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You may not like Hillary Clinton……perhaps her negatives are too high for you……but regardless of what you think of her personality and politics, she comes from New York. And that makes her something…………
You may think I came to praise her, but I am really going in the opposite direction and praising New York. What gives Hillary her credibility, is that some of the greatest people on earth chose her to be their Senator……
There is something different about New York. Not just the city, but the entire state has a distinctive unique characteristic. I guess it stems from the fact that no one, no one intimidates them. They don’t prance around Celia-like to politicians; they hold them accountable. Either the politician performs, or “he’s outta there.” ( The fact that a majority of them ‘dis Giuliani, speaks highly of them also. )
Today I got this snippet of news from the paper of a tiny little town near Minot…….It was an AP announcement that was deemed irrelevant every where but North Dakota……. It was an “A ha” moment, because it provides a solution that may have some bearing on Delmarva’s recalcitrance to “play ball by the rules.”
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating five major energy companies to determine if plans to create coal-fired power plants present an undisclosed financial risk to investors.
There are so many parallels to our situation. First both of our Attorney Generals are sons of famous political fathers. Second, if creating coal fired power plants presents an undisclosed financial risk to investors, what does that say about Delmarva, who is spurning Blue Water Wind, a triple A+ investment, for continuing to receive power from coal fired power plants, a triple F- investment?…….
Obviously New York is staging an “strong offense” as their primary “defense” to open the Long Island Sound Wind Farm. Should they succeed and open their wind farm before Delmarva allows us to open ours, we might as well turn all positive financial growth opportunities for this state, over to them………..
What is ironical is that their AG is suing the “old school” of power generation for the same reason Delmarva is suing to stop the “new school” of power generation.
As I mentioned in a comment over on Tommywonk, one option we have is for our AG to sue Delmarva Power for presenting an undisclosed risk to the people of Delaware by their not allowing us a healthy, environmentally friendly, and far cheaper electricity than we pay already……But ideally, taking the investors side of the equation would be much cleaner, easier to prosecute, and based on evidence found in Delawares blogs, and all over the internet, ….”a slam dunk.”
As I pointed out before, Delmarva bases their cost on figures consumers were paying BEFORE THE 60% RATE HIKES TOOK EFFECT IN MAY 2006. (All their calculations use 2005 numbers). They use these outdated cheap numbers to make their case that Delaware consumers will pay more if they go with Blue Water Wind.
Therefore they are misleading their investors. I am not a legal expert, but I believe there are laws against that? Duh! That should put them squarely in the same boat as Enron. And we know what happened to those cronies……….
Delaware needs to pursue the same strategy as New York. Why should they get all the glory. After all, compare their two AG’s! Only one has a father who has run for the Presidency…….. twice.
Every Democrat running for President agrees: the war in Iraq must end.
But it matters profoundly how we end it. It matters to our soldiers. It matters to Iraqis. And it matters to America’s future security.
Joe Biden sums it up well. I want to pay particular attention to the last line:
“And it matters to America’s future security.“
In my tongue in cheek post below about shrimp, I uncovered some facts I was unaware of. Particularly impressed was I on China’s buildup.
Knowing that it was the economic might of the North, that really outspent the South in the American Civil War, and knowing it was the economic might of the US during WWII, with the ability to build a liberty ship in sixteen days, that kept up with a two wars going on in two theaters, China’s relative economic strength versus our weakness, gives me some concern.
Speaking particularly of submarines, the Heritage Foundation has this to say:
Sea-power trends in the Pacific Ocean are ominous. By 2025, China’s navy could rule the waves of the Pacific. By some estimates, Chinese attack submarines will outnumber U.S. submarines in the Pacific by five to one and Chinese nuclear ballistic missile submarines will prowl America’s Western littoral, each closely tailed by two U.S. attack submarines that have better things to do. The United States, meanwhile, will likely struggle to build enough submarines to meet this challenge.
Right now, China wants to be at 85 submarines by 2010. The September 2004 promotion of Admiral Zhang Dingfa, a career submariner, to Chief of Staff of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and a full seat on the Central Military Commission was a clear signal of the primacy of submarine warfare.
Comparatively, in the US, Electric Boat (EB), the nation’s preeminent submarine contractor, has announced plans to lay off 900 of its 1,700 designers and marine draftsmen engineers over the next three years. It will mark the first time in 50 years that the U.S. has not had a new submarine design on the drawing board. EB laid off nearly 200 submarine engineers and machinists in early February—and EB is the only shipbuilder in the nation that maintains submarine designers. The U.S. has three submarines under construction today.
Whereas China has 25 new boats under contract now; 16 are under construction today, including a new class of nuclear attack submarine designated the Type-093 and a new nuclear ballistic missile sub, the Type-094.
Our Navy’s new 30-year shipbuilding plan calls for 48 nuclear attack submarines in the fleet by 2035. If the Navy does not start launching new subs at the rate of two per year until several years after 2012, the force would dip to a low of 40 in 2028, or 17 percent below the Navy’s stated needs.
The reason for the cutback on what may be the most instrumental weaponry needed by mid century, is because of Iraq.
We simply do not have the resources to build submarines fast enough. Our money is being used elsewhere.
One needs to ask who will be the greater enemy of our future. The impoverished insurgents jumping through rings of fire in their video clips, or…..the worlds largest economic power when it finally decides to shift some of its resources away from butter, and turn them into guns……
This war in Iraq is a threat to America’s future security. We are squandering valuable resources needed elsewhere.
We need to end this war now, and start building to keep ahead of our real enemies. Otherwise, we will find ourselves soon to be out-Reagan’d by our newly capitalist friends in China………
We have heard so often that the surge is working. Perhaps it is working far too well. Four arch-Conservative Congressional delegates flying out of Baghdad, came under fire just as their C130 lifted off from the Baghdad airport. Judging from the depth of the Pentagon’s reaction, it was a close call.
The C-130 cargo aircraft conducted evasive maneuvers after a nighttime takeoff from Baghdad, said Ken Lundberg, spokesman for Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, who was on the plane.
In addition to Martinez, the plane was carrying fellow Republican Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, and Alabama Rep. Robert “Bud” Cramer, a Democrat.
With the exception of Cramer the Blue Dog Democrat, all of the three republicans would be considered extremely conservative. Shelby, was the individual responsible for announcing that we had intercepted Osama bin Laden’s phone messages. Inhofe accused the Weather Channel of creating global warming. Martinez was in charge of Bush 2000’s Florida campaign, and we all know what happened there. In 2006, he helped craft the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 that would be referred to by much of his own party, as “amnesty”.
All three of these are extremely conservative; all three are potentially embarrassing to the future Republican party; all three have uttered controversial statements like this one…. by Inhofe:
“I am outraged by the ‘outrage’ over the revelations of abuse at Abu Ghraib”, suggesting that liberals being outraged over Rumsfeld’s abusive tactics, were more of a outrage to American values, than the actual torture practiced on Iraqis by American servicemen.
Each of these Republicans has become and will be a future embarrassment to their party in the upcoming elections. Each of these statements will be pounded over the airwaves with undulating precision.
But if you look beyond the glossed over press reports there seems to be something deeper going on behind this incident. Perhaps it was more than just a close call?
For one, why would the C 130 fired upon as it left Baghdad, just happen to carry three of the most conservative members of Congress? Of course one option, and the first considered, is that it occurred randomly. However two other possibilities that could occur, are 1) either the Iraqi insurgents have remarkable intelligence capabilities, capable of communicating the precise moment the plane lets go its brakes to a position miles away, or……2) it was an inside job.
Was it random? At roughly 150 of these planes flying in and out of Baghdad on a daily basis, the odds at firing on this one randomly selected over the last five years, would be: 1 chance out of 273,750. That would be a 2737.5% chance of not happening. But anything is possible, right?
So let’s examine the logistics behind the alternatives. To fire upon this one plane, the enemy would need to know which plane out of the twenty five lined up on the tarmac awaiting takeoff, contained the conservative legislators. That means the insurgents would have had access to Baghdad military airport, in the heart of the super safe Green Zone.
If the enemy was this intelligent, they should know that killing four congressional legislators would not end the war. It would escalate it further. (To end the war they would need to kill liberals.) They would also know that creating martyrs out of the four most conservative Congressional members, would embolden a 9/11 response across this country. It would rally international support behind the US, now waning worldwide, and create an international environment more hostile to Al Qaeda. The insurgents would be foolish to fire upon that plane.
So who stands to gain if these men were shot down? Obviously those republicans waiting in the wings in their safe red districts, would benefit. So would the RNC. There would be NO chance of a blue taking any of these seats. Obviously the Republican party would be better off by not having their own comment blaming “the Weather Channel for creating global warming”, receiving international airplay. (They are so losing this next election; I hope that Mondale lives long enough to see his dubious record broken.) Obviously the next big republican scandal that will come out of Florida (Martinez), would be nice to nip in the bud. Furthermore anyone having a vendetta against that one single person responsible for leaking that nugget that we were listening to Osama’s phone calls just after 9/11, causing his GPS location to be lost to us forever, would rub their hands with revenge.
These shots fired, based on a cross reference of the press reports description and the Pentagon’s map of Baghdad, originated from an area safe from insurgents, and entrusted to private corporate mercenary services. The location of these shots makes it even more unlikely that an insurgent pulled the trigger. The odds that an operative of Al Qaeda, infiltrated a private security service such as Blackwater, was in real time informed as to when this very plane was taking off, and knew exactly when to pull the trigger seconds before he even saw or heard the plane, all without any experience of ever having done so before at this location…….. are impossible to calculate…………….
If this was an inside job, perhaps instead of an assassination, it was a mere attempt at a scare. They missed on purpose. For by instilling fear in some of the most conservative members of the Congress, one could continue to count firmly on their future loyalty and support. No doubt as they spoke before their respective branches of Congress, they could then be counted on to convey to others, that the threat was real.
For if on their return, had these four wavered and decided that all future expenditures were nothing but a massive waste of money, that the surge was not working, and that it was time to make a change in Iraq policy, then dreams of all neocons everywhere, would be nothing more than a wisp of gunsmoke……………
But such talk is just “hullabaloo” , really……… it was nothing more than a random event, a one in a 273,750 chance.
Recently I was privileged to sit in on a financial review session for a business here in Delaware. Here is how the conversation went.
Q: Your “utilities” are out the roof. What the hell are you doing?
A: Our rates increased 60% last May when Delmarva Power was deregulated.
Q: Bullshit. Why didn’t the other Delaware units show the same increase.
A: Both of them receive power through municipal coops. Those rates were settled by separate deals. We deal with Delmarva directly, and have no buffer.
Q: That’s crap. You are spending and not controlling energy costs. This summer, your costs are almost 40% higher than than anyone else in the company. We paid you to control this!
A. We have. Here is the proof. These are the bills from other stores. Here is ours. We use less kilowatt hours over each month than those other units. We have stretched our efficiency to as close to the theoretical, as is possible. You can see our price is higher, much higher, we have no control over that. But even though we use less energy than any other unit, we have to pay what we have to pay.
Q: Well if that’s the case then you need to find another $5,000 a month from somewhere else, to make up for pissing away good money.
A: The only option I have left is to NOT pay Delmarva the amount they ask, in other words, short the bill That option buys only 4 months until they shut us down. And then you will have to take the entire hit at one time. I say “you”, because if that is the move you ask me to make, then I won’t be here.
Q: You are damn right you won’t.
A: Be forewarned, it will cost you three times as much to find a replacement willing to deal with this kind of bullshit…….”
With that, the financial review was over.
This microcosm is currently taking place throughout every chain unit that pays Delmarva directly. There are two takeaways that come out of these experiences.
Businesses: if you are thinking of moving into Delaware……..don’t. You can’t afford it. Do not be misled by our state’s economic office. Look at the rates and do the math and see how much of your margin you give up! There are better places to invest than here in Delaware.
Others: You need to get off your asses and get this wind farm started now. The only way Delaware can remain competitive with any state, is to build the 600MW wind farm and use that 2.3 cent kilowatt hour to drive our energy prices down.
Even the tiniest amount of foot-dragging, will push this state over the edge.
What would you do with 2.86 Billion? Would you redo every Delawarean High School, and hire additional teachers? Would you inspect and repair those bridges in danger of falling down? Would you put it as seed money into forming a Single Payer health care system so needed by this state? Would you invest it and use the interest to fund the Highway Fund on a yearly basis? Would you buy up farmland in danger of development, so Delaware will always be a wonderful place to live?
What is this 2.86 Billion anyway? Why are we speculating on what we would do with it if we had it?
IT IS DELAWARE’S PORTION OF THE MONEY WASTED IN IRAQ. If we were not spending it on a religious civil war over there……we could be spending it here, on us………
For those of you who still do not know, anyone still supporting the policies of this administration in that part of the world, is the person to be blamed for us not spending that money where it is needed. Here!
That person needs to switch parties, and then support spending that money here, not there.
Isn’t Goldman Sachs in need of some quick cash.
Yesterday at opening someone sold short on most of their assets, panicking the market. I have never seen anything like it. The NYSE average dropping like seconds on a clock. Then at the 10% loss level (officially termed a correction) they began buying back.
By 4:30 the market rallied to within 15 points of where it started. They made a quick 10% in one day.
If you won yesterday, you played well. If you lost, you were played well………….
These games happened in 1929 quite frequently, leading up to the crash of October 24.
If you didn’t heed my earlier post and shift all your assets over to fixed rate, you still have time. Not much, however according to this.
While our focus has been on impeachment, the US is gearing up for what may be the beginning of the final war of Armageddon. Despite sounding like a generous dish of hyperbole, there are some reported points of view that this administration is hell bent on maintaining control over its Evangelical base by orchestrating a WWIII that originates in the Middle East. Not only will it originate in the Middle East, mind you, but in the very location of the Garden of Eden itself. That should provide a convenient full circle…………
We should be concerned because no one talks about it, for just in its concept, it is way too bizarre of a belief to be taken seriously. Historically it can be compared to the outlandish inner sanctum whispers in and around the Third Reich during the late 30’s, “psst…..there are rumors that he plans to exterminate every one of them that is alive today in Europe.”
For if the above ridiculous assertion were to be proven true, then perhaps we could then have at least some motive as to why the middle administration officials are stymied and blocked from making real progress, while the captains of the Titanic, retire to their quarters after ordering a “full steam ahead.”
The Titanic actually provides a very good metaphor for this administration. Everyone on deck can see a collision is eminent. Meanwhile those unconcerned drink and dance in the staterooms below. Those in charge, the senior officials under the sway of the republican mantra, prance around completely unworried about real events even as their administration unravels around them?
So how does the end of the world pan out? It starts with our support for Turkey’s elimination of the PKK, the Kurdish terrorist organization that has been responsible for 35,000 Turkish deaths since its beginning in 1984.
Common knowledge says that Green Berets, CIA, or both have already been inserted into the Kurdistan region and are now actively pursuing “intel” on the 3500 of the estimated PKK guerrillas living near the Turkish-Iranian border region.
The first question to pop up is this: why would we invest more time and money to suppress the Kurds who were the most supportive of our Iraqi adventure, and who controlled the most stable of those three regions of Iraq? Why?
First, for the Cheney opponents, the regional Kurdish government has NOT been supportive of the Bush/Cheney Oil grab. They have independently made two oil deals themselves(with Norway and Turkey even) that have NOT been sanctioned by the US provisional government’s Iraqi parliament. Kurdistan will stand to make a much larger percentage off of the profits from each well, then would any of other provinces if the Iraqi HydroCarbons Act, the Oil bill, ever gets passed.
By bringing hostilities into an area previously tame by comparison to say, the Sunni province, we are effectively using the military to put a hold on any oil deal previously made, even if we were ineffective in stopping it politically. As long as there are hostilities occurring in that region, no oil company can capitalize on its contract,and rush in and invest, no matter how lucrative the oil revenues might be………
Another difficulty for the US position, is that the Kurds tend to provide the most reliable units in the reformed Iraqi national army. The Kurdish section of the local police bureau has taken part in recent counter-terrorism operations in Baghdad and other parts of the country that are dominated by Sunni or Shiite political factions. To have the US either sponsor or carry out attacks on Kurds within the Kurd’s homeland, could alienate our staunchest domestic ally, right there in Iraq.
Another interesting development is the new alignment occurring as we speak within the Middle East that is occurring as a direct result of US military involvement in Iraq. Turkey as alway been considered as one of our staunchest allies ever since the advent of the cold war……Iran has been considered one of our most vilified enemies ever since the fall of the Shah. But currently Turkey and Iran are working together to eliminate the PKK in the US controlled northern Iraq.
What? Screech. Halt. Bang. Crash………
Turkey and Iran have quietly worked out a reciprocal security arrangement, whereby Iran’s military will engage Kurdish separatists whenever encountered, in exchange for Turkey’s cooperation against the Iranian Mujahideen-e-Khalq movement (MEK), a well-armed and cult-like opposition group that previously found refuge in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Both Iranian officials and Turkey’s prime minister have alluded to “mechanisms” (likely to involve intelligence-sharing) already in place to deal with security issues of mutual interest. Neither Turkey nor Iran has any desire to see an independent Kurdish state established in northern Iraq. For the moment, Turkey’s cooperation with Iran is achieving better results than its frustrating inability to persuade the United States to help eliminate a designated terrorist group in northern Iraq.
In a recent interview, Erdogan vowed that Turkey would not allow attacks on its neighbors from its territory, adding, in an obvious allusion to Iran, that all countries had a right to pursue the development of a peaceful nuclear energy program (Milliyet, March 12).
One can remember the reports that Israel and the U.S. Department of Defense were providing clandestine support to Kurdish PJAK “terrorists,” operating in the northwestern Iranian border region, questioning the usefulness of such a policy in countering Iran’s nuclear ambitions or destabilizing the country in advance of a military strike. Since then, there have been further allegations that the CIA is using its classified budget to support terrorist operations by disaffected members of Iran’s ethnic minorities, including Azeris, Baloch, Kurds and Arabs (Sunday Telegraph, February 25).
Iran may be expected to continue aggressive military operations against Kurdish militants to keep its border region secure in a politically volatile period, while continuing to demonstrate to Turkey its usefulness as a security partner in contrast to U.S. reluctance to undertake anti-Kurdish military activities. U.S. intervention in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region could create a new wave of destabilization in Iraq, as well as diverting U.S. resources from a confrontation with Iran (a result no doubt desired by Tehran).
A Turkish incursion will likely have limited scope and objectives, although it will likely include at least two divisions (20,000 men each) with support units. The last major cross-border operation 10 years ago involved 40,000 Turkish troops. With the greater distance to PKK bases at Mount Qandil from the Turkish border, a first wave of helicopter-borne assault troops might follow strikes by the Turkish Air Force. An assault on Mount Qandil will prove difficult even without opposition from Iraqi Kurdish forces. More ambitious plans are likely to have been drawn up by Turkish staff planners for a major multi-division offensive as far south as Kirkuk if such an operation is deemed necessary.
A Turkish newspaper has reported that General Ralston has already negotiated a deal with the KRG to permit a Turkish attack on Mount Qandil in April (Zaman, March 25).
Conclusion
While tensions peak on the border, the time has in many ways never been better for a resolution to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. From captivity, Abdullah Ocalan appears ready to concede Turkey’s territorial unity in exchange for stronger local governments. He recently stated, “The problems of Turkey’s Kurds can only be solved under a unitary structure. This is why Turkey’s Kurds should look to Ankara and nowhere else for a solution” (Zaman, March 26). Turkish investment in northern Iraq is far preferable to having Turkish tanks and artillery massed menacingly along the border. If the KRG was intending to keep the PKK as a card to use in coercing Turkish support for Kurdish autonomy, it may be time to play it. PKK morale is low and prolonged inactivity under the aging leadership will ultimately send many fighters back to their villages. The movement is hardly in a position to mount an effective offensive. Without state sponsorship, the PKK is poorly armed and supplied. The KRG’s limited hospitality is hardly a replacement for Syrian patronage. Massoud Barzani has urged face-to-face talks on the PKK problem with Turkish leaders, who have also recently indicated openness to discussion (NTV, February 26). Turkey’s continuing conflict with the Kurds in turn,jeopardizes its candidacy for European Union membership. With the possibility of full-scale Turkish military operations beginning in northern Iraq in the coming weeks, both U.S. and Turkish strategists must realize that any clash between the Turkish military and U.S.-supported Iraqi Kurds who back their PKK brethren, is a political disaster in waiting.
Whereas common sense says to stand down, and wait for possible provocation, the Cheney arm of the Bush administration has pushed for a full steam ahead affront on the Kurdish guerrillas. The Turkish troops are there, at least in Cheney’s eyes, to intimidate the Kurds to support the Hydrocarbon Oil deal.
“Look you Kurds. If you don’t stand behind my oil bill you won’t have an semiautonomous region to call your home. You will be under Turkish control! Got it?”
Why the flames are being fanned, and why the administration stands by with cans of gasoline, they are not saying. However to most rational people, this oil piece of the puzzle offers some sincere motive behind the otherwise insane mechanizations of this administration.
To others; those whose defections most worry this administration, these actions double as proving that the Armageddon’s scenario is taking shape.
kavips 
