Democrat nuts intimidate Michelle Malkin in Denver

Well, the morons tried. But she has more class than 100 of them. She was cool despite being surrounded by a dozen large men.

Pajams Media video taped it.

Dems rally against unions! in Denver

Can you believe it? A glimmer of hope: a few Democrats who prefer the children over the teachers' unions.

This was not the entire convention, but a break-out session of about 500 people. But, still, leaders spoke on the record and the Democrat crowd joined them in opposing union power.

Mickey Kaus - Slate Magazine:

Things We Thought We'd Never See: Democrats Rally Against the Teachers' Unions! I went to the Ed Challenge for Change event mainly to schmooze. I almost didn't stay for the panels, being in no mood for what I expected would, even among these reformers, be an hour of vague EdBlob talk about "change" and "accountability" and "resources" that would tactfully ignore the elephant in the room, namely the teachers' unions. I was so wrong. One panelist--I think it was Peter Groff, president of the Colorado State Senate, got the ball rolling by complaining that when the children's agenda meets the adult agenda, the "adult agenda wins too often."

Then Cory Booker of Newark attacked teachers unions specifically--and there was applause. In a room of 500 people at the Democratic convention! "The politics are so vicious," Booker complained, remembering how he'd been told his political career would be over if he kept pushing school choice, how early on he'd gotten help from Republicans rather than from Democrats. The party would "have to admit as Democrats we have been wrong on education." Loud applause!

Mayor Adrian Fenty of D.C. joined in, describing the AFT's attempt to block the proposed pathbreaking D.C. teacher contract. Booker denounced "insane work rules," and Groff talked about doing the bidding of "those folks who are giving money [for campaigns], and you know who I'm talking about." Yes, they did!

As Jon Alter, moderating the next panel, noted, it was hard to imagine this event happening at the previous Democratic conventions. (If it had there would have been maybe 15 people in the room, not 500.) Alter called it a "landmark" future historians should note. Maybe he was right.

P.S.: My favorite moment didn't concern the unions. It came when NYC schools chief Joel Klein called for a single national testing standard. Groff, a crowd favorite, made the conventional local elected officials' objection that you need flexibility, one size doesn't fit all, "what works" in County X might not work in County Y. And he was booed! Loudly. By Democratic education wonks. Wow. (The "one size" argument cropped up in the welfare reform debate too--and I assume it's just as bogus in the education debate. We're a national economy with cities that look more or less alike. What works in County X is almost certainly also going to work in County Y.)

P.P.S.: John Wilson, head of the NEA itself, was also there. Afterwards, he seemed a bit stunned. He argued pols should work with unions, in pursuit of a "shared vision," not bash them. But isn't this a power struggle where you have to bash the other side to get leverage, I asked. "Then you have losers," he answered.

P.P.P.S.: Mickey's Assignment Desk: Has someone done the trend piece on all these smart, young, powerful bald,** black state and local elected officials--e.g., Fenty, Booker, Groff, Nutter--who are taking on their unions? You'd need a name. Hair Club for Men is already taken. Domeboys? ...

Promising efforts to store wind power

Wind power is not practical at this time because the wind blows when it wills, not when we need the power. We need to be able to store the power from wind for use at the times of peak power demand. Here is a promising development

CNN Money :

One problem perhaps more than any other has proven a drag on the long-term prospects for wind power: how do you turn on the lights when the wind isn't blowing?

A New Jersey company said Tuesday it has joined with Michael Nakhamkin, one of the top thinkers in energy storage, to develop new ways to trap wind-generated power in underground reservoirs.

Nakhamkin has helped develop technology to pull excess energy off the power grid _ usually at night when usage has waned _ to run compressors that pump air into sealed, underground caverns that once held oil, salt or natural gas.

During periods of higher demand, the air is released and heated to run air expansion turbines.

... Compressed air in a cave about a third the size of the New York Giants' football stadium _ roughly 21,500,000 cubic square feet _ would be enough to power a 300-megawatt turbine for 8 hours, Daniel said.

That load could power about 200,000 homes _ a small city _ for about 8 hours, said John A. Stratton, an electrical power systems professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

"That's a healthy load," he said. "It's going to get us through the peak of the day by using excess energy at night."

While the process isn't totally efficient _ energy is lost while being transferred _ it "makes wind a very different kind of energy than it is today," Stratton said.

Zimbabwe opposition gets a little power Newspaper

There is a significant break through in Zimbabwe. Some power for an opposition party for the first time since independence in 1980.

Seattle Times Newspaper:

Zimbabwe's main opposition party won the top job in parliament Monday, scoring a surprise victory that could give President Robert Mugabe's foes leverage in power-sharing talks.

It is the first time since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980 that the speaker's post has not been held by an ally of the autocratic Mugabe.

The election of Lovemore Moyo of the Movement for Democratic Change on a 110-98 vote brought cheers, with opposition legislators breaking into a song declaring "ZANU-PF is finished!" The result indicated some members of the ruling ZANU-PF may have voted for Moyo in the secret ballot.

Drilling Boom Revives Hopes for Natural Gas

Good news on the energy front - very good news. Natural gas is the clean fossil fuel we want.

Drilling Boom Revives Hopes for Natural Gas - NYTimes.com:

American natural gas production is rising at a clip not seen in half a century, pushing down prices of the fuel and reversing conventional wisdom that domestic gas fields were in irreversible decline.

The new drilling boom uses advanced technology to release gas trapped in huge shale beds found throughout North America — gas long believed to be out of reach. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, releasing less of the emissions that cause global warming than coal or oil.

Rising production of natural gas has significant long-range implications for American consumers and businesses. A sustained increase in gas supplies over the next decade could slow the rise of utility bills, obviate the need to import gas and make energy-intensive industries more competitive.

While the recent production increase is indisputable, not everyone is convinced the additional supplies can last for decades. “The jury is still out how big shale is going to be,” said Robert Ineson, a natural gas analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm.

Still, many people in the natural-gas industry believe a new era is at hand, and a rising chorus of Wall Street analysts and Congressional lawmakers supports that notion. Competition among companies for rights to the new gas has set off a frenzy of leasing and drilling.

“It’s almost divine intervention,” said Aubrey K. McClendon, chairman and chief executive of the Chesapeake Energy Corporation, one of the nation’s largest natural gas producers. “Right at the time oil prices are skyrocketing, we’re struggling with the economy, we’re concerned about global warming, and national security threats remain intense, we wake up and we’ve got this abundance of natural gas around us.”

Hugo Chavez is losing influence with Latin American learders

Bad news for dictator Hugo is good news for the people of Venezuela and for all the Western Hemisphere.

Washington Times - Embassy Row :
Venezuela's anti-American president, Hugo Chavez, is losing influence throughout Latin America, even in countries headed by center-left leaders who rejected his radical socialism, according to a former ambassador who also criticized congressional Democrats for opposing a free-trade deal with the pro-American government of Colombia.

Jaime Daremblum, Costa Rica's ambassador to the United States from 1998 to 2004, said Mr. Chavez is becoming increasingly autocratic in his own country and threatening to other nations because of a huge military buildup fueled by high oil prices.

"With his 'Bolivarian' revolution discredited both at home and abroad, Chavez's desperate hope is that militaristic nationalism will strike a chord," Mr. Daremblum wrote in an analysis of Mr. Chavez's latest acquisition of Russian weapons and of his attempts to hide the damage to the economy from his socialist policies.

Mr. Chavez last month purchased about $2 billion in Russian arms on a trip to Moscow, Mr. Daremblum said, referring to Russia press accounts. The Venezuelan strongman previously bought $4.5 billion in arms from Russia.

"He claims, absurdly, that he is preparing for a U.S. invasion. In fact, his military buildup is intended to consolidate his power and intimidate his neighbors," said Mr. Daremblum, now director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the Washington-based Hudson Institute.

Mr. Daremblum said Mr. Chavez's influence is shrinking to some of the poorest countries in Latin America, including Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador and Nicaragua.

"Although the full extent of [Mr. Chavez's] mismanagement has been camouflaged by high energy prices ... , he is wrecking the Venezuelan economy," Mr. Daremblum said. "The health care system has deteriorated alarmingly, and food shortages remain a persistent problem.

"Corruption is widespread, and rampant crime has earned [the capital] Caracas its reputation as the most dangerous city in the Western Hemisphere."

Who Lied About Iraq?

American Thinker
Do not believe that post-invasion intelligence invalidates our justification for using military force against Saddam's Iraq. The truth is the exact opposite. The US was fully justified to use military force against Iraq, even knowing what we know now -- especially knowing what we know now. We should not allow the false story -- almost accepted as fact -- as we head into a Presidential election, to go unchallenged.

The False Story

"The United States invaded Iraq based on false premises. The administration orchestrated a public relations drive to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and connections to the 9/11 terrorists - both proved false." USA Today

While these two sentences came from USA Today, they describe the words behind the music of the "Bush lied, people died" meme echoing throughout the media chambers since at least 2004. The lies in just these two sentences are almost Shakespearian in their layered texture. The statement even lays out a false premise in accusing the Bush administration of using false premises. If lying is an art, our media have mastered it.

The Premise

Our invasion of Iraq was not based on a public relations drive; it was based on Public Law 107-243, otherwise known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, passed by the 107th Congress in October of 2002 . (Herein referred to as the "Authorization".) It passed the House with a vote of 296 to 133 (by 69%) and the Senate with a vote of 77 to 23 (by 77%), including 58% of Senate Democrats. In short, it was overwhelming; it was bipartisan; and it was law.

U.S. team picks Georgian to lead them in Olympics closing ceremony

McClatchy Washington Bureau
While U.S. athletes have stayed silent about politics during these Olympic Games, their actions have spoken volumes.

First came the decision by U.S. team captains to pick runner Lopez Lomong, who was a Sudanese war refugee, to lead the U.S. delegation into the Aug. 8 opening ceremony as the team's flag bearer.

Many interpreted Lomong's selection as a dig at the Chinese government's support of Sudan, which has armed militias that have killed hundreds of thousands of people in the country's Darfur region.

On Friday night, the U.S. team entered the political fray again by choosing archer Khatuna Lorig, who was born in what is now the country of Georgia, to be the U.S. flag bearer in Sunday's closing ceremony.

With Georgia recently fighting a mismatched war against Russian troops in the separatist Georgian province of South Ossetia, many saw Lorig's selection as a show of support by U.S. athletes for the besieged Georgians.

Freer trade does cause benefits

The economic researchers are very careful. They don't jump to conclusions. Antoni Estevadeordal and Alan M. Taylor of UC Davis did the research with all the special considerations.

National Bureau of Economic Research

We find evidence that a specific treatment, liberalizing tariffs on imported capital and intermediate goods, did
lead to faster GDP growth, and by a margin consistent with theory (about 1 percentage point per annum).
Endogeneity problems are considered and other observations are consistent with the proposed mechanism:
changes to other tariffs, e.g. on consumption goods, though collinear with general tariffs reforms, are
more weakly correlated with growth outcomes; and the treatment and control groups display different
behavior of investment prices and quantities, and capital flows.

Senator Schumer might have to pay for causing bank run

California is considering punishing distinguished Senator Schumer for the causing the run on and failure of IndyMac bank.
The Story
And the background story at Townhall:

Bob Dole once said the most dangerous spot in Washington was between Chuck Schumer and a TV camera. That may be true. But it might be even more dangerous to be a shareholder in, depositor in, or employee of a bank which Schumer decides to attack. Indymac Bank was having trouble, of course, before, but nothing as serious as a bank run. Bank runs, after all, are very rare in modern history. Common enough during the great depression, they largely disappeared in response to FDR’s creation of a system of safety nets such as FDIC.
So why a 30s style bank panic now? Why Indymac?
Because the left hated them. Indymac has been in the crosshairs for some time. The trial lawyers started going after them about a month ago. Not long after that, Schumer started sending letters to regulators attacking Indymac, questioning the financial viability of a bank which he had never examined. Neither Schumer, nor any of his staff even bothered to contact Indymac with any questions. Unsatisfied with the response, Schumer leaked his letters to the press. The local paper in Pasadena (where the bank is located) played along, and ran the story with a headline strongly suggesting insolvency. Of course, the next day depositors lined up at the door and started withdrawing money. Over the next 11 days, $1.3 billion came out. Indymac, just a regional bank, could not stand that kind of tsunami and it was forced to close its doors.

Wind Jammers - BANANA - updated

The innocent Greenie: "Replace all power generation by renewable wind, solar, biomass, etc."

The innocent Greenie: "And we will block increasing the capacity of the electric power transmission system.

But wind and solar are plentiful in remote locations. How can we use more of them without more transmission capacity?

The innocent Greenie: "Do you expect us to be part of the solution?"

Yes

WSJ.com:

In this year's great energy debate, Democrats describe a future when the U.S. finally embraces the anything-but-carbon avant-garde. It turns out, however, that when wind and solar power do start to come on line, they face a familiar obstacle: environmentalists and many Democrats.

To wit, the greens are blocking the very transmission network needed for renewable electricity to move throughout the economy. The best sites for wind and solar energy happen to be in the sticks -- in the desert Southwest where sunlight is most intense for longest, or the plains where the wind blows most often. To exploit this energy, utilities need to build transmission lines to connect their electricity to the places where consumers actually live. In addition to other technical problems, the transmission gap is a big reason wind only provides two-thirds of 1% of electricity generated in the U.S., and solar one-tenth of 1%.

... In California, hundreds turned out at the end of July to protest a connection between the solar and geothermal fields of the Imperial Valley to Los Angeles and Orange County. The environmental class is likewise lobbying state commissioners to kill a 150-mile link between San Diego and solar panels because it would entail a 20-mile jaunt through Anza-Borrego state park. "It's kind of schizophrenic behavior," Arnold Schwarzenegger said recently. "They say that we want renewable energy, but we don't want you to put it anywhere."

They continue with... it's just nonsense. On the one hand they say that using green power will be cheaper. But on the other, they oppose building the infrastructure to use the green power that they claim to want.

Update 8/27/08 The New York Times has a thorough story on the transmission shortage and wind power.

* BANANA = Build absolutely nothing nowhere at all.

Image via GNU public license.