NC Media Watch

Prop 23 Update: Green Job Explosion a Pipe Dream

Russ Steele

During the Prop 23 debate our local left told us that an explosion of green job were going to bring California out of the recession and voting for Prop 23 was going to destroy that dream of green wealth. Now reality has set in and the pipe dream has exploded, and even the über-liberal New York Times has taken notice.

In the Bay Area as in much of the country, the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned. President Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs statewide by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream.

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A study released in July by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide and only slightly more — 2.2 percent — in Silicon Valley. Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent.

Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show. Two years after it was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes, California has spent only a little over half that sum and has so far created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter, according to the State Department of Community Services and Development.

The weatherization program was initially delayed for seven months while the federal Department of Labor determined prevailing wage standards for the industry. Even after that issue was resolved, the program never really caught on as homeowners balked at the upfront costs.

Oh my, now what?  We told our local lefties, who were supporting the full implimentation of AB-32, that going green would be a job killer.  It did in Spain, which was often cited as a model for California to follow by our former RINO Governor. As the study demonstrated,  "Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent."

Exit Question:  How are we going to recover from this lefty driven green pipe dream?

Obama, "The One" playing Marie Antoinette

Russ Steele

"The president will spend the next 10 days holed up at a tony, 28-acre elite playground called the Blue Heron Farm as the country plummets toward a double-dip recession," according to an article in the New York Post.

Not the common touch: With its million-dollar buses, the Obama “jobs” tour of the Midwest failed to strike the intended populist note.

Does nobody in the White House realize how poorly this act is playing?

Hitting three Midwest communities in two sleek, specially outfitted, Canadian-made million-dollar campaign buses, the president came off like a visiting Marie Antoinette, out among the besieged peasantry for a few days to preach his newfound religion of jobs.

The Black Caucus wants to know how come that bus never made it to a black community?  They have a higher unemployment rate than the communities than the ones "The One" visted with his bus tour. This whole tour is coming off as one big bust!   No one is happy. Only 11% are happy with the way things are going. This becoming a let them "eat cake" situation for "The One."

Tea Party Patriots -- Not a political party, but a state of mind

Russ Steele

Our local left is "going postal" as the local Tea Party gains recognition in the community. The TPP was the largest group in the 4th of July Parade.  The Tea Party Patriots are holding monthly events, including dinners, luncheons, free movies on critical issues, holding idea exchange forums, hosted a County Fair Booth, and are developing a strong presence on Facebook. They are every where, including attending BOS meetings and meeting one-on-one with Supervisors, City Council members and our local newspaper Publisher.

For some reason, the left is upset by this expanding visibility of the Tea Party Patriots in our community.  They keep posting about polling information reported to show declining interest in the Tea Party and what they stand for:

• Fiscal Responsibility

• Limited Government

• Free Markets

• Respect for our Constitution and Bill of Rights

• A government that respects and answers to the people.

I am not buying those polls. These cored values are a state of mind that is shared by many people in our community. Look at the high fives, raised arm and smiles when the Tea Party marched by hundreds of spectators during the 4th of July Parade.  While these observers were not parading down the street, they indicated they share the same state of mind as those Tea Party Patriot who were marching. 

Many local and regional citizens stopped by the Tea party Fair Booth to let those in the booth know that they also share the Tea Party’s core values of fiscal responsibility, limited government, free markets and respect for our Constitution. Many are joining the growing ranks of the local TPP Chapter.

I am having trouble understanding how our local left can be against these core values. The seem to want larger, fiscally irresponsible, socialist government, that trashes the Constitution. And, are willing to trash anyone that supports these Tea Party core values, as demonstrated by our local lefty bloggers.

Exit Question: Do you support the Tea Party Patriot core values?  If not, why not?

Prop 23 Update: Shutting down the Green Energy Sector

Russ Steele

The UK Climate Policy Newwork points to an interesting story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, by Don  Hopey: Corbett quietly turning off the lights on renewable energy.

Quietly but systematically, the Pennsylvanian administration has all but shut down the state Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Energy and Technology Deployment -- the state's primary energy office -- and removed directors and reassigned staff in the Office of Energy Management in the Department of General Services and the Governor's Green Government Council. It has also forbidden state executive agencies from signing contracts that support clean energy supply. One former DEP employee said of the Energy Office, "it's being taken apart piece-by-piece and the pieces are being thrown away.

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Pennsylvania is not the only state reassessing or reducing green policies. Governors and legislators have voiced similar concerns in Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, according to the Pew Research Center

While other states are folding up the green energy tent while California is prompting a dangerous dependency on renewable energy. This dependency will drive up energy costs for business  and citizens. As California energy prices climb higher and higher, those states with lower costs will begin to attract California business and those with high paying portable jobs. 

I find it interesting that Pennsylvania is benefiting from extensive shale gas drilling, which is producing cheap easily transportable fuel for power plants and the heating of homes and factories. This is exactly what the EPA and the environmentalist wackos were concerned about. They are trying to shut down shale gas drilling by banning "fracking" which an essential tool for securing this cheap energy.  The sooner we put EPA in a political coma the better off we will all be.

Interesting question: Whose Idea was Martha’s Vineyard

Russ Steele

Victor Davis Hanson asks the question in NRO at The Corner.

Whoever in the White House decided on another first family vacation at Martha’s Vineyard must be unhinged, coming as it does (a) after previous jaunts to places like Vail and Costa del Sol, and serial golf outings; (b) in the midst of tough economic times and bipartisan acknowledgment that national cutbacks for the vast majority of Americans are in order; (c) on the heels of three years of class warfare and anti-wealth demagoguery of the “fat-cat,” “unneeded income,” “spread the wealth” sort; and (d) during a presidential approval slide that seems to be based, at least in part, on the fact that the president’s usual rhetoric has nothing to do with reality, that he suggests one thing while doing quite another.

If the president thought that a campaign bus tour would rescue his numbers, he was mistaken — it seems to have had the opposite effect, perhaps because it seemed staged, almost like what a wealthy person would do if he wanted to act “real” for a bit.

But if President Obama has already purchased the new bus, why not use it Winnebago-style to see America with his family for a week, visiting a national park, a closed-down plant — or a real vineyard?

I think that Michelle knows that it is all over in 2012 and she is cramming in as many high end government paid vacations as she can. It appears that O is “submissive” to Michelle’s serial vacation demands, as she knows the end of the good life is near.  2012 is just around The Corner!

Jerry Brown takes owenship of Arnold's high speed black hole

Russ Steele

The Sac Bee Capitol Alert has the story here:

Gov. Jerry Brown said this afternoon that California's embattled high-speed rail project should move forward, despite growing criticism about the project's management and cost.

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Brown said he is "really getting into" the project and that "we're working directly with the authority to get their act together."

High Speed Rail will become the biggest black hole that California has ever created and we the tax payers will be be responsible for filling an bottomless pit.  High Speed Rail has just never pencils out, while the Fed will help to fund, the maintenance and operation will be the responsibility to CA taxpayers, and the fare box will never support the operation, just like we have to subsidize our local Gold County Stage by 85%.  Perpare your wallets!

PG&E and SmartAC - - Reading the fine print

Russ Steele

The good folks at PG&E have sent us yet again another offer to join their SmartAC program, so I can help the citizens of California keep over 84,000 homes powered up in the event of an a supply emergency.  They are offering a $50.00 reward if we let them control my AC power.  According to PG&E over 145,000 customers have already accepted their bribe.

Here are some the benefits of the SmartAC program:

• PG&E will install the control device -  No indications what the charges will be.

• The device will control the power to the compressor - just hold open the relay for a while, what could possibly go wrong?

• We get to control the thermostat, but they control the compressor- house will never warm more than 4 degrees, well maybe it all depends says the small print.   

• Control event will not last more than six hours - really,  who determines which six hours if we are having a Texas hot spell lasting 30 days above 80 degrees at night?

• I can decline to participate on a day to day basis with out penalty says the letter - unless there is a real extreme emergency says the small print.

Bottom line, read the small print in this offer, as there very few advantages for the home owner and a desperate need for PG&E to control the load when they are totally dependent on 33% renewable power. They have no control over when the wind blows and clouds roll over the solar farms, or the out of state distribution grid crashes. They are desperate to control the load, to control your AC.

 My solution, return the empy form. I can do with out the $50.00, and welcome the peace of mind that I am in control of our AC. 

 

 

Over the e-mail transom: Dr. Seuss 2011

This was posted on facebook. Absolutely fantastic!

Dr Seuss 2011

I do not like this Uncle Sam, I do not like his health care scam.

I do not like these dirty crooks, or how they lie and cook the books.

I do not like when Congress steals, I do not like their secret deals.

I do not like ex-speaker Nan, I do not like this 'YES WE CAN'..

I do not like this spending spree, I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.

I do not like their smug replies, when I complain about their lies.

I do not like this kind of hope. I do not like it. NOPE! NOPE! NOPE!

Oh my, Obama had better have a really great jobs plan

Russ Steele



I am hearing rumors that “The One’s” jobs plan is just more stimulus spending. His basic political philosophy will not allow him to do what really needs to be done, lower taxes, reduce small business regulations, put the EPA in a coma, turn on California water, and start drilling for oil in the US.  We can drill and grow our way out of the econmic hole we have dug for ourselves, but first we have to put the EPA in a political coma.

Over e-mail transon: Want to kill jobs, hire government regulators

 Russ  Steele

A regular reader sent me a link to this chart in the Investor Business Daily.



I thinks that it is self explanatory.  The more government regulators that are hired, the more friction created for businesses large and small. These business are the real job creators, and they are being constrained by more regulators at all levels of the federal state government.