Anti-Minuteman protest. S.F. yesterday
Bob Morris @ Jul 31st 2008 21:18 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
Photo from Steve Rhodes’ photostream on Flickr.
IndyBay has reports and more photos. Counter-protesters greatly outnumbered Minutemen.
Archive for July 31st, 2008
Colleges are now offering wind technician classes
Bob Morris @ Jul 31st 2008 16:49 - Category: Renewable energy, Wind turbines ;
The demand for wind technicians, those who can service a wind turbine, is so strong that colleges have trouble keeping students in class until they graduate - because wind companies keep hiring them after just a few months of school.
The Bankrupterator signs pay-cut order for state employees
Bob Morris @ Jul 31st 2008 12:00 - Category: Credit crisis ;
California governor and centi-millionaire Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a draconian order today slashing the pay of tens of thousands of state employees to $6.65 an hour (until a budget is passed, then they get retroactive pay)
Gosh, I’m sure my friend who works for a state agency in a professional capacity should have no problem paying the mortgage on $6.65 an hour and that his mortgage company will certainly be understanding… Multiply that by 200,000, the number of employees getting the pay-cut, and you can see the financial devastation this will create for people who have nothing to do with passing a budget.
The state controller says he will refuse to implement the order because it would invite lawsuits from unions and hurt workers so lots of legal fireworks certainly will be forthcoming.
The Potemkin village of Beijing
Bob Morris @ Jul 31st 2008 11:44 - Category: Unfiled Tags: Olympics;
- Plans to cleanse Beijing of smog not working despite previous closure of thousands of factories and banning automobiles.
- Water diverted from needy regions to prettify Beijing. Electricity too. Oh heck, no foreigners will see those rural peasants, so who cares if they go thirsty in the dark.
- China reneges on pledge to allow open Internet access during Olympics. If you can’t find bad things on the net while in Beijing then they must not exist, apparently.
Wikipedia: “‘Potemkin village‘ has come to mean, especially in a political context, any hollow or false construct, physical or figurative, meant to hide an undesirable or potentially damaging situation.”
Of course, every dissident in the region would like to do something spectacular while the whole world is watching. These Olympics could get real lively.
Green links. 7/31
Bob Morris @ Jul 31st 2008 06:51 - Category: Renewable energy, Solar power, Wind turbines Tags: biofuel;
New precast concrete sucks CO2 out of the air.
World’s largest onshore wind farm (909 megawatts) to be built in Oregon.
Algae based biofuels in plain English: Why it matters, how it works.
Utah’s solar fired furnace to power California for less than the cost of coal or gas.
2,000 MW wind farm will send power from Wyoming to Southern California.
Just trying to do this jigsaw puzzle before it rains anymore
Bob Morris @ Jul 31st 2008 01:45 - Category: Credit crisis, Unfiled ;
- The no naked shorts rule was finally enforced, but only for a privileged group of ailing financials.
- The Fed extended their emergency lending facility to January 2009.
- Cramer today was happily perky about how Citi could be a buy. (Sometimes he’s excellent. Other times, like this, he’s so obviously shilling that he makes a good contrary indicator.)
- FASB, as noted below, postponed the off-balance-sheet rule.
The jigsaw pieces are starting to fit. The government and big money are doing anything and everything they can to stave off what they clearly see as an impending, serious financial crisis (and not so coincidentally as a major threat to some fat cats.) But they’re doing in a deliberately opaque way that favors the wealthy over the economic well-being of the rest of us.
Damned if I didn’t think they were all die-hard capitalists. Didn’t they say they were? Let the strong kill the weak. Let the unhealthy die. That kind of thing. But now that the hunter has become the prey, they’re screaming protect me, bail me out, and I’m too important to let die.
This isn’t even state socialism. This is crony capitalism and an attempted theftocracy. But it won’t work. Those very same market forces they profess to believe in will, of course, prevail. (How could they not?) Look out below.
