Monday, September 30, 2013

Professor Teaches all Whites are Racist

Professor Teaches all Whites are Racist

[Here is a perfect case of the pot calling the kettle "black"] DGP

Professor Teaches All Whites Are Racist

September 30, 2013

Speaking as a guest lecturer at Dartmouth College this week, Duke University professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva shared his skewed take on racism in today’s America.

Ignoring decades of progress, he told his audience the U.S. is “not post-racial,” calling assertions to the contrary “suave but deadly.”
Bonilla-Silva claimed minorities are still being mistreated on a scale comparable to the 1960s, though modern whites have cleverly disguised their racism. In his opinion, a Caucasian’s embrace of inclusion and tolerance is actually proof of his or her hatred of non-whites.
When whites defend themselves against false accusations of racism, he said they are doing nothing more than blaming “descrimination on the victim and the incomprehensible response to the topic of race.”
To this professor, the majority race is stuck in a catch-22. Even whites who took an active role in the fight for civil rights, he contends, did so in hopes to cover up their own “personal prejudice.”
Telling those in the crowd they “must fight white supremacy,” Bonilla-Silva continued trashing an entire race of people in his convoluted attempt to classify them as racists. While he is not an English professor, it might serve this fraud well to familiarize himself with the meaning of the word. Lumping people together to disparage them based solely on their pigmentation is exactly what he is ostensibly arguing against.
The only step toward remedying the situation, he said, involves whites admitting their racism.
While one can endlessly parse the mistakes made in generations past, contending modern America is overrun by white racists is a provable fallacy. While individual cases of prejudice — stemming from and directed toward people of all colors — will always exist, Bonilla-Silva is attempting to feed racial discord with his charged rhetoric.
Considering the rash of violence aimed specifically at whites, one can easily make the argument those in the minority are in large part responsible for keeping alive any residual racism.

GOP Rep Blasts CNN Anchor: 'Are You Here to Give Us a Tirade?' | NewsBusters

GOP Rep Blasts CNN Anchor: 'Are You Here to Give Us a Tirade?'

By Matt Hadro | September 30, 2013 | 14:04

CNN's Ashleigh Banfield scolded two Republican congressmen for bringing the U.S. economy "to the brink," and one of them retorted that she was giving them a "tirade."

"[W]hy connect the funding of the government, the entire U.S. economy, why bring it to this brink? Why not do it at all of the other times? All of the other 100-plus congresses have been able to fund the government," Banfield asked Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.). [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Except not all other congresses have funded the government. There have been 17 government shutdowns and funding gaps since 1976. And Rohrabacher didn't like Banfield blaming Republicans for a possible shutdown.

"[Y]ou're telling your listeners that we Republicans are holding this up, and the government is going to shut down. We have actually reached out to the Democrats with a compromise position," he responded. Banfield answered that she was, in fact, blaming them.

"Congressman, that's not fair. Don't you dare put this back on me," Banfield fired back. "You know full well you attached ObamaCare and defunding it."

"Am I a guest on a news show, or are you here to give us a tirade? Let me finish my sentence," Rohrabacher insisted. "Excuse me, do your listeners understand this is the same thing we're putting up with with the Senate? We offer a compromise, they won't even talk to us about it. You won't even talk to us about it. Whose bidding are you doing?"

Below is a transcript of the segment, which aired on Legal View on Septembe 30 at 11:15 a.m. EDT:

[11:15]

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD: I have got another number that you know, it might tickle your fancy, because so many people are so frustrated with what is happening. In fact, the words "spoiled children" come to mind. "Acting like spoiled children in the budget debate," Republicans, 69 percent. Democrats, 58 percent. The President, 47 percent. Whenever you hear about the spoiled children, you don't want to be in any of those percents. And yet, my next two guests are going to have to deal with what Americans are saying.

Representative Dana Rohrabacher, the Republican from California, standing beside Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican from Tennessee, who's also a member of the House Budget Committee. Thank you both for being on the program today. This cannot be an easy day for you, especially when you just heard what John King was laying out in the polls and you just heard what I laid out with regard to the spoiled children factor. How are you going to weather this? And I will begin with you, Congresswoman Blackburn.

Rep. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-Tenn.): I think that what we look at is that the American people have repeatedly said they want things to be under control and run by an orderly process in Washington, D.C. We completely agree with that. And that is why we have repeatedly sent options, and possibilities to the Senate. And I'll tell you that I think that the House is as disappointed as the American people that the Senate decided they were going to take off and have a weekend to go to ball games and play golf and things of that nature. We have been here working. We wish they were back in town now and we were addressing this. We agree with the American people. Don't shut the government down. We don't want to. What we want to do is keep it open and keep working to fix some of these programs that have very obvious substantiated problems and glitches like ObamaCare.

BANFIELD: It just sounds so simple when you say it like that, and it reminds me of my time in the Middle East, where both Palestinians and Israelis say we just want peace. But you both want your way, and neither one of you seems to want to blink in this ridiculous staring contest where we're the ones that need the Visine. So Congressman Rorabacher, why the continuing resolution? And for those of us that hate the technical speak, why connect the funding of the government, the entire U.S. economy, why bring it to this brink? Why not do it at all of the other times? All of the other 100-plus congresses have been able to fund the government.

Rep. DANA ROHRABACHER (R-Calif.): Well, have you addressed that to the senate? We have already offered a compromise. You are acting – you're telling your listeners that we Republicans are holding this up, and the government is going to shut down. We have actually reached out to the Democrats with a compromise position. We passed it –

BANFIELD: Congressman, that's not fair. Don't you dare put this back on me. You know full well – no, no. You know full well you attached ObamaCare and defunding it.

(Crosstalk)

BANFIELD: But you can't make something up. You cannot make something up.

ROHRABACHER: Am I a guest on a news show, or are you here to give us a tirade? Let me finish my sentence. Let me finish my sentence.

BANFIELD: You passed a bill back to the Senate saying defund ObamaCare.

(Crosstalk)

ROHRABACHER: Excuse me, do your listeners understand this is the same thing we're putting up with with the Senate? We offer a compromise, they won't even talk to us about it. You won't even talk to us about it. Whose bidding are you doing? We have offered the compromise. We don't like ObamaCare, they like it. We have reached out halfway to them, put on the table a proposal, passed a resolution to keep the government going. They opposed the resolution to keep the government going, and now say that there is no negotiations, we get it all and you get nothing. So and you are blaming us for the shutdown of the government?

BANFIELD: So if you want to know whose bidding I am doing, check my Twitter account after this interview where I invited two Republicans on and not a Democrat, so let's just clear the air right there.

ROHRABACHER: Yeah, but you're not letting us speak. You are cutting me off.

BANFIELD: You said that they were doing this, and I think it's important – you can in a moment, Congresswoman – it's very important for people to understand what's at stake here. There is a continuing resolution, which is the funding bill, just for the next two months to keep the government going. And the Republicans chose under a lot of pressure – Ted Cruz for one in the Senate – creating a lot of that pressure to attach defunding ObamaCare which is the law of the land. Why would you attach it, when you knew that this was going to create the problem? Go ahead, Marsha Blackburn.

ROHRABACHER: We came to a compromise.

BLACKBURN: Ashleigh, one of the things that you need to realize – and I would hope that your listeners and watchers all realize – number one, the House passes a budget every year. We have had a problem with the Senate not passing a budget. That is why we continue to work on a continuing resolution. This year, they did pass a budget, but then they said, okay, House, we are not going the negotiate with you, unless you agree to a tax increase. We weren't going to do that. We want to do tax reform. So thereby we get into this process of the continuing resolution.

Now the biggest part of growth in the budget is health care cost. The American people by overwhelming numbers do not like what is happening with the ObamaCare. So the first continuing resolution we sent had a bill that is carried by Tom Graves in the House, and that was a defunding bill. The Senate rejected that. So we went back into the session, our compromise position that we sent back to them carried a bill that by the way, the amendment passed with bipartisan support, and that is the amendment to simply delay ObamaCare for a year.

The President has already given 1,200 waivers, he has had 19 delays, and they have missed 47 regulatory deadlines on this program. It's not ready. So we have sent that to the Senate, and what we are hearing back is, well, they didn't stay here Saturday, they didn't show up Sunday to take action on it, and so they're going to come back today. So we've offered them a compromise.

BANFIELD: I hear you. We are 12 hours and 38 minutes on our countdown clock. Which by the way, is ticking away right underneath Congressman Rohrabacher's tie. 12 minutes and 38 minutes until a lot of people aren't going to get paid and a lot of things are going to shut down. And it could cost this country $2 billion in just muckety-muckety logistics. So I want to ask you, you are both paid $174,000 a year. That's your salary. Would you be prepared to add some kind of a rider or an amendment onto a continuing resolution that would take you out of the essential services category and stop payment on your paychecks in order to get a continuing resolution through, would you both – yes or no? Yes or no. Would you both be prepared to stop your paychecks?

(Crosstalk)

BLACKBURN: We are waiting to see what they send back, and I hope that as you were running the countdown clock that you are running the debt clock. I have got two grandsons. Their share of the national debt is now over $53,000 each.

BANFIELD: No no no. I'm Sorry. I asked a really specific question, I wanted a yes or no question. There are a lot of the government workers that are going to stop receiving their paychecks, and a there are a lot of the military service members who are serving overseas who might stop being paid, and there are veterans whose benefits could be affected. Would you be prepared to take a cut, and lose your paycheck as well?

ROHRABACHER: Let me answer your question specifically. Members of the Congress should not be treated any differently than any other federal employee.

BANFIELD: Is that a yes?

ROHRABACHER: For that to happen, whatever happens to the federal employee should happen to us when it comes to what we get in benefits, whether it is retirement or health care . Whatever happens to the average federal employee should happen to us, that rule should not be changed. The bottom line is we have reached out now to the Senate, when you have that numbers underneath my tie, that should be under Harry Reid's picture, not mine. I have already done my job.

BANFIELD: And it will be. Two o'clock is coming soon. Two o'clock is coming soon.

ROHRABACHER: The Republicans have wanted to compromise. They've said hit the road.

BLACKBURN: And we are working. We are working. We are in session, they are not.

BANFIELD: You are not the only two on the hot seat, but you are both really great to come on with me today. Please fix this mess for the rest of us. We really – we like to pay you your big salaries, but we'd like for you to do more and do more negotiating and figure it out. You are like intransigent kids.

BLACKBURN: No, we are not. The House has been working –

BANFIELD: All of you.

BLACKBURN: – and we wish the Senate would work with us. Get 'em here. Get 'em here with us.

It’s the Economy, Stupid! | The Antiplanner

It’s the Economy, Stupid!

9 Replies

At least once a week, the Antiplanner encounters an urban plan that assumes that millennials and other young people will be much less inclined to drive cars and own their own homes than Americans have been in the past. But a new study from researchers at UCLA reaches the same conclusions as other researchers reported by the Antiplanner: young people drive less because of the weak economy, not because they prefer to walk and take transit.

Is this the American Dream?
Similarly, a 2013 survey from PulteGroup, a home builder, finds that the vast majority of people between 18 and 34 aspire to own their own homes. Among those whose incomes are above $50,000, 65 percent say they hope to buy a home in the next year. Similar results were found from a 2012 poll by Better Homes & Gardens Realty and a 2011 survey by the National Association of Home Builders. Far from appreciating multifamily housing, the greatest fear of young people in New Zealand is that they will be stuck in apartments.

Or is it this?
Home builders and realtors have a vital stake in knowing future demand. If people really did prefer multifamily housing over single-family homes, as some planners assert, builders and realtors would be only too happy to build and sell such housing.
Of course, there is always the possibility that the economy will never recover, in which case homeownership and driving rates will remain down. As the Soviet Union proved, the key to a successful smart-growth policy of dense cities with minimal auto usage is poverty. With their focus on regulation, higher taxes, and subsidies only to favored companies and developers, many urban planners seem determined to make this happen. Let’s hope they fail.

ObamaCare: The Latest and Greatest Bastardization of the Constitution

By William Sullivan

One of the great illusions progressives cling to is the notion that the majority of Americans do not really oppose ObamaCare. Interspersed among the majority of Americans against ObamaCare is that minority of Americans who advocate a strict single-payer system and therefore don't think the bill goes "far enough." Once you account for them, it's not really a majority of Americans against the bill -- just a bit of finagled data that conservatives use as political fodder.

Let's first state the obvious. If you are for single-payer healthcare, you probably support ObamaCare. President Obama is on record advocating single-payer, and this health care bill is the "foot in the door" to single-payer that Democrats have sought for so long.

In reality, there are three types of people who actually do support ObamaCare: those who support single-payer, those who ignorantly deny that it is an effort to institute single-payer, and those who are oblivious to the implications of single-payer altogether, but stand to benefit from its implementation. That's it.

But the obvious popular opposition to ObamaCare is a thorn in the progressives' side. Ever the devotees to democracy, they believe that if they can just somehow convey that the majority of the people really want ObamaCare, it somehow justifies its implementation and overrules those loud voices of dissent.

But ObamaCare is wrong not because the majority of Americans oppose it, and to think otherwise is to miss the point entirely. It's wrong because of something much more fundamental.

The legislation is a disgusting and tyrannical seizure of liberty from private business and the American individual. There is no other way to describe it. It is the coerced extraction of wealth from one to be bestowed upon another. ObamaCare is, by design, to be financed by private insurance companies, government subsidies, and more generally, the young, the healthy, and the "well-off" so that the old, the unhealthy, and the less well-off can have it so much cheaper, or in some cases, for free.

Advocates of ObamaCare, of course, have no problem with this. Take Alex Ruthrauf over at Wonkette, who argues that, sure, facts definitively show that there will be "roughly $621 billion" spent in the next ten years on ObamaCare, but it won't be "you, me, and the two other members of our typical family" paying for it "out of pocket." Greedy insurance companies will. Oh, and government subsidies will pay for a bunch, too. And yeah, yeah, it'll be paid for by people who are young, healthy, and well-off "for now," but you've got to remember that one day they may be on the receiving end of all these great benefits that they are forced to finance today.

Such a marvelous disconnect from reality might be charmingly naïve, if not for the fact that it represents a mindset that is so disturbingly widespread. This bears repeating: those greedy insurance companies get their money from American individuals and families, and alas, there is no government subsidy tree sprouting billions in the White House backyard. Chris Conover at Forbes writes:

[W]e can be pretty certain that insurance companies (especially if they are greedy!) are unlikely to be paying any tab without turning around and passing the cost along to (gasp!) American families. Similarly, Uncle Sam has nowhere else but American families to keep replenishing the coffers. In short, American families manifestly WILL be absorbing every single penny of the $621B in added health spending created by ObamaCare and it is intellectually disingenuous (and certainly no contribution to informed debate) to suggest otherwise.

So here are the facts: you and I, and the two other members of your typical family, will be financing a new entitlement -- health care -- for millions of Americans. We have earned our money, which is our property, and we are being forced to surrender it, contributing to a slush fund which will finance others' welfare.

This conclusion will raise eyebrows for some. One might ask, "Well, what's the difference between that and Social Security?"

Well, nothing. Social Security's enactment was an affront to our constitutional rights as well. FDR, being sick of the Supreme Court striking down much of his New Deal legislation, threatened to pack the Court with six judges of his choosing to ensure that his vision was fulfilled. In fear of FDR's scheme, the Court had an apparent shift in position to uphold Social Security -- the "switch in time that saved nine."

What has always fascinated me is the difference between the majority and dissenting opinions in the rulings on Social Security, particularly Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, which ruled on the unemployment insurance component of the Social Security Act. In this case, it was the dissenting opinion that broadly invoked the Constitution and the distribution of power, leased upward from the citizen to the state, then to the federal government. Justice McReynolds writes:

Can it be controverted that the great mass of the business of Government -- that involved in social relations, the internal arrangements of the body politic, the mental and moral culture of men, the development of local resources of wealth, the punishment of crimes in general, the preservation of order, the relief of the needy or otherwise unfortunate members of society -- did in practice remain with the States; that none of these objects of local concern are by the Constitution expressly or impliedly prohibited to the States, and that none of them are by any express language of the Constitution transferred to the United States? Can it be claimed that any of these functions of local administration and legislation are vested in the Federal Government by any implication? I have never found anything in the Constitution which is susceptible of such a construction.

On the other hand, what was Justice Cardozo's majority argument for the legality of upholding the unemployment insurance mandate? Little more than an appeal to the gods of progress. Seriously. The majority opinion is essentially a long diatribe about how regulatory taxes don't have to be used for explicit purposes -- that they can also be used for...well, any secondary purpose. Furthermore, he writes that "it is now settled by decision. The conception of spending power advocated by Hamilton ... has prevailed over that of Madison." Yes, that would be James Madison, widely known as the "Father of the Constitution," and the man most associated with its composition. This conclusion was, of course, reached not solely based on interpretation of the Constitution, but based on more recent judicial precedent and government practices. Cardozo goes on by saying that it is "too late today for the argument to be heard with tolerance that in a crisis so extreme the use of moneys of the nation is a use for any purpose [other] than a promotion of the general welfare."

Sound familiar? Of course it does.

There is little we can do about Social Security now, beyond minor reforms. Most Americans have invested if they've ever held a job, some are vested and collecting their expected returns, still others are collecting well beyond what they ever put in, and all the while politicians continually raid the Social Security piggybank. It's a staple of American life, however unconstitutional its genesis.

But it is because Social Security was passed, because Medicare was later implemented, because the welfare state has been ever-expanding, that progressives today think there is no harm, and that, indeed, it is their moral duty to facilitate the federal government's maintenance of the poor via wealth redistribution. They actually believe that taking money from those who have more and giving it to those who have less is the proper role of our federal government. This has been the role of a great many monarchs and dictators and socialist legislatures throughout history, but one thing is beyond dispute: our founders never dreamed that this would be the role of the American government. For if the federal government has the right to tax for any purpose, what purpose does any other limitation upon the federal government's power in the Constitution have?

Yet generations of progressives have bastardized the Constitution to suit their own ideological agenda, and as such, many Americans have forgotten the very core principles upon which our nation was founded.

What we are seeing today is a late reaction to a century in which progressives thoroughly corrupted our purest ideals of individualism and liberty and transformed government's role -- without amending the Constitution to allow the government to usurp the power it seized. This power was stolen from the States by executive intimidation, judicial activism, and a blind devotion to wrongful "precedent." Is it really possible that Barack Obama and Harry Reid are surprised by the vehement opposition to this latest, and perhaps greatest, government-instituted subversion of our liberty?

Conservatives and libertarians, like our founders, reject the notion that we are subjects of a centralized government. We are rising up in resentment, and not simply because we know that we are in the majority. We are rising up in resentment against a central government which disregards our foundational contract. We are demanding that health care decisions be left to individuals and the states, because the federal government has absolutely no constitutional right to demand that all Americans adhere to the uniform health care regulations and redistributive measures set by the edicts of an obviously corrupt central government in Washington.

William Sullivan blogs at http://politicalpalaverblog.blogspot.com and can be followed on Twitter.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Leaked DOJ Memo: Outlaw and Confiscate All Guns...

February 24, 2013

The National Rifle Association has obtained a Department of Justice memo calling for national gun registration and confiscation. The nine page “cursory summary” on current gun control initiatives was not officially released by the Obama administration.The DOJ memo (downloadable here as a PDF) states the administration “believes that a gun ban will not work without mandatory gun confiscation,” according to the NRA, and thinks universal background checks “won’t work without requiring national gun registration.” Obama has yet to publicly support national registration or firearms confiscation, although the memo reveals his administration is moving in that direction.The memo stands in stark contrast to the administration’s public stance on so-called gun control. White House spokesman Jay Carney said last month that laws proposed by Obama would not “take away a gun from a single law-abiding American.” The NRA declined to explain how it obtained the document. The memo was written by the acting director of the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice, Greg Ridgeway. It is dated January 4, two weeks before Obama mounted his attack on the Second Amendment following the Sandy Hook massacre. Ridgeway came to the Justice Department from the RAND corporation.

The memo says universal background checks on firearms purchases may help the government push to control and eventually outlaw firearms, but it would lead to an increase in illegally purchased guns.

DOJ memo states: “Buybacks are ineffective unless massive and coupled with a ban.”

It pointed out that banning high capacity ammunition clips would be ineffective due to the fact there is a large number of them already in circulation.

A Justice Department official said the memo is an unfinished review of gun violence research and does not represent administration policy.

The DOJ memo arrived a few weeks prior to a letter sent out by the Department of Veterans Affairs. “A determination of incompetency will prohibit you from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or ammunition,” the sent to military veterans states. “If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub.L.No. 103-159, as implemented at 18, United States Code 924(a)(2).”

“US veterans are receiving letters from the government informing them that they are disabled and not allowed to own, purchase or possess a firearm. If the veteran does decide to purchase a firearm he will by fined, imprisoned or both,” the Gateway Pundit remarked.

Obama’s Secret $8 Billion Bribe To the Muslim Brotherhood

Obama’s Secret $8 Billion Bribe To The Muslim Brotherhood

July 18, 2013 by Kris Zane 157 Comments

According to Arabic News Channel TV14 and reported on by Egypt Daily News, Obama’s relationship with recently deposed Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi goes far deeper than mere support as a democratically elected President.
Per TV14, Obama conducted secret negotiations with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood outside of normal diplomatic channels.
According to sources cited by TV14, Obama secretly transferred eight billion dollars to the Muslim Brotherhood—not the Egyptian government—as payment to guarantee that a large portion of the Sinai Peninsula be turned over to the terrorist organization Hamas, an avowed enemy of both the United States and Israel.
The secret agreement was signed by deposed Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi and his second in command, Khairat el Shater.
Who on the U.S. side signed the agreement and where Barack Obama got the eight billion dollars is not clear. When Mohammed Morsi was deposed and arrested by the Egyptian military, evidence of the secret agreement was discovered and seized.
Further, per the news segment, which has been uploaded to YouTube and has since gone viral, secret negotiations between Obama and the Egyptian military—specifically Colonel Abdul al-Sisi, head of the Armed Forces—were ongoing to ensure the agreement remained hidden. Per the secret negotiations, in exchange for Obama recognizing the Egyptian military as legitimate, Colonel al-Sisi promised to keep Obama’s illegal agreement with the Muslim Brotherhood secret. However, a source within the Egyptian military leaked Obama’s nefarious activities to TV14 and the world.
If Obama’s secret agreement with the Muslim Brotherhood is proven correct, it may spell the end for the Obama administration once and for all. Obama may have illegally siphoned off funds from the US Treasury and committed treason by attempting to turn land over to Hamas, a group that is not only an enemy to the United States, but has vowed to destroy every Jew on the face of the earth. If Obama’s nefarious plan would have been realized, Hamas’ control of the Sinai Peninsula would have put Israel in an indefensible position and would have led to a second holocaust.
If proven to be true, this would go far beyond the Constitution’s requirement of High Crimes and Misdemeanors as a basis for impeachment. It would mean treason, possible life in prison, or even the death penalty for Barack Hussein Obama.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Coloradan or Coloradoan? - The Denver Post

Coloradan or Coloradoan?

By Ed Quillen
Denver Post Columnist

Posted: 03/18/2007 01:00:00 AM MDT52 comments | Updated: 2 years ago

One problem with our state government is that it has rules that are not enforced, specifically Article II, Section 30a, of our state constitution: "The English language is the official language of the State of Colorado."
Just what that means is rather vague. Since it says "English," rather than "American English," do our cars have bonnets, boots and windscreens instead of hoods, trunks and windshields?
No court has ruled, so it falls on vigilantes like me to enforce Official English. One frequent question is what to call a resident: Are you a "Coloradoan" or a "Coloradan?"
The informal rule is explained in the 1945 book "Names on the Land" by George R. Stewart, which I do not have, so I cite it secondhand
from "The American Language" by H.L. Mencken, updated in 1982 by Raven I. McDavid Jr., and David W. Maurer. By and large, when a place name ends in "o," you add "an." The exception is if the place name is of Spanish origin; then you drop the "o" before adding "an."
This observed rule appears to work in practice. Idaho and Chicago derive from Native American languages, not Spanish, and their residents are Idahoans and Chicagoans.
San Francisco comes from Spanish, and thus San Franciscans reside there. Residents of other realms with Spanish names are Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Since Colorado is a Spanish word for the color red, we are properly Coloradans, not Coloradoans.
As best I know, most Colorado newspapers follow this rule, but there have been exceptions. Most notable, perhaps, is the "Fort Collins Coloradoan." It is owned by the Gannett chain, which until 1989 also owned the daily newspaper in the capital of the Land of Enchantment, the "Santa Fe New Mexican."
Consistency would seem to require either a Fort Collins Coloradan or a Santa Fe New Mexicoan, at least when both newspapers were under the same ownership.
At the Coloradoan, state residents used to be Coloradoans, but now we're Coloradans, according to Jason Melton, a copy editor at the paper. The change came a couple of years ago, and now the only Coloradoan published there is the paper's name.
The Pueblo Chieftain also used Coloradoan until a few years ago, when it switched to Coloradan, according to my friend Hal Walter, a part-time copy editor there. However, consistency does not rule. The residents of Pueblo (Spanish for town) should be Pueblans by the rule that gives us Coloradan, but in the Chieftain, they're Puebloans.
"Puebloan" also appears in the modern Politically Correct Southwestern Dialect, in reference to the people who built at Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon a millennium ago. In recent years, I've been told that we should talk about "Ancestral Puebloans" rather than "Anasazi," since Anasazi derives from a Navajo term for "enemy ancestors" and is thus somehow insulting, or perhaps dismissive of modern Pueblo peoples because it ignores their ancestors' probable role in construction.
I continue to use "Anasazi." For one thing, it has no meaning in English other than "the people who built that old stuff around the Four Corners." For another, ever since the Pueblo Chieftain didn't hire me in 1983, I prefer not to spell "Pueblan" as "Puebloan."
At any rate, our legislature seems to enjoy passing resolutions this year, so could the General Assembly please settle this issue and officially resolve that residents of the Centennial State are Coloradans, lest some English- only fanatic try to make us Color-Reddians? A resolution would be one small but useful step toward our own Official English.
Ed Quillen of Salida (ed@cozine.com) is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.

Obama and Thugs Pulled Off the Heist of the Century | TheBlaze.com

Obama and Thugs Pulled Off the Heist of the Centur

Obama and Thugs Pulled Off the Heist of the Century

Sep. 28, 2013 9:00am

Wayne Allyn Root

Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee, successful entrepreneur, small business defender, business speaker, Capital Evangelist, and media personality- appearing on over 5000 interviews in the past 5 years. Wayne’s latest book is: The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide: How to Survive, Thrive, and Prosper During Obamageddon. It hit #1 in bookstores, and is currently the 6th bestselling political hardcover in America for the past year. Wayne’s web site: ROOTforAmerica.com.

It is increasingly clear that the 2012 elections, both presidential and senate, were stolen by Obama, the Democratic Party, the IRS, and government employee unions. It’s right out of a mob movie like “The Godfather.”

The Obama Crime Family could give the mob lessons. Don Obama plays for keeps. The Don gets what he wants and when he found himself in danger of losing his power and control, Obama went to his enforcers – the IRS.

In a story reminiscent of the mob fixing union elections, the IRS enforcers conspired to destroy Don Obama’s main competition – the Tea Parties and other conservative fundraising groups.

Lois Lerner was only one of many IRS big shots in DC who gave orders to IRS offices across the U.S. to “kill” the Tea Parties and other conservative groups. Their goal – steal the election. As if only days ago, the “fall gal” retired from the IRS. We can only guess what kind of massive payoff she received from Obama’s donors.

The 2010 elections were the biggest embarrassment suffered by a U.S. President in modern history. The power, energy and passion of the Tea Party won the GOP an amazing 63 House seats, six Senate seats, six Governorships, and 680 seats in state legislatures. It was an historic landslide. Obama’s entire agenda was threatened.

Yet, the mainstream media expects us to believe that only two years later (2012) that Tea Party energy and passion was gone…overnight. Or, perhaps they changed back to fans of Obama and the Democratic Party. What a fairytale.

The real story is that the Obama administration ordered the IRS to delay, distract, hound, harass, and intimidate Tea Party groups across the U.S. Without IRS attacks and interference, Tea Parties would have had the same influence and momentum as 2010 – when their raging energy and passion led to a shocking landslide defeat for Obama and his allies.

There is no need to question or debate any longer. We now have emails from IRS officials stating exactly that – the Tea Parties had to be stopped if Democrats wanted to win the election.

And, conservative donations had to be stalled if Democrats wanted to retain control of the U.S. Senate.

Instead of massive Tea Party rallies and record-setting fundraising for conservative candidates, Tea Party groups were busy being distracted, hounded, harassed, and intimidated by the IRS. They were busy being asked about the names of their members, names of their speakers, content of their Facebook posts, and even the content of their prayers.

Conservative media personalities (like yours truly) were attacked with IRS audits, as were Pro-Life, Pro-Israel, and Pro-Constitution groups. The tax-deductible status of Tea Party groups was purposely stalled so they could not raise money for the 2012 election.

What the biased liberal mainstream media refuses to do is connect the dots. None have the courage to state that “the fix” was in. That a fraud perpetrated by government employees handed control of the United States of America to Obama, a politician who supports government employees and their unions.

What did the IRS get out of this? The answer is pure bribery. Republicans, and especially Tea Parties, believe in limited government, smaller budgets, fewer government employees, and cutting bloated salaries, obscene pensions, and early retirement for government employees. Another Tea Party landslide would have threatened the power of government employee unions. Many government employees would have been laid off.

Does anyone believe it a coincidence that Obama met with IRS union boss Colleen Kelley at the White House the day before the targeting of Tea Parties by the IRS began? If you do, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

Barack Obama was fraudulently re-elected. Our country was hijacked by government employees protecting their cushy lifetime jobs, bloated salaries, obscene pensions, and powerful unions.

Think I’m wrong? Evidently IRS officials don’t. Several of them have been busy hiring famous and expensive law firms to defend themselves.

Where are they getting the money? Is Obama arranging for big Democratic donors like George Soros, or union political funds, to pay their legal bills? Is Obama scared to death of what these IRS bosses will say under oath? Could their testimony end his Presidency and destroy his legacy?

In the end it’s clear to anyone who hasn’t been brainwashed by government schools or bribed by government checks that the 2012 election was fraudulently stolen by Barack Obama.

What did Obama, Democrats, and the IRS gain?

1. The right to continue to loot the treasury with bailouts, stimulus, corporate welfare, and government contracts to his friends, donors, loyal media lackeys, and corrupt union bosses.

2. The right to continue to redistribute income from the business owners (who vote Republican) to Obama’s voters (the poor, unions, and government employees).

3. The ability to save Obamacare and unionize 15 million healthcare workers – thereby raising $15 billion in union dues to elect Democrats. And of course to overwhelm middle class families with $20,000 annual health insurance bills they can’t pay, thereby addicting them to government handouts.

4. The IRS itself gains tremendously. They are now in charge of policing Obamacare – a huge, new bureaucracy. It also adds thousands of new IRS agents, thereby greatly enriching the IRS union.

5. The opportunity to pass immigration amnesty, thereby producing 10 to 20 million new loyal Democratic voters.

6. The opportunity to bankrupt business owners and permanently weaken the private sector, thereby drying up donations for conservative candidates and causes.

7. The opportunity to weaken American influence internationally (see Egypt, Libya, Syria).

Obama’s re-election also means he may serve long enough to appoint one or two more Supreme Court justices, whose radical leftist views will ensure America is permanently transformed to a big government socialist nation.

This wasn’t just any theft, folks. It was a trillion dollar theft. The Obama Crime Family (so far) has gotten away with the greatest and most daring act of fraud in world history. They stole the election.

Hickenlooper's panel on renewable mandate drops the ball

Carroll: Hickenlooper's panel on renewable mandate drops the ball

By Vinent Carroll
Denver Post editorial page editor

Posted: 09/27/2013 09:39:42 AM MDT5 comments | Updated: a day ago

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post)

When the governor signed a controversial bill in June imposing a 20 percent renewable energy standard on rural Colorado, he admitted the measure was "imperfect." So he appointed an advisory committee to come up with ideas to improve the law for the 2014 legislative session.
That committee has failed. When it issues its report next month — a report that is nearly finished — it will not include a single consensus recommendation to amend the law.
But why should we be surprised? The time to seek consensus on divisive public policy is when all parties have an incentive to compromise — in other words, while legislation is still being written.
Once a bill is law, those happy with it will dig in their heels.
Here's what Gov. John Hickenlooper said in June: "Some of the concerns raised during the legislative process were not given due consideration. Top among these concerns are the feasibility of the implementation timetable and consumer protections. The advisory committee will work to fully address these concerns, culminating in proposals for the 2014 legislative session."
Sorry, no proposals. The committee, with members representing environmental, agriculture, rural electric, renewable energy and other interests, discussed a lot of ideas and even recorded votes on them. But its goal of unanimous recommendations was a formula for failure, as anyone surveying its membership could have foreseen.
To be sure, Hickenlooper also enlisted the committee to advise him on "the feasibility of achieving the 20 percent renewable energy standard" by 2020 and to offer its opinion of the 2 percent rate cap. But he may want to avert his eyes from at least one of its conclusions. The committee did indeed agree the 2020 mandate is feasible, but only by assuming the purchase of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs).
In other words, the standard will be met at least in part not by investment in those job-creating projects that the governor extolled in his signing statement but by an accounting mechanism in which certificates are transferred from existing green energy providers.
For the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, the state's largest electric cooperative, buying RECs is the only way to meet the renewable mandate. It is a wholesale power purchaser and it is tied to long-term contracts that will not meet the mandate.
"It isn't that we're in love with RECs, but we have zero alternatives," Mike Kopp, IREA's director of public and regulatory affairs, told me. And he's worried that as demand for RECs rises, so will their price, to the detriment of the co-op's customers.
Assuming the governor is still interested in fixing Senate Bill 252, he should forget consensus and consider the ideas endorsed by a majority of his committee. As for my own suggestions:
1. Exempt IREA. Of the state's 22 electric co-ops, it may be in a uniquely helpless position. The others are either tied to a wholesale supplier that must meet the 20 percent mandate (Tri-State) or are already exempt because of their smaller size.
2. Push the deadline from 2020 to at least 2022. The governor claimed that 2022 was briefly agreed to during negotiations in the spring. Why not resurrect it and thus boost the incentive to pursue renewable projects, as opposed to RECs?
3. Increase the size of new hydropower eligible under the renewable standard — and meet environmentalists halfway by allowing such additional hydropower only on existing dams.
Finally, next time fix the flaws in a bill before it is signed.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Gullible Green sailors trapped in the Arctic | EPA Abuse

Gullible Green sailors trapped in the Arctic

September 26, 2013 Comments (1)

Photo credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video (Creative Commons)

The naïve advice of ardent activists can kill. Last spring, Paul Beckwith of Sierra Club Canada predicted that the Arctic seas would be ice-free ice this summer. (So did Britain’s BBC network.) This exciting adventure opportunity attracted a variety of yachts, sailboats, rowboats, and kayaks owners to try sailing the fabled Northwest Passage.
As a former sailboat owner I can understand their excitement, but my heart aches for the agonies they now face. The Arctic sea ice suddenly expanded 60 percent this fall, after the coldest summer in the modern Alaska temperature record. The passage is now impassable. More than a dozen of the boats are trapped, apparently even including a group of tiny American jet-ski “personal watercraft” that were attempting to cross from the east coast of Russia to the North Atlantic. Arctic observers are now warning that even Canadian icebreakers might not be able to rescue them.
The Northwest Passage blog reminds us that fall super storms are a potentially deadly fact in Alaska. “It is only a matter time. . . . Give Mother Nature her due time and she will move billions of tons of sea ice and push it up against the Alaska Arctic coast—effectively closing the door to exit the Arctic ice from western Canada. . . . No icebreakers are going to be able to offer any assistance. Mother Nature is mightier than all the icebreakers put together.” Note that the Atlantic exit is already problematic.
Helicopter rescues on Arctic ice are incredibly expensive, involving hundreds of miles of flying by copters and crews expensively maintained in that icy and sparsely populated region. Additionally, all the lovely boats become write-offs.
The boaters ignored major warning signs. The planet has not warmed appreciably in at least 15 years. NASA told us in 2007 that the Pacific Ocean had shifted into the cool phase of its 60-year cycle and that fact predicted cooler winters until 2030.
Read more at NetRightDaily.com. By Dennis Avery.

Deception key to new education tax increase

Deception key to new education tax increase

Deception key to new education tax increase

The Gazette editorial • Updated: September 25, 2013 at 8:15 pm

Supporters of Amendment 66 are desperate to fool us. The proposed amendment, pitched with exploitation of society's concern for children, would impose a massive new tax hike.
Teachers unions and other supporters tell us they need new taxes to implement reforms created by SB191 - a law The Gazette supported in 2010. The bill established performance-based reforms designed to reward excellence in classrooms. It famously linked contractual job security for teachers, known as tenure, to performance. Teachers unions hated it.
Today, as backers of the Amendment 66 tax hike, unions supposedly favor SB191 reforms. They insist the new taxes will fund the law's classroom transformations to benefit children.
At the same time, two unions that support the tax hike - Denver Classroom Teachers Association and Colorado Education Association - plan to sue and put an end to merit-based tenure just as soon as they get beyond the election. They want to sell the tax by flaunting SB191, then destroy its most important reform after they get their money. Sleazy? To put it kindly.
"The root arguments for the tax increase are the reforms in SB191," said Paul Lundeen, the Colorado State School Board representative for Colorado Springs and the rest of Congressional District 5.Lundeen was chosen by his peers to chair the board, but spoke to The Gazette only in his capacity as District 5 representative.
"By pitching this tax increase as a means to carry out popular reforms, the teacher's unions have an illusory advantage. But the very threat of this lawsuit shows their true position. They seek to keep in our classrooms those few teachers who don't belong there because those teachers are dues-paying members of the union. They want it both ways. They want to pass the tax increase on the very classroom transformations they intend to stop in court."
Any question about this plot ended when reporter Megan Schrader exposed in Sunday's Gazette an agreement to effectively conceal the proposed lawsuit from voters until after the election. The anticipated litigation, which will challenge linking tenure to performance, had to be filed before the statute of limitations expired in August. But the defendant in the threatened suit, the Colorado Board of Education, agreed after an Aug. 26 close-door meeting to grant the unions an extension. The new deadline gives the unions an option to file suit early next year, after voters have decided the fate of the tax hike.
"The political calculus from the union's perspective is they get past the election in November without the voters seeing their opposition to something they use as a justification for needing this money," Lundeen said. He opposes the lawsuit and tax increase, but voted for the extension. That's because the classroom reforms in SB191, which Lundeen supports, began only at the start of this school year in all of the state's 178 school districts. Without the extension, the unions would have sued in late August and filed an injunction to stop SB191 reforms.
"We wanted to allow SB191 to be in place for at least a semester, allowing it the momentum of becoming effective policy, before a lawsuit was dropped on it," Lundeen said. "It was a situation of hold your nose and give the union the potential to sue later, understanding these policies stand a better chance if we allow them to roll out for an entire semester."
This isn't the first time supporters of this tax have tried to hoodwink the public. Before exposing the hush-hush lawsuit arrangement, The Gazette revealed how the Legislature's Democratic majority quietly sat on a $1 billion-plus revenue surplus this year without substantive new education spending. They did so to create an illusion of school poverty, so voters might be fooled into approving the tax hike.
Like State Treasurer Walker Stapleton, Lundeen said the tax is part of a deceptive plot to backfill the state government's Public Employees' Retirement Association. A majority won't support bailing out our state's overly generous pension but might fall for a "save the children" facade.
"The minute someone says 'I need money to transform the classroom,' it's not real transformation. It's just more money," Lundeen said. "Reform is doing things better and wiser with the resources we already have." Supporters of this tax need to stop with the deception and lies. Voters shouldn't even think to reward these sleaze tactics with a giant new tax.

As Its Global Warming Narrative Unravels, The IPCC Is In Damage Control Mode - Forbes

As Its Global Warming Narrative Unravels, The IPCC Is In Damage Control Mode

IPCC chairman Rajendra K. Pachauri is pictured next to an unidentified Arab official during a meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

Struggling to keep a discredited global warming crisis afloat, United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chair Raj Pachauri this week denied the well-documented plateau in temperatures during the past 15-plus years. Pachauri’s denialism contradicted his own admission earlier this year that there has been a 17-year plateau in global temperatures.
The IPCC is in full damage-control mode after it leaked advance copies of an upcoming Summary for Policymakers to what it assumed would be friendly journalists. The journalists, however, quickly realized the IPCC Summary for Policymakers contained several embarrassing walk-backs from alarmist statements in prior IPCC reports.
Two of the most embarrassing aspects of the Summary for Policymakers are (1) IPCC’s admission that global warming has occurred much slower than IPCC previously forecast and (2) IPCC is unable to explain the ongoing plateau in global temperatures. IPCC computer models have predicted twice as much warming as has occurred in the real world, and virtually none of the IPCC computer models can replicate or account for the recent lack of global warming.
Rather than acknowledge that perhaps IPCC overshot its predictions in past reports, Pachauri doubled down on denialism, claiming there has been no slowdown in the pace of global warming.
“I don’t think there is a slowdown (in the rate of temperature increase),” Pachauri told BBC News Monday
. Pachauri’s astonishing denialism not only undercuts IPCC credibility, it also contradicts his own words earlier this year in an interview with the Australian. “The UN’s climate change chief, Rajendra Pachauri, has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises,” the Australian’s Graham Lloyd reported in February after interviewing Pachauri.
While Pachauri and the IPCC bureaucracy double down on denial, some IPCC scientists are acknowledging the scientific truth. IPCC Lead Author Hans von Storch, a climate scientist and professor at the Meteorological Institute at the University of Hamburg, acknowledged the ongoing temperature plateau in a June interview with der Spiegel.
“So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break,” IPCC Lead Author Hans von Storch told der Spiegel in a June 2013 interview. Storch said the IPCC will have tone down its climate models unless warming quickly and rapidly accelerates ”According to most climate models, we should have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years. That hasn’t happened. In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) — a value very close to zero,” Storch told der Spiegel. “This is a serious scientific problem that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will have to confront when it presents its next Assessment Report late next year.”
“At my institute, we analyzed how often such a 15-year stagnation in global warming occurred in the simulations. The answer was: in under 2 percent of all the times we ran the simulation. In other words, over 98 percent of forecasts show CO2 emissions as high as we have had in recent years leading to more of a temperature increase,” Storch explained.
A cynic may point out that presenting objective scientific evidence was never the goal of the IPCC and global warming alarmists. Instead, it can be correctly noted, the goal is to scare people into implementing the energy restrictions and wealth redistribution prescribed as a cure for the mythical global warming crisis. As prominent global warming scientist/activist Steven Schneider advised:

“We’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”

For IPCC chair Raj Pachauri, there is no balance. There is merely denialist propaganda that he hopes will blind people to the fact that global warming has, at a bare minimum, slowed down dramatically during recent years.
The problem for Pachauri and the IPCC is the IPCC’s own scientists, such as Hans von Storch, directly contradict Pachauri’s denialism. And it is not just scientists pointing out Pachaui’s denialism. Even the IPCC’s reliably sympathetic media allies are unwilling to run with Pachauri’s whopper about no recent slowdown in global warming. For example, here are a few recent headlines from some of the most alarmist-friendly media outlets in the world:
“Researching global warming’s pause,” reads a BBC News headline.
“A cooler Pacific may be behind recent pause in global warming,” reads a National Public Radio headline.
“Why has global warming paused?” asks a Christian Science Monitor headline.

“What to make of a climate-change plateau,” reads a New York Times headline.
“Global warming has ‘paused’ because of natural causes but will continue to rise, scientists claim,” reads a UK Daily Mail headline.
To be sure, these reliably activist media outlets are not abandoning their catastrophic global warming agenda, but even they are forced to acknowledge what objective scientific evidence shows and what IPCC chair Raj Pachauri denies; global temperatures have plateaued for more than a decade and there has been, at a bare minimum, a pronounced recent slowdown in global warming.
Raj Pachauri and the IPCC are falling into the same trap that discredited Al Gore. Exaggerating the pace and impacts of global warming may provide some short-term propaganda value, but these tall tales will ultimately backfire. People are not stupid. Al Gore may have brought belief in a global warming crisis to new heights following his Hollywood movie production An Inconvenient Truth, but it took an informed public mere months to discover Al Gore and his global warming whoppers were nothing more than the latest incarnation of Joe Isuzu. Raj Pachauri and the IPCC are foolishly drag racing down the same deceptive path. One cannot watch this propaganda train wreck unfold without expectations that Pachauri will soon offer a mini-pony with every copy of the IPCC’s newest report.
IPCC chair Raj Pachauri may want us to deny objective scientific facts, but the IPCC’s own scientists, the general public and even Pachauri’s reliable media allies know better.

Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities | Grist

Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities

By David Roberts

Solar power and other distributed renewable energy technologies could lay waste to U.S. power utilities and burn the utility business model, which has remained virtually unchanged for a century, to the ground.

That is not wild-eyed hippie talk. It is the assessment of the utilities themselves.
Back in January, the Edison Electric Institute — the (typically stodgy and backward-looking) trade group of U.S. investor-owned utilities — released a report [PDF] that, as far as I can tell, went almost entirely without notice in the press. That’s a shame. It is one of the most prescient and brutally frank things I’ve ever read about the power sector. It is a rare thing to hear an industry tell the tale of its own incipient obsolescence.

(now featuring cute animals!) — (Now featuring cute animals!)

I’ve been thinking about how to convey to you, normal people with healthy social lives and no time to ponder the byzantine nature of the power industry, just what a big deal the coming changes are. They are nothing short of revolutionary … but rather difficult to explain without jargon.
So, just a bit of background. You probably know that electricity is provided by utilities. Some utilities both generate electricity at power plants and provide it to customers over power lines. They are “regulated monopolies,” which means they have sole responsibility for providing power in their service areas. Some utilities have gone through deregulation; in that case, power generation is split off into its own business, while the utility’s job is to purchase power on competitive markets and provide it to customers over the grid it manages.
This complexity makes it difficult to generalize about utilities … or to discuss them without putting people to sleep. But the main thing to know is that the utility business model relies on selling power. That’s how they make their money. Here’s how it works: A utility makes a case to a public utility commission (PUC), saying “we will need to satisfy this level of demand from consumers, which means we’ll need to generate (or purchase) this much power, which means we’ll need to charge these rates.” If the PUC finds the case persuasive, it approves the rates and guarantees the utility a reasonable return on its investments in power and grid upkeep.
Thrilling, I know. The thing to remember is that it is in a utility’s financial interest to generate (or buy) and deliver as much power as possible. The higher the demand, the higher the investments, the higher the utility shareholder profits. In short, all things being equal, utilities want to sell more power. (All things are occasionally not equal, but we’ll leave those complications aside for now.)
Now, into this cozy business model enters cheap distributed solar PV, which eats away at it like acid.
First, the power generated by solar panels on residential or commercial roofs is not utility-owned or utility-purchased. From the utility’s point of view, every kilowatt-hour of rooftop solar looks like a kilowatt-hour of reduced demand for the utility’s product. Not something any business enjoys. (This is the same reason utilities are instinctively hostile to energy efficiency and demand response programs, and why they must be compelled by regulations or subsidies to create them. Utilities don’t like reduced demand!)
It’s worse than that, though. Solar power peaks at midday, which means it is strongest close to the point of highest electricity use — “peak load.” Problem is, providing power to meet peak load is where utilities make a huge chunk of their money. Peak power is the most expensive power. So when solar panels provide peak power, they aren’t just reducing demand, they’re reducing demand for the utilities’ most valuable product.
But wait. Renewables are limited by the fact they are intermittent, right? “The sun doesn’t always shine,” etc. Customers will still have to rely on grid power for the most part. Right?
This is a widely held article of faith, but EEI (of all places!) puts it to rest. (In this and all quotes that follow, “DER” means distributed energy resources, which for the most part means solar PV.)

Due to the variable nature of renewable DER, there is a perception that customers will always need to remain on the grid. While we would expect customers to remain on the grid until a fully viable and economic distributed non-variable resource is available, one can imagine a day when battery storage technology or micro turbines could allow customers to be electric grid independent. To put this into perspective, who would have believed 10 years ago that traditional wire line telephone customers could economically “cut the cord?” [Emphasis mine.]

Indeed! Just the other day, Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers said, “If the cost of solar panels keeps coming down, installation costs come down and if they combine solar with battery technology and a power management system, then we have someone just using [the grid] for backup.” What happens if a whole bunch of customers start generating their own power and using the grid merely as backup? The EEI report warns of “irreparable damages to revenues and growth prospects” of utilities.
Utility investors are accustomed to large, long-term, reliable investments with a 30-year cost recovery — fossil fuel plants, basically. The cost of those investments, along with investments in grid maintenance and reliability, are spread by utilities across all ratepayers in a service area. What happens if a bunch of those ratepayers start reducing their demand or opting out of the grid entirely? Well, the same investments must now be spread over a smaller group of ratepayers. In other words: higher rates for those who haven’t switched to solar.
That’s how it starts. These two paragraphs from the EEI report are a remarkable description of the path to obsolescence faced by the industry:

The financial implications of these threats are fairly evident. Start with the increased cost of supporting a network capable of managing and integrating distributed generation sources. Next, under most rate structures, add the decline in revenues attributed to revenues lost from sales foregone. These forces lead to increased revenues required from remaining customers … and sought through rate increases. The result of higher electricity prices and competitive threats will encourage a higher rate of DER additions, or will promote greater use of efficiency or demand-side solutions.
Increased uncertainty and risk will not be welcomed by investors, who will seek a higher return on investment and force defensive-minded investors to reduce exposure to the sector. These competitive and financial risks would likely erode credit quality. The decline in credit quality will lead to a higher cost of capital, putting further pressure on customer rates. Ultimately, capital availability will be reduced, and this will affect future investment plans. The cycle of decline has been previously witnessed in technology-disrupted sectors (such as telecommunications) and other deregulated industries (airlines).

Did you follow that? As ratepayers opt for solar panels (and other distributed energy resources like micro-turbines, batteries, smart appliances, etc.), it raises costs on other ratepayers and hurts the utility’s credit rating. As rates rise on other ratepayers, the attractiveness of solar increases, so more opt for it. Thus costs on remaining ratepayers are even further increased, the utility’s credit even further damaged. It’s a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle:

EEI: vicious cycle of disruptive forces — EEI

One implication of all this — a poorly understood implication — is that rooftop solar fucks up the utility model even at relatively low penetrations, because it goes straight at utilities’ main profit centers. (It’s already happening in Germany.) Right now, distributed solar PV is a relatively tiny slice of U.S. electricity, less than 1 percent. For that reason, utility investors aren’t paying much attention. “Despite the risks that a rapidly growing level of DER penetration and other disruptive challenges may impose,” EEI writes, “they are not currently being discussed by the investment community and factored into the valuation calculus reflected in the capital markets.” But that 1 percent is concentrated in a small handful of utility districts, so trouble, at least for that first set of utilities, is just over the horizon. Utility investors are sleepwalking into a maelstrom.
(“Despite all the talk about investors assessing the future in their investment evaluations,” the report notes dryly, “it is often not until revenue declines are reported that investors realize that the viability of the business is in question.” In other words, investors aren’t that smart and rational financial markets are a myth.)
Bloomberg Energy Finance forecasts 22 percent compound annual growth in all solar PV, which means that by 2020 distributed solar (which will account for about 15 percent of total PV) could reach up to 10 percent of load in certain areas. If that happens, well:

Assuming a decline in load, and possibly customers served, of 10 percent due to DER with full subsidization of DER participants, the average impact on base electricity prices for non-DER participants will be a 20 percent or more increase in rates, and the ongoing rate of growth in electricity prices will double for non-DER participants (before accounting for the impact of the increased cost of serving distributed resources).

So rates would rise by 20 percent for those without solar panels. Can you imagine the political shitstorm that would create? (There are reasons to think EEI is exaggerating this effect, but we’ll get into that in the next post.)
If nothing is done to check these trends, the U.S. electric utility as we know it could be utterly upended. The report compares utilities’ possible future to the experience of the airlines during deregulation or to the big monopoly phone companies when faced with upstart cellular technologies. In case the point wasn’t made, the report also analogizes utilities to the U.S. Postal Service, Kodak, and RIM, the maker of Blackberry devices. These are not meant to be flattering comparisons.
Remember, too, that these utilities are not Google or Facebook. They are not accustomed to a state of constant market turmoil and reinvention. This is a venerable old boys network, working very comfortably within a business model that has been around, virtually unchanged, for a century. A friggin’ century, more or less without innovation, and now they’re supposed to scramble and be all hip and new-age? Unlikely.
So what’s to be done? You won’t be surprised to hear that EEI’s prescription is mainly focused on preserving utilities and their familiar business model. But is that the best thing for electricity consumers? Is that the best thing for the climate?
We’ll dig into those questions in my next post.

David Roberts is a staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.

A Gun Map That’s a Little Different | TheBlaze.com

A Gun Map That’s a Little Different

Sep. 26, 2013 3:47pm Becket Adams

Different cultures, different customs, or so the saying goes

The saying also apparently applies to rifle preferences for the world’s militaries, as the following map illustrates.

[Map note from Gizmodo: “Judging by the map's choice of colors, it seems to group weapons that are of a similar family together by color”]:

Heres a Map of Rifle Preferences By the Worlds Militaries

Click to enlarge (imgur.com)

Obviously, there are many, many more types of rifles than the ones shown on the map, but as Gizmodo notes, the “map gives a general gist of each military’s standardization.”

And here are a few of the more popular rifles referenced in the map: