Big Dogs House

Stupidity To The Left, More Stupidity From The Left

Oct 30, 2009 Political

Oh Boy! How’s that stimulus working out for all you Americans out of work? Seen any “created” jobs lately? Not many, unless you are Chinese- they are getting a large part of stimulus cash to make wind turbines and sell them to the “Gwai-loh”, or barbaric Americans. That’s right, instead of keeping the manufacturing jobs of building the wind turbines and blades here at home, where jobs would actually have been created, (can’t have that- how are you supposed to keep people believing that they are victims, if you help them?), the administration has chosen to send all that money and jobs overseas, where it helps us not at all.

A consortium of Chinese and American companies announced a joint venture Thursday to construct a massive 600-megawatt wind farm in West Texas, using wind turbines manufactured in China.

$1.5 billion wind farm would be funded largely by Chinese financiers, with an assist from the United States government in the form of loan guarantees and grants from the federal stimulus package.

“This wind farm project came about thanks to the openness of the United States for investments in the field of renewable energy,” said John Lin, the chief operating officer of Shenyang Power Group, an industrial group in China focused on renewable energy projects.

greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com

No, actually the project came about because our feckless leader is a traitor who lies as easily as waking up- all of these jobs could have stayed here in the US, but since we (actually Nobama’s administration) owe China sooooooooooooooo much money, the pressure was applied, and everyone in the WH began learning Mandarin- all the better for talking whilst being bent over and driven to Shanghai by the Chinese.

“Created or saved jobs”- the big lie. There are no jobs created here by this venture- certainly no manufacturing jobs. I would think the unions would be howling with outrage- they certainly would if this was done by Dubya. But since they have been getting stroked by the WH for the last several years, like lizards rubbed on the belly, it may take them awhile to wake up.

According to a recent article in The New York Times by Keith Bradsher, China required 80 percent of the materials used to construct its first solar power plant earlier this year come from China.

Foreign manufacturers of wind turbines have struggled to gain entry into the Chinese market, Mr. Bradsher reported.

greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com

Well, in this instance, it is not the Chinese market that we are trying to “enter”- it is our own, and we should be able to do this better, with more innovation, and keep the jobs at home. We could do this, but noooooooooooooo.

Instead, (perhaps because all the WH loves Mao) the Chinese get the lion’s share of the work. And as for jobs, well, I will let this article say it all-

The project would mark the first instance of a Chinese manufacturer exporting wind turbines to the United States market, according to the vice mayor of the city of Shenyang, Yang Yazhou, who spoke at a news conference announcing the joint venture.

The farm is to be built on 36,000 acres in western Texas — an exact location was not specified — and will use 240 2.5-megawatt turbines manufactured in China. Construction is expected to begin next March. The project will create an estimated 300 temporary construction jobs, and 30 permanent jobs.

greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com

300 temporary jobs and 30 permanent jobs. Somehow, I believe if we were manufacturing these turbines ourselves, there might be more than just *30* permanent jobs. That is not very many, even by the White House’s dubious accounting methods of “saved” jobs. And you know that a bunch of the 300 temporary jobs will go to illegal aliens- that’s a given, considering who is in the White House.

All in all, this deal benefits a select few, most of them either Chinese, or the leeches in the administration, like Jeffery Immelt, the CEO of GE, who gets a cut of this deal. 

The turbines for the Texas wind farm, although slated for construction in China, will use technology from the United States and Europe, including a turbine designed by German wind power manufacturer Fuhrlander and gear box design by General Electric.

greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com

Yes, in most logical societies, Jeffery Immelt’s being inside the WH should disqualify him and/ or his company from deals involving him and the government- a conflict of interest, you see. If this was Haliburton and Cheney, the howls of outrage would be heard coast to coast, but not from this liberal crowd- they can’t see the hypocrisy here.

When it comes to liberal hypocrisy, they are blind, deaf, and dumb.

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Tags: china, energy, GE, jobs

Government Official Thinks We Act Like Children

Sep 22, 2009 Political

Energy Secretary Steven Chu compared American adults to teenagers and said that we are not acting like we should act with regard to using energy. Here it is, conformation that someone in government thinks you are a child who needs to be taught by the adults in DC how to act.

“The American public…just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act,” Dr. Chu said. “The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.” WSJ

Who does this guy think he is? Who is this twerp to tell us that we are not acting like we should? In whose eyes are we not acting like we should, his? Because it is not up to him or any other government agency to tell us how to act as long as we are not breaking the law. It is one thing to say that criminals are not acting the way they should because they are breaking the laws established by society but it is quite another for this guy (or any government official) to decide we are not acting like we should because something we happen to do runs contrary to what he expects us to do, as if his opinion matters.

This little man has insulted us and compared us to teenagers and said we do not act like we should. Not only is this insulting but it gives credence to the idea that the nanny state thinks it knows better than you do.

They take your money and spend it because they know better how to use the fruits of YOUR labor than you do. They take your money and “invest” it in Social Security because they know better how to take care of YOUR future than you do. They take your money and put it away for Medicare when you are old because they know better than YOU what you will need when you retire.

This insulting little man actually thinks we are like teen aged children who need to be taught how to act by Big Brother in government.

This is a free country and how we use the energy we pay for is our business. If the Energy Secretary wants to have initiatives to help people use energy more wisely, should they choose to do so, then fine. However, we do not need this pencil neck twerp admonishing us and treating us like, or comparing us to, children.

Chu’s people said that he was not comparing us to teenagers:

Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow added: “Secretary Chu was not comparing the public to teenagers. He was saying that we need to educate teenagers about ways to save energy. He also recognized the need to educate the broader public about how important clean energy industries are to our competitive position in the global economy. He believes public officials do have an obligation to make their case to the American people on major legislation, and that’s what he’s doing.”

That, of course, is a blatant lie. While this article does say they are teaching children about energy use, the statement is separate from the quote about us acting like teenagers. When he said, just like your teen aged kids, you [adults] are not acting as you should, he compared you to teenagers. The words “just like” are used for comparison as in Steven Chu acts just like a nanny state official. Or Steven Chu denied he said what he did just like a liar would.

There is no denying what he said and all the back peddling in the world will not change what he said.

I wonder if Joe Wilson is available to give Chu a “You lie!”.

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Tags: chu, energy, nanny state, teenagers

In Energy, Natural Gas Should be Key

Sep 7, 2009 Political

The Waxman- Markey Bill, now going in for consideration by the Senate, when they finally decide they want to actually do some work, will be heavy on “renewables” and “carbon credits”- which is a bunch of Bull—- in the end. All carbon credits do is provide more money to the government, and we have all seen how badly they handle money- they should not be allowed any more. They need to learn how to handle what they do have. I would take away their car allowances, and make them walk or take a cab. A little humility might go a long way towards fiscal responsibility, but that’s another post.

This one concerns the energies we already use, and how we can better use them. Natural gas is, (no pun intended), a natural, simply because the infrastructure retrofit required would be less than other technologies, as a LNG tank could be moved onto property easier than adapting other technologies to a service station, and Natural Gas is fairly friendly on emissions, especially for a fossil fuel. 

HOUSTON — The natural gas industry has enjoyed something of a winning streak in recent years. It found gigantic new reserves, low prices are encouraging utilities to substitute gas for coal, and cities are switching to buses fueled by natural gas.

But its luck has run out in Washington, where the industry is having trouble making its case to Congress as it writes an energy bill to tackle global warming.

nytimes.com

That’s right- if it’s a fossil fuel, you can bet that the enviro- nuts will be against it, and condemn it out of hand, rather than see how clean we could make them, especially since we are stuck with them until Congress sees the light on Nuclear power for electrical consumption.

The use of the fossil fuels coal and natural gas are competing for shares of power generation, and thus are in an adversarial position with regards to the other, when they should be acting together- they are both, after all, facing the same threat of extinction or at least severe restrictions. Coal has more to fear than natural gas, but they are in essence, tarred with the same brush.

The difference of opinion is about more than what is best for the environment, of course. Industry profits are riding on the outcome of the discussion — a rich mix of politics, environment, science and business.

A climate-change bill that passed the House in June, intended to cap greenhouse gas emissions, delivered benefits to renewable fuels like wind and solar and strengthened building codes to conserve energy.

~snip~

“The Senate is more open to natural gas as a transition fuel than the House was,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, “but the senators from the coal states who are crucial votes are going to want first consideration for coal.”

The gas industry’s leaders say they will descend on Capitol Hill in coming weeks to press their case about the advantage of gas, including that it emits about half the greenhouse gases as coal.

The industry has formed a new lobbying group, and it is planning a national campaign that includes television advertising. Executives want fewer allowances for coal. They also want legislation that gives incentives for companies to convert truck fleets from diesel to natural gas.

“Never in my life have I been confronted with something so obviously easy and good to do and have such Congressional apathy,” said Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy and a leading voice in the industry. He added that he was still hopeful the Senate can improve the House bill.

nytimes.com

Now, to be fair, Mr. McClendon has a dog in this hunt- he is a proponent of Natural Gas, and he wants to make money- that’s a given, but he will throw the coal industry under the bus, when he should be working with the coal industry, and the nuclear industry- instead, it has become a divide and conquer deal with the liberals against the energy sector and its subsets.

But the coal industry will also be active. Vic Svec, a senior vice president at Peabody Energy, a large coal company, said coal was still a better fuel because its price is more stable than gas.

“Coal with carbon capture and storage is the low cost, low carbon solution and has fantastic implications for the nation’s energy security,” he said.

But it is not only coal-industry lobbyists and their Congressional supporters who favor the concept of carbon sequestration. David Hawkins, a climate change expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said simply replacing coal with natural gas for power generation was “not a viable strategy” because that would merely delay climate change by a few decades.

nytimes.com

When a more relaxed view is taken regarding the energy sector, where the existing technologies are encouraged to improve their energy production, with special emphasis on the end product of waste, all while perfecting the new technologies of wind and solar, there will be an increased productivity in these technologies. Strangling the existing modes of energy production is counter- productive to forming new ones- it just slows the whole process, and if we truly want to use new and more efficient energy sources, we need to transition carefully and patiently.

This House Energy Bill, Waxman-Markey, should be scrapped and a new, more workable one formed- just remember one thing-

It’s better to get it right, than to get it right now.

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Tags: coal, energy, natural gas, solar, stupidity, Waxman- Markey, wind

Once Again, With Feeling

Jun 11, 2009 Political

Here we go, on the ferris wheel of price increases with regards to gasoline and heating fuel, and all other related products, as the price of a barrel of crude rises yet again to it’s highest price this year. In a land with common sense, this would mean that drilling off of our coasts would make sense especially given the lag time between beginning the process, and actually obtaining the oil.

We, however, do not live in a land with leaders who have a lick of common sense when it comes to this issue. Instead, they prefer to run around like Chicken Little, screaming at the “ecological ” damage done to the environment. Truth be told, more damage is done by the oil tankers that ship the crude from far away places, than the pipelines that the oil flows from in the Gulf of Mexico, or the Alaska pipeline.

When the price of crude fell sharply last year, most people breathed a sigh of relief,as if the crisis was behind us- not so, as this is just the deep breath before the plunge into icy water. If we do not begin to drill now, then we will continue to be reliant on the Arab world, or Chavez, both of whom are repugnant to me. It would be much better to use our own petroleum reserves while we search for an alternative that might be as long as ten years away from commercial viability.

Pump prices have been on a tear as the price of crude oil—the biggest single factor in gasoline prices—has more than doubled from a low point this spring.

On Wednesday, the national average price for regular rose a fraction of a penny to $2.63 per gallon, according to motor club AAA. That’s up 40 cents from a month ago and just over $1 since the first day of 2009. In Houston, the average edged up nearly half a penny overnight to $2.43 a gallon, and is up 34 cents from last month, AAA said.

Crude oil prices are surging as investors pour cash into commodities as a hedge against the weakening U.S. dollar. The price got another boost Wednesday as traders reacted to Energy Department data showing a higher-than-expected drop in U.S. oil inventories, a sign that supplies are tightening, demand increasing and the economy improving.

Light, sweet crude for July delivery rose $1.15 to $71.16 a barrel, its highest price this year.

chron.com

Oil rigs don’t just float into place and begin pumping oil,which is why we need to begin now, or we will be forever behind the curve. That might sit well with Hussein, but the rest of us, normal American people, should not get this kind of “change” in our lives. We have already suffered these Liberal fools quite enough, thank you, and we would like to begin a return to sanity. 

Part of this return would be to drill for the oil here while we figure out the best way to go. Using a shotgun approach to solve the energy crisis is counterproductive- what is needed is focus on what works. In some places, solar might work- in others, wind may do it, although I personally have my doubts about wind. 

Nuclear power should be used more for everyday residential and commercial use, and I believe that we can make coal much cleaner, but we won’t know this if we rely on people who say no- as my mother used to say, ” “Can’t” never could.” 

Total U.S. petroleum product deliveries, including gasoline, fell to their lowest point since 1998 during the first four months of the year, according to the American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group in Washington. The decline came despite pump prices that hovered around $2 a gallon nationwide for most of that time.

Now, some experts fear higher pump prices will cut deeper into the pockets of Americans and prove a drag on the rebound of the U.S. economy.

“A lot of what drives the U.S. economy is consumption,” said Ken Medlock, a fellow in energy studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute. “If we’re not consuming, we’re not going to recover at the same kind of pace we would otherwise.”

“I think if we had stayed in the low $2 range, we probably would have seen much stronger demand this summer,” he said.

This week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said it expects regular-grade gasoline prices to peak in July, hitting a national average near $2.70 per gallon.

chron.com

Now, on the one hand, decreased usage means that pollution will be less, but the other side of the equation is that reduced usage means that our economic recovery will be prolonged.

The drilling off of the East and West coasts could prove a boon financially to the states, like California, and New Jersey, both of whom desperately need the money, and also the Federal government, which would make money both in the sale of the leases, and the taxes on gasoline refining and sales.

And still you have some people in these respective governments turning a blind eye to the realities of the situation. 

Are they waiting for the return of four dollar gas?

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Tags: common sense, energy, governmental idiocy, oil

Print This!

Jun 3, 2009 Political

I can’t believe Hussein has the gall to ask for more than six billion more dollars for transportation costs related to ongoing projects, simply because the federal gasoline taxes won’t cover the bill. This is due mostly to the economic decline that his party began, but he apparently doesn’t know this, because he has never held a real job, where he had to adhere to a budget, or be responsible for employees under his watch.

It’s no wonder that he thinks that all he has to do is print more money, despite warnings from the Chinese, for whom debt is a serious obligation. Somehow this hasn’t translated into anything Hussein has yet to understand, hence the request for more money.

” We’ll just print it, the Chinese were just kidding, besides I am Barak Hussein Obama and I transcend all- They will bow before me soon.” It would sure seem that these must be his thoughts- because what he is doing isn’t rational, in the least.

The Obama administration is warning lawmakers that the trust fund that pays for highway construction will go broke in August unless Congress approves an infusion of as much as $7 billion.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said at a hearing Tuesday that the administration has told senators the Federal Highway Trust Fund will need an estimated $5 billion to $7 billion to keep current construction projects going.

The California Democrat said another $8 billion to $10 billion will be needed to keep the fund solvent through the year ending Sept. 30, 2010.

Transportation Department spokeswoman Jill Zuckman confirmed those figures.

“The administration is working closely with Congress to solve this difficult problem and ensure that states have the resources they need to maintain our roads and highways,” Zuckman said.

chron.com

I want to speak for a minute about the state’s role in roads and transportation. The federal government has, through the years, insidiously slithered into the states’ domain, by offering first money for assistance, but then insisting on control of the projects. This is wrong- I might see that the Interstate system  could be federalized, as it assists in interstate commerce, but state roads should be state controlled, with absolutely NO federal interference. 

The states know best what suits their states needs than the Feds do, and that is just a logical fact, not to mention that this interference violates the Tenth Amendment regarding States Rights. Still, that hasn’t stopped them before.

Now, here comes a tax increase- yet another, on top of all the other tax increases that liberal socialists say are not true- and this “non-existent” tax increase will hurt the poor the most.

The law that authorizes federal highway programs is due to expire at the end of September, but the issue hasn’t been on Congress’ front burner. There is a consensus among transportation experts and lawmakers that there will have to be some form of a tax increase — always unpopular, but especially so in a recession — to make up for the lower gas tax revenues and to address a backlog of crumbling and congested highways, bridges and public transit systems.

Two congressionally mandated commissions have called for an immediate increase in the gas tax. The first commission, which issued its report in early 2008, recommended a 40-cent per gallon hike. The second panel, which issued its report earlier this year, recommended the tax be increased 10 cents per gallon for gas and 15 cents per gallon for diesel, and that both be indexed to inflation.

The two panels also said fuel taxes are not a sustainable source of revenue over the long term as drivers shift to more fuel efficient vehicles. Both panels recommended Congress find a new revenue source to pay for highway and transit programs.

chron.com

And guess how the new way these brainiacs are going to choose to tax us on fuel as our vehicles begin to be more fuel efficient? Ooohhhh, wait for the tingle down your leg- they want to track your mileage, and probably also track your whereabouts. Big Brother Hussein, oh Boy! I can hardly wait.

Their top recommendation was to tax motorists based on how many miles they drive. That would require equipping cars and trucks with devices that use GPS technology to record not only how many miles the vehicle was driven, but whether the driving occurred on interstate highways or secondary roads and whether it was during peak travel periods. The device would calculate the amount of tax owed and the bill could be downloaded.

A mileage-based tax system would take about 10 years to implement.

chron.com

Yea, I am sure that this is NOT the Change most of the people voted for. I think it is probably fortunate for Hussein that fewer people are reading the papers these days. This way he might be able to fool the people long enough to shackle the people with GPS monitoring of their cars , then their person- who knows how far this could go.

And still the liberal socialists will excuse their exalted leader for destroying this country. 

They have Brains You Don’t Use. That should be their real slogan.

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Tags: debt, energy, government intrusion, responsibility, sanity, state's rights