Taxpayers taken for another $500 million

Yet another major solar energy manufacturer has gone bust.  US taxpayers, including Finger Lakes residents, were forced to  "invest" half a billion dollars in this turkey.

Solyndra, a renewable energy firm that became the darling of the Obama Administration, shut the doors to its California headquarters today, raising fresh questions from the administration's critics about political favoritism in the federal loan program.

The manufacturer of rooftop solar panels opened in 2005 and in 2009 became the Obama administration's first recipient of an energy loan guarantee -- a $535 million federal commitment that helped minimize the risk to venture capital firms that were backing the solar start-up. Obama made a personal visit to the factory last year to herald its bright future.

Despite questionable finances, the Obama administration decided to back the risky scheme.  Why would all those Ivy League smarties waste your money like that?

ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News first reported on questions about the choice of Solyndra for the loan in May after the Department of Energy disclosed it was being forced to restructure its loan package for the company, which was showing early signs of financial distress. One of Solyndra's major investors was George Kaiser, an Oklahoma billionaire who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama during the 2008 election.

"I think what happens is they give some of this money out to people who are either contributors or strong supporters," Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican who chairs a House Energy subcommittee that has led a probe into the Solyndra deal, had said before Solynda's closing.

Bold added to highlight corruption. 

Don't forget that this inefficient technology is also heavily subsidized on the consumer side.  If solar electricity made economic sense, we'd all be buying it with our own money.

Irene devestates our Upstate neighbors

Downtown Cobleskill, NY

 
While Hurricane Irene gave the Finger Lakes not much more than a rainy day, Tom at Pundit Press has been reporting on serious flooding to our east.  Click here for video.

A progressive werewolf

There's world of  difference between the mainstream media's chosen Republican presidential candidate, Mittens Romney, and necessarily skyrocketing Texan Rick Perry. 

Born to wealth and position, the former Bay State governor was positioned to run a polite, all-holds-barred, necessarily losing camping against billionaire Warren Bufett's pal Barry Obama.  However, it now appears that the ouspoken Perry, son of tenant farmers, may send Mitt back to his new California beach house.  At The Other McCain, Smitty reacts to the controversy surrounding Perry's accurate description of Social Security as a Ponzi scheme.

...it’s long since time that we call the bluff on the Ruling Class cretins. The unicorn math doesn’t work outside the Beltway. The more Perry tells the truth, the more he paves the way for truth to leak into the settling pond of our current political discourse.

 Referencing P.J. O'Rourke, Smitty explains the importance of 2012.

O’Rourke famously noted that 2010 was not an election; it was a restraining order. 2012, therefore, will be liberty on trial, prosecuted by a Progressive werewolf in bespoke and Gucchis. Will conservatives rally around a McCotter, or even Palin? Or will they be deceived and support Romney, whose hair is perfect?

 Perfect hair, indeed.

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Republicans spared embarassment

Abandoned Nestle chocolate factory, Fulton, NY

Why did he ever think this was a good idea?

Former New York Gov. George Pataki will not run for the Republican presidential nomination, a source close to him told CNN.

Pataki, who had been flirting with a White House bid for months, was scheduled to appear this weekend in the key early voting state of Iowa.

As governor, Pataki presided over the final destruction of the Empire State's once mighty economy.  Not a base from which to to run a national recovery campaign, George.

Did you feel that?

Earthquake alanysis, from Gary Varvel.

h/t Exile in Portales.  Enjoy the new pad!

Jedi knights to ban fracking

Late to the party, academic theme park City of Ithaca, NY is fixin' to ban fracking, too.  Getting right to the point, the liberal city's Ithaca's board of chosen leftists wants to make sure no shale gas is extracted within the city limits.  But how to ban the evil practice?

Alderman Eric Rosario, I-2nd, said that recently retired alderwoman Maria Coles, D-1st, had done much of research into municipal responses to "hydro-fracking," before she left office. Rosario has taken over as the point person. His first action was to bring Tompkins County planner Darby Kiley before the planning committee on July 20 to give them an overview of the issue.

"I went to the TANG [Tompkins Addresses Natural Gas] meeting recently, this is a task force of the Tompkins County Council of Governments, which is kind of like the local Jedi knights," said Rosario. "We should be a part of response to the second draft of the supplemental generic environmental impact statement [SGEIS]. Gaps have already been identified, and the community impact portion has not been released yet."

Bold added.  While the alderpersyn Rosario diddles with the "response to the second draft of the supplemental generic environmental impact statement,"  we'll point out that almost all the residents of fair Ithaca survive its notorious arctic winters by heating with, yes, clean burning natural gas.  Community impact?  Is it cold in here?

Janis Kelly: "politically correct corruption"

Kelly

From the deep within Groves of Academe, the only Republican candidate for Mayor of Ithaca, NY, fires a fastball.

We must stop using public money for favored private groups. At the first Common Council meeting I attended, the council (including both J.R. Clairborne and Svante Myrick) used $50,000 in "low-income housing" funds to guarantee a loan for the State Theatre. This is wrong. A private car rental company (whose executive director, Jennifer Dotson, is on Common Council) has been redefined as "public transportation" and given reserved parking spaces all over the city, apparently at no cost. This is low-grade, politically correct corruption, and it is wrong.

Corruption, indeed.

Its about time someone exposed this scam .  Overtaxed Finger Lakes families are being forced to subsidize short-term rental cars for Ivy League swells.  Were we Ithacans (not likely! - ed), we'd support Kelly against her numerous lefty opponents.

"Economic uncertainty"

Uncertain?

The pathetic state our staggering economy is often blamed on "uncertainty" about future government actions.  Does that analysis make any sense?  

If "uncertainty" was removed, and businesses and investors were 100 percent sure that the future was going to bring them crippling regulation and confiscatory tax policies, would economic growth and hiring then pick up steam?

Let's catch up with Cold Fury, who laid out the real deal on August 21.

Y’know, it’s become kind of amusing to me to hear people talk about “uncertainty” as the main reason behind the Obama Depression and the strangulation of capitalism and liberty under his regime. I’d argue that it ain’t uncertainty that’s keeping capital sidelined and businesses reluctant to expand; it’s certainty that’s the real problem here. Everybody knows by now what these dimestore dictators intend, what they’re up to here. Everybody knows how mulishly hostile they are to business and the productive class. And anybody smart enough to start a business and nurse it carefully along to eventual success is also smart enough to want no part of the Leftist wreckers currently running the country into the ground.

The only “uncertainty” here is whether the blockhead sector of the electorate has learned its lesson from its dismal flirtation with socialism yet, enough to sweep the DC despots out into the street with the biggest, sturdiest broom they can possibly find. Once that’s established one way or the other, some measure of prosperity and growth may be restored — or businesses will continue fleeing this incipient banana republic as fast as they can, and our final, catastrophic collapse will continue on course and on schedule.

 Sooner or later, we'll all acknowledge the truth: it's intentional.

We got gas

Lots of gas in the Marcellus Shale.

The U. S. Geological Survey says the Marcellus Shale contains some 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, recoverable natural gas, far more than thought nearly a decade ago.

Tuesday's figure is much higher than the last government assessment in 2002, which suggested only about 2 trillion feet of recoverable gas.

Get ready for clown cars

We bet most Americans have no idea what the new Obama CAFE standards will mean in the real world.  In order to double US automakers' average fuel economy, we'll be paying more for the privilege of driving three cylinder cars.

Carmakers have spent the past few years aggressively downsizing engines throughout their lineups to meet increasingly tight fuel-economy regulations. But with the sole exception of the three-cylinder Smart Fortwo, four cylinders is as low as carmakers have expected Americans to go. Three-cylinders are common in Europe but have been scorned in the U.S., where they’re tainted by association with claptrap cars like the mousy Geo Metro. Now, with fuel-economy standards set to rise as high as 56.2 mph by 2025, Ford is planning to bring the three-cylinder to the American mainstream.

These roller skates will provide a challenge to the marketing deaprtments and ad agencies who will be asked to convince Mr. and Mrs. America that they want the micro-rides.  Fortunately, Iowahawk's crack creative team recently gave a helping hand to those puzzled corporate communications MBAs:

August in the Finger Lakes

Olde Home Days Parade, Groton, NY. 

Photo by Simon Wheeler.

Costco pulls plug on chargers

Giving up on a politically correct waste of resources, the Costco retail chain is removing charging stations for nearly non-existent electric cars from its parking lots. 

Costco, the membership warehouse-club chain, was an early leader in offering electric-vehicle charging to its customers, setting an example followed by other retailers, including Best Buy and Walgreen. By 2006, Costco had installed 90 chargers at 64 stores, mostly in California but also some in Arizona, New York and Georgia. Even after General Motors crushed its EV1 battery cars, the Costco chargers stayed in place.

Yet just as plug-in cars like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt enter the market, Costco is reversing course and pulling its chargers out of the ground, explaining that customers do not use them.

By the way, has anyone seen one of these on the road yet?

Royal vacation

Air Force transport at MV Airport 8/17/11

Lonely Conservative joins the outrage over the Obamas taking separate jets to their $50K/week vacation rental on Martha's Vineyard.

It isn’t so much that they’re tone deaf, they just don’t care. They see themselves as part of the elite ruling class who deserve the best of things in life. This at the same time they vilify those who have worked hard, made wise investments and have earned enough wealth to afford such luxuries.

Christopher Fountain compares compares the regal vacation schedule to his own.

They say that Obummer’s only taken 61 vacation days during the past three years while Bush had more. I don’t see how this plays out with the American public. I had one,  four-day vacation in the past three years and I consider myself to be doing okay.

Just A Grunt, however, is looking at the big picture.

I once thought that even though this guy was a complete disaster as a choice for president that America could survive 4 years of him or any president for that matter. My God I survived Carter, but in the last 6 months or so I no longer believe that. It no longer is a joke to say that Carter was the best case scenario for this administration. They are making Carter, hell they make King George, look like the good 'ol days.

We are so screwed!

The Legendary Christine Perfect

Solo album, 1970

Now known as Christine McVie, she's Fleetwood Mac's other female lead.  You know this voice.

Better sit down for this one:

Postcards from Martha's Vineyard

More at Business Insider.

Sunny Manitoba

The Guess Who, Bannatyne Avenue, Winnipeg, 1971.  From Wikipedia:

The album covers and the title track illustrate a transition in band member Kurt Winter's life.

Bannatyne Avenue is located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the home city of The Guess Who. The front of the album cover for the vinyl LP has the words "So Long, Bannatyne" above a red Chevy with a Manitoba license plate. In the background there is a building labeled "Bannatyne Apartments". On the back of the album cover is the red Chevy again, but in a residential neighbourhood. The song lyrics include the line:

So long Bannatyne, hello my Chevrier home.

For bonus points: what's the purpose of the wire hanging out of the Chevy's grill? 
Hint: Manitoba.

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Rick Perry, Part II

Has any other candidate, announced or waiting, had the nerve to say anything like this?

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said Wednesday morning that he does not believe in global warming science and suggested it is grounded in scientists manipulating data for financial gain.

The Texas governor was appearing at a New Hampshire breakfast event with business leaders Wednesday morning when he said "there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects." 

Perry said scientists are coming forward almost daily to question "the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change." He said the climate is changing but that it has been changing "ever since the earth was formed."

Bold added.  The "mainstream media" is in shock, making Perry out to be a dangerous lunatic, but we couldn't have said it any better ourselves. 

Another one bites the dust

Cutting back on trade shows?

The sun isn't shining on solar panel manufacturers this week.  More "green jobs" prove to be economically unsustainable:

Solar manufacturer Solon said yesterday it will close a solar panel factory in Arizona in response to intense global competition on prices.

The Germany-based company said it will phase out a Tucson panel facility by October, cutting 60 jobs in the process. Instead, Solon will focus its product development efforts on designing and building large-scale solar installations using panels from different makers.

This announcement follows yesterday's Evergreen Solar bankruptcy.

Rick Perry

We're realists here in the Finger Lakes.  We've had to endure two Cuomos and a carpetbagger.  We understand that the perfect can be the enemy of the good, but we don't need no Romneycare.  So, watch this and let us know what you think.

Taxpayer subsidized solar giant collapses

Evergreen CEO accepts taxpayer cash from "Coupe de Ville" Patrick, 2009

In case anybody still thought solar energy makes any economic sense, read this.

Evergreen Solar Inc., the Massachusetts clean-energy company that received millions in state subsidies from the Patrick administration for an ill-fated Bay State factory, has filed for bankruptcy, listing $485.6 million in debt.

Evergreen, which closed its taxpayer-supported Devens factory in March and cut 800 jobs, has been trying to rework its debt for months. The cash-strapped company announced today has sought a reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and reached a deal with certain note holders to restructure its debt and auction off assets.

That 58 million dollar bag of loot was taken from Massachusetts taxpayers, of course.  Don't worry, Massachusetts' Republicans are on the case.

The Massachusetts Republican Party called the Patrick administration’s $58 million financial aid package, which supported Evergreen’s $450 million factory, a “waste” of money.

That's not waste, it's robbery.  Evergreen has been one of the biggest players in the alternative energy racket.  Whitey has nothing on these thieves.  Who's going to jail for this one?

Drawing crowds at the Iowa State Fair

Sarah greets fair goer while Todd autographs football

So who's the big star at the Iowa State Fair?

Sarah Palin crashed into the Iowa State Fair on Friday, eclipsing the GOP presidential candidates who were trying to draw supporters to the Ames Straw Poll the following day.

As a matter of fact, the potential presidentail candidate outshone all the "front runners" at the exposition.

Palin was mobbed by supporters and the media as soon as she entered the fair, drawing far more attention than Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum did when they spoke at the Des Moines Register soapbox, flipped pork chops at a food stand and wandered the grand concourse shaking hands with fair-goers.

The Iowa fair features a cow sculpted in butter.  Big deal.

Auburn's historic Genesee sign lights up tonight

1950s

Darkened during the Carter Energy Crisis, Auburn's landmark Genny sign will be back on tonight.

On Saturday, as part of Auburn’s annual Founders Day celebration, the renovated sign will be lit up for the first time since the mid-1970s. State-of-the-art LED lights have been installed to replace the original neon tubes.

Genesee Brewing's rent for the sign's location included sending a case of Cream Ale to the building's owner every month.  More in the Post-Standard.

Now

Obama polls negative - in New York!

If Barry is polling negative in the Empire State, what's the implication for his chances in the real world?  Lonely Conservative reports:

This is surprising. A new poll shows Obama has a negative approval rating in New York, of all places.

 Follow the link for the rest of the story.

Exciting cancer breakthrough

This sounds like goods news.

In a potential breakthrough in cancer research, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have genetically engineered patients' T cells — a type of white blood cell — to attack cancer cells in advanced cases of a common type of leukemia .

Two of the three patients who received doses of the designer T cells in a clinical trial have remained cancer-free for more than a year, the researchers said.

Experts not connected with the trial said the feat was important because it suggested that T cells could be tweaked to kill a range of cancers, including ones of the blood, breast and colon.

Future advances like this have been put at risk, of course, by the federal government's ongoing nationalization of healthcare.

Another Finger Lakes town bans gas drilling

Alternative fuel delivery in Ulysses

Jumping on the anti-energy bandwagon, one more rural Cornell University bedroom community, the Town of Ulysses, NY, has passed another me-too gas drilling ban.

Ulysses residents crowded the Town Hall in Trumansburg to show support for the Town Board's vote to ban hydrofracking for natural gas.

Ulysses joined the Towns of Ithaca and Dryden as the third municipality in Tompkins County to ban the process.

In order to maintain purity, the town board also banned the use of natural gas.  Hundreds of cheering Ulysses residents lined up to to sign NYSEG disconnect forms, while local twig gatherers pitched their services.

Cash-hungry Cuomo: non-Indian casinos OK

Non-Indian, "commercial" casinos will soon join the competition for New York residents' shrinking budgets.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says his administration is actively investigating whether to bring commercial, non-Indian casinos and related gambling to New York.

By the time the graft has been distributed, New Yorkers can expect a net loss, to be made up with higher taxes. We should have gotten into the casino business in 1950.

Seneca to ban smoking?

Is rural Seneca County, New York planning to completely ban smoking on all county-owned real estate?  The county's Board of Supervisors will consider the issue tonight, and we assume Seneca's town supervisors will vote to join all the cool counties in banning the evil weed.  However,  almost 25% of all Seneca residents are smokers, well above the state's average, and if they're old enough to smoke, they're old enough to vote.

And don't forget, the new growth industry in the picturesque, but economically depressed, county is cigarette manufacturing.

Fix the economy overnight

Connecticut real estate agent Chris Fountain has proposed a one-sentence recovery plan for the US economy.  His suggestion for Obama's next move:

Imagine if he came out, eventually, to announce a plan to cut taxes, rescind his EPA’s latest regulations and rethink ObamaCare? The market would soar but he’d be dead meat with his “base”, however dwindling that base is. But he could bring this economy back in five minutes.

 We endorse the Fountain plan.

Credit downgrade was planned

Lonely Conservative shares our fury: 

I can’t put into words that are fit to print my anger at the current administration. After his allies in Congress ratcheted up spending to unprecedented levels, he refused to discuss any real spending reductions. So what happened? He got his deal, and now our credit rating has been downgraded.

She then puts it into words.

Don’t tell me this didn’t happen on purpose. They hire the best and the brightest with our tax dollars. They knew this would happen, they planned it. This was done on purpose.

He palled around with Bill Ayers.  He idolized Jeremiah Wright.   Like Mitsuo Fuchida, he's doing what he was sent to do.

Tax assessment pits county vs. county

Oswego

Among New Yorkers protesting their tax assessments we now find Cayuga County's government.  Cauyga County, it turns out, bought a piece of land in Oswego County, and is now suing to get its tax asessment reduced.  

Yes, taxpayers in Cayuga County will be forced to pay taxes on land they "own" in Oswego County.  Justin Murphy explains the convoluted confiscation in the Auburn Citizen.

The building at 11 River Glen Plaza, a former grocery store which the county bought May 16, is assessed at $2 million. By 2011 tax levels, that means about $102,000 in property taxes.

In a tax certiorari petition filed July 27, the county and JHMPAC, the entity from which the county bought the building for $950,000, asked an Oswego County judge to lower the assessment to $700,000, which would yield $35,850 in 2011 taxes.

“It’s part of a process you go through with any purchase,” Cayuga County Legislature Chairman Peter Tortorici said. “The assessment came in, I think, a little high, and we’re just going through the process to see if we can get it reduced.”

Government entities generally don’t pay property taxes, but Cayuga County does have to pay in this case because the property in question is outside county borders, according to an advisory opinion issued by the state Office of Real Property Services.

So highly paid experts toiling in our county governments can't agree on what a property is worth. What confidence can we then have in our own assessments?  For instance, this million dollar lakefront mansion in Seneca County was just reassessed at $194,000.  Sound a  little low to you?

Sounding presidential

Western Wall, Jerusalem, 2010

Now that Boehner, McConnell and the usual gang of idiots, after  falling behind by 30 points in the first half, have blown the debt ceiling negotiations, we can look ahead to 2012.  While the smart money is on the "stupid party" nominating another guaranteed looser, it doesn't have to be that way.  Looking for leadership?

If we were really domestic terrorists, shoot, President Obama would be wanting to pal around with us wouldn’t he? I mean he didn’t have a problem with paling around with Bill Ayers back in the day when he kicked off his political career in Bill Ayers apartment, and shaking hands with Chavez and saying he doesn’t need any preconditions with meeting dictators or wanting to read US Miranda rights to alleged suspected foreign terrorists. No if we were real domestic terrorists I think President Obama wouldn’t have a problem with us.

And then there's this.

I want these candidates to not be sitting back. And bless his heart. I have respect for Mitt Romney but I do not have respect for what he has done through this debt increase debate. He waited until it was a done deal that we would increase the debt ceiling and more money would be spent and more money borrowed and then spent on bigger government.

Click the link, and watch the videos.  Sounding presidential, indeed.

Top NY Dem signs big gas lease!

J.R.  Jacobs

Forget the debt ceiling michegoss, this is real news:  Unlikely Hospitalist reports that the chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, one Jay Jacobs, has signed a gas lease for his 140 acre ranch in Pennsylvania.

Jay Jacobs has committed a cardinal sin. He has signed a contract with Hess Corp and received per-acre money upfront to drill 140 acres of land at his Tyler Hill summer camp in Pennsylvania. His claims of doing his own research and coming up with an honest conclusion will not sit well with those in his party.

The warm hearted physician worries that the gas lease may cost Jacobs his job as the Empire State's top Democrat, but we are not concerned.  140 acres at $3,000 per acre, plus royalties, should help ease the pain.