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ARLINGTON, Va. - The head of California's air pollution agency urged federal regulators yesterday to reverse a Bush-era decision that blocks the state from setting its own limits on greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles.

Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, told a packed Environmental Protection Agency hearing just outside Washington that if the state is unable to control the gases blamed for global warming from cars and trucks, its other air pollution problems will get worse.

I really have no problem with this. The auto industry just won't sell their wares in California. It will be a nice quaint little state with horse drawn carriages. The "big three" need to tighten their belts and produce a lesser number of vehicles anyway so that demand catches up with supply before they can get back to a profitable nature. I'd like to see GM, Ford and Chrysler absolutely decimate their work staff so that the UAW is basically a non-entity. Then, the "big three" can start from scratch building a limited number of economical and stylish vehicles in limited quantity.

Eventually, demand will dictate profits and dealers won't be able to keep them on the lot. They can start their "do-over" by concentrating on specific markets (read: not California or any other "progressive nonsense" state that emerses themselves in junk science to feel better)

Were California to fall into the Pacific Ocean someday, I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you...

DETROIT (AP) — Negotiators for the United Auto Workers walked out of concession talks with General Motors Corp. Friday night in a dispute over payments to a union-administered retiree health care fund, a person briefed on the talks said Saturday. The breakdown comes at a critical time as GM races against a Tuesday deadline to submit a plan to the government showing how it can become viable.

The Detroit-based auto giant is living on $9.4 billion in government loans, and the Treasury Department must approve its viability plan for GM to get $4 billion more. Chrysler LLC, which has received $4 billion in government loans and wants an additional $3 billion, faces the same deadline.

At GM, UAW negotiators walked away because the company made demands that were "detrimental to retirees and the ability to provide health care," according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.

Unions...gotta love their brash inability to grasp the obvious and the inevitable. The UAW turned their back because "the company made demands that were detrimental to retirees." So, instead of offering concession for the prolonged existence of their employer, they are perfectly content to apply the "scorched Earth" approach. Surely, they don't think they have negotiating leverage. And, why is the management even entertaining a negotiation. They finally have the leverage to say "either you accept this plan...or you start sending out resumes...because we are finished..."

It's all reminiscent of the scene from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." They are wedged on the side of a cliff. The posse is closing in, and their only viable option is to jump to a precarious looking river way below.

Butch Cassidy: Then you jump first.
Sundance Kid: No, I said.
Butch Cassidy: What's the matter with you?
Sundance Kid: I can't swim.
Butch Cassidy: Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.

Barney needs a Thesaurus...and a frontal lobotomy

Heh...Matthew Hoy (HoyStory) makes a valid point concerning Barney Frank's understanding of the word 'viable."

"If they give Detroit $25 billion dollars, and it turns out that that isn’t enough to save them, how excactly is Frank going to get that money returned?"

For some reason, this reminds me of an embezzler sitting on the witness stand while the prosecutor levies questions in an effort to recover the money. Who remembers Jawad Hashim?

Jawad Hashim raises his chin slightly, looking directly into the video camera recording his statement. Droves of lawyers hover. They all want to know just what Hashim did with several tens of millions of Arab dollars that disappeared more than a decade ago.

...

"Where did the $20,000 go?" Gaffney asks.

"On what I spent it, I really have to figure out," Hashim, who has master's and doctorate degrees from the London School of Economics, replies. "Because I don't know. I can't remember."

Gaffney rephrases the question.

"Did you buy anything?"

Hashim pauses, casts a glance toward his attorney, and replies: "Probably. I bought two shirts. Yes. Some socks. Shampoo."

And so it goes.

Hour after hour. Day after day. Gaffney presses Hashim for details. Slowly, very slowly, information starts to emerge. Sometimes, information that Hashim failed to disclose on his sworn bankruptcy filing. Sometimes, information that catches the attention of a federal bankruptcy fraud task force.

A bank account here. A few hundred thousand dollars over there. A mysterious offshore company. Complex real estate deals. Cash spirited out of Canada in suitcases. Bundles of checks, endorsed by other people, given to Hashim to cash whenever he wishes.

I can only imagine how the big three are going to answer similar questions next year. Oh,...wait...that's right, the United Auto Workers (UAW) have a knife to the neck of the auto industry. In short, a filed Chapter 11 restructuring would result in renegotiated UAW contracts and loss of UAW workers (hence, loss of UAW member fees that eventually find their use politically on that left side of the aisle). So, the necessity to pump up the industry...even solidify a "nationalization" of sorts is instrumental to the propogation of the Americ...Amer...of the...uh...hmmmm...Democratic party.

Nevermind...Detroit will pay off the $25 Billion with a portion of the $75 Billion they get next year. THAT'S SHOWING A PROFIT...RIGHT BARNEY!!