WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Congress today ordered General Motors to begin
producing “as quickly as feasible” a brand new model for its Cadillac line of passenger
vehicles, the Albatross. The large, powerful, yet green, Albatross will be the first
American-made automobile to come supplied with a driver and a full contingent of
passengers.
“Redundant systems are the key to future of the American automobile which will be
made, built, designed, engineered, created and assembled right here in the U.S. of A.,
the United States of America,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, Senate majority whip.
“The Albatross will come with a government-supplied chauffeur and also a
government-mandated designated driver and a government-employed backseat driver,
in case the government-supplied chauffeur or designated-driver fails in some form or
fashion to fulfill his or her navigational obligations,” said Durbin.
The vehicle will be powered by a hybrid propulsion system of highly compressed
thermally enhanced natural atmospheric gasses and combined with methane produced
from bovine solid waste material. Outside consultants were at first skeptical of the
practicality of the drive system until government engineers demonstrated for them a
similar but more primitive system of hot air and gas that has been harnessed to heat
the United States Capitol for several hundred years.
One minor problem with the Albatross yet to be resolved is tailpipe odor.
As a flex-fuel vehicle the Albatross can also run by burning straight cellulose in what
GM engineer Duncan Klein calls reverse ATM mode.
The massive Albatross uses the principle of buoyancy using human biologic systems to
heat the atmosphere within the inflated cabin of the vehicle. The same principle is
employed to fill each of the Albatross’ 100 naturally heated airbags.
Stylistically the Albatross has “aerodynamic lines reminiscent of the Von Hindenburg
airship,” said Norma Slick of the NewWave AutoDesign Team. At present, the
Albatross is scheduled to be available in a single tint which GM calls Greenback Green.
President Barack Obama announced he is leading the way by adopting the Albatross
as the new presidential limousine. White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel said the
first official use of the Albatross will be to ferry Obama to a speech to Congress
tentatively entitled “Freeing Enterprise for the Twenty-First Century.”
In related news, the Department of Transportation announced today that in order to
reduce costs to the government a $10,000 rebate will be given on all federal
government purchases of any General Motors car. The Government Accounting Office
said that they expect this purchase incentive will save the U.S. Treasury more than
$250 billion over the next ten years as the rebates revert to the federal government on
planned purchases of more than 25,000,000 cars.
****
NC goes on Easley Plan
RALEIGH — North Carolina Senate Majority Leader Senator Tony Rand of Fayetteville
announced today that the state will be placing on a legislative fast track the “Easley
Plan,” a state stimulus package “for the ordinary taxpayer.” Under the proposal, every
taxpayer in the state of North Carolina will receive an “Easley-like deal,” worth $170,000
per year for the next five years.
Given the state’s constitutional restriction requiring a balanced budget, some legislative
analysts had been skeptical of the practicality of the plan. However, following federal
budget guidelines analysts in the legislature calculated that the total tax revenue
generated by the Easley Plan payouts including income, sales and excise taxes, when
combined with an economic impact factor multiplier, will exceed the cost of the payouts.
As with the original eponymous Easley Plan recipient, taxpayers receiving this stimulus
payment will not be required to perform any useful work in return for their payments,
and so the plan should not displace any of the currently gainfully employed workers left
in the economy.
Gary D. Gaddy once owned a General Motors automobile and had a pre-Easley Plan
job at the University of North Carolina, a wholly owned subsidiary of the North Carolina
state government.
A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday June 11,
2009.
Copyright 2009 Gary D. Gaddy
garygaddy.com 