RNC commercials: Do they resonate with anyone?

RNC commercials are dumb because Republicans are awful.  That’s the basic thesis of Salon’s Alex Pareene.  He doesn’t think the standard-issue millennial mouthing GOP platitudes (see videos below) is all that bad, but he’s certain that the actual, no-kidding Republicans out there are snaggle-toothed gay-bashers and other Dead White European Males who hate Diversity, think Cuddly Puppies are something to shoot at, and wouldn’t know Millennial Chic if they found it dead in their ditty bag (except, of course, that Pareene himself would have no idea what a ditty bag is, and is darn proud of it).

So RNC commercials must be silly and/or deceptive or something.

Breaking wind: NIMBYs, hostages, and other woes from the European wind wars

Those darned Europeans are so attached to their picturesque views.  When it comes to wind power and wind-turbine farms, the honeymoon is over.  The bloom is off the rose.  Rate-payers, homeowners, holiday-makers: if you’re wind, it turns out that Europeans can quit you.

A growing annoyance

It was being reported ominously, two years ago, that the Dutch – the Western world’s quintessential pioneers of wind power – were really starting to be over wind.  Not only is it expensive and unreliable; it’s just so…unsightly.  In the 21st century, we aren’t talking pretty, old-fashioned windmills that creak gently and make the Netherlands look its postcard-landscape best.  We’re talking about those towering monstrosities in vast phalanges that whir menacingly, slaughter birds, and mar world-heritage vistas – all while, who knows, causing cancer to boot.

One year ago,

Er, no, Obama didn’t win the debate last night

We’ve reached a watershed here, where we either live in our own heads affirming reality, regardless of spurious inputs from demagoguery or sentiment, or we give up on reality and let demagoguery and sentiment take over at the decision table.  Did the president pull off a performance last night, in terms of sounding passionate and full of conviction?  To some extent, yes.  Does that mean he won the debate, or even achieved a draw with Romney?  No.

The mainstream media immediately launched a volley of positive soundbites about the president’s performance, but frankly, they were going to do that anyway.  As long as Obama didn’t collapse on the stage, they were going to say he had his mojo back.

The problem is that in order to sound passionate and full of conviction,

California by the numbers

The weekend produced a spate of dang-this-is-bad articles on the economic situation in California.  Steven Greenhut’s for the Orange County Register is entitled “California to middle class: drop dead.”  At The Daily Beast, Joel Kotkin laments that “As California Collapses, Obama Follows its Lead.”  (H/t – and a “Read it, people!” shout-out – to Ed Driscoll at PJM.)

But what does all this look like in terms of numbers?  What’s the how much and where and whom of the Golden State collapse?  Perhaps the most interesting and telling thing is that it really is as bad as it looks.  And the reasons are pretty much what you’d expect.  Here’s the California story, in numbers.

Stupid California Tricks

Remember when California was just playing TV Energy Use Cop?

Well, OK, California was doing more than that, but the new things California is doing are so much better.

Last week, for example, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a new standard for the percentage of renewable energy to be required in electric power production.  By 2020, 33% of the electricity produced and sold in California is to come from renewable sources: wind, solar, biomass.

Everyone is stating right up front that this will make electricity cost more.