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.