Car America Had To Build,” goes the Tim Allen voiceover. The car has been overhyped for years. Now that sales are entirely lackluster, GM is going all “patriotic duty” to try to get them off the lot. I, for one, would love to have an overpriced, heavily subsidized car because I feel like I’m being told I have to. That or GM is trying to say that, literally, this is the car that its government owners forced them to build.

Apparently Facebook thinks I like wine. Here’s a screen capture of the ads they showed me a few minutes ago:

And maybe I do like wine.

Here, in a nutshell, is why I hate right-wing media:

Drudge links first to World Net Daily, then to the Washington Times.

In reverse, order, the Washington Times is a near-total waste. Linked as “‘Forgery‘. . .”, it is nothing except a story about a story about someone claiming a possible forgery.

Then there’s World Net Daily. Short of stroking Sheriff Joe’s, er, um, ego, they barely say anything other than to watch some six video clips proving “probable cause” that Sheriff Joe is an unceasing attention whore. They don’t establish any good reason why Sheriff Joe is doing this at all. And in the few minutes of video I could endure, all I gathered is that for Sheriff Joe “probable cause” has no legal definition and is simply a reflection of his attention whoring whims.

Fortunately Sheriff Joe released a report that should be easy to wade through. All you have to do to view it is feed WND your name and email address and agree to sign up for their newsletter. Yeah, as if that sounds legitimate for a news organization.

Srsly! WTF?

A few weeks ago I drove across town and noticed my brakes were working perhaps too well; I was slowing down faster than usual when I wasn’t applying any pressure to brake pedal. I stopped the car, got out, and walked around. On the right rear I noticed my disc brake glowing red (something like what you see at about the 1:10 mark in the video at the bottom). I took it to the mechanic who informed me that my car, with 45,000 miles on it, had a bad brake caliper. I paid many hundreds of dollars to have it replaced. About a week later, my car started flashing warning lights. Back to the mechanic. Fortunately my mechanic is awesome, realized that the new caliper was defective and still under warranty. The second new caliper was completely free aside from the time spent and exercise gained walking from the mechanic’s to my office.

Well, guess what happened today?

If you guessed that my new caliper stopped working you would be wrong. If you guessed that my left brake caliper now seems to be doing the exact same thing, then step right up and claim your prize.

So this is all to say that I really want to thank Government Motors and their former division known as Pontiac for making a car, that if not exceeding in quality, is at least high on the charts for consistency. So later today it’s back to the mechanic.

I received this email on the 10th [emphasis mine]:

Dear [NOBRAINER],

This notification is confirmation that your 2 AMC Theatres® Silver Experience” Movie Tickets and 2 has been shipped via USPS by our distribution center to the following address:

[NOBRAINER]
[Nobrainer's Street Address]

[Northern Virginia]

The estimated delivery date for your order is: 15 – 20 business days

I know the US Mail can be a bit unreliable, but to put the minimum estimate at 3 weeks is insulting.

For the record, I received my tickets on the 13th. [Admittedly I believe the powers-that-be at the USPS make sure the mail runs very well in and around DC, likely at the expense of the rest of the country.]