How does one condense a billion words down to a few? I wondered if the challenge was worthy of my talents. So here is my effort:

The cost of fossil fuels will rise. Every day as we use them to go about living the lifestyles we live now……..we use them up. On the other hand, energy coming from wind keeps the costs of our daily lives down to a bearable level, because wind itself, will never climb in price….

One should never forget that fossil fuels provide a cost greater than dollars… Every day, the energy we use, coming from coal, gas, or oil….takes carbon that has been in deep storage for at least 350 million years, and releases it back into the atmosphere. If we have nothing working to remove excess carbon from the air and putting it back into the ground……with each ton we burn, we increase the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Since Venus has much more carbon dioxide than we do, and is considerably hotter, even a non-scientist can assume that as we increase our air supply of carbon, our climate will get warmer as well. Wind, as it is used, will replace energy that currently pumps buried carbon into our air…

Breathing hydrocarbon residue, kills people. We know this from miners working underground in coal fields. Burning coal, releasing tons of contaminants miles from where they are ignited, kills us as well. On the other hand, Wind does nothing to kill us.

Hydrocarbons do not help other life as well. Whether from oil spills, strip mines, or polluted waterways, members of the plant and animal kingdom die daily from our need for carbon as a fuel. Windpower offshore, benefits both plant and animals, by providing artificial reefs upon the desert of ocean floor bottom, creating a mecca around which life can cluster….

Delaware is currently hostage to other states for its power….If we get power, we get only what other states can afford to give up..It stands that we will pay more for that privilege. On the other hand, if we had a low cost source supplying a larger percentage of our power needs, that was much cheaper than what we paid from outstate, our prices would drop to the floor.

The American economy is dying…We will have to cut our wages drastically to compete with the industrialized Chinese and Indian subcontinent. Wages will need to drop considerably to remain competitive…. But, if we instead choose to remain a player by creating products that can only be made here, using our ingenuity instead of our cheap manpower, we have a continuous source of income. Delaware unlike 48 other states has the chance to become the hub for offshore wind. To us, all sources may come as they too, wish to involve themselves with our new found expertise…..

This can only happen if we act to become the hub before our sister state of New Jersey. We are losing jobs. it would be nice to gain some in return….

Best of all, wind will provide stability. no more wondering if one can afford to pay one’s electric bill. You will know what it will be this year, the next and on until twenty five years have passed. No other source can provide such guarantees.

One would expect to pay a surcharge for that privilege….But surprisingly, buying into wind, is cheaper than what we are paying now for our coal, gas, and oil produced electricity.

Our best bet, is to build the Bluewater Wind offshore facility, suppliment that steady source with land based windpower, and continue our efforts to conserve and use less power in every home and business.

Only this three prong approach, will give us the ground we need to insure we are not sold short by our corporate supplier of energy.

Ironically one of the lasting legacies of this wind battle will have little to do with wind….The political tug of war between Delmarva and the citizens of the diamond state, has more than anything else, shown to all of us that the antique rules of our General Assembly, continue to keep our state from achieving its full potential. Secret meetings, secret deals, bills sneaked through in the wee hours of night, all doom this state to being a second rate power…..All seek to regulate the power given to citizens of this nation, away from the stage of Act 1, to the back rows of the peanut gallery on the balcony of the second floor…..

The wind controversy has shown us that we need fresh air in our legislature. More than ever, we need open government in our General Assembly. Then perhaps, all our state business would have the support of 90% of Delaware’s citizens, as does wind…………..

I heard this several days ago and it took me awhile to follow up.

Here is the evidence supporting it.

Any Republican, for example Mike Castle, who doesn’t stand up and repudiate the Bush/Cheney administration’s lying to the American public,… is equally complicit and should be tried as a co-conspirator, shortly after the regime is changed and the trials ensue……

There is a rap song going around the youth today and its source is nebulous. If someone steers me in the right direction, I will be glad to give them credit.

It goes like this:

‘I heard it from your mama…..
You might vote for Obama……
They’ll lock you in the sauna……
For smokin’ marijuana………”

Tommywonk writes along the same lines tonight…..

This idea came to me and I was told today to send it to the Obama campaign in an effort to get us to better America when the time comes…

It’s not just Obama who is having difficulty with this crowd. Bill Clinton himself, who Hillary holds up in West Virginia as the new wave of the future, was booed by a similar crowd at Darlington Race Track very early in his tenure…..

Here is how I would advise it’s being handled by the next Democratic nominee……

I’ll use West Virginia as the example, even thought it’s time has past….And my underlying premise for taking this tack is that real leaders don’t follow polls, they take actions and the polls follow the results of those actions…..

(Also because I know West Virginia heavily influenced Robert Kennedy forever after he campaigned through it in 1960. His fight against poverty was distilled from his West Virginian experience.)

Here is what needs to happen. The Obama camp randomly picks a hollow preferably in “hostile” territory and the county blocks all subsequent access up the entrance road. Only the candidate and security detachment are allowed to continue. With no press, no camera’s except those owned by the citizens, he has an open town meeting…..There is no grandstanding. He listens, he answers questions, he asks questions……real questions that need to be heard……’What do you need a president to do for you? What do you need the most, and how fast do you need it….”

Acknowledge to them that they are suspicious of him….Admit he can’t really blame them…..Have a long meeting, tour their houses, ask them how on earth they get by…..get to know them as real people…..It shouldn’t be hard. There are a large number of similarities between those living in poverty on Chicago South Side projects, and those living in poverty off a strip mined hillside…It’s amazing how similar people actually can be when they lack those items they need to survive……

Then say goodbye, shake hands, give your hugs, and split…..Open the gates and let the press flow upstream to get their interviews, and buy permission to print the local’s photographs….

What Obama says by doing this, is this: “I know you are often put down by others outside your area. But know this…..I respect you……You are better people than I…….I would be proud to help you get through these next four years…”

These people are joked about on national television. They’ve never gotten any respect. Until now….

The bottom line is this. As of right now, Obama has a problem among the working class. He needs to fix it…He doesn’t need to win any more delegates, they will come, but what he does need to do, is fix this misperception. Doing so in a state where he is expected to lose, would go a long way to overturn the media’s perception of how he is perceived.

Yesterday Harris McDowell, a Democrat tried to ram a piece of legislation through his committee which would give his committee, the SEU, 65% of all money coming from the sale of REC’s (Renewable Energy Credits). Just imagine…… hundreds of millions of dollars.

Currently McDowell is chairman of that committee. Currently that committee is functioning beyond its scheduled cut off time which was last January, 2008.

That means that 65% of that $100,000.000 dollars will go to a organization not sanctioned, nor legal, and is currently chaired by the same person ramming the piece of legislation though his Senate Energy and Transit Committee.

Members of the audience offered protest, and the bill was tabled. It will show up again if no one is watching……..

Can you imagine?

Sixty-five million dollars would have flowed right into Harris McDowell’s pocket, if citizens, just plain citizens, had not just happened to be watching the proceedings….and objected….

Ponder that.

Part II

This was posted on DelawareLiberal.Net on May 9th. It is lifted from an email sent to DelawareLiberal.Net. by Charlie Copeland……a Republican.

I was unaware of the expiration of the SEU oversight board.

And this was placed before the Senate Committee of Energy and Transit, yesterday, May 14th.

What’s important here are the deeds and the dates. Words don’t mean much to this candidate for Lieutenant Governor.

Ponder that.

You would have made him proud.

Like Ferris Bueller my day wasn’t spent doing nothing.

I was given this story……

It was in the ’60’s, in a small West Virginian town. An existing dam across the New River had been built for flood control with leftover WPA funds, forcing the creation of a large lake behind it. Part of the dam had been built for future power generation, but that part had not been finalized.

Appalachian Power wanted to put hydroelectric turbines in that dam.

The community below that dam, was trying to build tourism as its source of income. Responsible for that town’s revival were a group of WWII veterans and young men, known as the Hinton Jaycees.

A hearing was to be held before the state regulatory board, and a decision was to be handed down. With no opposition, the power company thought it would turn into a slam dunk. The Jaycees thought differently and the small town editor covered the meeting which discussed the upcoming regulatory board meeting. He mentioned they would attend the meeting.

The next day, the bank informed all participants that if anyone showed up for the meeting, the bank would call their loans…..The only one who they had no hold over was a back-woods preacher; no problem, they needed some opposition to give the hearing some legitimacy, What harm could some religious kook do?

The hearing progressed and the “focal point” of the regulators quickly became exactly what the power company meant by “run of river.”

The power company said that was hardly anything at all. It meant that if they didn’t need power, they filled the lake. if power was needed they released it. No big deal. Water level rise and fall all the time; every time it rained. Silly to let good jobs go over concern over something that occurs naturally. And they would not stop with this one dam. They wanted to build a series of dams down the river, all the way to Charleston. Doing so gave them the potential to supply much of the energy required of the growing Mid Atlantic area….. and there would be no pollution to boot……

The backwoods preacher was called to testify. Thinking it was over the power exec’s and their lawyers made a presentation of leaving the room. After the commotion was over, the preacher began to speak.

With him he said, were the past night’s data showing the release of Appalachian Power’s Radnor Virginia dam upriver. The data showed the rise of six to eight feet in as little as twenty minutes. Flood stage was set at fourteen feet. It did not take great imagination to realize that there could be no fishing below any dam releasing sporadic flows of such volume. For one, the fish would not survive such turbulence, and two, any fisherman, getting their foot caught in a crevasse (a rather common occurrence) while racing to beat the rising water, would also not survive. Secondly he brought a topographical map showing that the water level of one of the proposed dams, would cover a planned state lodge with forty feet of water. The board was amazed because the proposed dam was so far away from the site of the planned state park, but it was such a shallow rise, that indeed, the planned hotel would be under water……

The regulatory board looked at the release data provided (which incidentally the power company said they had no way of providing), and the topographical maps, and voted to kill the power project right then and there….

Had that project gone forward, and it was considered by all to be a slam dunk, (just as the Connectiv gas turbine here in Delaware was also once considered to be a slam dunk…) the New River Gorge National River, would never have come about. Instead we would see a series of lakes, stair stepping down the New River Gorge, all with “run of the river.”.

There is a lesson to be learned from this little tale……of a battle that took place against a power company “far, far away……”

You fight powerful power companies with facts.

They can’t run from facts.

This would have been under water had the deal gone through.

This landmark, Sandstone Falls, would have been buried underneath one of the dam’s lakes.

This Grandview, would have appeared differently.

Below this dam in question, is the spot rated best fishing East of the Mississippi by many fishing magazines, primarily because of its constant stream flow, because there is no “run of river” at this location.

Representative Hocker said something quite astounding as reported by Tommywonk.

“This is the most anti- business legislation I have ever seen.”

The legislation in question was to tax at 100%, all profit claimed by any corporation registered in Delaware, that had in fact been solely incorporated for the creation of profit. This legislation in effect, would essentially require every business or corporation registered in Delaware, to operate as a non profit organization. Passage of this bill would 1) allow the state to reap enough income to fulfill its commitments, or 2) in order to keep from giving our government any excess money, prices would be dropped by the corporations themselves, giving consumers an incentive to spend wildly……

S c r a t c h……….

No,….. it…. wasn’t …….But that is an example of what most of us would assume was about to play, if we heard the statement coming from a committee chairperson that this was the”most anti business piece of legislation they had ever seen”. Instead, that piece of hyperbole was vented against HCR 50, a bill to keep Delawareans from paying Delmarva’s expenses for its efforts to stifle new competition attempting to move in on its territory and lower our prices……..

And that:…Ladies and Gentlemen of Delaware, was the most anti-business piece of legislation Representative Hocker has ever seen……

MR. HOCKER: ARE YOU REALLY THAT OUT OF TOUCH?

Never mind answering that, you’re a legislator: but today, Mother’s Day, is your lucky today….Why? For I just happen to hear of your plight, and with all of Delaware as my witness, would be most happy to educate and enlighten you.

First of all, let us review the function of government. I see by the length of your service in our General Assembly that perhaps you may have forgotten just what its primary purpose is. That is quite understandable. Everyone in your capacity seems to forget, and you should not feel the slightest embarrassment..

Step 1: In order to protect the liberties of the weak against oppression from the will of the strong, people gather together to form a government.

Step 2: In order to finance its existence, government is directed to regulate the creation and activities of corporations that do business within its borders.
(courtesy of DrD)

According to the most basic outlying principals the following assumptions are most likely true.

Corporations answer to and provide revenue for the government.

People answer to the golden rule, and are responsible for the well being of their local communities.
(courtesy of DrD)

Of course, since you have been a legislator for some time, you may have forgotten that our Constitution begins with “We, the People” and not “We, the Corporation”. From the beginning of our country’s founding, the assumption has been made that people unite to from a government, and that government has authority over corporations and its owners.

So as Pat Gearity is fond of mentioning, and you no doubt are fond of forgetting, Delmarva Power is a regulated utility. In other words the people through representatives of their government, control the actions of that corporation, simply because there is no one else its consumers can turn to for the same services should that company become abusive…..Therefore if the people of this state do not want to pay for Delmarva’s cost of advertising, under the Constitution, they have every right to act through their government, and not do so…….

Under Representative Hocker’s assertion, the citizens of Delaware SHOULD be happy to pay for ALL of Delmarva’s costs required for driving away competition, and keeping our costs astronomical.

Currently Delaware is in the top three states paying the most for imported electricity coming in from another state. Putting in an offshore wind farm that is already costed out as less than what we currently pay today, and will be the same low price, or possibly even lower twenty five years from now, means that we import less of that expensive out-of-state electricity than we do today……

Mr. Hocker: We know you meant well. We know you are probably not used to having what you say inside legislative hall, spread by media unknown to you, outside the Legislator’s walls, but to keep our state from looking stupid on the national stage…..could you bite your tongue a little?

“The most anti-business piece of legislation you have ever seen.”

Indeed.

Should a government ever force a deal between two companies?

There is no real answer to that question. For in fact there are two answers. No, we shouldn’t…..or…. yes we should.

Your answer will depend on which group you think should have the right to trump the other suit, (if you ever played bridge…) Must we give our corporations the upper hand……or must we resolve to keep that right, belonging to the people.

Allow me to rephrase that question. Should corporations be allowed to do whatever they want, even if people get hurt in the process? Or…….should the opposite occur: that the citizenry get their way, even if corporations must suffer some in the process?

From whichever camp you find yourself belonging, that you see things from their perspective, will determine your answer to that question….

If people have the upper hand, then moving forward with an agreement that both sides have agreed to, would be best for each of those persons involved.

If corporations have the upper hand, then people become secondary.

Now from my odd perspective of history, it seems rather apparent that whenever this great country has stumbled on these crossroads, and gives the upper hand to corporations, and allows them or wallow with less restrictions, this country suffers greatly as a result. But when people have the upper hand, then, the best of America comes out.

That is why I’m puzzled to statements that the signing of a simple contract between Bluewater Wind with Delmarva Power, is a slap in the face of business……Perhaps if one frames the argument so it just includes stockholders, I can see where, in that very narrow case, those detractors could have some truth on their side. But they fail to account for the tremendous amounts of hurt that will be experienced by every libertarian minded individual in this state, who still has to breath, fight cancer, and pay his power bill. Within a wider frame that includes all people…yes, all people,….the contract’s signing would do us all good…….

Most popular: (blush)

Second:

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