The law, which took effect Sunday, requires those who seek to buy caustic or noxious substances, except for batteries, to provide government-issued photo identification that shows their name and date of birth. The cashier then must log the name and address, the date and time of the purchase, the type of product, the brand and even the net weight.Of course, what has happened is that stores like Jewel-Osco have just stopped selling drain cleaners and the few stores that still sell it have jacked the price way up to cover the greatly increased overhead. The rationale for the new requirement was that Draino was used in a viscious assault last year. But wait a minute, hammers, screw drivers, potted plants, knitting needles, tv remotes, books, pots and pans, televisions and many more household items were used in attacks in Chicago alone last year. They better require a government ID and keep a log of all those things, too.
The clean energy sector creates the jobs of today and tomorrow, helps protect our environment, and reduces our dependence on foreign oil.According to Barack Obama:
“I strongly agree with Vice President Gore that we cannot drill our way to energy independence, but must fast-track investments in renewable sources of energy like solar power, wind power and advanced biofuels, and those are the investments I will make as President. It's a strategy that will create millions of new jobs that pay well and cannot be outsourced, and one that will leave our children a world that is cleaner and safer." - Barack Obama, July 17, 2008According to yesterday's Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Georgia ethanol plant sold, at taxpayers' loss
Dan Chapman
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The failed Range Fuels wood-to-ethanol factory in southeastern Georgia that sucked up $65 million in federal and state tax dollars was sold Tuesday for pennies on the dollar to another bio-fuel maker with equally grand plans to transform the alternative energy world.According to Sam Shelton, director of research programs at Georgia Tech's Strategic Energy Institute:
LanzaTech, a New Zealand-based biofuel company, paid $5.1 million for the plant in Soperton. Its main financial backer: Vinod Khosla, a California entrepreneur who also bankrolled Range Fuels, and helped secure its government loans, before Range went bust last year.
LanzaTech hasn't received the same type of loans, but the company has received $7 million from the U.S. departments of Energy and Transportation to assist in the development of alternative fuels.
The Range fiasco harkens other, failed renewable energy companies that received major taxpayer funding. California solar panel maker Solyndra got $535 million in federal loan guarantees. Beacon Power of Massachusetts, which makes energy-storage equipment, took in $43 million in federal money. Both filed for bankruptcy last year.
Range cost U.S. taxpayers $64 million and Georgia taxpayers another $6.2 million. Tuesday's sale netted $5.1 million which will help offset losses suffered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Georgia's money, which paid for some of the ethanol-making equipment, won't be recouped outright, but state officials expect LanzaTech to use the machinery.
"It was too damn big a risk for an apparently unproven technology and the due diligence I personally performed on Range would not entice me to invest in it," Shelton said Wednesday. Shelton was invited by Range a few years back to check out its operation in Colorado where it was based.By the way, LanzaTech got a $7 Million loan from the Obama Administration to buy for about $5.1 Million the failed company that owed taxpayers almost $70 Million. So it used our money to "pay us" a few cents on the dollar for the assets securing the first loan from the Obama Administration where we got defaulted on (screwed out of) for more than $68 Million. I do not know about you, but of the above choices, I am going with Mr. Shelton.
"Government should not be in the venture capital business selecting technologies," he added.
Whew! That's a relief. Wait a minute, the Social Security Administration office!? So in addition to tracking the activities of peaceful political advocacy groups, and arresting photographers at political rallies, and let's not forget arresting people who complain to the VA (even though they admit the complainant had never made any threats and admit that even if there were a crime, it was a violation of a State misdemeanor statute) and certainly let's not forget that the DHS is now keeping hockey games safe for America--the Obama Administration's Department of Homeland Security is now pointing automatic weapons at retirees for my benefit and the general good. OK, then. That about says it all.But it was only Federal Protective Service officers with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who were conducting a random training operation early Tuesday morning when they surprisingly showed up at the Social Security Administration office in downtown Leesburg.With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building.
Charlton Police Sergeant Dan Dowd stopped by the home of Shannon Benoit to let her know that her daughter had two books several months overdue which needed to be returned or paid for.
“I thought it was way overboard,” says Benoit. “I closed my door, I looked at my daughter and she started crying.”
Hailey asked her mom if the police were going to arrest her. Hailey says, “I was scared.”
"Every citizen plays a critical role in identifying and reporting suspicious activities and threats," said Secretary Napolitano. "By expanding the 'If You See Something, Say Something™' campaign to the NHL, we are working together to ensure the safety and security of employees, players, and fans."I think this is a great idea. Hmmm, where do I begin? OK, I'll give it a shot:
As part of the Department's "If You See Something, Say Something™" partnership with the NHL, a Public Service Announcement will be read before and during games, and campaign graphics will appear on the videoboard and on ribbon boards. Safety messaging will also be printed on the back of NHL Winter Classic credentials for staff, players, and volunteers. In addition, the Department has partnered with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and City of Philadelphia to place "If You See Something, Say Something™" advertisements throughout Philadelphia at airports and gas stations, and on buses, trains and billboards.
But critics say that without a clear threat, the TSA checkpoints are merely political theater. Privacy advocates worry that the agency is stretching legal limits on the government's right to search U.S. citizens without probable cause — and with no proof that the scattershot checkpoints help prevent attacks.
"It's a great way to make the public think you are doing something," said Fred H. Cate, a professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, who writes on privacy and security. "It's a little like saying, 'If we start throwing things up in the air, will they hit terrorists?' ''
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House plans to ask Congress for an increase in the debt limit before the end of the week, according to a senior Treasury Department official.The debt limit is projected to fall within $100 billion of the current cap by December 30. President Barack Obama is expected to ask for additional borrowing authority to increase the limit by $1.2 trillion.Under the new budget, Congress can only vote to block the debt-ceiling extension with a disapproval resolution. Lawmakers have 15 days within receiving the request to vote down the debt limit increase.The debt limit currently stands at $15.194 trillion and would increase to $16.394 trillion with the request.
We are shifting from "give away politics" to "take away politics." Since World War II, presidents and Congresses have been in the enviable position of distributing more benefits to more people without requiring ever-steeper taxes. Now, this governing formula no longer works, and politicians face the opposite: taking away -- reducing benefits or raising taxes significantly -- to prevent government deficits from destabilizing the economy. It is not clear that either Democrats or Republicans can navigate the change.So what happens if they cannot navigate the change? It will be imposed upon them and that is not likely to result in a lot of great alternatives.
State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, gave these clueless and snarky remarks in response to the news: "In this instance you have a company that is, in fact, profitable, making significant revenue gains in 2011 and 2010. That doesn't speak to a bad business climate here in California when a good company is able to thrive in that way. So whatever Mr. Middelstaedt's (company CEO) reasons are to leave the great state of California, I know I'm pushing back."
I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.He was ultimately freed due to gross prosecutrial misconduct.
Maybe Americans are Okunites — as in Arthur Okun, the late Yale economist and author of the 1975 book, “Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff.”
Okun saw free markets as a source of unparalleled human progress — and of big gaps between rich and poor. Indeed, he argued, markets are efficient partly because they distribute economic rewards unevenly. Government should try to smooth out income stratification, but such efforts risk undermining incentives to work and invest.
Hence the “big trade-off”: channeling income from rich to poor, Okun wrote, was like trying to carry water in a leaky bucket. He wanted to move money from rich to poor without “leaking” so much economic growth that the whole process became self-defeating.
The American public intuitively shares Okun’s concerns. Consider the responses to another question in the Gallup poll. Asked to rate the importance of alternative federal policies, the public saw both economic growth and redistribution as worthy objectives — but put the former well ahead of the latter. Some 82 percent said growth was either “extremely” or “very” important; only 46 percent said “reduc[ing] the income and wealth gap between rich and poor” was “extremely” or “very” important.
In short, the public wants fairness but retains a healthy skepticism about the federal government’s ability to achieve it.
There are still obstacles to overcome: Growth in manufacturing is largely attributable to new discoveries of and better methods of extracting natural gas and oil. These are not the Solyndra style subsidized and government planned “green jobs” our social and cultural betters somehow assumed would drive the return of American manufacturing, but they are jobs nonetheless.
Another problem is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for American manufacturers to recruit skilled labor. Manufacturing has grown increasingly technical but the supply of people with the ability and energy to operate heavy machinery hasn’t increased. We’ve got to get better at helping young people who don’t much care for academics to get the training they need to cash in on the brown jobs boom. For a lot of the millennial generation, these brown jobs are their best path to a middle class life; we need a pro-brown jobs government that sees these jobs as a blessing not an eyesore.
