COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

America’s Worst Wind-Energy Project


The Benefits of Wind are Blown Out of Proportion



Wind-energy proponents admit they need lots of spin to overwhelm the truly informed.

The more people know about the wind-energy business, the less they like it. And when it comes to lousy wind deals, General Electric’s Shepherds Flat project in northern Oregon is a real stinker.

I’ll come back to the GE project momentarily. Before getting to that, please ponder that first sentence. It sounds like a claim made by an anti-renewable-energy campaigner. It’s not. Instead, that rather astounding admission was made by a communications strategist during a March 23 webinar sponsored by the American Council on Renewable Energy called “Speaking Out on Renewable Energy: Communications Strategies for the Renewable Energy Industry.”

During the webinar, Justin Rolfe-Redding, a doctoral student from the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, discussed ways for wind-energy proponents to get their message out to the public. Rolfe-Redding said that polling data showed that “after reading arguments for and against wind, wind lost support.” He went on to say that concerns about wind energy’s cost and its effect on property values “crowded out climate change” among those surveyed.

The most astounding thing to come out of Rolfe-Redding’s mouth — and yes, I heard him say it myself — was this: “The things people are educated about are a real deficit for us.” After the briefings on the pros and cons of wind, said Rolfe-Redding, “enthusiasm decreased for wind. That’s a troubling finding.” The solution to these problems, said Rolfe-Redding, was to “weaken counterarguments” against wind as much as possible. He suggested using “inoculation theory” by telling people that “wind is a clean source, it provides jobs” and adding that “it’s an investment in the future.” He also said that proponents should weaken objections by “saying prices are coming down every day.”

It’s remarkable to see how similar the arguments being put forward by wind-energy proponents are to those that the Obama administration is using to justify its support of Solyndra, the now-bankrupt solar company that got a $529 million loan guarantee from the federal government. But in some ways, the government support for the Shepherds Flat deal is worse than what happened with Solyndra.

The majority of the funding for the $1.9 billion, 845-megawatt Shepherds Flat wind project in Oregon is coming courtesy of federal taxpayers. And that largesse will provide a windfall for General Electric and its partners on the deal who include Google, Sumitomo, and Caithness Energy. Not only is the Energy Department giving GE and its partners a $1.06 billion loan guarantee, but as soon as GE’s 338 turbines start turning at Shepherds Flat, the Treasury Department will send the project developers a cash grant of $490 million.

The deal was so lucrative for the project developers that last October, some of Obama’s top advisers, including energy-policy czar Carol Browner and economic adviser Larry Summers, wrote a memo saying that the project’s backers had “little skin in the game” while the government would be providing “a significant subsidy (65+ percent).” The memo goes on to say that, while the project backers would only provide equity equal to about 11 percent of the total cost of the wind project, they would receive an “estimated return on equity of 30 percent.”

The memo continues, explaining that the carbon dioxide reductions associated with the project “would have to be valued at nearly $130 per ton for CO2 for the climate benefits to equal the subsidies.” The memo continues, saying that that per-ton cost is “more than 6 times the primary estimate used by the government in evaluating rules.”

The Obama administration’s loan guarantee for the now-bankrupt Solyndra has garnered lots of attention, but the Shepherds Flat deal is an even better example of corporate welfare. Several questions are immediately obvious:

First: Why, as Browner and Summers asked, is the federal government providing loan guarantees and subsidies for an energy project that could easily be financed by GE, which has a market capitalization of about $170 billion?

Second: Why is the Obama administration providing subsidies to GE, which paid little or no federal income taxes last year even though it generated some $5.1 billion in profits from its U.S. operations?

Third: How is it that GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, can be the head of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness while his company is paying little or no federal income taxes? That question is particularly germane as the president never seems to tire of bashing the oil and gas industry for what he claims are the industry’s excessive tax breaks.

Over the past year, according to Yahoo! Finance, the average electric utility’s return on equity has been 7.1 percent. Thus, taxpayer money is helping GE and its partners earn more than four times the average return on equity in the electricity business.

A few months ago, I ran into Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy. I asked him why Duke — which has about 14,000 megawatts of coal-fired generation capacity — was investing in wind9energy projects. The answer, said Rogers forthrightly, was simple: The subsidies available for wind projects allow Duke to earn returns on equity of 17 to 22 percent.

In other words, for all of the bragging by the wind-industry proponents about the rapid growth in wind-generation capacity, the main reason that capacity is growing is that companies such as GE and Duke are able to goose their profits by putting up turbines so they can collect subsidies from taxpayers.


There are other reasons to dislike the Shepherds Flat project:
It’s being built in Oregon to supply electricity to customers in Southern California.
That’s nothing new.
According to the Energy Information Administration, “California imports more electricity from other states than any other state.” Heaven forbid that consumers in the Golden State would have to actually live near a power plant, refinery, or any other industrial facility.

And by building the wind project in Oregon, electricity consumers in California are only adding to the electricity congestion problems that have been plaguing the region served by the Bonneville Power Authority.
Earlier this year, the BPA was forced to curtail electricity generated by wind projects in the area because a near-record spring runoff had dramatically increased the amount of power generated by the BPA’s dams.

In other words, Shepherds Flat is adding yet more wind turbines to a region that has been overwhelmed this year by excess electrical generation capacity from renewables. And that region will now have to spending huge sums of money building new transmission capacity to export its excess electricity.

Finally, there’s the question of the jobs being created by the new wind project. In 2009, when GE and Caithness announced the Shepherds Flat deal, CNN Money reported that the project would create 35 permanent jobs. And in an April 2011 press release issued by GE on the Shepherds Flat project, one of GE’s partners in the deal said they were pleased to be bringing “green energy jobs to our economy.”

How much will those “green energy” jobs cost? Well, if we ignore the value of the federal loan guarantee and only focus on the $490 million cash grant that will be given to GE and its partners when Shepherds Flat gets finished, the cost of those “green energy” jobs will be about $16.3 million each.

As Rolfe-Redding said, the more people know about the wind business, the less they like it.

— Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His latest book, Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future, was recently issued in paperback.

64 comments:

  1. The Candidates’ Tax Plans Don’t Matter

    When Reagan ran in 1980, his economic policy of Kemp-Roth was important because he was running against George H. W. Bush, who did not support or understand supply-side economics.

    Democrats held the House and Senate going into 1980, so the only voice for the GOP on economic policy would be the president’s.

    Today, all the presidential candidates are for lower rates and for tax reform that is not a Trojan horse for tax hikes.

    And after the 2012 elections the GOP will be led from the House majority and the incoming Senate GOP majority. They have already tipped their hand: They will pass the Ryan Plan, which includes spending restraint, broad welfare/Medicaid block grants, entitlement reform, and tax reform, beginning with top rates dropping to 25 percent.

    The debate about 9-9-9 or Huntsman’s plan or Romney’s plan or Perry’s upcoming plan helps pass the time if Netflix hasn’t arrived. But the only real question is whether each candidate has a working thumb and forefinger and can sign the legislation Boehner and McConnell pass. We are not looking for a fearless leader. We are looking for signer in chief.

    Tax Plans

    ReplyDelete
  2. The only people who make money on wind turbines are the cronies and crony corporations involved in the trade.

    Read the article, look at GE, Democratic supporters (especially Obama supporters) all in on it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ...be nice if the Herminator could admit it so 999 doesn't sink his bid.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Biggest recipient of cash from
    Goldman Sachs
    and
    GE ?

    Barrack Hussein Obama

    ReplyDelete
  5. Denmark has to export most of its wind energy at a loss, because, guess what, the wind doesn't blow when it's needed. I see no evidence whatsoever for wind power being able to survive on it's own without subsidies. Eventually the wind farm lunacy, and the global warming "madness of crowds" that spawned it, will go the same way as the South Sea Bubble and the 17th century tulip bulb madness. The sad thing is that we will foot the bill for it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. In the Western United States the Federals control the land, so there is no loss of real estate values.

    A red herring of a straw man, that "educated" argument, at least in the American West.

    Denmark's weather, not at all similar to that in Nevada or Idaho, South Dakota or Montana.

    I hope the globe is still warming, that two mile thick ice sheet that was over NYCity would be a hassle to deal with.

    Hate for it to come back.
    The earth has been warming for the past 10,000 years, rejoice!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Seal Beach, spent a lot of time there, back in '74.

    Orange County authorities were responding to a shooting at a salon in Seal Beach on Wednesday, with reports of seven potential victims. A source familiar with the investigation said six people were believed dead.

    The shooting occurred at Salon Meritage, a beauty salon in the 500 block of Pacific Coast Highway, workers in the shopping center said.

    A suspect is in custody, according to a Seal Beach police official. The entire department is responding to the scene.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Strategic Forecasting Inc., an Austin, Texas, global intelligence firm commonly called Stratfor, on Wednesday described as unlikely any use of Mexico as a staging ground for a terrorist attack emanating from the Middle East.

    It noted that while the U.S.-Mexico border is porous and prone to security breaches, the U.S. government has "extremely active intelligence capabilities" embedded in Mexico. It added that Mexico is generally hostile to enemies of the United States, not wanting to risk possible intervention by U.S. forces should its territory be used in any attack.

    The cartels, too, have pragmatic interests in maintaining their core business of narcotics smuggling without greater interference, it added.

    "Any plan to use Mexican drug cartels to carry out attacks against the United States would threaten the very existence of the cartel," a Stratfor analysis said.

    "Mexican drug cartels are already facing challenges - struggling with one another and with the Mexican government for control over transportation routes that will allow them to transit cocaine from South America to the United States. Any foray into international terrorism would be bad for business," Stratfor said.

    At least four U.S. diplomatic cables from 2008 and 2009 indicate how closely U.S. envoys in Mexico track Iranian activities.

    One cable from Oct. 23, 2009, was sent to the State Department four days after Dennis Blair, then the director of national intelligence, met with President Felipe Calderon. The cable indicated that Calderon had brought up the issue of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and his relations with Iran.

    "Calderon underscored that Iran's growing influence in Latin American should be of considerable concern to the United States, and Chavez is doing all he can to aid and abet it," the cable said.


    Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/12/2451065/mexico-seen-as-unlikely-launching.html#ixzz1abjXNgBr

    ReplyDelete
  9. LA Times


    Suspect in Seal Beach salon shooting reportedly wore body armor

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well; it appears that Iran is threat to the U.S. according to the current admin.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Guess the Shias aren't so benevolent

    ReplyDelete
  12. October Surprise!

    We all know that fear sells.

    But judging from the US response, Iran is not considered to be much of a threat.

    Not a military one, for sure.

    Mrs. Clinton urged the rest of the world to join Washington in condemning the scheme, hinting at a campaign by the Obama administration to use the alleged plot as a springboard for increased international condemnation of Iran and perhaps for new sanctions.

    "We will work closely with our international partners to increase Iran's isolation and the pressure on its government and we call upon other nations to join us in condemning this threat to international peace and security,"
    Mrs. Clinton said.

    ReplyDelete



  13. President's Obama's top national security aides have said the administration will lobby for the imposition of new international sanctions as well as for individual nations to expand their own penalties against Iran.

    Vice President Joe Biden said in a television interview Wednesday that
    "it's critically important that we unite the world in the isolation"

    of Tehran and that

    "whatever action is ultimately taken ... that it's not the United States versus Iran."

    ReplyDelete



  14. Vice President Joe Biden said in a television interview Wednesday that ...

    "whatever action is ultimately taken ... that it's not the United States versus Iran."

    ReplyDelete
  15. Well, I've wailed on GE a good bit, myself, so it pains me to have to do this; but, GE had a loss of $32 Billion in the "Crash," and they are quite legal in "carrying the loss forward" against their 2010 profits.

    The fact is, there is (and, will be for another couple of months, I believe) a 30% subsidy, that can be taken either as a tax credit, or a grant, for investments in wind, and solar projects.

    The subsidy is available for all participants, rich, or poor.

    The main question is: Will this program benefit the citizens of the United States in the long run? Many Americans, such as myself, look at our depleting supplies of Fossil Fuels, with their attendant rising prices, disasters such as Fukushima, and Chernobyl, and the efficacy of using a free, renewable, sustainable resource such as wind, and answer You betcha.

    Others, such as Robert Bryce's employers, The Manhattan Institute (First on their Funding list are The Koch Bros, and Exxon,) perhaps, not surprisingly, say no.

    BTW, that comes out to about $2.2 million/Megawatt. Everyone is going to come out very well on this project.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I can't speak for the west coast but for sometimes weeks on end the entire Atlantic seaboard has almost no wind at all most especially in the summer.

    This exactly the experience with offshore wind in England and Bonnevilles wind plant which covers two states.

    Its more claptrap from the Big Oil folks who know relying on wind power can have but one effect – a huge increase in gas sales and associated GHG’s. Build 1 Gw of wind you need 1 Gw of low efficiency fast spooling gas plant that needs to be paid for. Wind produces no net energy because of that need to load balance with low efficiency fast spooling gas plant. Better, cheaper, less GHG to build slow spooling high efficiency CCGT plant instead.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Let's look at what they will get for their $1.9 Billion. Figuring at 30% Efficiency (should be about right for that area,) they will be getting about 6 Gigawatt Hrs/Day.

    That will come out to about 2,200 Gigawatt hrs/Yr. It's probably too low of a number, but let's use 30 yrs. That would be 66,000 Gigawatt Hours of Electricity for $1.9 Billion.

    Wholesale price of a Gigawatt Hr is about $50,000.00. So 66,000 X $50,000.00 would be $3.3 Billion.

    But, here's the "real" kicker. As Coal, and the Diesel to transport it becomes more, and more expensive (Australia was exporting $315.00/Ton Coal a couple of months, ago, and is expecting to be getting $350/Ton next Spring,)

    That $50,000.00/gigawatt hr Wholesale Price could, easily, in ten or fifteen years be $100,000.00, or Higher.

    The Cost of the Feedstock for the Wind Turbine, however, will be the same as it is Now. Free.

    The Cost of Fossil Fuels in 30 Yrs? How could anyone possibly guess? But, the cost of "Wind?" Yep, still, absolutely, free.

    ReplyDelete
  18. “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

    - Steve Jobs

    ReplyDelete
  19. Iowa, according to its Republican Governor, Terry Bransted, now gets 20% of its electricity from Wind. The latest poll showed that more than 80% of Iowans want "More" Wind Energy.

    Oh, and they haven't built a single gas-fired turbine to back it up. Neither has Texas. Neither has California.

    The "gas-fired backup" bs is a total myth that has no grounding in reality, anywhere.

    Some transmission lines will have to be built, but that is true for almost any new plants, and, in any event, is more than offset by the lack of need for more earthmoving machinery, locomotives, track, etc. attendant with coal. With Gas (10% of which is imported, btw) you're looking at more pipelines, and, of course depletion, and higher prices.

    The Koch Bros, and the Massey's are about to go on one hell of a losing streak. Despicable, lying assholes like Bryce won't be able to save them. The Jig is up.

    ReplyDelete
  20. The war drums are beating to drag the US into another war in the Middle East.

    ReplyDelete
  21. (CNN) -- The case against Manssor Arbabsiar, the Iranian-American charged with conspiring to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, looks like a dazzling mix of high drama and low comedy, high stakes and low dealing. The prosecution has enormous implications for the United States' relationship with Iran -- and thus for world peace -- but it's also a criminal case in an American courtroom. So it's worth asking: how strong is that case?
    Of course, United States v. Arbabsiar has just begun, and so far we've only heard the government's side of the story. But enough information is out there to at least start asking some educated questions about how the case might unfold.
    For starters, there is the issue of "CS-1," who appears to be the critical government witness in the case. The prosecution seems based in a significant amount on the Confidential Source, who met repeatedly with Arbabsiar and taped conversations with him. But who is he? According to the complaint, filed in New York federal court Tuesday, "CS-1 is a paid confidential source. Previously, CS-1 was charged in connection with a narcotics offense by authorities of a certain U.S. state. In exchange for CS-1's cooperation in various narcotics investigations, the State charges were dismissed."

    ReplyDelete
  22. Can you belief this? It is a replay of the asshole Curveball who was used as the source for Bush to drag us into two ten year wars.

    ReplyDelete
  23. In the 90s, Arbabsiar was arrested three times in Corpus Christi for various traffic violations. In 2001, he was accused of theft by check, but the case was later dismissed.

    In 2004, Arbabsiar was arrested near Austin for driving with a suspended license.

    ...

    "If you wanted a wholesale car, something real inexpensive, you'd call him up and he'd get you a real good deal."

    ReplyDelete
  24. Not this time. No no no. unh uh.

    ReplyDelete
  25. “I’m proud of the fact that we took on a major problem in my state,” Romney said. “We had a lot of kids without insurance, a lot of adults without insurance.

    And we said, we don’t want to change anything for the 92 percent of the people that already have insurance.”

    He added: “One of the problems with Obamacare is he doesn’t just deal with the people without insurance. He takes over health care for everyone.”

    ReplyDelete
  26. Abdulmutallab's ability to defeat security in Amsterdam contributed to the deployment of full-body scanners at U.S. airports. The Transportation Security Administration was using the scanners in some American cities at the time, but the attack accelerated their placement.

    ...

    Passenger Alain Ghonda of Silver Spring, Md., said he came to court Wednesday "to see the man who tried to kill me." He took some comfort in knowing Abdulmutallab would be locked up for many years.

    "At least he will be going away for hopefully forever and not be able to harm other people," he said.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Nice censorship there Deuce!

    Shame you only have one standard...

    Delete me... Or Bob...

    Never the Rat with his "joos did it shit.."

    ReplyDelete
  28. Maintaining empire is a real bitch when you have to always be selling it to reluctant but patient buyers. it takes a good tale.

    The success of one of Nato's principal tactics against the Taliban – targeted night raids aimed at killing or capturing leaders of the insurgency – may have been exaggerated to make the military campaign in Afghanistan look more effective, according to a report published on Wednesday.

    The study shows that for every "leader" killed in the raids, eight other people also died, although the raids were designed to be a precise weapon aimed at decapitating the Taliban on the battlefield by removing their commanders.

    The report notes that in briefings to the US media aggregate claims made for the number of Taliban leaders killed or detained over a given period were sometimes much greater than the numbers recorded in the daily press releases.

    The report, by Kandahar-based researchers Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, for the Afghanistan Analysts Network, looked at the daily press releases published by the Nato-led International Stability Assistance Force (Isaf) to create a profile of the "kill-or-capture raids" from December 2009 to the end of September this year.

    Strick van Linschoten also said Isaf's definition of the word leader was "so broad as to be meaningless". He said the words leader and "facilitator" were sometimes used interchangeably in the Isaf press releases, although facilitator could just be someone whose house an insurgent group was thought to have used. A previous study of night raids had found that many people classified as leaders captured in night raids had subsequently been released by Isaf.

    ReplyDelete
  29. from the last thread

    rat says...

    If the truth hurts, learn to live with it. For the truth is never slander, nor libel.

    Both of which, you are more than familiar with using, when the truth fails you, Story of "o".



    And yet he uses slander by calling me Story of "o"

    Properly ID'ing Rat's obsession with Jews is not libel or slander...

    Pointing out Rat's obsession with Jewish bankers is not libel or slander...

    But calling me by the name of a porno movie is slander...

    ReplyDelete
  30. You staretd with two irrelevent posts trashing Doug's post with your same nonsense. Same chaff, same jammimg on every post. I let you ride it out on the last post , but no one is interested in your personal whailings with rat. No one.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Don't flatter yourself that I am censoring you. It is what we used to call "policing up the area" of dicarded cigarette butts and trash. Call it maintenance.

    ReplyDelete
  32. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Deuce said...
    Don't flatter yourself that I am censoring you. It is what we used to call "policing up the area" of dicarded cigarette butts and trash. Call it maintenance


    Then delete Rat's garbage.

    but you dont...

    ReplyDelete
  34. More from the Guardian:

    The Saudi Arabian government has issued a menacing warning to Iran that it will have to "pay the price" for the alleged plot to hire a Mexican drugs cartel to assassinate its ambassador in Washington.

    The threat from the Saudis came as the Obama administration resisted calls from within the US, mainly from the conservative right, to retaliate against Iran with military action.

    ReplyDelete
  35. There is no obsession with Jews, here, Story, but for yours.

    I find Israel to be an interesting study in post WWII Europeon colonialism.

    Along with it being the latest in a long series Europeon crusades into the Levant, one that is occurring during my lifetime.

    History that is connecting us all directly to the medieval whirled.

    ReplyDelete
  36. The Middle East, pulling US away from the Enlightenment and towards the Heart of darkness. That of tribal strife and religious hatreds.

    We should abandon the region.

    Growth Energy would allow US to.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Almost makes you want to go dig out one of those garbage bags from the truck and lick it.

    ReplyDelete



  38. Strategic Forecasting Inc., an Austin, Texas, global intelligence firm commonly called Stratfor, on Wednesday described as unlikely any use of Mexico as a staging ground for a terrorist attack emanating from the Middle East.

    It noted that while the U.S.-Mexico border is porous and prone to security breaches, the U.S. government has "extremely active intelligence capabilities" embedded in Mexico. It added that Mexico is generally hostile to enemies of the United States, not wanting to risk possible intervention by U.S. forces should its territory be used in any attack.

    The cartels, too, have pragmatic interests in maintaining their core business of narcotics smuggling without greater interference, it added.

    "Any plan to use Mexican drug cartels to carry out attacks against the United States would threaten the very existence of the cartel," a Stratfor analysis said.

    "Mexican drug cartels are already facing challenges - struggling with one another and with the Mexican government for control over transportation routes that will allow them to transit cocaine from South America to the United States. Any foray into international terrorism would be bad for business," Stratfor said.

    At least four U.S. diplomatic cables from 2008 and 2009 indicate how closely U.S. envoys in Mexico track Iranian activities.

    One cable from Oct. 23, 2009, was sent to the State Department four days after Dennis Blair, then the director of national intelligence, met with President Felipe Calderon. The cable indicated that Calderon had brought up the issue of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and his relations with Iran.


    Read More in the Miami Herald

    ReplyDelete
  39. Opponents of the trade deals, principally liberal Democrats and labor groups, have argued that they will lead to the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs rather than create new jobs in the United States. Some Democrats have also argued that Colombia has not done enough to address anti-union violence there.

    The House’s approval of the deals comes one day after the Senate passed a bill that would increase pressure on China to allow its currency to appreciate — a measure that supporters argue would lead to the creation of more than 1.6 million jobs. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged the House on Wednesday to approve the bill before consideration of the three trade deals.

    House Republican leaders have declined to allow the currency bill to go to the floor, however, arguing that the measure could lead to a “dangerous” trade war with China; the White House, which has also expressed reservations about the legislation, has not formally backed it.

    ReplyDelete
  40. No ID on the Seal Beach shooter, but from the photos of the victims and witnesses, looks like the work of another:

    "Dirty White Boy".

    Shot his wife, amongst the others.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Large caches of weapons from Libya are making their way across the Egyptian border and flooding black markets in Egypt’s already unstable Sinai Peninsula, according to current and former Egyptian military officials and arms traders in the Sinai.

    ...

    The vastness of the Sinai, with its deserts and mountains, poses a major challenge to efforts by Egyptian authorities to maintain security there. In recent months, Egypt has sent reinforcements, bringing the number of troops on the peninsula to 20,000, but it has struggled to gain control in an area governed by tribal customs and populated primarily by Bedouins, who distrust the government and call the shots.

    ...

    Just a few miles from the Gaza border in Rafah, a Bedouin arms dealer known as Abu Ahmed said that weapons smuggling has been easy since Egypt’s 18-day uprising and that the Libyan unrest next door has created a virtually open border. Antiaircraft 14.5mm machine guns are readily available, he said.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Opponents of the deal, including textile companies, say that the deals will harm the economy by undermining the nation’s industrial base. They argue that South Korean companies will benefit much more than American companies because they are gaining access to a much larger market.

    These are the first deals to pass Congress since the approval of an agreement with Peru in 2007. The Bush administration had won approval for trade agreements with 14 countries before the Democrats regained Congress in 2008, but it was then unable to gain traction.

    “It’s been five years in the making, but we are finally here,” said Representative Lynn Jenkins, a Kansas Republican, in a speech urging passage of the agreements.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Boobs vs. Willies

    A family is at the dinner table. The son asks his father, 'Dad, how many kinds of boobs are there?' The father, surprised,answers, 'Well, son, a woman goes through three phases. In her 20s her boobs are like melons, round & firm. In her 30s t o 40s, they are like pears, still nice but hanging a bit. ... After 50, they are like onions'. 'Onions?' 'Yes, you see them and they make you cry.' This infuriatedhis wife and daughter, so the daughter said, 'Mom, how many kinds of 'willies' are there?' The mother smiles and answers, 'Well dear, a man goes through three phases also. In his 20s his willy is like an oak tree, mighty and hard. In his 30s and 40s, it is like a birch, flexible but reliable. After his 50s, it is like a Christmas tree'. 'A Christmas tree?' 'Yes...dead from the root up and the balls are just for decoration

    ReplyDelete
  44. DR: Along with it being the latest in a long series Europeon crusades into the Levant, one that is occurring during my lifetime.

    There are interesting forces bound up with it as a symbol. Evangelical Protestant Christians see the Six Day War as perhaps the sole instance of unquestionably divine intervention that occurred in modern times. They also have an eschatology that involves the rebuilding of the Temple on Mt. Zion. They tend to gloss over the fact that David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir were outright atheists, and not even religious Jews accept the 3-in-1 oil of the Holy Trinity.

    Arab dictators use it as a permanent boogeyman to shift the blame of their own failures.

    Worst of all is the permanent victim class that trolls the Innernets looking for anyone saying we should cut that country from our foreign aid welfare rolls, which is a basic position of Libertarians and Objectivists. Those eternal victims instantly cry "Anti-Semitism!" just as liberals here cry "Racism!" when 21st Century reparations for 19th Century slavery are questioned.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Not a thread goes by without rat and Ms T and the israel or jew bashing...

    same shit, different thread...

    no victimhood here. just calling a jew hating, israel hating, zionist hating asshole and asshole....

    Ms t? rat?

    2 jew hating, Israel hating, zionist bigoted asshole...

    ReplyDelete
  46. Melody: After his 50s, it is like a Christmas tree'. 'A Christmas tree?' 'Yes...dead from the root up and the balls are just for decoration

    And not very pretty decorations at that.

    Very funny, Mel.

    A woman goes to the gynecologist, and upon examination, the doctor says, "Why, it's immaculate in here! What do you do to keep yourself so hygienic?"

    She responds, "I have a woman in twice a week."

    ReplyDelete
  47. My wife thinks they're pretty. She thinks they taste good, also.

    ReplyDelete
  48. She must be a tea.....party person.

    ReplyDelete
  49. "The answer, said Rogers forthrightly, was simple: The subsidies available for wind projects allow Duke to earn returns on equity of 17 to 22 percent."

    LOL. That guy runs my company. If he's for it, trust me, the fix is in.

    Nary a better example of the "public/private" partnership than ol' Jim. Privatizing the profits, socializing the risks.

    Just a humble boy from Kentucky made good. CFR, Davos, you name it. All the organizations that the Swells call home and Jim got invited in.

    Check the record. Buy the best lobbyists. Write the laws to fix the market. Profit on the upside. Chuckle at the ratepayers on the downside. Profit some more.

    Those kids on Wall Street. They're on to something.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Obama released two of the Iran terrorists implicated in the DC assassination attempt (you know, the one Holder is using to get Fast and Furious off the front pages) during negotiations with Iran back in '09.

    Japan rejected an Obama visit to apologize for Hiroshima. They don't want to diminish the memory of their dead by having a worm writhe before them.

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  51. TNC officials had said repeatedly they suspected he had fled to Sirte, one of two remaining Ghadafi strongholds.

    Saif al Islam is believed to be hiding in Bani Walid, possibly with his father.

    Forces of Libya's new regime said earlier Wednesday they were mopping up the last, increasingly weak and isolated pockets of resistance in Ghadafi's hometown, claiming its fall was imminent.

    ReplyDelete
  52. .

    Rat was concerned about the 'Underwear Bomber.


    Trial started today.

    He defended himself. Plead guilty.

    Trial ended today.

    He will be sentenced to life without parole in January.



    Cost a lot less than that projected
    $500 million Holder was going to spend trying KSM in NY.


    .

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  53. .

    Despicable, lying assholes like Bryce won't be able to save them.


    My. My. MY.

    What does that make Rolfe-Redding then?

    :0

    It's tough when you have lying assholes on both sides of an argument.

    Makes it hard for us poor uneducated guys to figure out.

    .

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  54. Although the cesium levels at those specific tiny spots appear high, airborne radiation levels near the spots aren't particularly high.

    In the same roadside ditch where 40,200 becquerels were detected, another spot recorded only 3,030 becquerels.

    "We've always known that there are 'hot spots' where contamination levels are higher than other areas, but these tiny spots are like 'micro hot spots,' " said John Kuramochi, who heads the section of the Yokohama city government in charge of monitoring contamination.

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  55. Rolfe-Redding? He seems to be a student, and a a "communications strategist."

    Bryce is an untrustworthy slime. There is absolutely no way of knowing what the context was of RR's statement. What came before, and/or what came later.

    I've been reading Bryce for a long time. He, constantly, writes dishonest, and misleading hit pieces on Renewable Energy Technologies. He's totally shameless.

    One thing you will never see Bryce mention is the $4 Billion + Subsides that the oil companies get from the U.S. government, Annually.

    You'll notice he, never, at any time, got into the actual "financial efficacy" of said project.

    ReplyDelete
  56. You just have to ask yourself, Q, "Do I really believe in the Bottomless Milkshake?"

    ReplyDelete
  57. My wife thinks they're pretty. She thinks they taste good, also.



    Sam was that before or after my advice on using a #1 attachment on your clippers. ( :

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  58. .

    You just have to ask yourself, Q, "Do I really believe in the Bottomless Milkshake?"

    Your, wrong.

    I have answered that qauestion for myself and concluded it does not exist.

    The two questions have nothing to do with each other. I make up my mind based on the facts I see. I do not automatically dismiss another's argument just because of who he is or who he works for.

    I like to think I'm flexible enough to change my mind given new facts.

    At a minimum, I listen to the argument, give the other guy his due, and then dismiss his argument.

    :)

    .

    ReplyDelete