Apr
03
Open Thread: Aside From Parkside
ByHowdy, Hooligans. For each of the last three months, we’ve had more than 10,000 visitors to the site. Thanks for reading, for commenting, and for getting out there and making things happen. It’s only a month until the primaries here in North Carolina, and things are going to start happening fast and furious on the campaign fronts. It’s also spring, and that means gardening and getting off teh internets and into the outdoors.
What’s going on in your worlds?
20 Comments
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Finally, a major media outlet has highlighted the bio-fuel scam:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
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April 3rd, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I’m at Charlotte Airport, getting a kick of out listening in to passengers complaining to gate agents. Accept that you’re going to have a miserable day travelling, knock a few back before you leave, bring a laptop and a good book.
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April 3rd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I’m having trouble keeping solid food down at the moment. Everything since breakfast has come right back up. I think I’m going to make some Jello and go to bed.
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April 3rd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Gordon, 10,000 visitors (unique sessions) or 10,000 visits (page views)?
Nice coverage on the Parkside issue. Great work.
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April 3rd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
On the “bio-fuel scam”: keep in mind that some companies supply biodiesel and/or biofuel which is environmentally beneficial.
At least one Asheville company makes biofuel which is made, in part, from waste cooking oil which comes from Asheville & the surrounding area.
I use the stuff in my furnace (instead of #2 fuel oil), and I didn’t have to change any hardware. I’ve had no problems.
Not all biofuels are the same.
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April 3rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
It’s over 10K unique sessions, but SiteMeter refers to them as “visits”.
http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s34scruhoo&r=36
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April 3rd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I agree Ken, and if that is a viable alternative that actually delivers on it’s promise, I’m all for it.
The article, however, focuses on ethanol. Ethanol, in no shape, way or form, is environmentally friendly when used as a substitute for petrol.
Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.
Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year.
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April 3rd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, New York Fed President Tim Geithner, and Treasury Undersecretary Robert Steel testified today before the Senate Banking Committee.
They all stated that the bankruptcy of Bears Stearns took them by surprise even though Bears Stearns had already nearly collapsed one year ago when it had to bail out one of its own hedge funds, Long-Term Capital Management. This is the hedge fund that was <a href=”http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article670960.ece”bailed out by the Federal Reserve in 1998.
The witnesses also claimed that the Fed did not “bail out” Bear Stearns; not exactly. But rather they bailed out the broader financial industry.
Well, that is correct. Bear Stearns took it in the shorts and were made an example. But there was a bail out.
So who specifically was bailed out? The liability that is the network of fraudulent financial connectivities.
Banks and other financial institutions are hedging their bets by investing in each other in a pyramid scheme that must collapse. The only thing standing in the way of this collapse is the federal government.
The government-sponsored “bail-out” by the Federal Reserve, a private bank, shielded the network from disruption and mitigated the systemic liability that precipitated the original risk of industry-wide collapse, which made the bail out necessary in the first place.
In this way, government intervention prevents the free market from operating. In a free market, Bear Stearns would be in bankruptcy court, its executives and CEO would be out of a job with a leaden parachute and charged with fraud. Instead, they are the newest acquisition issuing from J.P. Morgan’s bargain-basement offer to salvage their evaporating value, whose risk-laden securities are backed up by guarantees from the Federal Reserve to absorb any and all losses.
The other consequence of the bail out is that there remains no incentive whatever to disconnect from the fraud. This is why these failures, and their subsequent “necessary” bail outs will continue.
Until the free market is allow to operate, they must.
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April 3rd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
From German publication Spiegel: Great picture!
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,grossbild-1140276-545178,00.html
The German text translates to: “Like a stubborn child waging a losing fight”
It’s in reference to the fact that Bush was told before the summit that Germany and France would oppose a fast membership process for Georgia, Ukraine and still traveled to Kiew and promised a fast acceptance into NATO.
OF cause they could have gone with an alternative caption for the pic, like “Who farted?”
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April 3rd, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I read this and thought someone could have a lot of fun with this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/03/volunteers-swamp-north-ca_n_94829.html
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April 3rd, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Bobaloo,
I agree with what you say about ethanol.
Using so much gasoline for (mostly) single-person transportation is a huge waste of resources, and it’s also environmentally irresponsible. There are lots of things people can do to help.
Unfortunately, running vehicles on ethanol is just as bad as running them on gasoline (except for the resulting deposits to some of the bank accounts in Iowa).
I know that this local company is (almost always) using waste vegetable oil as the “bio” part of their bio-fuel. This method is better for the environment than the methods described in the article.
I just hate to see a phrase like “the bio-fuel scam”. I know this sort of thing sticks in people’s heads. Nobody should think that all bio-fuel is a scam.
I read and hear all sorts of statements that fall fairly close to “there are drawbacks to all fuels, therefore there’s no point in changing anything”. I find that view to be oversimplified, hopeless and pathetic.
It benefits us to know the specific disadvantages (and advantages) to all fuels: gasoline, ethanol, fuel oil, kerosene, bio-fuel, wood…
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April 3rd, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I was indirectly threatened with a lawsuit.
Read today’s feature story and check out the comment thread.
Thanks in advance. Hooligans unite.
http://starcityharbinger.com
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April 3rd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Say, anybody else hear that Randi Rhodes has been suspended from Air America for calling Clinton a whore?
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April 3rd, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I just read that @ HuffPo. She also flung that word at Geraldine Ferraro. And not just any kind of whores, either (video clip probably NSFW):
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April 3rd, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Oh good Lord.
I’d never really listened to her, just read some bits about her here and there. Nice to see a Democrat actively contributing to the destruction of the party.
Vile.
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April 4th, 2008 at 12:07 am
From the sidebar at Heath Shuler’s AC-T Blog:
“Congressman Heath Shuler will update this blog three times a week about legislation, day-to-day operations and issues of the day.”
Last entry – January 15, 2008.
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April 4th, 2008 at 12:08 am
He’s made 40 posts at the blog. If we start counting from the date of the first post, Heath owes us 115 blog posts…
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April 4th, 2008 at 9:21 am
and speaking of Clinton, came across this picture ….
http://newsfromunscheduledcare.blogspot.com/2008/03/thats-no-way-to-address-lady.html
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April 4th, 2008 at 10:38 am
That’s a fake. A pretty good fake, but a fake nonetheless. From the comments in that same blog post that Kai linked to:
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April 4th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Get your LOL on here:
http://www.presidentialmemorial.org/
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