Roger. Wilco.
Mar 15, 2012
Language note
Pink slime is repulsive stuff they put in hamburger.
It is not the MSNBC prime-time team.
But if you insist I'll try to be tolerant. After all, language is a living, growing gthing.
It is not the MSNBC prime-time team.
But if you insist I'll try to be tolerant. After all, language is a living, growing gthing.
The ultimate question
The GOP governor is coming back to the neighborhood Saturday. He'll join our two local GOP legislators for "Eggs and Issues" -- one of those little confabs where the lawmakers try to persuade a skeptical dozen or so people that know WTF they're talking about. It's usually an informal thing with no ground rules other than common courtesy and a bit of Iowa nice.
But the governor is expected to be a big draw. Organizers booked a bigger room and limited attendance to 100 subjects.* They also changed the ground rules. Questions must be written. The emcee will read them from the podium.
Leading to a pleasant little fantasy. I would write and slip into the middle of stack, "Sir, why did you give such a bullshit answer to the last question?"
Update: Turns out there will be two meetings. The other one will admit 250.
---
*How's that for political savvy? They don't call it the stupid party for nothing.
But the governor is expected to be a big draw. Organizers booked a bigger room and limited attendance to 100 subjects.* They also changed the ground rules. Questions must be written. The emcee will read them from the podium.
Leading to a pleasant little fantasy. I would write and slip into the middle of stack, "Sir, why did you give such a bullshit answer to the last question?"
Update: Turns out there will be two meetings. The other one will admit 250.
---
*How's that for political savvy? They don't call it the stupid party for nothing.
Mar 14, 2012
Why we're broke (or) Is that a corn cob in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?
Things are popping down in Emmetsburg, one of the few places in the country with a statue of Robert Emmet on the court house lawn. The governor was there yesterday to, so help me, assist in announcing that there would be a groundbreaking for a cob plant.
It's a POET project, and we're not talking e.e. cummings here. By its own admission, POET doesn't really stand for anything. The huge ethanol company concedes it's just designed to conjure up beautiful thoughts about clean, renewable energy made from corn squeezings and, now, stover -- the stalks and cobs.
Agribusiness has done well, mostly courtesy of taxpayer subsidies, in turning one of our basic food stocks, corn, into a marginal motor fuel. Of course that comes with a cost, and if you've priced a pound of low-grade hamburger lately you know what we're talking about. (Assuming the awareness that cows eat corn.)
It finally dawned on us proletarians -- and later on our political masters -- that there might be a conflict between burning corn in our gas tanks and being able to afford corn flakes. Maybe less corn for cattle meant fewer cows, and that might make them more expensive. Same with pigs. Same for Coke sweeteners. Damn, how can a guy get a hundred bucks worth of food into one little plastic bag?
So the agribusiness fellows decided to oil the water. They would use the stover -- the semi-waste in the corn field -- to create fuel. It isn't very efficient, but, what the Hell, with the right lobbyists and a crack public relations consultant we can lay off the risk on the suckers.
---
It isn't hard to understand why the governor was there, or why POET distilleries across the Heartland have drawn visits from presidents. The industry is heavily a political creature of Washington and of state capitols. It is a darling of so-called conservative Republicans, and rural Democrats, aided and abetted by the icky-poo-oil haters, the Greens who consider a tank of gasoline felonious.
I wish it were easier to dig out the actual total of taxpayer forkovers for this little project in my neighborhood. The immediately apparent subsidies total $125 million -- $20 million from the state and a $105 million loan guarantee from the feds. There is undoubtedly much more, ranging from other lightly reported direct handouts to the amorphous cost of mandated ethanol in your Chevy.
---
But, Jim, don't you think we must invest in clean energy, get independent of the greedy Arab sheiks and their buddy Chavez, prepare for the day when there is no more oil?
Sure. All of the above. But you're faking it with the word "invest." You mean "extort." You're nicking every taxpaying manjack in the country to support a handful of ethanol speculators. It it were an investment the ethanol barons would sit down with private investors and make their case. If the private parties bought the idea, they would front the money. That would be an investment.
Besides, not to put too fine a point on it, we're already broke.
---
Nevertheless, the deal is done and Emmetsburg and its outlying growers will benefit. Millions of dollars in checks will be cashed at local banks, and the check will be signed by POET.
All we can do now is hope that there's a glimmer of understanding down there that the real power behind the company check is a sweating Ben Bernanke, hunched over the mimeograph machine with the green ink, cranking out C-Notes for all he's worth.
---
May I be permitted one final word? Thank you.
Solyndra.
'
It's a POET project, and we're not talking e.e. cummings here. By its own admission, POET doesn't really stand for anything. The huge ethanol company concedes it's just designed to conjure up beautiful thoughts about clean, renewable energy made from corn squeezings and, now, stover -- the stalks and cobs.
Agribusiness has done well, mostly courtesy of taxpayer subsidies, in turning one of our basic food stocks, corn, into a marginal motor fuel. Of course that comes with a cost, and if you've priced a pound of low-grade hamburger lately you know what we're talking about. (Assuming the awareness that cows eat corn.)
It finally dawned on us proletarians -- and later on our political masters -- that there might be a conflict between burning corn in our gas tanks and being able to afford corn flakes. Maybe less corn for cattle meant fewer cows, and that might make them more expensive. Same with pigs. Same for Coke sweeteners. Damn, how can a guy get a hundred bucks worth of food into one little plastic bag?
So the agribusiness fellows decided to oil the water. They would use the stover -- the semi-waste in the corn field -- to create fuel. It isn't very efficient, but, what the Hell, with the right lobbyists and a crack public relations consultant we can lay off the risk on the suckers.
---
It isn't hard to understand why the governor was there, or why POET distilleries across the Heartland have drawn visits from presidents. The industry is heavily a political creature of Washington and of state capitols. It is a darling of so-called conservative Republicans, and rural Democrats, aided and abetted by the icky-poo-oil haters, the Greens who consider a tank of gasoline felonious.
I wish it were easier to dig out the actual total of taxpayer forkovers for this little project in my neighborhood. The immediately apparent subsidies total $125 million -- $20 million from the state and a $105 million loan guarantee from the feds. There is undoubtedly much more, ranging from other lightly reported direct handouts to the amorphous cost of mandated ethanol in your Chevy.
---
But, Jim, don't you think we must invest in clean energy, get independent of the greedy Arab sheiks and their buddy Chavez, prepare for the day when there is no more oil?
Sure. All of the above. But you're faking it with the word "invest." You mean "extort." You're nicking every taxpaying manjack in the country to support a handful of ethanol speculators. It it were an investment the ethanol barons would sit down with private investors and make their case. If the private parties bought the idea, they would front the money. That would be an investment.
Besides, not to put too fine a point on it, we're already broke.
---
Nevertheless, the deal is done and Emmetsburg and its outlying growers will benefit. Millions of dollars in checks will be cashed at local banks, and the check will be signed by POET.
All we can do now is hope that there's a glimmer of understanding down there that the real power behind the company check is a sweating Ben Bernanke, hunched over the mimeograph machine with the green ink, cranking out C-Notes for all he's worth.
---
May I be permitted one final word? Thank you.
Solyndra.
'
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)