Fausta's Blog

Nice abs, too.

Standing for truth, pedestrians, and the Mexican way, at the intersection where wrestling meets traffic.

Take a look,

A Very Pedestrian Superhero Grapples With Mexico City Traffic
Peatónito, Walkers’ Masked Champion, Leads a Double Life; Has Paint, Will Travel

There is no one more neglected than Mexico City’s walkers, says Peatónito.

“The pedestrian is nobody in this city, he has been forgotten by authorities and our own citizenry,” Peatónito says. “The curious and paradoxical thing is that we are all pedestrians at some moment. As such, we have forgotten ourselves.”

The guy has his work cut out for him. Follow him on Twitter,

Jerarquía >> Peatones, especialmente personas vulnerables; ciclistas; usuarios de transporte público, transporte de carga y automovilistas.

— Peatónito (@peatonito) May 28, 2013

Hierarchy >> Pedestrians, especially vulnerable people; cyclists; public transport riders, cargo vehicles and automobiles.

Government Motors to increase Chevy Volt subsidy from $7,500 to $10,000!

ReVolt: Obama wants you to pay even more for cars nobody wants

In a speech before the Daimler Trucks North America manufacturing plant in Charlotte, N.C. today, the president delivered his answer to rising gas prices: He wants to increase the $7,500 tax credit for alternative-energy vehicles to $10,000, earmark $1 billion to reward cities that provide infrastructure for such vehicles, earmark an additional $650 million for a research program to increase the range and decrease the price of the vehicles, and repeal $4 billion of tax incentives for oil and gas companies.

Are talking about the expensive car that goes up in flames?

The one whose manufacturer stopped production due to low demand?

The one getting over $256,000 in subsidies per vehicle?

Oh, yes.

Warms the cockles of your heart, doesn’t it?

UPDATE:
Via Instapundit: Volt for you, but not for Chu.

Volt production on hold for 5 weeks

General Motors has told 1,300 employees at its Detroit Hamtramck that they will be temporarily laid off for five weeks as the company halts production of the Chevrolet Volt and its European counterpart, the Opel Ampera.

“Even with sales up in February over January, we are still seeking to align our production with demand,” said GM spokesman Chris Lee.

“Seeking to align our production with demand” = nobody wants them so we can’t keep making them, in spite of the fact that the total amount of state and federal subsidies for each Chevy Volt sold is as much as $256,824 per vehicle.

Maybe Obama’s still on time to buy one, there must still be plenty of Volts on the dealers’ lots,

Related:
Coinkadink: Obama rips small oil companies for their $4B in tax relief, which is roughly the same amount he blew on the Chevy Volt

UPDATE
Barack Obama blew more money on the Chevy Volt than the entire annual GDP of Belize.

Via Denny.

Related: Auto bailout helped Obama’s friends, at taxpayers’ expense

As gas hits $5/gallon and it’s not even Spring yet, while the government bans by decree the exploration and exploitation of our natural resources,
Allen West fills Hummer, blames Obama

Rep. Allen West says he is not happy that he had to spend $70 this week to fill up the gas tank of his Hummer, and he’s directing his anger at President Barack Obama.

“People have asked me before is there any area where I could praise President Obama? Certainly, he has an impeccable penchant for understanding the power of the bully pulpit,” the Florida Republican wrote on his Facebook page Thursday. “President Obama is also very adept at promulgating deceptive language masquerading as policy, actually just insidious political gimmickry.”

He continued, “This ‘tax policy’ is an example as well as today’s speech on his ‘energy policy’ shall be. Here is the bottom line, last night it took 70 dollars to fill the tank of my 2008 H3 Hummer, what is it costing you? What does it cost the president to fill his gas tank?”

Truck on, Congressman!

What the hey??
Mercedes-Benz Uses Communist Madman Che Guevara to Sell Luxury Cars

Mercedes forgets that

Che Guevara, not to put too fine a point on it, was a psychopath whose sadistic lust for blood was not easily quenched. He killed for pleasure.

As Ed Driscoll puts it, The Baader Meinhof Complex comes full circle.  Or, is it Stockholm Syndrome for marketers?

(updated with photo)

Drumroll, please!

Yay! The Chevy Volt!

Yessss!
The bland little car that looks like every other forgettable little car in the parking lot, each costs $230,000 of taxpayer subsidies, and gives new meaning to burning rubber when it catches on fire.

Only Netflix’s Qwikster, and A&F’s push-up bra for little girls could top that, but, for my taxpayer bang-for-the-$230,000-bucks, the Volt is #1.

Government Motors: Wasting your money in the most hazardous way.

UPDATE
I left one out,
Obama gets two ‘awards’ for worst product failures of 2011

Obama’s second flop took sixth place.

The booby prize want to the Fiat 500 auto, which administration officials touted when they arranged for Fiat to buy the ailing Chrysler company.

“The car was expected to be a big seller, rivaling BMW’s Mini… [and] Fiat expected to sell 50,000 500s during 2011 in North America,” according to the Yahoo! Finance Top 7 list. However, “Fiat sold fewer than 12,000 [and] sales were so poor that Chrysler Group, which manages the Fiat brand in the United States, ousted U.S. chief Laura Soave this past November,” noted Yahoo.

UPDATE 2:
ALL VOLTS RECALLED!
Chevy Volts Called Back By GM For Battery Fixes

GM is making the repairs after three Volt batteries caught fire following crash tests done by federal safety regulators.

Fire hazard.

A proposed taxi medallion law would limit supply, increase prices for riders, and put hundreds of cab drivers out of work in Washington, DC:

The total number of medallions would be capped at 4,000, which would reduce the current number of cabs by more than one-third and put thousands of drivers out of business.
…
If that weren’t bad enough, most drivers wouldn’t have the option of buying a medallion. The first set of medallions would be offered for sale to the minority of cabbies who have been driving for at least five years and who live in Washington D.C. (Again the city government has no idea how many current drivers meet this criteria, but rising real estate prices and weak city services have led many drivers to leave the district.)

Who will be offered the next set of medallions, according to the bill? That would be cab companies, who could then rent medallions to drivers. This system would destroy the relatively open-access taxi industry in D.C., in which the majority of drivers are owner-operators free to make their own schedules and keep whatever money they earn on the job. In cities such as New York and Boston, drivers pay upwards of $800 a week to rent their medallion

Let’s go to the videotape,

Kill the medallion bill!

President Obama has scheduled a 4-hour campaign stop in Puerto Rico tomorrow, as part of his campaign trip to Florida and North Carolina in the same day. Mickey Kaus posts,

Don’t run up the score too early, Mr. President: According to Politico, Obama’s attempt to woo Puerto Ricans with a vist to their home island “underscores the Obama campaign team’s effort to build some security into the president’s reelection bid.” Security? We’re at the “security” stage of the campaign now? I thought we were at the “desperately eking out a win somehow despite 9% unemployment” stage. …

The President is sweating it out in this recession. There are two reasons for this trip:
a. A $10,000/plate dinner at the Caribe Hilton, which aims to raise $1 million for his campaign (one local radio station said that at least $500,000 was already pledged days ago)
b. courting the 5 million Puerto Ricans like myself who live in the USA, as an attempt to counterbalance the Cuban voters in FL who traditionally vote Republican.

In other news from our Hemisphere,

ARGENTINA
Special Relationship update: Obama sides with Argentina, Hugo Chavez on Falklands

BOLIVIA
Bolivia’s illegal cars can stay
Bolivian President Evo Morales approves controversial law legalizing what critics say are stolen and smuggled foreign vehicles.

Bolivia’s stunning salt flats via Gates of Vienna

BRAZIL
Brazil’s government
Exit Palocci
The president tries to cut her losses

Battisti in Hotel with Girlfriend, 26
Cesare Battisti leaves prison with antidepressant addiction, awaiting arrival of daughters from France, via Gates of Vienna

CUBA
Spain Betrays Cuba’s Dissidents
President José Zapatero helped Castro get rid of the best leaders of the island’s nascent democracy movement.

Hugo Chavez filled with pus and purulent matter: Gets surgery in Cuba

GUATEMALA
Impunity in Guatemala
Two steps forward, one step back

HONDURAS
Honduras’s indebted economy
The cost of a coup
The country’s financial woes will last longer than its political ones

MEXICO
“Hollowed out” Mexico and hollowed-out USA

PERU
Peru’s presidential run-off
Victory for the Andean chameleon
Having reinvented himself as a moderate, Ollanta Humala has an extraordinary opportunity to marry economic growth with social progress

Amenazan de muerte a Jaime Bayly y cancelan su programa de TV

PUERTO RICO
Leguizamo’s Dad: John’s Not Puerto Rican!

VENEZUELA
Sean Penn Still Defending the Indefensible

The week’s posts,
Hugo Chavez has emergency surgery in Cuba
Argentina and the Falklands: A background post
Mount Doom covers Chile, Argentina with ash
Again, the US wants Argentina and Great Britain to enter into negotiations over Falklands???
Peru’s markets tank after Humala win
The Mexican cartels’ cokemobiles: Homemade tanks

At Real Clear World,
Brazil: Battisti released from prison

The best German engineering comes up with a better parking lot, via Maria,