HELLO WHITE HOUSE! THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! :: Complete Colorado Blog

Do you ever wonder whether what we do matters? Maybe only the big blogs, you know the Big Hollywood‘s, RedState, I Own the World, Drudge, and others maybe they are the only one that matter. Well they’re not, what I say and you say can shape the dialogue more than we can know.

Yesterday, I wrote a short post that included some information about Abound Energy in Colorado. If you missed it here’s the link. I sourced from Colorado Peak Politics but others wrote about it also. One of them was Complete Colorado Blog. Their post definitely got noticed. Today they posted some inside baseball for our edification. It’s short so I’ll just repost it so you all can see what can happen.

Feb

29

HELLO WHITE HOUSE! THANKS FOR STOPPING BY!

By admin

When the Abound Solar layoffs were announced last night, we had to link to the extensive coverage that CompleteColorado.com, Amy Oliver of the Independence Institute, and Michael Sandoval of People’s Press Collective have provided on this topic over the years.

Then, this afternoon, as I’m looking at my stats, I realized the Betsy Markey-Pat Stryker-Abound Solar-Pay-to-Play story had quite a few hits, so I clicked on “recent visitors” to see who was reading the story.

Well hello 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!

(Click on image for a larger version)

By taking a closer look we can discern a few extra things.  First, because we see two separate screen sizes, we know there were more than two people checking out the story.  Next, there’s no referring link, which means they didn’t just stumble upon the story from some source, like CompleteColorado, or the Daily Caller (we wish) or the Drudge Report (we wish) or The Blaze (we wish) or The Heritage Foundation (we wish)…you get the idea.

At any rate, we’re happy to have members of the White House stop by…Pretty sure we’ll be seeing you again soon!

This is the link, Which I got from the Crockett’s Corner Daily: HELLO WHITE HOUSE! THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! :: Complete Colorado Blog.

So we should keep in mind that all of us have some part of the bully pulpit ourselves. Does the White House listen to us? Probably not, but others do. Keep up the good work, fellow Patriots.

Related articles

• Wednesday Energy Roundup (nebraskaenergyobserver.wordpress.com)
• Abound Solar Halts Production, Affecting 180 Jobs In Colorado (denver.cbslocal.com)

Want to Reduce Gasoline Prices Now?: 10 Easy Steps

Sounds good doesn’t it? It does to me, too. Unfortunately, Steve over at Maley’s Energy Blog wrote this for Obama’s guidance, so it has about as much chance of being executed as you have of getting a nice sweet tea on ice in Hell. If you’re not familiar with Steve Maley, here’s an except from his about page.

I’m second-generation oilfield trash.

I have a degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Oklahoma and have worked for upstream oil and gas companies, large, medium and small, during college and since graduation in 1978. Currently, I am Operations Manager for a small exploration and production company, with operations in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the inland waters and onshore South Louisiana.

For most of my career, my technical specialty was reservoir engineering, the branch of petroleum engineering that focuses on describing and quantifying what’s going on in the petroleum reservoir. Reservoir engineers are usually the guys who are most in tune with the economics of a venture, because the single most important piece of information about the value of an oil and gas well (or prospect) is the reserve estimate. We work a lot with the concepts of risk and probability and the time value of money. It helps to have a healthy appreciation for the science of geology.

In terms of credentials, I am a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Oklahoma. That would qualify me to testify as an expert in my field. I am also a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers.

That’s more than enough for me to believe what he says about energy, especially petroleum. He’s one of the people who has to back up his word out here in the real world. His posts are often cross-posted at RedState which is where I first began reading (and respecting) him.

Anyway here’s his plan.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says there is no easy answer to the problem of rising energy prices, dismissing Republican plans to address the problem as little more than gimmicks.

“We know there’s no silver bullet that will bring down gas prices or reduce our dependence on foreign oil overnight,” Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.  …

Obama said Republicans have one answer to the oil pinch: Drill.

“You know that’s not a plan, especially since we’re already drilling,” Obama said, echoing his remarks earlier in the week. “It’s a bumper sticker.”

Speaking of bumper stickers, remember “Yes We Can”, Mr. President? No one understands the concept better than the oil and gas industry. The main thing holding domestic energy companies back from making a stronger commitment to future domestic supplies is uncertainty. Capital hates uncertainty, avoids it like the plague. Your rhetoric may appease your doctrinaire base, but it makes domestic energy producers hold back, fearful that you will punish their success, or that you will change the rules on them in the middle of the game.

Erasing uncertainty is the #1 thing you can do as a national leader if you truly desire to lower gasoline prices. Not only could it change the psychology of energy investing, there is still time for companies to change their 2012 investment plans.

Below the fold is my humble 10-point plan: Things President Obama could (but won’t) do to reduce domestic gasoline prices by November 2012.

Continue Reading

What was it that the head of The American Petroleum Institute said the other day? Something like, “The only reason it is not far worse is George Bush.” Capital projects do take time and we’ve been riding on the permits and projects started under President Bush but it’s not going to last forever.

My field is Electrical Control and Distribution and I’m also an Operations Manager, coming up as an electrician and lineman, third generation, in my case. The same is true for us: Capital Hates Uncertainty. When things are uncertain for the reasons Steve cites above, capital sits on the sidelines doing nothing.

And also speaking of bumper stickers, Mine for this year is “Yes We Can Fire You, Mr. President.”

OK, you Republican candidates, who wants the support of people who know how the real world works? It really does take a little bit more than “Drill, Baby, Drill” but not all that much, other than the courage to lead.

NOTE: I have seen reports this week forecasting $7/gallon gasoline and $200/barrel oil.

Related articles

• Where Are Obama and the Democrats as Gasoline Prices Soar? (5440fight.com)
• Obama: ‘Rising gas prices are not my fault’ – Daily Mail (dailymail.co.uk)

Technology Regulation

Representative Marsha Blackburn Image via Wikipedia

We all know that regulation screws up the capitalist system. It screws it up more for small business than large because large businesses can afford the overhead of compliance more. Another thing is, large businesses are grown from small businesses.

Still another thing is, in a fast-moving field like technology where hardly any of us can keep up with developments, can you imagine being a mid level federal bureaucrat trying to keep up AND tell the business who’s going to win or lose. I do a reasonably good job of at least keeping up with the broad outlines but not the detailed intricacies, I doubt that anyone can. If they can, they’re not in government, they’re in the private sector, getting rich!

So, if we are to continue the traditional lead that America has enjoyed in technology, both civil and military (the are synergistic), we had best not get in the way of the innovation that drives this field.

Another person saying this is Representative Marsha Blackburn. She put up a post yesterday at RedState that lays this out more clearly than I can.

There’s an inverse relationship between the size and scope of government and the health of our free-market economy. That’s why House Republican’s made deregulation a cornerstone of our American Jobs Plan.

Every new rule, mandate, and regulatory edict is one more obstacle that small business owners, entrepreneurs, and job creators have to swallow. That holds especially true for our dynamic and competitive tech industry, which I have worked hard to protect from Big Government intrusion. Unfortunately, the tech industry is not immune to Obama’s regulatory capture, and it looks like America’s iconic innovators might be next on Obama’s hit list.

Most people don’t realize that the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) reach extends to one-sixth of our economy. Most people don’t know that in the last 50 years the FCC’s rules – measured in pages – have grown 800 percent. And now the FCC’s sister agency – the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – has its tentacles deep into the privacy debate, data security, and control over advertising practices.

As in all sectors, excessive regulation kills — regardless who your regulator is.

continue reading.

The short form is: The government needs to get, and stay, out of the way.

This is true for all sectors of the economy, by the way, but especially technology; but what truly American style business doesn’t run on technology.

Related articles

• FCC defends regulations targeting broadband providers (news.cnet.com)
• FCC needs reform, accountability (politico.com)
• Gibson Guitar CEO to be Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s guest at Obama’s speech (knoxnews.com)
• Energy regulations hurt job creation (energyindependenceforstates.com)
• The True Cost of Net Neutrality (forbes.com)

Morning in America?

I suspect that you all know where the title of this post came from so let’s go ahead and watch it and remember.

So where I am going is this: If we are going to replace Obama next year, we are going to need this kind of optimism and cheerfulness. Erik Erikson over at RedState was talking about this this morning also. He put it this way.

Apple has out a new app in its App Store — Cards. You can take a picture on your phone, design a card, and have it sent via the post office to someone. Think about that for a minute. In an age of digital communications, text messages, emails, and cell phones, Apple has produced a product that harkens back to one of the earliest message transmission methods — snail mail as the kids these days are calling it.

Siri, the assistant on the iPhone, kindles fond memories of growing up in the age of Star Trek for the thirty somethings out there.

A friend of mine two nights ago showed me an awesome app he works on called Goba. It’s available for the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, etc. It lets you plan an offline gathering of friends and manage sending texts and emails and the replies thereto. An app for the phone designed to facilitate a gathering of friends off line and unplugged.

My neighborhood is pretty new. Almost every house has a relic of an earlier time — a front porch. My wife, me, and our kids sit on the front porch in rocking chairs or the kids play on the porch. On sites like Etsy, people are getting back to early American crafts — typography, quilts, homemade soaps, arts, etc. Like with Apple’s Cards program, people are trying to reconnect to a past that exists in our dreams. Part is real and part is not real. But we are trying to connect to it.

Continue Reading.

I agree wholeheartedly with him. A lot of what we heard last night sounded like a bunch of brawling teenagers. That’s not going to beat Obama.

One of the commenter over there linked this from Rick Perry, and it gets close

That’s pretty damn good. Why aren’t they all campaigning that way, if they don’t know it, we do: this election (and primary) is about far more than who the Republican nominee will be; This one is about the country. If you are not the best for the country, if all you can do is divide people, get out of the way.

That’s what I see in Herman Cain more (quite a lot more, in fact). That similar blend of optimism, and good humor, and hope that carried Reagan all the way. I don’t really think money matters nearly as much this time. The country is waking up, and it is angry. The man (or woman) that can tap into that feeling will be the next President of the United States.

I don’t know about you but, I can’t really imagine any of these other stuffed shirts doing this. I can Reagan though, when he worked for GE.

So let’s end this with two of my favorite thing: a train and Ronald Reagan

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Keystone Update

Image via Wikipedia

As we have noted before the Keystone XL pipeline which will run from Canada to Texas has overwhelming support. It will provide lower cost oil (from the Canadian Oils Sands) and increase our security.

I suppose we should note in passing that in Montana they are also building a rail car loading facility to handle part of the Bakken field that has North Dakota booming. (more here)

Anyway the Watermelons (you know: Green on the outside and red on the inside) are filing another frivolous lawsuit to try to stop the pipeline. This time they’re excited because investigations are being done to make sure find and relocate the American burrowing beetle (don’t ask me, I’ve never seen one either) from under the pipeline route.

As part of this they are mowing the grass; the group, which includes; The Center for Biological Diversity, Western Nebraska Resources Council and Friends of the Earth, has filed suit to stop them.

Ben Howe at RedState has the story:

Environmentalists are up in arms and going to court to try to prevent the mowing of grass taking place around the future site of the Keystone XL Pipeline, an oil pipeline connecting Alberta, Canada with Gulf Coast refineries.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Western Nebraska Resources Council and Friends of the Earth have filed a lawsuit making the charge that the mowing of grass along the proposed route is really the beginning of construction.

“It’s outrageous that TransCanada is already clearing the way for the Keystone XL pipeline before the public has had a chance to have its say and, indeed, before federal agencies have even said it can be built,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It looks like the fix is in on this dangerous project, and the sham public process is nothing more than an afterthought.”

In actuality, the mowing is an effort to find and relocate the American burying beetle from burrowing below where the pipeline is proposed to be built.  Something you’d think the environmentalist whackos would be happy was being done.

But it’s not really about the beetle or the grass.  This is simply a stalling technique, and one that the Center for Biological Diversity is well accustomed to.

Continue Reading

Isn’t that special?

With the Mid east blowing up and all the other problems we have they still want to stop anything that might have to do with safe domestic power if it is derived from fossil fuels instead of their precious, completely inadequate, so-called renewables.

Personally, I don’t think we can afford the watermelons, any more. Western Civilization was built on using mechanical energy instead of animal (including human) energy, and they are trying their best to undo the Industrial revolution. But, of course, only for us peons, not for them.

Related articles

• Keystone XL Pipeline Update (blogcritics.org)

Energy Update: 1 SEP Edition; Updated

Update time, again.

First, it looks like the State Department and Obama are on track to approve the Keystone Pipeline. Even Steven Chu at least appears to support it.

Which makes it very bizarre that Gov Heineman as well as Senator Mike Johanns and Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, all Nebraska Republicans and usually fairly reasonable have decided to oppose it. Heineman is citing a concern about effects to the Ogalalla Aquifer. I can see where he is coming from BUT, it is not very rational.

Ogallala Aquifier

The aquifer underlies all or part of 10 states at a depth of from 50 feet to about 300 feet and about 2/3rds of the water is under Nebraska.

That all well and good, and we do need to protect it, but apparently Heineman thinks pipelines are like the Exxon Valdez; when they spring a leak, they just keep pumping forever.

I assume Keystone has a method of telling when they have leak and have a way to isolate the leaking section and maybe even shut off the pumps. In fact, I know they do. And it’s just not very profitable to pump Canadian oil sand out forever on the Nebraska countryside, it’s lots more profitable delivered to an oil refinery. Not to mention that the Aquifier is several times larger in volume than Lake Erie. Heineman and Johanns are usually pretty reasonable men. Maybe Heineman wants a date with Daryl Hannah. Read more here and here.

Second, EPA Regulation of farm dust. H.R. 1633, the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act, co-authored by Congressman Robert Hurt, (R-VA) was included as one of the pieces of legislation that will be acted on by the House.

Congressman Hurt co-authored the bill along with Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD), and H.R. 1633 has been endorsed by the American Farm Bureau, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and Public Lands Council.

Good for them. Support it. Link.

In Department of Injustice DOJ announces that the Department of Justice will oppose the ATT acquisition of T-Mobile. ATT, if you haven’t heard, needs the bandwidth to compete with Verizon. Neil Stevens at RedState has the story. link

Omaha Public Power District has issued:

Flood Update, August 31, 2011

• Fort Calhoun Station exited its Notification of Unusual Event status on August 29, as the Missouri River level dropped below 1003.5 feet above mean sea level (MSL).
• The river level is now heading below 1003 feet MSL.
• The aqua berms are no longer necessary and have been deflated and are headed to storage.

Aerial photo of Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station; Courtesy: OPPD

This, of course, was caused by the Corps of Engineers caused flood which has plagued Montana, both Dakotas and Nebraska an Iowa all year. Because the COE wanted to have plenty of water to do whatever it is they do with wetlands they failed to release water this spring to prepare for snowmelt and the Missouri river has been in flood all summer.

The photo shows areas of the plant protected by berms, AquaDams and sandbags. You have noted all the coverage on the alphabet networks, right. Yeah, me too.

And finally the NLRB, not content to stop Boeing from expanding aircraft production in South Carolina has decided that every company with two or more employees will have to post a notice, telling all about their rights to organize unions. The Federalist society’s blog has the story. Link here.

Just another week in the Obama wonderland, where productivity is always punished.

Update:  SC Governor Nikki Haley calls for the elimination of the NRLB:

After all she has learned about the National Labor Relations Board through her fight on behalf of The Boeing Company, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has come to one conclusion: The agency should be disbanded.

“What you have is a rogue agency that is doing the most un-American thing imaginable to our businesses,” the governor said this morning on a conference call. “And as we are looking at President Obama to give his speech on jobs, the only thing I want to hear from him, the only thing the people of this country want to hear from him is that he’s going to disband the NLRB or get them to step down from a great American company that chose to do business in South Carolina as opposed to going overseas.”

read the rest at Hot Air. This is one Gutsy Lady.

Related articles

• Gore, governor team up to stop TransCanada pipeline (business.financialpost.com)