FBI and DOE investigating Solyndra

[LTLFTcomposite]

It's been burned away, never to be seen again, with nothing productive gained as a result!

Oh contraire Pierre. That money was spent demonstrating to the world that a terrorist attack on this country has consequences, and the result has been no further successful attacks.

 

[Stoaty]

Oh contraire Pierre. That money was spent demonstrating to the world that a terrorist attack on this country has consequences, and the result has been no further successful attacks.

Yes, but at a very high cost in both military and civilian casualties. A lot more U.S. military personnel have been killed in Afganistan and Iraq than civilians were killed on 9/11. Estimates of civilian deaths in Iraq range from 100,000 on up.

 

[mitch672]

It's been burned away, never to be seen again, with nothing productive gained as a result!

Oh contraire Pierre. That money was spent demonstrating to the world that a terrorist attack on this country has consequences, and the result has been no further successful attacks.

What further attacks are needed? 9/11 pretty much took care of the U.S. for a long time.

Consequences that resulted in 9/11 being the MOST SUCCESFUL terrosit attack EVER. The overreaction and simultaneous fighting of 2 wars (neither paid for really - just added to the massive debt we owe) has resulted in BANKRUPTING the US economy, and led us to a depression the likes of which we havn't seen since 1933.

10 years later, and we are worse off than we where before 9/11. many more are unemployed or underemployed than ever, the US Dollar is headed straight to the shitter, and we are in a worldwide financial crisis. Oh we really showed them not to "mess with us"

Who really won here? Its pretty clear to me.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Oh contraire Pierre. That money was spent demonstrating to the world that a terrorist attack on this country has consequences, and the result has been no further successful attacks.

Yes, but at a very high cost in both military and civilian casualties. A lot more U.S. military personnel have been killed in Afganistan and Iraq than civilians were killed on 9/11. Estimates of civilian deaths in Iraq range from 100,000 on up.

Wars extract a very high cost on our country, and we are forever indebted to those who have made such sacrifices for our freedom who wholeheartedly took the risks, knowing that the cost of capitulation is far greater.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

What further attacks are needed? 9/11 pretty much took care of the U.S. for a long time.

Consequences that resulted in 9/11 being the MOST SUCCESFUL terrosit attack EVER. The overreaction and simultaneous fighting of 2 wars (neither paid for really - just added to the massive debt we owe) has resulted in BANKRUPTING the US economy, and led us to a depression the likes of which we havn't seen since 1933.

10 years later, and we are worse off than we where before 9/11. many more are unemployed or underemployed than ever, the US Dollar is headed straight to the shitter, and we are in a worldwide financial crisis. Oh we really showed them not to "mess with us"

Who really won here? Its pretty clear to me.

Baloney. The worldwide financial crisis is the result of social experiments run amok, that's why the problem is worse in Europe.

Everyone I know has a job, except the ones who don't want them. A big % of jobless claims is people working off the books, another example of fraud and waste sapping the economy. Cut out unemployment benefits and eliminate the minimum wage and everyone will be back to work in a week.

 

[Fabio]

Spain had its "9/11" on March 11 2004, no other attack was done on its soil since. However they did pretty much the opposite.

Oh contraire Pierre. That money was spent demonstrating to the world that a terrorist attack on this country has consequences, and the result has been no further successful attacks.

 

[mitch672]

What further attacks are needed? 9/11 pretty much took care of the U.S. for a long time.

Consequences that resulted in 9/11 being the MOST SUCCESFUL terrosit attack EVER. The overreaction and simultaneous fighting of 2 wars (neither paid for really - just added to the massive debt we owe) has resulted in BANKRUPTING the US economy, and led us to a depression the likes of which we havn't seen since 1933.

10 years later, and we are worse off than we where before 9/11. many more are unemployed or underemployed than ever, the US Dollar is headed straight to the shitter, and we are in a worldwide financial crisis. Oh we really showed them not to "mess with us"

Who really won here? Its pretty clear to me.

Baloney. The worldwide financial crisis is the result of social experiments run amok, that's why the problem is worse in Europe.

Everyone I know has a job, except the ones who don't want them. A big % of jobless claims is people working off the books, another example of fraud and waste sapping the economy. Cut out unemployment benefits and eliminate the minimum wage and everyone will be back to work in a week.

Social Security is its own problem, and will finish us off, if the issue isn't resolved, but clearly the spending of trillions on needless wars, and the loss of thousands of additional Americans since 9/11 to protect our "oil interests" (and have no doubt, its all about the oil, the US is NEVER leaving Iraq). Its clearly more than SS and Welfare thats bankrupted this country, its the entitlement attitude, and the "We'll find a way to pay for it - later" thats done it. We can't do and have everything, and promising that must stop.

 

[Stoaty]

Everyone I know has a job, except the ones who don't want them.

You don't know very many people then. I have dozens of people I treat at our community mental health center who have been looking for jobs for months (some for years). It is definitely a lot worse than it was a few years ago. Many of the people tell me they never had a problem finding a job, but now can't get hired.

 

[davewill]

Everyone I know has a job, except the ones who don't want them..

And the conservatives claim that liberals don't believe in America...at least we know that Americans are proud people who prefer to work and take of their families.

 

[wmontalvo]

Oh contraire Pierre. ....

I thought it was: Au contraire mon frere...

 

[AndyH]

Oh contraire Pierre. That money was spent demonstrating to the world that a terrorist attack on this country has consequences, and the result has been no further successful attacks.

Yes, but at a very high cost in both military and civilian casualties. A lot more U.S. military personnel have been killed in Afganistan and Iraq than civilians were killed on 9/11. Estimates of civilian deaths in Iraq range from 100,000 on up.

Wars extract a very high cost on our country, and we are forever indebted to those who have made such sacrifices for our freedom who wholeheartedly took the risks, knowing that the cost of capitulation is far greater.

Don't even try to wrap this load of BS around flag draped coffins. :x

I was in uniform thru this period, LTLFT, and didn't need to get memos from the RNC or Cato Institute to see what was happening. We created the US-hating terrorists - including Osama Bin Laden. (Look to the exploits of Charlie Wilson and the back-and-forth from the CIA for more. Each time we withdrew support from the Mujaheddin they got slaughtered by the Soviets.) We further angered them by basing in Saudi Arabia during Iraq I. Then there was the jab after their truck bomb blew in the Trade Center parking garage:

As the helicopter flew over mid-Manhattan, William A. Gavin, a senior official in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York office, pushed up his captive's blindfold.

Mr. Yousef squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light. Then Mr. Gavin pointed at the Trade Center towers below, their lights glowing in the clear, cold night.

''Look down there,'' Mr. Gavin said he told Mr. Yousef. ''They're still standing.''

Mr. Yousef replied, ''They wouldn't be, if I had had enough money and explosives,'' recalled Mr. Gavin, who has since retired.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/04/n...oes-on-trial-today.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

During the Cold War we were trained to spot propaganda from the former Soviet Union and the KGB. It's disgusting to see it come so freely from from people in this country claiming to be patriots.

 

[AndyH]

As this story unfolds the folly of government subsidizing "green technology" becomes more apparent. I'm careful with the risks I take with my money but care little about what happens with your money.

If we're going to keep doing this it has to involve personal accountability, with criminal penalties, but that's a really hard thing to do, costing the taxpayer even more money in the process. The opportunity for fraud is huge all the way down to money laundering campaign contributions.

Just for you, LTLFTcomposite - apparently the loan guarantee program was pushed into existence to fund nuclear power - even when there was ZERO support from private capital. Watch and weep!

I wonder why Wall Street nuclear backers refused to fund new generation until the American people were moved to the back of the line in event of default?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9sO-hrkoGo[/youtube]

Last night the Republican House passed a bill that would destroy the advanced technology vehicle loan program, and destroy the renewable energy loan guarantee program, and destroy thousands of jobs. And what was the rational? They used Solyndra... But the Republican majority is recklessly exploiting this one case to advance a political agenda that is very clearly aimed at killing the solar, wind, and renewable industries... The loan guarantee program was created at 2:30AM in this room in July of 2005 in the conference between the house and senate in what would become the energy policy act of 2005...largely as a way to pay for the nuclear power plants that Wall Street had no interest in financing...

Letter:
http://markey.house.gov/docs/2011_0922_ltr_to_upton.pdf

More:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5944

 

[Herm]

Don't even try to wrap this load of BS around flag draped coffins. :x
I was in uniform thru this period, LTLFT, and didn't need to get memos from the RNC or Cato Institute to see what was happening. We created the US-hating terrorists - including Osama Bin Laden.

Dont be a self hater lib Andy, most terrorists (or freedom fighters) are adults, and thus responsible for what they do.. our job is to make their life difficult. Terrorists are like cockroaches, they live off the waste in our society, we enable their survival.. but that does not mean we cant try to exterminate them.

 

[Smidge204]

Dont be a self hater lib Andy, most terrorists (or freedom fighters) are adults, and thus responsible for what they do.. our job is to make their life difficult. Terrorists are like cockroaches, they live off the waste in our society, we enable their survival.. but that does not mean we cant try to exterminate them.

If I may, I believe "making their life difficult" is what got them pissed at us in the first place... decades of political, economic and military shenanigans on our part have made it very easy for the terrorists. It's not "self hate" to recognize that your own hubris has come back to bite you in the ass, and MORE hubris is not going to help.
=Smidge=

 

[philaphonic]

Dont be a self hater lib Andy, most terrorists (or freedom fighters) are adults, and thus responsible for what they do.. our job is to make their life difficult. Terrorists are like cockroaches, they live off the waste in our society, we enable their survival.. but that does not mean we cant try to exterminate them.

"Dont be a self hater lib Andy" ??? WTF? Any competent observer can see that AndyH has a healthy respect for himself.

Now, to turn things around..
Dont be a self hater neocon Herm, most politicians (or corporate lackys) are adults, and thus responsible for what they do.. our job is to make their jobs responsive to the humans they are supposed to serve. Politicians are like leeches, they live off the corporate bloodmoney doled out to them, we enable their survival.. but that does not mean we cant try to cut off their $upply line.

 

[AndyH]

Is respecting truth and science over propaganda is a 'labelable offense'? If that makes me liberal, then so be it.

I finally got to page 236 today in my slow read of Merchants of Doubt and think this section fits here:

The network of right-wing foundations, the corporations that fund them, and the journalists who echo their claims have created a tremendous problem for American science. A recent academic study found that of the fifty-six "environmentally skeptical" books published in the 1990s, 92 percent were linked to these right-wing foundations (only thirteen were published in the 1980s, and 100 percent were linked to the foundations). Scientists have faced an ongoing misrepresentation of scientific evidence and historical facts that brands them as public enemies - even mass murderers - on the basis of phony facts.

There is deep irony here. One of the great heroes of the anti-Communist political right wing - indeed one of the clearest, most reasoned voices against the risks of oppressive government, in general - was George Orwell, whose famous 1984 portrayed a government that manufactured fake histories to support its political program. Orwell coined the term "memory hole" to denote a system that destroyed inconvenient facts, and "Newspeak" for a language designed to constrain thought within politically acceptable bounds.

All of us who were children in the Cold War learned in school how the Soviet Union routinely engaged in historical cleansing, erasing real events and real people from their official histories and even official photographs. The right-wing defenders of American liberty have now done the same. The painstaking work of scientists, the reasoned deliberations of the President's Science Advisory Committee, and the bipartisan American agreement to ban DDT have been flushed down the memory hole, along with the well-documented and easily found (but extremely inconvenient) fact that the most important reason DDT failed to eliminate malaria was because insects evolved. That is the truth - a truth that those with blind faith in free markets and blind trust in technology simply refuse to see.

The rhetoric of "sound science" is similarly Orwellian. Real science - done by scientists and published in scientific journals - is dismissed as "junk," while misrepresentations and inventions are offered in its place. Orwell's Newspeak contained no science at all, as the very concept of science had been erased from his dystopia. And not surprisingly, for if science is about studying the world as it actually is - rather than as we wish it to be - then science will always have the potential to unsettle the status quo...

...Orwell understood that those in power will always seek to control history, because whoever controls the past controls the present. So our Cold Warriors - Fred Seitz and Fred Singer, Robert Jastrow and Bill Nierenberg, and later Dixy Lee Ray, too, who had dedicated their lives to fighting Soviet Communism, joined forces with the self-appointed defenders of the free market to blame the messenger, to undermine science, to deny the truth, and to market doubt. People who began their careers as fact finders ended them as fact fighters. Evidently accepting that their ends justified their means, they embraced the tactics of their enemy, the very things they had hated Soviet Communism for: its lies, its deceit, its denial of the very realities it had created.

Birds of a feather flock together. The law of attraction. As you think so shall it be. Double-edged swords all...