Amy Roe, Amy Cherry, And Women Everywhere

The controversy has been debunked.  As Christopher Bullock plainly stated on WDEL to Allan Loudell, he was funneled the emails in order to make a statement harmful, he hoped, to the opponents of the Data Center…

For the most part it backfired.

After that was admitted, that the documents had been selectively chosen, edited, and highlighted to show only a small section of  text, completely ignoring the bulk of the letter, and after Meg Williamson had said the” Union Thugs” at Newark High School on that cold, heavy rainy March evening, were trying to intimidate all those townspeople’s entering to make their voices known….  the controversy showed itself for what it is….

A complete sham and fraud……

Because one must ask….

If one supposedly has the good of the community on one’s side…. why does one dally in evil?   One simply doesn’t.  The data center is a sham, a ghoul, a shade,  a hallucination, a mythical fabrication….  All that its supporters have said up to this point, have been false.

Let’s review?

It is being run by a viable, longterm, prosperous company headquartered in West Chester….  Yeah, out of the smallest and cheapest mail box one can rent from Mailbox Etc……. (Oh, my, gosh…. one can’t make this stuff up!)

There is no noise…. False, it is the equivalent to two drunks talking right outside your bedroom window at 3:33 am.

It will create jobs…. yes, after initial building is over, about 10 new local jobs,…. less than a brand new Wawa.

It will not pollute more than Chrysler.  False… it pollutes considerably more than Chrysler.

It does not produce Carbon Dioxide.  False.. It will add considerably to global warming over what is there now….

It does not burn fracked natural gas.  False… All it’s gas will come from fracking.

There are no investors who will get rich… This is only for the good of  Newark… False.  The investors this month chose to piss away$7 million, than have to reveal who they truly are to the public eye.

There is no pollution from a gas turbine…  False,  … According to their spokesperson (Ed Grant) on WDEL, this will be the largest gas fired burner in the state…. It will pollute worse than that tall burner in Delaware City, the one you can smell as far away as Bear and the City of New Castle, acknowledges TDC spokesperson, Ed Grant.

People live next to gas burners all the time.   Yes, little teeny tiny baby burners….  Like those next to IKEA’s… But no one in America has ever lived this close to a giant 248 MW burner, and lived to tell about it.

There are no carcinogens, ever, that come out of natural gas… False.  Their own submission to DNREC states the exact opposite….

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Get the picture?  Like a used car salesman trying to sell you a car pulled out of the Hudson River, every claim imaginable is being made with no regard to substantiation or whether or not it is true….

There has not been one truth told by supporters of the data center……

Oh yeah?  Find it.

So it has become all about those damned elitist, racist white bi*ches, now….   What a pathetic bunch of puss*es….

Hey, Chris Bullock... You’re a pastor…. Tell us the truth…. Is this how you want to really be remembered…. after you leave this earth?  A bully?  The opposite of Jesus?

Hey Sam Latham…. You’re also a pastor…. God’s country, Sussex County. You too… Tell the truth….. Is that how you really want to be remembered?   Having to beat up on some woman, who came damn close to being Newark’s mayor?

Your side has lost this cause… If  either of you were truly serious about getting jobs into New Castle County, instead of covering for the Greenville elite….  You’d be hustling for another business to come in, one that won’t kill women and children, pets and grown working union men in the process…….  and we’d all be right there with you.

 

 

 

 

 

New Study Undercuts Primary Principle Out From Underneath Common Core

The principle statement supporting the implementation of Common Core, has always been that we need a better educated workforce to do tomorrow’s jobs….

Governor Markell said it in his state of the state address on the day the DOW fell 176 points….

This has been a reoccuring theme of his;  “the education of today will not bring us the jobs of tomorrow..”

Although that sounds good in soundbyte form, it is not grounded too well in reality.  In reality, the wages of jobs have declined as the demand for work rose to become greater than the supply.  In other words, unemployment is too high… and that suppresses the cost of labor.

When one’s boss can hire one cheaper to do the same job, that is not the best time to ask your boss for a raise…..

Today, our minimum wage is being paid to college graduates and high school graduates.  It used to be paid to those who were either still students, or never did  graduate….

Image Courtesy of Economic Policy Institute

Today! Across the minimum workforce almost 5 out of every 10 have a college experience; and almost 8 out of 10 graduated high school or have a GED.

We are already educating our lowest level of workers far above what the job market requires… There are no jobs to be given to those who will soon emerge college or career ready (SAT score over 1550), unless they first fill in the minimum wage jobs these poor blokes working now, give up when they get bumped up into real jobs….

If you bump your newly trained graduates directly into those high paying jobs, then you will be freezing the current generation into these minimum wage level jobs at which they are currently stuck…

One cannot bootstrap a educational process into producing high quality job applicants, when there are no high quality jobs taking applications…

We already have a high quality educated work force; we call it our minimum wage crowd….

So Governor. What are you going to do?
As I see it here are your options….

You have to create an industry here in Delaware.  Here is one: wind power infrastructure and solar power grid efficiency. You just make it up and go after it, hoping it doesn’t implode like Fisker and Bloom…  The difference is that with Fisker and Bloom, you said “here is some money, do something”; you left it up to them.  With this, you get Federal funding and we go government control all the way involving public-private partnerships.  We have the land, we have the technical expertise, we have a scientifically educated work force; all we need are capital and someone to direct it.

Secondly, the government needs to create high labor-intensive industries.  Areas where humans will not be replaced by robotics. Health care comes to mind. Personal care of senior citizen in their homes, is another. Food inspection is a third. Why can’t we have a public-private enterprise here in Delaware which performs the FDA food inspections for the entire East Coast? Environmental inspection industries is a fourth avenue of opportunity; testing and verification, done by the state to insure compliance of air, water, and soil standards…

As one can tell, these require more taxes.  Those who have benefited from the bounce-back of the financial markets, should be the ones to carry the rest of us forward. That would be the 1%. There are two ways to fund our future growth… A) We can borrow and spread the cost over time by increasing our debt and pay it back later, or B) we can pay as we go by assessing more from those in real time, who can afford it without denting their lifestyle….  Being a fiscal conservative, I fall into taxing now, paying now, and keeping our debt levels low.(B)..  It makes too much sense to do it any other way….since we currently have an abundance of cash in the hands of the 1% from which to draw.

The point being made through all these wishful plans, is that employment in the private sector is now full.  It will not grow more jobs on its own. It is now required of government to prime the pump; we need it more than ever.  Most of those currently unemployed will need government jobs to get back to work.  There is much to be done to our infrastructure;  we have cut government for so long, that many things are close to being broken….

We have an educated work force ready and able.  It is our college and high school educated minimum wage earners.... We need to first give them the opportunity to move up into jobs for which they are qualified to do,.. in order to make them better citizens. Playing with education again and again to make more minimum wage workers who are overqualified, is not going to do anyone any good at all…  it is just circling money around where it is not needed.

State Of Delaware Gets Front Paged On Kos

If Christie laughed at every time he was lampooned, he’d lose weight.

For Tommywonk…… Post 2850

People arbitrarily have their milestones.  Some may be grateful when they cross a hundred, a thousand, a million.  But for me, I have chosen one of Delaware’s great bloggers who retired at post 1850 as my personal marker of achievement…

Tommywonk used dry humor, and a crisp mind to make his points.  We were involved in facing down the four horsemen of the Delaware Legislature running through 2007-2008 leading to the first offshore wind agreement made in the United States.  Unfortunately the Republican Depression wiped out a multitude of global hedge funds, and the backers of ours, were included.  Currently the rights to Blue Water Wind are owned by one of the biggest opponents of it when we first pushed it forward.  Dave Burris and Jason Scott, complimented OUR team of four horsemen….

Anyways, most readers will have no idea of what I’m talking about and that is how it should be.  Time marches on, and those who look too much backwards upon the past, run right into a tree.

But I was always far behind him in posts since he started out.  I marked my catching up to him here….

Today’s blogging is rather boring compared to what used to take place on these pages. It is as if everyone tries to spout off what they know, and of course, that makes for rather dull personalities. Today we are dry. We used to be wet. We did silly things back then. We laughed a lot. When one of us hit a vein, we all jumped in to open it wide. The News Journal lost editorial control over its state.

Oh Well, I see it took me 553 days to better him up 1000… Seems so much shorter, like it just happened yesterday… lol.

As Rebecca Young used to say…. “Onward.”

Difficult Times For Delaware 2014

Pushing the data of the Moody’s Analytics regarding Delaware being the only bad risk in the country, some other illuminating factors emerge.  The revenue data taken from our tax receipts over the past two years, portends to ever decreasing departmental budgets state wide in 2013 and 2014.

This problem will be compounded further, by this fourth quarter competing with the largess of last fourth quarter.  If you remember, incomes were very high in December 2012, as a lot of capital gains were cashed in to beat the tax increase beginning in 2013.  There was a huge flood of tax revenue that pushed up estimates, both in personal and corporate income taxes.  The December revenue was 23.3% higher than December 2011.

That largess won’t be coming in this year and we will have to deal with the difference.

Second, due to impingements to our economy, our tax revenue will be under last year.

Delaware employment is growing slowly.  Yet there are only 18 states with a total unemployment (U6) higher.  As a result, personal income tax revenue is down.  This was compounded by a tax decrease recently given to the top 1% of earners. Passage of this tax rate decrease, means those who were the only people actually gaining income, will now, not be paying any of their increases into the treasury, as is being required of everyone else.

Across the nation, total state tax revenues first quarter 2013 rose 6.8%.  Across the nation state income taxes grew 18.4%, state corporate taxes grew 9.4%, and state sales taxes grew 5.5%  ….  Delaware does not have a sales tax.

Only 6 states had declines in personal income tax that same quarter.  Delaware led the pack as having the largest decline at 15.8%. States less shy about raising taxes, California and New York had the highest gains.  $6.3 billion and $1 billion respectively.  Incidentally as correctly predicted by the kavips economic model, both economies are thriving.

Based on withholding data, Delaware’s amount withheld dropped from a 9.3% increase in last quarter 2012, to a 2.0 increase in first quarter 2013, both over the previous year.  At the outset, the potential exists for a loss of that 7.3% difference in fourth quarter 2013.

The wealthy pay in the form of estimated payments.  They don’t use withholding.  The average estimated payment’s percentage increase over 2012, was 12.2%.  However the 4th quarter payment was a jump of 23.3% over the fourth quarter of the previous year.  Meaning the average of the previous 3 quarters was a negative or -3.7% from the year 2011.  Only that windfall of the fourth quarter, driven primarily by federal tax changes, gave Delaware its positive increase in estimated payments for 2012. Bottom line.  We were lucky. First quarter 2013, they are up 7.9% in comparison.

Corporate tax.  Overall across the nation, corporate tax increased by 9,4% this first quarter of 2013 over the same quarter last year. 30 out of the 46 states that have corporate income taxes showed increases. 16 of them were double digit increases.  Virginia suffered the largest decline: $87 million.  New York showed the biggest gain:  $239 million.

Tax Revenue is directly related to economic growth.  Growing economies increase personal income taxes and sales taxes as income gets spent. Delaware’s economy is estimated by the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia for the three months prior to June 2013, to lie between the growth rates of 0.1% and 0.5%.

Take the first quarter of 2013.  It is a harbinger of things to come….  In Delaware, the amounts collected Jan-March.

• Personal income tax:  2012 = $411 million   2013 = $346 million …. drop of $65 million or -15.8%
• Corporate income tax: 2012 = $65 million    2013 = $73 million …. increase of $8 million or 12.3%
• Total with other (fees) included:  2012 = $956 million  2013= $883 million…. drop of $73 million or -7.6%….

Our current state budget is running $73 million in the red based on actual versus revenue projections.  And this does not even include the fourth quarter drop off. Delaware was one of only 5 states capturing less personal income taxes in 2013’s first quarter than in 2012. Rhode Island, Indiana, Utah, West Virginia were its team mates. Delaware lost $65 million (-15.8%); West Virginia was second losing a comparative paltry $21 million. or -5.4%.  The others:  Rhode Island -$13 million (-6.4%); Indiana -$5 million (0.5%); Utah -3 million (0.6%)

It was estimated that over the year Delaware’s tax decrease would cost the state $70-80 million.  if averaged per quarter, that would be $17 to $20 million lost to the state every 65 working days.

One would conclude that a big part of Delaware’s state revenue problem is a direct result of that tax break we handed over to the top percent of Delawareans…. There are 15 states with higher top marginal tax rates than Delaware.  All but one of them (Idaho) are showing better growth than Delaware.  The belief that lower taxes creates jobs and better state economies does not agree with reality experienced by other states on a daily basis.

Again, the national economy as a whole is looking better.  Delaware is looking like the exception.  After the Great Recession the national total of state revenues dropped for 5 consecutive quarters. The national total of all state’s revenues has since grown 13 consecutive quarters…

The same criticism that applied to Obama after the Obamacare vote, applies now to Markell after the SB 165 vote.  Instead of trying to fix something that was working fine, one’s attention should have been spent on all that which isn’t (working fine)….

Recommendations for 2014:

Go to multiple tiered tax rates:

• 10% on $1 million or more
• 9% on $500,000 or more
• 8% on $250,000 or more
• 7% on $125,000 or more
• 6.75% on $60,000 or more

• Spend most of our money on Delaware’s people.  Hire empty positions. Keep the money here in state as much as possible.
• Cut out from budget most consulting fees for out-of-state entities.
• No hiring of outside specialists or corporate buddies.
• Add more teachers, firemen, policemen where needed.
• Push for building an offshore wind farm; override all Pepco’s objections.

Looks Like The Deep Wins Out Over The Blue

The deep blue sea… How often have we heard that? So which of those adjectives are the more predominant, which of those words carries the most descriptive weight? A conundrum?

Not if you add the word “water” to each of those descriptive adjectives…. as in”

Deepwater
Bluewater

Still puzzled? Add the noun “wind”

Deepwater Wind
Bluewater Wind….

The Washington Post reports a deal has been struck and the first Offshore Wind Farm, (which was to be Bluewater Wind 5 years ago), is now going to be Deepwater Wind off Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Rhode Island will now become the center for wind farm technology on the East Coast. If Delaware ever gets to this point, and one would think Markell would have been on top of this one, we will now be buying all our stuff from Rhode Island and importing it down the East Coast on barges, instead of vice versa.

The wind kinda of went out of Delaware today.

Just When You’ve Mastered “The Electric Slide”, Get Ready For “The Global Shift”

We knew this but it  is now being published… and so it is in the news.

The world is getting warmer… and we can now predict our climate by looking at map at 300 miles south and guessing what our weather will be from that…

Just as plate tectonics and  Darwin’s origin of the species were able to lay the groundwork of reason  for explaining puzzling observations, this simplifies what to expect from global warming rather startlingly.

Texas is now  what we alway thought of when we considered the weather of Mexico; Oklahoma is now West Texas; Kansas is now Oklahoma; Nebraska is now Kansas; South Dakota is now Nebraska, North Dakota is now South Dakota: Southern Manitoba is now North Dakota…..

If  West Texas had 3 days of rain, now Oklahoma is getting 3 days of rain;  If it snowed 12  times in South Dakota, it is now doing the same in North Dakota… and so on.

So, to predict our heat, rain, winters, etc, our guide would be North Carolina.  Longer growing seasons,  some winters with no snow, hot summers…

However due to Global warming, the East Coast has a caveat.  An anomaly so to speak  and actually some relief from the North Carolina summer heat we would normally expect….

With the unprecedented melting of the Arctic and Greenland icecaps dumping its excess into the Labrador Current, that cold water drops South hugging the East Coast shoreline all the way down to North Carolina’s Outer Banks where it finally becomes neutralized…   Therefore even though we have hotter air masses, the colder ocean temperatures creates a buffer against Global warming off the entire northeastern US.

Europe, Japan, and Alaska all experience  the same mitigating effect, although with both Greenland and the Arctic Icecaps melting into the Labrador, the US East Coast gets a stronger volume of cold water.  Call it our icy shower effect….

Once melting stops and the currents dry up, we return to the North Carolina scenario of the twentieth century….

Chart Courtesy of NOAA

So, we in Delaware really get the best climate on the East Coast.    Warm winters, little or no snow, and cool breezy summers….. as well as a longer growing period, and… less dependence on fossil fuels for winter heating.

Gee, global warming isn’t so bad for Delaware after all….  Oh, the rising seas?  There you go again… Why did you have to spoil the rosy picture I was painting?

 

…And The Vortex Over The Arctic… Was Rent In Two.

January 1-3

January 11-13

I getting a bad feeling about this. Who can tell us? What’s this mean?

Btw. There is a monster hurricane approaching Alaska with a low of 943mb. Category 4 if it were an actual hurricane. It is so huge it would stretch from the East Coast of the US to Denver.

Wind Credit Extended

The House and the Senate agreed Tuesday to extend a 2.2 cent per kilowatt-hour credit for wind power production through this year as part of the “fiscal cliff” deal. It also changed the incentive to let wind projects earn the credit if under construction — rather than in service — by the end of the year. Letting the credit end would eliminate 37,000 jobs. AWEA in December proposed extending the credit for this year and then ramping it down to end after five more years.

Time to get busy, Delaware.

Photo Courtesy of Google right click for full image.

Do We Want Kinder Morgan Running Wilmington’s Port?

Here is what the EPA says….

Kinder Morgan Transmix Co. has agreed to pay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency $600,000 to resolve numerous violations of federal air and hazardous waste regulations, including mixing hazardous waste with gasoline.

Keep in mind that any accident, even a tiny small one of a gallon or two, affects the entire Delaware Bay and its unique biodiverse shoreline.

Now Imagine a tanker taking a hole.

Outlined here are the violations Kinder Morgan got hit with…..

A. The illegal mixing of a RCRA hazardous waste with gasoline, and from failing to sample and test gasoline to ensure compliance with CAA emissions standards.

B. Kinder Morgan failed to comply with a number of sampling and testing requirements of the CAA and fuels regulations to ensure the environmental and quality standards of fuel they produced.

C. KMT failed to notify EPA or the State of Pennsylvania prior to storing the cyclohexane mixture, a hazardous waste, at its Indianola Transmix Facility.

D. KMT failed to perform or obtain a general waste analysis upon receiving its first shipment of the cyclohexane mixture as required

E. KMT accepted the hazardous waste cyclohexane mixture at its Indianola Transmix Facility without first obtaining a RCRA Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facility Permit, and therefore violated the following federal and state hazardous waste requirement…

F. KMT produced gasoline at the Indianola Transmix Facility that was not “substantially similar” to any fuel utilized in the certification of any motor vehicle or engine sold in the United States,

G. KMT failed to collect and analyze representative samples of conventional gasoline that it produced at the Hartford Transmix Facility, in violation of the anti-dumping regulations…

H. KMT failed to collect and analyze representative samples of conventional gasoline that it produced at its Hartford Transmix Facility for the purpose of determining the sulfur content of these batches of gasoline..

Result of Kinder Morgan’s actions?

Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC (Marathon) reimbursed repair costs to owners of many vehicles that sustained damage. EPA understands that KMT reimbursed Marathon for the costs that it incurred in responding to these consumer complaints.

Obviously Kinder Morgan came up with the idea that they would rid themselves of an expensive waste product by burning it off in the cars that used its gas. It was cheap and untraceable. To accomplish this, they went dark on their self testing until the product had passed through their lines…. It would have worked, and they would have gotten away with their little scheme, except…. the fuel filters clogged with the waste product, and the traces began.

So, is this the epitome of ethics we want in Delaware? Of course ethics like this exists in Texas. That’s where they filmed Dallas. But do we need them here in Delaware?

No doubt, Alan Levin was not privy to this information. He is now.