05.26.08

Think about this next time you’re filling up at the pump

Posted in National Security, iraq at 1:18 pm by Administrator

Herman Cain on the fate of Senate Bill 2958.  And kudos to Mary Landrieu for having the courage to beak ranks with her Freedom-Hater party on this one.

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7 Comments »

  1. Mr. Dings said,

    May 26, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    Let’s drill here! This crisis is going to top them all, effecting our economy as much as anything ever has in our lifetimes. Ethanol is already a cruel joke. We’re using food as fuel? Come on! On the other hand, the world must conserve! Has an Edison or a Tesla been aborted?

  2. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    May 26, 2008 at 4:33 pm

    Hey, peeps! Dings is on board! That’s a quorum if we ever had one. Now, let’s get drillin’! No more chillin’!

  3. Mr. Dings said,

    May 26, 2008 at 5:39 pm

    http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Light-Edison-Westinghouse-Electrify/dp/0375507396

    Jonnes, a historian at Johns Hopkins (We’re Still Here; Hep-Cats, Narcs and Pipe Dreams), details the rise and fall of the three visionaries who harnessed electricity, while also offering a critique of corporate greed. Her tale emphasizes the “War of the Electric Currents,” in which Thomas Edison sought to defend the primacy of his direct current electrical system against George Westinghouse’s higher-voltage and more broadly applicable alternating current system. Nikola Tesla, the somewhat kooky Serbian genius (and former Edison man), joined the fray on Westinghouse’s side with his AC induction motor. Jonnes serves up plenty of color in an engaging and relaxed style, detailing how Edison capitalized on the “deaths by wire,” or accidental electrocutions, from the AC system, sensationalized in the newspapers of the time. As she shows, Edison’s “holy war” led to Westinghouse’s AC being used in the first prison execution by electric chair, in 1890-which proved considerably more grisly and less humane than originally billed. For Jonnes, this history culminates neatly in a rather trite moral lesson: that corporate greed is bad. She contrasts it with the three public-minded men sketched here, who embody what Jonnes believes capitalism ought to be. Edison wanted only “the perfect workshop”; Westinghouse was interested “in helping the world” and giving his workers disability benefits; Tesla wanted to “liberate the world from drudgery.” Jonnes’s titans loom as monumentally as the allegorical Good Capitalists in an Ayn Rand melodrama. For those who view history as less tidy, this may strain the patience at times.

  4. Mr. Dings said,

    May 26, 2008 at 5:40 pm

    Our backs (and our motor cars) are against the wall.

  5. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    May 26, 2008 at 8:45 pm

    Vision and profits! The golden combination.

  6. Mr. Dings said,

    May 30, 2008 at 3:15 am

    Agreed, in this quarter too:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121201723656327625.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

    But if there is a villain in all of this, it is Congress itself. That venerable body has made it impossible for U.S. producers of crude oil to tap significant domestic reserves of oil and gas, and it has foreclosed economically viable alternative sources of energy in favor of unfeasible alternatives such as wind and solar. In addition, Congress has slapped substantial taxes on gasoline.

  7. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    May 30, 2008 at 4:49 pm

    And we’re gonna send ‘em back to Capitol Hill come November. Did our scrip for smart pills run out or something?

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