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Follow this link to the article in The Wall Street Journal.  I know what newspaper I have just given you as a link. However, this appears to be a news story and not an editorial, so there might be a smidgen of credibility in it.

During the 911 call, the operator urged Mr. Sikes to shift the car into neutral. He later said he was afraid doing so might cause the car to “flip” or shift into reverse.

What kind of ignorant driver would think that shifting to neutral would cause the car to flip over, but slamming on the brakes would not?  What kind of driver would rather crash into a wall at 95 miles per hour for sure rather than run some other kind of risk to get the car under control?

The piece I quoted isn’t even the question being raised.  The actual question is whether or not the driver actually applied the brakes as forcefully as he claimed.  I wonder if the behavior of the anti-lock brakes caused him to take his foot off the brakes.

I don’t know how many of you have experienced your anti-lock system coming into action.  In some cars it causes a rapid vibration in the brake pedal.  In some cars you may also get a bit of noise from the brakes.  If you are unaware of what is going on, you might think this is a problem and might take your foot off the break pedal.  Actually, this behavior is a sign that the anti-lock system is doing exactly what it is designed to do.  You just need to keep your foot on the brake until you regain control.

By KATE LINEBAUGH

A federal safety investigation of the Toyota Prius that was involved in a dramatic incident on a California highway last week found a particular pattern of wear on the car’s brakes that raises questions about the driver’s version of the event, three people familiar with the investigation said.

On Monday James Sikes, 61 years old, called 911 and told the operator his blue 2008 Toyota Prius had sped up to more than 90 miles per hour on its own on Interstate 8 near San Diego. He eventually brought the vehicle to a stop after a California Highway patrolman pulled alongside Mr. Sikes and offered help.

During and after the incident, Mr. Sikes said he was using heavy pressure on his brake pedal at high speeds.

But the investigation of the vehicle, carried out jointly by safety officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Toyota engineers, didn’t find signs the brakes had been applied at full force at high speeds over a sustained period of time, the three people familiar with the investigation said.

The brakes were discolored and showed wear, but the pattern of friction suggested the driver had intermittently applied moderate pressure on the brakes, these people said, adding the investigation didn’t find indicators of the heavy pressure described by Mr. Sikes.

Further details of the findings weren’t available.

On Friday NHTSA officials declined to comment on the inspection and couldn’t immediately be reached on Saturday.

Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the company will release technical findings very soon and declined to comment further about the vehicle’s brakes. Mr. Michels said the hybrid braking system used in the Prius would make the engine lose power if the brakes were pressed at the same time as the accelerator.

Mr. Sikes lawyer, John Gomez, said Saturday: “Regardless of the outcome of the investigation, it’s clear that there is a problem with these cars. We’re going to wait till the inspection is complete.” He said that the California Highway patrolman involved in the incident said he saw the car’s brake lights go on and that he smelled the brakes burning.

The investigation’s findings aren’t 100% conclusive and still must be finalized. But they are likely to cast doubt on how the situation was described by Mr. Sikes. The California Highway Patrol has said it has no reason not to believe Mr. Sikes, but questions have mounted in recent days, in part because the Prius has a type of technology that pulls back on the accelerator when the brake is engaged.

During the 911 call, the operator urged Mr. Sikes to shift the car into neutral. He later said he was afraid doing so might cause the car to “flip” or shift into reverse.

Mr. Sikes’s Prius is subject to a recall by Toyota to prevent the driver’s floor mat from pinning down the gas pedal that was announced in November and covers 5.4 million vehicles in the U.S.

Reports of unintended acceleration have prompted Toyota to recall more than six million vehicles in the U.S. and more than eight million world-wide. The recalls are aimed to fix the floor mat issue as well as gas pedals that can get stuck.

Follow this link to make a contribution to the effort by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

I would not normally post a link showing a segment from The Ed Show. I consider him to be a blowhard on the left almost in the image of Rush on the right. However, this piece does seem worthy of consideration.

Follow this link to the CBO estimate sent to Senator Harry Reid on March 10,2010.

I have not even begun to read the 28 page report, but I did extract this paragraph from the introductory letter:

CBO and JCT now estimate that, on balance, the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting H.R. 3590 as passed by the Senate would yield a net reduction in federal deficits of $118 billion over the 2010–2019 period. Approximately $65 billion of that reduction would be on-budget; other effects related to Social Security revenues and spending as well as spending by the U.S. Postal Service are classified as off-budget. In the estimate that was provided on December 19, the estimated budgetary impact was a net reduction in deficits of $132 billion, of which approximately $81 billion would be on-budget.

I have no idea yet whether the rest of the analysis is one I would like to hear or not.  I provide the link here for the purposes of full disclosure no matter how the chips may fall.

This story may only be for the local yokels like me.

Follow this link to the story in the Worcester T & G of the above headline:  Subhead is Complaint about official opens a Pandora’s box.

I  compliment the story’s author, Craig S. Semon, for the way the story is written. He quotes what a person says and then presents what the evidence indicates.  Too much of our media just does a he says and she says without offering an independent look at the evidence.  The way this story is written harks back to the best traditions of reporting that we used to see all the time.

I voted for both of the people involved in this tiff, but I am now thinking my later vote for Tom Creamer was the right one and my earlier vote for Scott Garieri was a mistake.

We have another election coming up.  I have previously voted for both of the candidates who are running.  They each lost by minuscule margins,  one by about 4 votes and the other by 14 votes.  I wish I could figure out what these people are really like before I have to see them in action in office.

Mary Dowling for Sturbridge Selectman

James Ehrhard Candidate for Selectman

Sturbridge Political Watch a blog by Thomas Creamer.

I often read news via Google News.

Sometimes, if I am not careful, I click a link and end up on a Fox News web site.

I did find this annoying, but thought no more of it until today.

I noticed that almost all the top links to the stories take you to Fox News web site.

I was going to find a way to ask Google not to do this, when I realized that this might actually be something that Google is doing on purpose.

Have they made a pact with the devil to feature his web sites? He did threaten to forbid Google from searching his web sites for items to be linked to. He was going to take his business to Microsoft. He pretended that this was a revenue sharing issue. Perhaps he was really trying to get a monopolistic, competitive advantage over other news sources.

You don’t hear anymore about this threat. Is this the deal that Google had to make to keep him from carrying out his threat?

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I am really pleased that President Obama has chosen to tackle the health care issue.

He looked at the future budgets and found that the cost of health care was the major driving force of deficits. There was no close second.

He then bravely decided to try to fix this problem, no matter how difficult.

In modern times you have only FDR and LBJ as examples of Presidents who succeeded in taking on such major issues to help salvage the future of our country.

Despite all the slings and arrows, and propaganda waged against him, he persists.  He has the support of a large enough segment of the population to get this through.  He knows that he has to keep the people on board with what he is trying to do.

Unlike Clinton, who didn’t keep campaigning for his program after he got elected, Obama keeps countering the mountain of publicity arrayed against him.

Clinton felt constrained by lack of funds to promote his program against the huge amount of money the corporate world used against him (Harry and Louise).

Obama has found the way, using the internet, to raise the needed funds and to keep his army of supporters out in the field working with him.

This is the kind of change that I voted for.

This is in reaction to my post Fight Fear With Positive Vision. It is from my cousin, EricK, a Massachusetts pediatrician.

I agree with all you wrote in your blog. I think we must start somewhere. This is not even close to being a good health care bill, but is has some very good parts. It is my feeling if we do nothing as the Republicans want, we will all be in deep trouble. If we start with this one and it has problems, at least we have a framework to build on. Anything can be changed if it is not working. We must not have nothing to change. Our health care system is broken and must be fixed.

I just returned from a meeting in Florida. Also, to see my folks. At the meeting one of the talks was on our health care system, and the health of all Americans. The USA is getting increasingly worse in our health status in spite of costing more than any other major country in the world. We are now 27 th !!!! This is a disgusting disgrace. People think we have the best health care system in the world. That is absolutely not true. We certainly have some of the best hospitals in the world, but on average our health system sucks. It must stop….. or we will be a 3rd world country as far as health care goes. You may post this on your blog.

Thanks,
Eric