Friday

Friday May 15, 2009

. . . . .I believe it's well known that I worked in the automotive industry for 25 years all told, and as I've traveled around the country both in my personal life, and in my job, over and over I've heard from people comments such as "The auto companies killed themselves", "The UAW killed the car companies" "Let them go bankrupt, they deserve it" "They're paid too much, let them get another job".
. . . .Well, it's about to happen, and I truly hope that people are satisfied now. Chrysler announced today that it would close over 700 dealerships across the nation tomorrow. GM will announce tomorrow that it will close anywhere between 1,000 and 2,600 dealerships tomorrow. This will add to the already 5.1 million jobs lost since the recession started. In this case, it's more than just a local business closing, it's the loss of a dealership and a service department. Those people who own Chrysler and GM cars will now find themselves without a service department, those people in a smaller town will find now that whatever dealerships are left will not be forced to compete, and therefore, there will be a price rise in imported vehicles. There are not jobs available now for the employees of those dealerships, which puts the smaller businesses around them in danger.
. . . .And all this is only a precursor to what will happen when Chrysler and GM go under. The total job loss, permanent numbers, in the U.S. will be around 5 to 7 million jobs total lost permanently from the American economy.


. . . . .The stench from the Washington beltway is increasingly growing stronger. The hypocrisy emanating from the Senate and House is incredible, the best part being that somehow they, (being Senators and House members) believe that somehow, we are gullible enough to believe anything. From Politico, this report on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's verbal contortions and attempted obfuscation of the very apparent, and very real fact that she knew back in 2002 about "enhanced interrogation techniques" aka waterboarding aka torture. Now, she attempts to twist the facts and deny knowledge. It won't fly, she knew, and for her to stand with the White House and decry these techniques is abhorrent, even in best light.
. . . It's simple, she knew and it's time for her to cop to it, and step down from the Speakership.

. . . . . From Tim Dickinson, in Rolling Stone, this one titled "The GOP Jihad";

As Specter's forced march down the gangplank makes clear, the GOP is in the midst of a reactionary spasm — one that threatens to marginalize the party for a generation to come. Rather than acknowledging the party's failed policies and reaching out to new constituencies, the GOP's dominant faction is retrenching around the anti-government, free-market, fundamentalist strain of Republicanism last championed by Barry Goldwater — who steered the party to one of its most crushing defeats in 1964. The purists are led by a group of GOP veterans who tried to bring down Bill Clinton in 1994 — including Contract With America architect Newt Gingrich, former House majority leader Dick Armey and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. The veterans are allied with House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, a Gingrich protégé who has emerged as the youthful face of the Party of No, as well as with stimulus-rejecting Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and right-wing radio heavy Rush Limbaugh, who enforces the new GOP orthodoxy from the most feared bully pulpit in America. Together, they seek not to expand the party but to purge it.

Indeed, the Republican jihad has reached such a fever pitch that, to these ideologues, excommunicating one of the party's most powerful senators and handing the president a potentially unstoppable majority actually marks a positive development for the GOP. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Sanford cheered Specter's departure, calling him "deadly for the Republican brand." Firing up his listeners, Limbaugh hailed the defection for "weeding out people who aren't really Republicans," adding that he only regretted Specter didn't take John McCain with him.

. . . .Speaking of infotainer Rush Limbaugh and John McCain, this from Roberta McCain, John's mother on the subject of Rush - "I don't know what he's talking about, he doesn't represent the Republican Party."

. . . .Cognitive dissonance, that is, speaking of extreme right-wing infotainment talking heads, there's tape from back in 2002 that proves Bill O'Reilly didn't care about gay marriage back then, so why is such a vital issue to him now? Thanks to Media Matters on that one.

. . . .This one from Wired and the Danger Room blog; DARPA is now going back to the future and is now working on telepathy for battle field soldiers.

. . . . . And from Wired's Threat Level blog, this one on the FBI's new electronic surveillance program:

The proposed 2010 Justice Department budget published last week reveals the development of a new FBI advanced electronic surveillance program dubbed “Going Dark.” The program is being budgeted $233.9 million next year.

According to the published budget summary (.pdf), the program “supports the FBI’s electronic surveillance (ELSUR), intelligence collection and evidence gathering capabilities, as well as those of the greater Intelligence Community.”

An FBI spokesman told ABC News, which first reported the information, that the program’s name, Going Dark, “does not refer to a specific capability, but is a program name for the part of the FBI, Operational Technology Division’s (OTD) lawful interception program which is shared with other law enforcement agencies.” He added that “The term applies to the research and development of new tools, technical support and training initiatives.”

The program is designed to help the agency address challenges with conducting surveillance over newish technologies, such as VoIP. The program is also doing research on automated link analysis to find connections between subjects of surveillance “and other investigative suspects.”

The budget report also discusses a Biometric Technology Center that is being developed jointly by the FBI, Defense Department and Justice Department in conjunction with the University of West Virginia for research and development of biometric technologies. The center is located at the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division complex in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

The biometric project will also encompass “a vast database of personal data including fingerprints, iris scans and DNA which the FBI calls the Next Generation Identification (NGI),” according to ABC, which could be online next year. Lockheed Martin has been awarded the contract to update and maintain the database at an estimated cost of up to $1 billion a year.

. . . .Tonight, Part 6 of the continuing series from NPR on upgrading the national power grid. tonight's installment The Grid May Be Smart, But Will It Also Be Green?

The push is on to make the nation's aging electricity grid smarter, so it can handle growing demand for electricity. Many assume that a smart grid will also be a green grid — delivering clean electricity and helping to address climate change. But that's not necessarily so.

Giving the grid a brain doesn't necessarily mean it will make green decisions. Likewise, the big push to expand the electric grid into areas rich in renewable energy doesn't guarantee that the new, improved grid will be more climate-friendly.

Smart grid technology means several kinds of innovations. One is that both customers and utilities will be able to monitor electric use, minute by minute. Steve Nadel, who runs a nonprofit called the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, says information alone doesn't make the smart grid green.

"As a friend of mine says, a smart grid needs smart programs needs smart rates," Nadel says.

Smart programs could, for example, help people see how they're using electricity so they can find painless ways to conserve. And smart rates could create incentives for people to save electricity, by charging more at some times and less at others. In principle, cheaper energy should encourage environmentally friendly objectives. But Nadel says not all smart grid experiments make green sense.

"Some utilities have programs to encourage nighttime lighting," Nadel says. "Gee, make your house look beautiful. Make it more secure. Light up like Times Square or something. That's an example. And don't worry, it's only 2 cents a kilowatt-hour. We'll give you a special nighttime discount."

In some cases, people use not only more energy, but dirtier energy, too. That's because in some parts of the country, nighttime electricity often comes from coal-fired power plants. They're usually the cheapest source, so they are used first. When demand is higher during the day, the additional electricity is more likely to come from cleaner natural gas. So in parts of the country that rely heavily on coal power, nighttime energy means dirtier energy.

Nadel says the good news is that smart grid pilot programs so far have largely encouraged conservation.

"Some of them have saved quite a bit of energy," he says. "Some have built some load. The devil is always in the details."

Clean Energy Transmission Lines?

Details also bedevil another feature of the expanded, smarter grid — new transmission lines. In California, San Diego Gas and Electric has been pushing to build a major new power line into the neighboring Imperial Valley. The utility has been selling the idea in part on its environmental benefits.

But California Public Utilities Commissioner Dian Grueneich is skeptical.

"Anybody who's proposing a transmission line in the United States these days is going to claim it's going to be used for renewable — it's going to be a 'green' line because that's mom and apple pie," Grueneich says.

During the public utilities commission's hearings about whether to approve the Sunrise power line, San Diego Gas and Electric said the project would bring huge amounts of clean solar and geothermal energy into San Diego.

The utility was basing its arguments on clean energy sources it hopes will be developed in the Imperial Valley in the coming years. But Grueneich says hopes and aspirations are a lot different from legally binding commitments.

"Existing contracts that SDG&E had signed from this area, the Imperial Valley, would only fill up 20 percent of the line," she says. "And that means the other 80 percent of the power that flows over this line could easily — would likely — flow from coal-fired power plants elsewhere in the Western United States."

The commission voted to approve the line, anyway. Grueneich cast the only "no" vote.

She says this sort of debate is likely to play out nationwide as power companies bid to string new lines while expanding and strengthening the electric grid. Power company investors will make a profit no matter what kind of electricity the lines carry. So Grueneich favors new laws requiring power companies to buy a lot of green electricity.

"This isn't rocket science. We don't need to develop whole new technologies," she says. "We aren't making bets on will we be able to develop a whole new way of doing things. It's just really being serious. If we're going to spend this money and call something green, let's make sure it happens."

And that comes down to politics. Indeed, bills are winding their way through Congress that would help ensure that the smart grid is also green.

. . . .Outta here for now, will continue to update throughout the day.

The Desolation Angel
[where: Hell, Michigan]