Yes!

Once collected, the solar energy would be safely beamed to Earth via wireless radio transmission, where it would be received by antennas near cities and other places where large amounts of power are used. The received energy would then be converted to electric power for distribution over the existing grid. Government scientists have projected that the cost of electric power generation from such a system could be as low as 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is within the range of what consumers pay now.

In terms of cost effectiveness, the two stumbling blocks for space solar power have been the expense of launching the collectors and the efficiency of their solar cells. Fortunately, the recent development of thinner, lighter and much higher efficiency solar cells promises to make sending them into space less expensive and return of energy much greater.

Much of the progress has come in the private sector. Companies like Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences, working in conjunction with NASA’s public-private Commercial Orbital Transportation Services initiative, have been developing the capacity for very low cost launchings to the International Space Station. This same technology could be adapted to sending up a solar power satellite system.

More! Faster! Now!

And do it cheaply the Jerry Pournelle way:  $2 Billion dollars to the first American owned company that beams a set amount of power from space for a year.  If they do it, it’s one tenth the price of a FNMA bailout and we get something for it, if they don’t, the cost is zero.

Of course that means that Jeff Bezos and Paul Allen could become the Rockefeller robber barons of space energy for the 21st century, but I’m cool with that.

That was fast... and he hasn’t tried to do anything mildly hard or controversial yet.  Or maybe that’s the problem.

… to understand oil futures speculation, unless you’re Nick D at BSB:

So today, a barrel of light, sweet crude oil settled at $124.44 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, below $125 for the first time since early June and down more than $22 from its peak.

Has there been some mass of drilling in the last two months that has suddenly kicked in and lowered prices? Of course not. What happened was people conserved.

The report about slumping oil demand came out today.  The last time oil peaked in the mid 140’s was July 15th.  Hmmm, what happened on July 15th?  It just happens that right now, the markets are looking at polling (plus demand of course) and judging that the Democrats will not be able to block new drilling in the face of public demand and an upcoming election. (I don’t think they will either)

But, accordingly, Nick will be astounded when, if the Democrats get their way, offshore drilling is blocked by congress, and prices start to spike again.

Just in time for an election and fuel oil fillup season.

Filed under: 2008 President, Gaffes

Righty blogs highlight this:

Lefty blogs highlight stuff like this:

Can we stipulate, just for the sake of argument, that both candidates, heck all candidates in all of history occasionally misspeak themselves? I mean fine, one can probably make a point that McCain at his age is probably not as quick thinking as he once was, one could also make a point that Obama isn't nearly as good off the cuff as he is brilliant with a prepared speech.

And so what? Do we really think it means anything about the judgements and the decisions they will make as president? Our president does not appear before the congress like the British Prime Minister where a quick thinking wit is a decided advantage. (click here, for a good typical exchange)

Sound off in the comments; Keep up on the gaffe coverage, or save it for the extreme and/or hilarious ones?

 

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Well, hell, let’s raise the price to $10/gallon and clear the highways, think of all the lives that will be saved!

Never mind, just another reporter with a deadline.

Filed under: John McCain, 2008 President, Polls

First Michigan:

A new Detroit News-WXYZ-EPIC-MRA poll has Obama leading by two points in Michigan, 43%-41%. "The numbers are an improvement for Obama over EPIC-MRA's last survey, in late May, which found McCain leading by 4 points. It's also a better showing for McCain than in other recent polls: Real Clear Politics, a Website that tracks and averages political polls, shows Obama with a 7.7-point lead in its Michigan polling average."

Then Ohio:

John McCain has opened a modest lead over Barack Obama in the key swing state of Ohio. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the Buckeye State shows McCain attracting 46% of the vote while Obama earns 40%. Last month and the month before McCain held a insignificant one-point lead over Obama.

So Michigan is essentially tied and Ohio has McCain up? This would more than make up for Obama's lead in swinging Colorado.

McCain won an unexpected primary in 2000 without the help of the MI GOP establishment, in the 2008 primary he lost to Michigan native son Mitt Romney, but did get 30%. So he's stronger in Michigan than you would expect the average Republican. Also Michigan has suffered through economic hard times for about the last four years, and just now the rest of the country is catching up. Michigan has also had a Democratic governor for all of this time. They just might be ready to vote for a Republican. Obama will do well in Detroit and the Urban areas, so McCain will have to run the table everywhere else. But the poll indicates that it's doable.

It also validates a McCain upper midwest strategy of targeting the states from Minneapolis to Pennsylvania, with Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio in between. Except for Ohio, all of these went to Kerry in 2004. Even picking off three out of the five will make it tough for Obama to make up elsewhere. It doesn't hurt that in these states the cost of heating oil is a very big deal.

 

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Jay Cost takes a close look at what it takes to win in Ohio.

Let’s apply these insights to the pragmatic task of winning a close election in the Buckeye State.

In a close election, a generic Democrat can generally count on many counties along Lake Erie and the eastern border, but he or she must supplement this base. There are several ways to do that:

(1) Win the counties surrounding Cleveland (Medina, Lake, and Ashtabula Counties).

(2) Win the south/southeastern counties in Ohio’s sixth and eighteenth congressional districts.

(3) Win Columbus (Franklin County).

(4) Win mid-sized cities like Canton, Dayton, and metro Toledo.

(5) Minimize losses in the Cincinnati and Columbus suburbs/exurbs.

If I was McCain I would worry most about #5.  Maximizing turnout in Butler, Clermont, Warren, and Delaware counties is what won GWB the election in 2004.

This year, those folks are not going to be as excited to turn out for McCain and they’re not going to vote for him in the overwhelming numbers.  Even so, McCain might make up for it in urban Columbus and midsize cities, but he’s definitely going a different path.

On #2, yes those southeastern counties are important, but they are also sparsely populated.  Flipping them gets you nothing without cities and suburbs as well.

 

What Jay doesn’t cover, through no fault of his own, outside the scope is the effect of population change.  The big news is that a large part of that inverted C in Ohio is losing population (Cleveland down 8%!) and that’s the Democratic voting base.  As time goes on, the state shifts toward the more traditional red parts.  Which holds as long as the Ohio GOP doesn’t become toxic ala 2006.  We’ll see whether thats holding in November.

Filed under: Barack Obama, Iraq, 2008 President, Gaffes

Wow, I mean just... wow:

What is the word you use to cover a situation where a politician freely admits that they took a position that was not the right thing to do just to win an election. Somehow "gaffe" doesn't quite stretch to fit... Obviously this will cause some teeth gnashing on the right, but little else of effect, because Iraq is off the table, it's summer and most normal Americans are not paying attention/don't care enough yet.

RCP has the hard poll numbers to back this up:

MI: Economy 56, Iraq 18
CO: Economy 47, Iraq 19
MN: Economy 51, Iraq 21
WI Economy 50, Iraq 20

It's the economy, stupid. Best case scenario for the GOP; this could add to the perception that Obama is a speechmaker extroardinaire, and little else.

Tip to RedState, and I have to agree, if I were ABC, I would be nervous about getting left behind on the trip back.

 

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Filed under: Republicans, Environment, Energy

While Obama is fact-finding in Iraq, a congressional GOP delegation is in Alaska, highlighting the plight of the caribou pointing out that we have $1 trillion dollars worth of oil in them thar hills. From the KC Star:

"It's still a long road," said Steve Hansen, a GOP spokesman on the House Natural Resources Committee, where Rep. Don Young of Alaska has long pushed for drilling. "But right now the chances for opening ANWR for drilling are better than they have been for years."

Would more drilling in Alaska, in the end, move prices at the pump? Barely, suggest experts.

Still, geologists believe much could be sucked from the new petroleum frontier. Oil worth at least $1 trillion likely sits below the refuge. It could add 27 million gallons of gasoline and diesel to the daily U.S. supply, or an increase of 20 percent of domestic production. Over the estimated 30-year life of the oil field, drilling could deliver between 5 billion and 20 billion barrels of oil.

Michele Bachman from NR went along and took some pictures:

Ugh. The Grand Canyon, this is not.

But the unintentionally funniest line goes to Roger Kaye of the Fish and Wildlife service:

Roger Kaye helps manage ANWR for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and is the author of Last Great Wilderness. Even if caribou numbers don't decline - they actually rose around Prudhoe Bay with the construction of the Alaska Pipeline in the 1970s - the herds might become more tame and accustomed to humans.

Wait, what? We're not drilling in Alaska and diverting $1 trillion worth of oil revenue from domestic to foreign companies so that we can prevent our caribou herds from becoming more tame!?!?

America is spending $60 bucks ++ to fill up their gas tanks (and more for heating oil) I think we can deal with tame caribou.

 

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Filed under: Barack Obama, John McCain, 2008 President, Energy

...vote for it. Excellent tagline.

While the rest of the blog world is trying to figure out who Nouri al-Maliki is going to vote for, let's remember that the most Americans probably don't know who Maliki is. The only thing that can be said for sure about the current Iraq kerfuffle is that it won't matter in this political cycle. Love him or hate him, Bush picked a strategy that for now, has taken Iraq off the political table. It won't be a silver bullet for McCain, and it won't be the hammer it was in 2006 for the Democrats.

All Americans know is that gas is $4 a gallon, and food and energy costs are wreaking havoc in their day to day expenses. Even the ones who aren't being hammered by having the bad luck to buy a house in 2005 with a subprime mortgage!

If I was McCain's messaging man, I would tell him to ignore the Iraq nonsense and focus on energy costs. Well, as it turns out, someone on the team has the same idea.

Great ad as far as messaging goes, but substantively dishonest, unless McCain has at some point, without me noticing, decided that it's ok to drill in the ANWR. But while Obama goes to Iraq, maybe McCain can go visit Alaska and some deep ocean oil derricks. I know which issue will get more attention from the American people right now.

 

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Just came back from the movie and have to report that you should believe those who say you should believe the hype.  Probably the best movie I’ve seen since Return of the King (and better since I had no expectations from a written book).

Heath Ledger should get a posthumous Oscar, but they don’t give those out to critically successful movies unfortunately, only long boring movies that no one cares about.  There is nothing wrong with Christian Bales(Bruce Wayne) or any of the other actors, but Heath’s joker blazes a trail across the screen.

Also, the underlying themes?  Yes, Batman is the CIA, Special Forces, FBI and Homeland security all rolled into one, making the choices no one else can make:

Bruce Wayne/ Batman is the scion of a wealthy Republican family (his home was used as part of the Underground Railroad). His father was a well thought of man who proved too weak to deal authoritatively with a looming threat, one that would later collaborate with a fundamentalist organization that sought to destroy the greatest city in America. With his British ally Alfred he opposes a terrorist enemy. Although he has a reputation as a drunken playboy goofball, those closest to him recognize his core of decency and will. has respect for business and industry. He is a believer in personal redemption, having learned the lesson that we fall “so we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

If Bruce Wayne, the League of Shadows, Dr. Crane, and the liberal members of Gotham’s political establishment bear a resemblance to certain contemporary figures and entities…well, the credits claim it’s a coincidence. But we are free to draw our own conclusions. And gloomy conservative moviegoers can lighten up about mainstream movies. We can despair over unpopular future curiosities which we may as well begin to forget right here, or we can remember we have Batman. And as Batman might have said, it’s not what the filmmakers’ are underneath, it’s what they do that defines them.

Filed under: Barack Obama, Featured Stories, Iraq, 2008 President

Is the GOP losing the military to rock star Obama? That would be the worry from articles written like this:

A group soldiers serving overseas, including some from the Chicago area, were overjoyed Saturday when presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama visited in Kuwait.

As CBS 2's Susan Carlson reports, Obama stopped in at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait before making his first trip to Afghanistan. Camp Arifjan is a major gateway for U.S. soldiers moving into and out of Iraq.

The soldiers applauded thunderously when Obama arrived; one of them could barely contain herself as she sported a Chi-town sign.

When the cheers settled down, the first thing Obama said to the soldiers was, "Thank you."

I would be ok with that. The short term advantage of having a military on your side of political issues would be outweighed by the long term damage to the Republic of seeing the military as excessively partisan. Better that all parties in a Democracy see the military as belonging to the country as a whole and be respectful of the job they do as professionals.

But a closer look at the youtube video below, I can't help but think something else is at play in the overjoyed response.

Yes it appears from this video anyway that Obama's biggest supporters appear to be African-American*, a point that may have been overlooked in the original article. I don't want to underestimate the importance of that support, especially given how it carried him in the primary, but it's probably not the sort of thing that moves elections or drastically changes the political relationships of the military.

*I understand that merely noticing this makes me a racist in the eyes of the Obamaniacs.

 

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Filed under: John McCain, Iraq, 2008 President

It's hard to fault McCain for beating on this drum...

...considering that last spring conventional wisdom said he was doomed for sticking to the president's plan in Iraq. But on the eve of Obama's visit to Iraq, McCain wants to remind everyone that this is his issue.

But it's not the silver bullet that McCain apparently thinks it is. Republicans and Democrats won't change their minds on the issue, and the independents in the middle simply no longer see Iraq as a top issue. The best thing here is that Iraq has been moved from a losing issue for Republicans to a neutral issue. That's a positive change, but it won't win them any elections from a pure political sense.

It's the economy, this election will go to the party and nominee that has the most credible plan to fix the economy and reduce energy prices. We'll call this the heating oil election.

 

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Filed under: Barack Obama, John McCain, Iraq, 2008 President

The blogosphere is in a late Friday minor uproar, especially those worried that Obama may be the target of some unfriendly fire now that McCain may have possible exposed him to some of the same, TPM has the Reuters piece:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Friday that his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, is likely to be in Iraq over the weekend.

The Obama campaign has tried to cloak the Illinois senator's trip in some measure of secrecy for security reasons. The White House, State Department and Pentagon do not announce senior officials' visits to Iraq in advance.

"I believe that either today or tomorrow -- and I'm not privy to his schedule -- Sen. Obama will be landing in Iraq with some other senators" who make up a congressional delegation, McCain told a campaign fund-raising luncheon.

And Josh comments:

It's known that Obama is leaving on his foreign trip this weekend and the Journal OpEd page this morning said that Obama could arrive in Iraq "as early as this weekend." And with a slew of reporters in tow, it's not exactly highly classified information. But there is a reason definite information about these sorts of trips aren't released in advance.

Hypothetically, maybe McCain was just guessing. But even so it would still be a serious lapse of judgment on his part.

Let's everyone grab a paper bag and breathe in and out. Without the McCain comments, there was enough public information that an enterprising Al Qaeda agent intent on doing some mischief could have put two and two together. Are we really suggesting that Al Qaeda would prefer to attack Obama and throw the election to Hillary or the Republicans?

And if Obama gets hurt it's McCain's fault because he repeated what the entire world's press corp already knew? Color me skeptical.

 

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From an unlikely source:

While I know there are some environmental groups who don’t like the idea of drilling in the NPR-A (the Natural Resources Defense Council prefers to call it the “Western Arctic Reserve,” making no mention of the fact that it has been designated the NPR-A since the 1920s), the fact that the oil contained there can be brought on stream much more quickly than ANWR means that this is the place we need to drill now.

So, to summarize, the GOP killed the Democrats’ plan to drill in places where we can get at oil quickly, because they prefer to open areas for drilling where we can’t produce oil for 10 years. And, the GOP fought for years against higher fuel economy standards that could have put millions more hybrids on the road years ago, thus reducing consumption and prices.

Wait. what?

Are the Democrats now conceding that we can drill our way to lower gas prices?  Aren’t you directly contradicting Nancy Pelosi and just about every Democrat talking point as of, oh about two weeks ago?

That’s awesome!  So, if a little bit of drilling can lower gas prices, it follows that even more drilling will lower gas prices even more!  Now the Democrats are in the excellent (and hilarious!) position of trying to argue that we should drill a little bit to help families, but we shouldn’t drill offshore or in ANWR, because that won’t.

Heh.

That rumbling you heard was the ground shifting under the Democrats feet.

It seems like this would be a problem:

Just 109 days before the November election, Youngstown Senator John Boccieri is still not registered to vote in the 16th Congressional District, according to Stark County Board of Elections Records. Boccieri has been campaigning for Congress in the 16th District for over a year (since May 8, 2007), but he has yet to move into the district or register to vote in the district he’s hoping to represent.

Filed under: Barack Obama, Featured Stories, Media

As predicted, the mainstream media has jilted John McCain and embraced Obama as the hot new thing:

The three network anchors will travel to Europe and the Middle East next week for Barack Obama's trip, adding their high-wattage spotlight to what is already shaping up as a major media extravaganza.

Lured by an offer of interviews with the Democratic presidential candidate, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric will make the overseas trek, meaning that the NBC, ABC and CBS evening newscasts will originate from stops along the route and undoubtedly give it big play.

John McCain has taken three foreign trips in the past four months, all unaccompanied by a single network anchor.

Obama has "proven adept at generating excitement," says David Folkenflik, media correspondent for National Public Radio. He said the anchors hope "a little bit of that excitement will rub off on their newscasts if they can convey an American phenomenon abroad, if that's what it turns out to be. Senator McCain is not as magnetic a figure in that way."

Well he's certainly adept at generating something, but I do have to agree that the words "McCain" and "magnetic" probably do not belong in the same sentence.

But have you seen the nightly news ratings? They need all the excitement they can get. But all three of them following the Obamessiah. Come on, that's a little unseemly and transparent, even for the mainstream media. One at a time guys, one at a time...

Oh and all of you GOPers who were urging us to vote for McCain in the primaries because he had such a great relationship with the media... now what?

 

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Filed under: 2008 President, Race

No, not the nuts thing, the other thing, AOL News has it:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson used the N-word during a break in a TV interview where he criticized presidential candidate Barack Obama, Fox News confirmed Wednesday.

The longtime civil rights leader already came under fire this month for crude off-air comments he made against Obama in what he thought was a private conversation during a taping of a "Fox & Friends" news show.

In additional comments from that same conversation, first reported by TVNewser, Jackson is reported to have said Obama was "talking down to black people," and referred to blacks with the N-word when he said Obama was telling them "how to behave."

You stay classy, "reverend" Jackson. Somehow I just can't quite picture MLK saying anything close to this, so is it alright to say that Jesse Jackson just needs to go away? As a an average white person, it's obviously not my call, but those in the media and in the black community keep giving him a platform. Yes, I'm looking at you, Fox News. The illegitimate child should have been the death knell, if not the hymietown incident. But somehow Jesse keeps coming back.

If the very least that comes out of the Obama rise is an upgrade in the leadership of the Black community, it will have been worth it. But first, everyone has to agree that Jesse is over.

 

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Filed under: 2008 President, Energy

In response to David, Jimmy Carter deserves his reputation as America's worst president in popular memory. He was wrong on energy then, and it would be wrong to emulate his ideas now.

Let's let him speak in his own words, and remember, this is 1977:

World consumption of oil is still going up. If it were possible to keep it rising during the 1970s and 1980s by 5 percent a year as it has in the past, we could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade.

I know that many of you have suspected that some supplies of oil and gas are being withheld. You may be right, but suspicions about oil companies cannot change the fact that we are running out of petroleum.

All of us have heard about the large oil fields on Alaska's North Slope. In a few years when the North Slope is producing fully, its total output will be just about equal to two years' increase in our nation's energy demand.

Each new inventory of world oil reserves has been more disturbing than the last. World oil production can probably keep going up for another six or eight years. But some time in the 1980s it can't go up much more. Demand will overtake production. We have no choice about that.

Carter loyalists will say, he wasn't wrong, he was just off by 20 years! But the fact is that if we took his prescription we would have crippled our economy throughout the eighties and nineties. How would you feel about giving up 30% of your standard of living to forestall something that didn't start to happen until just about now (if even now).

Implicit in David's post is that what we have been doing for the last thirty years is the free market solution. Well, Not exactly. The situation now is that we have oil, we know where it is, it's cheap oil, but we are not drilling it. Whatever that is, it's not the free flow of oil at market prices, no it's artificially restricted. And even if that restriction translates to a small percentage of the oil price, that percentage is a real number that comes out of the real pockets of real people. Democrats have a choice to make; do they support the working man, or do they support the environmentalists desire to switch out of oil pronto?

Even with all of that, I would simply say that Jimmy Carter was a well-intentioned fool, but the facts speak otherwise. Jimmy Carter had at his disposal a proven technology that would have helped reduce the dependance on foreign oil and lower the cost of energy for everyone, but he helped kill the nuclear power industry anyway. I'm left to conclude that for all his talk about reducing foreign energy reliance, he didn't really think it was serious enough to risk offending his save the earth buddies. And with no nuclear power, American cities and states had no choice but to continue to burn oil and coal to keep the lights on, thanks Jimmy!

Here's an idea, let's trust the free market. Remove artificial barriers on energy, let the scientists and engineers build us some safe systems and we go with it. The free market will tell us when it's cost effective to switch to solar. The free market will tell the oil industry when their stuff is too expensive and to lower it or we won't buy anymore. The free market will make billionaires out of energy entrepeneurs. The free market will buy electric cars when it makes sense.

This could be it, this could be the time when the oil is really running out. Or like the seventies, this could be a false alarm and we could get another twenty years of cheap oil and breathing room to plan the next energy transition. We don't know for sure, but the free market does, if we dare to trust it. Jimmy Carter thought he was smarter than the free market. He was wrong.

 

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Meanwhile Modern Esquire has difficulty wrapping his head around the idea that we don’t score elections in dollars.  Just kidding, we have shall we say a friendly disagreement on this subject.  Fred won the primary against not one, but two well funded opponents with change found underneath his couch.  I wonder what their funding advantage was?  Imagine what he’ll do with a couple hundred large.

I remain sanguine.  Zack Space is running hot heavy and scared because he needs to, this is a +R district and Fred Dailey is no Noe.  The drilling issue could come in handy too.  Fred could use some attention from the nationals and a good close poll is all that is needed to do the trick.  That will come later.