O how I wish I could crib up a lame power point presentation of the Coors family's reactionary "Independence Institute" swill and tweak those rosacea-nosed-president loving bloggers on their own turf. Would they fly me out to Aspen on a Gulfstream ice cap melter next Summer and invite me to share a glass of beer with Fred Thompson at the Hotel Jermone?

It's silly. Very silly indeed! -Monty Python.

Posted at September 20, 2007 6:49 PM in response to The Case of Colorado

Perhaps we could design & build a nuclear reactor that used 99.5% of the uranium fuel source to make electricity to power our new electric cars, trains, trucks & busses.

I think that would help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Integral Fast Reactor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor

"The press interpreted Bush's commitment to further study on climate change as a commitment to do nothing at all. But Bush had a climate change agenda: safe and clean nuclear power. Nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases at all, and yet the US had not brought a new nuclear power plant on-line in nearly 20 years. As the capacity of America's existing nuclear plants maxed out, electrical utilities burned more and more coal, the dirtiest fuel of them all."

Source: The Right Man, by David Frum, p. 71-73

It is just a matter of getting everyone to agree to revive a research program that was ash-canned thirteen years ago.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

By the way, our present day nuclear reactors
produce a radioactive waste product that
remains toxic for TEN THOUSAND YEARS...

The Integral Fast Reactor would produce a
small amount of waste (1.5% of the reactor
fuel) that would remain a danger to humans
for about 200 years.

I would call that progress.

Maybe if we could use this 1994 technology to cut the life cycle of our nuclear toxic waste from 10,000 years to 200 years & stop emitting greenhouse gasses from our power plants & cars, we could save our ice caps, coastal land, fresh water lakes, forests and other pleasant vacation destinations.

Posted at September 7, 2007 1:08 PM in response to Job Growth Hits the Wall as Financial Turmoil Hits the Job Market

Did you catch Jim Cramer's appearance on The Colbert Report? Sorry, but I didn't buy his crocodile tears for all of the distressed homeowners in Detroit, Cleveland, and the South Side of Chicago.

Let's face it, the Big Money Boys on Wall Street play take-away 24/7. If you are a hardscrabble tradesman working sixty hours a week scrambling to make ends meet for your wife and kids, the Wall Street Crews are hustling double time off-shoring jobs, slashing domestic payrolls and benefits,and union busting the service jobs they can't export.

Furthermore, a portion of the money they extracted from the tradesmen bought a favored tax and regulatory authority. Then they compounded the misery of the workers by offering easy payment short term mortgages (for a price!) that depended on a never ending housing bubble spiral--and all of this marvelous Wall Street Wonderwork had the blessing of the Great Maestro of the Fed, Mr. G. Himself.

What was true during the Age of Jackson holds true today.

"In all ages, in all countries, capital has been used as a never-failing means of obtaining power, and the opression and impoverishment of the productive classes are the certain consequences of such a combination."

"The history of the world is but a history of the wrongs practiced by privileged wealth upon oppressed poverty. Even in this country, this boasted land of liberty, has the omnipotence of wealth...rendered the condition of the labourer little better than that of the slave."--William English, July 4, 1835

Posted at August 13, 2007 8:47 PM in response to Fed Bailouts and the Bubble Boys