Only one actor was BORN to lampoon Mitt Romney:

Will Ferrell, hold the Jewfro (or Ron Burgundy with a shave and a haircut):



He did it for Bush.

America is calling again. Will he pick up or let it go to voicemail?

Ted Nugent crapping his pants to avoid the draft shows why we need polls back on DU

We need to vote for who is the king of the chickenhawks, and while Nugent isn't running for office, his chicken credentials are probably the best ever.

PIC: Romney has picked his running mate

TOON: Supreme Court strip search ruling could lead to unintended gov't health care

Okay, that's not all the toon is about, but it's my favorite panel.

And the Scalia panel is a pinky away from the shocker, which would be entirely appropriate too.



See the original at DailyKos toons

Why power generators are terrified of solar--electricity dramatically cheaper in SOLAR Germany

This is a pretty good indication of how our energy debate in America is driven by oil, gas, and coal public relations bullshit not reality.

While our government has been licking around the edges of alternative energy and politely nodding when oil company execs tell us it's not cost competitive yet, Germany has jumped into it in a big way.

The result?

The peak price of electricity over the course of a day dropped 40%, and 25% of their gas generators may be closed.

Why are we still talking about deep water drilling and pipelines for tar sand and shale oil, which are a half step above turning coal into gasoline? Because only big money can drill oil or turn asphalt into usable fuel, so they can control the supply and therefore price. Once PV's are in place, it's a hell of a lot harder to explain price fluctuations when the ''fuel,'' the sun rays, are constant.

Obama is doing more on this than past presidents, but we need to catch up to Germany, and the sooner we do, the less of a stranglehold big oil will have on our economy and foreign policy, and the harder it will be for power companies to blackmail us for billions and even turn out the lights as they did here in California at the beginning of the Bush administration.

We need to demand that our government get out in front, not just in research and demonstration projects, but in getting these kinds of power plants online and displacing fossil fuel NOW.

Tell the White House and your corrupt Congress critters to build it fast and build it NOW.

The first graph illustrates what a typical day on the electricity market in Germany looked like in March four years ago; the second illustrates what is happening now, with 25GW of solar PV installed across the country. Essentially, it means that solar PV is not just licking the cream off the profits of the fossil fuel generators?—?as happens in Australia with a more modest rollout of PV?—?it is in fact eating their entire cake.





Deutsche Bank solar analyst Vishal Shah noted in a report last month that EPEX data was showing solar PV was cutting peak electricity prices by up to 40%, a situation that utilities in Germany and elsewhere in Europe were finding intolerable. “With Germany adopting a drastic cut, we expect major utilities in other European countries to push for similar cuts as well,” Shah noted.

Analysts elsewhere said one quarter of Germany’s gas-fired capacity may be closed, because of the impact of surging solar and wind capacity. Enel, the biggest utility in Italy, which had the most solar PV installed in 2011, highlighted its exposure to reduced peaking prices when it said that a €5/MWh fall in average wholesale prices would translate into a one-third slump in earnings from the generation division.

SOURCE

What if Trayvon Martin had been Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon or some other Wall St. sociopath?

and someone used that ''stand your ground'' self-defense law to justify shooting them?

A couple of questions:

1. How different would the police and media treatment of the shooter be?
   
   
2. Would it be more justifiable?

Schultz and Hartmann are cooperating on scheduling

This must be great news for East Coast listeners, but we don't get either in LA now.

Schultz and Hartmann are cooperating for the greater good!

That’s right, get this!

It is no secret that the progressive branch of the news/talk world has had its share of obstacles to overcome – weak-signaled outlets, poor business strategies (Air America), a slow start jumping into the modern talk era fray and a less sharply-defined target audience than conservative talk has been able to galvanize — just to name a handful.

Then there has been “The Great Ed Schultz-Thom Hartmann Scheduling Conflict” – otherwise known in the laws of physics as two objects not being able to occupy the same space at the same time. (Well, I’m not really sure if that actually is a law of physics – especially with String Theory and all that far out stuff that Michio Kaku talks about on the Science Channel – but you get my drift.)

For years, station programmers wanting to cobble together a decent progressive talk radio line-up and create a time-spent-listening feeding frenzy have had to deal with the inconvenient fact that the genre’s two biggest players both broadcast their midday programs live at the same friggin’ time! They are both in the studio between 12:00 noon and 3:00 pm ET. How frustrating that must be for the good folks at Dial Global who represent both of these acts (and have for years been earnest supporters of the progressive talk radio movement).


http://www.talkers.com/2012/02/23/straight-from-the-lip-2/#more-6854

Google: rush limbaugh sex tourism dominican republic

If he's still on the air that is. I'm surprised the slut comment is what did him in, but this earlier controversy largely slipped under the radar.

Since he went to the Dominican Republic with a bunch of guys, the only question is who he needed the viagra to party with: male or female prostitutes or one of his golf buddies?

Letter to former Goldman Sachs exec Greg Smith: keep writing until you put them out of business

I sent this as a letter to to the editor at the New York Times:

Council on Foreign Relations: Questions We Dare Not Ask About Iran

The most surprising thing about this is that it comes from an establishment source like the CFR. They are usually purveyors of inside the Beltway talking points that rarely rise above the level of a Steven Segal movie.