Month: July 2012

…You know something? I’m going to stay good.

There should be limits to cruelty.

Moe Lane

PS: No, this has nothing to do with the Senate races.  I wanted Ted Cruz to win; he won.  I had nothing in particular against Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, except in so far as that only one person could win the Republican primary.  I’ve largely stayed out of the primaries, for largely that reason.  Just business, nothing personal.

Brilliant, Ohio coal plant mine[*] closes: guess why?

Well, your ability to guess why the Murray Energy Corporation today announced that it is closing a mine in Brilliant, Ohio will be largely dependent on whether you rely on local news or not. If you’re just paying attention to local news… you won’t be told at all why a coal mine that employed 239 people at its peak laid off 24 of its remaining 56 employees today, with the remaining to be (hopefully) integrated into the company elsewhere; in fact, you won’t even be told that the mine employed that many people directly. But if you go to the company’s own press release… yeah. That’s a different story.

Regulatory actions by President Barack Obama and his appointees and followers were cited as the entire reason. “Mr. Obama has already destroyed 83,000 megawatts of coal-fired electricity generation in America,” said Mr. Michael T. W. Carey, Vice President of Government Affairs for Murray Energy. “Electric prices in the recent PJM Interconnection monthly auction were bid up 800 percent (8 times) for 2015-2016 because of this,” he added. Continue reading Brilliant, Ohio coal plant mine[*] closes: guess why?

#rsrh I think that @twitchypolitics has this one wrong, actually.

The ten bucks for a car magnet thing is actually kind of smart.  For given values of “smart”:

  • Cost of Obama car magnet: $10.
  • Cost of Obama’s first term: trillions of dollars in debt, reduced respect abroad, pathetic recovery at home.
  • Cost of being able to easily pretend that you never were one of those idiots who voted for Obama: priceless.

See what I mean?  Once it becomes clear next year that the new President actually knows something about economic activity, then all those Democrats will need is fifteen seconds of work, and then nobody will ever know. Perfect.

#rsrh The Corner contemplates the ‘solyndra’ as a unit of measurement.

It’s very flattering*:

What gave me the idea was something in a posting by Moe Lane on Romney’s trip to Jerusalem, where he wrote: “President Obama did best, with his ever-so-sudden $70 million funding of Israeli missile defense (that’s about .14 solyndras*)”. So, how about the $535 million in Solyndra loan guarantees be rechristened as equaling one “solyndra”? This way, the bridge to nowhere would have cost three-quarters of a solyndra ($398 million), the direct Defense Department costs of the Iraq war were 1,416 solyndras, annual farm subsidies are 43 solyndras, the annual budget of the Commerce Department is 15 solyndras, and so on.

My only quibble on this is that we should define the number as being 500 million, not 535 million.  535 is not as useful a number as 500: the latter is usefully decimal.  Or perhaps 540 million? That’s fairly duodecimal.  I’m willing to be flexible on this.

Moe Lane

*It’d be more flattering if I could remember whether or not it was original.  I don’t remember seeing it elsewhere, but surely I’m not the first person to come up with the basic idea…

#rsrh QotD, Mickey Kaus Brings The Pain To GM edition.

And by extension – tanjit – the federal government:

I’d forgotten that in April, 2010 President Obama told the nation (in his weekly radio address)

“It won’t be too long before the stock the Treasury is holding in GM could be sold ….”

Two years later, the Treasury still owns more than 26% of GM. The stock price of the dramatic administration success story is too low to sell without taking gigantic, embarrassing losses.

I know that Mickey Kaus likes being a Democrat, but at some point you simply have to admit that you didn’t leave the party; the party left you.

(H/T: Instapundit)

NBC interviews Evander Holyfield by accident.

Personally, I think that it’s just funny: the show needed some man-in-the-street shots, Holyfield happened to be there (for the Olympics, presumably: the man is an Olympic medalist), nobody noticed it until Holyfield pointed it out.  I’m getting the impression that Holyfield himself found it funny to be incognito, as it were.  Or perhaps just relaxing.  Not that I’ll ever know what it’s like to be a former heavyweight champion, of course.

Via Ace of Spades Headlines.

#rsrh You know, anybody who Harry Reid hates this badly (and PROFANELY)…

…can’t be all that bad.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, the Nevada Democrat savaged Bill Magwood, a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, when asked if he thought the Democrat had a chance to become NRC chairman.

“You know, when you’re in this government, this business of politics, the only thing that you have is your word,” said Reid, seated in his Capitol office. “I can be as partisan as I have to be, but I always try to be nice. I try never to say bad things about people. Bill Magwood is one of the” — Reid paused, deciding which adjective to reach for, before picking them all — “most unethical, prevaricating” — he paused again, this time for 10 full seconds — “incompetent people I’ve ever dealt with. The man sat in that chair — right there — and lied to me. I’ve never, ever in my life had anyone do that. Never.”

Actually, Reid, people lie to you all the time.  It’s just that usually you don’t catch them doing it to you.

Read the rest, even if it’s HuffPo: Reid completely loses his professionalism and dignity as a Senator in this one.  It’s funny! Particularly when he starts swearing.