The U.S. Government and Solar: Outrageously Stupid or Unbelievably Stupid?

Defending the Empire

Rattlesnakes Are Smarter Than 16% Of U.S. High-School Biology Teachers

It turns out that rattlesnakes in Arizona are starting to lose their rattles, apparently in reaction to human encroachment of their habitats. As people build houses in the desert, trample the earth to build golf courses, and roll their RVs into previously virgin territory, banging smack into wildlife, they – we - have a tendency to react badly to nature, which results in a lot of dead rattlesnakes. A handful of the rattlesnakes that haven’t ended up deceased are those that manage to keep quiet and slide on by – in other words, the rattlers that can’t rattle.

Spanish Spoken Here

The U.S. Census Bureau recently coughed up a bunch of fascinating statistics, and not only fascinating, but also depending on how your mind words, frightening, depressing, and/or mind-boggling.

And we’ll start with one little fact: Nearly three quarters of the 727,070 residents of El Paso, Texas speak Spanish at home, even if they are fluent in English. The numbers also show that 1 of every 5 living in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and California, use Spanish, not English, at home.

Think about that.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sarah

John McCain will lose come November, and he will lose by a lot. That’s the way it has been for a long time now, and nothing’s going to change it. And when John McCain loses, he will fade from the national scene, and not long after, disappear from the Arizona political landscape as well. And that will be that.

And then we will be left with Sarah.

Dear God, Not Sarah Palin

Let us bow our heads, my friends, and make short work of Sarah Palin: I won’t bother to repeat the details of her “unusual” family history, which promises to dip into the truly bizarre and probably unpleasant before long. Nor will I raise her dubious political story, from her duplicitous tale about the Bridge to Nowhere, and her attempted banning of books, on and on; rest assured all that will be thoroughly vacuumed in short order.

No, my issue is simple enough, and it is this: The United States of America cannot have a vice president who believes in creationism, intelligent design, or anything other than basic science.

Hilary Clinton gave her speech at the convention and she said everybody should vote for Barack Obama. Okay, she said a little more than that, she said, I did this, I stand for that, I’m really terrific…and the other guy is okay, too – but that just about summed it up.

The reaction from the media was predictable. CNN loved it, MSNBC practically swooned, and Fox thought otherwise. (Actually, if Abraham Lincoln himself had been reanimated to say something nice, a Fox host would have dismissed him, claiming the Great Emancipator maybe wasn’t a real Republican, as he hadn’t been around to vote for Reagan.)

Syndicate

The U.S. Government and Solar: Outrageously Stupid or Unbelievably Stupid?

Written by Len Sherman
Tuesday, 01 July 2008
We can keep this simple: We need new energy sources because we can’t bath ourselves in foreign oil any longer. We need to develop and maximize every kind of energy imaginable and available, especially ones that don’t despoil the earth and poison we fragile homo sapiens and the other creatures who inhabit it. So what does the federal government do to further this obvious goal? Anything it can think of to screw it up. From Reuters: Leaders in the U.S. solar energy industry blasted theU.S. government on Monday for a freeze on applications for new solar projectson public land in six Western states. The Bureau of Land Management announced the freeze a month ago,saying it would conduct an extensive study looking at the environmental, social and economic impacts of solar energy development. During the22-month study, the agency will not consider any new proposals for solar energy developments on public land in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexicoor Utah. The Bureau of Land Management evidently felt that the 130 applications it already had to develop solar projects on over one millions acres of land was about all it could handle. These 130 applications together have the potential to generate 70 billion watts of electricity, enough energy to power some 20 million homes. And with that sort of potential, why bother to push forward in a time of national crisis, a crisis that will not end any time soon? "We are going to be working with the 130 applications that we have," (BLM project manager) Linda Resseguie told Reuters on Monday."It seemed best to us not to continue to build on that until we more fully understand which public lands are best suited for solar energy development." It would be nice to actually believe that the BLM is so righteously concerned with the sanctity of public lands. It would be nice but ridiculous, when you realize that no fewer than 80 million acres of federal land is leased to the oil and gas industry, and not one, not a single, solitary acre, is leased for solar. "We think it's ludicrous that the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) will put a moratorium on new projects when they haven't processed a single one," Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy IndustryAssociation, told reporters during a conference call. Ludicrous doesn’t explain half of it. Consider this fact: The BLM controls 258 acres of public land, primarily in Western states, which translates to about 13 percent of the total surface land in the country. Unlike much of the land utilized for oil and gas exploitation, solar development would focus on the desert, land that is hardly utilized for anything by anybody. Of course, we can’t solely blame the BLM for its idiocy. The BLM is part of the Interior Department, under the control of the same Bush Administration that did nothing to protect and prod our auto industry to compete with Toyota and Honda, and produce hybrid and other smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, the same Administration that did nothing to spur development of alternative fuels, but rather hindered that development at every turn, the same Administration that has not bothered to understand that environmentalism and energy independence are two indivisible components of national security. And so here we are,once again, letting an opportunity to use two of our greatest national resources, our ingenuity and drive, waste away. It would all be so depressing if it weren’t so predictable.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 July 2008 )

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Border/Immigration

Mexico Finally Seals Border, Stops Americans From Buying Cheap Gas, Keeps Lanes Open For Drugs

Whoever said Mexicans couldn’t or wouldn’t control their border has just been proved wrong. Yes, our friends and allies to the south have finally stepped up and shut down traffic…traffic, that is, bearing U.S. plates and carrying containers fuel, looking to save a few bucks with cheap Mexican gas.
Read more...

Mexico Invades America – Again

Mexican soldiers on Arizona soil held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint Sunday night. The Mexicans retreated after backup agents responded.

This is far from the first time the Mexican military, and/or those wearing Mexican uniforms, most likely members of Los Zetas, have crossed over the border, in support of drug and illegal immigration operations. Though both governments have sought to downplay such incidents, the increasing number of these sometimes violent incursions – over 200 confirmed incursions since 1996 - makes the situation difficult to sweep under the rug.

Mexico is finding that dealing with the devil is not a deal without consequences. And those consequences are coming home to roost in a most horrific way.

Not long ago, the Mexican government maintained an “understanding” with the drug traffickers: Don’t cause problems in Mexico, and roll your drugs into the United States without too many hassles. Oh, and don’t forget the payoffs.

Whichever side you’re on in the immigration debate, the landmark raid at the Iowa meatpacking plant back in May, which rounded up 389 illegals, proves that this is an issue that demands action and resolution. The political void has resulted in a situation that is simply intolerable in a nation of laws and liberty.

To begin the abuses: More than 20 of those arrested were underage workers, some as young as 13, forced to work shifts of 12 hours or more in dangerous conditions, sometimes through the night, six nights a week, using razor-edged knives and saws to divide up freshly slaughtered beef.

The Fence Cuts Both Ways

The fence, any fence, hasa certain basic appeal: separate Us from Them, the latter consisting of the bogeymen of your choice. With the immigration crisis in full bloom, the idea ofa fence sounded as simple and as direct as a solution could be. Stop them from coming by stopping them from coming.

Ah, if reality was so black and white. Or, in the case, so American and Mexican.