Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Obama Spending Cuts Demonstrated

Ford Fusion hybrid hypermiles, goes 1,445 miles on a single tank

Ford Fusion hybrid hypermiles, goes 1,445 miles on a single tank

While not nearly as fun as fast high g-force acceleration, here are tips for saving on fuel from the article:

CleanMPG.com founder Wayne Gerdes, an engineer from Illinois who coined the term "hypermiling" to describe the mileage-maximizing techniques, provided the pointers. They include:

* Slowing down and maintaining even throttle pressure;
* Gradually accelerating and smoothly braking;
* Maintaining a safe distance between vehicles and anticipating traffic conditions;
* Coasting up to red lights and stop signs to avoid fuel waste and brake wear;
* Minimize use of heater and air conditioning to reduce the load on the engine;
* Close windows at high speeds to reduce aerodynamic drag;
* Applying the "Pulse and Glide" technique while maintaining the flow of traffic;
* Minimize excessive engine workload by using the vehicle's kinetic forward motion to climb hills, and use downhill momentum to build speed; and
* Avoiding bumps and potholes that can reduce momentum

Monday, April 27, 2009

Friday, April 24, 2009

Government Says Economy Down 1.74%, but Tax Receipts are down 14%?

BizzyBlog » When Will the Press Catch On to Uncle Sam’s Collections Meltdown?

This year, it’s shaping up to be the “Bailout Year Bummer.” Uncle Sam’s fiscal year began on October 1 of last year, mere days before Congress passed the legislation that has come to be known as TARP, and a bit more than three months after Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid promised to starve the economy of energy and punitively tax its highest producers, creating what I have since called the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy.

Through March, federal receipts were running 14% behind the previous year. Each month during the fiscal year has trailed the previous year, and degree of the difference has steadily increased.

Read the whole thing. As Maggie Thatcher once said, "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money [to spend]."

Welcome Back Carter

If there were one person responsible for awakening my conservative views (As opposed to Ronald Reagan who confirmed them) it was Jimmy Carter. I was in high school at the time and loved to argue with anyone about what a lousy president "Jimmah" made.

I never thought I would live to see someone as bad, let alone worse.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Foreclosures 46% higher in March than a year ago - USATODAY.com

Foreclosures 46% higher in March than a year ago - USATODAY.com

Foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 341,180 properties in March, 46% more than a year ago and 17% above February's total, RealtyTrac reports today.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Tax Time

Is it o.k. to call the bottom 50% of taxpayers unpatriotic?

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Mortgage delinquencies soar in the U.S.

Mortgage delinquencies soar in the U.S. | Special Coverage | Reuters

Equifax Inc, reported that 7 percent of homeowners with mortgages were at least 30 days late on their loans in February, an increase of more than 50 percent from a year earlier.
39.8 percent of subprime borrowers were at least 30 days behind on their home mortgage loans, up 23.7 percent from last year.
Adams said the continued increase in mortgage delinquencies revealed in his data foreshadows more foreclosures, short sales and home price declines as homeowners default and banks then repossess the homes to sell them at deep discounts.
Credit Cards:

Banks closed 8 million credit card accounts in February, reducing the number of open cards to 400 million from a July 2008 peak of 483 million, according to Equifax data.

Credit limits fell as well, to $3.27 trillion in February from a July 2008 peak of $3.59 trillion.

"Limits are falling because lenders are trying to minimize their losses," Adams said.

The data shows that lenders have good reason to be wary. Bank card delinquency is at its highest level in the past five years. Some 4.5 percent of total balances on bank-issued credit cards were at 60 days past due in February, a 32.7 percent increase from a year earlier.

Monday, April 06, 2009

Capturing YouTube Videos to your iPod using FireFox and Windows

Step 1. Open Firefox and follow the DownloadHelper link then click on the "Install the extension !" link

DownloadHelper - Media download Firefox extension

After you restart Firefox, go to Youtube, find a video to watch and click on it. While it is playing, click on the DownloadHelper icon on your Firefox toolbar. This will open a dialog box that will allow you to save the YouTube flash video file to you hard drive.

Step 2. Go to cnet download and download the FLV Player 2.0 Install this player. You can then click on your download .flv files and watch them on your PC. But this still does not put them into your iPod.

Step 3. Click HERE to download the Videora iPod converter. Once downloaded, install the software. You can use Videora to covert your flash files to MPEG4 format that will play on your iPod. Videora can be used to convert the file, then add it to iTunes. Use iTunes to move the files onto your iPod.