Norm Coleman: ‘I’m a winner’ and ‘most challenges will be dismissed’

When you have the technology to safely reprocess nuclear waste, get back to me. In the meantime, nobody ever died or suffered radiation poisoning from the use of nice, clean wind and solar power. I don’t get the Republican resistance to wind and solar. We know now that a solar energy producing system 92 miles on a side, placed in the Nevada desert, would produce all the electricity the U.S. uses. All we need to do is create jobs by rebuilding our ancient energy grid so that we can move the electricity to where it’s needed. The sun is always going to shine and the wind is always going to blow. Why not turn first to the possibilities that our nation and every poor nation on earth could have access to without causing one bit of dirty air or dirty water? This technology will become less and less expensive as we use and develop it—just as computers, cell phones and lots of other technology has. If Republicans would put as much energy into learning about science as they put into fighting it, our world could begin to clean it’s air and water and life would be better. If you believe in prayer, then please pray that the Minnesota and Georgia Senate seats go to Franken and Martin.

As a trained biologist, I believe that Karela is ‘right on the money’ with her astute comment.

What is it with Republicans or born-again Republicans like Coleman? Drill Baby drill? Nuclear? These so-called answers to the energy problem only raise questions that Republican lightweights can’t answer.

You asked “Why not turn first to the possibilities that our nation and every poor nation on earth could have access to without causing one bit of dirty air or dirty water?”
Answer: because that will NOT out ONE DIME into the pockets of the petroleum, gas, or nuclear companies that own (through massive contributions) the Republican party.
It’s what America SHOULD be doing, but capitalism and lobbyists always seem to trump rational thought, and “doing the right thing”.

“I don’t get the Republican resistance to wind and solar. ”

Carlos is right – the resistance is simple economics. There are corporations and individuals who have everything to gain from our continued dependence on petroleum and coal, and they make enormous contributions to the RNC (and some of them are actually at the top of the current adminstration). They are much more interested in their bottom line than in the good of the country, much less the rest of the world.

“I don’t get the Republican resistance to wind and solar. ”

The Republican economic model is based on a pyramid scheme of growth at any cost. This is the umbrella over which all of their policies, from anti-abortion to no taxes, is based. It uses all resources with no regulations and no consideration for the future. Use it all up now to make your fortune, tomorrow will take care of itself.

It really is that simplistic, and it’s the same model, btw, that Bill Clinton signed on to. It wasn’t until he left office that we could see the results of what he had been doing, particularly beyond the tree-lined roads. If you go in about 10 yards off roads that you thought ran through forests, you’ll find wholesale clear-cutting and subdivision of land tracts. Over-building of communities where no infrastructure had been built to support it, so the quality of life had seriously degraded.

Anytime you hear from politicians that a community must grow in order to survive and have a viable tax base, they are scamming you. It means that the money is flowing outside of the community and not coming back in the way of tax revenues or jobs.

THESE GREEDY GRASPING SHORT-SIGHTED PEOPLE MAKE ME SICK TO MY STOMACH

SINCE HE IS FOR POISONING THE EARTH- HE SHOULD BE MADE TO LIVE (WITH HIS FAMILY),NEAR A PLANT AND BE REQUIRED TO DRINK THE WATER FROM THE WASTE (BECAUSE ITS FINE RIGHT)

If Coleman wins I hope that he does the public the favor of buying some better false teeth.

Republican == (by and large) Born Rich.

Republican == Never had any significant setbacks in life == Never had to surmount crippling difficulties.

Republican == Thinks the world owes them, and is behind in its payments.

Republican == Thinks telling the whole truth is too much to ask.

Republican == Thinks anyone not rich is not worth listening to, because they “could make it if they tried.”

Modern Face of the Republicans == Fascism.

The only wind the Republicans make a profit from is what they generate in Congress ! Think of it this way, once the wind farms are built and running, it’s basically free energy, like hydro. Aside from maintenance, there’s really no money to be made in electric power. But as we have seen over the past couple of years, there’s endless profit to be made from selling a barrel of oil, because it can be traded around the world, and traders have learned how to speculate on its value and drive up prices artificially.
Back when gas hit over $3 a gallon, the “excuse ” we were given was that there weren’t enough refineries in the country, and there was increased demand from India and China. There is no point in the oil companies building more refineries because that costs a lot of money, and by not having enough refineries, the prices go up anyway, so it’s win-win for then to sit by and watch their profits soar. As for demand from Asia, I really don’t believe that in the course of a year or so, there are all of a sudden so many people in India and China that need oil who didn’t need it before. The almost doubling of the price of a barrel was entirely due to speculation. A self fueling (pardon the pun) mythical gas crunch that was created by the traders, and robbed American consumers of billions of dollars. Those record profits were not reinvested into refineries or alternate energy. All that money is sitting somewhere in offshore accounts.
The price of oil has dropped by nearly half in the past few months. Some people are undoubtedly driving less, but OPEC has not drastically changed their production quotas, and new refineries have not been built. Aside from a decreased demand for oil for manufacturing, there is absolutely no explanation for the incredible, and continuous spike in prices that we saw.
Just like the housing crash, I believe we just witnessed an oil crash. All that gas we bought at $3 a gallon, well, we just paid more for it than it was really worth, and just like the housing market, we are left getting the shaft while the corporations make off with billions.

karela:
if the republicans could only find a way to give exxonmobileroyaldutchshellconocophillipsbpamaco propriatary rights to the sun and a solar depletion allownace, our energy ciris would be solved by next tuesday.

Coleman spelled “Whiner” wrong.

Nice suit Norm. Did your Pal, Mr. Kazeminy, buy that for you, or did your wife buy it with part of the $75,000 Mr. Kazeminy funneled to her illegally?

“Dan Mortenson
Comment posted November 21, 2008 @ 10:51 pm

Republican == (by and large) Born Rich.”

I think most followers of that Party are rather fooled by the Rep.Party into believing (into the illusion) they will be rich someday… and therefore they have to protect rich people from taxes!…like Joe the plumber who not only is not a plumber, nor does he have any money to buy any business; and he was twice on welfare!.
Another idiotic sound bite of that “Party of hate” is : ” the government is the problem”; yet once in power the government get even bigger and more wasteful like under Reagan and the “bushes”.

“Republican == (by and large) Born Rich.”

There are more rich members in the Democratic Party than in the other one ….they are not “illusions” like in the RP; they are real rich people!

“I don’t get the Republican resistance to wind and solar”

Because they have been programmed to think that the only things “sustainable” on this planet are corporate greed and profits.

Coleman now renigs on his statement “I am the winner” due to his
not having slept for three days. Sounds like Bachmann….that’s not what I said, or you misread what I said…yada, yada, yada.
He always sounds like he hasn’t slept for three days.

bravo, astute commentary hereabouts regarding another half-assed con-man who may be eating his own tripe forthwith…still senator but about to take a fall at the behest of his own con, the french aren’t any braver than we are? actual bravery and intelligence do not equal stupidity last time i checked, and yucca mountain as nuclear solution is pure bs, this is about unbridled growth which = infinite nuclear wattage to feed ravenous america, but the game just changed folks…. the big shrinkage has commenced, and how many nuclear plants is this bozo positing, at how many millions each? dream on buddy, those are antiquated concepts (along with the republican party), with zero cash and even less credit in the coffers, due most conspicuously to the obscene excess of the bush/cheney junta, now merely a figment of it’s own imagination, leaving us holding the bag…this is definitely an inauspicious year for republicans, so my money’s on franken all the way….

Oh wow, the lower gas prices are only temporary you say??? I would have never guessed that Norm. Good thing your here to let us in on this crucial insider info. Thanks a pad load Captain Obvious. This guy is absolutely dripping in sleaze. People of Minnesota, what the hell are you thinking???? Your gonna re-elect this crook??? Lord i hope not.

The whole question of whether or not to “drill, baby, drill” is answered with basic arithmetic. The US uses about 25% of the world’s oil, but has only 4% of the world’s proven reserves. If oil companies tomorrow start drilling everywhere they can, they will *maybe* boost that amount to 4.5%…..and it will take 10 years to get to that point. Not only that, but with falling prices, they don’t want to. They’re already talking about cutting production to boost prices again.

And all that oil in Alaska that Caribou Barbie likes to talk about? Most of it is for export. The fact is that we CANNOT drill our way out of oil dependence. We *must* go to alternative sources, and since transportation accounts for almost half our oil consumption, that must be the first place to change.

Jimmy Carter had solar panels put on the White House and Repuklicant Ronnie Reagan had them removed. Probably Nancy didn’t like the way they looked…you know how artificial and materialistic she was and is.

The “Christian” Republican Party certainly has an image. Their members just “HAVE to tell you they are “Christians”, they have to smile a lot and it appears they HAVE to tell you they are “Winners”. See, I like the Democrats, they let you think for yourself.

I am so shocked and disillusioned by the brainwashing and how the dumbing down of America has produced so many people in our Country with no critical thinking skills. There is so much misinformation in the post I am reading here that I would have to write an entire article to debunk all of the pap. If this is the state of knowledgeable debate in America today, God help us but I don’t even know if that will help.
I will only address one item here. This apparent aversion to drilling or producing our own petrol resources is economic suicide. Yes we must use all available resources to find and produce all fossil fuel energy we can. If you think otherwise you are either stupid or purposely obtuse. Oh Oh it will take 10 years. Well this has been well debunked but lets say you are correct. We should have started 10 years ago but if we start now by drilling and harvesting all available fossil fuel resources we can in 10 years we will be better off and further down the road of energy independence.
Of all the policies you can think of that you believe your government should develop which is the most important? An economic policy? A defense policy? An employment policy? An energy policy? Well just understand this, without energy you will have NONE of those things. PERIOD, END OF STORY. There will be no economy to create a policy for any of the others. Now lest you think I only believe in drilling. We should build Nuclear (what is it with these retards who call it Nuculear) power plants to enhance our electric needs. There is apparently a group of scientist who say they can produce most of America’s electric energy needs with a 90 or 100 square mile plot of land in the desert. I say give it to them free and give them all a stake in it as well as abundant tax breaks on all the money they will make so that they will be filthy rich off of it so that we can have an inexpensive permanent alternative. I don’t know if this will really work but if it will I say go for it. Put up all the wind turbines that you can but also develop more and more locally generated power as in residential solar and wind. If we all generated a small amount or all of our homes needs power needs of the Country would take care of itself. Do all of it. Do it now and yes that includes drilling because if you think producing more oil will take X number of years doing all of those other things and getting them all online and running will be much longer and we don’t have that long.
Oh and I am one of those evil republicans. I didn’t always have it easy, I have been flat busted several times, I am moderately successful now and I don’t want any government handouts, bailouts, gift checks, and I certainly don’t want them stealing any more of my hard earned money, I give enough by producing jobs and the high corporate taxes already. So when you raise my taxes what should I do tell me? Should I just take it or should I cut my largest overhead, labor? I know what it will be and those who voted to punish my success I assure you will be the cuts I make. Maybe Acorn can hire them.

Ha.

Checked out the link “somehow gotten a different message…” Minnesota Republicans comparing Minnesota 2008 to Florida 2000 with Secretary of State Mark Ritchie as the Democratic version of Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris — presumably gaming the election system to get his candidate elected. Of course this implies that they know Harris was actually doing gaming the election system back in 2000 and that they can assume that their audience will already take this as a given — for this bit of analogistic reasoning to work. (If one assumes that Harris was simply maligned by the other party, the analogy will lead to the opposite conclusion that Ritchie is on the up-and-up.) This being the case, it would appear that they are well-aware of the fact that Bush illegitimately took the presidency back in 2000. (And he did — an exhaustive reanalysis of the voting records by the major newspapers that was completed in late 2001 showed that by any rational standard, a recount of the four counties would have made it appear that Gore had lost the election, but a recount of the entire state would have shown that Gore had won. But the results of the reanalysis were downplayed by the papers as the nation had just been attacked weeks earlier on 9/11 and with the nation going to war, the papers did not want to be calling into question the legitimacy of the president and his administration.)

Nice to catch people in their dishonesty — even if it is nearly eight years too late.

Brent began his post with this insult:

“I am so shocked and disillusioned by the brainwashing and how the dumbing down of America has produced so many people in our Country with no critical thinking skills. There is so much misinformation in the post I am reading here that I would have to write an entire article to debunk all of the pap.”

You better agree with him, folks, otherwise he will call you stupid, too. Of course this is an ad hominem attack — because he finds it necessary to attack the author in order to attack the author’s argument.

He later states,

“Oh and I am one of those evil republicans.”

Well, I guess this explains why you found it necessary to begin your post by attacking the author’s intelligence rather than pointing out what was wrong with his article. Seems to be a habit with many of those on that side of the political spectrum. Seen a lot of it coming from over there recently.

He then states,

“This apparent aversion to drilling or producing our own petrol resources is economic suicide.”

Go ahead and drill! Neither I nor Obama really care. But with all US oil reserves being roughly 3% of the world’s, I don’t think that it is going to matter that much — particularly when whatever oil gets produced offshore gets sold on the world market — and not just in US markets.

Still I might go for it — if it means that we aren’t producing synthetic oil produced from coal with twice the carbon emissions of regular oil, or purchasing synthetic oil from the tar sands of Canada with three times the carbon emissions. Perhaps it would buy a little more time for the world to wisely invest in solar and wind rather than become addicted to non-traditional fossil fuel from the carbon deposits left behind by the Permian-Triassic extinction — which was brought about by an earlier period of rapid global warming — set off by the release of carbon dioxide from a million year supervolcano and the methane released from methane cathrate deposits in the shallow waters along the edges of the continental plates.

“Probably Nancy didn’t like the way they looked…you know how artificial and materialistic she was and is.”

Hey! She strongly came out in support of stell cell research. I have to respect her for that.

Brent, US oil reserves are less than 2% of the world total, whereas US oil consumption is well over 20% of the total. Increasing drilling can only be, at best, a very small part of the future. And have you forgotten about the urgent problem of global warming (or are you one of the denialists, who simply will not listen to the scientific facts on the matter?).

I think it’s funny when people scream about “Republicans” – but it was Obama the Christ who said in his nomination acceptance speech (and elsewhere) that he was for “safe nuclear” power, whatever that is. Obama the Christ is also the BIGGEST supporter of planet-destroying/poor people-starving ethanol. Obama the Christ has also “reversed” his opposition to offshore drilling, as if he believes in anything at all. Bottom line: Obama believes in nothing and never has (except his own career); “his” choices (or his masters’ choices) for the Cabinet and White House staff are telling; most pathetic of all, instead of resisting Obama the Christ’s fascist skullduggery, we will be treated to Clinton-era excuses from “progressives” and downright hysterical protectiveness when the GOP/corpmedia launch the INEVITABLE sex/money scandal against Obama the Christ. Or maybe some faction of the ruling class will panic and off him JFK-style and turn him into St. Barack and give him a national holiday. Sorry if I blew the ending for you suckers.

Coleman quotes; two from the same interview:

“I’m not going around wringing my hands, worrying about the recount.”

“I attribute that statement of mine to the fact I haven’t slept in three days.”

Yes, those who lie live in glass houses.

GGV

That’s a heck of a lot of hate, Esteban. Poor guy!

Timothy Chase touched upon one very important point that people like Brent never seem to realize. WE DONT GET THE OIL!!! EXXON GETS THE OIL!! Our oil is NOT nationalized in this country. Just because they pull it out of our land doesnt automatically mean we get “dibs” on it. If exxon wanted to, they could take the oil and sell it to China, or Russia, or anywhere. The oil produced would be factored into the global market causing a very slight and very temporary drop in price.

“This apparent aversion to drilling or producing our own petrol resources is economic suicide.”

This quote from Brent proves how little he understands the issue. Notice how he refers to it as “our own petrol”. If this was Venezuela, than Brent would be correct. However this is not Venezuela. In the past the US has invaded countries and overthrown democratic leaders to stop them from nationalizing their oil, so i very much doubt that were going to then turn around and nationalize it ourselves. Brent needs to bone up on the facts before coming in here and trashing on everyone else. Oh yeah, and mentioning ACORN at the end was a nice touch. It put the final nail in the coffin of Brents credibility.

If common sence was gasoline the republican party wouldnt have enough power to back out of their own driveway.

I have my problems with the democrat party as well, but at least their living on the same planet as i am. I swear sometimes it seems like the republicans live in an alternate reality.

The only relevance karela comment seems to have to the recount is the fact that Franken is radioactive. By the way, France gets most of its energy from nuclear power plants and they seem to be doing very well, thank you.

NORM COLEMAN: “I am a weiner”