Archive for November 2010

The quitter

Too good not to share. This is how the world sees the idiot from Wasilla.
From Crooksandliars.com

This video, produced by Taiwan's NMA (Next Media TV, is good for more than a laugh. It also makes you realize what an international laughingstock Palin's continuing high profile makes of the American political scene generally.

They must think that we're frigging nuts to even allow someone like this the kind of political ascendancy she's achieved. And you know what? They're right.




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Remember when...and why?

It's (high school) football playoff time...again. All those teams that are in the playoffs are vying with each other at neutral sites.
Remember back in 2000 when a couple of our current board members stuffed the idea of a new, very expensive stadium down the throats of the taxpayers of Highlands? One of the biggest pieces of bullshit we heard from those who were so intent on bilking us was "But it will be used for all kinds of athletic events including WPIAL Playoffs. And that will generate a lot of cash for the district!"
SO...the question is this:
Can anyone tell me how many playoff games have been played at our 4 million dollar (plus interest) stadium? I'm sure someone knows. And how much money has the district made from the albatross?
With the advent of higher taxes next year and really high taxes the next 10 years because our "Poor teachers" need to live like politicians in their retirement, I can think of 4 million reasons why Wantland, Wisner and Heasley have no business on this board. If any one of them had even an ounce of decency or respect for the district and its taxpayers, they'd resign right now.
How many playoff uses for the stadium?


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Sixty Lame Minutes

Here's an explanation of the bullshit we're being fed by those who claim drilling for Marcellus Shale will bring Nirvanna to all!!!

For your own good, take a few minutes to read it and pass it on to a friend.

From kunstler.com


By James Howard Kunstler
on November 15, 2010 9:13 AM

So, last night CBS hauled Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, on board their flagship Sunday infotainment vehicle, 60 Minutes, to blow a mighty wind up America's ass (as they say in professional PR circles). America is lately addicted to lying to itself, and 60 Minutes has become the "go-to" patsy for funneling disinformation into an already hopelessly confused, wishful, delusional, US public.
McClendon told the credulous Leslie Stahl and the huge viewing audience that America "has two Saudi Arabia's of gas." Now, you know immediately that at least half the viewers misconstrued this statement to mean that we have two Saudi Arabia's of gasoline. Translation: don't worry none about driving anywhere you like, or having to get some tiny little pansy-ass hybrid whatchamacallit car to do it in, and especially don't pay no attention to them "green" sumbitches on the sidelines trying to sell you some kind of peak oil story.... It also prepared the public to support whatever Mr. McClendon's company wants to do, because he says his company will free America from its slavery to OPEC. By the way, CBS never clarified these parts of the story by the end of the show.
First of all, they are talking about methane gas, not liquid gasoline or oil. There are large deposits of methane gas locked into shale deposits roughly following the Appalachian mountain chain from New York State through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, into Ohio, but also hot spots out west. It's hard to get at. You have to basically blow up the shale rock deep underground with high pressure water that is loaded up with chemicals and sand particles to keep the rock fragments separated once they are blown apart. Chesapeake Energy specializes in this rock fracturing (or "fracking") method for drilling. You can get gas out of the ground this way. The question is how much, over what time period, at what cost.
At the present time, with America anxious about any kind of future energy, shale gas sounds like a dream-come-true. Mostly what the public saw on 60 Minutes last night was a sell-job for Chesapeake Energy to boost its stock price. Here are some facts:

• Over a 50 year period ahead, all the shale gas drilling of the Marcellus fields in New York State will produce the equivalent of three years US consumption at 2008 levels.

• A price of $8 per unit is required to make shale gas fracking economically viable in theory even for a short time. Gas is currently around $4. Expect to pay at least twice as much for gas.

• Even at higher costs, shale gas fracking is arguably uneconomical. It requires huge numbers of rigs, generally 8 wells per "pad," meaning very high capital investments. The wells produce nicely for a year, average, and then deplete very steeply - meaning you get a lot of money up front and very soon all that capital investment is a wash. Translation: Chesapeake can make a lot quick money over the next few years of intense drilling and they don't care what happens after that.

• Chesapeake itself estimates that 5.5 million gallons of fresh water are needed per well, often delivered in trucks, which require fuel.

• It takes three years, average to prepare a drilling "pad" and the up to 12 wells on it, working 24/7 in rural areas with significant noise and electric lighting

• The fracking fluid is a secret proprietary cocktail formula amounting to 5 percent of the liquid injected into the earth. It's composed of: sand; a jelling agent to suspend the sand because water is not "thick" enough; biocides to kill bacteria that thrive in jelling agent; "breakers" to thin out jell-thickened water after fracking to get the fluid out of the way of released gas and improve "flowback;" fluid-loss additives to decrease "leak-off" of fracking fluid into rock; anti-corrosives to protect metal in wells; and friction reducers to promote high pressures and high flow rates. Of the 5.5 million gallons of fluid injected into each well, 27,500 gallons is the chemical cocktail.

• Mr. McClendon said on 60 Minutes that it couldn't possibly harm the public's water supply because they were drilling so far below the 1000-foot-deep maximum of most water wells. He left out the fact that they have to drill through those drinking water layers to get down to the shale gas, and pump the fracking fluid through it, and then get the gas up through it. He also left out the fact that the concrete casings of drill holes sometimes crack and leak at any depth.

• The fracking fluid cannot be re-used. You have to mix new cocktail fluid for each injection.

• "Flowback" fluid inevitably comes back up with the gas, sometimes spilling over the ground. In any case, the stuff that does come back up is stored on the surface in lagoons. Often it contains heavy metals, salts, and radioactive material from drilling through strata of radon-bearing granite and other layers. Liners of flowback fluid lagoons have been known to fail.

• Gas well failures in Pennsylvania, where production was ramped up quickest in recent years, have ended up polluting well water to the degree that residents can no longer use their wells.

• Little is known about the migration of fracking fluids underground.


It seems to me that the chief mass delusion associated with this touted "bonanza" is that Americans would supposedly be able to shift to driving cars that run on natural gas. I believe they will be hugely disappointed. Between the cost of fracking production (and its poor economics), gearing up the manufacture of a new type universal car engine, and installing the infrastructure for methane gas fill-ups - not to mention the supply operation by either new pipelines or trucks carrying liquefied methane gas, we will discover that a.) America lacks the capital, and b.) that households will be too broke to change out the entire US car fleet.
What this disgusting episode really shows is how eager the USA is to mount a campaign to sustain the unsustainable at all costs, including massive collective self-deception. The lying starts at the very top, not just in Aubrey McClendon's office at Chespeake, but in every executive suite throughout the land - including the Oval Office - where any lie is automatically swallowed and then upchucked for public consumption in the interest of keeping a nation based on addictive rackets stumbling on without having to change our behavior.

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The Partys Over...

From Mark Morford:

To all of you who either flip-flopped your wishy-washy ideals and switched your vote from bluish to reddish this past election because Obama and the lukewarm Dems failed to solve all world problems in 700 days, or because you got yourself so emotionally riled up/mentally watered down by the sexy caveman grunts of the Tea Party that you actually bought the BS line about being "mad as hell" about nothing even remotely coherent.

Here is your grand message: You are hereby wonderfully, thoroughly screwed.

Oh darling, it's so very true. The fun-filled news is, despite all the bluster and rhetoric, thinly veiled racism and rampant Islamophobia on display, the new army of jittery, anti-everything GOP bobbleheads that you just voted into office doesn't care a single iota about you, or your haphazard values, or what you sometimes occasionally stand for. And what's more, deep down, you secretly know it.

Are you slightly offended? Are you scowling and mistrustful of the notion? I'm delighted to hear it. Also: It doesn't really matter.

You don't have to believe me. Just wait until nothing at all is done to service the Tea Party non-agenda, because it's ridiculous and impossible to service. Just wait until you note how there is no actual shrinking of government, no restoring some bogus sepia-toned idealism that never existed, no saving of your job. There is, of course, but one GOP agenda: furthering their personal stranglehold on all things powermad and avaricious.

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Forward to the Past!!!

Republicans and The Tea Party: 20th Century ideas for the 21st Century.































I'm as disappointed as any Progressive over the spineless actions of the Democrats and Pseudo-Democratic President. However, we really ARE between a rock and a hard place and sadly, the Democratic Leaders know it and are taking full advantage of it.

But unfortunately ignoring or not voting for the Democrats including the quisling Blue Dogs in Congress will only hurt us to a much greater extent than them. The only CURRENT realistic alternative is to vote ALL the Democrats back in. If there's a choice between a current Blue Dog or turncoat Democrat and a Progressive running, so much the better. But not voting for a Democrat just out of spite or because you think it'll send a message won't do the country any good. In fact it'll probably result in a much worse economy and quality of life...for those of us not making a few hundred thousand dollars a year!

It's a hell of a choice; those who have no balls (Democrats) but do SOME things for the people or those (Republicans) who would emasculate the rest of US! (Some, like O'Donnell, may actually want Americans turned into eunuchs!)
The choice then, is clear for now. We must maintain a Democratically controlled Congress. We've lost too many freedoms already and the Tea Party and Republicans will take the rest from us. That alternative is unthinkable, unaffordable and probably unlivable for many Americans.

So vote Tuesday as if your and your family's future depends on it. Hold your nose or whatever expression best describes your disgust and make sure the Democrats continue control of our government.

Keep Democratic control of Congress and over the next 2 years we can actively work to install true progressives and replace those who did nothing for the Left. It'll be better than having Boehner and Bachman, McConnell and Sessions running and ruining our lives for the next two years,

THEN...in 2012...it'll be time to change, starting with the primaries and especially with the top position. Remember those who shit on us and replace them. Not with change we can believe in but with change that will be real.

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