Who doesn't care about facts...

So MEDIAMATTERS... LOL... Sorry... You can't make this stuff up.  Check out this Epic Graph-FAIL on the part of Fox News:

 Problems?  Well...

They included the average state tax of about 23 cents per gallon both in the category "state" taxes and in the category "state & local" taxes. The total of both state and local taxes is 30.4 cents on average. Fox also placed $3.83 at the bottom, as if taxes are in addition to the price for gasoline. But the $3.83 figure already includes the taxes. (MMFA)

An ACCURATE graph, using correct numbers and scale however, ins't nearly as compelling:

But, hey, why use accurate numbers when discussing an issue as important as tax subsidies going to our single largest (in terms of PROFIT) industry? This is particularly sad, because there are many perfectly legitimate ways to manipulate a graph (playing with the scale on the Y-AXIS, for example) in order to emphasise a point.  You really shouldn't have to out-and-out LIE and CHEAT with bullshit data.

Speaking of PROFITS, apparently, ExxonMobil would have you believe that they pay more in taxes than they make in profit. Which... anyone who's not a complete idiot should realize is a just about a mathematic impossibility... Unless of course you count the taxes paid by the CONSUMER at the pump!  Which I really wouldn't have that much of a problem with, seriously, if the Right wasn't also trying to make the case that lowering Federal Gas TAXES would lower the PRICE of Gas. If ExxonMobil is counting those taxes - paid by us - as a lost revenue opportunity for them, I think it's pretty clear what would happen to the price Gas if those taxes were lowered or repealed:

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

And that's according to ExxonMobil's own talking point!

The only thing that would happen? The ExxonMobil's of the world would report more profit, still receive billions in tax subsidies, and the rest of us would not only pay exactly the same price at the pump, but we'd also see our property and state income taxes go up substantially in order to make up for the lost revenue our states were once using to maintain our roads.  Well, I don't know about YOU, but I think the ExxonMobil's of the world are taking a big enough chuck out of my paycheck as it is.  So I say: screw 'em. I pay MY taxes, they should sure as hell pay theirs.

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(And before anyone brings up subsidies for Electric Cars or Alternative Energy, let me say that I don't have any problem with eliminating those as well.  Let's just make sure that EVERYONE pays their fair share of taxes, and that BIG OIL covers the FULL COST of our continued consumption of their product, which they currently... what's the industry term? Oh yeah: EXTERNALIZE. Which is a fancy way of saying "fucks everybody else with it.")

Yet another Oil Spill...

I heard about yet another oil-spill related, ongoing travesty on NPR this morning. This one is in Peru, in the Amazon Rain Forrest, and has been going on for the past 30 years. Here is a transcript of the program. As with the 50 year travesty going on in the Niger Delta, I urge every one to read this story as well.

I’ll say it again: THIS INSANITY NEEDS TO END.

My favorite part of the whole debacle might be the response of Peru’s President, Alan Garcia:

When indigenous communities began to take a stand against big companies operating in their territory, President Alan Garcia wrote an editorial criticizing their position. He used the fable "The Dog and the Manger" to make his point.

In the story, a dog falls asleep in a manger and wakes up to bark at the cows who want to eat the hay — even though the dog himself can't eat the stuff. The moral of the story is: Don't begrudge others something you can't enjoy yourself. In the editorial, the hay was Peru's natural riches, and the president compared the spiteful dog to Peru's indigenous people.

Apparently the conservatives in Peru are no less whores to industry than the conservatives here are. The flaw in this idiot’s analogy would be that the problem is not that the "cows" want to "eat the hay"... It's that they want to shit in the manger!

Now THERE’S an analogy you won’t see on the mainstream media!

ENERGY! (Yay!)

OK. FINALLY, it's time to talk about ENERGY.


First off all, I hope that everyone who’s read my blog, visited some of the sites I’ve linked to or seen me go after the climate deniers on MMFA, understands that Global Warming is an issue that I take very seriously. I’m certainly no climate denier and pollution in general is also something that I really take to heart. But I’m also an ENGINEER. And I tend to look at energy issue through those eyes and NOT political ones.

It should go without saying that I’m all for Solar, Wind, Tidal, Geothermal, and any other form of energy generation that does not consume fuel. And personally I don’t buy the statement that SOLAR TECHNOLOGY is not “ready” to generate our electricity. The Solar technology is FINE. The REAL problem is with our electric grid. A century ago we went with WESTINGHOUSE’s model instead of EDISON’s. You see... Edison bascially envisioned everyone having there own, small, household (DC) power source. Westinghouse envisioned huge, centralized power stations that sent (AC) electricity to the surrounding areas. And that, of course, is the model that won out. And if you think about it, Solar power (at least at the consumer level) is closer to Edison’s model. And our “grid” just wasn’t designed with that in mind.

The other problem is one of initial cost. You always hear, from big oil, big coal, etc… that fossil fuels generate the cheapest electricity. That’s true, from a certain point of view, but it’s also complete bullshit. Solar energy is FREE. Wind energy is FREE. You don’t pay for the wind any more that you pay for the sun. Neither consumes any fuel, so how can it cost ANYTHING per kilowatt hour? It’s per usage cost is… NOTHING. Now, sure, there’s a setup cost. You have to BUILD THE DAMNED THING first. (Unlike coal mines, oil fields and power plants, which I guess just grow naturally out of the ground, right?) So whenever you hear the “cost” of Solar, Wind, etc… stated on a per kilowatt basis, you’d better ask over what amount of time they are allocating the initial setup costs. Considering that a solar panel has no moving parts, and thus won’t “wear out,” it can essentially last indefinitely. Thus any attempt to depreciate it over just a year or two, is completely intellectually dishonest.

Personally, if had to design an electrical system from the ground up NOW, I would go with about a 90% Edison model and about 10% Westinghouse. Because if you turned every ROOF in America into an equally sized Solar panel, you could EASILY generate enough power for residential use, without a doubt. And sure, each house would also need a big battery or two to store excess energy in case you get a cloudy week or two (like we’re having in Michigan right now) and your solar source is just not up to snuff. After that just connect everyone, similar to how we are now except that each house is a GENERATOR of power, rather than a recipient.
Now… it IS likely that we’ll need some additional power for INDUSTIAL centers – assembly plants, steel plants, etc… and for one OTHER thing that it’s high time we switched over to: ELECTRIC CARS. There are only two things that are needed to make the electric car practical for personal use. (1) GET RID OF THE IC ENGINE! It’s 800 pounds of unnecessary steel that would serve no purpose at all if… (2) make the batteries interchangeable, so that I can pull into a service station, drop off my old battery and pick up a new one. (They’d recharge my battery and give it to the next guy.) For this, they could charge, say… in the $10-$20 range to cover the CHARGE and the depreciation of the actual battery. (Batteries would have to be replaced after a couple of years, anyway.) Do THIS? And the only thing we’d need ANY gas/diesel/dino-fuel for is LARGE Freight carriers: Namely: Trucks, Trains, Planes and Ships. I’ll admit that I don’t see our battery technology being up to the task of moving huge amounts of mass over great distances anytime soon. But if the only things on the road burning gas were the already highly efficient diesel trucks? That would be HUGE in terms of pollution reduction.
Now…question is: How would I generate that extra power (for plants and cars) and also, how would I generate power in the mean time until we get to the point of what I’m describing? Coal? No fucking way. We should NEVER build another Coal burning plant ever again. Period. You can’t burn it cleanly. Believing anything to the contrary is nonsense. Even if you could, you can’t MINE it cleanly: It destroys mountains, levels forests and pollute rivers and water supplies with all manner of assorted nastiness. And finally: You can’t store the LEFT OVER ASH cleanly either. Coal is dirty, vile, nasty disgusting stuff, and it’s HIGH TIME we started weaning off of it. Natural Gas? Not bad, but you still have a significant contribution to Global Warming to deal with. You see: You simply cannot BURN a HYDROCARBON without producing CARBON DIOXIDE. It’s a chemical impossibility. Hydro-electric is cleans, but DAMS have some of the largest ecological footprints you can imagine. They alter entire ecosystems. So while they’re CLEAN, they’re not really clean. So what short- to near-term solution do I favor? (And this is where I break with Liberals BIG TIME…)

Nuclear.

Nuclear power is the only currently feasible source of energy that can generates anywhere nears the amount of energy we need, without production ANY greenhouse gases. Now… I know there are concerned with safety. If you have those, I suggest you learn about the pebble-bed reactor design. Perfectly safe. And that’s coming from a liberal. Also… I am not ignoring that nuclear power produces some of the single nastiest pollutants one can imagine. But it is specifically BECAUSE of those pollutants that I choose Nuclear over the [Burning Stuff] model. And this is where I stop thinking politically, and start thinking like an engineer:

Although I certainly wouldn't want that shit in my back yard, if I had to chose between having to find a technical solution to safely storing 100,000 tons of uranium, versus 100,000 tons of CO2, I’d pick the Uranium any day. Why? Simple: It’s a dense solid. 100,000 tons of Uranium is about the size of a house. 100,000 tons of gaseous CO2 is about the size of ALASKA. What the fuck are you going to do with that much STUFF? Where the hell would you put it? How would you compress it down into a manageable form? (Hint: You’d run compressors that use MORE energy, thus creating MORE of what it is you’re trying to manage! Oy vey!) But we can do something with a SOLID. Compared to a GAS? The technical problem is almost trivial. I agree that we really do need to do a much better job than we do NOW… But I don’t think we can just throw a switch and change our whole power system overnight either. So in the meantime, Nuclear is the ready option, that meets the need, and that pollutes the planet the LEAST.
So, after all that… We come down to it: How do I feel about Obama opening up the East Coast to OIL DRILLING? You know what? I’m actually OK with it. Not HAPPY, but it’s not yet a deal-breaker for me, even after all I’ve said here. Right now? I’m inclined to view it as one of the same ‘necessary evils’ in energy legislation that I saw in the effort for health care reform: One of those things that might not be popular, but just may be necessary to get something done. And before anyone jumps on me for that statement alone, let me qualify it:

1) I’m very glad that many regions are still off limits, including some of the more fragile, as yet untouched ecosystems. (Like ANWR, for example.)

2) Increased drilling was a part of his energy plan, even on the campaign trail, if you recall, so it’s something I expected anyway.

3) I’m also hearing about CAFE standard being raised to 35 mpg for ALL VEHICLES. I really like that idea, but even so I’d be ecstatic even if it were only 30 mpg.

4) I’m really reserving judgment until I see what role alternative energy and green energy will play in the overall policy moving forward and how serious he is about investing in it.

If throwing the oil industry a bone is what it takes to keep them from eliminating the new CAFE standards, or halting investment in green energy? Fine – let ‘em drill. If the states and the coastal residents want to fight it? Let ‘em. Those people tend to vote Republican, so it’s really their fight anyway. Now… if Obama tosses out that alternative energy investment; opens up the Gulf, the West Coats and ANWR to drilling; kills the new CAFE standards; doesn’t sign any global climate treaties? Fine. I’ll admit I was wrong and gladly join my friend, ClassicLiberal, in the effort to remove him from office. (Assuming there’s a VIABLE alternative and the nomination of a new candidate doesn’t hand the Presidency to Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal. Becasue otherwise: I’ll STILL stick with Obama!)
One final thing…

I never believed in “Drill baby drill.” (I don’t think any thinking person ever really did.) And the best way to break our dependence on foreign oil will be to REDUCE OUR COPNSUMPTION. I know this. I realize that you could drill on every square inch of America and we’d still be buying foreign oil. We simply burn too much of it. BUT, I hate $4.00 a gallon gas as much as anyone. (More so, maybe.) And while I know that this little bit of drilling (or even a LOT of drilling) won’t impact the price of gas more than a nickel or so (at best) I also realize that the market is and IRRATIONAL thing. And if throwing the industry a bone helps STABALIZE gas prices a bit? (Even for no good reason?) I’ll take that. And there’s another thing: MARKET FORCE (high prices) will NEVER get us off Gas by themselves. Reason: Any widely adapted application of green energy will reduce demand for fossil fuels. So the GREENER we get, the CHEAPER Gas (etc…) will get. It will ALWAYS appear cheap compared to the cost of updating our grid, buying an electric car, etc... And it will only get cheaper once we START DOING THESE THINGS! So don’t be fooled into thinking we need high gas prices to get us off gas. It won’t work. As we DO get off gas, the price will only FALL. Going green will take POLITICAL WILL. “The market” won’t care until long after it’s too late to fix anything.

In defense of Obama

It seems all the rage these days in the liberal blogosphere to be bashing Obama.  Of course, that's always been the rage in the conservative blogospere, but their arguments are too absurd to even warrant a counter argument.  But for my part, I've never been afraid to go against the grain on and this case is no different.  So I'm going to go against the hard left here and offer a strong defense of what Obama is doing.  And I'm going to do thins not becuase I'm defending the lesser of two evils - I'm doing this because I'm HAPPY with what happening. 

Yes, you read that right.

That I'm a self-proclaimed liberal that likes Obama will not surprise anyone the Right. But they're morons, and they actually BELIEVE the RW media's nonsensical chariciture of him and have no idea what they're talking about.  To them it would never occur that Obama even needs a defense from the far more will-informed and principled attacks that come from the Left.  Well, Mister President, I'M YOUR MAN.  I can only hope that I'm equal to the task.

Two areas in which liberals are feeling a bit, shall we say, betrayed lately are the recently enacted health care reform and the pending (and passed) energy legislation.  The common explanations that I come accross that accompuy the liberal head-scratching is that President Obama is a FOOL for doing things like throwing out the public option or opening up [SOME] off-shore drilling without demanding ANYTHING from the Republicans in return for these huge concessions.  I've heard every, very legitate, argument that he's pissing away all his negotiating power, and it's in the ultimate of all veign efforts since the Republicans have adopted as their official party-line policy, "Stop all things Obama and all things Democrat at ANY cost."  In other words: They're calling him a fool for not only holding out hope for bi-partisanship but also for going about getting it in such an ineffective manner.  Now these conclusions and these judgemenbts are perfectly valid and reasonable, except for the one thing they all ignore:

President Barack Hueissein Obama doesn't give a shit about Congressional Republicans or their uneccessary votes.  Not. A. Shit.  Mark my words that eveything he passes - and a lot will yet pass - under his administration will do so under a pure party-line vote, occasionally excepting Maine's Snowe and Collins.  And the President not only knows this, he's counting on it.  You see he's not doing ANY of this for the votes of Congressional Republicans...

He doing it for the votes of Moderate Republicans in the general public, for both his beneift and the benefit of the party. 

And he's also doing it to get the entreched industries on board.  It's one thing to have to deal with Republicans who dig in their heals.  But they're irrelevant.  They really are.  But try passing health care reform if the INSURANCE COMPANIES and the MEDICAL INDUSTRY all dig in their heals; or energy legislation if BIG OIL and BIG NUKE dig in theirs.  Liberals my not like the concessions but I for one do believe that they are necessary if ANYTHING is going to get done.  And while the individual points and details may cause some legitimate consternation, we ARE still moving in the right direction net and net.  And every judgement to the contrary, to me sounds more like someone saying that we're simply not moving in that direction fast enough.  But there is a world of difference between moving in the right driection too slowly and goin full tilt in the wrong direction.  Anyone who thinks that there's only a subtle difference between an Obama presidency and a hypothetical SARAH PALIN presidency (or the George W. Presdiency) for example, is a fool.  In Obama's adminstration there is MORE regulation that before, MORE government involvement than before. More of everything that evcery liberal wants than there would be otherwise.  In a Palin presidency, there would only, ever, be LESS, just as we saw with Bush. (And we saw the results.)

And the really beautiful part is that he's doing a lot more than just getting the necessary endorsments from the affected industries in order to got us heading the right way again.  By making these concessions, and (to some extent) angering his base, the image that the RW press tries to paint of him (as some radical, communist, socialist, facsist, marxist, etc...) gets increasing incruent with reality.  This only make the RW talkers seem more and more irrational, more and more out of touch and farther and farther to the right.  This won't change their message of course, they've proven that much, but it will change the preception of some of those right-center moderates who increasingly will realise that these Limbaugh and Beck types simply are no longer observing reality. This will win over many moderates.

Does this win moderates at the risk of alienating his base?  Is he rubbing their face in it?  No, not really..  He's giving them what he can, and he giving them far more credit than the Republicans are giving the tea-baggers.  At some point he must realize that liberals will vote for him, not just as the lesser of two evils, but as the WAY lesser of two evils, and even the bringer of SOME good.  Again, if you say he's the same as Bush or Palin (would be), the you're simply not observing reality.  And he knows that true liberals will not risk eight years of Sarah Palin over a little bit of oil, or the structure of a health care system that actually delivers.  Side by side, one looks the right direction and one looks like lunacy.  The left will realize this.  The moderats will realize this.  And the only people who see thing the other way?  Are the lunatics!

Now I've mentioned that I, for one, don't feel betrayed.  And I'm not actually the least bit surprised at what's happening actually.  In fact, as I remember it, it's exactly the policies that he advocated for on the campaign trail.  First off, I never fell for the RW nonsense.  But I'm honestly not sure where the liberals got the idea that he'd be all that far to the left either.  I listened to his speeches and everything he said, everything he's EVER said, just MADE SENSE to me. It was always EXACTLY what I wanted to hear him say. And what I took away from his speeches, and what I came to expect when I cast my vote for him, is playing out pretty much as I expected, though I underestimated the Republican's will to obstruct. 

Obama did NOT.  Yes, you read that right.

Remember: He doesn't care about getting their votes.  But by giving all of these concessions, and knowing that the Republicans will dig in no matter what, he not only deprives of the ability to take credit for it, but they can't even claim credit for reigning it in.  They can't even say, "Well, it worked because we made him do X" or "we stopped him from doing X."  They've been the blindfolded party of 'no' from the start, will continue to be, and won't even be able to take credit for the concessions.  Everything that happens will be 100% to the credit of both Obama and the Democrats.  And depsite the story the press will tell, mark my words that every Democrat in the upcoming election, and in 2012, will be listing their party's accomplishments and finishing their speeches with: "AND MY OPPONENT [or his party] VOTED AGAINST EVERY SIGLE ONE OF THOSE!"

My opponent WANTS you to be denied insurance!
My opponent WANTS you to have your insurance dropped because your sick!
My opponent WANTS insuracne to be priced out of the range of most Americans!

...and, on energy:

My opponent not only wants to ignore the growing problem of climate change, but he didn't even vote to get you cheaper gas!

(Yes, yes, I know, full well, that this little bit of drilling, or indeed A WHOLE LOT of drilling will make little difference in the price of gas... But the average voter doesn't!  Drill, baby, drill, remember?)

Now, at this point you may be wondering if I'm allowing Obama to just do what he thinks he needs to to get re-elected.  And maybe I am.  To be fair, I actually see that as a big part of a polticians JOB.  But for eight long years I watched as the country went headlong in the WRONG DIRECTION.  And what I FELT I was being promised - what I took away from Obama's speeches - was that the direction would change.  We would not be delivered to a liberal's paradise in one term, two terms or even necessarily in my lifetime... but we would be headed in the right direction once again.  And, IMHO, we are.  And to me, all of the arguments from the left sound like "we're not going fast enough" rather than "we're going the same direction we were." We're not.  And you're whitewashing George Bush and Dick Cheney and (hypothetcially) Sarah Palin to say that we are.  And the only way we can continue to march in that direction? Is to STAY IN POWER and GET THNGS PASSED.  Because one IN, it's harder to take things OUT.  It's a lot easier to PASS laws than REPEAL them.  And thus, we progress.

As for energy?  Hey: He SAID he'd drill.  He SAID we need more oil. I remember that specifically! That was IN his speeches on energy policy! It's not his fault that both the Right and the Left took that about as seruiously as they did McCain's lipservice pledge to pursue some pathetic little amount of green energy.  I took it seriously. (Obama's not McCain's!)  He also said we needed a ton of the green stuff as well.  So if giving some  new resouces to the oil companies means that we get some serious investments in alternative energy? As was promised, and as has been absent fro eight years?  And new Cafe standards? Proposed at 35 mpg for all vehicles, when they haven't changed in so long? And some climate change treaties signed? After we balked at Kyoto and have boycotted any serious effort since for eight years?  And some (ANY!) serious development of wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, whatever / etc...?  Shoot, I'll give him some oil for that.  Becuase if we actually GET the other things, just like with health care reform, we will be making progress once again, after eight years of stalling at best and rushing headlong in the wrong direction almost all of the time.

And if anyone still thinks he should have gotten some Republican concessions out of it? Remember: He doesn't need them, and more importnatly: He doesn't even WANT them.  We'll get the good stuff he proposing, AND we'll even get some oil resources developed - proving to right-leaning moderates that you don't have to kill the economy to get renewable energy, BTW - and, once again, the Democrats will be able to take all the credit for it.  And what he's got now is an oil industry that will resist these changes that much less, and have that much less to go after him with.  And if you think that he could have just forced some radical liberal agenda though? (1) You're just not being realistinc about the COUNTRY and how things are done; and (2) you mustn't have heard the same speeches I did, in the same way I did.  Because drillign was ALWASY part of his ebnergy plan, and it's one of the reason I LIKED it.

He's no fool, politically speaking.  If anything, he's far closer to "evil genius" than Karl Rove ever was. (Except that he's using his powers for GOOD!) And the Republicans are doing EXACTLY what he wants them to. 

Now, could I be wrong?  Hells yes I could be!  And in two years time, I may sound just like those fools who were still defending George Bush well into 2007, saying that everything was going according to some secret grand master plan.  Well... WE sure as hell didn't see the plan!  And history has shown that there really wasn't one. Rove wasn't a genius and Bush didn't assemble the "dream team." Those were media concoctions. And the policies just plain FAILED, just as we knew they would.

THIS time around?  I actually SEE the plan.  And I actaully LIKE the policies that are coming out of it, and I look forward to seeing the Democrats USE these while the Republicans keep trying to argue against progress.

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NOTE: This is a post about LEADERSHIP, NEGOTIATING and STRATEGY.  So PLEASE keep your comments on THAT topic and give me another day to pull together my position piece on energy legislation.  You can savage my defense of oil - and NUKE! OMFG! - then.