We Knew We Weren't Alone

We here at Knews Not News were raised on certain rules in our formative years.  One of those rules was that honesty isn't just the best policy but the only policy in the majority of situations we would encounter in life.  If you're embarrassed or could be charged by a truthful account of your behavior, you're doing it wrong, whatever it is.  And it needs to be fixed.  ASAP.

Such a desire for decent behavior is a frequent motivator for many of our previous posts.  We know, much more money can be made acting like jerks, but it's our lance and we can point it where we want, thank you.  So we ride off again.  But on this issue we are not alone.

Al Lewis of the Wall Street Journal asks the question The Truth, Your Honor? in his column for November 13.  It's a question we have long demanded an answer to:  how do we stop any crime from happening over and over again if 1) there is no open and personally identified recognition of guilt and 2) the penalties/remedies provided are easily reached? 

It's a question we've often wondered while driving.  Someone who can afford an SUV roughly the size of a dump truck can afford a triple-digit speeding ticket much more easily than someone who makes considerably less money.  A setback like that can be met with a shrug instead of the questions "how am I going to make the rent?" or "what am I going to feed my children?"  It's an uneven burden, but we know the poor aren't going to get a pass from anything because they're poor.  No lobbyists, you know.  And we get that.  But the wrong-doer in traffic violations can at least be identified.

But not, as Mr. Lewis explains in the column linked above, if your crime is part of the 2008 ham-stringing of the United States economy. 

But they should be identified.  Someone, at some early point in this financial disaster, said, "Yes, let's do this" or "Okay, go ahead."  Someone did.  And it wasn't some communally designated flunky who can't even take their lunch without permission from a higher-up.  It was someone with a big office and a big paycheck and enough authority to set a plan in motion that earned millions of dollars for the company and wrecked the US economy and millions of lives in the process.   Someone took credit for this.  Someone got the big bonus for the increase in the bottom line.  And someone is protecting them, even while the US economy continues to founder.  We, including Mr. Lewis, we imagine, would like to know those names.  So we ask again, because no one in business or government will tell us.

Please. 

Are You Listening, Boat Anchor Manufacturers?

Check out this Des Moines Register article about how boat engines are being destroyed by using E15 gasoline in them (E15 is gasoline with 15% ethanol instead of the usual 10%).

So, let us get this straight...the government wants to offer a fuel that can't be put in small engines or any vehicle manufactured before 2001?  In order to placate the oil companies and the farmers?  Really?  How would this make sense to anyone but Congress (whose approval rating dropped to 9% last week because of stunts just like this)?

But, on the bright side, you could use your wrecked boat or car motor as an anchor.  Until the boat anchor industry wises up and starts chuckin' some cash around DC...