I heard a report on KUOW that said that John McCain was in town today to talk about the environment, when in fact, he’s really only here for a $33,100 per plate dinner. You really think he’d come to WA — a state he can’t possibly win — for any reason other than money?
Of course, one of the many reasons McCain can’t win WA is the tanker contract he cost us, and the 9,000 plus local jobs that would have come with it. In a post on Daily Kos today, Gov. Chris Gregoire points out:
To help our national economy, the Bush Administration sends us $600 “economic stimulus” checks. I have no doubt that many need this money. It will buy a month’s worth of groceries and pay for the rising cost of gasoline.
But the Bush Administration sent $40 billion of economic stimulus to Europe. And I have no doubt that $40 billion and 44,000 new good-paying jobs would feed entire communities and repair lives broken by debt and the loss of homes.
Unfortunately, that $40 billion stimulus package is creating jobs and feeding communities in France. Hey, thanks Sen. McCain.
The tanker contract he cost us???
C’mon Goldy…if the proposal had been competitive it would have won fair and square.
Geez.
Senator Barack H. Obama, who asserts that Geriatric John McCain is losing his bearings, also asserts that he’s visited 57 states with only two or three to go.
Didn’t the Government Accountability Office come out with a report stating that no new tankers were needed? Just another boondoggle, basically was their assessment. Only the military contracters and their beanie-baby politicians thought it necessary. But since no one listens to common sense and reason anymore, the contract should have gone to Lazy B. The problem is, they didn’t try very hard. They got smoked in the design department by the damn foreigners (you know, the ones based in LA at Grumman).
I think you meant to say merci, monsieur le Sénateur.
Certainly the fundraiser was his main reason for coming here, but McCain did attend a discussion about environmental issues in North Bend. To hear David Postman tell it, he not only talked but actually listened.
So….guess he came to Bellevue for the money, and went to North Bend for the rain.
Barack H. loses his head:
Via Historian Edward Luttwak, the Jayson Blair Times, yesderday.
(Interesting twist on the Clinton politics of personal destruction, no? Yes. The Clinton crime family, reviled for leaking Obama-madrassa stories to Fox and for shopping Obama/Osama photos to Drudge, didn’t graft apostate Obama’s death sentence onto the Koran. Cap punishment was Surah’d more than 1000 years before Hillary — born in 1947 — was named for Sir Edmund, who climbed Everest in 1953.)
re 1: Yeah, right.
Even 7th graders know about cost overruns and low-balling.
Via WSJ, yesterday.
(EIA = Energy Information Administration)
When your entire political philosophy is dependent upon suckling the government teat, then you’re prepared to support every rancid bit of pork that comes down the pike.
As a former shareholder it pains me to say that Boeing’s behavior in the tanker deal was, almost from the outset, disgraceful AND, in some aspects, criminal.
John McCain outed the first tanker deal for the greeeeeeezzzzzed palm scandal it was, and his subsequent efforts to foster accountability and transparency in appropriations proves that no good deed goes unpunished.
No wonder that most all the HA Happy Hooligans are agog – simply agog – at McCain’s opposition to Boeing getting the contract. No wonder since their entire fiscal policy is, on nealy all issues, “Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee, gimmee, gimmee, gimmee, gimmee, gimmee…”
Tedious, I know. And based upon the theorem that they’re somehow entitled to share in the hard work and good fortune of others as a matter of right.
Here’s a clue to several of the HAHHs: rescuing your life from the pathetic mess that it’s in isn’t my responsiblity. Trust me, there are WAY many more deserving objects of my largesse than you.
I’ve often thought that the entire world should be required to work on strict commission – you get paid only for what you produce.
Instead of sitting around waiting for the gub’mint check to show up in your mailbox – this applies all the way up the food chain from the lowest of the low to the high and mighty – go out and exercise the muscle and intelligence given you by God to actually make it on your own.
Don’t, BTW, cop out by flogging some “safety net” argument since that’s a red herring – if it applied to you, then the question becomes what are you doing wasting your time here?
Those who genuinely can’t will be helped. But those who genuinely won’t…won’t.
You and you alone are responsible for the choices made in your life, and you and you alone either reap the rewards or suffer the consequences of those choices.
That you bet on the wrong pony in the trifecta of life shouldn’t be my burden to bear.
Got it?
The Piper
Undemocratic Democrat president Bill Clinton locked up millions of Escalante acres with a one-second signature on an executive order.
“Republican” president GWB, who has nothing left to lose, can reverse decades of Democrat lunacy with a one-second signature on an executive order that lets us take our own oil from our own mosquito coast, ANWR, and that lets us drill in the coastal waters being mined by Cuba and China, and that breaks the insane moratorium on nuclear power, and that expands U.S. refinery capacity.
If y’all had gone and read Postman’s blog, you might have learned that McCain himself stated that there’s no silver bullet that’s going to make the energy issue all better. That must come as a horrendous disappointment to whatever creature posted the rant in #10, above.
I watched a panel discussion on CSPAN last night where the consensus was that the rising price of petroleum is what’s going to foster the pursuit of alternate approaches to powering our society. Why? Because it’s going to make it economically viable to do those things–wind and solar power, mass transit, mining of tar sands, clean coal and, yes kiddies, nuclear power generation. Please note that none of these things is the be-all, end-all solution to the problem (as cheap oil has been for the last century). Nor is any of these things going to happen in reasonable fashion until it becomes cost-competitive on its own, not by subsidies, not by crash programs, and not by “a single stroke of a pen”, by our present idiot-in-chief or anyone else. All of the speakers bemoaned the fact while the lunacy of our recent foray into running cars on whiskey has become painfully obvious, it’s going to take some time before someone in the government summons the courage to call a halt to it.
Sorry…don’t know how I managed to post something twice, but I can’t figure out how to delete one of ’em.
Piper @ 9:
Take your hypocritical shit and stick it where the sun don’t shine. It’s all just fine when *your* buddies get the boodle, isn’t it. Somehow *they’re* all producers. Only conservatives are producers, right?
Moron. We’re *so* past you.
Check this for an example:
Trust on Issues
Democrats Trusted More on All Ten Electoral Issues Tracked by Rasmussen Reports
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
American voters now trust the Democrats on all ten key electoral issues tracked regularly by Rasmussen Reports. Last month, the GOP’s had an advantage on two issues.
Not surprisingly, the economy is still seen as the most important issue in this year’s presidential campaign–76% of voters say it is a Very Important issue. The Democrats now have a 14-point advantage over the Republicans on this issue, up from eight-points a month ago. Data from the Rasmussen Consumer Index shows that consumer confidence is currently hovering near record lows. Not only is confidence low, three-out-of-four Americans believe that economic conditions are getting worse.
Government Ethics and Corruption is a Very Important issue for 71% of Likely Voters. The Democrats have a huge advantage on this issue—45% now trust them while just 26% prefer the GOP. That lead has also widened since last month, when the Democrats had only a six-point advantage.
Perhaps the biggest surprise comes from the fact that Democrats are now trusted more when it comes to National Security and the War on Terror, an issue long considered a GOP stronghold. The latest polling, however, shows that 49% of voters now trust the Democrats more on this issue while 42% trust the Republicans more. This shift comes at the same time that confidence in the War on Terror has fallen significantly.
Each month, Rasmussen Reports asks likely voters to rank the importance of ten electoral issues and which of the two major parties they trust more on these issues. The Democrats have been dominant on most issues throughout the past two years. It should be noted, however, that these general perceptions are likely to have a bigger impact on Congressional races rather than the Presidential election. While voters tend to prefer Democrats over Republicans on a generic basis, John McCain consistently outperforms the GOP brand. In fact, polling shows that he is trusted more than either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton on key issues such as the economy and national security.
The trust on issues data reflects another significant trend of Election 2008—there is a growing number of people who consider themselves to be Democrats. In fact, the Democrats now have the largest partisan advantage over the Republicans since Rasmussen Reports began tracking this data on a monthly basis nearly six years ago.
Another issue the Republicans used to be trusted more on was taxes. Last month, the GOP’s had a four-point lead over the Democrats on this issue. This month, they have fallen behind to a five-point deficit. Taxes are a very important issue for 57% of voters.
The War in Iraq is a very important issue for 59% of voters. This month, the Democrats hold an 11-point lead over the Republicans on that issue. Last month, the Democrats led by just two points on that issue. A separate tracking survey has consistently found that six-out-of-ten Americans want troops home from Iraq within a year.
The Democrats lead the Republicans by double-digit margins on the issues of education, social security, health care, and immigration.
To see the top issues of importance and leading party among issues, click here.
Historical data for Trust on Issues I and Issues II and Importance of Issues I and Issues II are available for Premium Members only.
Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.
The Rasmussen Reports ElectionEdge™ Premium Service for Election 2008 offers the most comprehensive public opinion coverage ever provided for a Presidential election.
Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade.
Drill the ANWR by Executive Order, w/o Congressional approval? In your dreams.
As my dad once said, this is the “drain America first” policy. Count me as a heretic who believes “dependence” on foreign oil is not entirely a bad thing.
Goldy, in Piper’s honor the blog’s name should actually be changed to Unbearable Horses Ass.
9 There a certain irony in what’s happened to Boeing, because it among the aerospace giants was the most successful in transitioning the bulk of its business to commercial jetliners.
John McCain the next president of the USA.
For those who don’t want their Bush Administration $600 “economic stimulus” checks.
send it back.
” … consensus was that the rising price of petroleum is what’s going to foster the pursuit of alternate approaches to powering our society.”
What part of Econ 101, if any, did you fail to fail? You present as insight the “consensus” that if the United States (alone among sentient nations) fails to develop its own available and feasible stocks of energy resources, thereby contributing to a supply/demand imbalance, petrol prices will increase to a price point where inordinately subsidized alternatives will appear feasible.
You’re giving self-evident simple mindedness a bad name.
@9…Ivan…
Tovaritch, Comrade!
I read Rasmussen, and I don’t necessarily dispute anything in the article you cribbed.
BTW…instead of harking someone else’s analysis, why don’t you contribute your own original material?
As for producers? They are who they are without regard to political persuasion. I’m just of the mindset that says those who produce should keep the overwhelming majority of what they produce, and those who don’t should take a cue from the producers and become producers themselves.
Pretty simple, once you get the hang of it.
Frankly, that too many Republicans lost their way when it comes to tossing out the goodies is a reason they’re in the pickle they’re in.
до свидания
The Piper
@6 In any world except Wingnut Universe, people get to choose their own fucking religion. Even you, dumbass.
@8 Nuclear also produces toxic waste which pollutes for millions of years that no one knows how to get rid of.
@10 U.S. refining capacity has been expanding since the early 1990s, dummy. And the reason it didn’t expand in the 70s and 80s was not because of environmentalists but because of low gas prices that made investing in oil facilities a losing proposition.
Then what’s the point of bidding? If all that’s going to happen is a low-balled estimate followed up with cost overruns you might as well give it to company you know can handle the business… like URS corp.
@11 Lots of things are economically feasible at $125 a barrel.
@14 A minor detail overlooked by our wingnut friends is that ANWR holds only enough oil for 3 months of global consumption or 15 months of U.S. consumption, and if drilling was approved tomorrow the first ANWR oil wouldn’t reach the market for at least 10 years.
@17 If you had any brains you’d consider your $600 stimulus check a loan from China that you have to pay back with interest, because that’s exactly what it is.
@18 “You present as insight the “consensus” that if the United States (alone among sentient nations) fails to develop its own available and feasible stocks of energy resources, thereby contributing to a supply/demand imbalance”
“Duh” is a good name for you if you believe the U.S. is the only country dependent on foreign energy sources.
@19 “до свидания”
Look, everyone! Our resident Scottish village idiot can write “goodbye” in Cyrillic. How fetching.
P.S. — haven’t you left yet? Don’t hurry back.
Troll translation: We should use up all of our resources now, without regard for tomorrow. Fuck future generations of Americans. They can fend for themselves. Why should we leave them any oil? Why leave them any wilderness? What good would an old-growth fir do them? Let them deal with all the nuclear waste. Damn straight. Pump it all out, cut them all down, make a huge profit, leave the mess for Americans who aren’t even born yet. That’ll teach them to show up late to the game.
Goldy: “Of course, one of the many reasons McCain can’t win WA is the tanker contract he cost us…”
Huh? So the fact that Boeing had the deal pretty much locked up until the company’s CRIMINAL wrongdoing came to light is McCain’s fault? Why is not ok for the Halliburtons of the world to play fast and loose with contracting but not Boeing?
Also, where the hell was our own blind-sided congressional delegation before this deal was announced? How does a single senator from the minority party have all this power but folks like Dicks, Cantwell, and Murray (and yes, that includes the Sheriff too) have NO power in this thing?
I actually agree with Boeing having the contract yanked! It was criminal and would have cost taxpayers billions more than it should have. We bash Bush and his oil pals for criminal actions costing Americans billions in gas costs but are you saying it’s ok for Boeing to do exactly what we are accusing the Bush Admin of doing? Which is it? Is it ok for corporations to grease the palms of politicians or not?
And then to top if off, they were late to the game with the latest contract design, granted I think AEDS may have been given info Boeing was not, but come on! Boeing didn’t even design a new tanker, instead used the existing and sat back and waited. And yeah, over half my family works for Boeing and out of about 15, only 2 think it’s McCain’s “fault”
McCain’s nuclear option puts 6-700 nuclear power stations in America over the next couple decades. This would among other things require 3 more Yucca Flats. Large quantities of nuclear fuel, from foriegn sources, and larger quantities of nuclear waste transiting the country continuously. Somebody unfriendly will find a way to aquire some given the amounts moving arround. Happy thoughts though will keep them away, right?
Geothermal works for me. There’s lots of it in the US&A. Its about as green as you can get. It requires no intense and costly infrastucture.
On the transportation front things are being worked on. One project getting close to reality is from Vectrix in New England. They call it an electric superbike. 80hp/75lb-ft torque. I run a Ducati 748 right now. This prototype looks like something that I would enjoy using. Electrical drag racers already exist and have fans.
Actually, when we find out the real details on the contract – Boeing was screwed. The too big Airbus plane carries more fuel but will require billions more in fuel costs, new runways and new hangars – all not included (except the batteries). No – the parameters on the contract were changed by political motivations and John (lobbyist) McCain screwed over our state and boeing to reward the French.
This was not pork barrel politics for boeing – it was pork lobbyist politics for Airbus led by McCain. And that stubby, little lobbyist-loving SOB is taking credit for giving away our jobs to the French. Screw him!
GOP goes down again! The third midterm election in row in Republican stalwart districts goes democratic: Link:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/n.....e_seat.php
Republicans are down to 199 in the house – a minority party going further south (actually – losing in the south too).
As to Piper: when has the GOP taken responsibility for any of it’s screw ups?
the economy
the largest deficit in history
the largest trade deficit in history
the failure to have any coherent energy policy and the highest gas prices in history
the lack of regulation in the banking industry
the corruption with Abramoff
the utter incompetence in Iraq
the subversion of the Justice dept.
the politicization of the GAO, FDA, FEC, Agriculture and on and on
Time to throw the bums out!
Do we yet know who within the committee designated to choose the tanker deal, voted for and against Boeing? Or was it all on one person’s shoulders?
So as long as the jobs are in your area rampant depletion of the nation’s treasury through militarism is just A-O fucking K? The tankers are not necessary. The contract should be cancelled and buried. There are plenty of other reasons McAssCrawl will not be president.
“Hannah” it was decided by an Air Force committee (scarry thought, eh?).
@36 – slingshot – yeah very scary thought!! Who is on the Airforce Committee that voted against Boeing?
I’m not sure “H”, but here’s a link to a thousand articles about it. It is portalled through the Northrum Grumman site, but the articles are from independant media outlets:
http://www.americasnewtanker.c...../index.php
“Two top aides to the Republican presidential nominee John McCain have been forced to resign over their ties to the Burmese military junta, providing yet another embarrassment for Mr McCain who is trying to present himself as the scourge of special interests in Washington.”
Complete article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/n.....27015.html
21 “Nuclear also produces toxic waste which pollutes for millions of years that no one knows how to get rid of.”
Unfortunately, we’re coming to learn that so does everything else.
“@10 U.S. refining capacity has been expanding since the early 1990s, dummy. And the reason it didn’t expand in the 70s and 80s was not because of environmentalists but because of low gas prices that made investing in oil facilities a losing proposition.”
So, at four bucks a gallon…heh?
32 Now wait a minute… seven hundred??? That’s about ten times the number of nuclear plants we’ve built in this country since Fermi split his first atom.
Might we be exaggerating just a trifle here?
19 What the FUCK????? You and Puddy make such a big thing about providing citations and links to supposedly support your arguments, and then when someone else does the same thing to support something you don’t agree with, you cry plagiarism? Feh!
“McCain’s nuclear option puts 6-700 nuclear power stations in America over the next couple decades”
This is physically and economically impossible.
@18 like, Duh; If you believe fuel prices will come down just because the cork gets popped on ANWAR you’re kidding yourself. You are actually in the financial industry, right? Commodities trader/”adviser”, perhaps? They acquire a severely jaundiced view of reality.
I think it’s pretty well established that the Pentagon somehow changed the contract specification to favor a larger aircraft. Boeing might have rebid the whole thing to use the triple-seven had they known…
Or not. Originally, the plan was to convert a bunch of planes coming off lease that would cost considerably less than building new ones.
17 …or donate it to the Democrats! HEE HEE!!!!!!
The really pathetic aspect of all this is that the government is still jerking around trying to figure out how to replace a bunch of 40-year-old airplanes, whose purpose is to refuel a bunch of bombers that are even older, so they can drop bombs on some arbitrarily selected bunch of poor sots just for the heck of it.
@43…AF…
Plagarism? I didn’t accuse anyone of plagarism. I acknowledged that what was posted came from Rasmussen Reports…but that was all there was.
How about some original thought? New analysis? Application of the what the article said to something germane to the conversation?
Instead, it was the usual HA Happy Hooligan tossing of severaly hundred or thousand of someone else’s words bracketed by expletives and anger and passing it off as reasoned argument.
As far as citations to authority go, I’m all for them, especially in the case of Rabbit who utters the most bald faced assertions without backing them up with data or persuasive authority. As a lawyer, he should know better.
That Rabbit pronounces does not necessarily make it so – the Pope he ain’t, and infalibility isn’t his divine gift. There’s more of humbug than Oz about him.
Trust me…if I ever want to accuse someone of plagarism, I won’t be euphemistic about it.
The Piper
For all you free market capitalists out there who favor nuclear power, please identify a nuclear power plant built anywhere in the world without governmental subsidies and tax breaks. Simple question. I’m sure you all can quickly provide an answer.
All you righties out there, in follow-up to my previous question, please identify a single American-based energy company that is willing to build a new nuclear power plant in this great nation of ours without subsidies from the government, or without a grant of immunity from liability from whatever disasters might arise from such plant (anybody ever hear of Three Mile Island or Chernobyl?). If the free market works so well, and we don’t need government, and nuclear power is such a wonderful option, then shouldn’t the energy industry be building nuclear power plants on every corner where Starbucks hasn’t yet got a coffee stand?
Artfart 42, maybe by 100 down. We’re talking replacing other sources, new demand, and replacement of old plants. If so, I don’t see much difference between 600 or 700 new plants.
There are viable options. Geothermal is my favorite. Recent work at U Dub doubled the efficiency of a type of dye type solar cells. If this can be done using a different chemistry,close to 20% efficiency would be possible.
I’ve worked for the nuclear navy for 27 years. I do have some experience with this techology. If handled correctly it works, its expensive. It is using a compact and toxic process to heat water, produce steam and spin turbines. There are better ways to use fission and fusion. Prime movers in space tops my current list.
#26
so you sent yours back?
No one has answered this question….
“We bash Bush and his oil pals for criminal actions costing Americans billions in gas costs but are you saying it’s ok for Boeing to do exactly what we are accusing the Bush Admin of doing? Which is it? Is it ok for corporations to grease the palms of politicians or not?”
“Two top aides to the Republican presidential nominee John McCain have been forced to resign over their ties to the Burmese military junta …”
“Obama aide resigns after reports of meetings with Hamas.”
“@6 In any world except Wingnut Universe, people get to choose their own fucking religion. Even you, dumbass.”
Hyper Rabbit misses the point, as usual. Luttwak, in the liberal “news”paper of record, is less concerned with a senator’s choice of fucking religion than with the response of 1+billion world citizens to the senator’s apostasy.
The buzz about President Obmam is that he’ll reverse the Islamist animosity ginned up by inept President Bush. Luttwak is informing ignorant rabbits that our elevation of an apostate to leadership will pump steroids into Islamist hatred.
As for my dumbass religion, dumbass, I’m from the Irgun wing of Great Mother Rabbit worshipers. Got a problem with that?