Well, in March, one of Spain's leading universities, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, published an authoritative study "of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources." The report pointed out: "This study is important for several reasons. First is that the Spanish experience is considered a leading example to be followed by many policy advocates and politicians. This study marks the very first time a critical analysis of the actual performance and impact has been made. Most important, it demonstrates that the Spanish/EU-style 'green jobs' agenda now being promoted in the U.S. in fact destroys jobs, detailing this in terms of jobs destroyed per job created."

The central finding of the study is that -- treating the data optimistically -- for every renewable-energy job that the government finances, "Spain's experience reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created."

Each wind industry job created in Spain required a subsidy of about $1.4 million. Overall, the average subsidy cost for each green job was about $800,000 (571,138 euros). And to create about 50,000 green jobs, Spain lost 110,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy, principally in metallurgy, nonmetallic mining and food processing and in the beverage and tobacco industries.

pacino wrote:just click, PA at our finest

Bakestar wrote:Boies and Olson are gay for each other.

I think this is good, if somewhat risky, strategy. They're obviously optimistic that they can peel Kennedy off to vote with the liberal wing. Kennedy's enough of a narcissist that I suspect he'd love the attention and being the judge who decides such a groundbreaking case. The only other longshot hope is getting a vote from Alito, which is highly unlikely.

Honestly, I think a 5-4 "Tony Says" narrow holding in favor of civil unions is the likely outcome. And as someone who thinks the government should get out of the "marriage" business on First Amendment grounds, I don't think that's a bad thing.

kruker wrote:Teddy on new healthcare legislation

I don't know if anyone else watched Bill Moyers' this past weekend, but the two guests (both doctors) were guaranteeing that anything less than a single-payer system would fail. Without any real specifics yet, they compared what they know about this proposal to the Massachusetts experiment and argued it will face a similar fate with more dire consequences.

pacino wrote:just click, PA at our finest

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

pacino wrote:just click, PA at our finest

Garfield!




Although the racism conclusion at the end may be a conclusion jump... it's about a 50/50 chance it's a "hate 'im cuz hez a dangum lihbrul" from a Limbaugh/Coulter/Hannity teet suckler (being originally from "non-urban" PA, I'd venture the odds are better than 50/50 it's this).

Federal law enforcement officials have subpoenaed the congressional and campaign offices of Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.) to get information about a former defense lobby firm raided by the FBI, according to Visclosky.

Certain Visclosky employees have also been sent grand jury subpoenas requesting documents related to the PMA Group, a lobby shop with strong ties to the Indiana lawmaker. Visclosky’s former chief of staff, Rich Kaelin, was a high-profile lobbyist at the firm that closed its doors at the end of March.

A Pennsylvania defense contractor who got millions of dollars in congressional earmarks from Rep. John Murtha has been blocked from doing business with the Navy amid allegations of fraud.

Word of the suspension came during an annual trade show featuring defense contractors gathered in Johnstown, Pa., the heart of Murtha's congressional district. Seven of the world's largest defense contractors, who have been among the veteran Pennsylvania Democrat's biggest campaign contributors over the years, helped bankroll the "Showcase for Commerce."

During a brief news conference Friday at the Johnstown event, Murtha turned aside questions about the suspension of Kuchera Defense Systems Inc., a family-run business that has supported him with $60,000 to his campaign and to his political action committee since 2002.

Over the past two years, Murtha has secured $14.7 million in congressionally directed funds known as "earmarks" for Kuchera to perform work for the military, a tiny slice of Murtha's earmarks overall.

kruker wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:I guess we know who the real nerds are here. I'd have thought at least pacino would have dug this stuff, what with it's "Freakonomics" bent.

I love GIS stuff, I find it amazing and extraordinarily useful in communicating ideas.

Not that it's difficult to use, but I've been trying to familiarize myself with it before I head back to school. I figure it'll be good for a presentation or two until someone else inevitably steals my golden goose.

Other than Ricci, Judge Sotomayor has decided 96 race-related cases while on the court of appeals.

Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions. Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous. (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.) Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge. In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case. So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1.
...
In sum, in an eleven-year career on the Second Circuit, Judge Sotomayor has participated in roughly 100 panel decisions involving questions of race and has disagreed with her colleagues in those cases (a fair measure of whether she is an outlier) a total of 4 times. Only one case (Gant) in that entire eleven years actually involved the question whether race discrimination may have occurred. (In another case (Pappas) she dissented to favor a white bigot.) She particulated in two other panels rejecting district court rulings agreeing with race-based jury-selection claims. Given that record, it seems absurd to say that Judge Sotomayor allows race to infect her decisionmaking.

pacino wrote:I'm not talking about the elected officials. They hardly matter anymore. They're not the people who conservatives have been looking to for leadership and direction for some time now.