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Russia interfered in the election. Ordered by Putin.

By on Fri, Jun 23, 2017 in News 0

Those who say there is nothing to the Trump / Russia investigation, that Russia did not interfere in the election, now need to believe that Obama, multiple intelligence services, and multiple members of Congress of both parties are lying and that Donald Trump alone is telling the truth, even though by his actions Trump has rather clearly been obstructing justice. Which is mighty peculiar behavior for someone who claims innocence.

…an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.

But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.

Obama also approved a previously undisclosed covert measure that authorized planting cyber weapons in Russia’s infrastructure, the digital equivalent of bombs that could be detonated if the United States found itself in an escalating exchange with Moscow.

How to blow up your company

By on Wed, Jun 21, 2017 in News 0

1) Launch a startup that does something disrupty.
 
2) Boast about how you will smite the competition. Attempt to bulldoze them. Be astonished when they fight back, wallpapering you with lawsuits.
 
3) Raise billions of dollars and blow through it, losing money in a spectacular manner. You are disrupty and have no need to pay attention to outmoded concepts like making a profit.
 
4) Treat female employees as less than equals, sex toys for the dudebros.
 
5) Foster a corporate culture where top management prides itself on being belligerent assholes.
 
6) Lie constantly about most everything until no one can believe a word you say.
 
7) Be astonished when it all blows up in your face.

Alphabet soup of Marxist parties snoozes away

By on Sat, Jun 17, 2017 in News 0
alphabet soup photo

Photo by Thriving Vegetarian

The alphabet soup of little Marxist parties in the US have been preaching for years, sometimes decades, that the vanguard needs to seize the opportunity if and when something triggers the masses into political action. Organize on that issue, then move onto to organizing on bigger issues.

 You would think the alphabet soup would be overjoyed with the Trump / Russia investigation. It’s splitting the ruling class. People from across the political spectrum are resisting Trump. Corruption and blind self-interest is exposed for all to see. The whole world is watching.
 
But instead of jumping in, helping to dump Trump, then organizing on bigger issues like systemic corruption and healthcare for all, these Marxist revolutionaries are studiously ignoring the whole thing. Go figure.

Rooftop solar returns to Nevada, Screw you Warren Buffett

By on Fri, Jun 16, 2017 in News 0


Warren Buffett, billionaire plutocrat exploiter beloved by the financial press because of his aw-shucks manner and folksy aphorisms tried through his subsidiary NV Energy to kill rooftop solar in Nevada. It wasn’t that NV Energy opposed solar, it was that it would hurt their profits, so everyone else could go screw themselves. They lobbied hard and managed to temporarily mostly kill rooftop solar.

Multiple casinos told Buffett to go screw himself, paid exit fees and are now buying renewable energy on the open market. Ginormous data center Switch has done much the same. Mandalay Bay has 28 acres of solar PV panels on their convention center rooftop. And yesterday Nevada Governor Sandoval just signed bills almost completely restoring rooftop solar to what it was before Buffett interfered.

A Nevada rooftop solar industry crippled by regulators’ 2015 decision to change a pricing structure is expected to make a comeback after Sandoval signed three major energy-related bills at a Tesla facility in Las Vegas

AB405, sponsored by Democratic Assembly members Chris Brooks and Justin Watkins, will restore more favorable rates for customers with rooftop solar panels who want to sell excess energy they produce back to the grid. It also enshrines into law consumer protections for people who buy solar systems.

It wouldn’t allow rates quite as generous as the ones that predated the Public Utilities Commission’s 2015 decision, but customers could now get 95 percent of that “retail” electricity rate. The rate would decline periodically in tiers as more Nevadans install rooftop solar.

Nevada disengages from constitutional convention movement

By on Tue, Jun 13, 2017 in News 0

Happily, Nevada is now no longer a part of the constitutional convention movement, a misguided, dangerous way to force constitutional change. Only one has been held, and that was in 1787. People on all sides of the political spectrum oppose a constitutional convention because it would be so unpredictable and potentially harmful.

The rules are strict. 2/3’s of the states have to call for a convention and 3/4’s of the states have to ratify whatever the convention passes. So, the process would take years. Still, it’s dangerous. Anything passed by a convention becomes part of the Constitution. A convention could make up its own rules. A convention could be controlled by special interests.

Nevada just said no to being a part of a constitutional convention.

Though the resolution flew largely under the radar, its passage means Nevada has likely untangled itself from rapidly growing national movements to hold a state-led constitutional amendment convention, which could bring up or make constitutionally binding changes to a variety of hot-button issues ranging from restrictions on abortion to requiring a federal balanced budget.

New Mexico, Maryland and Delaware have over the last two years rescinded all official requests for a constitutional convention.

Calling a constitutional convention isn’t a purely partisan debate — Segerblom presented the bill alongside longtime conservative activist Janine Hansen, and said the measure wasn’t “hard to sell” with Republican colleagues given that they share similar fears of a “runaway convention” wreaking havoc on long-established constitutional norms.

Former Chief Justice of the United States Warren Burger wrote in 1988:

“There is no way to effectively limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda. Congress might try to limit the Convention to one amendment or one issue, but there is no way to assure that the Convention would obey. After a Convention is convened, it will be too late to stop the Convention if we don’t like its agenda.”