The New Corporatism

Glennzilla has a good take-down of the Obama apologists.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/...

BTW, "Corporatism" is not the politically correct term. It is now properly called "only but a single gambit in 11 dimensional chess". See, doesn't that make you feel better about the smart people in charge?

That non-earmark earmark was zeroed out as of the most recent version of the legislation that TPM has seen. I know blogging and the dcexaminer is doing aren't on the same deadlines, but the post I'm linking to predates the publication of the examiner story and yet the facts it mentions aren't acknowledged at all by the examiner.

btw, nice one HopeyMcRibbits!

The Coal Industry and the Democrats = Strange Bedfellows, no?
According to our friends at the United States Energy Information Administration:
"Worldwide, compared to all other fossil fuels, coal is the most abundant and widely distributed across the continents. Estimates of the world's total recoverable reserves of coal in 2004 were about 998 billion short tons. The resulting ratio of coal reserves to production is approximately 164 years, meaning that at current rates of production (and no change in reserves), coal reserves could in theory last for more than one and one-half centuries."
Furthermore, the Union of Concerned Scientists states that "coal generates 54% of our electricity, and is the single biggest air polluter in the U.S."
I am not a scientist and I cannot say with any certainty how accurate these figures are. I do believe that we will be using coal for the generation of electricity for some time unless an amazing technology arrives in the near future. Looking at the incredible size of the Porkulus package, it might be worth it to throw some money at looking to make coal-generated power more efficient and less polluting, as oxymoronic as that sounds! That's not to say that FutureGen won't turn out to be so much boondoggle.

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss