Colorado wins against ALEC, solar panels will prevail.

Jan. 29th Colorado turned back ALEC and the local utilities attempt to kill net metering for roof top solar.  Net metering is when you generate your own power and the meter runs backwards.  Arizona just beat back the same thing a few days ago, and Georgia I believe.  Now they (ALEC, Kochs, coal) move the fight to Kansas.  Hearings are coming up soon on this.  Normally it takes a year to schedule bills to the floor, for these guys the GOP can do it in a few days.

 Look, if the sunshine falls on my land or building, why can't I use it, sell it if I want, I can sell tomato's that are on my side of the fence, why not sunshine?  The more people producing a little power, the stronger the safety factor from storm outages, and the less investment the utility has to make.  I understand the utility needs a few dollars to trim trees and fix polls, so a small charge is OK, but what they want is to make it so severe as to kill the incentive.  They want to kill the independence and entrepreneurial spirit that we hear so much about.   So, now lets see if Kansas can do what .

I have seen some of these solar farms in German pastures, with sheep or cattle mowing the grass between them, sleeping in the shade under them.

Recently the head of one of Germany's energy departments said the reason we can do these things is because we don't have the Koch brothers.

Germany pays a little more for a unit of power than we do, but they use less in their homes, also they are OK with it, they say it is for the good of the nation and for the environment of the world, they are a bit puzzled that the Americans are so worried if it will cost a few dollars more to clean things up, don't you want things cleaned up they say.

Pete's one-ton-tomato song

I don't mean to make fun of this, but as a kid we always belted out one ton tomato as the chorus, oh it was so fun to yell it out. Well Pete could engage people and get them to help be part of the show, can you imagine being part of one of his shows, well we were and it made his show better and gave everyone a little lung exercise. This is just a wonderful piece, half way through he gives the translation, what a wonderful poem. I hope someone will emerge to mean as much and do as much as Pete did. Did you sing along with the video? Your a poop head if you didn't. Play it again and sing, clear out the pipes, make ya feel good.

Lung Association fights for your breath

Helping people with lung cancer is just part of ALS activities.  They also fight to educate the public on causes of lung diseases, which brings them into the fight for clean air and against global warming.  Air pollution, CO2, from natural gas and coal fired power plants, cement kilns, refineries, and tailpipe emissions are a direct threat to the health of people everywhere.  Their advice, stop smoking if you do, and fight, fight for clean air,  fight for your breath.
Air pollution inside and outdoors is the cause of some of the nations asthma, heart disease, emphysema, bronchitis, cancers, and continued exposure is not helping.
It's a good charity.  At their web page, a link to the Affordable Health Care sign-up site.

Dear Ed Show, Dear MSNBC:

Democrat former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer pulled one over on The Ed Show yesterday.  Ed lapped it up, out of ignorance I presume.  The governor shilled for Canadian Tar Sands Keystone Pipeline.  Ed handed him the chance to beg for the pipes approval, and put forth a number of false statements like below.
The pipe could take the dangerous exploding trains off the tracks, and put the tar sands crap in the safest pipeline in the world.   Total crap.  The tar sands mine is already producing more than can go through the pipe and they are expanding at a rapid pace.  We will end up with a pipe that can leak or explode as demonstrated in the last few days and months, AND, the trains of dangerous tar sand gunk will continue rumbling through our towns, the number of trains will probably grow.
He also said this will help us have more oil and gas.  This is not true, or not much, Valero and the other major recipient of this poison on the Gulf Coast have already, it's in their stock reports, signed contracts to refine it here and export almost 100% of it.  What we get more of is pollution and mountains of dangerous waste from one of the dirtiest hardest to refine petroleum sources on earth.
Ed, you fucked up, you didn't have any knowledge of the facts, your staff didn't get you up to speed, or your OK with this, either way I really now consider much of your reporting to be suspect.

I wanted to email Ed, can't find a goddamn address for him, only the twitter shit, fuck a bunch of twitter.

Pebble Creek Mine and market price of salmon

Pebble Creek Mine

Posted on January 20, 2014

2

The EPA has came out strong in their oppssition to the Pebble Creek gold and copper mine bt Lake Illiamna in SW Alaska. The EPA estimates that the mine project in just the biuld up phase alone would destroy 94 miles of steams. And, once the mine was operational another five and twenty-two miles of slamon spawning habitat would be ruined along with 5,350 acres of wetlands. This means nothing to the mining company and it seems those in the state legislature and governor’s office are more intersted in the revenue that is produced from the mine than the affect on the enviroment. I spent a year at King Salmon Airport/Air Force Station just south of where the mine is proposed to go. Fishing is a way of life for the people who harvest fish in Bristol Bay. By the way, Bristol Bay produces 46% of the world’s sockey salmon and native Alaskan tribes like the Yukik and the Dena’ina depend on the salmon for their livelyhood.

I have been in King Salmon Creek in waders and have watched the sockeye run upsteam to spawn and I can tell you without a doubt that the proposed mine at Pebble Creek in Alaska will have devastating affects on the eco-system in Bristol Bay that time will never cure! Please write your Representative and Senators and urge that the Pebble Creek Mine project in Alaska be denied a permit to start excavation.

The danger is just too high….

This reposted with permission from Sarge, msgtron.blog.com.  He has been there fishing, watching bear and hiking on these rivers.  Now the thing you need to understand about this map is the red area is where the mining will take place, which feeds into a large lake and two rivers ending in outlets on Bristol Bay.  Even if you think going after gold is a good goal and the state of Alaska has the right to do as they wish, try to understand this mine will dump mountains of silt into the lake, rivers and both Bristol Bay entry points.  Salmon and trout don't like dirty water, otherwise I could fish for them in Kansas.  Also that silt will carry with it mercury and arsenic both used in gold mining, fish don't like that shit either.  To allow this to proceed will reduce the amount of salmon on the world market, raise prices, increase demand on other food sources.

And that ain't all.  Tundra and Alpine soils are thin, a couple of inches deep.  Scratch that off and tear up the area and you have created a wasteland for decades maybe centuries.  As Sarge said, the risk it to high.  Look up the governor of Alaska's address, as Sarge said in another post, write a letter or email, ask them why they would risk all this.

And so, once again the arctic air mass slipped like an ill fitting toupe down one side of the orb, understand there is not more cold air, it's just here rather than there.

"If global warming is real then why is it cold? .........

The line is especially notable for its tone, which is usually hyper-confident and self-congratulatory, freighted with the assumption that there’s not a climate scientist in the world who can possibly explain cold regional short-term weather on a warming planet.  ..........

Never mind that the argument backing the phrase is logically identical to the argument that the arrival of night proves the sun has been extinguished forever. Never mind indeed that the very moment this latest round of witty rejoindering swept frozen North America, Australia was sweltering under a record-breaking heat wave. No, your typical deployer of the If global warming is real then why is it cold? trope is not just convinced he’s right but delighted by the certainty he’s just sprung a logical trap on you that will have you stuck in a snowbank till the next summer heat wave."

Borrowed for the sole purpose of offering you a chance to read more, it's by Sean Chu at 

http://desmogblog.com/

Flames almost 1,000 feet high

Over the weekend, another pipeline exploded.  The owner, Trans-Canada, the same guys behind the Tar-Sands pipeline which will transport oil through the US to ports for export.  Do you trust these guys?

I do think Johnny Cash would like this.

pencil test

She set in the chair tilting her head and smiling.  The old house didn't have air conditioning and today it was hot.  The windows were wide open, in front of the house the river churned wide and black roiling fast towards Koblenz to merge with the Rhine.  My friend had taken her blouse off earlier, and she didn't have a bra when she arrived.
You have beautiful breasts.
Laughter, more head tilting.  They won't hold a pencil.
What?
That's how you tell if your tits are great or not.  Lift it and put a pencil under there against the ribs and let go.  If the pencil stays there they are not great tits.  So get me a pencil.
I ran off then back with a pencil.
Thanks, watch this.
The pencil dropped.  Big smile and a wink.
Wow, your tits are great, and big.
Yes, I know.

Later we went for a walk and drank wine on a patio near the water.

Like ketchup in the wind.

At a blog dedicated to promoting clean energy over coal and natural gas some smart ass was gloating over the PTC being cut and goody goody cause it gives giant tax breaks to a fake industry.  It is a tax break green energy got for a few years, but fossil fuel gets 20 times as much and has since 1910 I think.  So I set out to find what is my share.  Not easy, different sites and stories bend the billions into different threat levels, so I took the lowest and the highest and found that ketchup costs me more than PTC.  I'd say both are a bargain.  My comment  will probably be attacked, since the coal industry shills wants to talk about millions and billions, not $2. 

My comment:

I found various figures for the Production Tax Credits cost to our federal tax collections. These excluded the offsetting impact of taxes and contributions paid to local, state and federal from new jobs and growth in commerce during build and life cycle. The billions in tax relief over the years covered works out to my share of the bill being less than $2 a year, or $9 in the very highest examples. I spend more than that on ketchup.

China dumps on California, and other snippets.

* Sulfates from China's smoke stacks are blowing into the West Coast states so densly as to add 12 to 24% to their daily detected pollution, yes every day. Oh, it doesn't stop there either, the jet stream brings it to most all of us.
*At the same time the central and eastern states are in the deep freeze, Australia is setting records too, 122°f and higher in large areas down under, and in Russia a warm winter, will they get enough snow for a good Olympics?  The arctic vortex, a spinning low center over the poll that drafts heat into space has slid off the top, like a toupee hit by the wind, it's just out of place, slid off to one side.  

What does it mean when you hear someone loaned a political campaign money?

Kansas governor GOP pope Brownback found himself falling behind the democrats for his campaign war chest.  Bam.  Suddenly he has the upper hand with one guy "loaning" him $500,000.  The guy is his ultra rich lieutenant governor.

I did not know this until today but campaign loans to yourself, or your own campaign as this is a ticket of two like the Pres and VP, these loans from yourself can be kept secret as to the terms.  Sometimes they are forgiven, therefore the limits of giving have been gotten around.  But typically what goes on is the interest rates are outrageous, no limit is set by law.  After the race you can continue to raise donations to pay off these loans.  Who would do that?  Lobbyist who want big favors from the winner help pay off the loans.  Since these trolls can charge any rate they want for their own money to their own campaign, they can make big big big ass money off it.  25%, much higher, anything is legal, 300% is legal. Plus when it is announced there is a loan this tips off lobbyist that should this prick win he is for sale, this is a red light over a whores window, condoms optional.   So you have these guys filling their own pockets in office from corporations wanting big ass favors, "helping" them repay the "campaign debt".  This is crooked man I don't give a shit what the law says this is corruption right out in the open, like screw you people we companies and rich guys are going to buying the votes and laws that benefit us, not for you, fuck you. 

So far the democrats have raised a million in 2 months from lots of small doners, just a little behind brownback after the 1/2M loan. 

fat boy anthem

90,000 views already by mid morning

Indiana imports coal giving away it's economic potential

$1.14 billion in economic growth potential was taken out of Hoosier land for coal in 2008.  Total cost of  coal burned up for electric generation was $1.29 billion.  ($151 million difference represents the coal mined and burned in state.)
Indiana's residents and businesses gave up local wealth to other states as follows:  $56m Montana, 608m Wyoming, 43m Colorado, 261m Illinois, 89m Kentucky, 139m West Virginia, 89m Pennsylvania, <1m Georgia.
Indiana is the 8th largest importer by weight, 27.7 million ton, spent the 9th most on imports $1.14 billion, spent the 9th most per person $178, 9th most relative to gross state product.
Indiana gets 94% of it's electricity from coal, the most of any state in the union.  The good news is the state has seen some wind farms installed, and could produce 4 times more energy than it needs from wind alone, solar could add at least that much.
More good news is the state has begun an energy efficiency program promoting better devices and appliances and utilities must meet improvement goals over time.  The bad news is the standards are baby-step in strength, and all of these progressive programs are likely to face attack by ALEC shills in the state house.

If the will was there in only a decade this 94% could be cut in half with renewables.  The 500 million cash not burned up could instead pay Indiana's farmers and counties for royalties and fees for clean energy, as well as boost state income tax, and all of this money would be churning around in the villages and towns of Indiana.  I don't think you could find another industry to recruit that delivers 1/2 a billion $ into local pockets rather than funneling it to corporations.  I'm not saying rates go down, I'm saying with wind and solar, a portion of the $1 billion lost out of state for coal could stay in hoosier land.
Hey Sarge, can I find data or what?

first they mine coal, then they mine your pocket, neither resource will replenish in the near term.

I am exercising an idea I will use at the state house when I go to haunt the halls and talk with the industry shills as they try again to damage clean energy through legislation.  .........

37 states import coal into their state.  A $19.4 billion annual cost to consumers to generate electricity.

 You should understand that these billions are being mined from your state from you, by the mining companies.  Just like they tear the tops off mountains they tear the money out of towns, money that could feed people, grow schools and start businesses.
 Except for West Virginia Kentucky and Wyoming few states make more than a few bucks on coal.  The billions don't do much good for those states either. Where ever there is coal their is abject poverty and stress and ill health.
In the central US states where more energy is generated by wind, farmers get royalties of several thousand a year off each turbine, the counties also get payments, and there are a few high paying jobs scattered in rural areas to service the turbines.  Rather than shipping money out of state for dirty fuel it stays home where it's put back into the community.  Recycled by us.

What I am saying is part of your utility money either goes out of state for smokey old coal, or it could stay near home paying locals for clean energy.

ALEC is making another run at repealing the agreement my state (and about 25 others) had with utilities to invest in wind and solar.  ALEC and the fossil fuel industry want to destroy these agreements to protect that pipeline of cash into their pockets.

What has dirty ole king coal done lately:
Train wrecks, Fly ash containment pond spills, mountain top removal, black lung, run away barges hitting bridges, dirty sky, cheat on tonnage mined payments on government land, fought EPA rules, automated and beat down wages at the same time, used bankruptcy court to dodge liability for deaths, and just this week polluted 300,000 peoples water in West Virginia with a chemical that is unregulated.

Disney went fucking Goofy, we had to shut them down.

Signing on-line movements works.  Seems like it couldn't, but it does.  It can succeed in days where governments take longer if they will do it at all.  Avaaz.org is probably the largest, 32 million members from all over the world.  We, (we cause I use it every couple of weeks) have stopped all kinds of corporate shit against people and the environment, we have freed all kinds of political prisoners, forced lots of countries to enforcing or enact laws to protect women, animals, the environment.  NRDC is also very affective, Sierra club, there are lots.  And sometimes, for your 3 minutes invested, it works.

Recently Disney took a contract from the coal industry to make coal into another loveable marketable kid propaganda shmuck.  They put on a kind of road show with teams traveling the nation visiting grade schools with heart warming good news adventures about coal.  Well, it's fucking goofy, but after only 71,000 emails, I was one, Disney shut it down, called its teams home and dumped the happy cartoon handouts.

NRDC National Resource Defense Council is the most successful of the environmental groups in the US, also they have an excellent record of influencing industry, or if need be fighting them.  Help out, or Avaaz.org.

Look, someone has got to protect Goofy, he doesn't deserve this.

Cold nights are heating up

These charts run from 1970 till a few days ago.  OK your not on Fox news, the declining yellow line does not mean we are getting colder, it means the number of nights below the temperature stated are fewer.  In other words the declining yellow line is the statistical trend, it's getting warmer.

borrowed charts, info only, Climate Central did the art work

Statistics and the naked ape

New chart, about like last years, actually I think this year the percent presenting against global warming is even closer to zero.  1 author out of 9136 with 2258 published findings, only 1 against.

What else in life has this strong a case?  1/9137 is a pretty small fraction for 40 or 50% of the public to hang their beliefs on, if that doesn't crush your faith in homo sapiens intellect nothing will.

This morning in my paper they printed another conspiracy opinion, scientist are making it up, they're  evil.  The climate articles and authors are from all around the world, from places that don't agree on god or borders or anything else, from various academic disciples who fuss and snipe daily.  It is impossible they would all falsify their individual projects to the same ends, work together in a plot, or that 9,136 geeks and gurus could keep it secret, it would be an even greater  statistically improbability.

Blubber boy down in New Jersey, can he get up?

My red state paper had no mention of the heavyset governor's troubles.  Protecting the portly one is no surprise.  I think they will turn on tubby once Cruz, Paul, and Rubio figure out this is a way to dispose of their corpulent competitor.  So be it, he polled stouter against the Dems than any other douche bag.  Maddow had porky in her sights at least 3 weeks ago, but it was a small town reporter hammering away that found the smoking guns in dumpy's office.  A lesbian and a reporter may undo the corn-fed rethuglican.  Seems sure the FBI will want to interview the spherical one, the busiest bridge in the nation is partially blocked for politics, that is fucking with interstate commerce, how much freight was delayed, how many man hours lost?  Most likely they will never get an ample answer of flabby's involvement, but it will weigh heavy on his chances in 2016, opportunity ahead looks thin.

Texas wind kept the lights on

The cold spell over the US sank into Texas and their space heaters and electric blankets drove the grid to it's capacity.  Now, the wind haters bemoan, "we were one power plant failure from a black out", and "we now have to much reliance on wind".  Note what their worry is -- the coal plant crashing, but they tie their worry to those damn wind mills.  Truth is if the wind had stopped they would have had to buy power off the grid from out of state just as if the coal fire had flamed out.  So, the real issue is they need more capacity, or better yet, lower demand.  So, they can build more wind or solar systems from when ever they make their mind up, in: 1 to 3 years, or another coal plant in 5 to 10, or a gas plant in 4 to 8.  Wind and solar will be the cheapest to build and for ever after the fuel is free.  The fact is, so many wind mills have been put into Texas, thousands, the last couple of years, without them they would have had their failure, it was wind that kept the lights on.  Had they not been there, those Texacans would have been cold.
Fuck Baylor, Fuck TCU, Fuck the 1%ers, Fuck all the Bush's, and Fuck Rick Perry.

And that's the way it could be.

In the 70's a law passed limiting how much oil the US could export.  This was to halt (limit actually) greedy oil men shipping our oil out, driving up our price at the pump and as a national security issue making sure we had a source all to our selves following OPEC's embargo and high prices.
Since Obama came to Washington he has given so much to the oil companies it makes me wonder about the guy, plus with new drilling technologies we now pump more than Iran, almost as much as Saudi Arabia, and growing daily.  Yet, even when we drive less and our cars require less, we still import oil, such is the demand.
The GOP working for their oil company owners to push to undo the export restrictions.
Currently we export hugh amounts of oil, a small amount as raw oil, but mostly as refined diesel, gasoline, lubricants, chemicals.
Rather than continue to reduce imports with our own oil, they want to open the gates and export much of what we have, bringing in higher priced Saudi Oil and shipping out our lower priced oil, it's a money game that profits 1%.  The result for consumers we get higher prices at the pump.  For the environment more drilling, fracking, spills, burning trains, eminent domain forced pipelines, less wilderness, and as every other oil rich backwater - more corruption.

All this, plus the fact that much of the worlds terrorist are funded directly or overtly by OPEC nations and other oil rich enemies of ours underlines in the strongest terms why we should be busting our humps to get off fossil fuel, demand energy efficient appliances, cars, trucks, buildings, retailers.  We can cash starve much of the worlds evil if we get off fossil fuel.  As the largest consumer economy, when products are changed to meet our energy standards, much of the world gets the same product and benefit.  Example, 40 and 60 watt incandescent bulbs have also been outlawed in many cities and countries around the world.

To dead 60 minutes old-timers: make the stupid stop.

60 min on the decline.  Recently attractive Laura Logan botched a Bengazi story with false info, putting a guy on to tell of his being there when he was not, and listing solutions that were not available.

Last Sunday they laid another egg.  Leslie Stahl did a hit job on renewable/green energy.  It's a failed technology she said, totally failed, one company and product after another.  Well, Ms. Stahl, focused on Solindra (SP?), a favorite GOP and science denier theme.  Truth is they collapsed quickly because the industry is changing and inventing at lightning speed.  It is a kettle of boiling price reductions and new manufacturing processes moving very fast with capitalist attributes, i.e. the guy with the new advantage is quick to push competitors into ruin and gobble up market.  As for if it is wise that governments fed, state, local give them grants or breaks, well, the SBA sees the majority of their loans to start ups fail, within 10 years about 75% fail.  Face it, most companies fail, and for lots of different reasons.
But beyond that, Solar energy is competitive now in some parts of the nation, and around the world, the newest wind turbines are beyond competitive now, generating the lowest priced energy for some areas. The one thing that is not doing so well is ethanol and biomass.  Unlike wind and solar they do not have free fuel.  The distillery product, corn or grass has to be bought and the price swings wildly.  Plus, they are not very efficient, ethanol burns with less calories than gas, it competes with food production, refiners hate it, and it takes about a gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon of ethanol (fertilizer, transport, farm machinery fuels, distillery utilities etc.).
Lots of experts wonder why she didn't ask for advice on this.  These new technologies are not failing, they are gaining like hell, and maybe with a caveat for ethanol, they are taking us to a good place.
It was not what Ed Bradley, Morley Saffer, Mike Wallace and the original team members were accustomed to, and me either.

close-up

 
to see full sculpture look about 4 posts down

Food Rant, 1.1, Chicken

Every couple of weeks I hear someone say "oh I am trying to eat healthier", and chicken or turkey comes up as their road to health.  Bullshit, or should I say chickenshit!
Before you read what's wrong with chicken and turkey, first 3 things that will make it even more dangerous.
*A new rule allows US chicken to be slaughtered here, shipped to China for butchering, shipped back to your store or restaurant.
*FDA has let 4 chicken processing plants take over their own meat inspections, over time most chicken processors will operate without government oversight for food safety.
*FDA has approved an increase in line speed, spotting bad meat or filth will be even less likely.
---------------
Now here is where we already are:
*48 million illnesses each year from food, mostly from meat, much of it chicken.
*2 million ill, and 23,000 dead from antibiotic resistant bacteria.
*Samples from around the nation, almost all had multiple kinds of bacteria.
*50%+ contained chicken shit.
*Salmonella 16%, Campylobacter 56%, E. coli 78%, Entero 84%, Klebsiella 28%, Staph 23%.
*About 16% of these were drug resistant varieties.
*Children riding in shopping carts, 15% of carts have traces of these same germs.
*Kitchen, no matter how careful you are, these germs are on counter tops, light switches, door handles, even though you wipe down things with soap, have you ever watched a CSI show, microscopic blood splatter from handling (or stabbing (people)) raw meat is absolutely impossible to prevent, bring chicken in the kitchen and you get these germs in your petri dish.  And some are resistant to cleaning agents and can live a few days on surfaces.
*And the worst, the supreme tragedy, pregnant women eating chicken regularly, have boys with smaller willies than mommies who went bird free.


Eat plants.

Food rant 1.0, milk

Drink your milk cause it's crammed with calcium or else your kid won't grow strong bones and your old aunt will break her hip, so get them some milk, dairy dairy calcium calcium, what a drum beat.

All dogs are dogs, but they don't all do the same, some herd, some point, some run.  Gas, 3 maybe 4 kinds at the pump, high - low octane, even diesel, it's gas, but not all the same.

Milk has lots of calcium, true.  But so does lots of vegitables, especially dark green leafy ones, other vegi's and fruit and nuts and grains have some to, at least a little.  But not all calcium is the same.  Our bodies cannot absorb much of the calcium that comes from cattle and goats milk, it's simply not the right kind, but it can easily absorb and use almost all the calcium found in plants, it's the exact right kind.  People who eat a plant based diet might consume less calcium but they absorb more, cause........ not all calcium is the same.  Scandanavians consume more dairy than most other populations, and they are more active than most others.  They have a higher percentage of bone breaks than the others too.

Calcium, if you have low bone density, eat plants, dark green especially.  Milk, and suppliments will not build bones as fast as kale and potato soup.
One more thing, soft drinks have an acid in them that both blocks calcium absorbtion and depleats some we already have.  Do not drink these diabetes starters, they are attacking your bones.