It's garbage like this that makes me wonder if Obama is on to something about Faux:

http://whitehouse.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/10/27/smart-energy-not-smart-enough/#more-4910

"The President visited DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy center, billed as the largest solar photovoltaic center in the country. The company's 90,500 solar panels are able to generate about 42,000 megawatt hours each year, but the project cost $150 million to build and only provides power to 3000 homes, prompting critics to say the administration doesn't have an overall energy strategy."

This kind of crappy reporting really pisses me off.  First of all, emergent technologies are going to be expensive.  Remember when CD players were over 1000 dollars?  Now, you can't give a simple CD player away.  You have to invest in alternative energy, and the initial investments are always going to be expensive. 

We are going to run out of fossil fuels.  It's just a matter of time because they are not renewable.  As far as I know, the sun isn't going anywhere for another 5 billion years or so. 

It's one thing to rip international treaties which set arbitrary carbon reduction standards and require crippling economic concessions for little over-all effect.  It's quite another thing to rip in to those who are working on implementing renewable energy simply because it's too expensive.  A single F22 is $250 million to $300 million dollars.  How many houses does it power?

We should be encouraging these investments, not slamming them for being too expensive right now.  They'll be cheaper later on as the technology improves and goes in to wider use.  Why is this so hard for people (re: Faux News) to understand?  

An uber-conservative making sense?!?  On Fox News All Stars of all things?

I mean, this is Krauthammer we're talking about here!

Is the apocalypse nigh?

I have no objection in principle at all about these cuts in pay. This is not intrusion into free enterprise. These enterprises are not private or free. They are wards of the state. They ran themselves into the ground, and they are now partially or largely owned by the government.

 

So the government has every right to intervene and dictate salaries.

 

But the question is a practical one. Is it smart if you're a shareholder in the company, as we all are, and thinking of its future and the ability to repay the loan, is it smart to institute a cut this drastic?

 

The obvious danger is that if the cut is too large, it will induce the people who run it and who presumably know how to run it to go elsewhere.

 

So, to me, it is a practical decision, and the fact that Obama was hands-off on this and he left it in the hands of someone who's an expert in this area I think is the right decision. Obama is not an executive. He is not a businessman. He ought to leave it to Feinberg, who in these negotiations has become expert, so I think it was handled the right way.

Isn't this something we all agreed was heinous and should be stopped?  Why does the President insist on continuing Bush doctrines that lowered our standing in the world?

Lebanese man is target of first rendition

Reporting from Alexandria, Va - A Lebanese citizen being held in a detention center here was hooded, stripped naked for photographs and bundled onto an executive jet by FBI agents in Afghanistan in April, making him the first known target of a rendition during the Obama administration.
  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1168940/Obamas-fly-chef-860-miles-White-House--just-make-pizza.html

There is so much hypocrisy wrapped up in this single act that I can't hide my disappointment. 

23% Say Cheney Worst VP Ever

Congress Gets A Raise

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/11/70-of-african-a.html

The right-wing is all a-twitter about Obama's claims that 95% of people will get a tax cut.

"How can they get a tax cut if a quarter of all workers pay no income tax at all?" they scream with righteous indignation. "It's a hand out!  It's redistributing wealth!"

Oh really?

Contrary to popular conservative belief, there are many more taxes out there than just income taxes, and many of these taxes are disproportionally more punitive to those who make lower incomes.

Low income earners pay the same taxes on a gallon of gas that middle and upper class earners pay, and it's a much higher percentage of their income.

These same low income earners pay all of the same federal taxes as higher income earners.  Excise taxes, tarriffs that are passed along to consumers, energy taxes to heat their homes...the list goes on and on.

So if they get a rebate from the government, as Senator Obama suggests, aren't they really getting a rebate on the taxes they are paying that are not income taxes?  Or am I missing something here?

From the NY Times:

The chief executives of the nine largest banks in the United States trooped into a gilded conference room at the Treasury Department at 3 p.m. Monday. To their astonishment, they were each handed a one-page document that said they agreed to sell shares to the government, then Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said they must sign it before they left.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/business/economy/15bailout.html

Acquiescence to government mandates at the proverbial barrel of a gun.  Be afraid, my friends.

Just asking, bub.  You know, with Romney's strong suit being economics and the election being all about the economy right now, any second thoughts about picking instead a person who says she can see Russia from her porch?

We know you really wanted Joe "The Turncoat" as your VP and that you couldn't stand the thought of a guy 7 inches taller than you as your understudy, but I would just like to take this opportunity to thank you for chopping off both of your legs in this campaign without any of the rest of us having to do a damned thing.

Tell Sarah we say "hi", ok?

I think she's doing a fine job of bashing herself and turning in to the cartoon character we suspected she was all along.

Thank God for that.  We all (including the Obama campaign) can now focus our attention exclusively on McCain, where it belongs.

Who's pumped for the VP debate?

"Wall Street has ended a volatile session sharply higher after a stunning late-session turnaround that sent the Dow Jones industrials up about 400 points. The big comeback followed a report that the federal government may create an entity that will take over banks' bad debt."

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080918/wall_street.html

Hey Feds....I have some bad revolving debt that's affecting my credit score.  Can I just shuffle it off to the taxpayers, too?

Despicable.

I am as disgusted as I've ever been.  A quote below from the following article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/08scorecard.html

Under the terms of his employment contract, Daniel H. Mudd, the departing head of Fannie Mae, stands to collect $9.3 million...

Richard F. Syron, the departing chief executive of Freddie Mac, could receive an exit package of at least $14.1 million...

Both executives stood to make millions more from restricted stock grants and options, but those awards are now worthless because of the plunge in the companies’ share prices. Even so, their past pay — and the idea that they might receive more — irks some investors.

“This is completely outrageous,” said Richard C. Ferlauto,  a large pension fund. “It is really a slap in the face to shareholders and homeowners whose loans are at risk and taxpayers footing the bill for a bailout.”

So we have millions GIVEN TO executives who ran the companies into the ground, billions FROM taxpayers who are already struggling just to make ends meet.  In every situation, time-and-again, the rich get to feed at the trough while the middle-class and poor take it where the sun don't shine.

And still, McCain and the Republican party who support this economic model are polling ahead of Obama and the Democrats.  They could actually be voted in to office to continue these same aristocratic policies.

I'm stunned and inconsolable. 

I would like you all to hearken back to the year 2000.  After the Democratic Convention, Vice President Gore bounced ahead of Governor Bush in the polls.  His "I Am My Own Man" speech resonated with a country that, for better or worse, was suffering from "Clinton fatigue".

Then the debates came and Vice President Gore was all over the place.  Too aggressive on one night, too obsequious on another night.  His debate performances were poor and Governor Bush exceeded expectations.  By most counts Bush won at least 2 of the 3 debates.  The polls tightened up at the finish line.

Yes, we can argue that the election was stolen from the Vice President, but really the election was lost in those debates.  Had Gore performed better the election would not have been close.

Fast forward to 2008.  After trailing in the polls Senator McCain had a successful election and pulled even or vaulted ahead of Senator Obama.  The momentum is clearly in his favor with the pick of Palin and the fawning of the press.  Even Mayor Willie Brown, a bastion of liberalism, is saying that the Obama ticket is in trouble.

I tell you "NO!"  We have something to look forward to.

Obama will WIN the debates.  McCain will appear old and full of GOP talking points.  Obama will be the younger, fresher, more dynamic candidate.  He will be in charge of the facts and he will decimate McCain by pummeling him with his blind support of Bush's policies.  People will see in prime time who the true candidate of change is, who the candidate of the future is.

The contrast will be dazzling and the American people will see McCain for who he actually is:  the product of an older generation whose Cold War ideas and NeoCon era has passed.  Obama will stike this contrast vividly.  He will be sharp and in command of the issues

The debates will win this for our candidate.  We've seen it before but now it is our turn.  Now it is Obama's time.