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February 07, 2014 06:15 AM UTC

Friday Open Thread

  • 44 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

"The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion."

–Blaise Pascal

 

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44 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

  1. I did not watch the Superbowl, and don't listent to enough talk radio (only in the car, and I don't drive much) to understand why the Cok commercial was upsetting people.  I heard a caller on Caplis say she would never buy Coke again. I heard it elsewhere – but I assumed it was Coke had a gay couple in their commercial, or maybe gay interacial parents, or sometihng.

    Here's what happened.

    Coke made a commercial with several women singing America the Beuatiful in multiple languages. All the singers are Americans who happen to know a language other than English, and can sing.  That's all.

    Now that I've seen it – I think it's a classic example of American patriotism.  My paternal grandmother's parents never learned English. And my grandmother  was always bilingual.  My maternal grandfather's family – same story. I love Coke – though my doctor tells me what to eat and drink and Coke is never on his list. 

    I don't see this fake outrage as a R v D thing – it's an educated big picture understanding vs. …not.

    Speaking of education – I recently took my grand son to a talk at his high school about how to choose, apply, find a the right college. Language other than English was on the list for all the most selective schools. Is that un-American?  (shakes head) My fellow Americans are sometimes stupid.

    1. It's because it was a montage of Americans of many backgrounds including immigrants singing America the Beautiful in English as well as other languages. Apparently this offended many a-hole's sense of patriotism.

      1. Republicans forgot English comes from England. Even though they speak a unique version that lacks logic and intellect, it's not "American" that we speak.

  2. Hmm.  I thought the water requirements of fracking were negligible?  And, of course, fracking fluid is good for you.

    From the Northern Colorado Business Report: "Report: Scarce water poses risk to oil companies, investors"

    Hydraulic fracturing is straining water resources in Northern Colorado, posing a risk to water-sourcing needs of oil and natural-gas companies and their investors, according to a new report from Ceres. 

    Water demand for hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, will double to 6 billion gallons by 2015, says the 85-page report released Wednesday.

    …

    By comparison, the city of Boulder uses about 2.7 billion gallons per year for municipal purposes, the Ceres report said. 

      1. No…fracking water is not useful for any other purpose. I have heard, however, that some companies have figured out a way to use "dirty" water for fracking. I don't know the details and cannot vouch for the veracity of that claim.

        1. This is why I oppose fracking regardless of the safety issues which mayor may not be connected with the fluids used. This process uses up tremendous amounts of water we don't have to spare.  

          There are substitutes for fossil fuels, not for water. Here in the west we are already suffering historic drought. The California  valley that supplies a third of our produce is in serious trouble. The kind of foods we're supposed to include in a healthy diet are going to be much more expensive and that much less accessible to middle and low income families. But that will only be the beginning since survival at all is impossible without water.

           

          At this rate, in the not so distant future the Water Wars will make the Oils Wars look like a polite game of croquet. If that's not a good enough reason to put Manhattan Project, Race to the Moon levels of effort and resources into alternative energy solutions ASAP, I don't know what is.

      3. Hickenlooper swears it makes some of the most awesome dirty martinis!  YMMV.

        Other than that, it's really good for killing all sorts of unwanted stuff — fish, livestock, etc., etc.

      4. Earthquake grease.  It can be reused some for fracking, but is toxic, and unusable for ever more, thus injected deep into the ground and forever removed from the hydrological cycle.  Unlike most other uses–i.e. ag, municipal–it is NOT good for run off.  Its a toxic stew of crap that has to be disposed of.  

  3. We agree on this JB…

    The doom of this nation lies in the belief that it "belongs" to one particular group or another. That seems to be a common theme among so many disparate interest groups who claim it as "our country".

    This nation belongs to everyone who holds its values dear and yearns to make it the nation it was conceived to be…a place where ALL people are welcome and free to be themselves. I am proud to be polylingual and I always encourage my friends and family to learn new languages. I believe it helps us to understand and accept others who may look or sound different .

    I have a sticker on my guitar case that is a quote from Albert Einstein. It says…

    "Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding."

    Communication leads to understanding…understanding leads to acceptance…acceptance leads to peace.

    Why not?

        1. Hope she votes Dem as 85% of us do despite all the efforts to convince us Dems are Israel's enemies. The big older Jewish orgs still push that but the majority of actual American Jews know total bull when they see it.   

  5. We were talking about Senate race predictions yesterday, and specifically how I would move the McConnell/Lundergan-Grimes race in Kentucky from the published recommendation of 'Likely R' to 'Lean R'. Today we have another poll, run as a joint effort by many local Kentucky news organizations, showing McConnell down 42-46 against his challenger.

    This looks like 'Tossup' territory, folks. As Daily Kos points out, this now makes 11 recent polls showing McConnell either down or tied with Lundergan-Grimes. That can't be good for Mitch.

    1. One thing that makes this race is interesting is the R strategy to make the midterms all Obamacare all the time.  Kentucky is one red state that, thanks to its Democratic governor, has a highly functional ACA exchange.  

  6. Government layoffs continue to hamper recovery

    True dat.

    While Dems pats themselves on the back for their bipartisan agreements with Republicans, Republicans continue to win victory after victory in cutting benefits to the most needy, leaving the unemployed to their own diminishing devices, propping up the millionaires and billionaires, and preventing those with the most from paying their fair share and investing in a fair and just society for all. 

    Paul Wellstone said "We all do better when we all do better." But R's and D's in DC have come to the bipartisan truth that they don't care about that.

     

     

    1. Yep.  And it's not even bipartisan. It's not as if the right "bipartisans" back. The "compromise" generally consists of Dems giving in on what should be core principle issues while the GOTP lets them and never gives an inch on theirs. It's Dems giving credibility to to the right's completely discredited austerity policies that we all know make the economy worse, not better. 

      Then, since we have a Dem in the WH and a Dem majority Senate, the GOTP gets to say the lousy economy is all the Dems' fault, which, of course, is only true to the extent the Dems let the GOTP bully them into supporting lousy GOTP policy.  

       

      True, without these "compromises" the GOTP would still block all good policy but at least it would be crystal clear that it is GOTP policy which is completely at fault. That might help real Dems win some more elections.

      1. …and then after all the chest-pounding over SB-252, Tri-State announces it's intention to buy the output from a new, 150-megawatt wind farm in Kit Carson County.  This negotiation would have been in the works long before 252 was signed – and of course no press release would be complete without reminding us how we are a grassroots organization that shouldn't have anyone telling them what to do.  Like not to commit your balance sheet to a Kansas coal plant.  Or to stop buying coal mines.  Or to stop threatening to sue certain members of your cooperative family for supporting bills in the Colorado legislature that promote a cooperative "choosing" a greener mix of electrons.  

        But I digress….here is the news release: (don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled over the announcement – it's just hard to keep track of all of the messages coming from both sides of their media machine).  Now, can we stop with all of the useless bills up for committee hearing that are attempting to roll back SB-252?

         

        For Immediate Release
        February 5, 2014
         
        Tri-State signs agreement with NextEra Energy Resources for new wind facility in eastern Colorado
        150 MW Carousel Wind Farm to benefit power supplier’s member systems
        New transmission infrastructure critical to enabling project
         
        Westminster, Colo. – Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Inc. announced that it has entered into a 25-year agreement with a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC for a 150 megawatt wind power generating facility to be constructed in eastern Colorado.
         
        Under the 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA), Tri-State will purchase the entire output and associated environmental attributes of the Carousel Wind Farm. The 150 MW facility will be Tri-State’s largest wind energy PPA to date.  When the project begins commercial operation, the wind farm will provide affordable electricity to Tri-State’s 44 member cooperatives across Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming.
         
        “This was a timely and cost-effective opportunity for us to diversify our generation fleet and deepen our expertise in the challenging area of integrating variable energy resources,” said Brad Nebergall, Tri-State’s senior vice president.
         
        The Carousel Wind Farm agreement was the result of a solicitation for renewable resources issued by Tri-State in early 2013, months before the Colorado legislature approved a new mandate doubling the renewable standard for the state’s rural electric cooperatives. Although the project will assist the association to meet that mandate, as well as a renewable energy standard in place in New Mexico, Tri-State believes such mandates are unnecessary and that the not-for-profit cooperative’s resource decisions should be directed by its democratically-elected board.
         
        A NextEra Energy Resources subsidiary will construct, own and operate the Carousel Wind Farm.
         
        The project will interconnect to existing Tri-State transmission facilities in the Burlington area and is possible only because of planned transmission upgrades in the area.  The upgrades have been in the planning process since 2010 and are expected to be completed in 2016. Nebergall notes that constraints in the grid system are making it increasingly harder to site and construct generation facilities in the region.
         
        “Given existing transmission constraints in eastern Colorado, one of the important factors in this agreement with NextEra was having the project completed at the same time as those system upgrades,” said Nebergall. “We can’t reliably purchase and deliver the output from Carousel to our member systems without the appropriate transmission infrastructure.”
         
        The new facility will ultimately contribute to an increasingly diverse energy portfolio for the not-for-profit wholesale power supplier. Today, renewable resources generate approximately 23 percent of the energy that Tri-State provides its member systems. In addition, the company has adopted a first-of-its-kind in the nation program that incentivizes the development of community-based renewable energy projects within its member systems' service territories. To date, Tri-State member cooperatives have 38 projects representing a total of 52 megawatts in place or under development.
         
        The Carousel Wind Farm will be so named because of its relative proximity to the Kit Carson County Carousel, an antique amusement ride and national historic landmark located in nearby Burlington, Colo.
         
        Based in the Denver suburb of Westminster, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association is a not-for-profit wholesale power supplier to 44 electric cooperatives and public power districts serving approximately 1.5 million consumers throughout a 200,000 square-mile service territory across Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming.
         

  8. Only 113,000 jobs added in January.  What a miserable economy.  

    Sure wish we had some Dem policies that added employment to offset some of the job losses they created with Obamacare.

    1. I was just sitting here trying to think if were possible for someone to be more out of touch with reality than you, AC, and I think the answer is no.

      It is not a miserable economy. It is an improving economy. George Bush left us a "miserable" economy. The only thing that satisfies free market, next quarter thinkers like your bosses is a "boom". A slowly improving economy is a healthier way to approach recovery. The biggest problem is that it must be accomplished in spite of the active obstruction of the Republican corporatists who desperately need for President Obama to fail in his effort to bolster the poor and middle class.

      Get the damned House of Representatives back in Democratic hands and we have a much better chance of reining in the Plutarchy that currently throttles our economy for their own benefit.

      But …explaining any of this to you is like peeing on Teflon…nothing soaks in.

    2. You're behind, AC. Everybody now knows, as the CBO and every competent economist has made it very clear, that ACA  isn't causing job losses. It's increasing available jobs going forward. It will reduce unemployment. 

      It's allowing people who were only holding on to full time jobs they no longer wanted for the insurance to retire, stay home, cut back to part time hours or go into business for themselves without pre-ACA fears of becoming uninsured. This opens up job opportunities to those who want and need full time employment. 

      Even your friends at Fox seem to have gotten the memo and are engaged in hilarious efforts to change their message on a dime. Now it's about how people will become lazy and quit working because they have "free" insurance. As if most people don't need their paycheck, just the insurance. One Fox pundit was dripping disdain over the very idea that working mothers would decide to stay home instead of being part of the productive workforce like good energetic Americans should. This from the propaganda network of the supposed party of family values that doesn't even even want "nice" women to use birth control.

      No more talk, such as we used to hear from Rs, about how great voucherizing everything would be for portability so more people could leave their jobs if they wanted to to become entrepreneurs. Now, suddenly, if you quit to go into business for yourself because you don't have to worry about an uninsurable preexisting condition or if a woman barely making enough to cover transportation and child care can quit the job she kept just for the insurance to stay home, that's terrible. If a 63 year old diabetic who used to have to hang on to a job because he'd be uninsurable if he retired and lost the employer based insurance can now retire and get insurance to bridge the time until he qualifies for medicare, leaving an opening for someone with a young family to support, that's undermining our work ethic. You need to tune in. It's quite laughable.

      What happened? Forgot to check your e-mail for the new talking points?

      1. The research which resulted in the CBO revision is by a University of Chicago economist who was recently quoted in WSJ.  He is a serious economist.  Here is a link: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304680904579367143880532248

        As to your argument, here are his thoughts " "I don't know what their intentions are," he says, choosing his words carefully, "but it looks like they're trying to leverage the lack of economic education in their audience by making these sorts of points."

         

        1. Few agree with this view. That's why even Fox is trying a different tack. In fact many economists predict that people who no longer feel stuck in their jobs because of insurance considerations will feel free to to leave jobs in order to start their own business ventures and themselves become employers thereby adding jobs to the economy. Your economist completely ignores the fact that there aren't enough jobs for those who want them .

           Any way you look at it a person quitting or retiring from a job doesn't make that a lost job. It makes it an available job. If the person leaving that job creates a new business then the number of  available jobs may well be increased. It seems unlikely that many people with all kinds of other bills to pay are going to want to drastically reduce their income in order to qualify for higher subsidies. You can't eat health care or keep a roof over your head or clothes on your back with it.

          1. The point he makes is there is on the margins a disincentive to work.  They can't eat healthcare.  But when they stop working or decrease working we pay for their room and board through other programs.  The example of the reason the numbers of lost jobs went up is will a family at the margin have the second adult take a job if it means losing the subsidy of the healthcare?  After reviewing things the CBO concluded that was a much greater problem than they earlier accounted for.

  9. Duke, you got to stop peeing on Teflon.  It is a bad visual.

    Economy needs to produce something like 250,000 to 300,000 jobs each month just to be in equilibrium.  More if we want to raise wages.

    Udall and Bennet have not met a billionaire they have not slept with.  How many people did Obama have sent to jail for the the last crash?  None.  Dems are not plutocrats?  Have you been awake the last 5 years?

    2. You know you really can't have it both ways AC. You can't be all for preserving the power and wealth of the Masters of Wall Street and for declaring corporations to be people with more rights than actual people and be all "To the ramparts to fight the man" at the same time. Do you have a special technique for endless, high speed spinning without getting dizzy? Even ballerinas can only do it for so long. Or do you just fall down a lot?

      1. David, do you have any information on the news that has been circulating that some of the code used in the Obamacare website may have been generated from Belarus?

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