Still Hating America.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
How the F is it not relevant? Clearly they serve at the Executive's will.

Clinton canned 49 (probably exceptional) attorneys for no reason other than that he felt like it. Pity.

If Bush wants to fire his own (probably) guys, so be it.

There's no story in this story.

There are two stories here:

Mid-term firings are pretty rare. The first story here is that Bush can't even get his own appointees to do his dirty work any more. Poor George.

The other story is that the Republicans managed to change the law so mid-term appointees won't need Senate confirmation. Just one last little dirty trick for the old tricksters - just like the mid-night appointments that still tarnish John Adams' name.

[Adder]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Um, President Clinton fired 49 (of 50) US Attorneys within days of taking office in 1993. It was one of his first acts as POTUS.

You may be forgiven for not recalling this - since you were about 7 then - but the WaPo has no such similar excuse.

That is pretty standard procedure (actually, the usually resign like the rest of the political appointees).

What may be going on here is that the already Republican appointees may be getting fired for not letting politics dictate the pace of their investigations. Surely there is a difference, even to you, right?

[Adder]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
World?

I am such a failure.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

The other story is that the Republicans managed to change the law so mid-term appointees won't need Senate confirmation.

That backfired pretty quickly. There's already a bipartisan bill to amend that provision and return it to the pre-Patriot Act approach.

[SlaveNoMore]

Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
So you're saying that it's equally newsworthy when an executive branch official resigns or is "fired" when an administration changes over as when it happens in the middle of an admin.?

Sure. Rummy's and Powell's quiting weren't worth talking about much either.

for what it's worth, of course he has the right to ask for anyone's resignation. But it's the public's right to ask why he asked for the resignation of people who apparently were lacking only in one qualification.

So you are saying that as a rationale for firing employees, nepotism and cronyism is more valid than performance?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
So you are saying that as a rationale for firing employees, nepotism and cronyism is more valid than performance?

Are you maintaining they were fired for performance reasons?

[Adder]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
So you are saying that as a rationale for firing employees, nepotism and cronyism is more valid than performance?

It is if the only "performance" issue is the desire to make appropriate prosecutions rather than rushed prosecution that may have a political benefit.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Are you maintaining they were fired for performance reasons?

The article says that performance was the stated reason for all but one of the dismissals.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Adder
The article says that performance was the stated reason for all but one of the dismissals.

Sure, but the evidence does not support the stated reason.

This is not like minorities being kicked out a sorority for being fat.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
From the Economist

Get off my corner Ho!

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Spanky
Get off my corner Ho!

What do Hos eat?

[Spanky]

An interesting article on why Iraq is more expensive (per capita) than previous wars. Or in other words, why wars, if all other variable are held constan, get more expensive the wealthier the United State becomes.


The cure is worse than the disease
Posted by: Economist.com | NEW YORK
Categories: Labour Markets
Want nations to beat their swords into plowshares? Then help them get rich! rich! rich!

Blogger Matthew Yglesias explains:

Robert Farley has a good post on the question of "Why is it that the United Kingdom, which is in an absolute sense far more wealthy now than it was in 1930, having difficulty maintaining a foreign deployment of about 10,000 total in Iraq and Afghanistan, while in 1930 it deployed many multiples of that total all over the world, plus colonial auxiliaries who were partially paid for by the Crown?" As he observes:

The relative increase in the effectiveness of insurgency strategies isn't just a consequence of the spread of the AK-47 or of the further development of nationalism in the non-western world; it's also a consequence of the fact that modern, wealthy states can now deploy far, far lower numbers of troops than they could fifty years ago. Indeed, in 1965 the United States (with a smaller and much poorer population in absolute terms) managed to deploy half a million troops to Vietnam while at the same time maintaining large contingents in West Germany and South Korea.
Farley gives some good answers to the question, but it's worth noting that this is part of a perfectly general situation. As technology improves, the average level of productivity goes up. And as productivity goes up, wages go up as well, at least over the long term. The wages go up, however, more-or-less across the board whereas productivity has only actually improved in the select areas that have seen meaningful improvement. As a result, things that are intrinsically labor-intensive tend to get more expensive and rarer over time, even as overall living standards go up.

Occupying foreign nations being one of those labour-intensive things. The technical name for this phenomenon, with which Mr Yglesias didn't want to bore his readers, is Baumol's cost disease; it is thought to infest areas like health care as well as military operations.

Given the side effects pointed out by Mr Yglesias, this is one disease that we should be trying as hard as possible to spread.

[SlaveNoMore]

"As the controversy over global warming doomsayer Al Gore’s voracious energy-eater mansion rolls on, there’s an angle I think merits deeper investigation than it is currently getting. While much of the focus has been on whether or not Gore is an environmental hypocrite, the story has raised the profile of the role of “carbon offsets” in achieving a “greener,” more environmentally friendly world.

In its original story, The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville reported that Gore buys “carbon offsets” to compensate for his home’s use of energy from carbon-based fuels. What is a “carbon offset,” exactly? Essentially, it’s a payment someone makes to an environmentally friendly entity to compensate for personally using non-green energy.

As Wikipedia explains, a carbon offset “is a service that tries to reduce the net carbon emissions of individuals or organizations indirectly, through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases.” Wikipedia goes on to explain that “a wide variety of offset actions are available; tree planting is the most common. Renewable energy and energy conservation offsets are also popular, including emissions trading credits.”

So far, so good. So, where does Gore buy his ‘carbon offsets’? According to The Tennessean newspaper’s report, Gore buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management. a company he co-founded and serves as chairman:
Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe…

As co-founder and chairman of the firm Gore presumably draws an income or will make money as its investments prosper. In other words, he “buys” his “carbon offsets” from himself, through a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. To be blunt, Gore doesn’t buy “carbon offsets” through Generation Investment Management - he buys stocks.
And it is not clear at all that Gore’s stock purchases - excuse me, “carbon offsets” purchases - actually help reduce the use of carbon-based energy at all, while the gas lanterns and other carbon-based energy burners at his house continue to burn carbon-based fuels and pump carbon emissions - a/k/a/ “greenhouse gases” - into the atmosphere.

As the news media swarmed around the story of Gore’s gargantuan energy consumption yesterday, Gore’s people touted his purchase of “carbon offsets” as evidence that he lives a “carbon-neutral” lifestyle, but the truth is Gore’s home uses electricity that is, for the most part, derived from the burning of carbon fuels. His house gets its electricity from Nashville Electric Service, which gets its from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which produces most of its power from coal-burning power plants. Which means most of the power being consumed at the Gore mansion comes from carbon-emitting power sources.

But do Gore’s “carbon offsets” payments really compensate for his big non-green power usage?
Wikipedia again: The intended goal of carbon offsets is to combat global warming. The appeal of becoming “carbon neutral” has contributed to the growth of voluntary offsets, which often are a more cost-effective alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption. However, the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.

Did you get that? Carbon offsets are an “alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption” and yet “the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.”

One way to misrepresent things: Tell a newspaper your stock purchases are really purchases of “carbon offsets.”

Gore travels the nation and the world blaming man’s use of carbon-based energy for global warming - burning thousands of gallons of jet fuel as he goes. His efforts are being rewarded. Politically, he’s helped put climate change at the top of the national and even global agenda. And that has driven up the perceived prospects and in many cases the stock value of companies viewed as “green” or environmentally friendly.
Companies like those his investment management firm invest his own and other peoples’ money in. (You can see a list of Generation Investment Management’s holdings here, courtesy of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.)

As one commenter posting on a few blogs covering the Gore story yesterday put it: Hmmm. The Goracle is chairman and a founding partner of Generation Investment Management LLP, a boutique international investment firm that invests other peoples’ money, for a fee, into the stocks of ‘green’ companies. … So when Al beats the drum for possible future global warming, he’s also drumming up business.

And profiting from hyping the “global warming” crisis.
In a nutshell, Gore consumes large amounts of carbon-based electricity while he trumpets the global warming crisis that drives up the value of “green” companies like the ones in which he buys carbon offsets invests in their stocks.
And “carbon offsets” are a dodgy way for someone to claim to be carbon-neutral even as they consume large amounts of carbon-based energy. The notion that selling carbon offsets actually helps the environment is taken as a given by those who sell them and by those who buy them, but at this point it is unproven.
While some bloggers and pundits have likened “carbon offsets” to the “indulgences” the pre-Reformation Catholic Church sold to the wealthy so they could continue to sin (see video at end of this post), the writer of the blog The Virginian says carbon offsets are more like the “sumptuary laws” of medieval times, laws that regulated and reinforced social hierarchies and morals through restrictions on clothing, food, and luxury expenditures.
In the Late Middle Ages sumptuary laws were instated as a way for the nobility to cap the conspicuous consumption of the up-and-coming bourgeoisie of medieval cities. … The danger is that the use of “carbon offsets” will create two things that re morally monstrous: a de-facto sumptuary law and the impoverishments of the poor and powerless of this planet. The creation of an aristocratic elite that differentiates itself from the hoi polloi by its ability to buy “carbon offsets” while the rest of the planet is forced by environmental laws into a smaller and smaller carbon straightjacket is not so far fetched.
Read the whole thing.
None of this should be construed as me not believing in global warming. I do believe the planet is getting warmer. I don’t necessarily agree that man’s activities are the primary or even significant cause of that warming - after all, the Earth warmed up significantly centuries before the Industrial Age, and there is plenty of evidence that cyclical solar activity impacts the earth’s temperatures.
But burning fossil fuels is stupid even if it doesn’t contribute a whit to global warming - petroleum can be used to make products that are much more valuable than gasoline and jet fuel, and even if carbon pollution doesn’t cause global warming, it is pollution that makes the air we breathe dirty and fouls the land and the water. And then of course there’s that whole problem of the geopolitical issues of oil and that related problem of buying oil from societies from whence come people who want to kill us.
As the story evolves, it should move away from Gore’s “Gulfstream Liberal” hypocrisy and on to more important questions such as the efficacy of “carbon offsets,” and a variety of other economy-oriented policy issues that impact the environment, such as whether market-based solutions or government-planned approaches are more likely to foster the technology innovation and lifestyle choice changes that benefit the environment.

....Hypocrisy, after all, abounds. Even Gore’s huge electric power usage at his Nashville home isn’t the only example of how the prophet of environmental doom hasn’t always lived as if he believes his message. During the eight years Gore was vice president, he voted in four national elections. Every single time, he and his entourage and security detail and accompanying media flew to Nashville on a large government jet, burning thousands of gallons of fossil fuels and pumping huge amounts of carbon emissions directly into the earth’s atmosphere, and then rode in a caravan of fossil fuel-burning vehicles from Nashville International Airport about 40 miles east on I-40 to Carthage, Tennessee, so the local and national TV cameras could get video of him at the voting booth. And then the whole caravan headed back to Nashville for the plane ride back to DC. Traffic had to be halted on Nashville’s interstates and side streets every time - sometimes during rush hour - idling thousand of vehicles that just sat there, burning fossil fuels and emitting carbon pollution, just so Gore could create a media photo-op. He could have instead voted by mailing in an absentee ballot - that would have been the “green” thing to do - and a skillful press aide could easily have turned that into a widely publicized pro-green photo-op"


smackdown found here

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
you missed the whole point that to waste the "green" energy prevents the coal plants from being shut down. But you're still cute when you start to get all educational and all. Are you in a union?

Al Gore's heating bill...

For the first time in history, I have nothing to say.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
"As the controversy over global warming doomsayer Al Gore’s voracious energy-eater mansion rolls on, there’s an angle I think merits deeper investigation than it is currently getting. While much of the focus has been on whether or not Gore is an environmental hypocrite, the story has raised the profile of the role of “carbon offsets” in achieving a “greener,” more environmentally friendly world.

In its original story, The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville reported that Gore buys “carbon offsets” to compensate for his home’s use of energy from carbon-based fuels. What is a “carbon offset,” exactly? Essentially, it’s a payment someone makes to an environmentally friendly entity to compensate for personally using non-green energy.

As Wikipedia explains, a carbon offset “is a service that tries to reduce the net carbon emissions of individuals or organizations indirectly, through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases.” Wikipedia goes on to explain that “a wide variety of offset actions are available; tree planting is the most common. Renewable energy and energy conservation offsets are also popular, including emissions trading credits.”

So far, so good. So, where does Gore buy his ‘carbon offsets’? According to The Tennessean newspaper’s report, Gore buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management. a company he co-founded and serves as chairman:
Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe…

As co-founder and chairman of the firm Gore presumably draws an income or will make money as its investments prosper. In other words, he “buys” his “carbon offsets” from himself, through a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. To be blunt, Gore doesn’t buy “carbon offsets” through Generation Investment Management - he buys stocks.
And it is not clear at all that Gore’s stock purchases - excuse me, “carbon offsets” purchases - actually help reduce the use of carbon-based energy at all, while the gas lanterns and other carbon-based energy burners at his house continue to burn carbon-based fuels and pump carbon emissions - a/k/a/ “greenhouse gases” - into the atmosphere.

As the news media swarmed around the story of Gore’s gargantuan energy consumption yesterday, Gore’s people touted his purchase of “carbon offsets” as evidence that he lives a “carbon-neutral” lifestyle, but the truth is Gore’s home uses electricity that is, for the most part, derived from the burning of carbon fuels. His house gets its electricity from Nashville Electric Service, which gets its from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which produces most of its power from coal-burning power plants. Which means most of the power being consumed at the Gore mansion comes from carbon-emitting power sources.

But do Gore’s “carbon offsets” payments really compensate for his big non-green power usage?
Wikipedia again: The intended goal of carbon offsets is to combat global warming. The appeal of becoming “carbon neutral” has contributed to the growth of voluntary offsets, which often are a more cost-effective alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption. However, the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.

Did you get that? Carbon offsets are an “alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption” and yet “the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.”

One way to misrepresent things: Tell a newspaper your stock purchases are really purchases of “carbon offsets.”

Gore travels the nation and the world blaming man’s use of carbon-based energy for global warming - burning thousands of gallons of jet fuel as he goes. His efforts are being rewarded. Politically, he’s helped put climate change at the top of the national and even global agenda. And that has driven up the perceived prospects and in many cases the stock value of companies viewed as “green” or environmentally friendly.
Companies like those his investment management firm invest his own and other peoples’ money in. (You can see a list of Generation Investment Management’s holdings here, courtesy of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.)

As one commenter posting on a few blogs covering the Gore story yesterday put it: Hmmm. The Goracle is chairman and a founding partner of Generation Investment Management LLP, a boutique international investment firm that invests other peoples’ money, for a fee, into the stocks of ‘green’ companies. … So when Al beats the drum for possible future global warming, he’s also drumming up business.

And profiting from hyping the “global warming” crisis.
In a nutshell, Gore consumes large amounts of carbon-based electricity while he trumpets the global warming crisis that drives up the value of “green” companies like the ones in which he buys carbon offsets invests in their stocks.
And “carbon offsets” are a dodgy way for someone to claim to be carbon-neutral even as they consume large amounts of carbon-based energy. The notion that selling carbon offsets actually helps the environment is taken as a given by those who sell them and by those who buy them, but at this point it is unproven.
While some bloggers and pundits have likened “carbon offsets” to the “indulgences” the pre-Reformation Catholic Church sold to the wealthy so they could continue to sin (see video at end of this post), the writer of the blog The Virginian says carbon offsets are more like the “sumptuary laws” of medieval times, laws that regulated and reinforced social hierarchies and morals through restrictions on clothing, food, and luxury expenditures.
In the Late Middle Ages sumptuary laws were instated as a way for the nobility to cap the conspicuous consumption of the up-and-coming bourgeoisie of medieval cities. … The danger is that the use of “carbon offsets” will create two things that re morally monstrous: a de-facto sumptuary law and the impoverishments of the poor and powerless of this planet. The creation of an aristocratic elite that differentiates itself from the hoi polloi by its ability to buy “carbon offsets” while the rest of the planet is forced by environmental laws into a smaller and smaller carbon straightjacket is not so far fetched.
Read the whole thing.
None of this should be construed as me not believing in global warming. I do believe the planet is getting warmer. I don’t necessarily agree that man’s activities are the primary or even significant cause of that warming - after all, the Earth warmed up significantly centuries before the Industrial Age, and there is plenty of evidence that cyclical solar activity impacts the earth’s temperatures.
But burning fossil fuels is stupid even if it doesn’t contribute a whit to global warming - petroleum can be used to make products that are much more valuable than gasoline and jet fuel, and even if carbon pollution doesn’t cause global warming, it is pollution that makes the air we breathe dirty and fouls the land and the water. And then of course there’s that whole problem of the geopolitical issues of oil and that related problem of buying oil from societies from whence come people who want to kill us.
As the story evolves, it should move away from Gore’s “Gulfstream Liberal” hypocrisy and on to more important questions such as the efficacy of “carbon offsets,” and a variety of other economy-oriented policy issues that impact the environment, such as whether market-based solutions or government-planned approaches are more likely to foster the technology innovation and lifestyle choice changes that benefit the environment.

....Hypocrisy, after all, abounds. Even Gore’s huge electric power usage at his Nashville home isn’t the only example of how the prophet of environmental doom hasn’t always lived as if he believes his message. During the eight years Gore was vice president, he voted in four national elections. Every single time, he and his entourage and security detail and accompanying media flew to Nashville on a large government jet, burning thousands of gallons of fossil fuels and pumping huge amounts of carbon emissions directly into the earth’s atmosphere, and then rode in a caravan of fossil fuel-burning vehicles from Nashville International Airport about 40 miles east on I-40 to Carthage, Tennessee, so the local and national TV cameras could get video of him at the voting booth. And then the whole caravan headed back to Nashville for the plane ride back to DC. Traffic had to be halted on Nashville’s interstates and side streets every time - sometimes during rush hour - idling thousand of vehicles that just sat there, burning fossil fuels and emitting carbon pollution, just so Gore could create a media photo-op. He could have instead voted by mailing in an absentee ballot - that would have been the “green” thing to do - and a skillful press aide could easily have turned that into a widely publicized pro-green photo-op"


smackdown found here

Wow. You're really into this.