Open Thread Feb. 12: Vote in Haste, Collect Unemployment at Leisure

Filed in National, Open Thread by on February 12, 2018

Today is Lincoln’s birthday, raising the question: If he had foreseen Trump, would Lincoln have thought saving the Union was so important? That would be like a guy who lovingly restored a ’67 Charger watching his grandson steer it into a telephone pole.

Because Democrats didn’t talk about jobs, Trump got away with pretending he would do something about the disemployment of the blue-collar work force. In truth, of course, he never meant a word of it and wouldn’t know how to do it if he did, as the poor saps working the mills in Wisconsin have learned. Vote in haste, collect unemployment at leisure.

Why don’t Democrats care more about jobs? As I said yesterday, because they’re too busy sucking up to corporations, which try to shed jobs. Evidence? Here. Take a look at the flood of lobbyists who attended last summer’s Democratic state lawmaker confab. Redress of grievances, my ass.

This feckless attitude toward the corporations that are silently imposing their version of one-world government on us all might be why moderate Democrats can’t win for losing:

Democrats thus live in a thankless world in which they have responsibility without real power. If they accept less than a full loaf, they are trashed for not sticking to principle. If they turn down what they are offered, they are accused of obstruction.

Want more evidence that Democrats just can’t quit the sweet, sweet green? Look at the Democratic Party’s love affair with nuclear energy (nobody loves it more than tiny-brained Tom Carper). As Axios says, this is causing a divide among Democrats between those who say we should aim for 100% renewable energy and those who insist we’ll get off fossil fuels faster if we just spend tens of billions of dollars on plants that will produce radioactive waste we don’t know what to do with. Do you really think humanity can find a safe place to store it for 10,000 years when the people of this country couldn’t go 250 years without electing a stone-cold, brass-plated moron?

Meanwhile, on the back of Trump’s head lies yet another mystery: How did he get that Darth Vader scar? The Daily Beast, leaving no flap of skin unturned, consulted with some plastic surgeons whose educated guess was scalp-reduction surgery back in the ’80s, when the now-obsolete operation was something of a rage among the follicle-challenged-playboy set.

Speaking of rat fur, ever hear of a South American rodent called a nutria? It’s almost as big as a beaver and even more destructive. Introduced to North America over 100 years ago, it’s been tearing up the Gulf Coast ever since. California had some, too, but state officials though they had eradicated them all a few years back. Sadly, no: they’re back. My modest proposal is that California chefs start featuring them on marsh-to-table menus. They’ll be gone in no time.

The Delmarva Peninsula, particularly on the Chesapeake side, also fought a nutria infestation over the past two decades, but as in California, trapping has worked at thinning, if not eliminating, the population. This was the most recent story I could find on the local situation, which seemed to be improving as of two years ago.

About the Author ()

Who wants to know?

Comments (30)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. jason330 says:

    It is probably just a coincidence that Blades Delaware’s, (aka. The Nylon Capital of the Word’s Toilet), has drinking water is great if you love drinking PCBs.

  2. john kowalko says:

    “MR. SPEAKER PUT HJB 106 ON THE AGENDA FOR A HOUSE VOTE NOW”!
    Representative John Kowalko

    Delaware ranks 9th in percentage of millionaires
    Delaware Business Now

    February 8, 2018

    Delaware ranks ninth in the percentage of millionaires, according to a report from Phoenix Marketing International.

    The report showed the first state finishing just ahead of 10th place California. Neighboring Maryland ranked first on the list, with Mississippi in last place.

    Delaware has more than 24,000 millionaire households or about 6.6 percent of total households.

    According to the study, the richest Americans are overwhelmingly concentrated in states that were carried by Democrats in at least three out of the four past presidential elections.

    The impact of the GOP tax bill, which puts new limits on itemized deductions of state and local income and property taxes, or mortgage interest, will have a greater impact on wealthy residents in blue states, such as Delaware, according to Phoenix.

    The report, which recorded a gain in the number of millionaires in Delaware since 2016, seems to show the state’s richest residents are not fleeing to states, like Florida, which do not have an income tax.

    Millionaires in Delaware do benefit from low property taxes and no sales tax.

    Bills have been proposed in the past couple of years to increase the tax rate for the state’s richest residents. However, the legislation has gone nowhere in the General Assembly.

  3. RE Vanella says:

    Ingesting polychlorinated biphenyl is one of the best ways to make America great again.

    Also, as usual, Kowalko is correct.

  4. Alby says:

    @JK: I suggest we also put in place a new tiered structure for corporate entities: A low fee for corporations who list their owners, and a higher one for corporations that don’t. Would save investigators a lot of time and trouble as well as bring in more of that illegally laundered and/or criminally obtained money.

  5. Ben says:

    An emergency with work kept me from the campaign kickoff on saturday, but the videos from the event are very heartening. Looking forward to it picking up steam.
    DownWithTommy 2018.

  6. nathan arizona says:

    “Speaking of rat fur . . .” Now there’s a transition!

  7. Alby says:

    It’s simply a matter of putting the right stories next to each other.

  8. Alby says:

    Got the link fixed on that lobbyists mingling with state lawmakers story.

  9. nathan arizona says:

    Yea or nay on the Obamas’ official portraits? They’re sure not the usual.

  10. nathan arizona says:

    Agree that his is better, although I like it more as just a regular painting than as a portrait of the president. Don’t really like hers at all. Too much dress, although it’s a nice dress. Face doesn’t work, only partly because it doesn’t look like her. But it doesn’t matter, I guess. Obama’s comments on the paintings show why he’s the coolest president ever. The portraits won’t change that.

  11. Tom Kline says:

    LOL – I personally know six wealthy individuals that moved their residency recently. Four to Florida and two to PA. I say you quoting FAKE news…

    john kowalko says:
    February 12, 2018 at 11:18 am
    “MR. SPEAKER PUT HJB 106 ON THE AGENDA FOR A HOUSE VOTE NOW”!
    Representative John Kowalko

    Delaware ranks 9th in percentage of millionaires
    Delaware Business Now

    February 8, 2018

    Delaware ranks ninth in the percentage of millionaires, according to a report from Phoenix Marketing International.

    The report showed the first state finishing just ahead of 10th place California. Neighboring Maryland ranked first on the list, with Mississippi in last place.

    Delaware has more than 24,000 millionaire households or about 6.6 percent of total households.

    According to the study, the richest Americans are overwhelmingly concentrated in states that were carried by Democrats in at least three out of the four past presidential elections.

    The impact of the GOP tax bill, which puts new limits on itemized deductions of state and local income and property taxes, or mortgage interest, will have a greater impact on wealthy residents in blue states, such as Delaware, according to Phoenix.

    The report, which recorded a gain in the number of millionaires in Delaware since 2016, seems to show the state’s richest residents are not fleeing to states, like Florida, which do not have an income tax.

    Millionaires in Delaware do benefit from low property taxes and no sales tax.

    Bills have been proposed in the past couple of years to increase the tax rate for the state’s richest residents. However, the legislation has gone nowhere in the General Assembly.

  12. Alby says:

    Are you a millionaire, Mr. Kline? If not, let them speak for themselves.

  13. RE Vanella says:

    They just had the means to get away from Tom. I totally get it.

  14. jason330 says:

    “I (Kline) personally know six wealthy individuals that moved their residency recently. Four to Florida and two to PA.”

    Well let’s see? 6 people recently moved pretty far away from Kline. That is believable.

  15. Liberal Elite says:

    @A “Do you really think humanity can find a safe place to store it for 10,000 years…”

    That’s fairly easy, if you assume there will be no bad actors in the game. And therein lies the real problem. And it does’t have to be to be terrorists. It could be someone like Scott Pruitt who just doesn’t give a damn.

  16. puck says:

    ” a safe place to store it for 10,000 years…”

    Simple You just need to find a region of hard, stable bedrock lying underneath a soft, pliable governor.

  17. Dave says:

    @Alby,

    Do you think humanity will last another 10,000 years?

    I’m actually more concerned about the pace of civilization and its voracious and ever growing appetite for electricity. While wind and solar can make a dent in the need, by themselves, they simply cannot meet the demand. So we have two choices, reduce demand (which means reduce the growth in developing countries as well as developed countries) or we find other alternate sources of power generation. Unfortunately, until we become more capable of exploring the universe, the possibility of obtaining sufficient dilithium crystals to meet the world’s demand for power is slim.

    We have systems for converting solid waste into energy but there is concern about greenhouse gas emissions that the process produces. A comprehensive energy policy would address many of these issues, including the efficacy of nuclear.

    I’m not an advocate of blindly pursuing nuclear power. However, I do advocate continued and focused research on power generation capabilities that include nuclear. Years ago, we thought that dams (water is renewable resource) were part of the answer – until we didn’t and started to tear them down. Perhaps we will discover how to do fission instead of fusion in the future.

    Until then, we need power so we can comment on DL and the developing world is consuming ever greater quantities of power. I have solar on my home. While it’s a 5KW system, the sun doesn’t always shine and of course the wind doesn’t always blow (not to mention the many bird deaths).

    When I was with the Department of Energy, power generation was a continuous topic because we recognized that demand is never going to decrease. And so back to the question, if we don’t reduce emissions, reduce consumption and reduce energy demand, will we be here in 10,000 years? My guess is no. The survivors will be those who live their lives without electricity – the animal kingdom. And without us, they will live long and prosper.

  18. Alby says:

    “I’m actually more concerned about the pace of civilization and its voracious and ever growing appetite for electricity.”

    Wow. The assumption in here is monumental — it assumes that, for example, LED lights replacing less efficient ones won’t change that curve. It assumes that centralized power production is the best way forward (it’s not).

    Most of all, it assumes that once we’re dead and the next generation stops denying there’s a problem that power generation won’t be curtailed whether we like it or not. That’s how it works in the Third World, and it will happen here, too.

    The only reason demand is increasing so fast is that it is treated like any other product in a capitalistic world, and so must constantly grow. This is the reason that if capitalism won’t be contained it must be killed.

    Dams, you might have noticed, are being torn down because they were ecologically destructive, not because they were zero-emission. That’s the same reason nuclear is a no-go.

    I restricted the case against nuclear to the one absolutely insoluble problem. (Just by-the-by, I have it on good authority that there is still some nuclear waste from the Savannah River plant buried in lead boxes at Du Pont’s deepwater site.) The more tangible danger should be obvious, though maybe you didn’t live around here during Three Mile Island.

    When civilizations collapses, humans will still exist, and they won’t have any understanding of why those boxes have that yellow-and-black symbol on them.

    If the politicians advocating nuclear did so for the reasons you suggest, they’d still be wrong. But that’s not why they advocate for it. There’s money in it is why. They don’t give a fuck about anything else, and never will.

  19. Jason330 says:

    “wind and solar can make a dent in the need, by themselves, they simply cannot meet the demand.”

    Says who? When you start out with API talking points, your conclusion is suspect.

  20. Jason330 says:

    BTW – Solar also has lobbyists. they just aren’t as well funded as the API.

    “A combination of conservation, efficiency, wind and solar can meet 100% of our energy needs. It’s technically and economically possible to do this and it can probably be done within 20 years. According to a January 2006 analysis by the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the entire U.S. electricity demand could technically be met by renewable energy resources by 2020 and longer term, the potential of domestic renewable resources is huge – more than 85 times current U.S. energy use. Solar alone can provide 55 times our current energy use. Wind can provide 6 times our current energy use.”

  21. Alby says:

    From the March Harper’s Index:

    Hours last year for which Germans were paid to use power because supply outstripped demand: 331

  22. Dave says:

    From the NREL 2012 Renewable Electricity Futures Study Conclusions (Executive Summary – Conclusions)

    “The RE Futures study assesses the extent to which future U.S. electricity demand could be supplied by commercially available renewable generation technologies—including wind, utility-scale and rooftop PV, CSP, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass—under a range of assumptions for generation technology improvement, electric system operational constraints, and electricity demand. Within the limits of the tools used and scenarios assessed, hourly simulation analysis indicates that estimated U.S. electricity demand in 2050 could be met with 80% of generation from renewable energy technologies with varying degrees of dispatchability together with a mix of flexible conventional generation and grid storage, additions of transmission, more responsive loads, and foreseeable changes in power system operations. While the analysis was based on detailed geospatially rich modeling down to the hourly timescale, the study is subject to many limitations both with respect to modeling capabilities and the many assumptions required about inherently uncertain variables, including future technological advances, institutional choices, and market conditions. Nonetheless, the analysis shows that realizing this significant transformation of the electricity sector would require:

    • Sustained build-up of many renewable resources in all regions of the United States
    • Deployment of an appropriate mix of renewable technologies from the abundant and diverse U.S. renewable resource supply in a way that accommodates institutional or operational constraints to the electricity system, including constraints to transmission expansion, system flexibility, and resource accessibility
    • Establishment of mechanisms to ensure adequate contribution to planning and operating reserves from conventional generators, dispatchable renewable generators, storage, and demand-side technologies
    • Increasing the flexibility of the electric system through the adoption of some combination of storage technologies, demand-side options, ramping of conventional generation, more flexible dispatch of conventional generators, energy curtailment, and transmission
    • Expansion of transmission infrastructure to enable access to diverse and remote resources and greater reserve sharing and balancing over larger geographic areas.”

    https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re-futures.html

  23. Alby says:

    “The study is subject to many limitations.”

    First and most important, of imagination.

    Most studies of this from 10 years ago are obsolete because solar and wind ramped up faster than expected. From that I conclude there is a high probability that this one is subject to the same flaws.

    Nuclear is far more costly than any other non-carbon-emitting source. It presents problems on the waste end we have no solution for dealing with. It consumes enormous amounts of water, a resource it can’t count on in the future (see France).

    I know all the arguments, Dave. I find them wanting.

  24. Dave says:

    “electricity demand in 2050 could be met with 80% of generation from renewable energy technologies ”

    “the study is subject to many limitations both with respect to modeling capabilities and the many assumptions required about inherently uncertain variables, including future technological advances, institutional choices, and market conditions.”

    It’s a study and they properly caveated their findings as they should have. Even so, we are making progress, but we aren’t there yet. We don’t fully understand the “inherently uncertain variables” such as storage, distribution (transmission towers anyone?, etc.

    My point is, you don’t take things off the table when you have unknowns. You continue the research until you have answers.

  25. Alby says:

    My point is, you do take things off the table when the knowns are all on the bad side of the ledger. Clean coal is more realistic than clean nuclear.

    Tell ya what — as soon as the industry agrees to making itself subject to property insurance laws, I’ll compromise. Which means never. Without that indemnification, the industry wouldn’t exist. And it shouldn’t. We built nuclear plants because we could, not because we needed them or they made sense.

  26. Jason330 says:

    I love how Dave goes to town on a source when his source for “(renewables) simply cannot meet the demand” was his ass.

  27. Alby says:

    No, he knows his subject. This is the consensus position you’d get from honest people in the industry. It’s just that it’s been colored by other needs. I should point out that one of the reasons we wanted nuclear power was to generate the material for bombs, which is the main reason we don’t want other countries (Iran, anyone) building nuclear plants.

    The dishonesty around nuclear power is thick, and so is Tom Carper, one its strongest boosters. That alone is reason to get him out of office ASAP.

    Nuclear power requires enormous amounts of capital — so much that the amount required to buy Congress’ support amounts to a rounding error.

  28. Dave says:

    You’ll notice I did not advocate building nuclear power plants. I advocate research. Research is what got us medical radioactive isotopes, radioisotope thermoelectric generators to power interplanetary probes and things like that.

    Regardless, waste is indeed a significant problem that we have yet to find a solution for, so I don’t want to build. I want to study.

    Also, while we have made great strides in battery technology, we have yet to solve the issue of power mobility (glance at your cell phone and see how much charge you have left). We can’t cut the power cord and portable solar for things like vehicles is a nifty thought but probably not realistic. We need portable sustainable power. Imagine if you will, millions of cars using something other fossil fuel that do not have to be recharged by a green house gas emitting power generation source.

    In summary, I will repeat that I don’t advocate building nuclear power plants (and certainly not nuclear weapons), but I do advocate both fission and fusion research because both hold great potential to supply the world’s needs for power, especially mobile power, which today relies on batteries that are and will always have some limitations, because of physics and because they eventually need a charging source.

  29. Alby says:

    @Dave: My bad. I agree that research is crucial, and always will be. I’m only against the current fission-to-steam model, which creates problems that might be even bigger than the one it solves. Fusion, if it’s achievable, has none of the problems associated with fission.