Day: July 24, 2008

2008 Anal-Ocity

And the hits just keep coming….I cannot make this stuff up…no matter how hard I try….

This anal statement comes from Rep. candidate John McCain.

Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain yesterday credited the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush’s lifting of a ban on offshore drilling, an action McCain has been advocating.

“The price of oil dropped $10 a barrel,” said McCain, who argued that the psychology of lifting the ban has affected world markets.

We will see if this one is good enough to win the “Assie” Award

Mortgage Help Passes

Mortgage help for homeowners nationwide and tax relief for some recipients sailed through the House on Wednesday after President Bush lifted his veto threat.

The tax relief in the giant housing rescue bill is expected to win Senate approval this week and be signed into law soon.

The bill includes $300 billion to provide more affordable mortgages to troubled homeowners, nearly $4 billion in grants to help communities fix up foreclosed properties and a $7,500 tax credit for first-time home buyers.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the president believes the bill is too important, given the housing crisis, to trigger a lengthy veto fight. The legislation is designed to help 400,000 homeowners facing foreclosure and prevent financially struggling mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from collapsing.

This is sorta good news for homeowners, but will it be enough?

A Nuke Industry Pep Rally

Nuclear power plants, which use atom-splitting fission to release energy and produce electricity, currently generate about 19 percent of America’s electrical output. A far greater percentage of the nation’s electricity is created with fossil fuels like coal, natural gas, and oil. These are used to heat water into steam which turns the blades of a turbine, which in turn rotates the shaft of an electrical generator, causing a coil of wire within the generator to spin in a magnetic field and create electricity. Coal today is used to produce about 49 percent of America’s electricity, while natural gas and petroleum account for another 20 percent and 2 percent, respectively. Other sources of electricity include:

  • hydropower (accounting for 7 percent of U.S. electrical production), where flowing water is used to spin the turbine·
  • geothermal power (less than 1 percent), which harnesses heat energy buried beneath the earth’s surface
  • solar power (less than 1 percent), which is four times more expensive than nuclear power and at least five times the cost of coal, and is undependable because it produces electricity only when the sun is shining.
  • wind power (less than 1 percent), which is similarly expensive and undependable because its turbines produce electricity only about a third of the time (i.e., when the wind is blowing)
  • biomass power (about 1 percent), a highly inefficient system that uses agricultural waste to produce electricity; to shift America’s electrical production entirely to biomass, a farming area ten times the size of Iowa would be required.
  • fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum) currently account for a combined 71 percent of U.S. electrical production.

Nuclear energy offers an extremely clean, cost-effective alternative to those fossil fuels. Nuclear plants put no carbon dioxide into the air, and the relatively miniscule quantities of radioactive waste they produce are stored in sealed, self-contained, carefully guarded sites. A coal-fired plant releases 100 times more radioactive material than an equivalent nuclear reactor—and not into a self-contained storage site but directly into the atmosphere. By generating electricity whose production otherwise would have required the use of fossil fuels, the 104 nuclear plants now operating in the U.S. prevent the release of approximately 700 million additional tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year; that is the equivalent of removing 96 percent of all passenger cars from U.S. roads.

If not for nuclear energy, America’s dependence on foreign oil would be even greater than it currently is. During the 1973 oil embargo, nuclear technology produced only 5 percent of the U.S. electric supply, while oil accounted for 17 percent. Today those figures are 19 percent and 2 percent, respectively. If more nuclear plants are constructed, they could replace coal and natural gas as America’s major source of electricity production.

There is some good info in this piece but is there something missing from this cheery little diatribe?

The American Voter–Info Ink Op-Ed

This is a subject which will get one into a wealth of trouble trying to analyze why some vote one way and others vote another. Polls try their damnedest to predict which way the political winds will blow and a lot of time they are blowinbg in the wind, with no rationale for the direction of their votes.

One of many favorite quotes over the years has been, “Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of Ignorance”. Unfortunately, it appears that some American voters are cultivating the hell out of ignorance. You think not? Look at the recent Democratic game where one set of Dems lost and they immediately state that they will vote Repub because of the loss. Where is the logic in that? What part of the Repub platform would be appealing to a Dem? I realize that it was just the anger and the hurt of losinbg that caused these statements, but there are still those Dems that will vote Repub. Still working on that one.

A friend has called many American voters as “Moron” voters, I personally like the term “Low Information Voter”. It just seems more polite and will avoid much of the hate mail that one would receive if the term was actually used. Unfortunately, the term fits if you look back at some of the voting patterns of the American people.

To illustrate my point of the “low information” voter. Party affiliation provides a useful cue for voters, particularly the least informed and interested, who can use the party as a shortcut or a substitute for trying to understand the issues that they have little chance of comprehending in the first place. Even the more educated and more involved voters also use the party affiliation because, no one has the time to analyze every aspect of the campaign. Basically, most voters ay that the campaigns are long and hard and that they do not have the time to become fully aware of the totality of each candidate.

The American voter shows little interest in a third party entering into the picture. Why? The two party system makes it easier for the American voter in the polling booth. Why? A coin only has two sides.

Electric Cars Will Be Profitable

McCain as part of his energy policy has suggested that the US would offer a bonus for the company that comes up with the proper battery for more electric ars. When he made that offer I said then, just mail it to Japan because they were at least 5 years ahead of the US in that technology.

The electric cars that Nissan Motor plans to start selling by 2010 will have varying capabilities depending on a given country’s driving patterns, but all will be priced competitively and will generate profits, company executives said Tuesday

Nissan’s chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, said that any electric car the company sold in the United States would need a range of at least 100 miles between charges to be practical, but that European drivers could make do with about half that range. Tolerance for the time it takes to recharge such a car may vary widely as well, he said

To help in its development of electric cars, Nissan said Tuesday that it would work with the state of Tennessee and its largest electric utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority, to study and perhaps install infrastructure like charging stations. The automaker has begun similar efforts in Denmark, Israel and Portugal, but the United States presents a far greater opportunity for Nissan to market electric cars.

A New Cold War–Part 2

Recently I posted an article about a deal from Russian long bombers to use the island of Cuba as a base or a refuelling stop, at least.  And now the news is that Russia and Venezuela are negotiating.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visited Russia on Tuesday, cutting business deals, complaining about the United States and extolling the friendship between the two oil-rich nations.

He pressed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to pay him a visit in Venezuela. He subtly ribbed President Dmitry Medvedev, who has been widely portrayed as Putin’s hand-picked puppet. And Chavez announced that his country would buy Russian weapons “to guarantee the sovereignty of Venezuela, which is being threatened by the United States.”

The visit played out against a backdrop of global tension over high oil prices, inflation and a weakened dollar. But some analysts dismissed the back-slapping and dealing between the rulers as a largely empty display.
Russia and Venezuela are riding high on record-breaking oil prices. And Tuesday, the two presidents pledged to form a strategic energy alliance.

“Our relations have reached a totally new level,” Medvedev said after he and Chavez watched Russia’s oil and gas companies sign a host of deals with their Venezuelan counterparts. The deals clear the way for Russian companies to develop Venezuelan fields, beginning with Russian giant Gazprom drilling in western Venezuela while Lukoil drills in the Orinoco valley.

Wider exploration as well as joint railroad, infrastructure and banking projects will follow, the presidents said.