Hold Your Nose or Hold Your Tongue

We have a "presumptive nominee." I don't need to repeat what a hard-fought battle it was—and battle IS the right word considering that their strategies relied almost exclusively on attacking each other—nor do I have to express surprise. the numbers were not in Hillary's favor, and the reasons why can be debated evermore, but not here. She's out, he's in, and just as we did when Bush stole the first election, it's time to Move On.

What I will say is that my pragmatic view of the results is at odds with many ardent Hillary supporters, mostly women, who have said publicly that they would rather vote for John McCain than Barack Obama, or that they will just stay home on election day. Words can barely express how angry this makes me, so instead I'll just lay out the positions side-by-side.

Let's take the second one first since it's the "easiest." (See the next post for #2) To those voters who would stay home out of pique I say , "How DARE you?" You cannot possibly have been supporting Hillary for the right reasons if you would abdicate your Constitutional right to make your voice heard when it counts most.

• What's that? You say one voice doesn't make a difference, especially with out outdated electoral college rigamarole? Wrong-o. If the 2000 election had been decided fairly, Al Gore would have won—on the basis of the popular vote. That means YOU.
  
  
• Okay, so your conscience won't allow you to vote for someone with whom you have ideological differences. Even assuming the next-to-impossible odds that you have ever agreed with everything—that is, 100%—a candidate says and does, how will your conscience feel if John McCain wins because all the rational people stayed home? Make no mistake: John McCain is Bush III—and potentially much, much worse.
  
  
• If you don't vote, you have no right to bitch. So what would you rather do—hold your nose for thirty seconds and vote (for Obama), or hold your tongue for four years

How are you spending YOUR stimulus check?

Recently the government mailed taxpayers a so-called "stimulus" check (these didn't go to the people who need them most, of course, namely those who didn't earn enough to have to pay taxes in the first place). The idea was that grateful Americans would rush out and spend their $600 windfall (actually, more like a rebate on the taxes they DID pay) on wide-screen televisions and investment broker fees, all in the name of shoring up our sagging economy. Realistically, it probably went into the tanks of all those 15-20 mpg SUVs.

It cost me $52 to fill up my Subaru last week. I can't even fathom the cost of filling the cars I see most often in my area: Navigators (12c/17h mpg), Land Cruisers (12c/15h mpg), Caravans (12c/24h mpg), Odysseys (12c/24h mpg), Escalades (12c/18h mpg), Suburbans (13c/17h mpg), and Hummers (12c/17h mpg). Makes my Subaru (20c/26h mpg) seem like an engineering marvel.

The Hummer has to be the prime example of the American Dream gone horribly wrong. It's a bad joke: an urban assault vehicle (almost none of them go off-road) that's exempt from federal fuel economy standards—because it weighs too much!—AND the gas guzzler tax (because it's a "truck"). At today's prices it costs about $120 to fill the tank, and given the average commute (and 85% of people drive to and from work by themselves), at 15 mpg...let's just say that the "stimulus" check would probably go towards a tank of gas and a cartful of groceries. (BTW: I'm not alone in my disdain. At least all I wield is vitriolic prose, unlike these guys.) See also this BBC story on the Hummer v. Prius twaddle.

This paragraph is an intentional digression. We will return to our regular programming following this message from our sponsor (me). There has been a Rush Limbaugh-fueled hoax burning its way through the Internet blogosphere to the effect that "the Hummer is ultimately more environmentally friendly than the Toyota Prius." Like most of what Limbaugh spews, this is patently ridiculous. While there are many posts that try to put this lie to rest, the best, most-reasoned, point-by-point discussion of why this statement is horse doo-doo is this article by Brenden I. Koerner in Slate.

Recently I read an article that tried to explain to me (mathematically challenged) why not cashing a $600 stimulus check actually made better financial sense than cashing it. The bottom line, as I understand it, is that thanks to Bush's $3.5-billion-a-week boondoggle, the government had to borrow the $168 billion it cost for the stimulus package. Now, if I fully understand it, this is about like charging those $300 and $600 checks against a big old VISA card. Speaking as one who cringes whenever she hears the words "Capital One," I can say that this is a very bad idea. The author, former stock broker Max Keiser, can explain it better than I, but I like his idea of holding onto the checks as mementos, and maybe even trading them on eBay. Now there's some creating financing.

I'd love to hear where you spent YOUR stimulus check (if you got one). Add your comments here. Maybe I'll set up a poll, too. I know if I HAD received a check it would have gone to Capital One...though it probably wouldn't even cover the interest on that debt given the exorbitant rates/fees credit card companies are allowed to charge. But that's a rant for another time...


Gas pump © Robert Mizerek | Dreamstime.com
(That's his typo, too.)