California's own Great Leap Forward?

Beware renewable energy sprawl.

In order for California to meet its mandated goal of generating one-third of its electricity from renewable resources, predominately wind turbines and solar panels, quite a bit of land and natural resources are going to be required in order to achieve that.

California's peak usage is 52,000 megawatts, so one-third of that is 17,000 MW. Let's assume for the sake of simplicity that wind and solar will split production of that 17,000 MW 50/50.

On the solar side, producing 8,500 MW of electricity will require 129 square miles of solar farms, an area more than five times as large as Manhattan. Good thing we've got such a big state, huh? We can park these farms out in the middle of nowhere (which is another problem in of itself which we will address later). Unfortunately, nowhere, like the Ivanpah farm out in the Eastern Mojave had its construction shut down out of concern for the federally-protected desert tortoise.


Wind energy is even worse: in order to produce that 8,500 MW, you would need the equivalent of 70 Manhattans, again, out in the middle of nowhere with the incumbent transmission (loss) problems. Also, wind turbines require about 200 tons of steel each, the production of which has its own sizeable carbon footprint. Contrast that with a natural gas turbine which weighs about 9 tons and there is a 200-1 difference in the the MW generated per ton of steel between the gas turbine and the wind turbine.

And all this time, we thought the green mantra was: Small is beautiful.


Then again, this may all prove to be a moot point since China sits on most of the rare earths required for wind and solar technology and we're supposed to run out of lithium by 2050 anyway.





When thinking of our head-long rush into green energy, we are reminded of China's Great Leap Forward and their head-long rush to become an industrial power. Starting in 1958, 90 million rural peasants were submitted to "backyard steel mills" but with no iron ore or pig iron to throw into their crude smelts, they instead grabbed anything they could; shovels, hoes, picks, axes, pipes, crow bars, wagon hubs and even their own small tractors... any and all iron on the farm. After all, their were mandates and quotas to be met! Suffice to say, the steel produced was virtually useless. And besides worthless steel, what did the central planners of the Chinese communist party have to show for it? Depending upon who you are listening to, between 20 and 30 million dead Chinese.

We're in the best of hands.

Because feeling good about yourself is really all that matters

A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another.

It's a beautiful theory — highways full of electric cars emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants after being plugged into an outlet in our garages overnight. The problem, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, is that the effort may only shift the problem somewhere else.

"If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."

The GAO report says a plug-in compact car, if recharged at an outlet drawing its power from coal, provides a carbon dioxide savings of only 4% to 5%. If the feeling of saving the environment from driving an electric car causes people to drive more, that small amount of savings vanishes entirely.

On the bright side of things, at least the demise (for now) of cap and trade will mean we will still have coal-fired plants in which to fire up and which will provide electricity to our death-trap smug-mobiles.

But if cap and trade does manage to resuscitate and effectively kill the coal industry, where is that electricity going to come from? Oh, that’s right. We’ve always got wind and solar power. Unfortunately, those two alternative energies are set with massive inherent drawbacks in their current stage of development.

T. Boone Pickens is sitting on 687 400-feet tall wind turbines as he scratched his plans to “plant” these things out in west Texas. His problem? Getting the power generated to the grid. You see, the fact of the matter with places that are really windy and really sunny (see also: hot), is that no one lives there and right now, the storage and transmission technology is not where it needs to be to in order for wind and solar to be market-competitive. And did we mention that these wind turbine farms have a tendency to make mincemeat of flocks of birds and that solar farms require a massive amount of water, something else in scant supply in hotter climes, in order to keep the panels clean.

Our push for electric power also pushes us further into the hands of some unsavory characters. Half the world’s proven lithium reserves reside in Bolivia whose leftist President is a Hugo Chavez ally.

Hey, we thought this whole alternative energy movement was, in part, so we didn’t have to do business with the planet’s jerk-offs. Sounds like we’re exchanging petrol-dictators for litho-dictators.

We continue charging down the government-mandated green revolution road pursuing these outlandish energy alternatives that aren’t ready for prime-time, do not produce a good return on investment and may in fact be more harmful to the environment than our traditional sources of energy and in the case of ethanol, wreak havoc with the world’s food supplies and prices.

It’s to the point where we are almost forced to cheer for these 300 page amendments that get snuck into bills like cap and trade as these back room deals and concessions signal that the proposed legislation is watered-down to the point of a net zero effect.

Since no one is really interested in the oil reserves setting beneath our feet or nuclear energy, a combination that is real energy indepence, this is all we got.

"Rollin' Down Imperial Highway....."

Seeing the Santa Ana winds kick up today reminded us of some of the mystery surrounding this Southern California weather phenomena.

For those of you visiting from out of town, Santa Ana winds are formed by a high pressure system in the Great Basin (between the Sierra and Rocky Mountains) – the air from this system is then pushed through the canyons that separate the high desert from the coastal plains below in which much of L.A. and Orange County set. The combination of compression through the mountain passes and the descension from higher to lower elevations warms and dries out the air, respectively, providing the region with its unseasonable warmness when they occur most often in the fall and spring.

But enough of all that…. The Santa Ana winds are as much a part of the local culture, particularly, L.A.’s as the Rose Parade, Tommy's, Randy Newman and the Hollywood sign but not necessarily a positive one.

One of the urban myths that always surrounded the Santa Ana winds was that they lead to an increase in violence and crime. We suppose this could be directly attributable to famous L.A. detective author, Raymond Chandler who wrote of the winds in Red Wind:

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.” Pretty ominous, huh?

Also, turns out its bunk. Read here.

And about the name? Again, there is some mystery. Since the winds have also been referred to as “devil winds”, there is the opinion that it originated from the bastardization of the Spanish word for Satan, “Satana”. A more pedestrian explanation is that it was derived from the Santa Ana Mountains which lie on the eastern boundary of Orange County and which would be the direction from which the winds would blow.

We like the first explanation better. We admit: we’re campfire conspiricists at heart - we like our myths and we enjoy musing on the idea that the Santa Anas we’ve lived with our entire lives have a personality and do have a bit of mystery and intrigue attached to them.

Cool Santa Ana wind site here


H/T: God

Photo image of the day

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This was the scene last week on Harbor Dr. here in San Diego and it was a symbol of the efficacy of green/alternative energy in its current state.


(please click to enlarge... the camera-in-phone did not cooperate on the first take)

This is a wind turbine blade on Harbor Drive here in San Diego. Transported on a big ol' flat bed towed by a big ol' diesel and escorted by a couple of chase vehicles. They do have a tendency to tie-up things on Harbor as they are matriculating their way down the street. Problem is - it's heading the wrong way. Instead of heading out to the desert or east county where the bird-wacking turbine farms are, it's heading back towards the 10th St. terminal from whence it came. Whatever the problem is, it's a pretty costly mistake. Not that the wind and solar industries probably care - they're the chosen ones. Check out the subsidies granted to these two sectors as compared to other engergy sectors:

Not too shabby, huh? Maybe when the government decides to stop conferring 1% status on not-yet-market-ready technologies and stops depending upon places like China with their deplorable environmental policies for the lithium needed for wind and solar, perhaps we can avoid scenes like the above.


Time's short... we'll have an update later.

An Absolutely Gorgeous Day, otherwise.

A double-edged sword these Santa Anas. They provide crystal clear days as the east winds off the desert blow all the junky air out to sea but they also drive the monstrous fires that we are currently experiencing down here.

Its still early but these two fires down here in San Diego currently raging out of control are worse than the Cedars fires of 4 years ago.

250,000 people, thus far have been evacuated from their homes extending from Ramona in the east all the way west to the coastal communities of Rancho Santa Fe, Encinitas and Del Mar. In the south, rural communities have been evacuated and precautionary (voluntary) evacuations are taking effect in the more heavily populated communities of East Lake (eastern edge of Chula Vista).

Its bad and there isn’t any relief in sight. Even during Santa Anas we don’t get too much wind but it has been blowing consistently since we got home which would give an indication of how hard its blowing further east.

So we grabbed the Substitute and made a shopping run down to our local Ghetto Mart. The parking lot at the Murph (Qualcomm Stadium) was being used as an evacuation center for those displaced from their homes and the call went out for supplies: they had plenty of food but they needed paper plates, plastic utensils, fruit juice and of course, water.

When we got down there we were told that the collection center for supplies was in Section M all the way around the other side of the stadium. We crawled along in single file traffic around the parking lot for a few minutes…. Where were all these people going?, we thought. There was plenty of space in the lot to just set up housekeeping if they were looking for a place to stay. We got um… creative and took a short cut to expedite our trip to Section M (kick-off was in 10 minutes, man!)

When we arrived there were small mountains of supplies concentrated in one area… water, blankets, sleeping bags, toilet paper…. It was amazing. And it dawned on us that the long-ass traffic line that wrapped clear around the stadium of which we were so impatient were other people, not looking for a place to stay, but rather waiting their turn to drop off supplies themselves. Yeah, we felt real good about ourselves after that.

On the drive back home, it felt like the wind had picked up and the smoke from the Harris fire (southern of the two fires and pictured above – Witch Creek fire is to the north) had gotten larger and darker. Not good. Not good at all.

Keep your fingers crossed for us and say a prayer for a change in the weather, a nice on-shore flow, a decrease in the wind and in particular for the safety of those whose homes are in danger and of the fire fighters and emergency workers who have got their hands full right now but whose commitment never waivers.

As you can see below, B-Daddy is all over this. This will be our last post for a while as we will be out to sea for a couple and then off to Vegas, which seems even a bit more frivolous and banal than it did just a few days ago.

(oh, and that's the Substitute above doing some of the heavy lifting at the Murph)

When rural blight goes Green

"Whaddya mean you don’t want one in your back yard? Perhaps this will change your mind."

Like a scene from the Owens Valley in the early part of last century when Metropolitan Water District officials from Los Angeles played divide and conquer with the citizens of the Eastern Sierras for water rights, a lack of state regulations regarding wind turbines has resulted in zoning shenanigans, conflicts of interests and neighbor against neighbor in one particular upstate New York county… a scene which will repeat itself across the country as wind power is currently the “It” girl of renewable energy and the prospect of jobs and money the wind turbines bring with it prove hard to resist.

Article here.

Quickies

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A round-up of news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.






More news from the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin debacle down in Florida:

On Friday George Zimmerman Sues NBC Over Edited 911 Tape Report was a top story. Here is the recap: (TMZ) Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman has filed a lawsuit against NBC over the way it edited his 911 call -- placed moments before Martin was shot -- claiming the network falsely made Zimmerman look like a "hostile racist."
You'll recall, NBC launched an internal investigation over the tape after it aired the edited recording -- which made it sound like Zimmerman immediately told police that Martin was black, without being prompted.

In actuality, the full 911 tape reveals Zimmerman only referred to Martin as "black" when responding to a question from the dispatcher about Trayvon's race.

Zimmerman accuses NBC of creating a "false and defamatory misimpression using the oldest form of yellow journalism: manipulating Zimmerman's own words, splicing together disparate parts of the recording to create the illusion of statements that Zimmerman never actually made."

Two things: 1) We look forward to George Zimmerman sitting on a small mountain of NBC's cash when all is said and done and 2) this is just a gentle reminder of how corrupt and degenerate this country's media has become.







Ugh... We're forced to blog about this guy:

From the Washington Times:

The White House deleted a petition Friday on its web site demanding that President Obama rescind an invitation to “Gangnam style” rapper Psy to sing at a Christmas concert in Washington, due to the performer’s anti-American rants.

The petition was signed by about 500 people who object to the singer’s scheduled performance, which Mr. Obama is to attend. But the White House said it took down the petition because it violated the terms of participation on the administration’s “We the People” web site.

Psy, a 34-year-old South Korean performer whose “Gangnam style” video is the most-watched of all time, apologized Friday for making obscene comments about U.S. troops at a protest concert in 2004 in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He reportedly sang:

“Kill those f–ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives.”
“Kill those f–ing Yankees who ordered them to torture.”

“Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers.”

“Kill them all slowly and painfully.”

In his apology, the rap star said, “As a proud South Korean who was educated in the United States and lived there for a very significant part of my life, I understand the sacrifices American servicemen and women have made to protect freedom and democracy in my country and around the world.”

“The song in question — from eight years ago — was part of a deeply emotional reaction to the war in Iraq and the killing of two innocent Korean civilians that was part of the overall antiwar sentiment shared by others around the world at that time,” he said in a statement. “While I’m grateful for the freedom to express one’s self, I’ve learned there are limits to what language is appropriate and I’m deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted. I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused anyone by those words.”

(italics, ours)


8 years ago... Remember? That was back when dissent was patriotic. Besides, we've moved way beyond all that torture stuff. We won't be holding our breath, however, for a PSY rap-rant on indefinite detentions and/or drone strike assassinations to be performed at this concert.







ObamaCare: improving the financial health of lobbyists one congressional staffer at a time.

Liz Fowler worked for Democratic Senator Max Baucus in the first half of last decade, and so it wasn’t surprising when she cashed out to run the lobbying shop at Wellpoint, the nation’s largest private insurer.

After all, that’s what Max Baucus staffers do. They become high-paid lobbyists for powerful companies dependent on government. Former Baucus chief of staff David Castagnetti is now a lobbyist partner at Mehlman, Vogel, Catagnetti. Successor Jeff Forbes is a partner at Cauthen, Forbes, and Williams. Baucus’s chief trade counsel Scott Parven doesn’t have a lobbying firm named after him, because he sold his firm to K Street giant Akin Gump. There are literally dozens of others.

It also wasn’t surprising when Baucus hired her back to help write Obamacare. After all, Baucus is famously close with K Street and industry lobbyists.

Given Baucus’s central role in drafting Obamacare, and lobbyists’ access to Baucus, it wasn’t surprising either when the bill won the backing of the biggest health-industry lobbies in the country — Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the American Medical Association, and the American Hospital Association.

The hand-in-hand public-private corporatism so derided during the Bush years has re-branded itself to become the single greatest feature of the Obama administration. Congratulations on this feat that was accomplished in no small part by the silence if not advocacy of the government/media/entertainment complex.






Not all calls for genocide are created or viewed equally:

Is promoting genocide a human-rights violation? You might think that's an easy question. But it isn't at Human Rights Watch, where a bitter debate is raging over how to describe Iran's calls for the destruction of Israel. The infighting reveals a peculiar standard regarding dictatorships and human rights and especially the Jewish state.

Human Rights Watch is the George Soros-funded operation that has outsize influence in governments, newsrooms and classrooms world-wide. Some at the nonprofit want to denounce Iran's regime for inciting genocide. "Sitting still while Iran claims a 'justification to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel is a position unworthy of our great organization," Sid Sheinberg, the group's vice chairman, wrote to colleagues in a recent email.

But Executive Director Kenneth Roth, who runs the nonprofit, strenuously disagrees.

Asked in 2010 about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that Israel "must be wiped off the map," Mr. Roth suggested that the Iranian president has been misunderstood. "There was a real question as to whether he actually said that," Mr. Roth told The New Republic, because the Persian language lacks an idiom for wiping off the map. Then again, Mr. Ahmadinejad's own English-language website translated his words that way, and the main alternative translation—"eliminated from the pages of history"—is no more benign. Nor is Mr. Ahmadinejad an outlier in the regime. Iran's top military officer declared earlier this year that "the Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel."

A Clintonian torturing of the English language to be sure when we all know the official party line of Iran and about every other bad actor over there in that neck of the woods.





Turns out Mitt Romney was spot-on regarding Benghazi. So explain to us again why it is he is taking so much grief for saying Obama won the election because he promised free stuff.

The city of Detroit faces a major financial crisis and one member of city council thinks President Barack Obama should step in and help.

City Council member JoAnn Watson said Tuesday the citizens support of Obama in last month's election was enough reason for the president to bailout the struggling the city. (Click the video player to listen)

"Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president and there ought to be a quid pro quo and you ought to exercise leadership on that," said Watson. "Of course, not just that, but why not?"

Nearly 75 percent of Wayne County voters pulled the lever for Obama in November.

"After the election of Jimmy Carter, the honorable Coleman Alexander Young, he went to Washington, D.C. He came home with some bacon," said Watson. "That's what you do."

Young served as Detroit's mayor for 20 years and served as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1977 to 1981.

We're sorry. Not free per se, rather quid pro quo meaning Detroit and Wayne County vote for Obama and the rest of us pay for another four years.

Related: Is there a correlation between the percentage of votes going to Obama in a particular city/county and that city/county's fiscal dysfunctionality?








And finally...

You may be shocked to learn that some coastal types that appear on MSNBC on a regular basis don't think you are paying enough at the pump and would like to see that price go higher to make alternative energy sources more competitive.

It's telling that they no longer speak of making wind and solar more competitive by improving the technology of wind and solar rather making wind and solar more competitive by taxing oil and natural gas, i.e. sticking it to the consumer, you, in order to fulfill their half-witted, agenda-driven energy fantasies.




OK, gang, that's it for today. We'll see you all tomorrow.

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The curtain drops on the most stupendous and excellent economic stimulus plan, ever.

The Obama administration will end the popular $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program on Monday, giving car shoppers a few more days to take advantage of big government incentives.

The Transportation Department said Thursday that the government will wind down the program on Monday at 8 p.m. EDT. Car buyers can receive rebates of $3,500 or $4,500 for trading in older vehicles for new, more fuel-efficient models.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the program has been ''a lifeline to the automobile industry, jump starting a major sector of the economy and putting people back to work.'' He said the department was ''working toward an orderly wind down of this very popular program.''

The White House has touted the program's success in providing a targeted boost to the sluggish economy since its inception in late July. Through Thursday, auto dealers have made deals worth $1.9 billion and the incentives have generated more than 457,000 vehicle sales.

So, if it’s been so wildly successful then why does it have to end?

But the administration needed to put a halt to the program to avoid surpassing the $3 billion funding level. Consumers were on pace to exhaust the program's coffers in early September and dealers have complained about long delays in getting reimbursed for the car incentives.

Since when has any administration of recent ilk ever been worried about busting the budget? Go back to Congress and just ask for more. It’s been done once before and do you think that Congress will turn down something that has been a “lifeline” to the auto industry and has been “putting people back to work”?

On a more serious note, yes, it is indeed time to pull the plug on this environmentally-dubious and economically-shaky program though this does not appear to be at all why the administration is doing so.

Though this does provide some temporary relief to workers who have been called back onto the job to cover the orders, what happens when the artificially-spiked demand curve caused by the 457,000 vehicles that have been sold under CfC drops off drastically over the next several years.

A more level demand curve of new car purchases over the next few years has been wiped-out to say nothing of the demand curve for the used-car market as a result of 457,000 cars, a goodly portion among them being perfectly serviceable, being eliminated entirely.

Good riddance, CfC, may we never see your kind again.

MAXED OUT: The Weather Man

This week's edtition of MAXED OUT fortuitously delayed one day so that its tapping co-incides with National Beer Day? Perhaps. Regardless, the following ought to put you in the mood to commemorate the ending of Prohibition back in 1933.

Happy opening week of the 2011 Major League baseball season my hop fiends! Yes, opening week, not opening day apparently. And in honor of the return of my favorite sport, I’m going to play weather man and tell you what style of beer you should drink on a rainy day as opposed to a summer’s day, snowy, windy… you get the point. Let’s do this!


As some of you know I lived in San Francisco for five years, and some of my favorite days were cold, rainy summer days in the city by the bay (Mark Twain once said “the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco”) so I’m going to start off with a porter for a rainy day. Porters tend to have strong coffee, chocolate, smoky, or vanilla notes and often a combination of two or more of those flavors.

As I’ve said before, porters were originally known to be lower alcohol content versions of stouts but these days the lines have been blurred between the two styles, but for the sake of this week’s topic I’m going to stick with true porters. So, the next time you’re cuddled up on the couch watching reruns of The Cosby Show, do yourself a favor and grab a six-pack of Black Butte Porter from Deschutes Brewery out of Bend, Oregon. At 5.2% ABV this beauty (did you see what I did there? Black Butte – Beauty… eh, eh ) has subtle notes of coffee and chocolate. Grab a carton of strawberries, a tub of Dreyer’s vanilla bean ice cream, light a fire, and demolish a six-pack of Black Butte while watching Mad Men and you have yourself one successful rainy day. Damn, now I wish it were raining outside!




Hows about we dive into San Diego weather and go with a nice sunny day, say 78 degrees, not a cloud in the sky? Or as we call it here in S.D. a typical day in the neighborhood (eat it, East-coasters.) I’m going to go with a nice light I.P.A., Bear Republic’s Racer 5 or Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo being the perfect choices.

Torpedo is a nice dry, crisp, refreshing version of an India Pale Ale, and while it comes in at 7.2% ABV is surprisingly smooth and easy drinking. Racer 5 is similar in its smoothness but replaces the crispness of the Torpedo with slightly more fruity notes, citrus and apricot and rings in at an even 7% ABV. Grab a twelve pack of each, a cooler, some buds and bocce ball, hit the park and once again you’ve got yourself a successful sunny day! Son-of-a-b, I wish I didn’t have to work tonight!



For my peeps from Chi-Town, I’m gonna go all windy on you guys and go with a Alesmith’s Nautical Nut Brown Ale for a blustery day in the neighborhood. Quick question: have you ever had a Newcastle?

Did you enjoy it? If the answer is "yes" to both, smack yourself. If the answer is "yes", you have tried it and "no", you didn’t enjoy it, do yourself a favor and give this bird a go. I know it goes slightly without saying but the nutty-ness of this beer is fantastic and while it comes in at a whopping 4.8% ABV, I can think of no better way to escape the wind than by ducking into a hip little beer bar (Hoffer’s) and slamming down one or two of these bad boys. Post script: I HATE THE WIND!




Every once in awhile, San Diego can get rather hot so I thought I’d throw in a good beer on a really swelteringly hot day. As I thought about it, I actually came up with three styles of beer that could best be described as ‘hot weather beer’: There’s the Kolsch, the Hefe and the Pilsner, all of which would go down like a big girl on prom night. For the Kolsch style beer I really like the Alaskan Summer Ale for its creaminess and accessibility (also found in 6-packs.) The Hefeweizen should definitely be the Paulaner Hefe for its smooth characteristics paired nicely with its deliciously refreshing balance of coriander and banana (typically I say "no" fruit in beer but with a true German Hefe, squeeze a lemon wedge in and set the rind to the side.) The best Pilsner I have ever had is called Reality Czech from Moonlight brewing. Absolutely perfect for a blisteringly hot day but only available in the Bay Area as this guy does everything himself including delivery, paper work, brewing, etc., etc. So if you ever get the chance to try one of Moonlight Brewery’s beer, I implore you to Czech it out (see what I did? AGAIN!)


What about a snowy day? I don’t know, I’m from San Diego. Something strong, I guess.


Well my beautiful people, I think that will just about wrap up this week’s dissertation so thank you as always for joining me. Hit me up on Facebook, at maxamilliondollars@gmail.com, or in the comment section below. I’d like to thank my BFF Corey for this week’s topic, and join me next week when I tell you what kind of beer goes best on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. etc. And I’m out!

Until next time my beer loving brethren, have a beer for me.

The green jobs boondoggle

How are all those green jobs working out?

Even after fudging numbers and ignoring the huge subsidies, a liberal think tank reports that growth in the alternative-energy sector lags the rest of the economy.

Green jobs were supposed to be our salvation, both for the earth and for the economy, according to the Obama administration. White House policy based on this flawed premise led to offshore and onshore drilling bans and the locking-up of energy-rich lands while huge alternative energy subsidies (aka "investments") found their way into the stimulus and other legislation.

As happens when government tries to pick winners and losers, the government lost — no, we all lost. As has happened in countries such as Spain, this misallocation of resources has succeeded only in stalling our economy as unemployment and debt grow.

In Spain's case, it was found that for every "green" job created, 2.2 jobs were lost in the rest of the economy.

Along comes the Brookings Institution with a report touting the fact that nearly 2.7 million people brought home paychecks in 2010 working in the "clean economy." That's a 3.4% increase in "green jobs" since 2003, and it sounds terrific until you realize the economy as a whole grew at a 4.2% rate over the same period.

As the folks at HotAir.com duly note, Brookings got to its conclusions by including, for example, all mass transit workers regardless of the actual energy source. They also lump in people such as organic farmers and nuclear energy workers, though the greenies have never touted nuclear energy as "clean" or nuclear jobs as "green."

And let's not forget to factor into these job numbers the massive amounts of subsidies (i.e., your tax dollars) that are pumped into the green economy to further prop up these job numbers.

The article cites an Energy Department report which stated that the average subsidy per megawatt-hour for all energy was $1.65. However, for wind and solar that number jumps to $24.

And knowing what we have known and are continuing to find out about ethanol, solar and wind, do those even qualify as green jobs, anymore?

Quickies

A round-up of articles, news items, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.



6 things the film industry doesn't want you to know about'




Awwww... a progressive White House really just a good ol' boys club after all.





From "scandal-free" to "scandal fatigue in 3 weeks!

On August 30, concerning President Barack Obama’s reelection prospects, Allan Lichtman, an American University history professor and author of The Keys to the White House: A Surefire Guide to Predicting the Next President, told US News: “I don’t see how Obama can lose.”

Lichtman’s presidential election success formula, which has correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote in every contest since 1984, requires that the party currently holding the White House prevail on eight of thirteen “keys.” Lichtman contended that Obama was winning nine of them, with a tenth, whether the economy is in recession during the campaign, pegged as “undecided.”

Then came Solyndra, Gunrunner and Lightsquared.

Here's the chief hack of one of the hackiest groups in all of D.C. on standards, ethics...

Unhappy members of the Congressional Black Caucus “probably would be marching on the White House” if Obama were not president, according to CBC Chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).

"If [former President] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House," Cleaver told “The Miami Herald” in comments published Sunday. "There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president."

... and bigotry.




Even liberals know it's over... or never really existed in the first place.

Ezra Klein of the WaPo sticks a fork in Hopenchange.

Satellite photos of North Korean death camps..?

... on Google Earth?

Another great moment in the history of crony capitalism:

President Barack Obama will raise money in early October with a Missouri businessman whose company benefited from a $107 million federal tax credit to develop a wind power facility in his state.

Tom Carnahan, a scion of Missouri’s most prominent Democratic political family, is listed on Obama’s campaign website as a host of a $25,000-per-person fundraiser to be held in St. Louis on October 4.

His energy development firm, Wind Capital Group, was helped by a sizable credit authorized in the stimulus, for an energy project in northwest Missouri.

Republicans argue that it’s inappropriate for the Obama campaign to raise money from a donor who has benefited directly from the Recovery Act.

Missouri Republican Party executive director Lloyd Smith compared the situation to the Solyndra affair, in which the Obama administration reportedly rushed federal support to a green-energy firm that subsequently collapsed.

How many more of these types of cases are floating around out there and are going un-reported due to apathy, covering for the administration or scandal fatigue? They play, we pay.



The Party of "No" .

Calling for a weekend to “cool off,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set up a Monday vote on replenishing the almost-empty federal disaster relief accounts as all sides race to beat a deadline to keep money money flowing to disaster-stricken states and to keep the federal government at large running.

“Cool off a little bit. Work this through. There’s a compromise here,” Mr. Reid said Friday, minutes after the Senate blocked back a bill drafted by House Republicans that would have replenished the disaster fund accounts through Nov. 18.

Without an agreement, the government could shut down in a week, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency could run out of money even before then.

The House, on the strength of Republican votes, passed a bill early Friday morning that directs an additional $3.65 billion to FEMA, with some of the spending offset by cuts to a clean-energy program popular with Democrats and the Obama administration.

... and Obama donors.


That's all for now. We'll be back at it tomorrow.

And now a few words from Senator McCain and your investment tip of the week.

McCain on ethanol (excerpts from a speech made in Ames, Iowa no less, this past November):

"Yes, I oppose subsidies. Not just ethanol subsidies. Subsidies. And not just in Iowa either. I oppose them in my own state of Arizona. I am a proud of the conservative tradition that the government can sometimes best serve the interests of the American people by knowing when to stay out of their way

There is no economic force on this globe that is stronger than free people. Entrepreneurs lie at the heart of innovation, growth, and advancing prosperity. Entrepreneurs should not be shackled by excessive regulation that raises the cost of business. Entrepreneurs should not be disadvantaged by earmarking and pork-barrel spending that favors politically connected competitors.

I trust Americans, I trust markets and I oppose subsidies. As President, I'll propose a national energy strategy that will amount to a declaration of independence from the risk bred by our reliance on petro-dictators and our vulnerability to the troubled politics of the lands they rule. That strategy won't be another grab bag of handouts to this or that industry and a full employment act for lobbyists."

We like it when McCain talks to us like this and we'll freely admit that this ability to tell Iowan farmers probably what they didn't want to hear was fully underappreciated by us.

We have a Naval Reservist in our office doing his 2 weeks active duty rotation. In real life he works for an investment firm that specializes in green and renewable energy for public utilities. We’re big fans of “money”… as in “private money”… as in “what’s the private money doing?” as this is a great indicator of the relative strength of an idea or technology as there is inherent risk with private money… public money (your tax dollars invested by the Government), not so much.

This is why we supported President Bush when he denied federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Moral dilemmas aside, if stem cell research was the medical Big Idea, then why wasn’t there the amount of private investment there that would suggest it was so?

Anyway, we asked him: “Where’s the green money going?” “Batteries”. “Batteries?” “Yeah. There is promise in wind and solar power but unfortunately, when its needed at peak hours in the evening, the wind dies down and the sun sets. This is the problem with that technology currently, so the money is going towards finding ways to store the megawatts of energy that can be used when the demand is there.”

What’s the money doing with ethanol? Not much. The smart money knows its ultimately a dead end.

Wind, wind, go away...

Although the temperature is forecasted to drop, one always keeps one’s fingers crossed down here in San Diego when we get a Santa Ana condition in late October as the Cedar fire of ’03 and the Witch Creek fire of ’07 took place at precisely this time of year and in very similar weather.

Picture is smoke from the Witch Creek fire rising up behind Mt. Miguel east of San Diego.

P.S. We had some connectivity problems which we are still recovering from which explains why things have been kind of slow around here today. We'll try to pick it up a bit.

'08 Beijing Olympic Update (sans the Chi-com mascot)

(One in an occasional series provided during the run-up to the ’08 Summer Games in Beijing, China. Archived posts in this series can be accessed by entering “Olympics” in the blog search box above).

The brutally unforgiving nature of the U.S. Olympic trials was on display over the weekend as 100 and 200 meter favorite Tyson Gay pulled up in a 200 preliminary heat with a strained hamstring. His dream of a 100/200 sweep is now gone…. no do-overs, no mulligans, no byes for outstanding bodies of work. Win and you’re in – lose and you go home. Fortunately, for Gay he qualified for the Olympics by popping a wind-aided 9.68 in the 100 finals earlier in the Trials which is the fastest time ever recorded in the event but not a record because the tail wind exceeded the allowable 2 meters/second.

Everyone, including his competitors, expressed heartfelt emotion towards Gay (a soft-spoken and humble guy in the sprint events that seem to display the most diva-like behavior) and his plight but also to a person and in particular, Gay himself, favored the rigid structure of the Trials believing that to succeed in the pressure-cooker of the Olympics, one needed to bring their “A”-game to the Trials.

And what about Bernie, you ask? You all remember Bernard Lagat, don’t you? We wrote about Bernard here last August. Lagat, a native Kenyan and a naturalized citizen since 2004 won the 1,500 meter finals at the world championships in Osaka. It was the first time an American won the 1,500 at a global event since Mel Sheppard won it back in ’08. Yes, that Mel Sheppard in the other ’08.



After winning the race, here’s what Bernard had to say to the world and his new brothers and sisters: “This is a dream come true. I'm a champion for the United States of America.” “When you're carrying this flag, it means a lot, You're representing everybody, the victims of Katrina, everybody. Those who are serving in the war in Iraq. This is for everybody in the United States.” Pretty cool, huh?

Bernard was the top qualifier for the U.S. at the Trials in both the 1,500 and the 5,000. Obviously, we will be keeping a close eye on how Lagat fares against his formidable former countrymen in these two events.

Rural blight?

These are recently-installed wind turbines at Crestwood Summit in the mountains about an hour east of San Diego. These wind turbines are also in the general area of the proposed southern route of San Diego Gas and Electric’s Powerlink transmission line.

(click photo to enlarge - you will get a real sense of the size of these monsters)

Doing the right thing?

A carbon tax has the advantage of simplicity and being technologically neutral. By raising the price of fuel sources in direct proportion to the amount of carbon oxidized, we directly attack the problem we wish to solve. Is wind power better than solar photovoltaic? Who knows? Over time the market will decide. Further, the carbon costs of building solar panels or wind turbines would be factored into the equation by the equitable distribution of this tax. Also, a carbon tax has the added advantage of reducing air pollution caused by other contaminants. The majority of air pollution in the United States today is caused by burning fossil fuels.

A tax? Egads!!! So it ain't so!!!

B-Daddy has a thoughtful piece on global warming, energy sources and petrol despots, here.

B-Daddy is your Spike Lee of the blogosphere. You may not always agree with him but he'll always make you think.

Walk of Shame

We’re not picky as to where we park in a grocery store or strip mall parking lot. If we wind up with a spot out in the nether regions of the asphalt Serengeti because we refuse to stalk other patrons returning to their cars then that’s fine by us.

Imagine though our horror at having to haul this packaging all the way back to our hoopdie and suffering the sidelong glances and sneering of the townies along the way.



Alas, a happy ending....

Living it (UPDATED!)

(UPDATE #1):Congratulations to the Chula Vista Little League team who laid claim to the Little League World Series championship by beating the Taiwanese team this afternoon, 6-3. They rallied from a 3-0 deficit and did it by not hitting a homerun which had become their signature and something of legendary (and record-breaking) status.

Being honored at Padre and Charger games looks to be confirmed and a visit to the White House is a possibility from the buzz surrounding the team after the game.

We’ve watched more baseball these past couple of weeks than we have in years as it’s been an absolute joy to watch these young kids perform at the highest level on the biggest stage and overcoming adversity with poise and confidence as two of their last 3 games were come-from-behind affairs.

After the whirl-wind that these next few weeks will be back home for the boys, we hope that everyone will keep in mind they are only 12 and 13 yr.-olds with homework to do for school and chores to do around the house and that the spectacular success they've worked for and enjoyed to date is by no means any guarantee for future spectacular success on the ballfield or anywhere else for that matter.

(here endeth the update)

“Kids dream of playing at Williamsport. Sometimes I go to bed at night and pinch myself.”

That from Bulla Graft of Park View, Chula Vista before yesterday’s 12-2 victory over San Antonio in the championship game of the U.S. side of the bracket.

The dream lives on today as the blue bombers (they now hold the record for most homeruns in a Little League World Series with 19, besting Tokyo’s 15 set in ’03) take on Taoyuan, Taiwan at noon Pacific today for the LLWS championship.

We are a single degree of separation from several kids on this team from a community just south of us here in San Diego. We jumped on this train two weeks ago at the Regional Finals against Granite Bay, California and indeed it seems all of San Diego has been swept up in the excitement of Park View’s late summer run (We were at Hoffer’s for Thursday night’s thriller against Warner-Robins, Georgia and the place was going absolutely bonkers).

So to Bulla, Andy, Luke (Ramirez, pictured), Kiko, Oscar, Seth and the rest of the guys, good luck! The unbridled enthusiasm you guys have displayed combined with your sportsmanship has been a breath of fresh air.

Go figure: Living a long and productive life just might cost you some

Healthcare costs a lot, in part, because it costs a lot to develop new effective technologies and products to keep us healthy. Funny how we are willing to drop some coin when it comes to our own health, isn’t it?

Article here, appeared in the paper the other day had the following to say about medical technology.

Hospitals and large physician groups engage in a technological arms race. They are prodded by manufacturers aggressively pushing their products, patients pleading for the latest treatments and prestigious doctors aligning themselves with institutions marketed as innovative.

“Hospital administrators are under enormous pressure to invest in new technology,” said Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO of Scripps Health, which operates five hospitals in Encinitas, La Jolla, Hillcrest and Chula Vista.

Also contributing to rising medical expenses is the urge by health providers to maximize use of whatever services are available to them — even when it is unnecessary.

Public investment in unproven and even counterproductive alternative energy sources like wind and solar power and ethanol: good. Private investment in unproven medical technologies that may only yield marginal benefits: bad.

In countries where governments closely control health systems, costs are held down partly by evaluating new devices and procedures for effectiveness before allowing them into the market. Panels of medical experts also set treatment guidelines.

The United States puts up “a lot of barriers that make it very hard to control costs,” said Callahan with The Hastings Center. “There is particular resistance within the medical industry.”

For an example, Callahan pointed to Avastin, a colorectal cancer treatment that costs $90,000 for a one-year course of treatment but only extends a patient's life by an average of 1½ months.

Without expressly stating it, this is precisely what rationing is and the slant of the article is perfectly fine with that.

If a technology, procedure or drug passes regulatory muster for safety, let it be brought to market so that the consumers can make the call on whether or not they want to shell out the bucks for it thus removing any decision-making from “panels of medical experts”.

The idea of self-preservation and an inherent human desire to maximize our quality of life coupled with a desire to have access to the latest medical technology no matter how expensive is lost on the author and by extension, proponents of government-managed healthcare.

Keep your politics off our bodies!

All that is old, made new again.

So what’s the car of tomorrow going to look like after the Detroit 3 takeov…, er, bailout?

"All new for 2012, the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition is the mandatory American car so advanced it took $100 billion and an entire Congress to design it. We started with same reliable 7-way hybrid ethanol-biodeisel-electric-clean coal-wind-solar-pedal power plant behind the base model Pelosi, but packed it with extra oomph and the sassy styling pizazz that tells the world that 1974 Detroit is back again -- with a vengeance."

Iowahawk has more here.