Friday, January 20, 2012

Violent Solutions

"My mother said violence never solves anything." "So?" Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. "I'm sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that."

- Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Weeeee....Weh Weeeeeeeeee!!!

They might as well be pinwheels.  Don Surber has the news about 14,000 abandoned wind turbines.

Now erecting a wind turbine is not an inexpensive proposition.  And building one isn't either.  So how does it make any fiscal sense to abandon 14,000 wind turbines in some of the prime wind power generating locations in the world?

Because there is no profit in maintaining them.

Government subsidies encourage fabrication and erection.  But once those subsidy spawned profits have been reaped, once the low hanging fruit has been plucked, how can a company justify spending money on an enterprise that continues to lose money?

If only they were small enough that you might hold one in each hand.....


Go get 'em Maxwell!

Monday, January 16, 2012

An Errant Tweet Is All It Took?

Perhaps Snoop Dogg would be better off keeping certain comments to himself.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Both Ends Against The.....

....middle?


A little link love for Tom Briscoe.

I think he is on to something here.  Both the Tea Party and Occupy movements are frustrated with the government covering for corporations, "too big to fail", bailouts, etc.  Neither side is particularly enamored with the way corporations get the government to create near monopolies as well as shielding them from the liability of their mistakes.  I think there is some common ground here.

The primary difference seems to be that the Tea Party folks recognize that corporations have a legitimate function, but that they should rise and fall based on their own merits rather than be government fiat.  The Occupy folks regard corporations as being illegitimate.

Based on the tweets on Twitter and Facebook entries made via their cell phones.

The solution remains to have a smaller, more effective, and more transparent government. If only the Occupy folks could get on board with that idea.