Solar Power: Reverse Robin Hood

Warren runs the numbers on residential solar power in Phoenix:

It can in fact be a good investment — for you.  For the country, it is a terrible investment.  Your neighbors are contributing $57,930 in subsidies while you receive just $12,081 in benefits.  The remainder, just over $45,000, is a dead-weight loss to the economy.  It is money destroyed by the government.
...
As wealth transfers go, this is a particularly egregious one, as it tends to add costs to the electric bills of the poor and middle class so rich folks can build hobby solar systems so they can tell their friends at cocktail parties that they are “green.”

Gee, a program to subsidize the rich, paid for by the taxpayers. Given our current political class, why am I not surprised?

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Leading candidate for “Conservative” Twit Of the Year

Question:

“It seems that, in order to fix the GOP, the answer (as you see it) is to marginalize Palin.

Right?”

Somebody posting as “ryan.thompson”

Marginalizing Palin is only part of it.  We need to marginalize this entire specter of Blue Collar Republicanism for numerous reasons.  First, these people are not true conservatives.  They might be culturally conservative, but they are the first to demand big government help when it comes to things like economic protectionism, social security, etc.  They are FDR Democrats who are upset with the social liberalism of the Democratic Party.  Second, the Blue Collar Republicans represent a demographically dying breed.  This nation is becoming less blue collar by the day.  As more Americans go to college and get white collar jobs, they have little to no attachment to this outdated worldview.  Third, Blue Collar Republicanism is a morally and economically bankrupt way of life.  Lets look at the economic and cultural health of the blue collar areas.  Most have been economically depressed or decades, they are becoming filled with drug addicts and practically every other social ill.  Anyone with ambition flees at the first chance.

I know firsthand the problems with Blue Collar Republicanism because I come from an area in rural PA where this mentality is strong.  The people there think its great, but it is far from socially or economically healthy.  The underemployment rate during good times hovers in the 20 percent range probably regardless of the posted unemployment rate.  The area is completely dependent on transfer payments from other areas of the state (Philly suburbs) to provide basic services like roads, schools, and state police.  The area is becoming nothing but old people and druggies.  Anyone with any sense of ambition or desire to better themselves, fled after graduating high school.  Socially, these people may attend church more than my neighbors in the suburbs, but they are far from moral.  Alcoholism, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and now even crime are out of control.

This contrasts with the Philly suburbs where I attend law school.  I do not see drug needles and crack pipes when I walk down the streets.  I do not see pregnant teenagers when I go to the grocery store.  I do not see the grocery store filled with people with food stamp cards on the first of the month. [In Philadelphia?!? - o.g.]  I don’t, but most of my neighbors leave their cars unlocked, where as my mother left hers unlocked for 20 minutes on accident once and someone decided to rummage through the center storage compartment for change.

The reason I draw this contrast is simple.  The Republicans have embraced the socially and economically ill former and threw the economically stable and socially healthy latter under the bus.  Greene County has went Republican only 4 times since 1900 where as Chester County has went Democrat only 3 times since 1900, but the Republicans are content with seeking out economically and socially distressed places like Greene County where as Chester County, the richest county in the state, is too elite now.

The Blue Collar Republicans should just shut up, take their seat at the back of the bus, and get their own affairs in order before screaming at the rest of us.

Alright, Iowahawk, ’fess up.  This is really you, right?


UPDATE 090909 19:20:  Welcome Daily Pundit readers!
Related:

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But the *law* will keep you safe

SayUncle:

...a man with a gun and restraining order against him (illegal) violated that order (illegal) and shot his family (also, illegal).  Why, if only one more law could make it a bit more illegal, then it would never happen.

Via: Tam

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Tuesday morning web troll

RX offers up today’s (well, alright, yesterday’s) rhetorical question:

Why, when the Left made various attacks on the character and fitness-for-office of Condeleezza Rice, were they not a lynch mob?

Because it was them doing it?  Nothing new there...

Speaking of “interesting Times,” Seven Layers of Editors, Part mcmlxii:

Commenters... suggest the sentence is not outright deceptive, but perhaps “sloppily written.”
...
I don't think that is just due to “sloppiness.” I think the sentence was edited and tweaked and sanded-off at the corners to permit just that [ambiguous] reading.

Because, you know what?  If they had just quoted the highly-quotable language of the petition -- no Deciding, no Gatekeeping, just the actual words -- this misreading wouldn’t be possible at all.

So why didn't they go with best evidence?  Why go with a sloppy paraphrase when the actual words in the petition are brief, clear, and completely to the point?

When the MSM does more work than it actually has to, I think that’s for a reason.  They are lazy, and if they’ve chosen to do the additional work to badly-paraphrase a document when the actual quote was short and involved less work in publishing, I think there’s a reason they suddenly roused themselves from stenographer mode.

More at kausfiles.com.

I'll take “Knaves” for $200, Alex:  Some post-racial rhetoric from Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope:

This was a lynch mob...  both Jones and the Barack Obama are black...  it was enabled by race...  crack is not just a drug -- it is a drug used largely by black people...  reminds those Americans who are still uncomfortable with Barack Obama that we have a black president...  He said it, though, in the language of his own community -- and that, at the end of the day, was his crime...  put back on the plantation...  next time we sense this happening we don’t fight back harder, faster, and in a way that calls a mob a mob, racism racism, and an attack on the president an attack on America.

Assuming this isn’t just the usual Lefty Oratorical Overkill (admittedly, a big assumption), does this mark Pope as a fool (for actually believing that the opposition to Jones was solely- or even primarily- about race), or as a knave (for playing the race card for lack of any real arguments)?
One encouraging sign:  The extent that Pope gets taken to task in the HuffPo comment thread.  Elsewhere: More on Trust.  Related: Judgment Day.  LATER (15:40): Jeremiah Wright is heard from.

Hey, Baron (“My meeting, My rules.”) Hill!

At town hall meetings on the health care issue, most Americans say it’s more important for those in Congress to listen rather than speak.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide say that it’s more important for Congressmen to hear the view of their constituents rather than explain the proposed health care legislation.
...
The desire for Congress to listen may stem from the fact that voters believe they understand the legislation better than Congress.

Because more of them have read it.  (Rasmussen, via Crucis)
LATER (16:45), related: Baron Hill’s “This Is My Town Hall Meeting... I Set the Rules” Blow Up Goes Viral

R.S. McCain’s executive summary of the weekend’s Ace-Charles Johnson contretemps:

Any argument between a man and a woman will eventually reach the stage at which the woman’s key point is, “You are a bad person for disagreeing with me.”

In response, the man's argument becomes, “Why don't you shut your stupid mouth and fix me some biscuits?”

Which was essentially what Ace was saying to Charles.

Shot by shot: Ping. Pong. Ping. Pong. (Again). Ping. Pong. Ping. Pong.

Welcome back, all!

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Labor Day weekend’s Interesting Fact

Did you know that it’s possible for three people to consume 2½ pounds of fresh shrimp in just over 24 hours?

(If the customary 4^th person had been in attendance, it could easily have been 3½ pounds...)

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So which is it?

“Rich” or “middle”?



Whichever produces more effective agitprop?



Via: Insty, whose reader Eric Thompson supplies the obvious answer.

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Before that Labor Day trip...

Charles G. Hill answers your automotive questions.

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Sites linked - August 2009

38 posts in August.  Not as many as July’s 50, but up 9 from last year’s 29.

August replaces the previous y-t-d low (29, August 2008).  The dog days are done.  Onward and upward!
 
The August linklist will appear (below the break) shortly...

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